Flashback Seafoam Green [Eleret]

[Ianthe]

Seafoam Green Timestamp: 35th Day of Summer, 472 AV Location: Ocean Rush Ocean waves, warmed by the summer sun, lapped serenely against the pier with unceasing rhythm. Splish. Splosh. Splish. Ianthe dangled her legs in the water and leaned back on the wooden dock, taking a moment to glance around at her fellow konti. Six konti girls, including herself, sat spread out along the edge of the Ocean Rush pier with expressions ranging from impatience to masks of composure. She knew each of them in passing, though remembered the names of only one. Mura was, after all, too small not to recognize your neighbours, but still large enough not to know each one intimately. Large enough for a 12-year-old, at least. Splosh. "What if she forgot? Are we just supposed to sit here all afternoon?" Ianthe's twin was reaching the edge of her considerably shorter patience. She had been braiding and unbraiding Ianthe's long blonde hair for the last ten chimes, and Ianthe could feel each braid getting tighter and tighter as her sister's misgivings grew. "How long does it take to wrangle a seahorse, anyway?" Eudore's voice, thick with restlessness, carried easily across the docks. "Wrangle?" Ianthe asked, kicking her feet at an incoming wave. "Or, you know, whatever one has to do to ride a seahorse. Coerce. Persuade. Bribe?" Ianthe giggled and turned to face her sister, causing a rogue strand of hair to fall loose from her braid. The two were identical, excepting their gnosis marks. Each girl was 5 feet tall and growing, though Ianthe claimed to be the taller of the two. In preparation for their upcoming lessons, they wore matching swimwear in pastel blue (Ianthe) and lavender (Eudore). Blue eyes and gawky limbs completed the picture. All that was missing was a sign screaming "TWINS!" for the truly oblivious. "Give me your palm," Ianthe said, grabbing at Eudore's left hand. "I wanna read your future." She grinned impishly and traced a finger in an amateur line across her sister's hand. "I see... a great seahorse rider in your future. Her name starts with an I... a... n..." Eudore stuck her tongue out in reply. "No wonder grandmother says you're no good at telling fortunes. You can't even spell my name right..." As the two girls bickered, the ocean water parted and an older, pale-haired konti woman rose to the surface with a wide smile. Her legs held tight to the plated body of a large, fire-coloured seahorse, and she raised one hand in greeting to interrupt the dockside chatter. "Girls! Welcome to your first day of seahorse riding lessons."

[Eleret]

oocUgh, I'm sorry. I have failed abysmally at being timely... the process of moving is all but finished, though, so I should do much, much better going forward.

Eleret sat with the other girls on the pier, her feet dangling in the water. She swished them back and forth, enjoying the contrast between warm sunshine on her back and cool water on her skin. She enjoyed the chatter of the other girls, too -- none of them very familiar to her, save one, on this first day. But she thought that was the case for everyone, from the glances cast about, and the drifts of lilac and pepper which reached her nose. Excitement and a hint of nerves, if the rest of the group's emotions reflected her own.

L'nai sat beside her, the older girl's fingers drumming a lively rhythm on the weathered planks. Patience was not L'nai's strong suit; in that, she and Eleret were perfect contrasts. Unlike the two down at the other end, girls who could have been mirror images except for their different-colored clothing. They giggled and bickered in the way of close siblings, even their voices blurring into one another. Eleret listened, because she couldn't not overhear, and couldn't help but smile at their banter.

Where was the teacher, anyway?

Maybe they should get up and go introduce themselves. But L'nai distracted her, leaning forward and pointing at something in the water. "Hey, look!" Eleret turned to look too, seeing a dark and rapidly growing shape. Something approaching. Something that L'nai, in her eagerness for anything to happen, leaned out even farther to see -- for which she promptly slipped off the edge of the pier and splashed into the lake.

Eleret snickered quietly as her friend bobbed back up to the surface. The teacher had also arrived, what had been a dark blob in the water now resolved as the vivid red seahorse carrying her. Eleret turned her respectful attention to the woman, though not her full attention -- she saw L'nai already casting speculative looks at the seahorse, and hissed at the older girl to just wait.

Common | Kontinese | Tukant | other people
Eleret's Konti gift is to perceive the moods of others as one or more scents.