Chapter Text
It was sunscreen and midlife crisis, the smell of pine resin, and too much perfume as the little clicks and clacks of rings of all sorts of forms, sizes, cheap metals with glass, plastic and and enamel decorations were picked and turned by her hands in the search for an adequate gift for a little niece. Something that she might enjoy. But eventually doomed to be forgotten until someday moving out of her parent’s house she’d have to sort through all the knickknacks her now seven-year-old little crow mind had stashed away in that god awful tacky jewelry box from auntie Margaret. Gosh, she hated that thing.
That woman seeming to be in a giftgiving vendetta with Tracy‘s mom. Maybe she should find something better here, there were after all still a week and a couple of days left of her vacation to sift through stores for souvenirs for Tracy. And all the other family members she only got to see once a year at most, at weddings held once a blue moon, more usually.
But still, postcards had to be written, useless, knickknacks brought with, and the vacation would have to end.
But not now, pulling out a blue glass ring with pretty swirly pattern and a flower in the middle the decision on what to bring Tracy was felled. A new, not as tacky jewelry box and some small cheap jewelry pieces to go in. Pretty, fun and things she couldn’t have when she was a kid.
On the way, twisting between mismatching displays laden with fun, metal glass and wooden jewelry, trays and bins full of plastic, colors and interesting shapes, up the table doubling as the counter of the little shop turned stall spilling out on the pavement of the pedestrian zone, the curve of what was probably a glass cabechon of a necklace caught the light just so.
Pretty and and a match with the color of that skirt she hadn’t worn yet landing it on the plywood counter, drowned with newspaper for wrapping together with the ring for Tracy.
Not withstanding the enthusiastic pitch of the seller for a pair of earrings for a bella like her she wound her way out between the display stands and other tourists who the shiny trinkets had called, swimming along with the stream of people in the pedestrian street lined by shops and stalls stuffed to the brim with all sorts of mildly useful pretty knickknacks like the one she had just left.
A few hours later, now with a fresh pizza in its carton on her legs, radiating warmth against the slightly chiller ocean wind a feeling of comfort and relaxation trying to contend with that annoying feeling of something up the back of her mind that had always been there,
she let out a sigh: „Suppose this is as close to la dolce Vita as I can get.", a bite of the gorgeously cheesy pizza later adding, „I’m gonna have to get one from this place again tomorrow, the Quattro stagioni sounded good too."
Curling further into the recliner she had commandeered on the now almost empty beach, tucking into her dinner, watching the full moon glitter on the waves, listening to the chatter of some other tourists a little ways off spending their evening similarly as her seemed way too nice. And also missing something.
Tomorrow was gonna be another day roasting on the beach with hawkers and excited little kids lulling her into naps of sunscreen, a perfectly normal life.
—
The nap was good. Late breakfast, a leisurely walk to the beach. Shooing someone from her front row recliner she had rented. Stretching out and relaxing, not bothering to change out of her skirt ensemble. For the trip back up to her stay in two hours to hold out the harshest midday sun behind it’s rolling shutters and lunch that didn’t feel like boiling and being fried at the same time.
The towel must’ve bunched up weird during the nap it was becoming slightly uncomfortable around her back, but everything around was too nice to move.
Same sound of lapping waves, warmth, and sounds of people talking as yesterday. The only conversation her after nap dozing could catch was further away, illegal barbecue by the smell from there, the family that had rented the umbrella behind her to the left apparently having gone for a swim or such with how quiet it was around her right now. But the chatter was usually quite nice. Different languages, mixed together, comforting, and not having the mind stick at meanings to roll around the head like marbles.
But still that missing feeling, just more?
Her fingers twitching not bothering to open her eyes as only the underside of the heavy beach umbrella would be seen anyways, sand getting caught under her nails. Seagulls crying over head.
No. She was on her recliner not on the ground on a beach towel. How was there sand up here? And the smell of sunscreen less all encompassing like just a bit ago. Instead what she had attributed to someone illegally grilling on the beach to be put out soon by the coast guards had too much the pungency smoke of a car accident, like something very wrong.
—
A moment to sit up with a weird prickling like a fallen asleep limb and a glance around, were enough to quite indisputably deliver the message that this was not the beach that had burned her trickling through her nice sandals in the morning. A landscape with rocky cliffs, instead of blocky holiday apartments and hotels. The same smell of pine resin but choked with the smoke of something burning. A giant wreckage a mix of machinery and cartrilage dented and ruptured into the beach side and up the incline further behind, with long suckered tentacles arching over the beach and into the waters of what at least still seemed to be an ocean. No recliners and parasols, no tourists swimming in the water further out no kids building sandcastles at the shore. The only thing on the beach seen from down on the ground, where her flowery beach bag and a couple of other people - in decidedly not beach clothing - were either still lying in the sand or already up.
A bit closer to the uncomfortably organic wreckage a man with purple skin, purple -
A man with long hair and leafy shoulder bits was helping a woman with dark hair and a ponytail up from the sand. A little too far up ahead to actually understand their conversation that had drifted over like earlier, but still, people who could know what the fuck is going on here aside from dehydrated hallucinations. But then again, her kidneys weren’t hurting so maybe not dehydration.
Getting up from the uncomfortably hot sand a little unsteadily and catching her balance - maybe she was involved in that wreckage too? Her beach bag picked up absent mindedly and like the two further down on the beach, checked on each other, she made her way to the closest person still lying on the ground. A man with a balding patch and a green tunic shirt? Where was this that people were wearing things like that to the beach? A few steps closer now the amount of blood, and with a wary look, the lack of rise and fall of his chest, made her come to a halt. That was dead person. That was a-
It only took an instant for cold sweat to form and saliva to pool before, with a few quick steps, she gifted her breakfast to the local plant life. Hoping that none of her hair was caught as collateral. She took few moments of wobbly, holding onto her knees to steady herself again.
Two sets of foot falls coming closer than she would’ve liked before noticing.
"A companion of yours?", came inquiring from her left.
The the purple - the man with a long hair and the woman even longer hair and pointy ears -
The two with long hair were standing close now with an air of guarded intrigue. "I uh … him?"
Catching the moment the man braces for something … when she straightens up and looks at them is soon forgotten in favor of the closer look she’s getting at them. They are without a doubt, a drow and some kind of other elf. No way a cosplayer would get detailed body paint like that of the buff man with long- of the drow.
Filling the quiet of them exchanging glances questions flow:„ Where is this? And what is that giant wreck there?", before her eyes catch on their weapons and general combat oriented outfits. Thoughts of ‘is this dangerous?’ stuttering after.
Her hand catching on the necklace pendant to fiddle with its round set glass dome. And it feels like it’s humming with the whispers of hushed conversation.
[ Necklace of xxx xxxxxxx xxxx once per day use expended. Question: "Where is this? And what is that giant wreck there?" Answer: pending. Reader please respond. ]
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