fandomhigh | Earth Tourism, Tuesday 5th period

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Earth Tourism, Tuesday 5th period

Lana met everyone with her usual calm smile when they got to Portalocity. "We've been focusing on natural interest recently, so I thought we'd go to a city this time. Venice is a place in Italy - that's on the continent to the east of us. It was built over and around over one hundred islands, with canals interspersed as well, so there's a lot of water travel and quite a few bridges."

Their portal opened and she ushered them through. "We'll be taking a boat tour to see the most of it. And we'll have just enough time beforehand to grab some food to go from a local coffee house. Sorry it's not quite the culinary experience eating in would be, but we're strapped for time."

She grinned. "So, follow me!"

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Don't mind Cal gazing into the water. He could do that and listen too.

Arden came up and nudged him gently, unsure if he was being melancholy, contemplative, or just quietly chilling. "Enjoying the view?" she asked, voice soft.

Cal broke into a grin and nodded. "Yeah. There's a lot of sand planets in my universe, so getting to be around water is always nice. It's why I like the beach so much," he said. "A whole city of water is pretty cool. How are you? Sore anywhere?"

"We should go swimming," she decided. "Since you can do more with water than just look at it." He got another nudge for the question. "I'm fine, thank you," she said. "Takes more than a little paintball to knock me off my stride."

Yeah, she had a little bruise, but it was safely hidden under her shirt where he wasn't going to see, and that was pretty much the price of admission when it came to paintball battles anyway, so she wasn't fussed.

"But, hey, before anything else...congrats on your ultimate win, Kestis."

"Thanks. It only took what, five weeks?" The summer was flying by, which he wasn't going to think about too hard. "It helped that everyone took out Master Skywalker quickly again. I almost felt bad for him this week." The memory of the cicadas meant he wasn't fully sorry. "You were a worthy adversary."

"I have no sympathy," Arden declared. "I punched something called a Hutt this morning and it's an experience I didn't need in my life."

She grinned up at him. "It was fun," she said. "It being down to us at the end and getting to play cat-and-mouse." Who knew, maybe they'd get to do it again for the final, since they'd be missing next week. "So, the important questions for you: where am I taking you out and when?"

"Well, we didn't get to have the picnic we wanted to have on the school roof. Maybe we could get some takeout and eat on the beach?" he asked. "I don't have anything going on tomorrow or Thursday."

"Thursday sounds great," Arden said, giving him a soft smile. "I'll set everything up - though you do get to choose the takeout. Thoughts?"

She was secretly betting on Thai, for spicy reasons, but she wasn't gonna say that out loud.

Spice.

Money on Thai for spice reasons.

Edited 2024-06-11 22:28 (UTC)

"You like spicy food, right?" You knew him so well, Arden. "Because I want more food from the thai place, but I don't want you to suffer eating it, that's not the point at all.0

"I'm insulted you even have to ask," Arden scoffed ~~because eating spicy food is a Nuance power fantasy~~. "You wanna order everything on the menu with chilly peppers next to the name? We can do that. You, me, beach, all the spice you can handle, Thursday?"

"Oh good, it's--" Nope, he had to watch himself here to not say the wrong thing. "It's a plan. I'll work my weather magic to make sure it's a nice night." After a moment, he added, "That was a joke, I can't actually do that, but I realized it sounded plausible."

Of course! This was very much not anything but a plan! They were friends and nothing more than that and it would be terrible if someone were to get the wrong idea!

"I mean, at this point, I'm not sure what the Force can or can't do," she admitted with a smile. "So I really might have expected you to do that otherwise."

"I mean, I'm sure some people can sense weather changes, but it's not a skill I have. The Force is... complicated. People's skills can vary greatly." That wasn't helpful, Cal. "If I could control the weather, you would know by now."

"It would be cooler and rainy?" Arden teased. "How many bottles of sunscreen have you gone through already?"

She would, of course, have to murder him. That much rain would be hell on her curls. She absently reached out to pat them just thinking about it.

Her hair was super-cute, Cal, did you really wanna mess with it?

"It wouldn't be rainy, just cooler and cloudy so the sun wouldn't hurt as much," he said. Her hair was, in fact, pretty great and he didn't want to mess with it in any way that wasn't pleasant for both of them. "I haven't gone through a whole bottle yet, my face isn't that broad."

"You know you put it on every part of you that the skin sees, right?" she teased. "Face, neck, arms--" Please take care of your arms, Cal, they were a national treasure. "Anywhere you don't wanna be burned, since the goddess didn't see fit to grant you melanin."

...Yes, yes, she also wore sunscreen, especially now that she had a tattoo, but shh.

"I mean, my shirts have sleeves most of the time. I don't have to be outside nearly as much here," he pointed out. "I just take my runs in the evening when it's cooler and it hasn't been a problem. I don't want to smell like sunscreen all the time, isn't that annoying?"

He cared about how his body odor affected other people, that was a win, right?

Honestly, yes. She was still going to flail over three-in-one and washcloths and legs, but there would be the underlying gratitude that those were her complaints.

On the other hand, if they hadn't been, this stupid crush would be long gone, if it'd ever happened at all.

"So long as you're not getting sunburned, you're doing all right," Arden assured him. "Mine is mostly fragrance-free?" She dug out her sunscreen and handed it to him. "It kinda smells like cocoa butter, but I smell like that anyway, so..." She shrugged. "I think it's mostly pretty subtle."

Look, if you didn't like how cocoa butter smelled, there was no hope for you anyway.

Edited 2024-06-12 20:06 (UTC)

Cal rolled one of his sleeves up and sprayed the sunscreen on his arm, grinning as he sniffed at it. "That's why you smell like cookies. I thought it was a perfume," he said. "If I tell you I'm used to being sunburned and it's not a big deal, you're going to sigh at me, aren't you?"

"I'm sighing already," Arden told him, heaving a giant one for show. She was also fighting off a smile as he described her scent. "I don't like most perfumes or fake fragrances but cocoa butter is a great moisturizer. How else do you think I get this glow?" She posed a moment before cracking an eyelid to eye him suspiciously. "If I ask you what you wear for a moisturizer, I'm gonna sigh at you some more, aren't I?"

"I thought moisturizer was for women?" he asked. "Am I also supposed to glow? I don't have anything to moisturize except my hair."

Help him, Arden Finch, you were his only hope.

Did it count for the TikTok meme if they'd been married by a robot under the influence of gremlin venom?

"Moisturizer is for anyone who has skin, Cal," Arden said, pinching the bridge of her nose. "Do you have skin? Then you can use moisturizer. I promise you, cocoa butter is not gendered."

But at least he understood that his hair required moisturizing. "What kind of conditioner do you use, anyway?"

"I do have skin, as the freezing trip last week made me painfully aware of," he said.

He thought for a moment, trying to remember any kind of details about what happened in his shower besides bad singing and occasional disassociation. "Uh, it's in a blue bottle? And smells like oranges. I found it at Turtle and Canary, it's this gel that kind of takes care of everything. It's pretty cool."

The hand gestures of vague shampooing and body washing action were so helpful!

"Sweet goddess," Arden muttered. "...Cal, do you have a middle name? Is Cal short for anything?"

What a strange question! "Uh, nope, it's just Cal."

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