Virginia Beach with Kateri:
Someone had to do it.
Ever since Kateri had arrived, the water nymph had been whining about how much she missed the beach back home in California. Every time someone mentioned the prospect of her checking out Virginia Beach, however, the spunky blue-headed girl had insisted that the city simply did not exist. Had this idiot ever even looked at a map?
A simple game of rock, paper, scissors, with the other members had ended with me being the loser. Apparently, Travis had decided that luck should not be on my side this morning.
The loser was in charge of taking Kateri to the beach for the day. Whether it was surfing or swimming, the loser had to do it all with her.
And so here I was, tugging a light-colored tank top over my head to cover up the colorful, polka-dotted bikini that I had purchased on a shopping trip with some of the other girls recently. This actually wasn’t so terrible, right? I mean, free beach day! I liked the beach. All I had to do was make sure that I didn’t kill the teenage water nymph. Simple, right?
“Oh my gosh! Are you ready yet, Ela?” I jumped as I heard the nymph’s voice impatiently call out from my doorway.
Kateri was dressed in a pair of solid dark blue board shorts, with a black and blue striped halter bikini top visible underneath her flowing white spaghetti strapped blouse. Her long blue hair was pulled back in its usual ponytail, and the girl held a variety of beach sport equipment in her arms.
I smirked as I pulled my hair back into a ponytail. “For someone who doesn’t believe that this beach exists, you sure look excited.”
The water nymph puffed. “Okay, so I totally might have Googled it last night. And Google only lies sometimes!”
I laughed at her stupidity. “You ready? We can’t take all of that stuff with us, though. It’s a good four hour drive to the beach, so if you wanna get there in time to actually do stuff, we’re flying.”
“Like… in an airplane, or something?” she asked, confused.
“Not quite…” I answered. Because the nymph was small, I would be able to let her ride on my back to the beach. One good thing about being so large and having bird wings was that you could travel faster than most ‘traditional’ methods and avoid traffic at the same time.
“Let’s go.” I walked past Kateri, tossed my backpack at her, and waved my hand after her to follow.
--
Okay, so maybe this hadn’t been the best idea, I decided as Kateri and I landed in a patch of forest near the Virginia coastline. The petite girl released her clinging fingers from my neck as she slid onto the ground. More trees, I thought bitterly as I tucked my wings in and took in my surroundings. “Figure out where we are,” I ordered the nymph while I was bent over trying to stretch my strained back.
“Yes ma’am!” Kateri saluted enthusiastically as she ran off to search for signs or other people.
The flight had been… interesting, to say the least. Once Kateri had realized that the bugs would stop flying into her mouth if she shut her yap, all was peaceful. Unfortunately, she didn’t realize that until the last leg of the trip. If I had to hear about how her mother had just had triplets, or how my red hair clashed terribly with her blue one more time…
I had just begun rolling my shoulders when the water nymph returned. “Um.. We’re apparently in some state park. I thought we were going to the beach! You know, where there’s water and sand and stuff! If I wanted to look at trees, we could have just stayed at Akira’s!” She looked like she was on the verge of tears.
I stared at her disbelief. Was she really about to cry over some trees? “Okay… Um... Calm down.” I lifted and lowered my hands as a gesture to calm herself. “Did you catch a name of the park?”
“F-First Landing, I-I think.” Kateri sniffled.
“That’s great!” I cooed. “That park is in the city.” I told her to follow me, and we soon had trekked our way onto a boardwalk, the sounds of seagulls in the distance causing the water nymph to jump with joy and excitement as her mood brightened, and our feet soon touched the searing sand. Green and blue waves broke against the shore before us, and hundreds of tiny ghost crabs skittered across the beach to escape being carried out to sea, or crushed by the rampaging beachgoers.
“Well?” I asked hopefully.
For a moment, Kateri’s eyes widened and her face upturned into a gigantic grin. However, it shortly faded and turned to a frown. “These are the wimpiest waves I’ve ever seen.” Kateri answered insultingly. Ouch.
I rolled my eyes. “This is just the bay section. Come on, I know where there are some good beaches for surfing.” I grabbed the girl’s hand and led her down the beach. We walked diligently for a few miles, only stopping occasionally to dip our feet in the cool water to soothe them from the hot sand, or to let Kateri chase the crabs.
Finally, we reached a Kateri-approved beach, and the young water nymph gleefully ran into the ocean, not bothering to strip down to her swimsuit. I dropped my backpack onto the sand and rooted around inside it for a towel. Victoriously, I pulled a soft towel from its depths, laid it on the sand, and sat on it.
The beach air was humid, but the light sea breeze provided relief. I looked up into the sky and watched the ocean birds fly around, hunting for their next meal. I wished desperately to be up there flying with them, especially once I recognized a few sets of tern wings that were not very unlike my own.
I looked out into the water and saw Kateri splashing around wildly with some children. She looked so happy being in her element. I watched them for a while, but the water fight soon ended as the kids’ mom called them over for lunch.
The water nymph waved excitedly to me and cupped her hands over her mouth and yelled, “Come on out, Ela! The water’s great!” What a cliché.
Deciding I had nothing to lose, I removed my shorts--The tank top stayed, however, in order to prevent people from being able to see the stubs of my wings protruding from the slits on my back--and walked out into the salty water.
Over the course of the day, I learned that I was probably the worst surfer ever, ghost crabs like bread crumbs almost as much as seagulls, and that… maybe I would be able to survive this club after all. I cringed to think that the water nymph’s optimism was rubbing off on me.
Eventually, the sun began to drop low in the sky, and the beach crowd began to thin as people packed their things away and left. I told Kateri that now was probably a good time to leave if we wished to get back to Akira’s mansion before the night grew late. She returned her surfing equipment and then helped me put our towels in my backpack.
The girl then turned and bade farewell to the beach, listing off farewells to the sand, the water, the seagulls, the shells, the crabs… I tuned her out as she went on and on.
Before I knew what was happening, the blue-haired girl had latched her arms around my waist in a tight embrace. “Oh, thank you, Ela! Today was awesome!” she exclaimed dreamily.
Was this… a hug? I hadn’t received a hug since my foster care days. It was almost… Nice. I could only stand there in shock as Kateri released her hold and stepped back, grinning from ear to ear. She quickly took notice to my expression and asked sincerely, “Are you okay?”
I waved my hand dismissively and made a ‘tch’ sound as I forced my face back to it’s normal countenance. “Yeah, I’m fine,” I replied. “Just don’t get used to this or anything.” I crossed my arms and looked the other way.
The water nymph giggled. “You’re so weird.”
Looking up and down the shore, I made sure that no one was watching as I unfurled my wings and Kateri and I took off into the sky.
