Waimea Bay is the very definition of peaceful this afternoon, as evening and sunset creep in. The waves are getting smaller and smaller, and the beach is still largely empty of tourists and working stiffs who are still chained to their desks, waiting for the clock to release them from their workday bondage. A few gray clouds are starting to filter their way in, but mostly the sky is blue and the weather is temperate and this is what people picture when they think of paradise.
Rick seems to be taking a walk on the beach at the moment, because he is sans surfboard, though he's still wearing board shorts, since one might want to take a dip in the ocean if the mood strikes, right? He makes his way along the edge, right where the water meets the shore, so that each wave covers his feet for a few seconds before it draws back out again. His gaze shifts between the horizon and watching where he's going. Probably mostly so that he doesn't fall over someone.
Felix had gone a strolling down the beach in his usual way. Which was to say he had one earbud in, the other tucked into his shirt so he could still take in things around him. His shirt was just a series of os and xs in green lettering, his shorts likewise black on green. Sandals completed his whole ensemble, and he walked with a loose, half dancing step. Spotting a familiar bald head near the shore, he started walking in that direction, waving to Rick. "Hey man! How've you been?" He gave him a friendly upnod as he approached.
As the waves die down and the most recent sets of killer, Wintertime waves seem to close out for the day, Mila heads back into the beach. It had been a good day judging by the look of it, as she had some water rash along the side of her ribs and up her hip, along with some crazy knotting in her hair that would likely require some serious attention with the conditioner in the shower. Her sleek, white board carries Mila to the beach without any effort, and off it Mila hops into thigh deep water, before strolling her way up onto the beach. As for clothing, she had on just a bright, eye-searingly bright, and somewhat brief, coral sports bikini that stood out starkly against her dark, warm, caramel colored skin. When she spotted Rick walking along the beach, she lifted her hand to him and planted her board in the sand, starting to squeegee the water from her arms, torso, and legs with the blades of her hands. "Aloha brah! You didn't wanna come roll in the water today?" Lifting her chin to the man, her smile remained happily on her lips. When she spotted Felix, she lifted her hand away from where it was wiping salt water from her thigh and waved to him. "Aloha!" Was naturally called to greet the lad.
Keha is out on her paddleboard not far from shore, moving from downward-facing dog into cobra pose. She moves into a plank and then pushes her upper body up and away from the board with the strength of her arms, stretching her head back...and not spotting something or someone she expected to see. "Huh? Kaikaina, where'd you go?" The cobra-posed yogini in the neon coral bikini (possibly similar to her sister's but she won't admit it) squints her eyes and sees Mila heading into shore, and Keha starts paddling in after the almost-identical woman. "Kaikaina! You ruined my flow! You can't just pop off and vacate the ocean when I'm experiening enlightenment, wahine." She sits petulantly on her board in the shallows with her legs folded just like her arms are folded across her chest. "You owe me shaved ice for preventing me from reaching Nirvana today." Done scolding Mila for the moment, Keha upnods Rick and grins. "Howzit, Rick? You didn't come out today? The water was pure bliss, brah." Tugging her hair down from the messy bun on top of her head, she waves to Felix as he approaches, "Howzit? Coming out for the water?" She uncrosses her legs and drapes them over either side of her board, paddling in the water still somewhat petulantly.
It's winter, and sunset comes in with a vengeance, and the sky is already turning shades of orange and red. The grayish clouds are building and gaining strength, and the occasional errant drops of warm rain start to fall. Apparently, the turn in the weather is encouraging some of the few visitors here to leave, as the last surfers bring in their boards and come back to land.
Rick looks away from the ocean when he hears someone speaking in a voice he recognizes, and it doesn't take him too long to see Felix. "Hey, brah," he says, lifting a hand to wave at the younger man. "Been good. Can't complain. How 'bout you?" He stops then, just in time to see and hear Mila, and his gaze is drawn in that direction then. "What up, girl," he says with a grin. "Went out in the morning. Real nice today." His eyes move past her to Keha, who gets another wave. "Earlier," he calls. "Guess I should've brought the board right now too, though."
The tide is high and rising.
Mila laughed and moved over to the nearly identical version of herself, then promptly swooped the other woman up into a carried position. "Don't worry none, pupule kaikaina, I'll make sure your flow's all good when we go out later and do the whole goodnight moon thing. Yeah?" She used one of Keha's legs, and foot of course, to wave to the gentlemen they were speaking to. "Always bring the board if you're coming to our backyard, Rick. You never know when this thing will scream at you and you have to go beat at her for a while. Or let her beat at you." Mila winked to Rick, then looked down at her sister, waggling her brows. "Do you feel centered yet?" Yeah, she couldn't even help herself and started laughing, before she waved Keha's leg at Felix as well.
Felix looked around to the surfers out on the ocean, spotting Mila as she came up on shore. He offered a broad wave. "Aloha! That was pretty awesome." Grinning, he looked to Keha as she came in and nodded. "I was thinking about it yeah. Aloha. Felix." Smiling at Rick, he shrugged. "Pretty well myself. Actually I was gonna ask if you had a minute but..." He looked up to the weather. "Man... maybe not?" He chuckled. "Also lack of board yeah." He looked to Mila. "Shaved ice for nirvana's s'not a bad deal." He waved back to Keha's leg. "Are you guys still going to surf? I don't mind a little rain in the water. Not like I'm alread not wet." He did slip off his head phones and reach into a pocket to shut off whatever he was listening to.
Keha was nodding at Rick like a rational human being, until some crazy woman hauls her off her board and uses her limbs like a fan in church, waving her leg and foot around. "AIIIEEEEE! Put me down, Tita lolo!" She puts a threatening finger in Mila's face and if her waving toes could, they would be giving the middle finger...toe. "I'm feeling like my foot is about to be center so far up your okole I can help you floss!" She points her index and middle fingers at her own eyes, then points them at Mila's, ensuring her younger sister KNOWS she is being watched. "Please don't mind the crazy wahine, Felix, she's always like this. She's like a Hawaiian Viking or Mongol or Hun. She-Hulk. I think I'm done being out on the water for now, though I really should finish my flow, I get testy if I don't get savasana." The irony of 'getting' testy is lost on her, or perhaps she dares anyone to point it out. "Sorry we missed you and your board earlier, Rick brah. You and I still have a race to settle." She's seemingly gotten rather content in her lofty perch.
As the sun sinks into the ocean, the rain starts coming down harder, and the droplets take on an eerie greenish tint in the last vestiges of sunlight. The errant droplets organize into heavy sheets of rain that seem to bring an icy chill with them from the clouds, chasing away the tropical warm winter in a matter of moments.
The last of the diehard beachgoers abandon the cause, as the last few surfers haul their boards away and one girl lets a bright turquoise hula hoop fall to the ground, abandoned not far from the two gentlemen and the twins.
"Truth," Rick replies to Mila with a little laugh, sticking a hand into one of his pockets as he shifts his weight to the opposite leg. "Next time I won't forget." He gives Keha a shaka sign at her words, too, though another laugh escapes him at her current sisterly inspired predicament. "You do owe me one," he agrees, before he turns back to Felix, his expression a little more curious. "Oh yeah?" he asks. "Sure. I got time." However, his eyes are caught by something -- perhaps that strange light. "Huh," he says, distracted, and he squints, looking around, though his eyes seem to be focusing on the drops, rather than anything else.
Mila snickered darkly and bit at Keha's finger, her teeth snapping loudly shut when they missed the digit. "Almost got you, shorty. Next time, I take the whole thing, it'll be delicious with ketchup." She waggled her eyebrows at her sister before she gave her an affectionate konk of heads, forehead to forehead, and set the other woman down into the now calf-deep water. "I wouldn't suggest this beach for anyone that's not at master's level this time of year, man." Mila said that directly to Felix. "Rick, me, we can do it. Keha I won't even let out past the reef right now, cause the girl's too busy being smart to get good at riding the waves like a pro." Said with affection, the statement didn't seem at all hurtful, just like Mila had accepted that was life, and moved on. What she didn't accept, however, was the weird shit happening around them right this minute. "Damn, we can get shaved ice, don't have to bring down the snow." Her eyes narrowed at the weird light on the water, and then Mila cocked her head to the side. "That doesn't make any sense, why would they gleam green?"
Felix laughed at the two sisters, shaking his head. He put a hand to his face and ran it down his cheek, unmindful of the wet. "Oh my god. Just... shit you two. Friggin' Mecha Shiva in front of me here and I don't have a camera." He waved a hand. "S'all good. This is Oahu. I totally buy Hawaiian Viking Mongol Hun." He waggled his eyebrows, pausing to wipe the rain off his face again. Then he stared at his hand. Gave it a good long stare. Eyes narrowing, he started looking around, eyes going this way and that. His head tilted slightly, brow furrowing. He looked back down at the water in his hands and squinted. "Uh... Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiick. I think there's glowing LSD in the rain again..." He looked to the ladder of twin, letting out a huge sigh at Mila's words. "OH THANK GOD! Seriously, I thought there was hallucinagenic boogers in the rain again. Phew." He eyes the water droplets. "Right. Green and whispering." He paused. "You guys DO hear that right?"
Keha reclaims her board once she's set on her feet again, slipping her hand through the loop to make sure her board doesn't make a break for it and then hauling it to shore. "You're on, Rick, you like to run in the rain? Amps up the difficulty and makes it more fun," Keha challenges, though she gets distracted looking at the rain much like the others. She's still squinting up at the sky as she nudges an elbow into her sister's ribs. "I'm just busy saving the world, Kaikaina, you don't *let* me do anything. Pfft. Yeah, this weather makes me want a lime-coconut shave ice, this weather is trying to hard." She nods aside to Felix. "Yeah, I hear...something. Not sure what, but I hear it."
The sun sets in its last burst of reds and purples, and the behind the clouds, the stars come out. Further up the beach, there's a small explosion of wet sand spewing up into the air, and the sand starts displacing in long, sharp lines, across a span of beach that covers nearly 20 feet by 30 feet. More and more bursts of sand fly up as an unseen hand carves more sharp lines into the beach, and familiar shapes begin to form...YES...NO...an alphabet curving between them. A row of numbers. Beneath it all, in meter-tall letters...GOODBYE.
Rick nods absently, but alas, at this point his attention is more on what is happening than the possible race with Keha. Which is saying something, for him. "What the hell?" he murmurs as those lines begin to appear in the sand, though as they continue, his eyes widen. "Holy shit," he says with a little laugh -- unamused, but still. "Is that a Ouija board? I haven't seen one of those things in a minute." He looks around, as though for confirmation that he's not crazy. Or that he is crazy!
Mila cocked her head to the side at Felix and raised her brows "Be careful, Felix, buying what my sister is selling. She's the smaller sister, and the one less likely to bench you onto the roof." Mila winked at Felix, and despite the fact that she was quite a bit shorter, she didn't seem even slightly as though the height desparity would effect the outcome of the situation. Turning her head to look between Keha and Rick, Mila grinned. "Races are good any time, anywhere. But... In green shit falling from the sky, I might say we should go to the rec center or something. Give the kids something to watch that's less dangerous than possibly drinking anti-freeze from the sky. Or freezing their little dongles off." Mila rubbed her arms a little, moving closer to her planted surf board as if it were some source of heat. When she noticed the Ouija board, she frowned. "I don't remember wanting to contact anyone that's passed. Did someone else ask for a board delivery or something?" Giving up the slight warmth offered by the surf board (read: none), Mila finally started moving forward, looking at the sand scratchings curiously. "I mean... where's the thing? The Planchette?"
Nodding to Keha in agreement (and again, a bit of relief), Felix could only stare in confusion at the words carving themselves into the sand. He scratched at his head. "Is that a... yeah I think it is Rick. Wow, Milton Bradley's gonna be pissed and sue the whole island..." He started looking around, frowning. "Well... uh... anyone want to play? We need the planchette yeah. The wooden federation lookin' logo dealie." He eyed Keha's body board and pointed to it. "Can we use that. And to get it started we need to all be touching it." He shrugged and looked to the others. "I mean... sure most ouija boards are made by a major toy company and this one was /carved into the earth/..."
Keha hmms thoughtfully, jaw working as she thinks. "I've seen the boards, back in college, but never quite like this," she responds to Rick. The littler twin follows after Mila, squinting skeptically at the Ouija board in the sand. "I mean, I'm pretty sure these things are bullshit. It's a psychosomatic response to subconscious wish fulfillment. I mean, I would assume. But then, I've never seen one spontaneously appear before...maybe we should see what..."it" wants. Whatever "it" is." She looks back at her board, and narrows her eyes at Felix. "If this curses my board and fucks with my chakras you owe me a new board." And she holds out her paddleboard and steps towards the letters carved into the sand, taking the flat rear edge in both hands. "Won't...won't we fuck up the letters if we walk on it?" And she gently touches a toe to the edge of the letter Z.
As Keha rubs her toe through the sand in the letter Z, the rain fills the furrow and washes away, leaving a pristine letter Z beneath it, with no sign of damage or disturbed sand. As the roar of the rain gets louder, the sound of whispers can be heard behind it, low and steady and continuous. The sheets of rain seem to fence in the board and the beach immediately around it, but over the board itself, the rainfall abates to a gentle drizzle.
Rick reaches up to rub at his face, trying to dispel the odd water drops from it, though it doesn't do that much good. "You want to contact the dead, there's easier ways," he says with a little huff of a laugh, though again, it doesn't seem that amused. More perplexed. He glances toward Felix, and while he doesn't immediately say yes, he also doesn't say no. Instead, he watches Keha try to scuff the Z, and immediately after, watches the Z come back to existence. "Huh."
Mila sighed slightly and glanced over at Rick, smirking. "I don't doubt it. But considering that this is pretty much controlling the faucet overhead, we can at least see what the hell it wants, neh? Just no one ask for anything, cause you have no idea what you're actually asking it of. You don't want to end up in some freaky fae deal that you don't know anything about." Mila gave the warning before she went to her knees on the ground and tugged at Keha's board. "Come on, nui nui, let's see what the other side's trying to say." Then she glanced up at Felix. "Don't worry about her board, I have plenty to replace it, and can always get her a shiny new one she can break in on her morning yoga in the water routines. She'll be A OK."
Felix thought about that and nodded, taking the board and heading over with the others. "A new board I can probably manage. I'm not sure about your chakras though." He grinned at Keha. "And it totally is. But I bet this one can totally tell us who's gonna take me to the spring formal." He watched as the Z was left unharmed by messsing about. "Or the dead yeah..." He raised an eyebrow at Rick. "There are? I've never met a ghost. Or an undead." He nodded to Mila, giving her a thumbs up and holding the board out over the letters so the others could get an easy hand on it. "Alright... I am totally down. And I'll keep that in mind. What do we ask it though?" He shook his head. "This is easily in my top five damndest things...
Keha nods to Mila and Felix as they join her, and she gives Rick a lopsided grin. "I don't blame you, brah, this is weird shit. But the point of the board is waiting if you want in on this." She leaned aside until her shoulder bumps against Mila's, and she tips her sister a wink. "Let's see what this da kine weirdness is all about, before some ghost washes all our white sand into the water and fucks up our Bay." She grins at Felix and laughs, "Don't worry, my chakras are tough, I'm just giving you shit. So how do we do this? Just hang onto the board and ask a question?" She squints at the board and demands, "What do you want?"
The soft light dims at dusk.
As each hand touches the paddleboard planchette, the sound of whispering on the rain gets louder, an excited but hushed sussurus. In response to Keha's question, the paddleboard trembles and floats up into the air, two feet, three feet, before tearing off like a jet, jabbing at sandy letters and dragging the planchette holders through the sand as it spells out H...E...L...P...and the board falls back to the ground over the letter P.
Rick glances to Mila when she speaks, though it's difficult to tell what his expression is in the rain. He continues to stand off on the sidelines while the others touch the board, the reluctance obvious. However, he takes a step toward the board...just as it starts to move with the others. "Shit!" he says again, taking a step back away from it, the movement involuntary. "You guys okay?"
"Oh that's a good question Keha. Good jooooooooooooOOOOH SHIT!" As the planchette lifted off into the air, Felix clung on, his legs kicking uselessly. As soon as it took off and started dragging them around, he couldn't help but start yelling. "Woooohooo!" Of course... that merriment died down pretty damn fast as HELP was spelled out, and then they all hit the floor. He grunted in the puff of sand, coughing and waving his hand in front of his face. "Well hell... couldn't have been 'pizza party... how the hell do we do that?" He got to his feet, brushing himself off. "Everyone alright?
Mila was glad for her ultra low center of gravity at the moment, because it allowed her to skitter like a damn sand crab as the board started moving. The speed and sheer force of it almost had her flying off of the planchette-like paddle board, but her grip was true and she held on fiercely. Sure, a couple of times it looked like she might go ass over tea kettle, but she managed. When the board stopped on P for HELP, Mila took a series of quick breaths in, surprise having widened her eyes. "Ok, shit. HELP. Got it. But where are you? How can we help?" Mila called this out loudly, to the board, but enough to make sure she could be heard over the torrents of rain that fell down everywhere but over the actual Ouija area. "And I'm OK... Ke kaikuahine nui? You alright?" She looked over toward Felix and Keha to make sure everyone was in one piece after being cheese grated over the beach.
"Oh that's a good question Keha. Good jooooooooooooOOOOH SHIT!" As the planchette lifted off into the air, Felix clung on, his legs kicking uselessly. As soon as it took off and started dragging them around, he couldn't help but start yelling. "Woooohooo!" Of course... that merriment died down pretty damn fast as HELP was spelled out, and then they all hit the floor. He grunted in the puff of sand, coughing and waving his hand in front of his face. "Well hell... couldn't have been 'pizza party... how the hell do we do that?" He got to his feet, brushing himself off. "Everyone alright?" He gave a thumbs up to Rick's question, and Mila's questioning look.
The tide is high and slack.
Keha glares suspiciously at the fingers touching her paddleboard, but as she's about to draw her hand away, the planchette rises and she's tossed across the sand by her own board. "Fuuuuuuuuu- my chakraaaaaas!" she hollers in irritation, catching her feet on the ground and sprinting along the board from letter to letter, getting in at least a third as many steps as she's dragged like a wet sack. "And could you slow this shit down?" She asks of the unseen entity with an irritated scoff. "We can't help if you grind us into dust!" She looks over Mila concernedly, giving her a thorough inspection. "I'm okay, Kaikaina, are you? Did you feel it shock your hand when you touched it?" She looks aside to Felix, as well, "Did you get shocked? This is fucking weird." She raises her voice to Rick, even though he's only about 15 feet away, "Yeah...still in one piece. Starting to think this is a bad idea. But for science's sake, Rick, you should try asking a question. Let's see if it will respond to you, too, or if you have to be leashed to the Tilt-o-Whirl over here." She pauses and thinks for a minute. "We just asked it...three, no, four questions. Does it work that way?"
A featureless blanket of grey cloud covers the evening sky.
The row of numbers below the arching alphabet begins to tremble, and the number 1 crumbles and dissipates, the water in the trench washing away any sign that the numeral had ever been there. And then...the planchette rises again, with the same electric urgency, but with some care apparently taken to keep from ripping the board out of the hands of the "players."
One by one, the board careens to letters...N, V, R, N, V, R. The number 2 drains of water and disappears into smooth, wet sand.
F, R, E, E, M, E...the board rests once again, and the number 3 disappears.
The next levitation carries the planchette over the ???, where it hovers for an extended period, before spelling D,O,O,R. The number 4 is washed away.
Finally, the planchette zips to YES, and then, Y,R,W,L,C,M,E.
And the number 5 vanishes. Only 6 through 9 remain.
Rick doesn't try to go further forward, since he apparently doesn't feel like playing Crack the Whip with a giant Ouija board thing that may or may not be being controlled by a ghost. "All right," he says, before he looks toward the board again as it starts to move. His eyes are wide as he follows along, his lips moving silently as the planchette spells out the answers. "Ehnver," he murmurs. Okay, so not totally silently. "Ehnver...never? Nevernever?" They continue to dart from side to side as the thing moves, "Freemeh...oh, no." He shakes his head, making a face, before adding, "Door. A door?" He hesitates, before he asks, "Where's the door?"
Mila rolled her shoulders and grunted darkly. "Board's not gonna get me under the sand, but damn if it's not like riding Vee on an acid trip." Mila rocked her head first to one side, then the other, cracking her neck soundly. As the thing started to move again, only this time a little less rough with them, she moved quickly as she could and followed it. "Ok so, it's something in the NeverNever that wants to be freed. There's a door." She waited, since Rick had already asked the next question. Her eyes took in the fact that only 6-9 was available. "Don't ask any more questions, guys, not til we hear this answer. I'm curious if one of the other numbers left over will disappear once the answer's given."
"I... guess it does." Felix nodded to Keha. "Yeah I did. Felt super weird. Not like electricity play or anything." He shrugged, reading each of the answers. As Rick puzzled that first part out, he frowned. "Uh oh... last time we went we got et, and I've been having duplo nightmares every since." He looked to the other man and shrugged. "I dunno. I think that's more your department than mine." Grinning, he nodded at Mila. "Right on. Might be able to use the rest to puzzle this out."
Keha wrinkles her nose. "So, something from the nevernever wants us to open a door for it. But it's trapped there. But maybe it's trapped there for a good reason." She snorts and nods at Mila, "yeah, we should choose our questions carefully. This is the opposite of Jeopardy. Phrase everything in the form of not a question until we're ready to ask the question." At the last few letters, Keha laughs a little bit and says, "Thank you. We appreciate it."
Rick's question causes the planchette to hover briefly, but it shivers and crashes back down to the ground like it's stalled out. The water in the number 6 shudders, but the digit stays intact.
Rick watches to see if his question is answered, but when it seems that it is not, he nods a little bit. Makes sense. He doesn't say anything more, waiting for the others who are in play -- so to speak -- to ask the questions, instead of him.
The night is moonless and starless.
Mila watched as the board didn't move. Listened to the others talking, and finally seemed to come to some sort of satisfying conclusion in her own head. Of course, that conclusion came with the fact that the board had at least tried to answer Rick, even if it couldn't. Mila chewed on her bottom lip for a moment as the board stayed still, then cocked her head to the side. "Were you trapped in the NeverNever on purpose?" Mila asked the question directly to the air in front of her, as if she'd chosen to believe the entity were simply standing there, talking to them, and she just couldn't see it. It made more sense than talking to Keha's paddle board, apparently.
The paddleboard shivers and rises, and resumes its careening course across the letters as the number 6 washes away: K,D,N,P,D
Felix frowned, watching as Rick's question wasn't answered. He shrugged. "Huh. Well at least we didn't get dinged. No worries... giant sand board thing." He looked to Keha at her comment and nodded, wincing. "Yeah that was sort of the thought on my mind. I've only been once and it was a weird place. Dunno what wants letting out." He bobbed his head at Mila's question, nodding in understanding, watching as the answer came. "Huh so... who exactly are we talking to?" He watched as the 6 faded away, looking to the 7th as he asked his own question.
The number 7 vanishes as the board drags Mila, Keha, and Felix across the sand. L...Y...D...and then the board abruptly crashes to the ground on its way to the next letter, and the whispering behind the rain is silence.
The tide is high and ebbing.
Keha had been getting used to being dragged around, so she wasn't expecting the sudden stop between letters and she stumbles and has to dig her heels in to regain her balance. "Kay Dee Ehn peedee...kuhduhenpee...kid...kidnapped. Fuuuuuuuuu - Uh...I hope we didn't break it. We aren't even out of numbers yet. Same question as Rick, then...Where is the door?"
The paddle board and ouija board are still for a long while, and from behind the soft rain, a very audible "shhhhhh" is heard before it disappears as well. Then after several minutes of stillness, "U,P,T,M,P,L..." And then everything suddenly happens all at once. A giant force sweeps across the ouija board, which hurls Rick back into the curtain of rain and flings the paddleboard and everyone connected to it onto the word GOODBYE. Then the sand churns upward like a volcano emerging from the sea and washes the letters away. The sheets of rain close in and wash away any remaining evidence, and like the rinse cycle in the car wash, as the sheet passes it leaves only gentle droplets behind it.
Rick is staring at the board as it moves, and he murmurs, "Lied...Lid?" before shaking his head and moving onto the next question's answer. "Uptemp..." He doesn't have time to try and parse that out any further before he's being flung away from the board through the rain. He hits the sand with a very dull thud, a *whoosh* of breath escaping him. "Shit!" he exclaims, not for the first time. His voice is a little breathless. "Any of you get that?"
Mila sucked in a slow breath and let it out as a growl. "Oh man... are you kidding me? This is the same shit that ruined my anniversary. UP TEMPLE. The temple." She gave a meaningful look over to Keha. Of course, that was the moment that the world decided to treat the beach like the biggest etch-a-sketch ever. Mila rolled to the side, moving to slide her arm over her sister, then ducked their heads down to avoid any damage from any direction, while holding her breath in case her face got full of sand and water. Once the wiping away of the evidence was finished, Mila lifted her head and sucked in a breath.
Felix let out a yell of surprise (and maybe a whoop of joy) as they all went suddenly swooping about at the last question. After they hit the ground and the letters all vanished away, the noises he made were temporarily reduced once again to groans and coughing. "Ow... just... ow." He sat up in the sand, making a face. "Everyone ok? I think maybe we pushed it on that one..." He shook his head, brushing wet sand out of his hair. "Up temple? Which temple?"
Keha shakes her head at Rick. "I feel like we got interrupted. It's been pretty good about making sure we could understand up until now. But the name..." she looks aside at Mila and frowns, nodding. "The temple. Lydia. She was taken from this beach, when got free of the temple up on top of the hill." She points upwards for Felix and Rick's benefit. "A woman named Lydia, some kind of witch, dragged us through Ku's temple up on those hills and straight to the gates of hell. We escaped to this beach, but she was taken from right here. That's the short version. And yeah, it was on Kaikaina's anniversary. Not the best date night."
The rain falling from the sky is as warm as the temperate breeze, and crystal clear as it splashes on the sand.
Rick rubs his face again, shaking his head. "Damn," he says, pushing himself to his feet. "So she's trapped in the Nevernever then, huh?" He looks around, as though he could see some other thing that would help them locate her, but there's nothing there, and of course, she's already given them the relevant information. "That's messed up." He shakes his head then, "Shoulda told her to try to get eaten by the sandworm." And whatever that means, he doesn't seem in the mood to explain, because he turns away, starting back the way he'd come, a little more quickly this time.
Mila sighed and stood up before rubbing her hands back through her hair to get it out of her face. "Ok, that sucks. It really does, but without more to go on, it's just poking at a haystack hoping a needle comes out and stab you in the eye. There are lots of temples. I mean, we can try old familiar or something. But not today, not in this crap, because it might get weird again. And not on some night i might be out on a damn date." Mila reached out and plucked up keha's board from the sand. "Come on ke kaikuahine nui, let's head home. I need to stop and grab my board. And I guess we need to let whoever else know that the haole they were talking to before is stuck up in the NeverNever like she didn't get flushed out all the way."
Felix's eyebrows damn near shot up into his hairline as the story unfolded. "Wow that is a rough date night." He blinked. "Wait. What? Hell? Like... eternal punishment and stuff?" He scrambled to his feet, eyes wide. "Are you going back to get her? You have got to take me with you! Seriously... I'll kick ass in hell. I'll be like... a hell ninja. I'll blend in and shit." He struck a "ninja" pose, then stood up as Rick started off. "Well, that was pretty hellish... but it might have been a different bit." He gave the man a wave. "Take care of yourself Rick." He gave a nod to Mila and Keha as they headed off. "Please... consider me for your next trip to hell. I don't know crap about the NeverNever but I'm in for this." He looked up at the rain and nodded. "Yeah... I'm gonna take the long way home and give this a think." He headed for the water, waving to the others as he started wading out.
Keha futilely brushes some sand from her limbs and gets up to follow her sister. "Is it awful if I kind of hoped this business was settled, and I really hope we don't have to go back to the Nevernever? I just assumed she got eaten by something. Oh, hey, does anybody want to go for barbeque? I could murder some macaroni salad." She looked between the departing Rick and Felix and pointed towards the direction of her favorite establishment for meats and macaroni, should either be looking.
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