He casually munched down his filet in front of Kai who appeared to have no issue with him eating so carefreely in the beginning of another training session. Train, train, train! That was what his schedule looked like for the moment thanks to Shahrbaraz the Rock-Solid Bird Whisperer. How he convinced himself to make Coda so lazy and dumbfounded in such a short amount of time up to Daiko’s training season was priceless. Yes, he actually believed that Shahr-lad had a role in this… a man to blame for the laid-back bird brain that kept pecking his hair for food.
Unlike Daiko, Coda’s food habits were found only on one side of the food spectrum between raw, wild kills and delicate, prepared meals. Her diet consisted of raw meat and fruit seeds, and she had little to no interest in a steaked filet with such a crispy, bread-like surface. Despite the possibility that the surface was cooked bread - and birds were under the misconception that they liked bread - Coda minded it none of her attention and business and was more interested in what Daiko’s hair was hiding deep down. At the very least, the Fire Wizard had a cheap, mobile haircare system. Nice job, Coda…!
Daiko just briefly got a look at Kai’s necklace upon having approached her earlier. Its shiny, jewel eyes shone from afar, and… uh, yeah, that was it. Daiko wouldn’t really want to dwell too deep into mere jewelry that he had little profession at. His own necklace wasn’t formed as a skull, anyways; it was round and carried a feather insignia. His mother gave it to him. Did Kai’s mother also give her this oddly fascinating amulet or necklace of hers? He was almost prompted to ask, but then he remembered that they had to go and begin the challenge already…
They had to swim…
Don’t fret! Daiko had done the smart thing and actually practiced swimming back at Worth Woodsea when he realized, back at the Blue Pegasus Festival, that he sucked more than an anteater in an ant farm at swimming. Spectacular, little fire boy overcame such an inconvenient weakness out of pure dread; it was haunting him, pushing his sanity way over the wall for brief moments. Imagine having to fight a huge, blue serpentine creature in the ocean? Wouldn’t it be a delight to be able to swim? It would save time and worry, and you would be able to punch the monster from several more angles than from the beach sand alone.
He was also donning his dark-green swimming trunks. Those were necessary if you wanted to swim, did you know that? Daiko didn’t before - he assumed water to be some harmless substance to his normal wear, and he didn’t see the formality in wearing different, distinctive and suitable sets of clothes for different scenarios and occasions. However, he did now, and he wasn’t too late to buy any trunks to swim in or anything. His issues were handled efficiently, thank the Lord…
Kai began walking towards the beach ahead of him, and he decided to follow suit. If he had used any thermal vision on her, then he would have realized how awkward it was for a boy to accompany a lady who was about to change clothes in front of him. To keep himself on the proper plane of occupation, he flung off his clothes quickly and put them nicely on a stack near him. At last, he was only donning his swimming trunks and necklace - that would obviously mean that he was ready to swim out into the ocean and approach the targeted island not too far away from here.
Oh yeah, a day in the forest was fine. Hiking up a mountain to find a small, specific gem in a rock biome was fair to say the least… but the tests got far more severe by time. This was the spirit of Lamia Scale; as he had concluded himself several times, this guild was full of monsters. He wanted to be a monster as well… in the good sense, though. He didn’t want to go around and murder people like a run-a-wild werewolf or bloodthirsty dragon. You would know what he meant by that.
As he dipped into the sea, he made sure to follow up behind Kai. The ocean was as brilliant as he remembered it - so deep-blue, like swimming inside a sapphire. The poof animals were jellyfish, minding their own businesses with their long tendrils that Daiko promptly tried to avoid. Those could burn you if you annoyed them too much. This also reminded him of the giant serpent - oh boy, if he got attacked by another blue serpent dragon snake thing down beneath the light zone of the ocean, he would scream and make it deaf. He had enough of lizards - they were annoying to look and touch, and he just wanted to stay away from them. Let Daiko live his life without giving him post-traumatic stress disorder, please!
He saw some land in the distance in form of dark areas on the horizontal field of vision. Assuming that it was the island that he swam towards, Daiko torpedoed himself across the water by flapping his legs and arms furiously, gaining speed underwater until he had to swim up to catch a breath. This also begged the question; where was Coda? After having stuck to his shoulder all the time, he would have thought that she wouldn’t even let go underwater - thankfully, Coda was still smart enough to take a flight above the sea surface, saving herself from a dip in the saltwater.
As he made himself strand, he slowly crawled up the island on his knees in a weakened fashion, wanting a quick breath after the long swim. His vision was also blurred by the saltwater, so he saw not that clear where he was crawling towards as he decided to plump his head flat on the sand floor… or on top of Kai, either in her cleavage or back depending on- hahahahahahahahahah…
“A-Are we there…?”
WC: 1022
TWC: 611 + 1022 = 1633