The sun shone overhead. Blue waves lapped at the golden shore. An elf wearing nothing but a few strips of cloth lay on a recliner, a glass of clear liquid in her hand with a metal straw leading towards her lips. Ice cubes clanked as she drank a sip and exhaled, leaning back and closing her eyes.

“You’re sunbathing? I thought you were like a fungus! Fungi don’t like well-lit places.”

Lindyss sighed as her eyes opened. A fairy was hovering in front of her face. “Be quiet or go away. Those are your only options.”

“How far away do I have to go?” Erin asked. “If I go a couple feet away, then can I shout at you? Is out of your smacking distance going away enough?” She flitted back and forth with her hands on her hips. “Well?”

Lindyss sighed again as she leaned over to the side and pulled a pair of earplugs out of the bag that was lying on the sand. She placed them into her ears and closed her eyes, readjusting her hair while leaning into the seat.

Erin’s wings stopped beating, but she stayed hovering in the air. “Oi. That’s rude. That’s rude. That’s very, very rude.” She flew up to Lindyss’ face. “Are you listening?” Her head craned forward to peer at Lindyss’ pointy ears. Her eyes narrowed as she inched forward, reaching out with her hands. Right when she was about to snatch away the earplugs, a hand connected with her face, knocking her down into the beach headfirst. Her wings flapped as she pulled her head out of the sand, spitting out bits of yellow. “You stupid potato! Fairies aren’t meant to be swatted!”

Lindyss’ eyes remained closed as she took a sip from her straw. She lowered her cup and wet her lips with her tongue. “Your size begs to differ.”

“You can hear me!” Erin shouted, shaking a fist at Lindyss from the ground. “And what do you mean by my size begs to differ!?”

“It means exactly what it sounds like,” Lindyss said. “If your body wasn’t so easy to swat, I wouldn’t swat you. But alas, it is, so swat, I must.”

“You’re a horrible person.”

“And you’re my friend; what does that say about you?”

Erin puffed her chest out. “That I’m a very tolerant indi…vi…dual…,” she said, her voice trailing off. Her eyes widened to a comical size, nearly falling out of her head. “I’m your what!? Say that again!”

Lindyss opened her eyes and sat up, frowning at the fairy with her brows furrowed. Her head tilted to the side. “What does that say about you?”

“No, no, no! Before that,” Erin said, her eyes glistening as she clasped her hands in front of her chest.

Lindyss’ expression darkened. “If you weren’t so easy to swat, I wouldn’t swat you?”

“After that!”

“I said something poetic about swatting.”

“After that too!”

“…I don’t remember.”

“You said I was your friend!” Erin said, soaring into the air above Lindyss’ head. A moment later, she dove straight down and landed in the cursed elf’s lap. “I knew it! I knew it, I knew it, I knew it! You see me as a friend.” A wide smile split the fairy’s face as she bounced up and down, her wings fluttering. She giggled to herself and pressed her hands against her cheeks.

Lindyss’ eye twitched. “I don’t remember saying anything like that.”

“You said it!”

“It must’ve been a slip of the tongue.”

“You still said it! Slip or not, it counts.”

Lindyss sighed as she placed her palm against her forehead, sinking back into her seat. She glanced at the cup in her other hand before tossing it over her shoulder. “It seems like I’ve had too much to drink.” As she stared up at the sky, a moving black dot caught her eye. “Speaking of friends, my bestest friend is coming to visit right now.”

Erin froze mid-bounce. Her neck creaked as she turned her head towards the sky. Her face paled, and she attempted to hide underneath the cloth strip covering Lindyss’ waist, but the cursed elf flicked her away. “Why is the dragon coming!?” Erin shouted as she hid behind the chair near Lindyss’ head.

“He must’ve heard about one of my friend slots being taken up, so he came to clear it out,” Lindyss said. “Scared?”

“You’re not normal for being not scared! He’s a dragon of darkness; he’ll do all kinds of awful things to you, you dumb turnip!”

“Why do you always call me a vegetable as an insult?”

“Because you’re as dumb as one, that’s why!” Erin climbed up to the top of the chair, looking down on Lindyss’ head. “You stupid radish, a darkness dragon will take your soul and stuff other things inside of it to take its place. He’ll experiment on you and curse you until you wish you were dead. Although you’re pretty evil and wicked already, it’s not too late to escape from his influence!”

With a rush of wind, Grimmy landed on the beach, creating a mushroom cloud of sand above the shore. Lindyss erected a barrier that prevented her chair from flying away from the impact and stopped the sand from landing on her. “Whoa,” Grimmy said, staring down on the chair that Lindyss was lying on. “You’re sunbathing. I thought you hated the sun.”

Lindyss clicked her tongue. “It’s your fault I couldn’t bathe in the sun for nearly half a millennium.”

“Ah, yeah, sure, blame all your problems on me,” Grimmy said, rolling his eyes. “Anyways, I sensed some weird magic being cast somewhere to the west. It’s probably a devil summoning. I thought I erased all devil summoning knowledge from existence when I wrecked the southern continent, but I guess somethings will always slip through some cracks. Want to go check it out?”

“Not interested,” Lindyss said. “I run two continents—that’s five kingdoms and a few miscellaneous groups. I think I have enough on my plate as is.”

“But you’re sunbathing,” Grimmy said. “Your plate’s completely empty.”

“Leaders need to take time off to alleviate stress to make proper decisions, alright?” Lindyss asked.

Grimmy slipped one claw underneath the chair and flipped it over, causing two short yelps to echo through the air. “Nonsense. If you don’t move around, you’ll get moldy. I’m going and you’re coming with, agreed? Agreed.”

Lindyss crawled to her feet, spitting out clumps of sand. “What am I? A piece of bread? Only dragons become moldy because they sleep for years at a time.”

“Well, too bad,” Grimmy said, scooping Lindyss up with his paw. “Let’s go.”