Inkwhumptobertale 2024

Day Ten

Tides - Blow to the Head, Slurred Words, Passing Out from Pain, "I can't think straight." 

Trigger warnings: violence.

Comments are welcome and appreciated! 

Please enjoy!

~~~~~

The beach was beautiful this time of year. The trees swayed slowly in the shore's breezes, and the water of shallow pools shimmered in the sun's light, waiting for the tides to turn. Sea creatures lived quietly under the sand and in the water, and land-based creatures stalked the beach grass behind the shore, not wanting to venture too close to the water with the potential witnesses. The potential witnesses in question?

The Star Sanses. 

Ink, Dream, and Blue had decided to spend a day at the beach, and this beach in particular was a good one. In Piratetale (or whatever this AU was called, anyway), there were countless islands with pristine beaches just begging to be used for a day, and Ink had picked a quiet little stretch of sand by the beach to relax for the day.

"Well, that's everything set up!" Blue announced, staring proudly upon the Stars' beach setup - three chairs, a large umbrella, and a towel underneath.  "Now we can get down to business!"

"I wanna build a sandcastle!" Ink decided. "I'll give it a huge moat!"

"Okay, Ink, but how about you try making it without magic?" Dream suggested. "That'll be fun!"

"How am I supposed to make a huge moat without magic?"

Blue held a bucket out to Ink. "With this."

"..I guess I'll try it.." Ink accepted the bucket. "What are you two going to do?"

"I'm going to collect seashells!" Blue beamed. 

"Oh, that sounds fun!" Dream nodded, liking the idea. "I'll help you, if you'd like me to!"

"Thank you, Dream! Off we go, then - to the shore!"

The duo moved closer to the coast, and they began to collect seashells while dodging the waves; this was a fairly good island for big waves, too!

"Dream, look at this one!" Blue held up a particularly striking shell, and Dream came over to see it.

The shell was of common shape, but its colors resembled a rainbow rather than the typical white and purple that most shells that washed up tended to have when the trio went beach combing. It was nice to find something particularly striking, and this shell certainly was, shimmering in the light unlike any other shell Blue had ever found. 

"Oh, that's so cool!" Dream awed. "Do you think we can find another one for me? And maybe one for Ink, too! Then we can have a matching set!"

"Maybe these are common in this universe.." Blue speculated. "I hope we find more!"

"Yeah! I'll search over there so we can cover more ground!"

Blue put the shell in the bag of shells he had thought to bring along today, which was a simple small clear plastic backpack that allowed easy sight to whatever was inside - it always looked spectacular once Blue had filled it a little! Although, today, it was looking spectacular already, with that shiny rainbow shell sitting inside! Blue definitely wanted to find a few more of those. Maybe there would be other colors of shells, too! If he could find some more varying colors, his day would be made! Blue and Dream continued to look around the beach for a while, with Dream scanning the shore up one direction and Blue taking the other. They didn't go too far from eachother, but they could still see eachother just fine, and they were close enough to hear excited yells if one of them happened to find another one of those shells! 

As he combed the beach, Blue hummed a tune he had once heard from an echo flower in..probably a Dancetale. In Dancetales and other music-based AUs, songwriters tended to use echo flowers as a test audience for new pieces, and that made their Waterfalls especially musical places; it was also so much fun to hear the tune of a hit song before it was even released! Blue had heard this particular tune just a few days ago, and it was a definite earworm; he couldn't wait to hear the full version when it released! Maybe-

"Arrgh!" Blue was taken out of his thoughts by..a pirate?

Why was he suddenly surrounded by pirates?! Well..this was Piratetale, but-

"Get him, lads!" The pirate captain ordered, pointing at- Blue?!

Blue started to summon a few bone attacks, but before he could materialize anything, he felt a sharp pain in the back of his skull, and suddenly, he was lying face-down in the sand. He felt..something, but he didn't know what - only that he was being jostled around. After a few seconds, he heard the sounds of..probably fighting? He didn't know..he just wanted to sleep right now. 

"Blue!" Dream..how nice.. "Are you okay?"

Blue mumbled something, but not even he knew what.

"Blue, try to stay awake!" Dream picked him up, cradling Blue's skull; that felt nice... 

"'M s'..tired..." Blue's eyesockets started to droop.

"Ink!"

Blue's eyesockets closed, and he drifted off in Dream's arms. 

When he woke up again, it was much later, and Dream and Ink were sitting nearby. He didn't feel any pain anymore, which meant he had likely been completely healed; Ink's healing magic was a truly wonderful thing! 

"Blue!" Dream was happy to see his friend awake. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm okay." Blue nodded alowly, pushing himself up into a sitting position. "What happened..?"

"Well, you know that rainbow-colored shell you found?"

"Yeah?" Blue looked over to his..bag of shells that did not contain that specific shell anymore.

"Turns out Ink forgot to tell us about the story in this AU.." Dream let out a sigh.

"Uh, yeah..in this AU, special colored shells are used to summon mermaids, and this world's Frisk happens to be accessible through that one.." Ink shrugged. "Sorry! The odds of finding one are super rare, so I didn't think you would!"

"Oh..so the universe had to get it back somehow.." Blue let out a hum. 

"Yeah..is your head better?"

"I'm fine." Blue nodded, before looking around. "Ink..?"

"Yeah?"

"Where are we?"

"Oh, we're in my sandcastle! Dream was right; making a sandcastle without magic is super fun!"

"..You were asleep for a few hours." Dream explained. "Ink was stress-building."

"Ah..well, shall we continue our beach day, then?" Blue asked. "Where's the door to this place?"

"It's a drawbridge!" Ink grinned, pulling a rope to let down the drawbridge..that happened to cross a rather-large moat.

This day would be just fine.