"Maybe! No need to stay and watch," she says loud enough to include the other two as she gestures towards the wooden tattoo place and the green-skinned woman reading at the front counter.

"I think Theo and I will be fine getting dinner," Elizabeth comments dryly. "Just yell really loud if you need rescuing."

"We'll be over there, I think," Ame says, pointing to what looks very much like a 50s diner at the end of the block.

"Yeah. Tattoos- Are important, that's all."

At dinner, Theo can be badgered into discussing wizardry. The primary limitation is they you have to carefully specify everything, though people do seem to have affinities and skill-levels for particular primitive actions...

She's back after a long, relaxed dinner and dessert, (and 'dessert' as the cook is happy to surreptitiously invite Ame into his office), smiling. "Should have warned you about the time. It wasn't a huge, elaborate design, but... I hope I didn't take too long?"

"Just long enough," Ame says, from behind her, having just come out of the cook's office.

She gives Bys her actual food-type dessert (and the saved leftovers from her own meal, which she only ate half of before the cook made his offer) and leans against her while it gets eaten, casually affectionate. Then they can head back to their rooms, Ame having already 'paid' for their meals.

It's so obvious what Ame has just done. But there's no shame in it and the party have mostly stopped perking up as if there ought to be.

Sleeeeeeeeeeeep. Abyssia still has trouble sleeping with other people still in the room, but the inn has dividers that make it separate enough to count.

"Beach trip today?" Asks Elizabeth when they meet up again for breakfast.

It's not like Ame was trying to be subtle.

"Sure. We're just killing time anyway, let's go sit by the water and look pretty."

"Maybe you can do that. I'm weird and blue-grey..."

Ame goes over and pulls Bys into a hug.

"Theo and Liz can sit around and look pretty while we go for a swim," Ame suggests, then adds, playfully, "but I think you'll get ogled plenty, 'cause you are objectively hot. Don't worry! I won't hoard all the leers and voyeurism to myself."

"As long as I'm officially allowed to send guys to you if they come on too strong," Liz singsongs

"I have never been to a beach in my entire life."

It goes without saying that Liz is allowed to do that.

"I haven't either. Let's go find out what we've been missing."

The city beachfront is as lively as ever, bright and white and loud. The less overwhelmingly crowded sections of beach are often reserved for fancy hotels, charge admission, or at least have bouncers who quietly turn away anyone who's not either rich-looking or hot. Swim stores and restaurants line the waterfront. The party members who aren't Ame probably need to buy swim clothes, though simply going nude is reasonably popular depending on the particular beach.

This beach has a small sign declaring it an adult-only area.

Going nude would be fine, but first Ame is going to meander down the waterfront and see if any of the stores are selling anything fun in the way of swimwear that's even lewder than just going nude. Her party can make their own decisions about their swimwear or lack thereof.

Most swimwear on display (both on people and on the shops and stalls doing brisk business) is simple, smooth cloth in some strange sort of nylon-sort of silk material with simple cuts, bright colors, and sometimes ruffles. That's what her party goes for. Theo with plain grey swim shorts and a sleeveless shirt, Elizabeth for a floral patterned two-piece whose bottom are a hotpants sort of thing, and Abyssia for a blue one-piece without any leg covering, and cutouts along the sides for the gills around her torso. Some of the more... Creative swimsuits include things like elaborate cutouts and a form designed to lift and support while leaving most of the breasts bare, or lines of color that draw the eyes along the body, particularly to certain points.

...meh.

Ame decides to just go nude.

She puts her new fetish armor with the rest of the party's equipment when they all change and comes out bare. How about a Big Beach Towel (and maybe a parasol?) to put out on the sand? That's part of the whole experience, right? Laying around on the actual beach part of the beach?

Yep! It is! They can totally rent a huge towel and parasol rented to keep wind from blowing sand over you and even folding chairs. Theo, meanwhile, goes for a crate of lemon(analogue)ade and a bag of hard candy, while they're there.

There's high security locker services too, with real serious magic backing up the locks, and insurance, if they want that. Not too pricey.

Ame is not about to have her awesome new sword stolen. High security it is.

As they set up their little beach camp, Ame scans the crowd around them for anything (or anyone) interesting.

It's not as crowded and loud here as he'd feared. Maybe he can just lie here quietly and look out over the ocean. Peaceful, like. Sip lemonade. Not think about anything.

They're on the upper half of the attention-getting bell curve, mostly thanks to Abyssia's dark skin and bright hair, secondary thanks to Ame's figure. Lots of wandering eyes from the moderately populated beach play over the group, with nobody particularly averting their gaze out of politeness. Not here. From the mixed population of light-skinned humans and demihumans, Abyssia is actually one of the most standout people on the beach, only beaten out by the enormous Lion splashing around in the shallows and some sort of - spirit? - a petite figure floating gently through the air with a strange flowing green aura trailing them like silk.

"People are looking at my gills. And my legs. I stick out like a tar pit. Let's hurry into the water so I'm not so obvious, Ame."

Ame slips an arm around Bys' waist.

"People are admiring your gills. And your legs." Ame caresses Bys' thigh. "Look again. They think you're hot."

"...Really? I mean-" Headshake. "I'm not. I'm just me. And nervous. I was never very... Popular anywhere, even while I was travelling. But you're the expert..."

Ame nuzzles her.

"See him? His eyes keep sliding off me and onto you. And him? And him? And her?" Ame continues subtly pointing out those she reads as the most sincere oglers, those who are looking at Abyssia like they want to start her eroge route.

"C'mon, relax and preen a bit," Ame teases softly. "Sun, surf, and lust."

"...I don't really know how to react. I'm nowhere near as flirty as you. But it's nice, I guess. She's cute," she nods slightly towards the latest pointed-out girl. "-Not that I want to go up to her or anything. I mostly just want to swim."

"Say Aa~me. I'm sure you've noticed but I don't always want nothing to do with guys. Just the ones that come off like possessive asshats. Can you give me some advice as a domain expert, help me find a guy, being a total hunk is less important than someone who's chill and funny and impressed by magic. More like a casual date than a quickie but definitely nothing serious. What'cha think, can you help me out?"

Ame turns to Liz, musing thoughtfully.

She glances around again, her eyes picking over the crowd and noting details of social configuration.

"I had a friend back in the Bay. Vanessa. She used to say that seduction was like art. A true master could describe every brushstroke in exquisite detail, and not even begin to actually convey the skill, the intuition, that decides those strokes in the first place. She was right, and she was wrong, too."

Ame spots a pair of heterobros, two definitely straight guys who are definitely At The Beach with each other and not with anyone else.

"A blind, brute-force replication of the inconsequential road between you and your destination. It can work, if every bump, rut, and paving stone, every turn and fork, is in exactly the same place; the true master navigates this road effortlessly, traversing it to their destination, and his passing creates the illusion that the road was important. But it was never the road that led to beauty."

Ame spots another, similar pair, and starts tracking them too. Then another.

"Seduction is an inherent contradiction, when you imagine that it can be taught by learning the path to convincing someone to have the sex they already wanted to have with you in particular. Because all of the first, most obvious thoughts are mistakes just like asking about the brushstrokes, hoping to find the secret to beauty in the shape of the bristles or way the true master holds the brush, when the beauty was never in the canvas or the paintbrush at all."

Ame continues to watch the three pairs of heterobros. Noting who they look at, how they look at them, how much and on what they focus.

"It's not unknowable, though, like Vanessa thought. Her talent exceeded my skill for a long, long time... until one day it didn't. To learn, you just have to look in the right direction. Every person is a story that tells itself. All you have to do is spot the stories that are shaped for an imminent sex scene."

Ame points subtly at one of the pairs. "Guy on the left, see how he's deferring to his more-talkative friend who's flirting with that girl? There are dozens of possible stories from which that is a moment, but it's the negative space you've got to pay attention to. To what he isn't. Disinterested. Jealous. Hopeful. That narrows the possible stories-of-him that are happening in this moment to a narrower range, but not enough to be sure of anything about him. So you open conversation in a way that further narrows the possible stories, until you grasp it well enough that you can see how you fit into it."

Ame stops, turns back to Liz, and gives her a wry smile.

"Of course, probably you should just ignore all of that, wait for that guy's friend to go off with that girl, and then go say hi, because all I've really done is explain that Color Theory exists, and not what it is or how to tell if you're doing it right."