The Best Sandcastle
IC date: Summer 19
OOC date: July 9
Location: Portside Beach
PCs: Dream-Daze Spearmint Lavender Pumpkin Thunnini
NPCs: N/A
GM: N/A

It's a beautiful, sun-shining, clear-skies, summer day in the ol' Harbor. No clouds, nice and warm, and everybody seems to be more or less in a good mood! It's the kind of weather that would warrant a spontaneous musical number about the joys of summer and friends and fun and life!

Unless you don't have a voice. Then it's just another nice day.

What does a foal without a voice do on a day that demands singing? Why, she marches down the street making other noise, of course. Dream-Daze is wandering Main Street! With a kazoo. Blowing on it like a ban on kazoos were going to go into effect the very next day. Like kazoo sounds were the only thing keeping the Worst Storm Ever from blowing in and ruining the entire /season/.

No, she doesn't have a lot of talent with a kazoo, but Dreamy is opting for quantity over quality today. It's not every day she gets to annoy everybody with noise now!

That's noise alright. That's a lot of noise. Noise Spearmint hasn't heard before! It's throwing him off a bit. He's edging along the street, ears twitching this way and that, trying to listen for things that aren't kazoo. It's not easy! Kazoos are a very noticable sound! …Why is there a kazoo anyway? Hm.

Why indeed… It seems as though the kazoo sounds are getting closer too. Honk, honk, honk! Pause! Wait for it. Waaaaaaait for it…

HONK!

That last one was practically right next to the poor blind colt. Though it comes with the tinge of magical energy and happy cloudy daydreamy picture of Dream Daze, with a kazoo in her mouth, waving a hoof.
Yipe! Spearmint might not be able to see, but he sure can jump. The image keeps him from scampering off right upon landing, but he still looks pretty startled! "Yah! Wha! Huh? Oh. Oh, er, h-hi, Dreamy."

Dreamy honks on the kazoo a couple more times, bouncing around with little play-bucks of her hind legs now and then. She's sure having fun with that thing! It only lasts a few more seconds though, the lil' filly sidling up next to Spearmint to give his flank a bump, combined with another little image of..Spearmint! With a question mark over his head. Her way of asking what's up.

Spearmint shrugs slightly, twitching an ear. "Oh, not much. Just, y'know, out for a walk. It feels nice out." He chuckles a bit. "You've got a… whistle… thing? I haven't heard an instrument like that before."

Another couple bounce-and-kazoo-honks later, Dream Daze answers Spearmint with a mental image of..the kazoo itself, surrounded by a starburst design. Tah-dah~ Instruments! Dreamy hasn't actually caught on to the fact that it sounds /awful/ the way she's using it, she's just too wrapped up in making noise. Oh look, now she's trotting circles around Spearmint, honking the kazoo every few steps. Honk! Honk! Honk!

The kazoo does a decent job of covering the sound of a rolling bucket-kart as Thunnini poles her way along. "Wow, that's a neat instrument, Dreamy!" the seafilly calls out. "I don't think I've heard anything like that before."

Spearmint twitches his ear again. Twitchtwitchtwitch. "It certainly is… unique." He tilts his head. Is that what it's /supposed/ to sound like? It's… honky. Kinda like a duck! A duck with a head cold and a frog in its throat.
Lavender wanders over from another part of town, making a face. Seeking out the source of the noise. But awww, it's Dreamy! One simply cannot judge another filly on her kazoo-technique! So she soon joins in the trotting, though still cringing a little. "Hi girls!" The greeting seems meant to be inclusive of Spearmint.

Honk! Dreamy seems more inclined to make /more/ noise now that she's drawing a crowd. A crowd of her peers no less! There she goes, bouncing over to Thunnini's cart to give the seafilly a hug, and then back to bounce around Lavender a few times. So over-excited she is that she end up tripping over a loose cobblestone somewhere along the way, falling flat on her belly! Sending the kazoo arcing in the air, bouncing off Spearmint's flank, and into the street.

Spearmint blushes faintly and shrinks down a bit. He's not a girl! He's just… kinda small. Not that he, y'know, really knows how tall he is compared to any other foal. He doesn't have too long to worry about this, though, because suddenly, kazoo! He jumps again with a little eep, blinking. "What… uh… hey, are you okay?"

Hugs! Thunnini hugs Dreamy as she bounces by, then gasps slightly when the cheerful filly trips. The seafilly poles her way over to near the kazoo to help guard it from any inattentive older ponies who might step on it.

Lavender leaps into the street along with Thunnini's bucket. "Aaarr," she growls to a passing completely uninterested adult, before she snags that kazoo and trots back to Dreamy with it. "Dropped this.."

Oof. Dreamy shakes her head, propping herself up with her forelegs. She beams a smile at her friends, hardly more than a bump in the road as far as she's concerned. There's even a mental-image of Dreamy and the word OK above her herad. Everything's cool! Except… Kazoo? Kazoooooooo! Oh! There's the kazoo. The lil' unicorn grins, letting her magic grab the dirtied instrument so she can tuck it into her handy little sidepouch instead for safekeeping. Maybe that's enough honking for now. She gives Lav a quick nuzzle for her help! And then an excited hop! Whee, many friends around!

Thunnini leans over and hugs Spearmint, giving him a quick nuzzle before letting go. "So, what do we want to do today?" she grins, looking at the others.

Spearmint relaxes back slowly, shifting from hoof to hoof. At least Dreamy seems alright! He can empathize, he trips over stuff a lot. He blushes faintly and returns Thunnini's hug, smiling. "Hey… haven't run into you in a while. Um… yeah! Let's all do… something." Hmmmm.

Lavender nod nods her head as she circles the other ponies, "Hum, what do we wanna do though? Been a while for me too!"

Do! Yes! Um. …Right. Do. Dreamy's hopping slows, then stops with one final thunk of sound. Lessee… There was swimming yesterday, mudpit wrestling the time before, there's always ice cream, or… She looks down the street towards the waters. Beach! Or… She looks up the other end of the street. Farms! And forest! so she floats up a little daydream with those two options side-by-side. One of a choppy animation of foals walking through the forest. Possibly towards Daybreak. The other option is all the foals…playing in the sand and building the World's Most Awesome Sandcastle! That's stuff to do, right?

Spearmint sits back on his haunches, smiling faintly. He didn't have much of a preference - a walk in the forest wasn't too different from a walk anywhere else, and he wasn't really good with sandcastles either - but, hey, any excuse to hang out with friends!

Pumpkin pokes her head up from behind a table. "Well howdy! What're y'all doin' over here?"

Lavender perks up, "Oooh, adventure…in the forest! We could get all lost, and in all /sorts/ of trouble." Then pouts, "And I'd probably get grounded again and that's no fun." Up at Pumpkin, "Hi there Pumpkin! We're planning fun!"

"Oooh, both sound like fun," remarks Thunnini with a thoughtful expression on her face. She waves as Pumpkin arrives. "Hiya Pumpkin! We're trying to decide on what to do today. So far it's a tossup between making a huge sandcastle on the beach or walking through the forest."

Pumpkin thinks about it, tail swishing back and forth as she does so. "Well, ah haven't been down to th' beach much yet this summer, so ah'd be in favor of that mahself. But you know me. Ah'm open to whatever y'all want to do."

Dreamy bounces when Pumpkin shows up! More friends! She very much shares the daydream of the 'options' with the farmpony too, though the beach option is a little bigger than the other one. It seems the most immediately fun (and non-grounding) option between the two. This time, at least.

"Well, uh, I don't think I'm s'possed to go near the forest without telling my mom first," Spearmint pipes up, blushing.

Lavender nods, "Maybe we should all just go to the beach this time. I've never really done a sandcastle before, it sounds like fun!"

Pumpkin hops! "That sounds like a great idea! Plus it'll be nice to do somethin' that can't get us all in trouble for a change." Not that she's had stern conversations with her parents about anything they've done lately. No sirree.

"Sounds good to me!" beams Thunnini. Building a sandcastle sounds like fun, and the chance to possibly go swimming with her friends is an added bonus.

The 'beach' image grows, and grows, and…now it's the only option! Selection made. Dreamy pops the dreambubble, sticking her head into her sidepack and pulling out…the kazoo. A flick of her muzzle makes the toy spin end over end, tumbling back into the filly's mouth like a proper instrument again. She gives it a softer and slightly less annoying blow, and starts marching down the street towards the ol' boardwalk and beachfront. Onward!

Lavender drops in line, and begins to march in time with Dreamy. Clearly, this foal brigade needs more instruments. She draws her wooden sword and taps it on the road (or nearby barrels or buildings) to keep a beat.

Pumpkin gives Spearmint a friendly nudge and then starts following Dreamy out towards the beach. "Why, between the five of us ah bet we'll make the biggest sandcastle this town's ever seen!"

Spearmint blinks and grins faintly, trotting along after the group. "I'll be real careful not to walk into it."

Thunnini adjusts her poling to go in time with the marching tune. To the beach!

Onward down the road, to the boardwalk, and finally onto the sand does Dreamy walk, tucking the kazoo away when they've all arrived! She tosses her sidebag aside somewhere she can pick up later, and promptly starts to burrow into the sand like a little pony sandworm. Wrigglewrigglewriggle, flailflailflail! It's the first thing that always comes to her mind when she finds sand.

Lavender grins, "Wheee!" She romps to the water's edge, lets surf wash over her hooves. "We uh…Do we have any buckets? I mean besides that one," gesturing to Thunnini's.

Thunnini parks her bucket-kart on the beach. "Do we need the bucket for water? Because I might be able to help move some," she offers.

By now there's a solid hump where Dreamy had been burrowing. Two ears burst out of this sandy hump, perking and twisting, followed by the rest of the little filly in short order, shaking the sand out of her mane. She's all grins, now that she's got that out of her system, trotting along to catch up to Thunnini.

Trot trot trot. Hop hop hop. /Sand/. Sand is weird. Spearmint prances about a bit on it, trying to get used to the feel of it under his hooves. The ground isn't supposed to /move/ like that! It kind of makes him feel like he's gonna fall over if he's not careful.

Lavender trots in place a bit, letting herself sink into the sand at the water's edge somewhat. "Yeah, we'll need the sand wet one way or another." She scoops some wet sand up on her head, and hauls it to where Dreamy and Thunnini are, plopping it in a pile.

Dream-Daze points at the wet sand. Eyup! That's what they need alright. She grins at Thunnini, then peeks at her bucket. Very obviously considering it as a viable sand-transfer device. Because, y'know. It's there.

Pumpkin runs towards the water, giggling and cheering and tossing up sand as she goes. With a mighty cheer she leaps into the water. "That's the stuff! Ain't nothin' like a dip in the ocean on a hot day like today, right?"

Thunnini climbs out of her bucket-kart and crawls over to the water. She swims in a small circle, building up a current, then launching a small jet of water to near the castle construction location.

Lavender hops backwards, gets caught in a splash anyway. "Whoa! That's awesome! And perfect for building a castle with!" Soon she's pushing wet sand into a heap.

Dream-Daze's eyes widen! Water torrent! Oh riiiiiiiight, seapony magic! Dreamy grins and joins in the pushing of wet sand around, trying to help make a 'foundation' of some sort to begin construction with. Too bad she didn't bring her hat with her for this. Push push~

Pumpkin says "Wowie! Ah didn't know you could do stuff like that, Thunnini!" She canters out of the water and starts aiding in sand-pushing. "This'll make it go even faster!"

Spearmint tilts his ears towards the group to listen to the goings-on while he digs one hoof into the sand. Yup. That's sand. He can dig holes in sand lots easier than in dirt! Except it feels like it fills itself back in faster. Because sand is /weird/.

Lavender gets herself all thoroughly sandy as she shoves wet sand into a pile, her coat and mane starting to look more brown than anything else. But the sand pile is really growing!

Dream-Daze perks up her ears. There's a foal not doing much in the sand! This gives her an idea… She grins and trots away from the sandpile while the others are growing it bigger, scampering up to Spearmint to get behind him and nudge his flank towards the others. Every castle needs a 'guardian', right..?

Swimswimswimswimsplash! Swimswimswimswimswimsplash! Thunnini keeps on sending over water currents as she builds them up. Not the fastest method in the world, but it does make progress.

Spearmint gives a startled little eep! Movement! He's being moved! He edges along obediently, laying his ears back. "Where're we going? Are we near the castle? I don't wanna step on it!"

Dream-Daze grins the sort of grin that is at once playful, mischevious, and horribly innocent at the same time. Not that Spearmint can see it or anything, which is probably for the best that he gets Dreamy's mental image instead, of planting Spearmnt in the middle of the castle and building it around him. She keeps nudging until Spearmint's in the proper place, too, then flashes him a picture of himself, sitting, and a little heart next to it. Sit please~

Lavender tilts her head at Dreamy's odd actions and starts to speak, but gets the idea pretty quick and helps build him in as the centerpiece!

Thunnini glances over at the sandcastle construction and quietly squees when she sees it being built around Spearmint.

Spearmint blinks and sits down, ears twitching. "Uh… what'm I doing? …Won't that break the castle?"

At this point Dreamy's mostly just hoping Spearmint will sit still. Or still enough to let her make a sort of sandy tower out of him. Sand is pushed, and pushed, and packed, and set, and, and… Dreamy stands back after a few minutes of work, sitting upright so she can use her hooves to 'measure' in the air. She shakes her head at Spearmint's question, shooting him an image of..well, himself! Halfway buried in sand, like a sandpony tower. And the rest of the 'castle' sort of rising up around him, in a /much more elaborate way/ than it's actually happening! The 'dream' Spearmint may be a lot taller in this image too, and possibly armored. She never did quite give up that 'knight' image of him.

Lavender starts working up mounded towers and walls. They are neither round nor straight as they should be, but they will repel attackers alright! Aaarr. Next up is digging a moat around it all.

Thunnini sends a few splashes towards the moat, but notices that it's not very effective at actually filling it. She "sits" in the water and contemplates things, then gets an idea. "Hey, could somepony toss me my poling staff? I want to try something…"

Dream-Daze perks an ear up. Seeing as Lav's got most the rest of the castle mostly built up and what not, she scampers carefully over to Thunnini's cart, plucks up her staff in her mouth, and merrily trots it over to the seafilly to offer it up.

Spearmint sits as still as he can manage, though his ears and tail do give the occasional twitch. He's bound and determined not to break anything! He's not gonna ruin the castle! Nope, he's not.

Dream-Daze peeks back at the rest of the castle. It looks pretty much done! And not bad for multiple foal's worth of work for a couple hours. She beams at their creation, and the Spearmint Knight centerpiece, then glances over to Thunnini and makes a gesture with her hoof~

Thunnini nods back to Dreamy, then starts swimming around in a large circle while holding her poling staff. The staff helps make the current bigger, and once the seafilly gets the water up to speed she does a massive swing. The large current arcs out of the ocean and lands squarely in the moat, circling around the castle without causing significant damage. Moat filled~!

Dream-Daze clops her hooves together in rapid applause! That was /impressive/! She starts bouncing around the completed sandcastle, and for Spearmint's benefit, does her best to show him what she's seeing. What with him being part of the castle and all…

Lavender thinks. "It's not /quite/ complete yet. It needs…flags!" She romps down to the shore and comes back with seaweed! She puts a little bit atop each tower…and then both of Spearmint's ears. "Perfect."