The next morning, Charles wakes up with a bright smile thinking of the night before. It wasn’t the first time he had shown off his garden but it was the first time a girl had shown actual interest in it. And Laurel, she was so beautiful and attentive. His only regret is not getting to know her better. After going to the kitchens and grabbing some bread and cheese, Charles hurried out the door and down the road. There was only one person he wanted to talk to right now, his best friend Edwin Nyte.

Edwin’s family are not as rich as Charles’ family, but they owned an estate that was quite a bit larger than most families in the area. Where most families own small houses and, in some cases, large fields, Charles’ family owns a large estate with servants’ quarters, an outdoor garden, several ballrooms, and 3 floors. Comparatively, Edwin’s home is much smaller, only a 2 story home with 6 bedrooms and a large, sprawling lawn.

Charles walks to Edwin’s home, eating the bread and cheese that he brought along and thinking about Laurel. Before he knows it, he’s walking up the path to Edwin’s house. In true best friend fashion, he knocks on the door and lets himself in any way. He finds Edwin in the kitchen with his own breakfast: eggs, bacon, and toasted bread. Edwin looks at Chares surprisedly, “What brings you here so early Charles?”

“I couldn’t wait to tell you what happened last night! I met this amazing woman!” exclaims Charles.

“Did you bed her?” asks Edwin with a sly grin.

Charles look aghast at the thought. “She is most certainly not that type of woman,” he declares, “She is thoughtful and attentive and oh is she beautiful.

Edwin looks at his friend with a look akin to shock but it is quickly wiped from his face, as though it were never there. “So you met a beautiful woman, and likely for the first time ever, you did not even consider sleeping with her? Why I do declare it is love at first sight!”

Charles’ grin slips off his face, “Surely you jest my friend. I do not believe in such nonsense as love at first sight, leave that to the poets. But oh she was pretty, and when I showed her the garden she asked me to tell her about the plants, and she didn’t ask it in a way that was meant to placate me, she was truly interested in what I had to say. If only I could see her again,” Charles bemoans.

“Did she truly not tell you where she lived? Then perhaps she is not the woman you believed her to be,” declared Edwin with a slight frown. “Come, let us go into town and find some amusement.”

Charles agrees, snagging a piece of toasted bread off Edwin’s plate and taking a bite. Charles’ mouth is filled with the taste of cinnamon and he looks with surprise at Edwin, “Cinnamon toasted into the bread? What a delightful thought.”

Together, the two friends walk the distance into the main town, talking and laughing about the strange things they see, such as a duck and swan apparently arguing on the shore of a nearby lake. As they reach the main thoroughfare on the edge of the lake, they see a group of three girls in 2 piece bathing suits swimming in the lake, splashing water, and generally having a good time. “Hey, Edwin, what say we take a swim? Perhaps we can get those girls to fawn over us.”

“I-“ started Edwin before rethinking what he was going to say, “Yeah, sure, sounds like fun.” The two of them strip down to their shorts, leaving their shirts on the shore as they dashed into the water. Charles gets out to where he can barely touch the bottom and begins diving down beneath the water, coming up to breath and then diving back down only to resurface a little farther out. Edwin, meanwhile, lies on his back and leisurely pushes his way out into the water. The sun beating down on his face, Edwin lets out a sigh of contentment. “Swimming was definitely a good idea, thanks Charles,” he declares.

Charles surfaces and looks over at the girls who aren’t paying them any attention. “Hey Edwin, you should go talk to them. Maybe we can get them to hang out with us,” he suggests.

“I don’t know, they look like they’re having fun without us interfering,” eludes Edwin. “Let’s just enjoy the day.”

“Come on! What are you, queer?” taunts Charles and Edwin gets a look of disdain on his face. Edwin closes his eyes as if ignoring Charles and suddenly Charles sees something poking out of the water between him and the girls he was just pointing to. A shark! Charles calls out loudly to warn the girls, “Shark!”

The girls scream and quickly get back to shore, Charles following behind. Edwin, however, stays out in the water, swimming as though nothing were wrong. The shark fin moves around Edwin, circling a couple of times before sinking below the water. Edwin swims back to shore, a crazy grin on his face. The girls go swarming over to him talking at a rapid-fire pace.

“Weren’t you scared?”

“Oh my Goddess, you’re so brave!”

“Didn’t you think it might eat you?”

The girls were crawling all over Edwin as Charles grew a look of dawning realization. He went up to his friend and whispered in his ear, “That was an illusion, wasn’t it? There was no shark. Well played my friend.”

“Girls, girls, a shark won’t hurt you if you don’t hurt them,” Edwin declares, “I left him alone and he left me alone.”

The girls look at him with awe until Charles inserts himself and says “We should go, Edwin, it’s getting late and we have a walk back to your place.”

The two of them say farewell to the girls, snatch up their shirts from where they left them, and start heading back towards Edwin’s home. “You are the girl whisperer Edwin! You always know exactly how to get the girls to pay attention to you, why is that?”

Edwin shrugs noncommittally, “I guess I just know what a girl is looking for in a guy. It’s not hard to read, girls are every bit as straight-forward as guys are.”

Charles shakes his head, “One of these days Edwin, you’re gonna have to teach me your secret.”

“I don’t know,” teases Edwin, “It sounds to me like you had that girl last night eating out of the palm of your hand.”

“Mmm, I think I might go looking for her,” declares Charles. “She mentioned that she was from Attlesburgh, if I go there and look around, I may find her.”

Edwin looks at his friend with a look he can’t quite comprehend, “Maybe you will, but I wouldn’t get my hopes up, Attlesburgh is a big town, not like our own town of Polis.”

The two of them continue on to reach Edwin’s home and they both head up to his bedroom to get changed from their damp clothes. Edwin’s room has always been very sparse, he doesn’t like a lot of stuff crowding his room, so he keeps his bed in the center, a dresser next to his closet, and a mirror on the back of the closet door. Other than that, his walls are bare and he keeps almost nothing in his room. As Edwin goes into his drawers and pulls out a couple pairs of shorts, Charles looks around and notices something out of place. The mirror on the closet is shattered. “What happened to your mirror, Edwin?” he asks.

“Oh, it’s no big deal, while I was stumbling around this morning I accidentally knocked it off its hook and it shattered. Dad said he’ll just buy another one when he goes into town tomorrow,” explains Edwin with a stressed look, as he throws a spare pair of shorts at Charles. Edwin walks over to his closet and hides behind his door as he changes, coming back out as Charles is pulling the shorts up. “So, tell me, what’s your plan to find this mysterious woman of yours, Laurel, was her name?”

“I don’t know, she didn’t exactly tell me her address, or her last name even, if she has one. She mentioned that her parents are self-made, so it’s possible she doesn’t have a last name. Maybe I’ll just go the market in Attlesburgh and ask around, surely someone as pretty as she is will have been noticed by the vendors there,” rambles Charles.

“Well I think you’re being a bit foolish chasing after a girl you’ve barely met, but love is love,” teases Edwin with a sly grin.

“We shall see, my friend, we shall see.”