Clouded Minds

Solveiga had done a ridiculous amount of traveling lately. Ever since her brother had left she had been traveling, but it had gotten worse when she had found that discovering new places could get her mind off of the pain of abandonment. Of course, Solveiga wasn't complaining. She had always been the type to love exploring, seeing new things. She was in a whole new region of this continent now, and that brought with it a whole new array of possibilities. Today she found herself on a lovely beach, with crystalline blue waters and magnificent little shells scattered about in the sand.

She had taken to counting them, seeing how many of a similar kind she could find. So far she had seen ten white ones, four orange ones, and two that had been shaped like tiny stars... suddenly, in her hunt for seashells, Solveiga discovered a set of footprints. Large ones, much larger than her own. She stopped in her tracks and looked around, a bit startled. What was she thinking, daydreaming and wandering about like this? Her brother would have been furious with her. He would have scolded her.

She missed that.

Just then her baby blue eyes landed on the stranger, sitting not twenty feet away. She swallowed nervously, but decided to approach him slowly. Perhaps he was friendly. And if not, she could always make a run for it. Solveiga was faster than a fox most days. "Hello?" she called out shyly, waiting for a response.