Vincent’s heart was racing.

He was used to facing some of the greatest threats in the world. He could tackle bandits, demons, dragons, dark gods...the list goes on. He could negotiate his way through a cut throat trade deal, he could talk his way out of anything. He was the Emperor of the Tarot Hierarchy, in charge of maintaining the order and balance of the world. Yet he’d met his match.

Rayleigh Aston in a swim suit.

He had to resist every urge to stare, opting to avoid looking in her direction unless absolutely necessary. This was easy given the premise of their “mission.” Part of Vince was kicking himself for not hammering out his lie a little more in advance. He had been expecting to be able to come up with it on the fly, like most of his plans. He hadn’t been expecting Ray to be such a…distraction. Her constant stream of questions about earth made it hard to focus as it was. Other “distractions” made it even harder for him to come up with a good lie. He felt like he was walking through a minefield, any one mistake could cause the whole mission to go up in smoke.

An errant caw of a seagull drew their gaze upwards as a small flock circled overhead gracefully for a moment, stopping their “mission” for a split second. “Reminds me of back on earth.” Vince muttered shaking his head. “Lil turds would try to steal your food if you weren’t careful…”

Ray let out a small chuckle as she walked past him, her gaze settling on the horizon scanning carefully for any caves. Her green eyes carefully scanned the shore looking for anything that could possibly referred to as a “cave” but as far as she could tell the beach was flat as far as the eye could see.

“Are you sure we’re in the right place?” she asked turning back to him. Vince pretended to ignore her question and glanced past her for a moment, chewing his lip as he let out an audible “Hrrrm.” The wind rustled his golden hair as his sapphire eyes twinkled. His arms folded across his bare chest as he glanced around. He’d also opted for beach attire, a simple pair of purple swim trunks and sandals.

“My reports said something about these caves along the shore.” He paused and rubbed his chin, doing his best to avoid staring at the mechanics legs. “Perhaps they’re further down? Around the bend of the island perhaps?” Ray huffed and stared down at the hot sand for a moment.

“Are we really going to walk all that way? That has to be a solid two hour walk!” She motioned to her feet which were already slightly red from the hot sand.

“We could go down to the water and walk where it’s cooler?” Vince asked cocking his head to the side. “Wed probably look the part a bit better if we strolled down the water hand in hand pretending we were enjoying the beach rather than looking for caves…”