He Sells Seashells

It was a nice-ish day.

The sky was clear, and the sea stretched out in front of him forever, crisp and blue as seagulls hung in the sky. On his lap was a sketchbook, with an open art box with various pencils and watercolors sitting innocently next to him. He kicked his feet slowly, staring into the far distance.

He'd come here to do some sketching, hoping to find some inspiration for his next sculpture piece, yet the sight of the clean skies, open and free and filling him with yearning left him thinking of home, thinking of the sweet memories of times past. Of elegant castles and learning with the men and women of the court. Spending time learning how to bow properly, and how to properly care for horses and battle regalia.

The sound of a boat coming him made him turn his head. It was a stark white boat, cutting through the waves as if it was air. It pulled up to the dock across the wharf, overhearing the sound of amiable chatter between the man and woman who climbed off of it. The man was tall while the woman was short, but laughing sweetly about a tale one of them had told to the other.

Cardamon found himself staring at the boat, admiring its shapes. Clearly expensive and new, he found his eyes sliding over its perfect whiteness.

A hand reached out and found his art box, picking out a pencil and sketching the boat, being sure to capture its curves and straight unyielding lines.

He would think of some way to incorporate this into his next sculpture.

@FoxalypticWorld

As he sketched, he could hear the sound of someone walking up behind him on the pier. He tried to ignore it. The slowness of their steps gave away that they were trying to sneak up on him, but the joke was on them. Cardamon was always alert to the point of madness when it came to things around him. Although, they were so comically bad at sneaking that it made him wonder if they were really trying in the first place.

Hearing their voice, he looked up from his work and turned to the feminine voice addressing him.

And that turned out to be a bad idea.

As soon as he looked at her, he could feel a blush rising to his cheeks. She was alluring in a way he couldn't quite describe. Usually for him it took a couple of weeks of hanging out before the seeds of crushing burgeoned under his skin for someone, yet this woman made it happen so much quicker.

Curse his sensitive emotional state.

Looking at her, he could see her emotional state at a glance. She had a colorful past to say the least, and an unpredictable personality. She was strange, enigmatic, a manic pixie dream girl if he'd ever seen one.

He pulled his sketchbook to his chest.

"I-I'm sorry, w-wha--?"

He realized what she was saying and violently shook his head. "No, no, no, I don't.... no, I don't.... do water."

Cardamon was.... confused with what was happening to say the very least. Looking at her had revealed her to be a bit of an eccentric, someone who could almost ping-pong between attentions and topics, yet she was doing it so well that he actually had trouble keeping up with her. He could practically see the moment she realized he was see-through and wondered what exactly it was that tipped her off. Had it been the sight of the birds flying behind him, mimicked perfectly on his skin like peering through an empty glass bottle. Thats what he was. That was how he looked.

"Can't swim?"

"Well, I guess in a manner of speaking..." His insides were somewhat hollow. There was enough air inside of him to make him buoyant. "I can float, like, chucking a bottle in the ocean. I just don't... I don't really.... like to.... not be on the ground, ya know?"

He watched as she reached out her hand until it left his field of vision. He'd seen enough people get intrigued by this to know that she was trying to see if she could see her hand behind his transluscent head. And she could. It was really weird too--the light playing on the contours of his face seemed to warp her hand, so that it looked like his features were directly placed on her palm.

Spooky.

When she mentioned "artist", he nodded. "Yeah, I'm more of a sculpture than a painter but I thought--"

She noticed he could blush. His face tinted redder, and he turned away from her. When she touched his face however, it seemed to be colder than the area around them. He covered his face and nose with the neck of his hoodie, as if to hide it from her.

"I'm.... made of glass?" He tried, as a response to her question.

Cardamon actually didn't mind being touched. It wasn't like he could feel it, at least, not in the traditional sense. He didn't exactly have nerves on his glassy skin, hard and see-through as it was. But he could basically tell when part of him was cracked or damaged, which was the closest thing he had to feeling pain. He could also tell when he was exposed. Like when Francesco pulled up his hoodie and looked through his stomach, thereby comparing him to a glass bottle.

"Oh, I don't really... feel temperatures." He said. It was not totally true. Normal atmospheric temperatures between 36 and 80 degrees he couldn't feel. But get any colder or any hotter than that, and he would start sensing the smallest twinges of heat. He once set his hand on a lit burner, and could only describe the sensation as 'a little toasty'.

And then....

The 'B' word.

God he hated that word. It turned him into a mess. His glass skin, already tinted pink from his earlier embarrassment only tinted deeper, until his body looked almost opaque with a shade of rosy red. "I'm not, seriously...."

Cardamon let out a low groan. Why did everyone think he was attractive? He was a weird little strange little odd litte thing made of glass and stress. The last thing he would call himself was cute, and yet this mind-bogglingly attractive girl thought he was cute.

When she described him as a glass doll, he felt the color drain from his face. A glass doll. He shuffled a little, staring at her before playing with the draw string of his hoodie.

"Oh, ya know.... I'm just your normal average every day guy..." He tried to laugh it off, but his voice was strained. "Just.... a little more see-through. Ahaha..."

When asked bat would happen when he was hurt, he took that opportunity to move on from this somewhat awkward topic. "Oh, no, if i crack a little, I'm cracked forever... but if I shatter, like, entirely into little tiny shards, I can reform."