Hier kenn' ich mich aus

Carefully she stepped on the small rocks sticking out of the water. She wasn't afraid of falling and hurting herself so much as causing the pages of her book to be rinkled by the water of the ocean, or rather more so than they would from just the salt in the air. Still it was nice that day, while the waters were still fridged the sun was ferce, the thermometer outside of her window was reading 19 already and the day had hardly begun. She steadied herself with a hand traced along the wall of a sheer cliff side that seeming rose out of no where and would quickly decend, but would first give her her own private beach that would be completely cut off from others while the tide came in. It was a glorious little place only a dozen metres across and when the tide was in a scant three metres deep, she was thankful every day that she found it.

The wind wipped at her back, nearly pushing her into the water but she managed to catch herself, slowly continuing on, her hair all the while beeing whipped back and forth in her face, while she chould feel the wrap she was wearing to keep the lecherious gazes of the boys of the amazingly young population of this island from being able to peer to deeply into her. Every so often she glanced back to where she had come from, afraid that someone may have spotted her, giving away her secret place, but she hadn't felt anything and hadn't seen anyone, still though she had left her shoes near a stand of trees near the shore, and that alone could give her and her place away if she was unlucky.

As she came to a bend in the rock her destination suddenly came into view and it was as deserted and tranquil as she could have hoped it would be. She picked up her pace wanting to be there, and in her excitement she lost her footing on a rock that had been percariously balanced on a couple of others, and she simply slid into the still fridged waters of the Pacific. The chill went up her spine as she stood now waste deep in the water, now making her way much quicker than before for the shore. As she got out of the water she turned back to take in the view, and she was greeted with an iceberg on the horizon silently making its way south. Streching out her arms happy to be at this special place a new gust of wind came from behind her snatching the book from her hand and taking it out to sea. She moved to chase after it, but in just a few moments it was already too far out for her to swim with any chance of getting it back in one piece.

Letting out a little sigh at the loss of the book that could at this point no longer be helped by her. Showly she undid the knot that held the wrap to her waste and let the soaking wet fabric tumble to the ground. She gave a little spin on her heels and let herself fall into the sun's warm light, if she was lucky she'd get a tan that would last for a couple of hours before fading, maybe even a full day if she was careful. With that she just closed her eyes listening to the waves, letting them rince her soul clean.

The black sand of the small filled Agnés' entire body with warmth while the raident sun shone down on her. She could feel her concousness slipping away slowly with each break of the wave on the shore. She was completely unaware of the other woman's aproach. She scruched up for face as the woman blocked her sun. Her eyes half opened as she heard the womans voice. She peered up at what seemed to be herself, her skin seemed to be a slightly odd colour, but close enough to her own, and her hair was longer than hers and perhaps a shade and a half brighter. Her face was mostly obscured by the halo of the sun behind her. Though it seemed to Agnés that her eye shadow was actually glowing. Still the question of why she had a duppleganger was doing there.

"My book?" Agnés asked back to the woman. Slowly she sat up rubbing the sleep from her vision. She looked over to what was endead her book as the other woman slowly opened it in the middle she watched as the spine of it simply split apart seemingly of its own accord. "Well it was." Her voice was chipper and she wore a smile that almost stretched from ear to ear. She had considered the book lost already, but this was just another cruel joke played on her by the universe, like so many others. Still she didn't need this woman to be upset, she didn't need to feel someone else's sorrow on such a nice day. Then the true horror of what had just happened occured to her, this woman knew about her hidden cove, as small as it was she couldn't help but be struck with a wave of fear that she may tell more than enough people to fill this little place, driving her away. Her smile wavered for a moment but she tried her best to keep her smile up. "Oh, don't worry about the book, these things happen, and I go through a ton anyways." She gave a shrug hoping to show that it wasn't any real loss. She continued to peer up at this seeming duppleganger that had appeared.

She looked around when the woman suggested patting the book dry, all that she had with her was a short wrap that was currently slopping wet. She just listened as the woman spoke, but she could feel a slow trickle of sadness coming from her, and Agnés wanted to cry over the loss of some slock fiction book that she would probably forget over the next month. "You're too kind though, you really don't need to go to so much effort." She sat up propperly, crossing her legs as she felt the waves of the ocean already rising to greet her extended toes, though keeping her gaze squarely focused on the other woman, whom she had decided was not her doppelganger.

Her back went ridged as the mention of passing by the swarms of people on the beach to get to this house. So many people out there were hiding their fears and pain under a such a thin venear that even when they seemed happiest Agnes was still clearly aware of the pain in the crowd. The fear of a lost child, the scorn of a angered girlfriend when a gaze lingered for just too long, for her, a beach was a true hell scape. "Please you've done so much for me, there's really no need to go to so much trouble." She wore her best smile, but just as the people on the beach had a thin venear hiding their dread, agnst and sorrow she had an equilly thin one now hiding her aprehension at suffering through them.


"To this cove?" She repeated thankful for the question. "No I'd only discovered it a week ago when I was walking along the edge of the cliffs." She pointed up to the spot where she had realized that this virgin beach existed. "Have you come here much? Do alot of other people know of its existance?" She feared that the answer would be yes and she had only gotten a scant day in for herself.

She grabbed the woman's hand and gave her a gentle tug. "It's so nice here, why don't you join me? We can have this little beach just to us girls, doesn't that sound nice? Not having the lecherious eyes on us, just being able to relax on the warm sand?" She gave her a smile, the first real one that she had shown this woman. "My name is Agnés, Agnés Côté, what's yours? I bet it is something really pretty to match you." Again she gave a small tug on Nerina's hand.

Agnés' heart felt light as the last bit of sadness fade away from Nerina. "Of course you can. Yes, it's a promise, enjoy the book." She had something of a library back home. People in books were safe, they would always tell you what they wanted, there was never any anger when they realized you knew something you were supposed to, book contained equal parts joy and sorrow, unlike real life, which to her the sorrow of people was never ending, but the joys so hard to find even the smallest of nuggets.

She felt a wave of relief wash over her as Nerina explained that she was the only one that knew of the place. That was good, she wouldn't have to find a new place to relax. It seemed that this was the only woman she'd meet here.

Agnés watched as Nerina suddenly supline on the sand beside her. Her mouth was agape as she realized just what Nerina was asking her, and then a devious idea wormed its way into her mind. In a moment Agnés was ontop of Nerina, her face only a dozen or so centimetres away from Nerina's "Would you like me to show you?" She stroked the woman's cheek as she asked, doing her best to wear a letcherous look, but it only lasted for a few moments before her mask cracked and she rolled off of Nerina. "I'm sorry." She was laughing now. "I just couldn't resist." She was on her side looking at Nerina. "But ah, in all seriousness, the main characters in that book are pretty good examples." Carefully she picked up the front half of the book, and pointed to the topless man who seemed to be wearing leather pants. "People like this are letches. And they are not to be trusted."

She put the book half back on to the sand and streched out. "Can I ask, just why you need to know?" Though part of her wanted to ask just how such a lovely woman had managed to not run into any letches. The big city for her growing up was onlny thirty-five thousand people, but she still had plenty of teen boys hitting on her constantly. Perhaps this woman was an angel and she'd come from heaven Agnés mused.

As Agnés felt the sudden fear and panic from Nerina she wanted to burry her head in the sand. What the hell had she been thinking. She didn't know this woman, what if something horrid had happened to her in the past, had someone done something to her. When when Nerina replied to Agnés' own laugh she let out a sigh of relief, she didnt ask it wasn't her place.

The question did linger in her mind how this woman had gone so long without knowing the proper word, unless she was like Agnés and English wasn't her first language. Agnés probably only knew the word for the last year, but in French she probably knew the word since she was six or seven.

As she watched the other woman a question did come burning into Agnés mind. “What were you doing swimming today? I was only in there for a few moments but it was freezing. Actually.” She sat up and looked out towards the ocean, and she spotted what she was looking for nearly immediatly. “Yea, there's an iceberg out there. Didn't you find it a little bit on the cold side?” She felt a slight chill as a wave brough some water over her toes for a moment and then receded back, though the tide was still coming in.

As she looked down at the Nerina, Agnés was struck with how lovely she truely did look, and just how exotic her makeup was. “Um, can I ask, just how do you get your make-up to look like that? It's really lovely.” She gave a smile, she was afraid that Nerina might misread her comments as being catty when they were asked with all honesty.