Ever since the kiss Poppy was stuck thinking about Lys. He would cross her mind and she would get all annoyed at Belen having ruined the end of their nice day. That’s when it crossed her mind: it wasn’t kidnapping if the person was okay with it. Her red hair was as wild as the first day those two met. She was in a simple sundress as she made her way out into the city. It wouldn’t take too long to find Lys as Belen had a huge mouth. She ducked down into the bushes and waited as the trio rounded the corner.

Cyril and Belen were distracted by something long enough for Poppy to come out of the bush and put her hand across Lys’s mouth. She knew her scent would give herself away to Lys as she pulled him back down into the bush. She put a finger to her lips and smiled mischievously at him.

That was when a gate opened below them and dropped them down into the tropical climate of Laeto. A roaring waterfall was by them and not far was the basin that it flowed into. “Now that I have you to myself WITHOUT Belen…” She only spoke once the portal was closed. She got up and pulled Lysandre with her.

“Do you want to go swimming with me?”

A hand came from behind and clapped over his mouth, arm yanking him back away from the twins. They didn't even notice he wasn't behind them anymore. Recognizing it was Poppy, he kept quiet and ducked down behind cover until the two troublemakers were out of sight. "Poppy?" She motioned for him to stay quiet and grinned at him. The next moment he was flailing as they fell through a portal. They were in a jungle, but he had no idea how far they were from Sularia. "Poppy, where are we?" Unlike his sister, he wasn't familiar with different plants from around the world to guess. He could hear a waterfall within walking distance and the twitter of song birds up above them in the trees. It was warm, humid. Some plants were even in shades of orange and red.

Now away from the twins, there wouldn't be a particular brunet in question to stick his nosy self between them. Poppy helped him up as he smoothed his shirt. "Do you want to go swimming with me?" She asked. Swimming? So that's why she picked this spot by the waterfall. Without thinking much of it he said yes. "Sure!" Apparently he really hadn't expected what would happen next or else he would've chosen his words more carefully. He just expected to go for a dip with his trousers on and leave his shirt away on a branch.

"And so I was watching this guy, you know the type with the fancy hat and silly face-hair and curly ends? He was trying to make me buy his shtick of being this fortune-teller, see? So he took out these cards and told me to pick one without it facing up and he'd take out the card I chose. So I did and he turned up the same card. It was totally fishy anyway you cut it so I said I wanted to try again. This time I took a good look at the cards before choosing one, and picked a three of hearts. I put it back and he pulls a three of hearts and asks me if this was what I picked up. I tell him with a straight face no, that's not my card and he goes absolutely bananas–" While he was telling a fun story to his brother, he noticed Lys hadn't complained or questioned the credibility of his story. "Hey Lys, wanna hear how I pulled a fast one on this card-trick performer?" The twins looked behind and found he was gone. 

"Where's Lys?" Cyril asked. "Good question…" Rubbing his chin thoughtfully he looked around to see if he'd walked off in the middle of the story. Nope. Nada. Yep he was gone. But to where? And when did he disappear? Taking out a pendant, he hummed to himself as he held it and worked some magic. It swung around for a bit before pointing in a certain direction. "Ok, that's a wall. I'm going to assume he's beyond the wall or this thing is broken." Belen tried it in varying distances from the wall, to get the same results. Tapping a finger to his forehead, he got an idea. Traces of magic were in the air as he retraced their steps to the bushes. Bingo. Making some last-minute improvisation Belen opened a portal to the same location the magic was linking to. The muggy air made him frown, not wanting to go back to insect heaven again. But Belen's curiosity won out and the brothers followed their missing friend to the jungles of Laeto. Swatting bugs, he didn't have to look far when he heard a familiar voice. With a cheeky grin, he motioned for Cyril to come over as he crouched through the plants.

Poppy was laughing as he asked her. “We’re in the Laeto Rainforest. This place has the best waterfalls. My sisters Daphne and Corydalis live here! So once in a while, we got to come here and go swimming in the falls. It is the absolute best place to hang out, I promise.” Her words were full of confidence and charm as she looked at all the nature around them.

“Great! We can spend all afternoon here! I’m sure your mother wouldn’t mind at all!” Immediately Poppy started to undress and Lysandre looked like he was going to go into a panic attack.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!” He yelled at her.

Poppy batted those huge gray eyes at him. “Swimming. You can’t go swimming with your clothes on silly you’ll get sick. It’s not like I could kidnap you and have a spare set of clothes for you now could I?” She tilted her head at him as she dropped the rest of her clothes in a pool around her feet. “Besides… It’s just skin Lys. It’s not like we’re actually doing anything lewd.”

She rolled her eyes a bit and kissed his cheek before heading over the pool. “Now come on you big chicken,” she chuckled a bit as she dipped her foot into the basin. “It’s really cold.”

They had traveled more than a hundred miles in a single blink! Poppy seemed to know the best places no matter where they went, and she even had sisters this far out here. He was about to ask Poppy how it was like living in such a big family when SHE STARTED UNDRESSING IN FRONT OF HIM. Lys immediately began to panic and wasn't looking at her directly while his face was burning up. She answered back to his panicked question like this was completely normal, which IT WASN'T for him! He was still unwilling to look, more embarrassed than she was. The few times he went swimming were with the twins, mostly yelling at them to stop and come out of the water. He had rolled up his sleeves and pants to wade in, and dragged them out. None of them actually swam without something on.

She came over and kissed him on the cheek, making his face redden more. Reluctantly, he took off his shirt and hung it away from the ground so it would stay clean. He still had his pants but his shoes were off. Lys was waiting for her to be mostly submerged in the water before venturing past ankle-depth. Putting his foot in the water made him pull it right back. It was freezing! Taking a deep breath, he held it as he put both feet in and braved the chill. With the warmth in the air he expected it'd be at least lukewarm. The roar of the waterfall was drowning out most of the ambient noise, so he was completely unaware of two meddling boys who had tracked him down across the continent. 

Poppy kept her eyes off of Lysandre because of how uncomfortable he seemed to be. It was disheartened at the very least since to her it didn’t seem like that big of a deal. There wasn’t even her trademark eye roll because of how everything made her feel right at that moment.

“It’s a tad chilly Lys,” she finally found her voice as she watched him get into the water. “You get used to it though. At least her normally out of control red locks were covering her in the water. Once he was down into the water with her Poppy gave him her best smile. “It’s not so bad once you are all the way soaked I promise. Try going under the water… It will help.”

As if to do it with him she went over the water and swam a good few feet from him towards the fall in the deeper end of the basin. “It’s not like anyone will see us. If I didn’t want you to look I would tell you not to look.” Poppy shook her head as she lectured him. “Mother says that there is nothing wrong with nudity and everything wrong with the decisions made while nude.” There was a tilt of her wet haired head that had strands plastered to her face. Using her hand she at least made sure she could see straight.

“Besides I didn’t know where to take us where the twins wouldn’t come and I figured this would at least be relaxing…” She made her way back to him and waded there by him. “We haven’t had that much time to talk without interruptions too.”

Slowly, he braved the cold to sink into the water further. He almost missed Sularia's heat here. Holding his breath he tried Poppy's suggestion, ducking under. In seconds he came back up, sputtering and coughing while shaking. Water flew everywhere as Lys' teeth chattered, his blond hair straightened out and clung to his head. After a few minutes, it was starting to work. "I kind of regret not taking more time to learn magic now." He said with a shaky laugh. So much for his combat training. Antikythera's constant balmy temperature had spoiled him. He wasn't sure what to say to Poppy after that. His mother had ever spoken to him on nudity and neither did his father. It wasn't a topic that was even thought about.

But when she mentioned the two meddling troublemakers, he frowned again. "Don't bring them up; they're like a jinx–as soon as you think about them they show up." Oh if only he knew how on point his words were… What Poppy said was true though. "Right. It's hard enough trying to keep them in line, I don't get why Chrys goes along with them. She's smart enough to duck out before they get into trouble though. I haven't really spent much time in Sularia lately either, since my father began my combat lessons. The Ste-I mean Mrs. Kyrie insisted they had to be anywhere except Kurayo, so she built an extra wing as a training hall."

Lately he had overheard the twins' mother discussing something with his father. She was trying to convince him to leave the city, saying she felt it was too risky of a location. His father wasn't too keen on leaving, he had spent centuries creating a place for himself starting from the ground up. His mother told him once that his father was originally from Adeluna, but then moved across the continents to Kurayo. He wasn't sure what he could say about that. Kurayo was the one place he had heard where vampires were openly accepted, yet he was never allowed to visit the Albaret estate there.  

Poppy swam over to him careful that her hair covered her. She put his hair back so it stuck to the top of his head. “I suppose you are right. They have that knack about them. I will hush about it for now.” She let out a chuckle.

She tilted her head at him. “You’ll have to show me some things so I can protect myself a bit better. Even if I am a good shifter it doesn’t mean I am a good fighter. I don’t want to worry you if something happened.” And things were always happening lately. “Plus it would give us more of an excuse to be around each other. Maybe… More excuses for me to visit you or you to come to Elysia… or even Sularia.” The redhead smirked.

“What do you think Lys? Do you want to be the teacher for once?” The way she was batting those stormy eyes of hers were almost too perfect. She took his hands up and looked up at the top of the waterfall. “Do you want to take an adventure with me Lys?”

The red in his ears was starting to fade, and he nodded. Unbeknownst to Lys a certain pair of meddling twins were watching through the ferns and vines; the roar of rushing water conveniently drowned out anything less than a whisper leaving Cyril and Belen to guess. When Poppy asked if he could give her a few pointers on protecting herself, his face brightened up. “I can do that. If there’s something you’d like to know, I’ll be happy to show you. I think you’ll be a quick learner—I remember how you and Lark would go at each other when we were kids.” The last bit had him grinning. Any excuse for them to see each other more was a good one. “Speaking of visiting, I think I heard Belen and Cyril’s mother attempting to convince father to move from Kurayo.” Shiloh’s attempts had been unsuccessful; however it would only be a matter of time before she wore him down. Even the centuries-old vampire didn't last long when it came to the deity's unbridled and sometimes forceful persistence.

The way she batted her eyes at him made him glance down with a small smile. Even though the years had gone by, there was still that bit of shyness from that little curly-haired boy from back then. “I don’t know how good of a teacher I am, but I’ll do my best.” She then took his hands in hers and looked at him, asking: “Do you want to take an adventure with me Lys?” Surprised, without a second thought he replied. “Really? I mean—sure!” His head was swimming with thoughts to where he hadn’t realized he should have asked what Poppy was planning before he said yes.

Back in the trees, Belen was squinting his eyes trying to see if he could read their lips. He hadn't picked up much from the conversation and his vivid imagination was running a hundred different scenarios in his head. The two had started swimming, with Poppy teasing Lys a bit to get him in the water. It was cute how she was smiling at him and all, but Lys being…himself was making things go slower than molasses. With his brother next to him in watchful silence, Belen was wondering if he should give the lovebirds a little 'push'. Fortunately for them, Poppy was first to make a move. "Hey Bel, what's going–" The brunet shushed his twin and motioned for him to watch. With a cheeky grin on his face, Belen watched as Poppy took Lys by the hands and whispered something. Reading Lys' expressions were easy, and he was totally blushing while saying yes. Things were getting good.

“Kurayo is dangerous. I heard that some of my sisters are there. One is a powerful clan leader and the other… is…” Poppy paused for a moment. “As mother put it… A woman of the night. Whatever that is.”

She thought about it and kissed his cheek quickly. “I’m sure you’ll be the best teacher there is. Perfect for me!” Poppy was a good learner just like he said. Magic came easily for her but she wondered if combat training would come just as easily. After all, her mother was a healer and not a fighter.

Once she had his hands and he said yes that was all there was. She pulled him to the shore and brought him around the giant fall. They had gone up and it was mildly flat up top. “Are you ready?” She held his hand tightly.

She didn’t give him much time to think about it as she pulled him into a sprint. “Lys, TRY NOT TO LOOK DOWN.” Over the falls they went as she squealed with excitement. They hit the water and she was under him. She swam up with him and held onto him. “Wasn’t that fun Lys? I love being up high.” The waterfall was falling on Poppy but it only made her hair stick to her more.