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Ginseku strolled casually, taking thoughtful glances at each plant. They all resembled things present on Earth. They even had Cacti.
"Wow. Austin would love this place. I wonder where he wandered off to?"
He took a seat at a bench seated in front of the small lily pond, and lifted Austin's trunk. Ginseku always wondered what Austin brought with him on these occasions that needed this secret-slot suitcase. He lifted out the first base, with the clothes and iron boxes, and set it aside. He took a slow glance at the lock Austin had placed on the latch.
"Ha. Weak lock~"
Ginseku twisted it off with no apprent effort, and tossed it aside. When he lifted the flap, he understood.
There were bottles of Disaronno, White Zinfandel, a few cases of Tequila, and a couple of Budweisers thrown in for good measure. Ginseku grabbed one of the latter, and was surprised that it was still Icy. He glanced at the bottom.
"Clever guy."
Austin had taken a marker and placed an ice-seal on the bottom of the can, so it retained cold. He sealed up the case, and placed a twig through the latch where the lock had been. He replaced the first base with Austin's clothes, and sealed up his suitcase. He cracked open the can, and took a long sip of his drink, leaning back in his bench. It was pretty sunny out here, but the sun had a darker hue of orange, he felt.

Joy slowly walked into the palace's gardens, dragging her luggage behind her. She was streaked with dust and sweat was pouring down her face. After a long hike, Joy had finally arrived to the nearest palace, or more specifically, their gardens. Joy stalked up to the nearest fountain and plopped herself down on it's rim. One by one her boots came off to be unceremoniously dumped on the ground. Then she rolled up her dirty cargo pants.

Once her panting had died down a bit, Joy pivoted herself and put her overheated bare feet into the fountain. She supposed it was quite a rude thing to do, but she was more afraid of suffering from heat stroke at the moment.

When her body temperature had cooled down and her heartbeat had slowed down to a more normal rate, Joy dove into one of her food packages. As fruit they were well endowed with water and she was on the verge of dehydration.

Eventually Joy threw all propriety to the wind and stripped down to her sports bra and black cotton panties and submerged herself in the fountain. Ahh.. much better. Her mind was well distracted from the crash site of her mother's jet where it had dwelt the entire hike to the palace. Joy relaxed. A couple more minutes and then I'll bring the food to the palace...

Joy poked her head out of the water, her dark hard fanning about her on the surface. Someone had spoken to her. After a quick glance about, Joy located the speaker. She stood up in the fountain, water running over her exposed skin in rivulets, escaping the pull of gravity. "Huh?"

Even her own voice sounded blurry to her. "One sec." Joy tipper her head to one side, banging her palm against the other side, trying to dislodge the water from her ear canal. When she could hear once again, the girl stepped out of the water carefully, avoiding any prickly plants, and made a grab for her clothes. She looked at them in distaste. Once again she was clean and Joy was loathe to clothe herself in fabric laced with an unhealthy heap of dirt.

"Whaddya say? I had water stuck in my ears." She looked at the newcomer curiously while she squeegeed the water off her pale body. Joy was a tad concerned that she'd get a sunburn out here on planet Kasyune so she had been messing with the light waves as soon as she ejected out of the jet. No radiation would get past her invisible shield so even standing half-naked, sluiced with water in the harsh sun no longer worried her.

Joy raised a perfectly arched eyebrow. "Well," she replied, "I suppose I'd get sick, now, wouldn't I?" Personally she thought it was a stupid question. What was life without a bit of risk? And besides, she had grown up in the desert. Well, really in a large jungle-like oasis in the desert, but she had grown up in one nevertheless. Perhaps her attitude would seem stupid and idiotic to him, but Joy had just trekked a rather extravagant length and a few questionable plants would not stop her from a good bath.

"I can dust these off if you'd like. It's kinda dusty out here, I've noticed." When she heard the man's proposition, Joy's expression quickly turned from nonchalant to rather mischievous. A smirk painted itself on her baby-ish face and her sapphire eyes twinkled with mirth. Exposing herself had never been an issue for her, not growing up in conditions where anything more than a bikini made you sweat, but he seemed to be embarrassed.

The girl's natural sassy nature sparked to life as she launched the pile of dirty laundry at him with a flick of the wrist. "As you wish." Truthfully she didn't care whether they were cleaned or not. A benefit of her genetic makeup was the ability to change her appearance on demand. However, for the sake of teasing this slightly embarrassed man, she had no plans to redress herself.

"What's your name?" she said curtly. In true pretentious fashion, Joy didn't offer hers in return. She was busy enjoying the feel of the intense sun as it slowly evaporated the dewdrops adorning her milky skin and warming her pitch hair.

"Austin, huh?" She paused for a few moments, twirling the name around in her head. She finally realized he was waiting for her name too. "Mine's Joy."

Her eyes were quickly captured by the cyclone he had going. So he was a wind manipulator perhaps? Interesting. More interesting was the vibrations emanation from the disturbance in the air, buffeting her with an entirely different kind of wind.

Joy set her feet carefully in order to balance her body better. It was a completely useless thing to do. The vibrations couldn't knock her over, but they felt as if they could, so it was more to mentally assure herself she wouldn't fall over than to actually prevent. It was like hearing voices in your head. Covering your ears did nothing, but it was soothing to do regardless.

Once her clothes had been cleaned thoroughly, Joy reached out a hand and plucked them from the air. "Thank you" she said briefly and in a slightly dismissive manner before administering them to a dirtying task. The rainbow was completely disregarded.

Joy flipped her hair over her face, bent over at the waist and began toweling off her waist-length hair with her now clean garments. Once her hair was excessively mussed and tangled she stood once again before vanishing her damp clothes.

After a fine white mist clouded around her for a few seconds her transformation was complete. Her hair was now slightly wavy, like what happens when you've been on the beach all day, and she was clad in a sky blue bikini top and a pair of cut-off denim short shorts as well as a pair of simple black flip flops. Her old clothes and combat boots were nowhere to be seen.

Joy sauntered over to where she had left her food packages and scooped them into her now dry arms. "I don't suppose you know where the dining hall is?" she asked, "I really should drop these off."

"Oh?" Joy contemplated Austin for a few moments before speaking once again. "Hmm. I see. Perhaps I should have read those pamphlets." With a shrug of her shoulders she began to walk towards the entrance to the Day Palace before turning and looking at him once again.

"Do you happen to know where this Royal Palace is? Or how to get there? Apparently I missed a lot coming here on my own ship rather than the school. I suppose being stuck with a bunch of your peers and teachers has its uses after all."

Joy was a bit annoyed that she would have to return home with them and reveal her utter failure to her mother. Mostly, though, she was annoyed at how little she knew about this place. She had never been much of a planner, preferring to do everything on the fly and improvise, but here she was extremely disoriented.

She walked towards Austin and stopped just short of his personal space. Joy flipped her dark hair over her shoulder and regarded him in such a way that almost seemed hostile but was really just impatient. Her foot would have been tapping if it wasn't busy holding all her increased weight and dealing with the new gravity of this planet. Well hey, at least she could claim that she hadn't been skimping on her training while she was off-planet!

"Oh, I see. Well I suppose I'll just have to improvise." With this, Joy set off, completely disregarding Austin. Her flip flops made small noises as they hit the flagstones, and then made a different resonance as she stepped into the palace to go search for a way to get to the Royal Palace.

Can't wait to get these dead weights off my hands. Not to mention avoid the temptation of eating them. I've already had too many. I wonder if they have an exercise room? I'm going to need it after these meals...