“Relinquish your sword”! I shout, my own sword right above his head. “Or I can finish you off right here right now and burry you with the old forgotten merchant of yesteryear”! “Ok ok I surrender”! He yells back, dripping to his knees, letting go of his sword in the process. I smile victoriously: “There was that so hard”? As the conflict draws to a close, I pick up my opponents sword before he can launch a surprise counterattack, a look of concern flashes across his face as I do so: “Don’t worry, I won’t harm you, as long as you stay there until I’m far far out of your sight, got it”? He nods rapidly. I shoot him a haughty grin as I scamper back to my awaiting crew.

“The struggle is over men”! Yell as I approach headquarters, both swords raised in triumph: “The battle is won”! The crew erupted in thunderous cheers “Where’s the brute’s head”? One of them asks: “I’m sure it’ll make a glorious trophy”! “I decided to spare the week-willed mail”. I reply as they all look at me in confusion: “But rest assured I gave the shrivelled swine such a severe battering he won’t think of coming after us or our troops again, plus I hired some men with great skill to raid his village and loot all of his servants, possessions and weapons, this was also his last remaining sword”! I reassure, waving the defeated squire’s sword around proudly. The men once more erupted in a cacophony of cheers: “This calls for celebration”! Another man announces before placing a gold medal laden with silk around my neck, grabbing a beer from inside one of the huts and toasting: “To Sir Jack Payerd for conquering over our rivals, crushing them into the concrete and bringing back the booty, which I’m sure is bound to be plentiful”. The crowd around us laughs: “This has been a slippery slope to victory men, but we got there in the end, cheers”! The crowd echos his sentiment and a ring of applause is heard around the field.

I allow the day’s events to wash over me as I settle in for the night, a hefty supply of brandy by my bed for medical purposes only of course. After all the trouble caused by our feckless enemies, it will be so nice to finally have a decent night sleep.

The words given to me were: beach, trees, tan, rain, Wednesday, green, prince, answer, find, king.

“Well, so much for that tan.” I sighed as my boyfriend and I packed up our beach gear and shivered in the sudden torrential rain.

“I guess that’s the answer to our question of ‘why is nobody else at the beach?’” He said as he shook the sand out of a towel. “Everyone’s clearly got a secret, superior weather app that they’re not telling us about.”

I laughed. “That’s probably exactly what it is. I just thought, because it was a Wednesday…” I trailed off, my disappointment at the change of plans suddenly tiring me out.

“Hey, don’t be bummed.” He smiled, gently punching my arm. “We’ve still got a whole day ahead of us.”

“Yeah, but we’re both sandy and cold.” I pointed out with a tired smile. “Only so much we can do. And I took a day off for this….” I grimaced.

“Cheer up.” He grabbed my shoulders and smiled at me. “Hey. I love you.”

“I love you too.” I smiled back. “Alright, yeah, I’ll try and cheer up.”

“Sweet! Now, I think we’ve got - holy shit!” He exclaimed, staring off into the land behind me.

“What? What is it?” I asked, whipping my head around as he let go of me and zoomed off into the trees.

“Babe!” I called out after him, abandoning our items to follow behind. “What did you see?”

“Hold on! One sec!” He said through the brush, crouched on the ground. “I found something!”

“What did you find?” I asked, having finally caught up to him.

“A friend!” He exclaimed gleefully as he spun around, holding a big green frog in his hands.

I started laughing. “Holy - babe.”

“Yeah?” He asked, grinning from ear to ear.

“You’re a dork.” I told him, grinning back.

“Well, duh. It’s my greatest trait.”

“It’s definitely up there.” I smiled, leaning in and pecking him on the cheek.

“You think I should kiss him?” He asked.

“What? No!”

“But I could be a prince!” He said, dramatically pouting.

“Yeah, a hospitalized prince.” I leaned in and kissed him again. “Come home with me, and I’ll make you feel like a king.” I told him.

“Oh, you do tempt me.” He sighed, crouching down before releasing the frog. “Go on, little guy, live your best life.”

I smiled and held my hand out to him. “Homeward bound?”

“Homeward bound.” He agreed as he took my hand. We walked to the car together, the rain being less troublesome now that I was smiling.

It was only after we had gotten into the car and buckled up that we both paused and looked at each other.

“We forgot our stuff on the beach.”