Meeting New Friends

Ever just feel like you need to get out and find someone who doesn’t look at you like you killed their best friend and then did a crazy stomping hoot hollering dance on his grave at the funeral? Well I have.

Sometimes it’s just good to go meet new people. Now I’ll share with you a secret place I know of to meet new faces. It’s fabulous, exclusive, and the view is great. Airships. Yep, you heard me right. It’s perfect. You have a captive audience and they generally are not busy since there is nothing to do but stare over the edge. Well, a few of them jump over the edge but they have their own issues and it’s wise to not look them in the eye.

I boarded an airship back home to Sandy one sunny afternoon with the need to be distracted from my thoughts. Walking into the main cabin and started scanning the crowd. Considering the crowd consisted of me and one other man it didn’t take me long to spot the hottie and decide he would be my next victim, I mean umm… friend.

A hansom Elvaan, tall but not so tall it hurts your neck to look up at him. He had neatly combed blond hair that came down a little over his warm thoughtful eyes. All decked out in crafters gear including a very flattering pair of glasses, he definitely looked like a man who was not afraid to get his hands dirty. Mom would love to know I was flirting with someone who clearly spent a lot of time in Sandy crafting for a living.

I smiled and waited. He looked down at me standing in front of him and smiled warmly back at me without a word. I was so in. I checked his bazaar comment and my heart sank. It was all in Japanese. All the Japanese I knew was what was in my translation book of short phrases for communicating with fellow adventurers.

There are two official languages in Vana’diel, English and Japanese. Sadly I only know one of them. I blame my mother.

Anyways, I decided this was not going to stop me today. I was determined to meet someone on this trip and he was my man even if he only entertained me for the ride until we ran out of things to say to each other with our phrase books.

Actually you can get a lot said with gestures and short phrases and I had a blast laying it on thick with the smiling, dancing about, and seductive grinning and winking. It wasn’t until we arrived at our destination and I winked and waved goodbye that he spoke plainly.

“So we are only going to play charades and go our separate ways?” he asked.

“I didn’t know you spoke English.” I said with a shocked expression on my face. “Your bazaar comment is all in Japanese I just assumed....”

He looked at me and laughed. “You didn’t ask. I speak both reasonably well. I’m sorry to mislead you. My name is Kiraa, it is a pleasure to meet you.” He said with a bow.

I blushed in embarrassment. I really had acted like a monkey on a sugar high. Now I felt rather silly. Now that I think of it, I embarrass myself a lot so I shouldn’t have been so surprised.

Somehow we clicked and I became close friends with this gentle man. Or maybe I became his stalker and he was too kind to tell me to go away, either way a very beneficial day. Enjoyed a lovely airship ride and gained a very intelligent soft spoken new friend. I found him completely fascinating. He was much more experienced than me and I wanted to learn everything I could from him. He is unlike anyone else I have ever met and I treasure his friendship.

So, next time you feel like you need a fresh face to talk to, put down the warp cudgel and take a nice relaxing airship ride. You never know who you’ll meet when you’re brave enough to just say hello.