INT - Pool at Khymeia Academy; afternoon-evening
Minnow is surrounded by students of all ages, the pool floor littered with coins and soaked through notebooks. Pant legs were rolled up and they were all just laughing and talking, the little mermaid sitting on the bottom of the pool, holding onto the foot of one taller boy as she listens to their chatter. Tales about the school, the teachers, the latest crushes. She couldn't understand most of it, but she was learning so much despite not having the context. She flips carefully through a waterlogged book, pale eyes flicking hungrily over the pictures, ink smudged and deformed, it was still more of the world than she had ever seen before sitting on the edge of the pool and talking*
Dorian had come to give the floating academy a small honorarium as thanks for the use of duel grounds, and to deliver some of his own correspondence. To spy on his twin while she worked, and maybe loiter until she was ready to head home. He'd strayed toward the gymnasium area with it's pool, a place he remembered fondly from having scouted the grounds. He fit in, lookswise, given he was certainly a young looking man, carried himself with the pomp and surety of youth. Too much self-possession perhaps, if one studied him closely. He strolled through the people here and there, with a small leather satchel in one hand. He'd stride through the doors and look around the pool, with a grin at how much it made him want one at home. His very next thought was what always followed, so near the sea it would be insane to build such a place. Rich people weren't only always impractical. He'd cast his silvery eyes around and catch what was at the center of attention. Past the veil he was not just an athletic fair skinned Englishman, but with his glamour intact, he was still the guy who'd beaten a man to a serpent-shaped pulp.
A few murmurs would follow that realization at the person or two who noticed him. But he'd pay them no notice, as there was a woman with a bright fin reading a book under water. He'd make his way to the poolside at a clear spot and crouch to stare at her. As a one-time sailor, how could he not?
Minnow looked up as the foot she was holding lifted. The unease between the children growing through whispers several of them had decided to leave. She startles, the sun hadn't gone down yet, it wasn't time for her to be alone. The students had realized how much she hated it and had promised her to visit as much as they could. She had been quite content as they had brought many things for her to study and play with. Her hand presses against the side of the pool as she watches them file out like they had planned to leave in the first place. She flashes them an uncertain smile and a small wave settling down on the floor of the pool once more. The shifting shadows above her drawing her eyes to the man she had never seen before, still lingering at the edge of the pool. Curious, she draws closer, hovering just underneath the surface of the water, as if that silvery barrier was the only thing keeping her real. She searches his face with those pale eyes, her smile tentative, the soft whisper of a ~hello~ shifting up from the base of his skull, until her mental voice was recognized by his waking mind. ~Are you new?~
Dorian watched the children go, filing away from a monster such as himself as they should. He didn't consciously think of it that way, but it did resonate to him on some underlying level. As the merwoman came nearer to him, then spoke to him, silently, he'd shake his golden head and canted it like a buck listening to distant twigs snapping in the wind. What he heard with his ears was water and the retreating footfalls of students. It was uncommon for him to use his inner voice with anyone outside of family, but he had one. It sounded like the urbane tenor of his outward voice, as he floundered for a response, /New? No, not really. I am Dorian. New how? Are you from the sea? Are you... captive?/
The questions and thoughts came with images, maybe some that betrayed that he was far older than he looked. There had been no way he could consider himself new. He'd been on the earth for centuries. And for most of them, he'd considered himself born to protect, preserve, to help.
Minnow smiles up at him kindly as he speaks to her in a way she was most comfortable. It was so difficult to communicate when one's voice was a tangible thing when exposed to air. The soft intangibles he offered her through the flashes of his surface thoughts were far sweeter offerings than any of those scattered here among her current domain. She shakes her head, silken strands of oil black hair float around her face, cut through by a shock of white, shifting as she did. She was beauty and grace, and all the things the sailors warned you about. She sends him a vision, the light in her home deep enough it was filtered into hues of dark blues and greens, the caverns where here people thrived overlooking a vast black abyss. That emptiness came with terror, but also with exhilaration. The vision shifts to her hunting team diving into the depths, their pale eyes made to harness the nearly pitch black space that they descend into. She has her spear and her nets, the abyss teaming with life it was the perfect hunting ground. Joy, excitement, laughter as she is with her beloveds... then terror as a shadow, larger than she had ever seen, rolls beneath them. The darkness heaves, sending the squad spinning through the water, back up towards the caverns. The vision shifts to her swimming hard back to the caverns, the warning pulse, a sonic ping she made to warn of danger screaming through the water enough to distort it. Fear, the water heaving again, hitting her hard. When she awakes, she was here, lost and confused, and before she could get her head on her shoulders something with lots of tentacles chased her up onto the beach, tearing her flesh and leaving her wounded and helpless. The vision shifts to the pool, the simple word ~safe~ like velvet across his senses.
Dorian responded to her outpouring of thoughts with receptiveness. It was not an uncommon means of communication for him, though it had heretofore not been open and shared thus with someone strange to him, unless he was using it like a blunt force weapon in conjunction with actual force. His capacity exceeded his finesse, but that only meant that listening kept him unblinkingly staring, sometimes blindly seeing what was in his mind though his eyes focused on her fluid motion below the surface. His first response past riding the waves of her recollected feelings, was one of recognition of the sort of outsized tentacled horror, one that was only loosely bound to fear in his mind. This revelation perhaps terrified him, but only so far as it was not inconceivable. He had strange dreams. He had a very strange twin with inscrutable gods. A thought began to take shape in the rear of his mind, but the ones he had context for came to the fore instead, forming loose questions, /You are a siren? Do you sing? Do you worship the elder gods?/
Elder gods was how he considered what had shaken her azure form into this unimagined safe haven. As to the concept of music he'd call to thought the experience of hearing his sisters or brother sing in a room he'd passed. Or a housekeeper in another room. He'd offer in his flurry of thoughts presented, /I am a man, a sailor. Heard of you, but did not know you were./ Then came visions of seas all around the globe. Some of the brightest and favored ones of Micronesia or the Arctic that had been part of his time in the discovery service.
Minnow reaches up, webbed hand breaking the surface as she draws herself closer, her hair curling in rivers against her skin, soft scales would flash iridescent once she was out of the water, catching the droplets in small rainbows upon her skin. She blinks at his questions, then nods slowly. ~Great Abyssal and Silver Goddess~ were just a few of her gods, though she knows not if that were the elder gods he was thinking of, she couldn't imagine who else might fit that description. ~Big gods, sleeping gods.~ again, that vision of that dark rolling shadow, far larger than anything she had seen before, writhing darkness within the inky depths. She flashes him a grin, water spilling from her lips as her gills flared, laughter as he mentions he was a sailor. She shook her head. ~Warm water cousins. Very pretty, very weak.~ she scrunches her nose, almost cutely, ~Abyssal Caverns, deep, cold, dark. Many types of mer, yes. Only strong warm water mer make trip.~ she rests her head on her arms, looking up at him. Once the gills at her throat were no longer submerged, the ones at her ribs flare, keeping her breathing.
Dorian seemed to agree about sleeping elder gods even if her names for them were ungraspable. He could see her more clearly out of water, but her visage was no less mythic, no less watery. That was not his realm, it was his twin's, that and the cosmic ocean, but it didn't render him any less curious. He had ventured, free diving to deep places to him, but that was surely nothing to this cobaltescent finned person before his eyes. He could show her that he'd seen wavering kelp of many colours, glittering rifts where aether was mined. He could show her the view of endless ocean from the deck of a tallship. The way the arctic and tropical atoll waters were both a moonstone green from the surface. As he found his way to words after, he'd tell her, now that she was aloft, speaking with his vocal cords, "You are a breathtakingly stunning mermaid. I can see why Odysseus had to blindfold himself."
He kind of wanted to see if she could hear him use his voice rather than his mind. The very moment after he said it though he'd push the same thought through as neurally projected and silently. In his twin voice.
Minnow rumbles deep in her chest, almost a purr if such things came from deep below the surface, as he shows her all the sights he had seen, her laughter filled with bubbles. She looks up at him as he speaks, the soft membrane slicking across her eye to keep it wet. She offers him a smile and kicks with her muscled tail, pushing herself up to sit on the side of the pool with him. Water would pour from her lower gills as her lungs drain, her hand reaching slowly for his cheek, and if allowed, her cool skin would touch his. "Perhaps." she whispers, and the first sounds of that voice would be like silk across the skin, dulcet tones filled with power enough to mesmerize, to entrance. "But men do not fear us because of our beauty." she smiled, and it was so innocent it would be as if an aquatic angel had slipped up from the deepest dark to settle next to him. "But because of our voice." the sound a caress in itself, soothing, strange, almost dual tone quality to it. This was a voice made to draw sailors to their deaths, and oh... she did her job well. She doesn't seem to notice, blushing instead at his words. Instead of responding she would point instead to a waterlogged book at the bottom of the pool, The Little Mermaid.
Dorian reached out a dry hand for hers, just an upturned palm venturing to prove it was real with another sense. His right hand was bedecked with rings on three fingers, trophies taken from men who'd sought his sister in marriage, reminders of what he'd done and what he'd need to do as the unstoppable march of time wound on. He had not even realized her true voice had been part of what drew him to want to touch her, or that his mouth had fallen ajar hearing it. Only that he replied, mentally once more, /Blimey, I wonder if she is cold or warm somehow? Or if she is somehow neither.../ Directed thoughts were not part of his mental equation, he was following the draw of vast beauty of the deep and the unknown, which was a deadly call to any sailor.
Minnow took note of the rings, not having context, but with the golden chains that draped her torso it was clear she enjoyed beautifying jewelry. Her eyes sparkle with delight seeing his mouth fall open. Her laughter was just as intoxicating as her voice, only at louder decibels, which made it far more intense a sensation. That heavy tail curls in the water as she hears his surface thoughts, and she cocks her head, turning her hand to claim his, she would try and draw his hand down to her chest, the chains chilled upon her skin. The scales of her flesh less like a fish, far softer, like a snakes. She moves bonelessly, as if her joints were far more flexible than they should be. She would press his palm against her heart, looking up to him as slowly... ever so slowly, she would begin to warm, soft slow pulses against his hand, pulses that made the tips of her fins and ears glow with soft luminescence. ~It's very warm here, so I don't need my heat. Back home... we use our heat all the time.~ there was laughter in her voice, but no power.
Dorian could not help himself, she pulled that hand to her chest and he leapt in, barely taking the moment to use his free hand to undo his boots and slip out of socks. He was in trousers and shirt, sure, both of which floated about him as he registered the sensation most sailors weren't lucky enough to feel and survive, granted the pool's lack of depth for him when standing. He'd just let that tactile experience happen, and after a moment, rather than speaking, or even articulating psychic thoughts, he'd share, aiming to pull her hand to his chest. Hot flesh, a heart ticking on steady thuds, despite how he'd barely blinked and was engaging in an entirely new experience. Only when he considered his heart, and the blood it pumped for a moment, just one, maybe two, his placid enjoyment in wordless congress was darkened by the sorrows he carried. His certainty that he was a monster for having killed, for having loved as he did. An inward vision of the glaring flaming winged creature with fiery eyes that could only be a monster as he was no deity like his siblings, even the lupine one. But that faltered, because she was like nothing he could imagine. Once again his sister's words rang true in his head, 'All things are possible.'
But it was in his voice. And spoken in wonderment as all his mental speech with Minnow had been so far. And afterward, guileless laughter spilled from him.
Minnow laughs as they spill into the water, the maiden submerged entirely, gazing up at him from beneath the silverly surface as he splashed his way into the water. She watches his face with flickering empathy, flashes of his self loathing, of his service to his siblings. The firey winged monstrosity that had her lips parting in soft shock. When he pulled her hand to his chest she surfaced, balancing upon that thick tail and her grip on his hip. Her hand pressed to his chest, webbed fingers cool against his heated flesh. Her eyes close as she feels that pulse within his chest, tinged with darkness and stained with sorrow. When she opens them again she meets his gaze with an understanding no doubt rare seen. But the little mer wasn't frightened, no. She had lived with terrible and fearsome gods all her life and beyond even that. All she felt was awe, a bright creature of fire the likes she could have never imagined. A golden god bedeck in a blinding light that stole the breath. He may not think himself one, but to a fellow monster, what else could he be? Her hand slides up his chest, curling around his shoulder as she pulls herself close, drawing him into her cool arms, tail heavy against his legs. If he allowed the embrace, she would tuck her head against his throat and whisper, "All things are possible." the slow roll of power this close to his skin so much like a kiss, so much like a caress, even if she didn't know the context, she understood the meaning.
Dorian found himself eye to eye with a person of myth, a person who understood things most people walking around on two legs did not. And not just about the world at large but also about him. He had not meant to overshare, but he was not the world's longest book. His motivations, and cares went from surface to core. Duplicity rarely occurred to him. He'd accept her embrace, hold her against him like they were dancing, which was as close as a person came to swimming on land, in some ways. He didn't often hold women close who were not Dinah. He danced with some sure, but he didn't share the contents of his heart with them. It was a strange thing. A desire stoked outside of his kin enough to see him close both arms around her. To assure her that she was safe there, and that he willed it to be so. "And that is good," came the conclusion, following all things being possible. And a kiss to her dark hair wet though it was, brotherly, gentle.
Minnow wrapped her arms around his shoulders, holding herself up until his arms curl around her waist, helping to support the weight of that heavy tail by pressing her close. Her tail curls around his legs loosely, the soft brush of fins upon flesh like kelp, swaying softly in the tide. Her eyes open slowly at that kiss, so chaste, so gentle, water spilling from her lips as she pulls back and looks up to him. Her eyes were adjusted to the depths, translucent and near blind in bright lights, but here in the twilight hours they saw everything so clearly. This creature of the abyss, bright burning star in the center of darkness, had seen to give her a gift, and she would be remiss if she did not return the same. She could not reach higher than his jawline, pressing cool lips to warm flesh, and then again on his collar bone, warmth pulsing from her chest, flickering in time with her heart.
Dorian felt a furious blushing arise in his cheeks as he felt a kiss upon his jaw, and only then, some pulses into feeling the warmth of her lips begin to pull himself away, apologizing, "Blimey, forgive me...." He'd seek to ease her back into her element and afterward haul himself up upon the ledge of the pool in waterlogged clothes. She might have noticed that even if she had added the weight of another person to what he could hold that he'd been steadfast with both feet on the ground, spreading out his stance just a little to accommodate her. He was strong as he was abashed, and he'd laugh his embarrassment, shaking his head and himself from the daze that had allowed him to venture into her pool. Legs crossed on the side, swiping hair back from his forehead, he'd think at her again, /Do you need or want for anything at all? I have some means./
His thoughts ran to food, to dresses, to paper. He could not imagine what a person like her might want that he could offer, but he wanted it to be something. Even the flute and harp that came to mind made no sense in water, though the images of them flickered up as offerings. Then a telescope. Perhaps she did not know the stars as surface dwellers did.
Minnow slides back down his body, sinking into the water as she looks at him curiously. Had she done something wrong? She bites her lip as she watches his shifting reflection as he slips back up onto the side of the pool, the waves fracturing him into a thousand pieces before the pool stills again and she simply looks up at him, a little worry creasing her brow. His sudden departure distracting her from his strength. She kicks out, as she hears his question, tail sending a cascade of bubbles up to the surface as she makes a slow lazy loop around the pool, picking up books and coins, bits of shiny metal that they students had thrown into the waters. None of it truly interesting her. She spins as her hand hits the wall, full circle made she reaches for the pale shadow that was his foot, only to hesitate and pull away. ~Company~ she says at last, soft whisper in his mind, ~My people... we live in schools... in pods. I've never been...~ there was a resounding loneliness, a tidal wave of emotion quickly cut off before she floats on her back to look up at him. ~Stories. I am worried about my people.~ she looks away from him, hiding behind the soft floating veil of her hair, curling up into an impossibly tight ball as she hears the whispering of her people, hissing at her for being such a coward.
Dorian only took a moment to consider what she said, what he could do to abate loneliness. He immediately had half a hundred ideas, and he'd grab up his satchel so the sodden puddle he was making didn't get to the leather, and stand halfway, assuring her silently, reassuring her from her apparent worry she'd done anything wrong, /I shall see what I can do about that. I shall be back and bring you a few things. I must go. I live.../ He'd show her that his house was on the bluffs above the sea, alongside the need to get back to someone there or outside these walls. He was all but bursting with the need to share with Dinah what he'd learned. To get her input on how to help the lonely mermaid. He also knew what it was to not ever want to be alone, as he'd been treated to company from his time in the womb. His bare feet splished as he bent to pick up shoes and socks. /It was a wonder to meet you... have you a name I can speak?/
Minnow smiles softly as she sees his home, the ocean beyond. She nods, shifting to watch him intently as he moves to leave, tail flicking as he asks her name, ~Minnow~ she returns, voice holding laughter. She presses a hand to her chest and then gestures to him in a silent wave of goodbye. ~Thank you for visiting, Golden One.~
Dorian: /Not Golden One, Dorian./ They rhymed in his rejoinder, and he grinned at her boyishly as he backed toward the door, yet taking in a last view of something he thought he'd only ever read about. /Soon, and thank you, Minnow!/
Outside the doors to the rest of the academy's grounds, out of view of her, he found himself wanting to look back again, but he pushed forward with getting socks upon wet feet and boots over those. He'd schlorp his way onward, finding his lighter and cigarettes in the satchel, and upon taking his first drag, exhale, "Blimey."