Event- Siren

[apocalypsehowmods]

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Siren

➥ The Public Eye

(cw: potential body dysmorphia, loss of control, human-caused pollution, animals in distress/animal cruelty/injury to animals (specifically seabirds for one small portion of this prompt), body horror, uncanny valley)

Like most towns of an appreciable size in America, Gloucester, MA, is graced with something of an overabundance of video cameras. Perhaps even more-so than most small towns given the presence of ADI and the supernatural phenomenon that regularly plague the place. The mechanical eyes gaze silently out at the world, sentinels or sneaks, gathering information. And there is something very, very wrong with them.

It's not every camera. It's not even consistent among cameras, but every so often, perhaps related to whatever hacker has already been causing problems, something shifts. Those walking nearby (or even far from) a video camera will find their consciousness momentarily ripped from their bodies and transported into the camera's viewer. There, they'll be granted the vision of the camera, whether that's grainy black and white, full color, or maybe even night-vision. For those lucky enough to be transported to a camera near their own bodies, they will be able to see themselves twitching, moving irregularly, as if something is trying to gain control.

There seems to be no way to control the camera they're in. It is stationary or perhaps it moves in a set turning motion. Those trapped within have no control for the minute or so they seem to be transported. If they can take a moment to calm themselves and take advantage of this new perspective, of course… there might be rather interesting things to see, including:

• A massive, scaled form moving out in the deep water off of Gloucester's shoreline. With the night-vision capabilities granted by these particular visions, those trapped might even catch sight of strange figures swimming near the impossibly large creature. They throw… something at it and the vast creature thrashes, kicking up enormous waves that rocket toward the coast.
  
  
• Piles of garbage are cast up onto the beaches by some of the rogue waves that seem to be kicking up. Some of them move and almost appear to have a humanoid form before they simply fall apart, becoming a pile of simple rubbish.
  
  
• Unidentifiable figures in dark clothes are moving around the city at night, spray painting eyes in alleyways, across buildings, anywhere they can find that cameras might be able to see. If someone were to catch a glimpse as they were just finishing up their artwork, they might notice that the spray painted eye blinks.
  
  
• A small growth of horrible, lamb-esque plant creatures seems to have cropped up in an alleyway near Things of Beauty, one of the curiosity stores in town. There aren't a lot of them and they seem to be small and young. They're also in an out-of-the way spot that might be difficult to notice for more people.
  
  
• A group of youths appears to have found a weak point in the fencing around Dogtown. As dusk descends, they can be seen traveling into the closed park. It would seem some refuse to be deterred by law enforcement and ADI.
  
  
• Head of ADI Security, Neil Grace, seems to be spending his lunch hour on Tuesdays and Thursdays entering into an unmarked building to do… something. He enters and exits completely alone.
  
  
• Non-native (recently demoted) PR person, Reyes Amador, seems to be in some remote back alley in town some evenings. They have a large fishing hook that may be familiar to anyone who saw the flayed bodies on the beach. They also have a caged seagull with them. There's clear upset on their face as they reach into the cage and manage to plant the hook into the bird before quickly shutting and locking the cage. The bird goes wild within its confines, attempting to attack Reyes as they cover their face and appear to cry to themselves.
  
  

➥ Rogue Wave

(cw: thassalophobia, large creatures, drowning, flooding, (un)natural disasters, human-caused pollution, animals in distress/injury to animals)

rogue wave (n.) a random, enormous ocean wave that sometimes travels at an angle to prevailing seas.

The beaches are closed.

To be fair, the beaches have been closed since bodies started washing up on shore and left ADI's PR department working overtime to keep the grim scene out of national news. Now, though, the problem is rapidly becoming more vast than what horrors the sea dumps ashore: the ocean itself seems to be trying to relocate inland. The first rogue wave to hit the harbor early in the morning on August 16 is devastating enough on its own, battering boats against their docks and drowning one unfortunate fisherman who was swept out with the wave when it retreated. That incident alone would have been a freak occurrence, a tragic and frightening tale but ultimately a mundane one born of the unpredictability of the natural world.

But then the next rogue wave hits, and the next after that, and the next after that. They're not regular or predictable; the waves don't hit in the same place each time or at regular times. One day might be a reprieve of calm, and the next see massive waves battering the coast one after another. Gloucester is taking a beating, and the rest of the region is suffering along with the city. Homes and businesses on waterfront property are left abandoned in the face of unpredictable, uncaring destruction, and flooding extends inland. The air in Gloucester is thick with salt and humidity, the ground increasingly soggy underfoot as one nears the sea. ADI sends out custodial crews to batten down and place sandbags at headquarters and the housing complex. Thanks to ongoing repair efforts, Bonnie's Flophouse is, for once, not flooded, though Bonnie and the Visionary are pessimistically preparing for the eventuality of having to evacuate their basement apartment once again. Neighbors around Gloucester are in similar distress; for the civic-minded there is no end of work for volunteers in water-proofing buildings or helping salvage that which has already flooded.

The why of it all will take some legwork to discover. Within a few days ADI manages to spin up a story about seismological disturbances on the ocean floor, which...actually isn't that far from the truth, as far as anyone can initially tell. The rogue waves all originate from roughly the same patch of open ocean, and the best view from shore is at the far end of Coffin Beach. Investigators are strongly cautioned to have an escape plan to reach high ground at a moment's notice, and anyone known to lack outdoor survival skills will be officially discouraged from going. Observation efforts will be hit or miss; one might strain one's eyes for hours and see nothing but a few erratic ocean swells.

Get lucky enough to see more, and your luck might quickly run out. The creature that appears offshore might be mistaken for a whale breaching in the first few seconds, before one realizes that the shape is wrong, what one mistook for the whale's body resolving into the reptilian head of a serpent whose body goes on and on and on, heralding the realization that it is so much further away than one first thought. The creature is impossibly huge, a leviathan that could swallow a cargo ship whole. Its coils rise from the surface of the ocean before crashing back down with a low, bone-rattling bellow of pain. From this distance the human-sized creatures that surround it and provide the apparent source of its distress are mere specks.

Hope you remember your exit plan. A mere flick of this serpent's tail would be enough to capsize a ship, and this is a full-body thrash of pain. The waves offshore swell as the creature submerges, a wall of dark water heading all too quickly toward the beach, carrying yet more garbage with it.

➥ Thicker Than Water

(cw: thassalophobia, large creatures, claustrophobia, blood, siren sounds in the first link, hallucinated death)

Though few, the towering forms of the signal tower creatures still stalk about the edges of the town, largely still and passive but for the blaring tones they occasionally cause. They could almost be forgotten about, a new and eerie installation to Gloucester's skyline but nothing too distressing as long as you don’t look up, right? At least until the day a new sound issues from some of the phones.

The effect is immediate. The smell of rusted metal and a gentle chirp of electronic equipment mixing with a less than comforting creek of metal on all sides. One second you’re on the city street and the next, you’re in the cramped and stale-aired interior of a submarine. Large pipes line the sides of the sub and two bare-bulbs in metal cages light the interior with a harsh glare. Oxygen and depth meters frame the single porthole window to the outside above an instrument panel that displays coordinates, a compass, and simple controls for piloting the rust-encrusted submarine.

When you look around, the back of the sub is only a few paces away, the space clearly meant for no more than one or two people. At the back is a small, blank, video display surrounded by additional pressure gauges. A large map sits beside it, the topography of it faded and nearly useless, but the lines of the coordinate grid can just be made out. Between the map and the display, is a rectangular button backlit in dull orange. When pressed, the display struggles to life with a whirring sound before finally displaying an image of the empty ocean ahead in black and white.

Luckily, you’re not alone here and you and your new partner can quickly find instructions laying around; though, the edges seem warped and encrusted with a rust-red and flaky substance. It’s an easy task: move to the listed coordinates and angle, snap a picture of the anomaly, move on to the next. Simple. You certainly don’t seem to have much of a choice as any hatches appear to be welded shut and the forward window is covered by a sheet of metal as the sub lurches to life. Though, not before you perhaps notice the ocean outside isn’t a deep blue as you might expect, but an unsettling red.

Probably fine.

Eventually, you reach depth and idle, the submarine now left in your capable hands. Those more willing to explore will find the ocean around them entirely unfamiliar. While rocky outcroppings make maneuvering hazardous, there’s also the odd, sharp plantlife to consider and the occasional tube-like shapes that wave about and knock against the sub like over-eager worms. Those particularly lucky might even catch sight of something else out there. Something unfathomably huge. Whether the pair of you decide to follow instructions or not, in time, the creaking of the metal sharpens and feels as if it presses in on you, like it might just crumble. Seams warp and shift and the bottom of the sub begins to slowly fill with a thick, fresh, blood.

The oxygen meter steadily drops and as you move or don’t, something seems to knock against the outside of the metal walls, surely too thin to protect you from whatever lurks outside. Which will get to you first: whatever lives in blood or the threat of suffocation? Perhaps if you finish your task quickly, you won’t need to find out.

➥ Nereid

(cw: human-caused pollution, animals in peril, potential animal death, potential drowning)
(Additional Note: Thank you to Alexis, Katrina's player, for reviewing and contributing to this prompt.)

It's taken a few days to arrange for the boat and organize their forces, but an expedition out into deeper water is underway, spearheaded by Katrina, to investigate the flayed bodies that have been washing up on shore. Sable, ADI's primary contact at the Docks, has volunteered her small vessel for the task. It might be dangerous, but with the waves lashing Gloucester's banks and infrastructure, it's either help with this or deal with the fact she's not going to have a place to do business in town soon.

With the bodies cropping up at night, volunteers who take to the water are outfitted with night-vision goggles, harpoon spears, knives, and nets. However, the boat heads out during the day for anyone there to freedive. "This is not race for speed or depth," Katrina advises. "Be calm. Do not waste breath or strength. Save both for when you fight. If creatures here are like ones from my home, they are strong, and they fight. Do not swim here if you are afraid. Do not push your body." For weaker swimmers, there's plenty to do on the boat under Sable's watchful eye. Keeping a lookout, prepping the nets in case there's something that needs to be hauled aboard, and spotting and disentangling sea creatures that might need some help with whatever plastic or line that's been caught on them are the primary duties.

The boat sets anchor, keeping an eye out for any rogue waves, and it's into the water for the freedivers. The first thing that becomes abundantly clear is that there is a lot of trash off the coast of Gloucester. Far more than seems reasonable, in fact. It's as though someone tipped a cargo ship containing heaps of the stuff out nearby. The second thing to become clear is that at least some of the trash is alive. The mermaids, if you could call them that, seem to be made of the stuff. Their long fingers are made of hooks and broken bits of metal, their webbing is plastic bags and discarded netting, their hair is fishing line and wires. Whatever has been thrown into the ocean has been pulled together into these merciless beings. Any diver grabbed by one will need to think quickly and fight hard to escape, or they'll find themselves rapidly pulled deeper, limbs entangled.

It's not a completely one-sided fight. The harpoon spears seem to stun them momentarily when pieces are knocked apart or off. But it's getting a net over the mermaids and hauling them up into the open air that seems to kill them. Mermaids raised out of the water for more than a few seconds break apart into lifeless trash. Maybe get some trash skimmers. There's a lot of clean-up to do out here.

➥ Mod Notes

• GENERAL - Players are welcome to play background NPCs for themselves when they are needed in a thread. If you need more information on general behavior for these types of NPCs, please feel free to ask! In general, the information provided in the prompts should be sufficient and ordinary people will act like… ordinary people! Although, the people of Gloucester seem to be becoming more and more aware of supernatural phenomenon and they are frightened by it. You're welcome to make up any details beyond that for your specific scene. Also, please remember that character deaths are permanent and plan accordingly!
  
  
• THE PUBLIC EYE (16-31 August) - Characters who do not have actual bodies can still have their consciousness hijacked and pulled into a camera. In those instances, if they can see where their 'body' was, they'll simply be able to see the device that their ghostly form is usually attached to. This seems to be an entirely supernatural phenomenon with no coding or commands being executed to cause this. Cameras that are checked will appear to be completely ordinary to the technological eye. Those who might have some kind of supernatural sense that they are feeding might get some read off of various cameras that indicate they might be about to snag someone's consciousness. The various items that characters observe in cameras are welcome to be followed up on. For prompts that involve unnamed NPCs, players are welcome to assume interactions and take control of those NPCs. Anyone wishing to try to fix something (like the vegetable lamb infestation) will be encouraged to take care of it directly by ADI with another team member. Named NPCs can be found and/or confronted in the NPC Top Level below.
  
  
• ROGUE WAVE (16-31 August) - Characters will have the opportunity to assist locals in a variety of ways; players are welcome to invent their own scenarios for assisting local residents and businesses (as well as shoring up ADI property) and play any unnamed NPCs as desired. Characters who are able to get a better look at the serpent through magical or technological means will see that it has fishhooks and other detritus stabbed into its scales and that the creatures harassing it are the same mermaids seen in the Nereid prompt. The serpent's thrashing and subsequent rogue waves will diminish as the mermaids are killed off following the events of that prompt.
  
  
• THICKER THAN WATER (16-31 August) - No more than two characters will be trapped in the submarine at the same time, players are welcome to come up with alien plant life and structures they might find in the camera, but there will be very little life found beyond the encounters with the leviathan. Bones of impossibly huge creatures, brief snaps of a fin or a scale, huge teeth, and other such oddities may also be spotted at the listed coordinates. Characters can either finish the assignment or simply wait it out, but the pressure will increase, filling the chamber slowly with blood. Before they can drown, however, the sub will be crushed either through pressure or through the jaws of the creature, and characters will find themselves suddenly jolted awake again where they’d been before the siren sounded. No time (or very little time) appears to have passed. They will be unharmed; though, they might find blood still lingering under their nails or trickling from the corner of their mouths or eyes.
  
  
• NEREID (19 August) - Sable's boat, the Minx is a large vessel with plenty of room for as many characters as might like to come on this adventure. Characters do not have to get into the water and will be relatively safe as long as they stay in the boat. Sea creatures tangled with the garbage include things like seabirds, sea turtles, and even a few dolphins, seals, and sharks. Sable will be able to guide characters on how to safely catch creatures to free them or to help them from a safe distance. There's plenty of deck space for if and when characters need to start hauling up mermaids. Once characters provide info on what's going on, ADI will take efforts to start a large-scale clean-up operation with multiple rented vessels to dispose of the mermaids. Players are welcome to have their characters assisting with those endeavors throughout the end of the month.

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Katrina | Siren | buncha nereids starters - will match format

[twicelost]

1: before a dive

[ Normally an intense and controlled person, Katrina exudes confidence and focus as she checks her weapons before each dive. (She hates that she needs breaks. She hates how weak she's become since being stuck on land here in order to avoid feeding the things that would see her kind and her world wiped out. But sacrifices must be made.)

But on top of the intensity is a shade of tension. It shows in how she sharpens the point of her spear or the blade of her knife, borderline rushing. People could die here. The creatures in the water might be like her, merely trying to survive. Or maybe she'll die, and then who will help her people?

If she's not too busy with preparing foe a dive, she'll say to anyone who approaches- ]

In the ocean, it is kill or die. Do not die.


2: shortly after a dive

[ On deck, she stares at the horizon almost blankly.

It feels wrong to be in the water in this body, but there's too much at stake to risk feeding the Entities so she can swim in her true form again. Wolf Pen showed her just how bad things could get if the Entities aren't stopped. She won't be the cause of anything like that.

She also thinks about the creatures. These... mermaids with bodies made of trash. They're nothing like her kind. There's no satisfaction in killing them the way they must be killed. Everything feels wrong. ]

This is strange ocean. [ she says, and the fact that she's speaking her mind at all outside of a conversation is perhaps a worrying sign, if whoever hears her knows her. Thinking out loud is a human thing, and human she is not.

Right? ]



3: animals

In my home [ she says as she works to free a turtle or a dolphin or any other animal they've caught ] I would not do this. I would kill and eat this prey.

[ But for all that there's a hint of a predator's hunger in her voice, Katrina does not make any move to feast on their unintentional catches. She just feels like sharing. Possibly because part of her is afraid she's forgetting what it's like to be the apex predator of the ocean. Certainly not because she's assimilating or anxious or anything like that gosh. ]


4: other

[ what did i miss? want something more specific? when she's not diving, she can help haul up trash mermaids. if she gets hungry around all this fresh food she refuses to eat, she'll snack on something on deck, hydrate, maybe warm up in the sun. hmu if you want to plot something out for the nereids prompt or handwave for any of the other prompts! ]

1

[abrightboy]

"I'm not going in there," Malcolm tells her. "But I did come down to see if you needed any other kind of... help."

He heard she was leading an expedition. He couldn't just stay home.

[twicelost]

It's good that he knows his limits. This way, she has one less person to worry about while she's out there.

"There are cases of water to carry on boat. I show you."

They're just off the walkway to the boat, innocuous crates of bottled water that she made everyone swear they would dispose of properly only once they return to land.

"Your new home with Neal is safe?"

What she really means is if he likes it, but small tall conversations still feel weird to her.

[abrightboy]

He follows her to where the crates are waiting, prepared to carry them when she asks the question and it makes him duck his head to hide his dopey smile.

"Yes. So far so good." He likes it very much, if his dumb lovestruck face is any indication. "It was hard, when my roommates left and then my sister." And Gil. And Jeff. "It's been nice having Neal around more."

3

[edalyn]

Yeah, well, it's one thing when you're hungry. [Titan knows, Eda isn't one to judge. Especially not these days, especially when a part of her is getting hungry around the animals too. Fortunately, the dolphin she's helping to hold still and untangle netting off of doesn't fall under the sort of prey she's usually interested in.]

Getting eaten's just part of life. But these things don't really deserve... this. [She gives the creature a small pat on the snout.]

Enough garbage washes up in my world I guess I'm not surprised there's this much here. [But at home she's generally content scavenging interesting shiny objects--or occasionally the animals that have adapted to it, which she finds a bit inspirational. This on the other hand is a little more depressing than she expected.]

[twicelost]

Yes. I am not hungry.

[ Nor is she hunting for anything to store to eat later. They're here to see what is causing chaos in the water.

It's hard not to be at least a little bit angry about all this trash. ]

My people live in deep water. There is trash, but not like this. No trash that become like us. We do not hunt to cause pain to prey. Only to eat and live.

[ The dolphin may get the sense it's in the presence of an aquatic predator, but Katrina is only working to help release it. Surely it must feel at least a little less terrified than normal? ]

Trash creatures... this is new to me. Even in Gloucester.

[ Even for someone working for ADI. ]

[edalyn]

[Fortunately, the dolphin seems to be accepting that neither of them are trying to eat it right now. Eda nods, she gets that, part of her especially does. The rest, though, she's trying to figure this out too.]

We don't have those where I'm from, either. But... we do have ways to animate things with magic. It wouldn't be too hard to do something like this where I'm from.

[She looks thoughtful as she finishes untangling the piece of net she was working on.]

I wonder if there's a person doing it here...

4

[thedoctorsmate]

"Bloody hell, how many of these things are there?" Donna sees Katrina's form in the water, herding the trash mermaid toward the back of the ship where it's been opened up to make it easier to haul the things onto the deck. She readies a net.

"Coming at you, Katrina!" she calls, when the real and proper, thank you very much, mermaid surfaces for a moment. Donna's going to be tossing the net out. They just need to pen the trash creature in it and get it out. There's already a growing mound of refuse that Sable's trying to manage on the deck, trying to avoid having it become a hazard.

[twicelost]

It feels so good to be in the water, even if she is stuck in this human form for the time being. She's not as fast like this, but she's still a top tier swimmer, and herding the trash being that passes for a mermaid in these waters is... fun? Fun. It's not a hunt, per se, but it's hard to be angry when she's out here. Except, of course, for the fact that there is so much garbage in the water here. Why are humans like this?

She falls into place easily with Donna, confident in her human friend's intelligence and strength (it's an alpha thing, Katrina knows one when she sees one). As if they've done this for years, she takes some of the net in hand and dives again, easily swimming around the trash creature, compete with baring her teeth at it as she does so. She has a knife and a spear on her, don't test her.

In just under a minute, she surfaces again, climbing into the boat with her catch thrashing madly in its prison.

"Another!"

They've caught another one.

[thedoctorsmate]

"1, 2, heave!" Manual labor isn't so much Donna's thing, but she'd done a quick job getting her nails down to a better length for it, and this is to support Katrina, so it's important. Much like picking up fish in Wolf Pen had been for supporting George. Well, and spite. She'd wanted to spite Jon Sims by making George's plan work, if she's being completely honest with herself.

The mermaid snarls and tries to lash out as it's pulled out of the water and onto the deck, flailing until it starts breaking apart. Donna breathes a sigh of relief. "How many more are out there, d'you know? We must have pulled up... twelve? Fifteen now?" There are a lot of people aboard the ship, all pulling from different sides. "All that trash out there. Where did it even come from? Are you seeing, like... I dunno. A sunken ship, maybe?"

2

[clavesregni]

[Caitlyn was an eager volunteer when the opportunity to further investigate the source of the flayed bodies presented itself. One dive in the ocean, though, and she found herself fixated on the memory of nearly drowning in the canal. She'd been able to spend barely thirty seconds underwater before hauling herself back onto the boat, miserably frustrated with herself for not being of more use.

Thankfully, she thought to bring her camera with her. She's sifting through the trash, taking pictures and hoping to find something, anything, that might shed light on the mermaids' origins or intentions, when she hears Katrina speak.]

Is it? It doesn't seem much stranger than the ocean I live by. Lived by. At home. Apart from the sentient garbage.

[twicelost]

Your ocean has creatures attacking giant serpent? Taking off skin of people and leave them to die?

[ She is not demanding answers, though it's possible it sounds like she is, and even though she's looking directly at Caitlyn as she speaks. These are just the major differences that come to mind between here and the waters off Bristol Cove. ]

Strange people on land, this is not so different from my home. Rituals to bring apocalypse, this is different. This ocean... Months before today, I did not see these trash mermaids. But now, there are many. I do not understand.

[clavesregni]

[Caitlyn nudges a bit of fishing net aside with her foot to find a metal hook. It doesn't really look like the hooks in the corpses' hands, but she snaps a picture of it anyway.]

I heard stories growing up of a great sea serpent that saved a pirate city from the black mist that swallowed the Shadow Isles, and dragon-sharks that destroyed entire underwater civilizations, and krakens and creatures that look like living bubbles. Though I suppose no, I haven't heard of merfolk flaying people.

[She crouches over the trash heap, holding the photograph and waving it absently while waiting for it to finish developing.

She sighs, frustrated.] And I couldn't tell you whether the stories are real. I never saw any of it for myself. There was a whole world out there, but my mother...

[She's not here to talk about her mother. She cuts herself off, frowning, before looking back up at Katrina.]

What sort of strange people on land are you used to?

3

[citizendetective]

I mean, you could?

[Misty says, looking unconcernedly down at the thrashing dolphin. She hasn't been doing any dives herself - she can swim, but in a "visits the community pool sometimes" way, not a "is capable of free-diving in the ocean and fighting monstrous creatures while doing so" way. Still, there's plenty to do on the boat: she's a particularly good lookout, if she doesn't say so herself.

After a moment's hesitation, she kneels down, helping Katrina cut at the net.]

So what's the matter, no appetite today? Or, I guess it is true that you aren't supposed to swim for an hour after eating...

[twicelost]

[ There's a strange kind of pace that settles on Katrina when Misty is around, since learning that Misty survived in the wilderness for so long with a tribe of her own. Anyone who can understand such an intrinsic part of Katrina's nature is special to her, be they human or otherwise.

The dolphin is a sight for sore eyes, although she's sure it doesn't feel the same way about her. Dolphins are intelligent, hunters in their own right, but her tribe has taken down some in their time off the coast of Bristol Cove. ]

This is joke about safety.

[ She doesn't laugh - forcing it makes her sound terrifying, she's been told - but she does acknowledge it. Humans use humor the way her kind use touch and gestures. Social bonding. Katrina is beginning to understand better. ]

I did not hunt this creature. None hunted it. It came in net we pull, when we try to catch trash mermaid. I hunt to eat and live, not for show.

[ The dolphin struggles, possibly set off by her stern gaze, her focus. She resists the urge to hiss at it, barely, settling instead for baring her teeth at it. ]

My people are not like these mermaid. We do not attack others for fun. Only to eat and live.

[citizendetective]

[Misty's expression turns thoughtful, and she meets Katrina's eyes, giving a quick nod of acknowledgement.]

You respect it.

[She guesses, raising an eyebrow.]

You'd want to catch it with purpose, and give it a fighting chance.

I understand completely.

2

[rainewhispers]

This trek didn't exactly sit well with them. None of this did. The flayed bodies were more than simply unsettling, but everything about this place seemed to contradict what they knew about the human realm. Which wasn't much but.. it was certainly stranger than what little Eda had let on to them.

They're leaning on the rail of the deck, looking out over the ocean as the waves lap at the ship. Someone near them speaks and Raine looks over, seeing the head of this excursion staring out as well.

"I feel like the answer to this question is.. obvious but, what do you mean? Admittedly it's pretty hard to discern what's strange here, some of these things feel normal in the scope of my own realm but.. something about it feels wrong, even in comparison."

[twicelost]

So many people decided to come out and help, even if they're not strong enough swimmers to freedive. It's been a counterpoint to the fact that humans seem fond of just dumping trash in places where it doesn't belong. Yes, some humans are terrible. But some are not. The same goes for nonhumans.

It's a lot to process. She'll think about it later, maybe.

"Trash join to make merfolk," she answers, facing them. "This does not happen in my home. And this... these trash mermaids. They are not siren. They fall to pieces when we pull them out of water. I do not know any other creature that do this. It feels wrong, like you say."

She glances out at the water again. "You say some of this is normal but feels wrong. How do you mean it?"

[rainewhispers]

Raine listened with interest and sympathy, this seemed to be hitting Katrina hard- they're pretty sure that was her name, anyways. Their eyes scanned down to the water hitting the edge of the boat, staring at their reflection in the rippling waves.

"Everything that's normal at home seems.. odd, here? I hard about the- the hand creatures? The deer and spiders and such? That's pretty normal at home, really. I wouldn't have considered it a strange occurrence if there wasn't such an apparent panic. Our world is made of magic, the human world seems so mundane, really.."

They mulled over the truth about Belos, they never really let it sink in before but in sober second light? His plan made sense in some twisted, deranged way.

2!

[lesbeau]

[Unlike many others here, Beau actually has done some freediving before and gotten into some fist-fights with undead, underwater creatures trying to kill her. Or well, her friends, and her as a consequence. Despite that, she's come to really love the ocean, so she finds herself looking off over it too when Katrina speaks. It makes her lift her head and look over, take in the other woman's features a bit before she responds.]

Sounds like you've seen a lot of oceans then. So far every one I've seen had something try to kill me in it, so... they haven't been that different.

[twicelost]

[ A human (or human-looking) person who can keep up with her in the water is a person Katrina doesn't distrust fully from the outset. It's far too uncommon here.

She turns and looks at Beau. ]

This is not what is strange. In the ocean, it is kill or die. This is normal. Strange thing is... this trash become creature that hunt and hurt, but not to survive. Strange thing is giant creature that make big waves. In your oceans, do you see trash together like this?

[lesbeau]

[Human-looking is a good thought for most people here, but at least for Beau, she's just a plain ol' person. Well, a plain ol' person who's from a very magic place. But still. She thinks for a second about the question, and then shakes her head no.]

Not like, trash. This sorta stuff isn't really a... thing, where I come from. Plastic or whatever. But I've fought stuff that used to be dead. And sea monsters. They were both pretty fucked up and probably didn't want to eat me for food. Just other stuff."

3.

[punched_hitler]

[Steve doesn't have a lot of experience with marine life, but he's smart and capable enough to make himself useful in other ways between dives.

He glances at her, frowning a little as they work to disentangle a particularly feisty dolphin.] Oh yeah? Do they... taste good? I've never had dolphin. I think I'd feel weird eating something this smart, but that's just me.

[twicelost]

[ Oh Steve... ]

It taste like food. [ She gives him a sort of blank, sort of judgmental, sort of disbelieving look (disbelieving least of all, because she really does believe humans don't get it). ] In the water, I do not eat for taste or pleasure. I eat to survive, become stronger, protect tribe.

[ Raw. She eats things raw in siren form.

The dolphin makes an especially concerted effort to wriggle away, as if remembering that it is at the mercy of a fellow predator. Katrina hisses at it, the sound catlike, and tells it in a low but firm voice- ]

I will not eat you. We will put you back in water soon.

[ She turns to Steve. ] I did not know humans eat dolphin.

[punched_hitler]

[Steve can, at least understand eating just to eat, instead of for taste or pleasure. Sure, those things are nice, but they're not always an option.

He's not sure the hissing is really helping the situation, but at least they will get the dolphin free, so it'll end all right.]

I... don't know if they do, [he admits.] I never have. But you eat what you've gotta eat, when you're desperate. I've eaten squirrels.

[Not raw, though.]

You live in the water? [he asks, cautiously. He doesn't know much about her, simply joined because this seemed like a good way to help out. (And to face his fears. Not that it's fun.)]