Part of your world

[light_another_life]

Sea monsters aren't typically in this area, but sometimes things can go wrong and a sea beast will rise up from the depths to try and drag the ship down with them to munch on the tasty humans inside. Sometimes when this happens, the ship gets away, if the people on it are clever or have the right enchanted items or have a particular talent for magic. More often than not, though - they don't.

So even when a sea monster attack is very, very unlikely, if Lirlaveth notices a ship anywhere nearby, she'll put what she's doing on hold and quietly follow the ship to make sure it's not going to be attacked by a murderous monster that wants to eat humans. Or, if it is, to help prevent the humans from becoming food.

She's spotted one such ship, and so even though it means putting her study into enchantment on hold, she goes to follow it to make sure it'll be all right. Probably just paranoia (sea beast attacks aren't that common), but it might turn out to be justified one day.

Comments

[light_another_life]

Dooooon't cry. Don't cry. Don't do it. Don't you do it, Lirlaveth, you can cry later.

Fuck. There she goes.

[gloriousdawn]

"Um..." says Idalta. "Do you want a hug?"

[light_another_life]

Headshake. Apologetic look.

She scrubs at her tears like they've incited her wrath and counterattacking with sufficient force will make their reinforcements turn around and go home. Unfortunately, this is not at all how tears work.

Sniffle.

[gloriousdawn]

Well, Idalta just sits, then.

[light_another_life]

Lirlaveth appreciates her not attempting to hug her anyway.

She eventually gets the tear situation under control. That is to say, she stops crying.

(Not that she doesn't expect to cry later. She probably will.)

The siren takes a deep breath and then attempts to smile. It sort of works. Kind of.

[gloriousdawn]

Idalta smiles back.

[light_another_life]

...

She has nothing to do, and this is terrible. Maybe she should try to figure out how to stand.

Slight problem: she is half naked and Idalta might find her standing up and walking around - uh, upsetting. Sitting sort of helps, she thinks, but. Well, walking around might make it a bit more in-your-face. Ugh. Why does she have legs, she didn't have this problem when she didn't have legs.

She makes a vague 'go on' motion to Idalta. She's trying to ask Idalta to distract her, but that might not immediately be apparent.

[gloriousdawn]

"Sorry, what?"

[light_another_life]

She - fails to have any idea how to ask for a distraction.

Lirlaveth goes with mouthing the words distract me, because that seems like it might work.

[gloriousdawn]

"Sure, okay," she says. "What should I talk about? Politics? Terrifying childhood anecdotes? I have so many terrifying childhood anecdotes."

[light_another_life]

Well now she's curious. Eyebrow raise? Do go on.

[gloriousdawn]

"So the reason why Esri's first successful artificing project was a sister-finding mirror is that when I was nine or so, I went for a walk near the beach house and decided to explore some caves and I actually didn't go in too far but I did fall off a ledge and break both my legs, and I hadn't cracked healing yet, so I couldn't fix it myself, and she got mad that the search parties weren't finding me fast enough, and four hours later she had a mirror."

[light_another_life]

That - is certainly a memorable way to make a mirror. She's impressed, and looks such. Lirlaveth thinks she might try to ask this person for lessons.

...

Though she does go and eye her new legs for how easily they might break. It surely isn't that common. It can't be that common.

[gloriousdawn]

"Falling from high places is kind of a problem on land," she explains, noticing that look. "But it's more of a problem for my sisters and me than most people. Old curse."

[light_another_life]

Lirlaveth nods, looking - well, like she empathizes greatly with being cursed.

[gloriousdawn]

"Yeah. It's a nasty one, too, there's some complicated technical reason why it's technically irreversible, something about it happening before we were born. Which is why I was even trying to crack healing when I was nine. It's hard for anyone who's not one of us to do any kind of magic to us."

[light_another_life]

Another nod! She smudges out some of her previous sand drawings to draw three things: ocean waves, a box, and a stick person. She taps the box and motions to herself. She has gotten to enchantment and artificing.

[gloriousdawn]

Idalta brightens. "Oh, you're an artificer too? Cool. I've always wanted to know how siren enchantment works. I've talked to some of the local titans and sprites and learned a few tricks, but it's harder to casually wander over to chat with a sprite, on account of all the ocean in the way."

[light_another_life]

Lirlaveth smiles and nods. She motions from herself to the ocean, a little wryly. It is rather hard to find study buddies from another species when you're in an ocean. Then she motions to herself and Idalta and her smile broadens a bit. Potential nerdery?

[gloriousdawn]

"I can totally talk artificing with you," Idalta assures her. "Actually - do you know any titan languages? I can get by in the Silver Hills dialect and I mostly understand Black River. Since you're mute and all..."

[light_another_life]

She shakes her head, a little sadly.

[gloriousdawn]

"Want to learn some?"

[light_another_life]

Nod! Not talking is very annoying.

[gloriousdawn]

"Great, that'll give us something to do while my sisters take their sweet time getting here. Maybe they went back to find you a pair of trousers."

She turns to face Lirlaveth more directly, and starts speaking and signing simultaneously. "The first five signs I learned were 'hello', 'goodbye', 'please', 'thank you', and 'what'. Need those again?"

[light_another_life]

She watches raptly, then carefully replicates the five signs. She asks for a repeat of 'please' (by holding up three fingers to signify 'third sign') to make sure she is getting it right, but otherwise copies them perfectly.