Show a mermaid how to get somewhere once, and she'll get there again. How did she get there? Who's asking? Anyway, Etsy's sitting on the deck of the boat, humming to herself, with a giant bag of McDonald's in front of her. Two bags, as a matter of fact. This is how it goes:
Open one hamburger. Take the burger out of the bun. Throw the bun over her shoulder into the water. Sing a song about fishies eating bread. Eat the hamburger patty.
Open another hamburger.
Dielle has found a place to stretch out on the boat, and is now doing so, happily. She's not eating, surprisingly. She's watching the fish eat. It's fun. Even if the fish are a bit scary. She's also listening to the song, and just being quiet, because sometimes, she just is. Don't tell Jon. Even though he already knows.
Leo emerges from below decks with a blink at the singing mermaid, and the stretched out unicorn. "Oh, hey guys." he says, stretching out his back and glancing around to make sure the boat is properly tied to something, or at least being driven by hobs. When he notices Etsy feeding the fish he wanders over to peer down and make sure nothing -too- scary has been attracted by the bread. Or the splashing. Or the singing. Once he's made sure nothing is about to imminently go wrong, he pushes his hand through his hair and makes his way over to a compartment. He nudges it open and reaches in, grabbing out a beer. "Anyone else need a beer?" he asks.
"Do not worry, I only feedings the nice fishies," Etsy assures him. How she knows they're the nice fishies, she doesn't say. "I give you one burgers for meads in frigelator," she answers, and then leans to toss a burger toward Dielle. Look at that. Magic. Burgers for unicorns. "I brought myself a meads. Well two meads." It's easy to spend your money on alcohol when you have basically no living expenses. She peels two more burgers apart and stuffs both patties in her mouth at once. Nomf. "How you does, Leo?" she asks of him once she's done devouring those, and the buns have been tossed overboard.
Dielle catches the burger. "Mead would be good, could I have some?" She peels the burger off the bun, tosses the ketchup side of the bun to the fish, hands the meat to Etsy, and starts to nibble on the non-condimented, non-burgered bun. Weird unicorn. "Hey, Leo. How they hangin'?"
"Good, the mean fish are -super- mean over here." Leo says to Etsy with a grin, "I guess you'd know better than me." he adds a second later with a shrug. He pops his beer and takes a drink, easing his seat in toward the other two. "I'm good, great actually. How're both of you?" a pause, "Mads is ok with us all being here right?" Leo -really- meant 'Mads is ok with you two being here right?' but he was too polite to exclude himself from the grouping. "I figure he probably is? He likes everyone and all. Just you know. Like to make sure I know how to react if he shows up." Leo says with a grin, sprawling on his seat some.
Then Leo blinks, "Oh shit one sec." he says to Etsy and moves over to grab a mead. He return with it and presents it to her with a grin.
"Oh, I knows. I have to a goings to the waters to get a fruit of oasis, and a cheeroots for the plantings in the hedge gardens of Stoneheart. And, am an officials of Freehold." She sings herself her own little fanfare. Dun dun dun DUNNN! "Yes, can have a meads, Dielle. Meads is for sharing always, as long as some is left for mermaids. No meads, sad mermaids. Some meads, is okay to take somes." Unlike her food, she's pretty free with her alcohol, apparently. "I dunno, I guess Maddox okays with me here, if not, maybe I remind him he steals my foods and I knows a thing to tell people. He bes cute at his doggos." The mermaid clicks her tongue against the roof of her mouth. "You guys is either good with swimmings?"
"Ummm...I know how to swim!" says Dielle, brightly, because she discovered this one on her own. "Thank you, Etsy! Ummm...when you say you're planting cheroots, do you mean the cigars?" She sounds sooooooo confused, because she is confused. She's good at it, though.
"Oh. Fruit of Oasis and Cheeroot? I dunno cheeroot either." he says aside to Dielle, "But that's cool. And grats on joining the Freehold." he says with a small grin. He takes his burger that he got for his mead and nods at her talk about how to handle Maddox. He seems satisfied by that answer as he settles in, unwrapping his burger and chowing down with quick bites, washing it down with beer as he looks over at the two women, crumpling his burger wrapper once its done, stuffing the wrapper into his pocket lazily.
"Cheeeeeeeeeroot," and Etsy extends the first syllable, "Cheeroot is... it is a weed of growing in the water, and the roots is... they is kind of ickies unless you like to eat an earthworms? But they do a healing and also they... " She sticks the tip of her tongue out and leans forward a little bit, a blue flush spreading across her cheeks. "They make you a happies. For a little whiles. Is likes... Everybody in world is a friends, is a happies for everyone, like is Christmas morning and all presents all the time full of best everything. So not only is a healings the bodies, but also is making mind feel betters. Helps with a traumas, but also, be carefuls of usings in a fights."
She winks at Leo when he congratulates her, and blows him a hamburgery kiss. Etsy is sitting up near the boat's prow with her back to the railing, tossing the buns for her hamburgers into the water. The eels are eating well tonight, because she only eats the meat. Opening up the mead, she takes a good swallow, and passes the bottle to Dielle when she's done. "Is a feels like a cheeroots to be here."
Dielle takes the mead from Etsy, and says, "So, it's like healing ecstasy hedgefruit that tastes really bad!" She looks from Leo to Etsy and then agrees. "Yeah, congratulations!" She sits up from where she's laying on the bench to take a long drink of the mead. She passes it back to Etsy, and gets a happy look on her face. Which also starts to get VERY mildly flushed. A bit pink. Wait a bit, it'll get moreso as she drinks more.
"Oh." Leo says with a purse of his lips and an expression of thought briefly passing over his features. "If you plant some cheeroot, can I get some?" He asks, just a bit too casually. His eyes cut to Etsy, then over to Dielle when she says ecstasy. He grins at Etsy though when she blows him a kiss. "Aw, well. It feels like cheeroots to have people on the boat again. Hobs get old really fast." Leo says lightly, shifting his beer up and finishing it off before crumpling the can and tossing it into a bin halway across the boat, the arc perfect and natural, the can landing without touching the sides.
Jon stood on shore and called out in a low, resonating tenor. "Yeeeeeeo." And that was pretty much it to get someone's attention becasue beyond that it was fucking rude. He wandered on shore and waited for a go-ahead. Goddamn this guy had irritated resting face.
"Yes, is like that," Etsy asserts to Dielle, wiggling her toes in her tatty silk slippers. "WE HAVE A HAMBURGERS, I SHARE IT WITH YOU JON," Etsy yells back. "BECAUSE IS A FRIENDS. I BRING MCDONALD'S." She gives Leo another little look aside, and smiles at him, her lips pressed together and curved up at the corners. "Is because we are the best peoples. A unicorns of rainbows, a ice giants, and of course, a mermaids." She presses one of her webbed hands to her chest, as if to say, of course, mermaids are the best. "Is good. Almost like a pod again." A little wistfulness in her voice, there. "You come and helps me a little with the gettings, Leo. Is not always safes to get a cheeroots. And then I grow them for you lots." Trust a Spring to enable Leo getting high.
There's an excited nod given from satellite to mermaid. "Awesome." Leo says with a grin. "I can swim pretty well. But uh.. I don't hold my breath like you do? Or I dunno if you have gills. Or whatever?" Leo says honestly, like he just realized that she might, in fact, have gills 'or whatever'. He looks out across at Jon and lifts a hand, "One sec dude!" he calls, standing up and crossing around to the side of the boat Jon is one. He peers around for a second, then he grabs a long piece of wood from the side of the wheel house, just sort of removing part of the wall so that he can lean a ramp down to the man on the shore, since the boat is anchored.
Dielle sees Jon and sits up. She gets that look on her face, like she just lit up inside or something. It's a Jotun. She waves him onto the boat, and says, "Hey, Baller! Come join us! There's mead, you may have to drive me home! Etsy, you forgot a constellation! All the best peoples. Well, a lot of them, anyhow." She grins at Leo, then takes the mead bottle back, because mead. And she wants more.
Jon upnodded at the offerings of food and also to hold on a second. He was waiting patiently liek a glacier do. At Dielle's invitation he said casually, "Yeah lemme jsut walk on water in teh ehat of summer. What could go wrong?" he gave an upnod to Leo murmuring, "Hey, thanks man. How you hanging in there?" It was a genuine question, not a greeting. Greetings were grunts. He took the mead from Dielle and bit her on teh top of the head. That was thank you. He took a drink of the mead muttering, "Yeah this isn't stereotyping at all. Good shit though." As far as the burgers were concerned he woudn't turn down free food. "Brought beef jerkey and deer jerkey." This was presumably to share.
"It is not a stereotypes, it is because I cannot drink a beers all the time because I cannot eat a plants, it makes me a sickness, so I brings the meads." Esther's hands flutter absently for a moment before she digs in the bag for another hamburger, pulling the buns off of the meat and tossing the buns into the water. Then she eats the meat. "I did not forget a stars, I was talking to a constellations, we are the newness, is already he belongings." Dielle gets a small smile for her correction, though. Then she circles back to Leo. "Probably need a helps, or at least to be watching from the boats. I do not have gills. I telling you this. Remember. Is a promise to the water? Is why foods in the water? I breathe water."
New Activity ---------
Leo nods ay Jon, "No worries man." And once Jon is up, he lifts up the panel and replaces it on the wheel house. He looks at Etsy with a grin, "I didn't think you forgot me, everything is good." He nods at the mermaid when she explains, "I do remember now, when we were swimming and you dumped all the sausages." Leo says, with a slightly uneasy smile. Though he's not mad or anything, his constellation still a bright, lemony yellow. He eventually settles back into a seat and relaxes, turning to watch the boat with a light smile. Leo seems really pleased everyone just keeps showing up.
Dielle gently head butts Jon, and says, "No, the beer is stereotyping, fratboi. The mead is just playing to known biases." She takes the bottle back from Jon and drinks deeply, even if that means four swallows. She passes the bottle back to Etsy, and says, "Leo, what's your story, anyway? The only things I know about you are that you herd Maddox, even though that's like herding cats, you work on that show about exploding things, and you like to get high."
Jon actually laughed with a smirk to Dielle on that one. Holy SHIT was almost a total expression there. "Woooow wlel played, Dee. Well played." He listened to Dielle's rundown of Leop-points and admitted, "Shit, you know more than I do. And nah, man Mermaids don't need gills." Ask him someday why he knew about mermaid anatomy sometime. "And you can't reconstitute one simply by putting one in a bathtub like a plant." well at least he was aware. He offered the bag of kerkey for Etsy if she wanted it being the other big eater here and listened to what Leo answered with.
Suddenly there are questions, and Leo glances over at Dielle and Jon owlishly. "Uh." He says, with a bit of a shrug, "I mean. What do you wanna know? I'm from Montpellier." which is like 2 hours away. "I uh.. I went to school as a MechE, I'm pretty good at physics, uh.. I do definitely herd Maddox. I -love- getting high. I'm totally the masked.. I dunno that we ever settled on a name." he says with a small purse of his lips, "Oh, gotta swear to secrecy about that, keeps the fanbase guessing that I'm faceless." he explains with a grin. "Plus, uh. I dunno. You know. My parents are out there. Or whatever." he says with another shrug, "Might be weird having two kids all of a sudden."
Dielle nods ast Leo and says, "Ain't gonna tell anyone, anyhow. That'd involve commenting on YouTube and I don't do that." She nods at Leo about his parents, and then looks confused. "Were you an only child? Do you mean your Fetch?" She looks over at Jon. "I'll bite. How do you know about mermaid anatomy?" She doesn't actually sound anything but curious, though.
Jon said pointedly, "So you got a fetch nearby?" Two hours was pretty near. His expression on that was not evident, but his concern was. It was faint, but it was there. He was pointed in that direction making that face so that would have to pass as 'overt sympathy'. As for the question of anatomy he siad to Dielle simply, "I ran triage for Denali." He left it at that.
Yoink! Etsy snags the bag of Jerkey and then takes about half of it before handing it back. She stuffs it in her mouth. This should keep her busy for a while, because her cheeks are puffed out with jerkey which she snagged from Jon. And then she adds some mead to the mix, which means her mouth is so full that she cannot say anything. She taps her toes in the air, listening to everyone talk, and then she gives Leo a look aside, sympathetically. Jon gets sort of a funny look when he talks about mermaid physiology. She, too, is curious.
Etsy also focuses back in on Leo, regarding the fetch.
Jon disembarks into the Hedge.
"Yeah, I mean the Fetch." Leo says with a small purse of his lips. He looks to Jon and shrugs, "Yeah." He looks aside to the mermaid and the unicorn, waving as Jon uses the boat to head back to the real world by heading belowdecks. "Yeah, I mean." He says, looking back at the women, "He's still there, like, living with my parents and whatnot." he explains with a small shrug, looking over to the side. "But like you know. Whatever. Uh. What about you guys? I don't know much about you guys either?" He says, pushing for a topic change gently.
Dielle gets a weird look on her face, at the mention of Denali, and takes the meed back. She checks it to make sure there's no backwash, because bits of jerky with mead = nope. Then she drinks from it. "Denali was kind of a fuckwit." She looks after Jon as he leaves, and sighs. "Not much to tell, really. Jon and I are a thing. We been part of a motley. It went badly. Were part of another motley, it kinda faded away." She takes a breath and lets it out. "Ummm...yeah, that's about it, really. Well, it's not, but it's the main facts. Oh, I'm goin' to college. So's Jon, he's a med student. I'm majoring in...physical stuff. Just switched from business."
There's no backwash. She's a careful drinker, for all that she's a messy eater. That would be yucky of her. She steals the mead back, takes a swallow, passes it to Dielle. "I do not remembering my family. It was a long time ago." Etsy wiggles her fingers and her toes absently, working off the manic energy. "At least you are knowing your name that is for reals and not made up." Her shoulders rise and fall like a wave cresting the beach, and she watches Dielle as she talks, her sea-change eyes a brackish green. "I was away a longs time. Came back, and I had one pod, and it comed apart. But it was good at the times. I placing my motleymate over the -- " And then Etsy stops and rolls her shoulders again, digging in her paper bag for another hamburger, rather than finishing that sentence. "I making the goodest choice. I have a mrbl. I wented to go learn to be a Courier. I wanders. Is not so good for a mermaids to not have a pod."
There's a few nods from Leo as he listens, the constellation-haired man moving over to grab himself another beer as the two women share the mead, popping it open during Dielle's story and taking a seat. Through Etsy's he drinks. He offers a small nod at the end, "You should see the Fetch before you say that." Leo says in an annoyed tone. "I mean. It's not that big a deal. He's just.. you know? I had like a four point oh? I was gonna go to grad school? This dude gets addicted to WoW and drops out of college. He's living in my parent's basement now, just.. you know? We're almost thirty? Get a fucking job? Lose some fucking weight? He's like.. ugh. Nevermind." Leo says, his tone ticking toward annoyance, through anger, and up into a white-hot rage, his stars going yellow -> orange -> red. His mantle is overwhelmed, thankfully, but he's clearly just kinda mad. He shakes his head some, the lemony yellow suddenly re-asserted forcibly, his tone moderated, his attitude once more calm. "Or whatever. Anyway. Uh. I'm glad you both found us. You know? Even if we're not like.. a pod or whatever? It's good to have people." His eyes lifting from where he'd been glaring a hole in the deck as he pulls a joint out of his pocket and sticks it in his mouth, lighting up and sucking in a breath, puffing it out slowly.
"It's always good to have people. It's really been mostly Jon for a long time." Dielle looks like she's about to say something, but then she shakes her head, like she's decided against it. "Wouldn't mind bein' part of a herd again. Bein' sworn to a freehold ain't the same thing."
When Leo goes from yellow to orange to red, Etsy puts down her hamburger and rolls to her knees, and then edges over to where Leo is sitting down. She flops quietly, and looks up at him with her big, solemn eyes, putting her head on his knee. There's a sprawl of curly black hair and the wash of lilies and salt water on the air. "But you are having the knowing of where it is that your family is, Leo. And they are still alives. It is good to want that you can be near them, it is. But things can change, because they are alives." She flops her hands onto her stomach and leaves her head on his knee, looking up at him with all the gentle patience of a puppy. It's hard to be upset with big eyes staring at you like so. "Could be a pod," she agrees with Dielle's sentiment. "I giving up a lots for my last pod, and it falling apart. Is not ... good. For mermaids to be alone." They go crazy, in pieces.
The mermaid gets a soft smile from Leo when she makes her way over, his hand moving up to gently brush one of the lilies in her hair after a second. "I know. It's just.. hard. Things can't change the way I want them to. It's too late. S'almost harder because of that. Your parents are out of danger, you know?" he says with a very small shrug. He takes a second, adjusting one of Etsy's lillies with a gentle touch once more before looking over at Dielle, then back down to Etsy with a second, less small shrug. "I like you guys." he says, simply, "I think -Mads- even kinda likes you guys." his tone a bit more amused as he says that part. He leans back just a little bit and looks between the two, not adding anything more.
Dielle tilts her head. "Leo...do you want to leave your Fetch alive? If not, we could make that happen." She tilts her head and considers the constellation, without moving away from where she's sitting. "And I like you guys, too. Even Maddox."
For the first time since either one of them have seen her, Etsy seems to -- fractionally -- relax. Leo fussing at her lilies, the presence of both of them: her hands rest on her stomach, she stops tapping her feet. Her eyes shift slowly, from their usual brackish green to a lighter green, like sunlight through the water. "My parents are dead," she replies to Leo quietly, "Or must be," in a relatively coherent sentence. "And yes, Maddox is likings me. He pretending to not likes me, but he is thinking, a mermaids is fights, is not taking his shit, he is likes." She sniffs, once. "Yes. We will helps."
Etsy adds, as an afterthought, "Am liking you. And Jon. And also Maddox. I gueeeeeeeeeeeeeeess."
"Oh uh." Leo says with a blink, his hands going still while gently unfolding one of Etsy's lillies as the offer is made, leaving it half undone. Then Etsy agrees and he just sort of blinks. "I mean. I don't know. They think it's me. It'd kill them." he says with a small shrug, glancing away and back. "Or at least I dunno. Maybe? We could make it disappear." He says, pursing his lips. "I dunno. I gotta figure that out. I think about it all the time." he admits softly. He looks down at Etsy with a grin and a small nod, eager for the subject change. "You've got Mads figured out pretty well. I think he likes all of you guys. It's weird as heck."
Dielle nods. "It's...rough." She sounds like she understands and her voice is quiet, even though it carries enough for Leo and Etsy to hear her. "Because you want to protect them, but you don't want to make them feel like shit, either. And how do you go about showing them that you exist and let them think that...thing was their kid for so long and never told them and then, how do you explain it without actually telling them?" She may have thought about this herself. "Of course Maddox does," she says in a voice that's rather more upbeat and louder. "How do you not like me? I'm fuckin' fantastic! Just ask me, I'll tell you!"
The flower dusts Leo's fingers with pollen, and she gives Leo a sort of awkward half-smile. For the most part, she stays out of the conversation about fetches, because she's never had to deal with this problem. She's relatively content and relatively relaxed, her eyes half-lidding and her back stretching as she adjusts herself a bit. "Yes, of course Maddox is to liking us, because we are the best. A mermaids and a unicorns, we are the mythical amazings. Yes."
"You know what I'm saying then Dielle." he agrees, nodding firmly at her assessment. There's a small pause, and Leo finally says, to Etsy, "Sorry about your family." like it'd taken him that long to process it. He smiles down at her for a second before lazily wiping his fingers off on his shirt. He chuckles at both of them and nods, "Both of you are amazing mythical things, it's pretty great. Plus you two are way less greasy than most people we hang out with. That's a huge bonus." He doesn't seem to mind the mermaid on his knee, his hand moving back to his side once he'd wiped the pollen off. "So. I may go grab some sleep. You two can keep hanging out if you want though?" He says, with a slight tip of his head toward the deck, "I can crash belowdecks so like if anything happens or some hobs hop on or whatever you can get me if I need to take care of anything?" he says, amiably.
Dielle smiles at Leo and nods. "Yeah, I'm sorry about your family, too, Etsy. Leo, let me know, I'll back you, whatever you want. But I think I'm gonna head home. I have a frost giant to go cuddle up to and it's hot enough to use him as A/C." She gets up and says, "Etsy, I ain't drunk. You want a ride anywhere or do you wanna sleep here?"
"It's okay," Etsy assures Leo, adding, "I do not remembers, so I cannot miss them." Her shoulders rise and fall, and then she sits up slowly when it becomes clear the evening is winding down. "I should probably be going to look in on Angelicas," she agrees, rubbing her nose with a hand. "She has been the nicest to me, for a place to sleep. If I do not come by, she will worries that a thing has happened, because I was sleeps in a tent and that makes her worries." Her shoulders rise and fall, she goes to scoop up the bag with its three hamburgers left, and flits back to lean and kiss Leo on the cheek. "Whatever decidings is your decidings about families? I am to helping. Trust you. Okay?"
|
