The Search for Atlantis (JuumbledxStaine)

Jumbled · Jul 26, 2020

What Lies in the Deep
The Search for Atlantis

A roleplay by:
Juumbled and Staine

Jumbled · Jul 26, 2020

Water splashed lazily against the hull of the Lady Zoom. She wasn’t the fastest boat on the seas; she wasn’t meant for speed at all, making her name all the more ironic. Lady Zoom had far better things to do than zip along the water’s edge. She was meant for adventure! A crew of deep sea divers regularly took her out on trips toward the Devil’s Triangle in search of treasures from the downed ships and planes rumored to have disappeared within its imaginary walls. Also known as the Bermuda Triangle, it called out to the crew. Although they felt the curious itch to go further and further out each time, fear kept them distant enough to not lose radio signal. The “what ifs?” came at too high of a cost for their small expeditions.

Swaying back and forth along the calm waters, the bright white of the boat was the only color break from the beautiful blue waters and clear cerulean skies above. The captain waited with Lady Zoom while the team worked down below. They had charted out their journey each day, all of them hoping to someday make it big and retire young. It was the dream. Unfortunately, they weren’t the first group in the world to live in such fantasies.

The sound of water shooting up from a snorkel broke the normal quiet of the day and the captain glanced over, finding one of the divers. They all looked the same in their black suits lined with a neon yellow stripe along the sides. The diver bobbed in the water, spitting out their oxygen line to speak.

“We need a chain!” he said excitedly. It seemed this day, the group had mustered up something bigger than a few gold pieces from the depths of Mother Ocean’s waters. The captain leaned forward to look at the diver with his arms propped up against the gunwale on the port side. “And the net!”

“Is that right? Good on ya’ lads! I’ll send it down. Watch for it.” he hoped for all of their sake that this was the motherload they’d been searching for. Lady Zoom could use proper maintenance and he could use a decent meal if he was being honest with himself. These trips weren’t getting any less expensive. The payouts were almost nonexistent, too.

Hours passed and finally the loud cranking of the chain began to interject at every turn; metal hitting metal as it slowly pulled something up with a weight heavier than what the boat wanted to handle. The divers stayed close to their find: a statue of a woman depicting what could only be described as pure sorrow. They had wrapped the statue with a heavy-duty fisherman’s net that they then attached to the chain above. Protective of their find, they signaled to one another, watching to ensure the piece remained undamaged. Such a statue was so incredibly unique; it appeared to be sculpted out of coral, of all things. Coral was not a typical medium for such a craft. With the level of build-up from the ocean’s floor where they’d found her, they’d guess she’d been down there at least a hundred years or more without batting an eye. Still they intended to take her to a specialist. It was curious they hadn’t found any ship debris or wreckage near her, but the tides tended to move a lot of things over long periods like that.

After careful angling, several shouts and squabbles over how to handle their precious cargo, the crew finally stopped bickering and set off toward land. One, sitting at the foot of their treasure, was discussing a Historian he knew locally while another sat near the head, nodding while bringing up favorite auction houses. Two more busied themselves with cleaning gear and logging their finds on a chart of the area. Laughter and jovial shouting soon carried along the wind as Lady Zoom took them to the docks.

Several days had gone by and the statue was finally ready for viewing. The team had to find a way to keep her upright without breaking parts of her off. The pose was the biggest question for the crew by that point. When looking at her, it seemed as though she were supposed to be floating without a base to hold her up. An arm was pulled close to the figure’s chest while the other hand covered her eyes with a lowered head as if she were crying. Her torso was curled forward and her legs bent at the knees with her toes pointing down.

Their historian had come and gone. Although he was intrigued with the piece, he didn’t recognize the work to be that of anyone famously known. He congratulated them on their unique prize, but there wasn’t much in the way of money he could offer them at that time. He suggested having a local sculptor visit them and clean up some of the debris from the years of aging. If nothing else, they could sell her for their story. Sometimes buyers were more willing to purchase art when it had history behind it. Telling someone this statue dwelled close to the Bermuda Triangle, or maybe even that it was from there, could get them a decent enough payout to make it worth their trouble. At the end of the day, she was likely just a future garden statue.

“I won’t let that happen to ya’, ole girl.” a gentle voice spoke to the statue as she prepared her tools for a good cleaning. The barnacles could be removed at the very least. With a plastic scraper, the woman wedged it under one of the barnacles carefully, wiggling it up slowly until she was able to pop it off. It left a round husk behind on the statue’s foot, much like it would on the hull of a ship. She went about scraping it off carefully, her brow sweating as she concentrated. Her focus, however, was ruined as someone off to the side dropped a barrel that fell apart and rolled with a crash followed by another soon after. From the noise, her hand had slipped and she gouged her tool across the coral during her fright.

“Shit!” she said as she threw down her tool, storming off to yell at the guilty culprit. As voices grew louder off in the distance, the statue sat where she was, barely cut into by a plastic tool. The faintest color of red surfaced around the scrape until enough of the liquid gathered to drip a single drop downward onto the ground.

The diving team soon found their fortune as they exploited their find, calling it the “Grieving Mother.” News travelled quickly as reporters got in line to see this new religious idol found from the depths of the sea. They interviewed the team, one after the next, getting varied stories on who actually found her. Before long, common people spoke of how the statue bled, and if one were to touch her, she would answer a prayer. After that, rumors escalated to having the blood drip down onto one’s forehead to cure ailments and cancers.

Staine · Jul 27, 2020

Xander's eyes snapped open, the cold, polished metal and small glass window greeting him. Sweat was beading on his forehead, his heart was racing again and he drew in a deep breath, his hand coming up to the inflatable pillow currently fixed around his neck. "Waste of good money, stupid fucking thing..." The tank he was sleeping in had cost him a little over $10,000 when installation had been factored in, it was meant to be relaxing, to cut him off from the outside world completely as he slept in a foot of salt water. Soundproof, dark, comforting. It had seemed like such a good idea, the perfect thing to stop the dreams from seeping in but apparently it wasn't good enough. He'd had the nightmare again. Flashes still lingered in his mind, the acrid scent of smoke as the grenades had come through the doorway, the flashes of light from weapons far more advanced than anything on earth, beams of light, pulses of white hot energy that melted concrete and steel into slag. There were desperate screams around him, yelling, hands on him pushing him towards the shimmering blue of the portal suspended in the air before him. He had to go, he had to flee...they were coming. The Atlanteans. In his hand Xander clutched his only remaining worldly possession, a journal from long ago, the thing that had led him to Atlantis to ask questions about his great grandfather Ryker and his disappearance, the shame of his family. Light enveloped him, his senses were overwhelmed and the last thing he could feel was the fear of all those around him, those that had helped him escape before his stomach lurched and he was gone. Atlantis was left behind in his wake as he floated close to the shore, unconscious.

He pulled on the velcro to release the inflatable pillow that stopped his head sinking beneath the water and unbolted the clasp at the side of the tank, pushing the heavy door open to release himself. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, maybe it could block out the dreams and to some extent it was working, he didn't dream of those around him anymore. Human minds were so insistent on pushing into his own and when he slept, they took the form of dreams. Emotions so powerful that they took shape, their fears and desires made manifest. It was hard to look his neighbour Harvey in the face anymore since he had found himself dreaming a scene in which he was very much the center of the man's attentions, naked but for the whipped cream and strawberries. Definitely not his own, and Harvey had blushed when he had bumped into him the next day. He frowned as he stepped into the shower, turning it on to a searing temperature. He hadn't had strawberries since that day either. Grabbing his shower gel and washing himself, he couldn't fault the man, Xander was confident that he looked good enough to eat, tall and muscular he was fit, handsome even. Dark brown, almost black hair styled back into thick cornrows, eyes that were a smokey grey colour, unusual on this planet but common back on Vimorix where he had been born. Strong jawline contoured with a short beard that was only kept in line with an electric razor every few days so that it didn't grow out of control. Could he really fault the man for having fantasies about him? No, but that didn't make it any easier to be around.

Showered, he dressed himself in dark black cargo pants and black shirt, perfect for his late night escapades. It was almost 8pm already, he had slept through most of the day, ready to go and see this thing again, the statue. "Grieving Mother." Curiosity had led him there earlier in the week, it was the latest attraction in the city, fished up from the ocean and bleeding, said to cure all manner of nasty diseases though he was yet to see any proof of that, just more religious bullshit in his mind but he had nothing better to do so he had gone to pay it a visit. Walking into the room in which it was kept after paying the entrance fee he had felt it almost immediately even through the throng of the crowd, the despair that radiated outward from that thing. Usually he was good a suppressing emotions of others when he was awake, the natural empathic abilities of Vimorixians a detriment in a world filled with overly emotional beings that were riddled with anxiety, lust and fear in an almost never ending cacophony that had taken him almost 2 years to get used to and another year to master blocking out completely. The sheer power of the emotions that came from that beautiful hunk of coral shattered his mind's defences before he ever got close, it was like it had captured one fleeting moment in time where the artisan's entire world had been collapsing, the saddest, most painful part of their life and the statue had somehow retained all that emotion. Xander had to back away, he couldn't get any closer to it in the room like that, other emotions were starting to overwhelm him and break through and he could feel the lines on his face, the implants that were usually hidden beneath the surface of his flesh starting to glow. Days of planning had followed, and now this. He had cased the place, it wasn't particularly well guarded and he had more than enough contacts in the underworld since his 7 years on Earth that he was able to equip himself with exactly what he needed to take care of the lax security.

The drive was short, breaking in was shorter still. A small handheld device affixed to the circuit breaker disabled the alarms all too easily without tripping them, a simple task for a professional like him. Arriving on this planet with nothing, crime had been the only way to sustain himself at first, his ability to read and feel making it easy to fool people, tricking humans out of their hard earned money. He'd hustled poker games and pool, quickly learning the rules and exploiting others to get what he wanted. Harder crime had followed, his gifts offering him many unique advantages and his natural physiology simply superior to that of humans. He wasn't superhuman, he was just...better. With that came confidence, the unflinching feeling that he could get away with what others couldn't, and his race had always operated comfortably in the morally grey or black. They could feel the emotions of others, but they weren't subject to the whims of their own nearly so much. He aimed the small pistol in his hand at the lone security guard, the small night vision monocular covering his right eye making it easy to line up the sights as he squeezed the trigger. Almost silent, the dart sprouted from the neck of his victim, the man reaching up in confusion to touch it moments before he crumpled to the ground. Xander wasn't a monster, at the very least he didn't kill when he didn't have to, and just like that he was alone in the building, it would be hours before the guard woke along with the other one he had tranquillised outside. Two guards for something as already popular as this new discovery, it was like they were asking for it to be stolen. He could feel it from where he was already, the statue still trapped in that moment.

The only sounds in the room were the heavy footsteps of his thick, steel toed boots as he approached it, the waves of emotion getting stronger the closer he got. Now that it was in front of him he could see why they had named it as they had, the girl it had been modelled on did look like she was grieving, loss etched on her face, at least that which he could see. Her hand was covering her eyes, possibly hiding what was meant to be tears and she was almost curled in on herself. He reached out as he got closer, he could see the 'blood' if that was what it was meant to be. "Pretty little thing aren't you? But why are you so sad...what are you?" His voice was quiet, slightly gravelly and curious as his finger touched the blood. Wet. What had he expected? He would have looked for wires or some kind of hole it was coming from except the emotions trying to assault his senses like a battering ram already told him there was something special about this, that it wasn't a hoax. The blood, could it be real too? He ran his hand over the statue and flashes erupted in his mind, a searing pain between his eyes. Water, everywhere. He felt like he was drowning! He coughed, lurching backwards and almost falling on his ass while his hands came up to his throat. He struggled to breathe, he felt like he was really there in the depths of the ocean. While in reality Xander's body thrashed on the floor in his mind he was trying to swim, to breathe, to reach the surface. His limbs turned heavy, he looked down to see the coral creeping up, encasing him. Terror in his eyes as it covered his throat, his chin, his mouth...then air rushed into his lungs as the horrifically vivid hallucination ended, leaving him gasping for air on the floor.

What the hell was that?

Jumbled · Jul 29, 2020

The display room was dimly lit. Blue tinted spotlights were aimed up at the “Grieving Mother” in all of her sorrow and pain. A second set of lights from above emulated the feeling of standing underwater with wavy lines that swayed back and forth slowly. There were several speakers that played calming music against the sounds of gentle waves tucked away somewhere behind the display, but the music had ended hours before. Velvet ropes sectioned off the room in such a way to keep lines in order when visitors were gathered during the open hours of the building.

The statue had become an attraction for gullible people to throw money at, and Lady Zoom’s crew happily held out their eager hands to collect. After all, they had earned the right to any fortune from their deep sea explorations. It wasn’t as though they were tricking people; the statue really did bleed all on its own. They had made several calls to discover more about the phenomenon, but while the appointments would take a good deal of time before someone from the church was available to research their hunk of sad coral, there were fanatics ready to keep them immediate company and their wallets sizeably stuffed. Celebration was in order, and what better way was there to do so other than to feast and drink? The crew set out for the night, excitedly talking about anything and everything. Life was just easier when one felt wealthy.

The guards that watched the building were all that the crew could afford themselves since they wanted to live like kings. They were reputable men that worked in various security roles and came highly recommended. Some of the crew felt their money would be better spent on cameras instead. The guards were more of a placeholder. The team was split as far as who wanted to keep just one guard and who wanted to not waste the money on any of them. Who was going to steal a statue? It would be too obvious! Not to mention heavy. Then again--

A hand reached forward, touching the blood that slowly pooled from the statue’s pointed foot; it was from a more recent cut. The gouge that had originally bled had dried up over time so the crew was carefully nicking her again and again just to keep the people coming. A famous bleeding statue needed to keep bleeding. The curious hand ran along the rough surface of the statue before pulling away suddenly. The figure then thrashed around on the floor in front of the display. If the guards hadn’t been tranquilized, one might think they’d used a taser on the intruder.

The blood, disturbed by his hand, trailed down her foot, all the way to her pointed toes. As the man gasped for air, a singular drop of blood had formed, threatening to fall from her and drip onto the floor. Gravity beckoned it and as the drop launched toward the gray, cement floor, it suddenly stopped, hovering in the air. The droplet slowly rotated in circles as a high frequency ringing filled the air. The sound grew stronger to those that could hear such a tone. In the distance, dogs began to bark and howl into the night air. The blood began to stretch out as it spun causing it to become flat and cylindrical. Within moments, a thin line of the drop shot forward to the man and up toward the statue, as if it aimed to pierce both of their hearts at once. The deep crimson then transformed into a bright golden string that pulled taut.

From the point of impact on the statue’s chest, it began to crack loudly, fissuring up and down its entire form. Golden light began to shine from within it through the cracks as though it was the personification of what a soul might look like. Instead of falling and hitting the ground in hard chunks, the coral looked as though it was turning into liquid. It began to sweat and drip, filling the immediate area with a small pool of salt water. The process increased in speed until there was only a golden silhouette of a woman, far more defined with smooth curves and lines the coral had been lacking, and water spreading across the entire room. Then, as if rushing, rolling ocean waves, the water hurriedly went backwards, covering the golden figure until the light was gone and it was nothing but a woman made of blue water.

She slowly placed one foot on the ground followed by the other as she stood up, wiping her eyes as if to push away tears. The back of her hand rubbed her eyes as her body began to solidify into a human form.

“R-Ryker--?” asked a shaky voice. She stared down at the man on the floor in front of her. Her slate gray eyes stared intensely at the man’s face. This was not her love; not the man she was bound to. How was she alive? Her long, dark hair swayed around her as if being pushed by an invisible force or power that radiated from being pulled from her crypt. She raised a hand as if to attack him but suddenly halted in her motion at the sight of two things. Her gaze had honed in on the golden tether that tied her to him. As she followed the small, yet powerful string downward, she then noticed the hint of a book that she was sure she had seen before.

“Who are you?” she demanded. She spoke in an old language unknown to men of their current time. Her stance was powerful as she stood with one bronzed leg slightly in front of the other. Her right hand was channeling her power over water as it surrounded her digits at will. She would attack this man if she had to, even if that meant she would die for it. What did it matter to her? She died when he had, long ago.

Staine · Jul 30, 2020

It took a couple of minutes before Xander had even started to compose himself, the vision or hallucination or whatever the hell it was shocking him to his very core. Never, in a little over 30 human years of life, had he experienced anything quite like it, so vivid and powerful that he actually felt the coral on his skin still. It was like when you had been wearing a ring and took it off for the first time in ages; the feeling was still there and his focus was on his hands as he ran them over his body to make sure it wasn't real. Nothing, no coral nor anything else encasing him other than the black, crime appropriate clothing he had chosen for the job at hand. Near him, just on the peripheral of his vision and a little beyond, things were happening but he was lost in thought, too lost to really see as a single drop of blood twisted and turned in the air, reshaping and reforming, held aloft by magic the likes of which Earth rarely saw. The noise was what drew his attention, the sound of dogs barking and howling in the distance all at the same time shook him out of his own head when he was trying to concentrate on breathing deeply, no longer gasping for air. Air was easy to get now that he wasn't drowning, lost in what had seemed to be the ocean's depths. He shuddered as he looked up...water didn't scare him, not much scared him truth be told, but there was something about the deepest parts of the sea that terrified him. Fear of the unknown, perhaps, the darkness, the pressure, the still undiscovered creatures the size of vehicles and even bigger that swam there, lurking. The depths, those did scare Xander.

His eyes finally located the strange occurrence, the blood; now that he was starting to come to his senses he didn't know how he had missed it but he didn't have long to think about it before the next in the series of assaults on his body and mind happened. It exploded...or rather, bisected, the drop of blood firing out in two different directions at the same time, expanding like it was some kind of laser from his nightmares only thinner, a crimson fishing line that hit him square in the chest right where his heart was. His shirt nor his long coat was no barrier to it, the slight sting like he had been stung by a wasp or bitten by a similar insect before it shimmered and the hue changed from the deep red to a brilliant, glowing golden colour. All the while he had been lost for words, mind reeling but now he spoke as his hands came up to try and remove or pull on the thread, instead slipping through it like it wasn't even there, intangible even as he felt it pull taut. It defied physics! If it could pull on him, he should be able to grasp it, to remove it, but again and again his hands slipped through, the only purchase he made was on the journal he kept with him always in his inside coat pocket, now half way out and in danger of falling. What was it? A hallucination? Had his vision shattered his mind so easily? "Gods, what is this...what's happening to me, you..." He looked up towards the Grieving Mother, but she wasn't the same as she had been moments ago either. Cracks had appeared where the thread had impacted her, coral crumbling to the floor and becoming liquid, not blood but water. He scrambled backwards as it got close to touching his boot, still not managing to climb to his feet as events unfolded, then just when he thought it would never end it rushed back towards the golden form of the Grieving Mother than had taken the place of the statue he had come to investigate.

Once the swirling water and blinding, golden light had dissipated he was left with...a woman? She stood, taking a step as he watched, open mouthed and feeling...things. The despair...the thing that had brought him here to the statue, it was fading away. No, that wasn't it, it was still there, but now there were other emotions, like time had unfrozen and instead of that one powerful instance of grief there were other emotions pouring in like the hourglass had started to flow again. He felt hope, then he felt...was it dismay? The voice said just one word, it was feminine as he would have expected but shaken, confused, perhaps? Was she the source of these emotions? She had to be. Barely given time to process she had taken an aggressive looking stance and water had manifested around her fingertips in ways he hadn't ever seen before, ways that shouldn't be possible and yet it seemed so familiar at the same time, and...did she just say what he thought she had? The language wasn't something he could understand but that one word, that name. His hand came up to his chest, finding the journal, holding it protectively as it seemed to be where her gaze had fallen. "Did you just call me Ryker?" As soon as he had spoken the word an image poured into his mind, the face he had seen only in photographs and videos before, always smiling...but with a look of desperation on it. "Run...go through the portal, I have to stay. Please, they need you, they can't get you." He could see sadness, regret, longing in those eyes, so similar to his own; it was like he was looking into the face of his ancestor but through the eyes of another. "I'm sorry, Nerida, I know what this means for me, for you if I don't return but they have to be stopped, nobody else will do this. The weapon, it cannot be made whole." In the real world, the golden thread quivered like it had been plucked, a string on a harp, and a soft green glow, tiny but visible if one was looking flowed down it, following from his chest all the way to hers. Whatever it was connecting them connected the vision in his mind too, sharing it between them.

Xander had never experienced anything like this; He saw the dreams people were having sometimes but this seemed so real, so vivid. Much like the hallucination he had already been through just minutes ago it was like it was more than a dream, like it was the past itself playing out in his own mind, invasive and unwanted snippets of a history he nor anybody else had ever witnessed before. Not just witness, he could feel things, emotions and even physical sensations? This was a part of his empathic abilities he hadn't known existed, hadn't heard of before and right now he wanted to trade them back to wherever they came from for a stiff whisky. "Nerida? Who the fuck is Nerida?" Looking back up as his senses started to focus on reality again he got the strange feeling he knew exactly who Nerida was. There was nobody else who he could be picking this up from, right? "You did, didn't you? You called me Ryker." Slowly, he started to climb to his feet; her pose and her tone seemed threatening for sure but it was just water, wasn't it? He had his gun, still loaded with a dart. He reached for his holster as he stood, his hand finding the pistol, finger on the trigger as he slowly drew it though he was careful not to point it at her. No point in being too aggressive. "What do you know of my great grandfather? Was that you I saw with him just now? Why can't you take your eyes off his journal?" His other hand pulled the book from his pocket. The way the water swirled around her fingers and the whole show he had seen where she had 'reformed' brought something to mind. There wasn't much about it in the journal and he had used a different name and towards the end it had spoken more and more of a woman from another planet, something like a water creature or spirit. The way it had been written felt like she was important to his ancestor, it hadn't told what had become of her, only that he had to leave her in the last entry before the journal had been locked away in his safe and Ryker had vanished. One word came to his mind, one he had taken to possibly be her name. "Are you Undine? Did you know him?" Xander was stepping forward as he spoke now, the shock of the hallucinations had all but vanished as excitement bubbled up inside him. This was incredible, this could be a link to his very own past, a way to see what had really happened to his grandfather, the answer to all his questions and his eagerness for answers was clear in his tone.

Jumbled · Jul 31, 2020

Nerida’s mind was flooded with some of the last images she’d experienced before she sunk into the sea. She looked through her own eyes into the desperate ones of Ryker as if she was back there once more, reliving that day. He urged her to go, but she didn’t want to. Her heart pulled to him, not wanting to leave his side. They could just go together, hide in her world! She could keep them safe underwater; the Atlantians wouldn’t find them down there together. But, he was convinced he had to do the right thing: Destroy the portal, delay the weapon’s completion. Nerida was likely the last living Undine left since most of them had been killed through acts of betrayal from their lovers. Ryker was a good man. He had never used Nerida like that. The weapon-- it was a device that had been collecting magical people and creatures in order to grant mass control. The Atlantians wanted to be the master race in all of the galaxies and they only needed a few more species. Their choice of sacrifices were Ryker and herself.

That day had ended with Nerida jumping through the portal of Atlantis, leaving Ryker there, upon his request, to die. She stood just outside the Earth’s entry way into Atlantis, her hair blowing in the wind. The ground beneath her began to rumble and crack as if it might break. The trembling only grew more intense, so she quickly ran to the edge of the platform, diving into the sea and swimming far enough away to keep her body from harm. She stayed there in the water, watching the city begin to vanish, different parts at a time, like a hologram that was breaking. Her hopeful eyes watched, wishing for Ryker to jump out of there at the last minute, before it was too late. Instead, she felt her feet as they began to harden over, weighing her down. Her hand covered her face as she cried, screaming out in anguish. Ryker was dying. She could feel him slipping away as the coral consuming her form took over. Her tears were drowned out from the booming blasts of the construct being destroyed and the water pulling her under.

Nerida blinked, her heart newly heavy as tears rolled down her cheeks. She felt the pain of his death all over again. It was still so new in her mind. The water that swirled around her fingers slowly faded as the man stood, looking as though it had been absorbed into her skin. It took Nerida a while to remember the language he was speaking. She and Ryker had taken to conversing in her native tongue long ago to protect their conversations from others. It took Ryker a lot of time to really excel at speaking it and at best his accent was harsher with the words than it needed to be, but he was a dedicated man; dedicated to her.

“I did. I was mistaken. You are not my Ryker,” she said quietly. Her stance shifted so that she stood with her feet together and her arms hugging her torso. She still wore the outfit she had on when it happened. Dark teal, water resistant skins fit against her breasts tightly, matching her every curve. Her arms were adorned with cuffs dressed with blue opals that looked as if they encased pieces of the ocean within each stone. Similar gems lined the bottom of her halter piece, as well as the heavy necklace that drew the eye into the subtle lines of her throat. A skirt flowed out from just above her hips and stopped above her knees. Such clothing was created in a different world from this one. It was able to transform with her body when she took on her water form.

Her gaze followed his hand, noting his choice to guard himself with a weapon. She supposed it was reasonable enough since she was also ready to attack only moments ago. She was far more concerned about the tether that connected the two of them. It was thin and shortly woven. The line she’d had with Ryker could stretch out for miles. It was a testimony of their trust toward one another. Nerida frowned. She wasn’t going to be able to leave this man’s side if she intended to stay animated. Even so-- If she was indeed linked to this person with eyes that resembled those of the man’s she’d loved, did that mean her fate was now in his hands? If he did something considered to be an ultimate betrayal to her, would she die like all of the Undine before her? Nerida looked off to the side in such stressful thoughts.

"What do you know of my great grandfather? Was that you I saw with him just now? Why can't you take your eyes off his journal?" he asked her. She looked back at him, her eyes searching his features. He was a very rugged man with a strong jawline and well groomed facial hair. His face had the tracings of the lines that once trailed across Ryker’s face, too. And those eyes. She lingered a long while, staring into them. Her heart ached. It took everything she had not to crumple over and cry out in despair. She didn’t want to live without Ryker. She didn’t want this man.

“You’re of his bloodline?” she asked. Her voice threatened to crack and give away her true emotional state. She considered the thought. She knew Ryker had a wife and children before he'd even met her. The woman had died and his children were of age enough to be off on their own. The idea that his genetics continued to live on, it made sense. “He carried that journal with him all the time. It caught my eye. And, yes. Obviously if you have that you should know what I am. He was always writing notes and doodling in there.”

She shifted her weight to her other foot as he moved toward her, then winced as she felt pain from below. Nerida looked down, finding a wide scrape across the top of her foot she hadn’t noticed until her adrenaline had left her. The cut was pooling with blood that was spilling down around her onto the floor. She lifted her foot to stop some of the pressure. “Did you do this?” she asked. Her expression was fearful. If he was already so quick to harm her, she’d turn into seafoam soon. “What is this place?” she had only then started to take in her surroundings. It wasn’t Atlantis, at the very least. It still felt like she was on Earth. She looked at the wavy lights that moved along the ground, then the velvet ropes. “Am I--”

Nerida looked beyond the man before her, noticing a poster on the wall picturing the statue they called “Grieving Mother.” She tilted her head, her eyes meeting his again.
“Am I some sort of display of yours?” she asked in an offended tone.

Staine · Aug 1, 2020

It seemed to him that this woman was lost in her own thoughts as he approached her, the water dissipating into nothingness or rather being absorbed back into her hand like it had earlier when the coral had fractured and broken down into water. He could feel it...the sadness that resonated from her, not as powerful as the roiling wave of it the statue itself had given off but it had the same wavelength, the same feel to it. When she next spoke he was barely a couple of feet from her, though the plinth she was on meant even at his height he had to look up at her a little. "So you knew him then? Your Ryker? I see, I see...so you were a couple, you and my grandfather?" The excitement hadn't left his voice, even as her melancholy emotions permeated the air and made themselves known to him they didn't quite effect him, he felt them but wasn't beholden to them. That hadn't always been the case, but as he had matured he had learned in the old Vimorixian way to shield himself somewhat from emotions; it was either that or go crazy. Since being on Earth he had picked something else up too, a general lack of empathy, ironic for an empath. He had little time for tact when he didn't really care about the people he met and worked with; most humans he treated as a means to an end and with this woman...the end felt like it was in sight. What had he been searching for, if not a way back to Atlantis which in turn would lead him home? She had been there, she had seen it, a portal. Even now he could still picture his grandfather disappearing through it, it had been her eyes he had been looking through.

She had briefly looked towards his pistol, which now that she had 'disarmed' herself he holstered quickly, no need to have her feeling threatened at least, not when he wanted answers from her. As her gaze slipped back up to his face he felt another wave of despair, powerful and coming in pulses, but he had things on his mind that he had to ask, had to know. "Yes, yes, I'm of his bloodline, he was...were you the Undine then?" She seemed to have answered yes but she also seemed to think he would know more of her than he did. he shook his head, pulling out the journal and flicking to the end, looking down at it. "No, there is very little about you until the end, it mentions a woman, a creature of water, a spirit of sorts? You were being hunted, by the Atlanteans? Is that how he died, protecting you? Tell me, how it happened! Tell me where you last saw him! They called him a traitor, was it true? Was he a terrorist? The journal has another story...was that why they killed him? What do you know, tell me it all, tell me..." He had looked up at her again as another spike of emotion had washed over him and realised that he was losing it, excitement rising as he asked question after question, that the sadness in her eyes and flowing from her wasn't fading away. He closed the book, smiling at her, a practised art when it came to trying to put people at ease...usually right before he took what he needed from them.

"Sorry, I tend to get carried away when I get excited and that vision...I've never had anything like it before, to think I could actually see him like I could have reached out and touched him." Looking down to her foot he chuckled and shook his head. It didn't take a genius to work out what had happened to her, though of course she was lacking a lot of the information he had. He laughed at her tone, holding a hand up defensively. "No, that wasn't me, this isn't my display. Don't you remember anything? You were like a statue, wrapped in coral. Quite beautiful, really." It was an easy lie, the statue had been rough, jagged, not carved marble or anything of the sort, nothing he would call beautiful but she didn't need to know that. Looking up at her, the woman herself was far easier on the eyes. Curvaceous with form fitting, tight clothing, exposed flesh to draw the eye and her face was every bit as beautifully sculpted as the rest of her with high cheekbones and the flawless skin...it was easy to see how Ryker had fallen for her; his grandfather had excellent taste. A small smile on his lips as he looked back up her body towards her eyes, Xander shook his head again.

"I think it was to make you bleed. The crazies on this planet do love a bleeding statue, makes them think their God is speaking to them or something, but it wasn't me. They found you in the ocean, that's what they are telling people." He grinned, pointing to the poster she had glanced at. "The Grieving mother, silly name if you ask me. Humans, right?" He reached up to offer a hand. "Come on, I'll help you down, then we can talk. I have so many things to ask you, about Ryker, about Atlantis." He didn't wait for her to accept his offer, Xander didn't have patience when he was this excited and more than anything else in that moment he just wanted to take her out of there before the guards woke or the owners got back. Even the golden line connecting the two of them was ignored; everything but his own goals had been pushed from his mind the moment he had seen Atlantis again through that vision. He took her hand and gave a gently but insistent tug. "Come on love, if we wait around here too long then they are only going to wake up, I don't fancy being caught here, do you? My car is just outside and around the corner, I think you can make it." Xander slowed his pace as much as he was willing due to her injury but far from being gentle, he was practically dragging her along with him through the almost empty building. The car wasn't too far away, a dark, smokey grey range rover that he had bought mostly for the comfort and the electronics rather than any actual appeal. If he could get her there with out much of a fuss then home was an hour of driving and then...then answers to the most important questions of his life and the big one...where would he find Atlantis? He remembered washing up, he knew it had to be in the water somewhere, but he had been unconscious and the ocean was huge. Without knowing where to look never mind how to get back through he had been stranded here for so long.

Jumbled · Aug 3, 2020

Could this person really be related to Ryker? She hugged herself closer as his disregard for her feelings unsettled her completely. She needed to process. For her, Ryker had died only moments ago. But, hadn’t he said great grandfather? She was aware his race could live longer than humans, but that was still two generations after her love’s. She lowered her head. How much time had gone by? She supposed it was nice this stranger-- no, Ryker’s great grandchild-- was excited to hear about someone knowing him during his lifetime. Wasn’t it? She glanced back at him again considering the notion. No. There was some ulterior reasoning behind the waves of glee emanating off of him. She was no empath, true, but she wasn’t the worst in the world when it came to reading people. The man was setting off many red flags, the biggest of which was still her being tethered to him.

He holstered his weapon and decided to attack her with question after question instead.
“Yes, I am Undine.” she began, sounding slightly annoyed. Was this man not intelligent enough to read between the lines? She looked at the journal, noting several places where pages had been torn out of it. ‘Oh, that’s right,’ she thought to herself. He ripped out all of the details about her kind in case the Atlantians got their hands on the journal. Again, like a hyper, yipping pup, the man barked his questions. He was so eager, it was difficult to know when to interject. Even so, the place they were in didn’t seem like a proper setting for such an intimate discussion about her lover. He seemed to catch a breath, looking back up at her with a little welcomed silence. She stared at him, feeling incredibly insecure. ‘Why this man?’ she wondered. Why couldn’t some other member of his distant family have discovered her instead of him. Unless they were all this careless. Even his smile, though it looked nice on his face, didn’t seem real. She frowned.

He mentioned his vision and it was enough to pull Nerida’s attention to him. Had he seen the same thing she had? Did he look through her eyes? Those were very private moments. It was strange to have someone openly talking about the thoughts in her head. Then again, the vision she experienced had hit her like a wave. Perhaps his power plus her tether to him brought it out. Ryker always told her she made him a stronger man, and sometimes she wondered if he’d meant that in a more literal sense, though he was far too sweet to ever speak to her like the ogre of a man before her.

“How would I remember being... not alive?” she asked, uncertain as to how she could even say what she meant properly. “What I mean to say is, my last memories are of being out in the water. Until now.”
Her nostrils lightly flared at the idea that her form, symbolizing both the death of Ryker and herself, would be considered beautiful at all. This man didn’t seem to know what to say-- ever. What an oaf. She also wasn’t blind to him raking his eyes over her like she was a field full of freshly fallen autumn leaves. Where were his manners? At the very least, he was able to explain her poor foot. So that was it, then? She was still technically a living piece of the ocean, and she could still bleed. The humans thought it was okay to just keep cutting her? She looked around nervously. Nerida didn’t want to stay in such a place. Time would keep moving forward but people using the Undine would likely never change. As if he could read her mind --and maybe actually had-- his hand outstretched toward her. She looked at him questionably. It’s not like she had any real option to go without him. She hesitantly released her self-hug and placed her fingertips onto his. Her light touch was met with a firmer grip around her whole hand as she was pulled gently forward. She winced as she placed more weight on her foot.

“Come on love,” he said. She inhaled deeply, calling her patience to the forefront of her mind. He couldn’t just call her that. She was so caught off guard from this man that hadn’t even taken so much as a minute to even introduce himself properly to her. ‘What nerve--’

Her legs felt stiff. With each step, a jolt of pain shot upward toward her hips. She hadn’t been that out of shape before, so perhaps it was far more believable that she was a giant slab of coral for hundreds of years. She hobbled along as he tugged and urged her to his vehicle. She stared at the hunk of metal on wheels. It wasn’t the nicest looking thing she’d ever seen, but Atlantis had transit systems that were likely similar in nature. He took her to a door, opening it and helping her inside. She watched him move around to the other door, the thread of golden fate phasing through the car and around it until he joined her inside. That little string was troublesome. Invisible to anyone outside of the pairing, it was impossible to break the bond, from what she understood. Otherwise, her kind wouldn’t have been wiped off the face of the planet.

It was dark outside. The lights from the vehicles going in the opposite direction hurt her eyes. She turned to her side on the seat, gazing outside of the window, ignoring his wishes for conversation. She didn’t care what he wanted at all in that moment because there was only one thing that she wanted and she could never have it again. So what if he had to wait to hear about some story in which the love of her life dies at the end? The big hero-- Ryker. Nerida closed her eyes, trying not to audibly sob beside the man driving. He hadn’t earned the right to hear her at her most vulnerable.

Staine · Aug 6, 2020

While he was leading her back to his vehicle, Xander was processing everything that had happened in the short time, the cogs turning as he tried to piece together the situation. Undine, she had admitted that but he still didn't know what that meant, he had never heard the word before except for in Ryker's journal and even then there wasn't much information on it. It wasn't her name, as he had first thought, that much was clear when he had called her Nerida in his vision, but all that meant was that it was...her species? Which planet was she from if that was the case? For once he wished he had paid more attention when he was in school back home, when they had learned of other planets and their inhabitants, races, the traits that made them unique. Obviously her power over water was undeniable, she had been found in the ocean, she controlled it to some degree like it was a part of her...hell, hadn't it been a part of her for real? he had seen her body reform with it, hadn't he? He didn't even know that for sure. He thought back to what she had said, how would she remember not being alive. Did that mean she had died? So many questions he now had about her and not just atlantis, but she seemed to be in distress too, emotions swirling around her like the water had, waves of them, ever changing as the seconds had passed. Helping her into the range rover he had watched the golden thread connecting them as he had moved around the car, watching it phase through the vehicle like it had his hand. Another question to be answered.

As he sat in the driver's seat he started it up and looked over at her again. She really was beautiful, but there was a sadness around her that dulled it, made her seem somehow less, and he wondered what she would look like smiling, happy. What would her laughter sound like? "Nerida, that's your name right?" She seemed to be gazing out of the window, ignoring him. Made sense...he had picked up the annoyance at him as he had told her to follow him, taken her hand back in the display area and he didn't need to be an empath to know that she already disliked him but she had followed anyway, that meant something, right? As he started the drive he considered putting music on, it helped dull the emotion in the atmosphere somewhat, helped him to focus on anything but the often selfish, needy desires and fears of the human race but now he wanted to feel, he wanted to get a measure of this woman and learn how best to handle this. When he had bombarded her with questions she had seemed overwhelmed with pangs of sadness, indignation and annoyance. After around ten minutes he felt he had to fill the silence, ironic since it was often something he sought out deliberately. "You don't like me very much, do you? Is it because of the questions? I didn't hurt your foot so that can't be it. Is it because I woke you, because I'm not my grandfather?" He even tried flashing her a smile; it wasn't a very sincere one but to him, having her at least somewhat cordial with him felt like it would be more helpful than this. "Is it this thing?" He waved his hand through the tether connecting them again, chuckling as it went right thought it as expected. "I don't know what this is, do you? How far does it go? What happens if I try to stretch it? Is it ever going to go away? It's kinda distracting."

They were getting closer and closer to his apartment building, and Xander was driving faster than he usually would anyway, eager to get home and ask questions or perhaps to just be out of the awkwardness that he felt in the air, thick enough that it was weighing on him. Pulling into the carpark, he stopped the car and turned off the engine, pausing a second as he looked at her again, his eyes wandering over her, lower. "Wait here, I think I can help." Climbing out of the car he popped the trunk and found what he was looking for, his emergency first aid kit, opening the passenger side door and taking a knee as he opened it and pulled out the anti-septic cream and the bandages. A thought struck him and he laughed, looking up at her with a smile. "Can an Undine even get an infection? Would you tell me about your race...what are you, where did you come from? Another planet? Like me?" He was already reaching for her ankle; Xander hadn't quite developed a respect for boundaries like most Earthlings had, it just wasn't a part of his race. Vimorixians could read emotions like they were words on a page, they had very little sense of privacy and Xander in particular cared very little about invading personal space if it suited him so he didn't think to ask if he could touch her, instead pulling her ankle up while he held the tube of cream in his other hand, squeezing a little on to the cut. "Sorry if this stings...just bear with it, it will feel better soon." He used his thumb to rub it in, perhaps a little roughly but he wanted to be sure to clean it properly before he started to bind her ankle and foot tightly with the bandages. "There. Even if you can get infected, that should take care of it, and if not, well it's better safe than sorry right?" He tried flashing her another smile, rising to his feet and holding out a hand to her. Whether she thought him an asshole or not, she clearly had no place else to go. "Come on, my apartment is just up the elevator, no point in hanging around here, right?" He threw the first-aid kit onto her seat as he helped pull her up from it, locking the car and leading her to the elevator at a slower pace than before.

The elevator ride was thankfully not very long, just three floors up though when the doors opened they were no longer alone. Harvey was there, waiting; inwardly Xander swore to himself, forcing his lips to curl upwards as he raised his free hand, laughing. "Harvey! Not seen you in a while, what are you doing out so late?" Small talk...it was always awkward for Xander but now it was even worse, he didn't feel like explaining why he was escorting an ancient water spirit or whatever the hell she was back to his apartment, though Harvey had other things on his mind. He saw his eyes flick from his own face to Nerida, then back, then back again to Nerida, this time going down over her body, taking in the strange clothes she was garbed in, mostly absent in favour of bare skin and far more revealing than one would usually expect even in this city. Xander felt surprise first, then jealousy....a small hint of regret, or was it sadness? Harvey was cycling quickly through the emotions until his eyes found Xander's again. "Oh, just wanted something to eat, thought I'd treat myself you know?" The words came out as a mumble and Xander's smile faded a little as he realised what Harvey was thinking, that he was bringing back some girl he had picked up or maybe even a hooker, and that it confirmed he wasn't exactly Xander's 'type'. Annoyed a little that he had been seen with her, wanting no witnesses just in case, though in case of what he had no idea, Xander couldn't help poking him a little. "Yeah, I'm looking forward to a couple of treats myself, thinking strawberries and cream tonight." He grinned, even giving a small wink to the man before quickly pulling Nerida past the man and towards his apartment.

Unlocking the door he led her inside. The apartment was decorated in a very modern style, white and beige walls with a silver and brown border and tan leather furniture, two chairs and a sofa. There was a dining table towards the back of the room where the small kitchen area was and teak cupboards all along the wall above the marble effect countertop, with his knives and cookware hanging from a magnetic strip on the wall just beneath them. There was a single bookcase, mostly empty but for contemporary picture frames with no photographs in them and small statues of various animals, rabbits and cats, wolves and birds of prey that he found interesting. On one wall facing the sofa was a huge television he had bought a year ago and a selection of movies he had never watched and a glass coffee table and by the door was a large fish tank lit with a blacklight to draw out the colours, with 3 Mandarin dragonets, a single coral beauty and two parrot fish. along with coral and sea anenomes all chosen for the vibrant colours. Another fish tank on the opposite wall contained nothing but a single octopus. For all intents and purposes it looked like the kind of room a man with no attachments would be expected to have, he had decorated it after comments from 'business' partners who had noted that the room had been bare, spartan like. "Make yourself at home, have a seat, get off that foot, it hurts, right?" Closing the door behind them he released her hand for the first time since the parking lot, pointing towards the sofa and chairs. "Can I get you anything? It's safe here at least, you can tell me more about Ryker, about atlantis!" His eyes were lighting up with excitement again.

Jumbled · Aug 7, 2020

Nerida had been avoiding eye contact with the brute of a man that had helped her into his car. Her body was positioned perfectly to forget that he existed; except not really. Her shoulder twitched toward him as he spoke to her, a small indication she was listening at the very least. “Yes,” she said somewhat flatly, not offering him more in the way of the conversation she felt he was searching for. It was his own mistake for asking such an easily answered question. Was she supposed to be impressed that he remembered her name? He still hadn’t even told her his own. Her answer only held him at bay for a short while. It seemed he couldn’t keep himself quiet and Nerida was unfortunately trapped in a box on wheels with him for an indeterminable amount of time. His first series of questions when he started up again were easy enough. No, she didn’t like him very much. She had given her heart to one man and it was not the one sitting beside her. And of course his constant drilling of every single curiosity he had was not only rattling but also intrusive. The last of his words, however, cut into her like a knife. Her arms wrapped around her stomach as she felt the growing hole in her soul from the loss. By then, she couldn’t answer him even if she wanted to. Nerida feared the only sounds that might escape her were whines and whimpers. Her teeth rattled as though she was shivering, though the reality was more along the lines of her simply trying to contain her emotions and not make a sound. Perhaps it would have been better if she cried, though. Bottling up emotions was something Ryker always asked her not to do.

Nerida hadn’t seen him try to smile at her again, but she did finally look at the man when he asked about the golden thread connecting them. She nodded slowly to his inquiry. “Yes, I know what it is,” she said cautiously. Did she want to go into details about it though? It was a tricky topic. But he probably did need to understand it better. She was still very confused about it herself, though. “It’s what the Undines refer to as a tether. It’s not going to go away-- probably,” she said, considering the possibility of him having her killed. She shifted, looking down at it. She had been used to having a tether there for so long that it wasn’t strange for her to see it then, it was only difficult to see the man that carried the other half. “I used to share it with Ry-- your great grandfather. The longer we were together, the longer the line grew.” she told him. It was slight misinformation on her part. She’d only implied that it was time and not trust that had caused it to extend. Could she really offer such important information to this man beside her? Nerida’s chest was heavy with indecision. Did she really have to devote herself to this person just because the tether was there? Nerida couldn’t manage to keep the conversation going. She sunk deeper into her emotions as well as the seat of the car. As he drove, she could feel him accelerating the speed of the vehicle. Perhaps he was just as anxious to be outside of the confinement which held them.

Finally, the car slowed and he turned it into a parking spot. She looked around curiously. The world seemed very different from what she remembered. It was far more developed and lit artificially with bright lights above the pathways. It still didn’t compare to Atlantis from what she remembered. Perhaps it was her exposure to that other world that kept her from being shocked beyond belief. He looked at her with those eyes, trailing them down until they reached her foot. Wait here, he said. As if she had a different choice. She shook her head gently with a soft sigh leaving her lips. He kneeled down before her, taking her foot in his hand. She nearly jerked it away, looking at him like he was crazy. He was unphased by her reaction. “I-- an infection? I don’t know.” Nerida didn’t have very much experience with medicine. Under normal circumstances she could heal a wound on her own with a little help from the sea water. “I’m possibly the last of my kind, so there’s no real need in knowing much about me, sir.” she said. “But I am native to this world, to answer your thousandth question of the night.” She looked down at him, finding herself lingering in his eyes until she winced at his forceful application of the cream on her injury. “Ow.” she said with an accusational glance at him, as if he’d done it on purpose. He finished wrapping her foot and he smiled again. She shifted her head to the side slightly, curious as to whether or not it was a genuine one. It was hard to read him completely. He bounced all over the place in such a hyperactive way that it was overwhelming. This time, he extended his hand and waited for her to take it. She reached for him, though there was clear hesitation in her hand before her skin touched his.

He helped her out of the car; she was surprised to find him acting like more of a gentleman. He even moved at a normal pace for her to keep up with him properly. They walked into the elevator. It was a little shaky and the sounds it made were unsettling. She found herself fearful it might break and fall with them in it, or perhaps just stop to the point of them being stuck in there. Her other hand had found his arm as it slowed and stopped, the doors opening slowly after. She did not enjoy these primal versions of elevators. She thought they were going to walk out, but instead there was a man standing in front of them. Harvey. Nerida was puzzled as to how she’d learned a stranger’s name before the man she was still clinging to. Their exchange was more painful than their car ride together, she thought. She shifted back a little, as if to hide her body from the onlooker. She didn’t know what he was thinking, but the length in which his eyes lingered on her body made her uncomfortable. His hand still holding onto hers, he whisked her past the new stranger and toward a door.

They entered his apartment and he suggested that she sit. She looked down at her hand as he released her. She hadn’t realized how long he had been holding her until the absence of it. She looked around the room. It was missing most personal touches a normal home might have, the kitchen looking as though it got the most attention. Well, that, and the tanks of fish that caught her attention only moments after entering. She slowly stepped toward the tank that housed the octopus. She looked at it with thoughtful eyes as the creature became excited, its body morphing into flashy colors as if it was trying to show off. Nerida giggled as though she was having some secret conversation with it. She felt a tug at her chest and looked down at the tether. It was so short. She glanced over to the man as he moved further into the apartment. She followed him to the kitchen as he asked her if he could get her anything. “I am thirsty,” she said, surprisingly fast to respond to him. She frowned as she found herself a seat near enough to not irritate the tether as he moved around.

“You have a bit of an obsession, sir. So much so that you’ve not remembered your manners enough to properly introduce yourself, descendant of Ryker. I imagine you, much like your octopus over there, all alone, feeling trapped in a world that isn’t yours. Like you’re in a prison, never able to return home. Atlantis isn’t the right answer though. Ryker literally just gave his life in order to disconnect these worlds.” she reminded him. It didn’t matter how many hundreds of years may have gone by, for Nerida, she’d all but blinked and she was alive again.

“I loved him.” she said quietly. She looked down at the golden line, following it back up to Xander. “The tether between us knew no bounds. The entirety of my species was turned to seafoam through the greed of many kinds of men, seeking our powers to amplify their own. Ryker wasn’t like them. He--” her voice cracked and she cleared her throat to quickly cover it up.

Staine · Aug 7, 2020

Xander thought about the car journey while he moved towards the kitchen, about how his questions hadn't really gotten him many answers. Even now he could feel something coming from her as he opened himself up to the emotions in the room, though this was completely different to the anger and annoyance he had felt earlier, it felt a little...happier? A giggle came from the other side of the room and he saw her by his Octopus, Hachi. It was almost like they were speaking in a way, he found himself pausing to watch for a moment as Hachi changed colours and his tentacles wriggled, like the creature was excited to see her, even floating upwards in the tank and spinning around for her while she approached. Shaking his head, he fought back a smile, it was cute in a way but he had other things on his mind, heading into the kitchen to get himself a drink, hesitating as he felt a slight tug in his chest. Looking down, the tether, as she had called it, was pulled taut and he could feel the tightness, like he really wouldn't be able to go any further. The line went slack in moments and turning, he saw her moving towards him. His hand instinctively went down to the tether, again simple passing through it. What kind of magic was this, that he could pass his hand through it so easily and yet it still maintained enough strength to keep them from being so far apart, and why was it there? What was it that connected them like this? "Are you sure this thing won't go away? It's pretty inconvenient, how am I meant to get any privacy if I can't move away from you? Is there any way to make it longer?"

In any case she was moving closer, so he was able to get to his refrigerator and took out a couple of bottles of fresh mineral water, handing one to her as he returned to the sofa, sitting down opposite her. She didn't seem to be any more cordial with him than she had when she had been ignoring him in his car, treating him with hostility as he had only tried to ask questions and even when he had tended to her wound. Admittedly it hadn't taken much, it wasn't some grand gesture but he had tried to make some peace for the sake of making this as smooth as possible. If she wasn't going to put in any effort too...it didn't occur to him still that she was still reeling, that to her it had been no more than a couple of hours since she had last seen the love of her life, even feeling the various emotions flowing around them, all coming from her, it didn't really hit him until she said it. Ryker literally just gave his life. He paused, taking a sip of his water and for the first time really meeting her eyes when he spoke to her. Even now he didn't really feel that bad for her, but railing her with questions didn't seem to be getting him anywhere. "So you only just saw him, time didn't pass while you were in the ocean or on display? That's interesting..." Even as he spoke, there wasn't really any emotion on his face, just fascination, it was like he was blocking off his own emotions and sympathy which in a way was true. Being bombarded by them all day, every day, it was a defence mechanism that a lot of his race learned naturally. When one stopped sympathising with people the negative emotions which made up the vast majority of what they received tended to be easier to manage, and among alien races it had proven vital to stop insanity. Among humans, Xander had to learn fast, especially to commit the acts he had done just to survive while not going mad from the guilt. "Xander." He smiled, the same smile that didn't seem to reach his eyes. "Xander Drazel, if you need the family name too, though i'm sure you know it already, my manners aren't what they used to be." He turned towards the octopus tank as she spoke, frowning a little.

While he was good at feeling little sympathy, sometimes it was impossible to hold back; he wasn't feeling much for her plight but when she mentioned that his octopus felt the same that he did it shattered his defences for just a moment, the similarities something he had never even considered and it was his own eyes that reflected sadness. His tone was quiet as he spoke, climbing to his feet and moving closer to the tank, wondering if she would follow or not. "Hachi...his name is Hachi." Having just been admonished for his lack of manners, he remembered this time. "Did he...say that to you? That he feels trapped?" Looking back to her there was a definite pain there, even regret. "Can you speak to him? I don't even know if that's something you can do, like that Aquaman bloke from the movie?" By the tank was a container filled with several live worms which he opened, taking a few out and dropping them into the tank. "I didn't think of it like that but I suppose you're right...he's as trapped as I am. It isn't fair. None of it is. All I wanted was to clear his name, prove to my planet, to my own family even that Ryker wasn't a terrorist, that the reason our family had been blacklisted, that our planet was scorned as untrustworthy for so long wasn't true." His eyes were on Hachi as he spoke, watching the octopus feed, thinking about what it was like for him, what Xander himself felt like trapped in this small world with it's limited technology and aetheric atmosphere so thin that magic was seen as a miracle, that a statue bleeding a little would draw in crowds from all over the huge country he was in. "You probably didn't know that, did you? I'm sorry...I didn't realise, you saw him last only hours ago when for me...I never even met him, gone before I was born but his legacy...it ruined my family, even other Vimorixians don't trust us and the Atlanteans don't trust them." He sighed, shaking his head. "That must be hard, my questions...l was excited, looking for a way out, I didn't think. I apologise...and trying to clear his name got me stranded here, like Hachi. Maybe we can release him, where do you think he lived anyway? I don't even know, I got him because he was colourful...an interesting pet."

His emotions were being walled up again, he could feel his shield slipping into place and he didn't fight it, just feeling so strongly for an octopus of all things, was he really so weak when he let his guard down? He even felt sympathy for her too now, when all he really wanted was home. His tone had become softer as he had spoken, but when he replaced the lid on the tank and turned around to look back at Nerida he shook his head at her. "You're wrong, Atlantis is the only way. It's how I get home, it's how I make them pay. My family suffered long enough, I suffered long enough." There was a note in his tone, a hint of anger, perhaps. He looked down at the tether again as she mentioned it. "I can make it longer? How? What does it even..." he looked back up at her. "Seafoam? Interesting...why seafoam? How does that work?" She said people used her powers to amplify their own? So many questions. "Okay, you don't like me, you're not happy here, I'm not happy here and this thing doesn't seem to care so how about you tell me all about it and we find a way to break it, if not here then why not Atlantis? This world has so little magic, don't you want to see if it can be broken elsewhere?" He smiled at her, as fake as it ever was though he had gotten pretty good at acting in his years here. "But first I think I'm really going to need to know how it works. What happened that you're the only Undine left?"

Jumbled · Aug 7, 2020

Nerida held onto the water bottle he’d provided her. She drank nearly the entire thing in one go. Her mouth felt so dry, which perhaps was weird for a creature made of water the way she was, but she very well couldn’t drink herself. The water in which her body took form was unique; it didn’t have the same molecular structure, though it was very close. She supposed she would have to teach him about such things. Her hand crunched the plastic of the bottle as he made light of Ryker’s death. The dreadful sound of it made her cringe as it broke the pleasant silence of the room. ‘How dare he!’ she thought. She was so angry, but more than that she was hurt. She looked down at the deformed thing in her hand. She didn’t expect it to lose form the way it had. She pulled at the bottle, failing to fix it on several accounts before giving up and placing it down, out of her hands.

After she’s said what she had, Xander actually reacted like a person. She watched him intently as she’d hit the sweet spot in his defenses. His voice had dropped, he sounded hurt. ‘Good.’ He needed to be brought down a peg. He wasn’t better than her, than Ryker. Ryker was a great man! She continued to observe him, eventually standing from her position to approach the tank with Xander. “He told me your given name for him. He’s quite sweet. Though I have no idea what you’re saying to me about an aqua man. Is he a human?” she asked, curiously. She had seen people of many colors on earth, so perhaps it was someone from another place, like he was. “I don’t necessarily speak in the sense of verbal languages. But more like…” she stopped and brushed two of her fingertips lightly against Xander’s forehead. “We understand each other.” she finished. She slowly pulled her hand away, lowering it back to her side.

Had Xander’s sentence ended with concern for Hachi, she would have agreed to help him immediately. She’d nearly spoken the words until he kept speaking. Confusion lined her face and she stared at Xander-- as if he’d just transformed into some ungodly monster. What did he mean by “terrorist?” She stood so still she might as well have had the coral growing back to encase her body all over again. Nerida’s heart dropped. Her hard expression that was typically etched across her face had faded and she leaned back against the arm of a chair that was closest to her. They were at such opposite ends of thinking. He hadn’t met Ryker at all and whatever stories he did know claimed he was a terrorist? “You--” she looked at Xander, really studying him as he spoke. This was the most real she had ever seen him and she wasn’t sure how long it was going to last. “You’re trying to clear his name?” there was a shimmer of hope in her eyes as she searched his for the truth. Vimorixians were known to shut down emotions, she was starting to remember. Her senses were starting to return to her as the fog that shrouded her head cleared. Her pain and sorrow was still there, but she was suddenly fueled by a similar passion to clear Ryker’s name. He changed topics, back to Hachi but Nerida now had questions of her own. She looked at the fellow in the tank, tilting her head and smiling once more. “He thinks you’re too lonely right now. He hasn’t chosen to escape yet, but once he feels like it, he just will.” she said to him. “But, perhaps we can help him get back to ocean waters at some point together. It seems you’re determined to really go back.”

Nerida inhaled deeply, though not with frustration. Finally, after seeing some shred of a real man under the layers of walls he’d built with his own mind, she was willing to give him her time. “Trust.” she stated first and foremost. She stood again, walking toward him. Her hand touched his chest and she looked up into his eyes with a serious expression. “And it’s going to be especially hard for us, I’m sure.” she said. Her fingers curled slightly, grabbing hold of the fabric of his shirt as she was not able to grip onto the tether either. “Sit with me, then, I’ll do my best to inform you, though I worry what type of man you’ll choose to become with such information,” she said, her voiced concerns more internal than aimed at him directly. Many men couldn’t help themselves. They went back to the couch and Nerida pulled her legs up, folding them as she sat.

“Now, please pay attention,” she started, eyeing him to be sure he was present in the moment. She didn’t want to waste her breath. “The Undine are from Earth, back when there was more magic. We, as innocent creatures, are born from magic and water, or so we are told. We take form, only as liquid, and cannot abandon the sea in such conditions. There are many tales here of mermaids and sirens calling men to them for good reason, though and this is where it gets tricky. The Undine need a man to bond to if they want to be made whole. In the old days it was as simple as an obsession with men-- very sexual. That’s just the way things worked and I’m not making it up. And that's how it was discovered.” she paused, hoping he wasn’t falling down an unending well of perversions regarding her race. “If the man is drawn to the Undine, or she to him, the two bond, a tether forms, and she takes a more physical form.” Nerida gestured to her body by the show of waving her hands downward. “As it then goes-- er, well, to be blunt. If an Undine has sex with a man he is given the power of water. I suppose this can happen in one of two ways. The man, if he is not magical and has no abilities, gains the ability to literally control water around him. Like I did earlier. However, someone like you, a man with abilities, will feel amplified power. It is said we also transfer a very calming effect after orgasm to our partners, making it somewhat addicting, like a drug might be considered.”

Nerida shifted in her seat, looking at Xander as he listened to her. She wasn’t sure how she felt, but she was already so far into telling him things, there was no point in stopping. “Men, learning of ways to become powerful-- by capturing mermaids in the sea and taking their virginities, as some of those tales go-- sought out my race. Others did the same in hopes of their natural abilities enhancing as well. The Undine, wanting a fast love and a physical form, and maybe to feel special, would all go, one by one. The tethers, though, those always told the truth about a bond. If he was using her, it would be short, taught. And if he betrays her to a point of breaking her heart, she is destroyed. Her body transforms into nothing more than seafoam, lost forever.”

Nerida looked down at the golden line, considering it carefully. She’d never heard of her kind being freed from one before. “I-- I don’t know what has linked us, Xander. I was with Ryker, not you, but seeing as my race hasn’t been able to survive long enough to know, there could be more to it. There aren’t any manuals to just discover the truth. So, I’m sorry that I’m an inconvenience to you. I don’t want to be, even if you weren’t such an ass.”

“There’s something else. A weapon.” Nerida slowly turned to face him. She looked fearful. “The Atlantians; they were kidnapping different races. We had discovered something as we travelled the worlds, Ryker and I. When we investigated it further-- well, we just thought we were the cleverest things. New age detectives. We didn’t know how over our heads we were. And by the time we figured more of it out, they only needed a Vimorixian and an Undine. They’d known we were snooping around and they let us as they collected everyone else. You saw… what happened after that. When Ryker died, I’m sure it was at the service of building that weapon. They murdered him!” Tears fell from her eyes and she trembled as she pulled her body closer to herself. “I couldn’t… hold form without him there with me, I sank into the sea, dying too. Or, that’s what I thought.” her head rested on top of her knees after she’d shifted her body. She cried deeply, the bottle uncorked. She didn’t care anymore if Xander saw her grieve.

Staine · Aug 9, 2020

Judging by the way she was playing with the water bottle, it was like she had never seen anything like it. Xander thought back about his life on Vimorix and the very short time he had spent in Atlantis, did they have plastic bottles there? There had been many different kind of materials they didn't have on Earth so it made sense, and she had been entrapped in coral for a while. Still, it grated on him a little and he looked down at her hands as the thin plastic crinkled again. When she finally put it down he chuckled, shaking his head at how it seemed to have amused her, it was cute, in a way. "There is more water in the fridge, where I got that from? Help yourself if you're thirsty." The anger was still coming from her, it wasn't as piercing as it had been but it was definitely preseent, not that it mattered. He was sure he would be pissed too in her place, but there was little they could do about it. "Aqua man is fictional, an Atlantean funnily enough." He laughed and tried to think how best to explain. "Humans have a strange view on Atlantis, but it's not completely inaccurate, it is more advanced and there were some assholes there in the comics. Aquaman is a superhero...ah, it's a comic book thing, a human thing. They like to fantasise, point is he could talk to fish. And had a trident." He had smiled a little when she had told him Hachi wasn't ready to leave him yet, his emotions getting the better of him; smiling out of something so simple was something he just didn't do anymore, he felt he had little to smile about that truly made him happy. Watching her communicate with the octopus had been interesting and he raised his hand to his forehead when she touched him, furrowing his brow. He wanted to ask what that was for, but he was beginning to realise she was very different from humans and how they thought, the touch from somebody in her position, and with a stranger at that would have been seen as eccentric had she been a modern human. "That's not so far from what I do...you know of our empath 'talent', right? It's never so precise as it was with those visions though...I have never had one of those before."

The shields he protected himself with had still been down when she had asked him if he was trying to clear Ryker's name, prompting a more honest response than he would have usually given her. "Yes...his and my own families, admittedly. The stigma we've born since that event left us scorned by others and our own people, and then I found this..." He took the journal out of his pocket, the last few entries of which had spoken of the weapon he claimed he had been trying to stop them creating, outlandish claims that it would mean the subjugation of all races to Atlanteans and the end of their way of life. To think his ancestor had somehow managed to thwart that had given him hope, it all made sense to him, how they had purged all records of his heroism. History was written by the victors after all, and they had killed him. His knuckles were turning white as he thought about it, a strange mixture of pride, regret and awe. If he could prove to his people, to the rest of the universe that Ryker was a hero then he could get the recognition he deserved and Xander wouldn't have to live in infamy with the rest of his family. He nodded, smiling again softly. "Yeah...I'm going back one way or the other, Hachi can go home too." He'd given the octopus one more look before he had been pulled back to the couch. "I never know how he feels, it's...liberating, you know? Animals, I can't read them, and their emotions aren't forced on me every waking hour. Exhausting, all that negativity..." That was when his shield had come back up, closing himself off.

After being dragged to the sofa he'd sat with her, and he had listened, trying to take in all the information as his thumb ran up and down along the spine of the journal, the alien fabric the cover was made of both elastic and firm at the same time, safe against the elements in a way most earthly books were not. The things she told him had the wheels in his head turning, having been on earth for so long he had gotten used to the lack of magic and wonder, but Undine, mermaids, turning into seafoam? He had read such things in passing while researching Atlantis, it was how he had learned of Aquaman and the comic books, excited at first at the similarities before running into dead ends while trying to chase them up, and had read fairy tales such as The Little Mermaid. Any mention of Atlantis, he had hoarded and researched and of course all manner of tales of fantastic sea creatures had been amongst them but to meet one in person? He was still thinking of such things and about to mention them when she told him of how her race connected with others, amplified them, causing him to raise a single eyebrow as he looked into her eyes. "Are you trying to seduce me? Tempting, but I'm not that power hungry, Nerida...and I think what you said is pretty accurate. Trust." Even as he spoke he looked her up and down again, even the way she had sat was appealing but when he was so focuses Xander wasn't likely to get distracted by a pretty face, even one such as hers. He still offered her a grin, it was hard not to let his thoughts go there when she was telling him such things, or let his imagination run away with him. "The tales of sirens, I've heard plenty about them, I'm sure temptation has sank many men in my position, who thought themselves safe. Anyway...you were with my great grandfather, you say it amplifies abilities? Did you notice any changes with him?" It would be interesting, to amplify his abilities...was that not what the visions had been? It would also be frightening...sometimes he had enough trouble trying to shut them out, did he really want more emotions overwhelming him?

He was probably being too cautious, but he remembered her anger towards him, would it be outside the realms of possibility that she would try to trap or trick him? His hand was back on his chest, at the tether. "So very short...what happens if we go too far apart from each other?" He had felt a physical tug for sure, could the tether break? Whatever it was that had linked them he didn't know either, but it had to be her connection to Ryker, to the blood that flowed through his veins. He looked up and excitement was in his eyes again, even a smile. "An inconvenience?" He ignored that she had called him an ass, he was used to it by now and as the excitement overtook him again he reached for her wrist, strong fingers closing around it. "You're far from an inconvenience, you're the key to finding my way back again, to clearing his name, clearing mine! Another tangible link to Atlantis, more than that, do you remember where it was? That's all I need, I think...I mean...I can show you. It would be better to show you. Come on, come with me, in my bedroom." He practically dragged her there, only a minor amount of consideration for her foot as she was pulled towards the door by the octopus tank.

At first glance it was just another empty, impersonal room with one major difference. The tank he slept in was in the middle of the room, large, made of aluminium and steel with only the thick glass window to let one peer inside at the foot of saltwater he slept in. Towards the back of the room, his bed, nothing outrageous, a simple double bed with black silk sheets and hardly any decorations to it at all. On the western wall was another door leading to the bathroom and on the eastern wall...that was where it got strange. The entire wall was taken up with a cork panel that could barely be seen, the entire thing taken up with maps and newspaper clippings, interesting documents and stories all related to Atlantis, all the things he had found out about the ancient city and civilisation. In front of it was a small table with a single strange device on it, small and metallic with faded, indented runes along the front it was shaped like a flat, pentagonal disc that caught the light no matter how little was in the room, seeming to both absorb and reflect it at the same time. It was solid, held up at an angle by a small plinth he had commissioned to be custom made so he could look at it, study it without touching. It was strange, every time he touched it his fingers came away slightly wet even though there was no moisture on the surface at all and he felt...shaky, trembly like it had some meaning it was trying to impart on him. He'd paid a large fee for it...well, for the location and to the thieves he had hired to help him liberate it from the rich collector who had hidden it away from the world. The rumours he had read when researching Atlantis had spoken of this device, found with another he had yet to locate which was from the city itself, though the exact significance of them he had no idea. Nobody did, that was why he had to have it. What if he needed it to get there? He pulled Nerida further into the room, towards the wall. "You see? This is what I've learned while I have been here, all the data I've collected about Atlantis but none of it tells me where it is, and then this...I think it's some kind of key, or a battery, or...I don't know, but it's connected, see the runes? I've seen them in other things related to Atlantis, even in the city itself, I think. Isn't it exciting?"

Exciting wasn't a strong enough word...not for how he felt when they drew closer. Xander's hand shot back, resting against her stomach as the runes on the device started to glow a pale blue which grew brighter by the second, and a small trickle of water seemed to seep from the bottom of it. "What on...are you seeing this?" He felt he was going crazy, he had this thing for over 2 years now and not one single time had it reacted to anything, the private lab he had it analysed at had shown the metal wasn't anything from Earth but that was all he knew, that and the blank space in the middle were the runes were strangely absent was of a slightly different composition. He stepped back, afraid to get too close and pushing Nerida with him, just two steps backwards and the runes began to fade again. Turning his head to her, his smokey grey eyes seemed to take on a whole new colour, a shimmer of barely visible green and silver as his excitement bubbled over. There was no way he could keep his guard up like this, with something happening that brought him such...joy! "Nerida, you saw that, yes? It's you...it's reacting to you. Have you seen this before? Do you even know what it is?" He practically yanked her towards it, the runes glowing again as he reached out to touch it when they were closer before he paused, suddenly wondering what would happen if he did. It clearly wasn't made for him, but for her. "It's never done that before...I've sat with this thing so many times and nothing, nothing at all and now..." He had released her wrist to reach out for it and now he pushed the journal into her hands as well, not even looking at her as he crouched down to get a closer view. "What do you think will happen if you touch it? Go ahead, please, show me."

Jumbled · Aug 14, 2020

Access to water in the form of a crunchy bottle was a slightly newer human invention. She wasn’t even sure she liked it; it was far too noisy. Nerida smiled slightly and nodded at Xander. It was interesting, looking around to see how the world could be so different than what it had been the last time she’d had her eyes open. His other fish tank was very pretty, the colors shimmering under the different lighting. As he explained Aquaman, she still didn’t fully comprehend, though she got the overall idea, she thought. “I see. Well, before you get too excited, I can’t really communicate with the actual fish. They’re a little more. . . simple minded. The octopus-- dolphins, whales-- I can understand them. They just have a higher capacity for thought.”

Nerida looked at Xander as his expression turned sour with her light touch. She frowned slightly as she stepped back. So, it was fine for him to grab her hand and pull her around like a pet on a leash, to yank her foot, but he didn’t want to be touched. Strange indeed. She made a mental note to herself. He mentioned his abilities and she nodded slowly. Perhaps he was a little soft in the head- she should have poked him harder. She thought he would understand why she’d touched his forehead and not her own. Of course she was aware of his specialties. Was he not paying attention? She sighed so softly that it was masked by her own breathing.

“I know what I know about Ryker, more specifically. He seemed to be… more under control. Perhaps you’re just very young. Inexperienced.” she offered. It made sense, then, that Xander chose to box himself off from the humans. His only company being the quiet creatures of the sea. “They’re very emotional-- the humans. Though, most races are, really. Most do not suffer feeling their own feelings plus the ones everyone else carries. It’s probably a very heavy burden. I could never imagine such a thing, myself. I don’t have the capability to understand just how much you deal with on a daily basis.”

He asked her if she was trying to seduce him and she gave him a rather appalled look in return. “Hardly.” she retorted. He claimed he wasn’t power hungry and she was inclined to believe him. If he already detested what he felt on Earth every waking moment, the heavy emotions that could suffocate any normal man, then why would he wish to make that even stronger? She closed her eyes momentarily in thought. She already knew she was right about them needing trust between the two of them. She just didn’t know how to achieve such a thing. She inhaled, almost looking as though she was taking a moment to meditate. She could ease his burden in the slightest, perhaps an olive branch of sorts. She felt her body swirling with the waters of her very being, allowing them to cool and soothe her until her emotions were as calm as a lake’s water; peacefully undisturbed.

“Ryker was a very well practiced man. He was older than you, of course, and perhaps times were different with the way your kind has been taught? I don’t know. If your family is hated, I can’t imagine you’ve obtained a lot of help with mastering your skills-- or even understanding them. But, that being said, he and I worked together to locate the weapon. He was almost able to predict things near the end. I wonder if he knew…” she looked into the fish tank, just needing something to focus on. “Aside from that, he could manipulate the minds of others, and with my own added power, if he needed to strike, well, perhaps that’s a talk for a different time.”

His attention was on the tether as she spoke about it and she watched him. He seemed to understand the overall issue. “I’d rather not find out what would happen. My situation seems unusual honestly. I don’t have much to go off of. Perhaps I turn back into the “Grieving Mother” or maybe my life ends and I turn to foam. Regardless, I don’t think you’ll be harmed in the process, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

There it was again. He reached forward and grabbed her wrist. She pulled back at first, but his grip was strong. His emotional state was so all over the place she wasn’t even sure why he’d grabbed her. Was he going to hurt her? His following words gave her more clarity and her arm lost half the tension it held. “I--” she couldn’t land on any single answer for him. He leapt up quickly, taking her with him. She stumbled to her feet as he pulled, rushing her to see something that caused him great thrill: His room. She stopped several feet from the large box. Was it a coffin? She wanted to back away, uncertain what he was going to do with her, but he pulled her further inside. Her eyes widened at the display found in his wall; Article clippings, photos, and strings going every which way. “What--?” she mouthed as she stared up at it. His findings were extensive, she supposed, and yet he was no closer to discovering what he sought. She looked down, her eyes honing in on the object that sat centered on a table. She tilted her head as she studied the runes.

He drew both of them closer and as he did, the object began to react. It must not have been normal, because in his surprise, Xander threw his arm back as if he was shielding her from something, his hand lightly pressed against the bare skin of her stomach. Her body gave a small jolt from her own surprise. The trinket, already very intriguing the way it held light, began to change and she could almost swear there was a low hum in the room. The sigils began to glow with a neon blue that grew brighter and brighter the longer she stared. “I-- yes I see it, but it could be dangerous.” she said. There was an air about her words that suggested she did know what it waas.

“Xander, if I pick that up you cannot make a rash decision. You must swear to me you won’t jump in.” she warned him. Her nerves found her again. That was an Atlantian trap if she’d ever seen one. One of the methods used to capture her race, no doubt, which is why it called to her; reacted to her. She stepped forward slowly, her fingers hesitating as they hovered closely in front of the artifact. She gulped hard, hoping she wouldn’t be instantly sucked in by it.

Grasping it, the object began to shine a blinding light as the bright white then bounded outward into a large opening in front of them. The light got wider and wider with slow swirling motions as the circle opened up like a doorway, leading right into Atlantis. She turned her arms a little to the side, being able to rotate the view by only a little. “I’ve heard of these. It’s an imprisonment stone. It looks like a gateway for easy travel, but if you step into it, you’ll be absorbed into the weapon. There were other stones we'd heard of. I haven’t seen one in person.” she said quietly. Nerida worried that the Atlantians would become aware of her presence through the activation of the relic, but hoped it was such old technology lost to the times that it wouldn’t be the case. “Xander if you had control enough, perhaps you could use this as a looking glass. Shift the view of it to see what you wanted… does that make sense? We cannot use it for its original purpose but… we can potentially use it to some advantage if we can see--”

Nerida looked into the pseudo-portal, catching a glimpse of some soldiers as they marched by. They hadn’t noticed her, but her sudden terror had caused her to drop the item down onto the ground. It rolled forward and the portal instantly faded away, the stone shimmering with its pretty lights once more. “I don’t entirely trust it. If you really want to get back there… I guess I won’t have a choice in the matter. You’ll have to get us to the Devil’s Triangle.” she said flatly as she started down at the stone. It was only a first step. Perhaps Xander had the proper mindset of it acting as a battery, though. Power from Atlantis itself could be used to restore the link, she thought, but it was a theory at best.

Staine · Aug 15, 2020

"Are you calling fish stupid?" Xander raised his eyebrow at the comment, appearing and sounding serious. He'd found that his sense of humour led to the more dry, sarcastic tone rather than outright jokes but he had a feeling she just wasn't going to get them. Still, that almost made it more fun for him, so he continued to play it off seriously and just take her replies as they came. "Too late, I've already started planning how to invade with an army of cod and clownfish, you can't go disappointing me now." He was still sensing some hostility towards him, it made him feel wary about every answer he gave her, like he was being judged on it which was fair enough; he was judging her all the same and while she seemed non-threatening enough he knew he couldn't be too careful. At last he had that glimmer of hope, an actual lead on getting home and he wasn't going to throw it all away by being careless or conversely, by holding back too much so that he didn't get it. No, he had to try and strike a fine balance. Make her feel welcome, don't give her too much. His guard up at all times.

That was how Xander had lived his life since coming to Earth. It wasn't like he could tell anybody that he was from another planet, he had tried that already. The looks he had gotten when he had woken up in that place, in the hospital. His physiology was thankfully similar to humans but the first thing he had picked up from the nurses and doctors around him was confusion, suspicion. His blood, they had told him, was different. Not remarkably so, it had similar properties but it didn't match any of the 'types' they had, and they had been unable to explain the implants on the right side of his face that had appeared when his empathic abilities were at their most active. Of course he had told them he was a Vimorixian, asked how to get back to Atlantis, where was the nearest portal but that had been met with blank stares, shocked looks from some and from others, just laughter. It didn't take a genius to figure out that they didn't believe him, and the more he had asked about their planet the less entertained they had seemed to be, like it was a joke that was getting old. He'd started to pick up on frustration, even annoyance as he had asked questions. When they had started asking him questions, claiming they were for his own safety for a scan of some kind to see if he had brain damage, he had left the moment their backs were turned and never returned.

He'd learnt pretty quickly that this planet just didn't have the technology to have made any meaningful contact with those from other planets; aliens were something to be feared and obsessed over, made fun of in television shows. He'd watched an episode or two of that 'X-files' show, laughed at some of the things they thought. No, he couldn't be himself on this planet so he had been guarded, for 7 years now he had shielded himself from suspicion while he played the villain and played it well, and this was just another Earthling. Sure, she was different...Ryker had trusted her if he could believe what she was saying and he didn't get any sense of duplicity from her, but he wasn't Ryker, and he wasn't going to just trust indiscriminately. He looked down at the tether again. This wasn't going to be easy. She was making an effort to understand him at least, he could try to do the same, nodding to her. "It can be draining, though it sounds like you have your own fair share of problems to deal with. Like this thing." He waved his hand through the tether yet again, it fascinated him really, even though it had invasively implanted itself in his chest. "Which I guess is my problem now too." Her response to his question about trying to seduce him had brought from him a smirk, he had known she wasn't but even by his closed off standards she had seemed a little uptight and he had wanted to push at it. She hadn't let him down with her reply, but then he had gotten excited and practically dragged her to his room.

When he had pushed her back he had been trying to protect her, in a way; not through any desire to protect her for her own sake but for his, at least that's what he told himself, though it seemed he hadn't needed to do that at all. As she spoke, did he pick up a sense of recognition in her tone? He couldn't pick it up through his abilities, it wasn't quite an emotion but she was wary, he could get that much at least and he nodded slowly as she warned him. "Don't jump in...in to what? Is this..." His excitement was rising again. "Is this a portal? You could take us home right now? Why wouldn't I jump in??" He didn't understand, but the fact that she was so wary of the device was crystal clear so when she did touch it and the portal appeared he stepped back from it, mouth open and eyes shining as he stared, fighting his urges to do exactly what she had told him not to do. "Imprisonment...stone..." He repeated the words, excitement fading away a little as he realised the implications. "So it's useless unless we want the same fate as Ryker...damn it, then what's the fucking point in this thing?" He hadn't even waited for her to finish speaking, but she had continued, and he had sighed, watching it tumble across the floor as she dropped it and bending to pick it up. He expected heat from the activity of the device, but it was cold to the touch like always and just a little bit wet. Returning it to it's stand, he turned to look at Nerida again.

"So I need control...but I can't do that." His voice was low, like he was worried about something, scared even. "I should have practised, I would have back home where people can control their emotions better but here...when I let it all in it's like nothing I've ever felt, it's a cacophony, it's pain and suffering and it's not even my own, from all sides." His voice shook a little as he spoke; it had been so long since he could talk about things like this, to anybody, that it was actually feeling cathartic, like a weight off his chest to have one other person near him that he didn't have to hide from. "I still get them even when I try to block it, but to control them I have to open myself up to it, to everything, and there are so many people here...it took me long enough to learn how to shield myself, like I was going insane those first few days..." He looked back down at the device. "All for a video camera, though it sounds handy...I'll need to think on it." He felt like he was starting to lose a grip on his defences around her, this was the second time he had let emotion in, caught off guard by something, exactly the reason he preferred to be alone in the first place.

"Devil's triangle?" It took him a moment to link the name to what he had heard it called more often. "Oh, the Bermuda triangle? It's that where it is? Figures...I had thought that, here..." He pulled one of the sheets of paper from the wall, it was a list of vessels that had gone missing around the Bermuda triangle and clipped to it were various newspaper articles. "I could probably get us there, I could hire a boat, doubt anybody would take us," he mused aloud, looking to her and tilting his head a little, smiling properly for the first time. "Wait...that means you'll come with me, right? You're going to help? Help me get home?" He grinned, his eyes falling to where the tether entered her chest. "Well I guess you don't have much of a choice." His hand came up to his own chest and he chuckled softly, thinking of what she had said earlier. "That's not what I was worried about, by the way. Being harmed by this thing...and I'd rather you didn't turn to coral again. Ryker wouldn't want that, I think." It was getting late, he could tell he was a little sleepy but with everything that was happening he didn't want to sleep at the same time, he wanted to set off, right now even. He could order a boat online, they could drive to the pier to board, they could be there...no, that was stupid. They would need to fly closer at the very least, maybe a plane would be better? He had more questions too...they had a kind of plan at least, and he had read enough about the journal, and she didn't seem to want to talk about the weapon, or at least didn't know too much from what he had grasped. He moved towards his flotation tank, looking down through the glass window at the saltwater inside, thinking about the vision they had shared, frowning. "Nerida...what was he like?" He didn't look at her, engrossed in the way the water was perfectly still in there, so unlike the ocean. "You knew him, he was before my time. Growing up I was maybe a little obsessed with what had happened to him, first I was angry for his betrayal, we all were, but when I found the journal...nobody believed it but me, I've read it so many times but I don't even...I don't know what he was really like, only what he was like when he wrote."

Jumbled · Aug 19, 2020

Nerida looked at the fish tank a moment longer after Xander asked his question. Her eyes shifted to the side as she responded. “Well, sort of, but they don’t even know I’m calling them that, so it’s probably fine.” He went on to joke about a fish army and she openly laughed at the very idea. “Xander, that’s an awful plan. Truly.” she covered her mouth, and with it her laughter, with the back of her hand. He was beginning to unwind just enough for her to relax around him, even if it was only for small moments in time. Her mind was slowly beginning to calm like the waters after a storm. She had a new reality to face and fighting it wasn’t going to help her get through it. She was going to need to find a way to depend on Xander. He was the one she was bonded to, not Ryker; not anymore.

She turned to look at Xander, seeming to really see him for the first time— with a new perspective. She considered his facial features, this time without comparing him to Ryker. He was handsome; strong jawed with perfectly groomed facial hair that complimented his more masculine features. His eyes, if looking beyond how similar they were to her lost love, were far more tired and it was clear he had seen his share of stress and struggles. They were as deep as the ocean she’d been lost to. She found herself curious to know him more, but perhaps it was also a necessary curiosity in order to lengthen their literal bond.

Their talk about the tether was healthy, overall. She wasn’t sure if looking at it like a problem was the right direction to take, though. Nerida remembered the days when having such a connection was aggressively sought after by both parties. It was logical to dislike it when stories of her kind barely existed anymore, though. Or for a man that enjoyed his solitude, like Xander seemed to. Her thoughts were cut off my his joking and then the rush to the room full of his finds.

Nerida felt guilty for not being able to give Xander a better answer. She didn’t want to crush his dreams of an easy return to Atlantis, but the stone wasn’t the answer. He seemed so discouraged, like he was at the end of his rope. She frowned as she looked at him, feeling genuinely troubled because she had no way to make things better. Well, at least not immediately. Her idea of using it as a device to spy could be helpful if it was actually possible. After Xander picked up the imprisonment stone, placing it back onto its stand, he seemed even more grim about the situation. “We—” Nerida lifted a hand, half reaching as though she intended to touch him. She was still so unsure of what he really wanted or needed, his emotions were all over the place and had been from the time she’d met him. She felt, though, that he’d begun to level himself around her and with that, her hand continued on its course, connecting to his chest. “We can work on that. There are places on earth humans cannot go; places that I can— places in which I can take you with me.” she said slowly. Nerida was certain there were still places that held magic within the depths of the sea. There were caverns that, once entered, were dry as if standing above water; cities beneath the sea. They would likely be deserted if most of the magic in the world was gone but she had high hopes. Nerida felt the strongest urge to comfort him further. She wanted to place her hands on either side of his face and pull his forehead to her own. To grant him the stillness of undisturbed water, even for a moment. But, she couldn’t bring herself to do so. She slowly withdrew her hand from his chest as she inhaled, pushing the thoughts out of her mind.

So, instead, she offered him the next best thing she could: the location they needed to find. Apparently it was referred to as the Bermuda Triangle, the term shifting over the passage of time. The Devil’s Triangle was used because of the sirens that lured the ships toward their calls, as well as the other species out of Atlantis through the nearby portal to Earth. She looked at the papers he’d pulled down, tilting her head as she read the scribbles of information about the various vessels. It was curious to see that some had even happened more recently. “Hmm…” she mused as she flipped some of the newspapers over. She was standing very close to Xander by then, her shoulder nestled in against his side as she peered at the other copies he was holding. “They might not want to take us, but, wasn’t I found out there?” she asked him. Surely someone had ventured out that far if she’d been pulled out from the depths of where she had sunk so long ago.

He smiled at her and she froze in place as she stared at the crinkles that formed around his eyes and the softness in his expression. She squinted ever so slightly as she took him in, grinning with an overall satisfied feeling washing over her. So he was relatable. Good. She half nudged him with her shoulder. He was right, she didn’t have a choice if that’s where he wanted to go. She was bound in a way that made him ruler of her body and the only option other than following him was some form of death, she was sure. She just needed to change the way she thought about their situation. Not a problem. A mission. They would need to be partners, working for a common purpose. He took her by surprise, however, and she felt her heart jolt in her chest as he became more sincere with her. “I— thank you. I appreciate that. It’s hard to trust people. My kind has always had a bad habit of choosing the wrong men,” she said as she released the newspaper clippings that went with his document. Her gaze lingered as she stared into his eyes, touched by his reassuring words as her own expression softened. She could feel it happen. The slightest release in her fear and concerns of him caused the tether to give them more slack. Her hand idly reached to her chest from the lighter feeling. Maybe they could do this.

Xander walked away, over to the large box in the center of the room. He stared down at it like he was looking at a coffin that held the man in which he spoke of then; Ryker. What was he like? It was a loaded question. She wondered how to best answer him without sounding like a love sick little girl. She smiled and looked back to the board of research Xander had collected.

“Ryker was bold and wasn’t ruled by his powers. He liked to go on adventures and explore the worlds. He loved to learn and was excited, but also came across as such a calm and soothing person to be around. He was complex, just like any person, but to me, he was brave. And maybe stupid. But that’s likely just me being a little selfish.” she admitted as she hugged her body with her arms. She wished he hadn’t sacrificed himself. Someone else could have done it, not him, She lowered her head as she considered how foolish the thoughts were that kept circling in her mind. Ryker did what mattered. “I really hope that— I hope that we don’t undo what he gave his life for, Xander. I don’t want to make his sacrifice pointless.” she said as she turned back to him.

Slowly Nerida walked over to where he stood, and she too, looked down into the tank. “What is this?” she asked him, puzzled by its very existence. She noticed the water inside and looked up at him with a bit of worry. “You’re not going to make me go in there, are you?” she asked him. All of his other aquatic life was stored in tanks in his home but she hoped she wouldn’t be forced to live like that. Had he been that prepared to find her? “I— I don’t need to live in water with this form, just so you know.”

Staine · Aug 19, 2020

The sound of her laughter had made Xander smile a little more, very much worth the silly joke though he wasn't completely sure she had taken it as one. The laughter hinted that she had, at least, and he grinned, deciding to follow through with it as though he hadn't caught on. "And why not? I saw it in the movie, he had a vast army of fish, it really seemed to help take down Atlantis. Why couldn't we do the same?" Even as he spoke he knew the look in his eyes would very likely give away that he wasn't serious but it helped him feel more comfortable around her, to be joking and smiling. He found her looking at him, really looking this time and he had no objection to that, he had already looked her over more than once and didn't feel the need to turn away from her either, he had been far too caught up in reminiscing about the past to care much about it anyway, right up until he had taken her with him into his room. Everything that had happened had been fast, at least it had felt that way to him, and he had indeed been disappointed that he couldn't use the portal to get home, not without becoming captured by the Atlanteans but Nerida seemed to be at least sympathetic to his plight. He cast his eyes downwards, watching her pause as her hand came closer before she seemed to make a decision and it connected with his chest, right where the tether was, the golden thread looking for all the world like it had pierced her palm and was coming out of the back of her hand.

Her words made sense...she had access to parts of the ocean that humans simply hadn't been able to explore, trenches and depths that seemed insurmountable even with the technology available; despite submarines being around for hundreds of years they had barely scratched the surface of what was down there, new species were discovered in the ocean all the time, old wrecks long thought lost were rediscovered and the Bermuda triangle was a mystery unto itself. He nodded, his hand coming up as though to hold hers to him before he thought better of it; while she had made the decision to touch him, and he really didn't mind, found it soothing even, he wasn't quite feeling that he should take that as a sign they were somehow closer than they were. Instead, he smiled and thought more on what she had said. "So you mean the ocean, right? Like the floor?" It was a silly question really, she was a creature of the sea, it wasn't like she had wings, she wasn't talking about taking him to the skies, clearly. "That's true...yeah, okay...but there might be a small problem with that." For the first time he looked a little sheepish, not lost like he had before, not exactly unsure, but nervous. "I have a little fear of the deep sea." He was quick to add to his statement, not wanting it to get blown out of proportion. "I mean it's not a crippling fear, not a real phobia or anything, but...it was the last thing I saw before I came through the portal here, then I was unconscious, and when I think about it..." He let it trail off. He knew, had always known he would have to go down there to actually get into Atlantis, it was no great secret that the city was at the bottom of the ocean on this planet, even the humans seemed to be clear on that much at the very least. He would always have had to face his fear if he wanted to go home.

She'd withdrawn her hand by then anyway, and was going over the newspaper articles right beside him. He'd looked down at a few of the stories, mostly ships and aircraft going missing as they crossed over the cursed section of the ocean that still remained a puzzle to the humans. "Yeah, you were found near there, but not in the Bermuda triangle. Treasure hunters...some are more daring than others and in that place, well there are enough reports of missing ships to make it worth the risk, should they be bold enough." He reached down over her shoulder, his arm brushing by her cheek as his finger touched one of the smaller articles. "Like this, it was a ship transporting artworks, and it was only a few decades ago. Millions of dollars worth of art, maybe more now, and some of it has likely survived beneath the waves, they seal it up well to protect it. One good haul like that and they are set for life, though I am not sure how much I trust them to let us walk away with anything important we find." He pulled back and was already fishing his cellphone from his pocket and unlocking it. "Might be best to just find a boat of our own. Things practically drive themselves these days and it's not like you're in any danger of drowning if I scrape it along an iceberg or two, right?" He chuckled, realising she likely didn't get the reference. It was strange, she was from so very long ago, well over a hundred years, his race was long lived and Ryker had been a few generations back but she had also been to Atlantis, so technology didn't seem to surprise her in the slightest like one would expect from somebody from so long ago. At first, when he had found her he had expected her to be shocked by his car, by his phone, by the lights of the city and the elevator...but it didn't really seem to faze her and with good reason. He pulled up a website on his phone and held it out towards her, screen facing her. She might have seen technology but could she operate a touch screen? The curious part of him wanted to see. "Here, you see? They hire out boats all the time, they have GPS tracking in case we get lost, can just set a course and enjoy the ride, but we wouldn't exactly have help if anything breaks down." He was musing to himself as much as to her. "So finding people to take us might be better in the long run, though I'm sure they would ask questions. Hmmm, I don't know, what do you think?"

The way she spoke of Ryker it was clear they had been deeply connected, which made perfect sense to Xander; Their tether was miles long, wasn't it? He didn't need any more proof than that, but it was nice to hear about his ancestor from somebody that had known him, and he didn't even realise he barely had his guard up anymore. The emotion was thick in the air, no anger but wistful sadness as she spoke about him tinged with happiness as no doubt fond memories tickled the surface. He nodded, a serious look in his eyes despite the smile. "I don't intend to undo what he gave his life for, you know." A smirk followed as he found her gaze with his own. "I might be an 'asshole', as you put it, but his legacy does mean something to me. He gave his life to stop them finishing this weapon, I know they want need you to finish it too, but I don't plan on letting that happen." In all honesty he hadn't thought much about what he would do once he made it off of Earth before now, but suddenly he wanted to destroy the weapon, if it still existed. He wanted to make sure there was no chance of it ever threatening anybody again, to finish what Ryker had started and clear his name. He looked down at the tank, sensing the fear coming from her even before she spoke and bursting into laughter as realisation struck him. "Well, yeah, where else did you expect me to keep you? I can't have you running around thinking you're free, can I?" He reached for her with one hand and a blank look on his face, for a moment looking like it was going for her hair before the fingers closed and he poked her gently on the forehead and he smirked at her. "Just kidding. This is for me." He reached down and opened the tank. "See? No lock on the outside, handle on the inside to open it with. It's where I sleep, I thought it would keep the emotions out, block them. It's meant to be peaceful." He shook his head sadly. "Doesn't really work, not well anyway, I still get the neighbours perverted fantasies about me while I sleep. The guy in the elevator, Harvey."

He looked back over at her and raised his arms, stretching. "Speaking of which, I am feeling a little tired. I don't suppose you are, seems like you've slept a long time, but it's late, and I don't think I could get us a boat at this time anyway." He looked around the room, frowning a little as he looked back down at his tether. Their tether. It was still short, there was no way they could separate it a lot. Sighing, he moved towards the bed in the corner, taking hold of it and dragging it a little towards the flotation tank in the middle of the room. "This tether thing is going to be a hassle, isn't it?" He had heard her comment about them often choosing the wrong men, had offered a smile and nothing more as he hadn't known how to answer it but he could see a major problem with it already. "Here, you can choose where to sleep, if you don't trust the tank then take the bed, though since you do come from the sea, maybe you'll like the water. Consider it a peace offering for being an 'asshole'." He looked down to her foot. "Though I did at least take care of that, didn't I? I can't be all that bad."

Jumbled · Aug 19, 2020

As her hand had first settled on his chest he had shifted in the slightest and she thought she saw him start to reach for her, but perhaps she’d been mistaken. She nodded to his query. “Yes, the ocean. But I’m still saying no to your fish army. No deal on that one. We can take Hachi if you want. He’d be more willing to help you, I’m sure.” she teased. She hadn’t realized he was asking her due to an actual reason; he’d been all jokes for a while now. She crinkled up her nose at him with a confused glint in her eyes. What problem could there possibly be? Everything seemed simple enough to her. She turned her head ever so slightly to the side as if to coax the answer out of him, and then he said it. He was afraid of the ocean. Well, more specifically the depths of it. She sighed and smiled at him. “It’s not unreasonable.” she told Xander as if to save him from his own thoughts and wherever they were trying to lead him. “... Portal? How— How did you get here? To Earth?” she asked suddenly. Xander had never outright said that he had come from Atlantis but she thought back on all that he’d been saying that night. He was in Atlantis before. He was trying to clear Ryker’s name. “Did— Is there—” What were the words she was looking for? Nerida looked down, trying to consider hundreds of years of possibilities that she had not been present for. “Did you get here from Atlantis?” she finally managed to piece together. Atlantis was like one giant travel hub. There were portals to so many worlds all from that one place. All except for earth. That’s what Ryker had set out to destroy. That’s why Atlantis disappeared. Wasn’t it? What did that even mean, if Xander had come from there? Had they built another portal? Was the city open to Earth but hidden? But, no. Xander said he’d thought the stone was a key or battery. Her head was spinning. She needed to understand.

He went into detail about where she’d been found and she supposed it made sense. Things shifted the way that they did over time. He reached around her to show her something, but as his skin brushed across her cheek she felt her face grow warm. She turned her head to look at his arm’s placement, though she only ended up pressing her cheek more against him. She didn’t move, there was no sense in it by that point. She simply followed his pointing and listened. “I see. Their greed would have them killing us before letting us go on our way,” she stared at the article a little longer, frowning as she did. He mentioned finding a boat for themselves, moving away from her as he spoke. She shifted enough to be out of his way. “They drive… themselves?” she asked. It was true, most of the technology new to Earth was not a shock to her. She Had traveled to many places with Ryker and Atlantis was one of the most technologically advanced places she’d ever seen. The first time she’d gone there it was shocking. Seeing the lesser versions on Earth of what they had there was just cute— in it’s own way. But, Atlantis didn’t really use much in the way of boats. Surprisingly, there wasn’t a very large body of water surrounding it much like some of Xander’s articles depicted it having. There seemed to be a lot of ideas, perhaps half truths of what that city really was, but nothing was truly correct. “And if you’ve found an iceberg or two in such tropical waters there might be something wrong with this self-driving boat of yours.” she quipped. She indeed did not get his reference to the Titanic, as he suspected.

Nerida reached for his phone in which he’d offered her, staring at the advertisement for the boats. They were very fancy looking, not really wooden at all like she’d pictured. She looked up from the screen, finding Xander watching her as if he was curious about something unspoken. She narrowed her eyes, looking back down to piece together what he wanted her to do. “I— don’t understand.” she said finally. She only saw an image of a boat with no other information given on the page. Had he learned the rest of what he’s claimed with his powers, or was it maybe just a guess? She did at least like the image that was on the screen. As she stared, the screen dimmed to half brightness and she looked surprised and then worried. “Have I broken this?” she asked. She had seen her fair share of things, but she never bothered to use the technology herself. Ryker was the one that took care of such things. She handed it back to Xander carefully. “And why not try to hire the crew that found me? They must have been bold enough to get close, at the very least. And, if not… No, I won’t let you drown.” she was confident in that much. She could protect Xander if need be, she just wasn’t sure how long a journey made completely under the sea would go. If it was her by herself, it would have been difficult but possible.

She chuckled as he called himself an asshole, poking fun at how she’d called him one earlier. He’d picked up on that and didn’t intend to let her live it down. His reassurance was welcomed, once again, as he told her he wouldn’t let them use her for the weapon. She only wished he was stronger. She could definitely support them with her own attacks, but water could only take them so far in a fight. Unless she intended to put the entire city beneath it, but, that would end many lives that were innocent and she wasn’t sure she had that sort of power anyway.

As though he was reading her mind, and Nerida wasn’t convinced he wasn’t, he began to laugh, filling the room with his amusement. She asked about the tank and he was still laughing. Before she could think to stop him, he’d flatly told her she was going inside of the tank. Her eyes widened and she was beyond the point of backing away from him. His hand reached forward, as if he intended to suddenly grab a fist full of hair and drag her in, but then he shut his fist, simply poking her in the forehead. “You— You are an asshole.” she told him. “Xander you are the least funny person I have ever met. Fish might even be funnier than you, and I think we’ve established by now what I think of them.”

As he explained what the big metal box was, she looked at him strangely. “You really sleep in that?” she asked him. It was the strangest thing he’d told her all night, and he was a man of too many words. He stretched his body, then went over toward the normal looking bed, dragging it closer. She couldn’t help but shake her head. He was determined to sleep in his metal coffin. “I am definitely not sleeping in that thing. I will be on this bed, then. You are… more than welcome to sleep in your box.” she said hesitantly. At that distance, the tether was going to pull a little, even if it had grown some. She considered suggesting he just sleep beside her, but wasn't sure she wanted to know his response to such a thing. It seemed any answer was probably going to bother her. As he mentioned her foot, she glanced down at the bandaging job he’d done for her. He was kind in his own way, she supposed. She smiled at him faintly before sitting on the edge of the bed. She supposed she could sleep, but she also couldn’t remember a time in a human form that she’d done so alone. Ryker was always there. She was merely a part of the sea, drifting about happily in the water, until he came along. They’d been together ever since. She shifted as her insecurities took hold of her thoughts.
“Well, you try to get some quiet and undisturbed sleep, then. I’ll just… watch over you. Maybe try to keep your neighbor Harvey’s thoughts out of your head. I could drown him if you’d like?” she joked. “It might do the trick. Or we could send Hachi out. He’d love a good stroll down the hallway, I’m sure.”

Staine · Aug 20, 2020

"I hardly think that's fair, shutting down my ideas without even considering it." While it was obvious he wasn't serious, Xander was pretty good at keeping a straight face and an even tone when he wanted to, at least he felt he was, and he attempted that when he spoke to Nerida. "With an army of fish and other sealife we could slip past their defences, at the very least confuse them...though I suppose we could try a stealthier approach." Even joking, the possibility of taking Hachi with them appealed to him and he looked back over to the tank, would he even be helpful? Couldn't hurt, at the very least they could set him free and let him go his own way. When Nerida seemed to become confused, and he nodded slowly. He really hadn't explained how he had gotten to earth or why he wanted to go back to Atlantis so badly, not really. He had said why, perhaps, but not why there. "Yes...yes I came from Atlantis...they captured me." The memories came back to him, that same dream he had so many times, whenever he slept restlessly, so vivid that of course he could recall it at will by now. As he thought about it with his shields down, he couldn't stop it leaking from his memories, not the entire thing but flashes of that which he recalled the most clearly amidst the chaos, faces and voices of those that had come to his aid and the sounds, the smells of smoke and even the fear in the air from the resistance members as they tried to get him far away from his pursuers.

"I went to Atlantis about a year after finding the journal. Nobody on Vimorix would be persuaded of my families innocence, of Ryker's...so I thought it would be a good idea to take it to the source...in hindsight I should have known better." He sighed, leaning back against his tank. "They had suppressed even rumours of the weapon the journal mentioned, of any nobility in Ryker's cause but I thought it was a different time, you know? Those who had known him would no doubt be dead or old, powerless, and I could talk to more reasonable Atlanteans, bring up my case and see if I could get it printed somewhere. Imagine how proud my family would be, my entire race, if I got them to announce that they had been wrong." In his memories as they flashed through his head he could see the smirk on the general's face after he had finally gained an audience, hear the chuckles of those in the room. Arrogant, all of them...it was something they had never hidden but behind the closed doors of the private meeting they had been far more open about their disdain for him The guards had closed in, grabbed him and locked him in that cell. For all their technology it was much like one on Earth. Sure, the bars were more of a purple semi-translucent membrane which had made him feel weak to the touch, like it was draining him of his strength should he dare to attempt to push through it, and the polished sheen of the alloy that was both cold to the touch and absorbed just enough light to leave it too dark to see into the other cells made it look far more palatable but it was just a cell all the same, and about as humane as one would expect. Three days he had spent in there before the lights had suddenly gone out on and people he had never seen before had cut through the membrane and ushered him out. They'd bombarded him with questions as they had pushed him towards the strange vehicle, hiding him in the back as they had crossed checkpoints until the driver had slipped up, his ID hadn't been perfect and he his cover blown...then the shooting had started, they had been moving fast, he had been thrown around while the resistance members tried to get information from him, Xander's fingers tight around his journal. It was arrogance that left the Atlanteans to let him keep it in his cell; "Something to read" they had said as they'd laughed at him. From the gunfire and shouting, it sounded like they regretted it.

Then he was in the scene from his dream, the portal, dying all around him, then cold, wet darkness as he was shoved through the experimental portal. The world around him shimmered and faded into his bedroom, the first thing he could see was Nerida's face. He was sweating, a little cold, shivering, he hadn't even noticed when his memories had turned into another vision, or that he had been speaking aloud, narrating the whole thing as he had relived it but the look in his eyes said it all; bewilderment and confusion. It took a few moments for it to sink in, for him to focus on where he had been in the tale. "Y...yeah, so they imprisoned me anyway...I was broken out by some kind of resistance group, aliens from all over the galaxy looking to....hell, I don't even know what their goal was, I wasn't with them long enough to find out but they wanted to know more about Ryker, what he had found. They pushed me through the portal that brought me here, it looked different, like it was unstable, a different colour, it was hooked up to power sources and devices I have never seen before or since, and then I was here. I don't know what happened to it." After that, the talk of boats and Nerida thinking she had somehow broken his phone had been a welcome distraction. He had laughed, his finger finding the screen and flicking it sideways to reveal more of the page. "No, silly, it's not broken, but there are no buttons. You use your finger, like this." He demonstrated just a little before he had left her with it.

He'd shaken his head at her suggestion of hiring the crew that found her. "I imagine they are pretty pissed off that their prize attraction is gone. Humans aren't known for embracing the supernatural, but some do, and if one saw the cut on your foot or recognised you...might be bad. We can hire a boat...I trust you not to drown me in my sleep, more than I trust them to not do as you say and kill us just to take anything we find. Besides, I wasn't lying, with auto-pilot they do kinda drive themselves. Just gotta check on the bearings once in a while. I think...maybe." His panic from earlier was fading, helped by his little 'prank' as she had shown fear at his tank and he was still laughing as she called him an asshole. "Oh come on, that didn't amuse you just a little bit? Was it really that bad?" He had a silly grin plastered on his face and at her insistence she wouldn't be sleeping in there he had shrugged, putting the tank between them as he had started to undress, starting with his shirt. "Of course I sleep in here, why would I lie about that? Is it really that strange?" Admittedly not even many humans slept in these, but how many of them had to try and actively keep emotions and dreams from invading their own while they tried to rest? "You know I'd thought you would appreciate sleeping in the water, I was even willing to give up my tank for you if you'd been more comfortable, but fine, you be that way. Take the bed." He was almost completely naked now, hidden behind the steel and aluminium lid that acted as a barrier between them as he slipped off his boxers and grabbed the pair of swimming shorts he had waiting on a hook attached to the tank. Red, orange, green and yellow in a hideous Hawaiian style pattern they were only there for when he had guests, a precaution he had only had to use once before but he was still glad he had kept them around now as he climbed into the tank. "I don't think he needs drowning...poor guy is just dreaming about me, can you blame him?" He gave Nerida a grin before he started to lay back, his hand finding the handle he would use to close himself in for the night before pausing and furrowing his brow. "Wait...walk?" She had gotten his attention and he sat up again to look at her. "Hachi can walk?" The look he gave her was one of incredulity, his mouth almost hanging open before he came to his senses and closed it. "You're lying to me, aren't you? You have to be...whatever....you're not funny either, it seems." Even as he said it he was giving himself away, laughing at the thought of the octopus walking down the hallway to terrify Harvey when he returned home. Closing the lid on his tank, he quickly said goodnight before locking it, laying his head back on the inflatable pillow and closing his eyes.

Even in the peace of the tank it was hard to sleep, but he knew he needed some kind of rest. The tether was there, going through the solid metal like it was piercing it and not intangible at all and his hand came up to his chest. Nerida was...a strange one, that went without saying, and he didn't really know that he could in fact trust her but it felt like he could. That had to count for something....right? He'd been alone for so long, not having to depend on anybody so it was for the best that his new companion at least didn't make him feel as uneasy as she could have. If he concentrated he could even feel her in the room, her emotions seeping through into the tank. Yawning, his thoughts started to drift to Atlantis and getting back, getting home, before they became nothing but the dream again.

Jumbled · Aug 22, 2020

Nerida tried to hide the grin that didn’t stop from forming at his jokes. He was truly horrible, but only in the laughable sort of way. She shook her head, trying to keep from looking at him. The more she fed into his nonsense, the more he continued to lay it on thick. It felt nice, though, to have a reason to laugh. Perhaps with his mood finding a stable point to anchor onto, she was able to come around to the idea of tolerating him. She glanced back over to him once again. Maybe tolerate wasn’t the proper word. She had already been doing that to the best of her ability. Could she actually like Xander? She wondered as she noticed his attention trail back to Hachi in the other room. He was sweet to care so much about the creature. But, as their joking settled and she’d managed to ask her questions properly, Nerida found she had much to catch up on. Her eyes softened as he said they had captured him. She felt a pain in her chest where the tether was attached and the very idea left her unsettled. She fidgeted with her hands, her fingers winding and pressing against one another as she thought about what he’d been through. Atlantis was still a dangerous place. And he still wanted to go back. She wondered if their story would end up the same with her sinking back into the ocean once again while he played the hero this time. Her gaze crept back up to Xander, wondering if he possessed that same trait that made Ryker so bold and brave. Perhaps it was there and maybe the idea of it scared her. What sort of implications would it have in the end? She supposed, since she was on her second chance at life, she could dedicate the precious new time to helping Xander. She shouldn’t have even been alive, at least, not according to the legends she’d heard.

“That was noble of you, but, yes, definitely careless. —But, how could you know?” Nerida asked, though she spoke more to herself as she considered what any reasonable person might have done. “Atlantis is quite the deceiving place with its promises of advancements for planets and peoples alike. They draw you in. Dangle something shiny in front of your face and all you can see is what you want to see. Until it’s just too late to turn back. They’re quite good at covering things up. I’m very sorry. I wish I would have known you before then. Maybe I could have dissuaded you.” her heart hung heavily with a guilt she didn’t need to carry. Even so, Nerida was truly bothered that a relation of her love had suffered, especially due to their own adventuring and mistakes long ago. “Your family might not be the fondest of me, though maybe they don't even know of me now. I was a second love to Ryker, and he’d strayed from Vimorix after meeting me. But, I want to help you be happy. If you want your family’s name to be cleared, then, I will make the utmost effort to do this with you.”

Xander was lost in his story, looking as though he had started to live through it all over again. He recounted the tale, saying it aloud in detail enough for her to follow. She thought of his tale, the room full of leaders. No doubt that they could have been the very same foes from long ago. Their advancements were nothing to scoff at. Their robotics alone were capable of extending a lifespan by a hundred years. Nerida had seen the cells in which he mentioned; they sounded nearly the same as back then with some subtle differences. Had they made the bars in such a way to drain power from someone like Xander— Like Ryker? How much had they obtained from his capture and death? Nerida swallowed hard at the lump in her throat, focusing more on the man in front of her that was lost in a living nightmare. It was the Atlantians own mistake to leave such a powerful book with Xander. They were fools not to take it, and that was a blessing. She knew the feeling of leaping through a portal, the way it tugged at one’s body and disoriented the mind. It took many teleports for her to be used to such a feeling. And then to be thrown into the sea of an unfamiliar place. Why had they chosen earth? Just to hide him? Did that mean Earth was still safe from Atlantis? Perhaps it was, at least until they attempted to open it back up again. Nerida’s jaw was clenched as she thought through her mixed feelings, looking as Xander’s focus had returned to her and the room. She’d locked eyes with him, giving him a focal point to focus upon. There was a calmness that reflected in her eyes back at him. “Deep breath,” she suggested quietly. He looked out of sorts and shaky. She felt it best not to touch him, he was already too over stimulated.

“Curious,” she began. She found the idea of a resistance intriguing. But the description of the portal even more so. She rubbed a temple with two of her fingers as she contemplated on it more. Xander needed to move away from the story, though. She wouldn’t press him further. He’d revealed quite a lot to her. More than she’d expected, though likely also more than what he expected, too. She stood with him as she had, staring at the clues and papers on the wall, then tried to give his phone back once the screen had dimmed. He turned it back on and demonstrated how to use it the right way. “I don’t know. I certainly didn’t look like myself as a statue. It was a little horrid and I’m not exactly crumpled up in that pain at the moment. But, you know, give me a few hours alone to process and sure. But, I suppose we don’t want to risk involving humans in this adventure. They’re quite helpless. ‘Never learned magic. Well. Most. There are some that I’ve known have found access to witchcraft and talking to gods. That was in a far off land, though, and obviously a much different time. It can just be you and me— and Hachi. And the magical steering boat.” Her fingers hadn’t stopped touching along the phone screen, quickly picking up the ins and outs of how it functioned.

Nerida huffed, her worry fading as she began to better understand Xander’s sense of humor. She wasn’t fond of being the target of his pranking, but he seemed more jovial after it. She shook her head at him again. It seemed to be her normal reaction to him now. “You shouldn’t try to frighten a lady like that.” she lightly scolded him. She watched him rather intently as he began to walk away. She had started to follow, anticipating a tug at her chest, but he turned again, along the other side of his sleeper-coffin. She steadied her footing, taking back her original position. He’d started to undress and her eyes were fixed on every movement his hands had made. “Of course it’s strange. It looks like death personified.” she said, though it was clear through her tone that she’d become distracted. “Though if you truly mean that, I do thank you. I think I’ve had enough water for the time, though, and it just seems incredibly confined for my taste. Besides, I’m far more drawn to the warmth of a man beside me, not the chilled water. Even if it would heal my foot. It’s salt water, right?”
Xander had removed the remaining clothes that covered his form and she could begin to understand poor Harvey’s frustrations. Feeling her face grow warm, and a primal part of herself beginning to arouse, Nerida looked away. What would Ryker think? He’d barely been gone. Well, actually, it was the opposite of that. Even so— She looked back to Xander for another peek, snorting as she saw him in a strange assortment of colors. “Oh, that’s fitting.” she laughed, watching him climb inside. His goofy attire shifted her focus, at least.

Nerida, without thinking, shook her head, agreeing with Xander. “No, it’s clear you’re a very attractive man.” she admitted. She took pause with her own bluntness, then cleared her throat a moment later. She paid him back with a jest about the octopus and he’d fallen right into the illusion. “You never know with those fellows. He might surprise you one day. And I am hilarious.” she added, feeling quite pleased with herself as she placed his cell phone onto the bed. She watched quietly as he closed himself up inside of the tank, leaving her alone in the room. She looked around, unsettled at how quiet it had become. She tightened her jaw as she sat on the bed, her hands gripping firmly onto the blanket she sat on from either side of her. She didn’t want to be alone. It didn’t matter that Xander was still right there, he was closing himself off, searching for the quiet. Nerida didn’t want anything to do with quiet. The chatter had been distracting and as soon as it ended, she felt her heart racing as she experienced the urge to weep. Grieving mother, indeed. Though Ryker and she had only ever started to discuss the idea of a family, she’d certainly never reached that step. She inhaled deeply, trying to steady her emotions. Xander was young and had little practice. Even that tank failed to work, according to him. She didn’t want to cause him more stress than she already had. She pulled her legs up onto the bed, hugging them against her body. She wondered how she could help him. When she’d met Ryker he had already mastered a lot of his abilities. What could she do—? It took a while, but Nerida eventually stretched out on the end of the bed, close enough to the tank for her to still see Xander down inside of it. Her eyes were constantly reopening, just to check and see that he was still there. She struggled to find sleep that night.

Staine · Aug 23, 2020

Coming out of his almost trance-like state, the first thing he had seen had been those eyes. Grey, devoid of the familiar hint of colour that most humans tended to have it was more peaceful an 'awakening' than it should have been. Maybe it was because of just how often he had to look into them on a daily basis, on television, in magazines, in the streets...the grey was comforting, as was, admittedly, the woman they were attached to. Xander was finding that she had a way about her that soothed him a little, it was hard to let the emotions that made up the general atmosphere of Earth through, to let them poke and prod at him when he had a focal point that while obviously being distressed and disheartened, had still maintained enough composure and grace to not let it overwhelm her. Next to her, he was feeling weak for how his own emotions had crippled him to the point of needing to shield himself so often. He followed her instructions, taking a deep breath and closing his eyes once more, for only a second before he opened them again, nodding towards her. "Thank you." It was all he felt he needed to say, taking a little more time to calm himself before he spoke again. "It's not your fault that you weren't there, so don't try to blame yourself. How could you or Ryker know what would happen? You were just trying to do the right thing, weren't you? Besides, I'm not sure how much my family knew of you even back then." He smiled, looking back down at the journal. "I hadn't ever heard of you before reading that, only rumours that Ryker had ran away with somebody from off the planet. Seduced into abandoning his family and our planet, I think that was how they put it." Realising what he had said, he quickly added to it, finding he cared enough not to want her hurt by that statement. "Clearly they were wrong...but they never met you, you know? Maybe if they had, more people would have helped you both. I get the feeling you didn't think you'd be believed about Atlantis though, you and Ryker. They really do hide it well, like you say."

While he had been changing, he had let her toy with his phone, making a note that he would need to get her one too just in case they lost contact, then almost slapping himself on the forehead when he looked down to see the tether. Like it was possible for them to lose contact with that thing connecting them. Still, she had picked it up quickly, and it would be handy. She ahd been talking as he changed, mostly he had been nodding along, listening while he thought of what else they would need. "Yeah, I'd prefer that to be quite honest...I mean I am sure I'd be able to tell if they planned to betray us, it's not a feeling they can hide from me but I usually prefer not to take risks." He'd grinned as she chided him for scaring her, maybe she was right and he shouldn't have done it, but it had lightened his mood, and when she laughed at his swimming shorts he had little regrets, smirking as he had climbed into the tank. "I'm sorry, are you mocking my shorts? You've seen what you're wearing, haven't you? You're hardly blending in, if you ask me a little colour might make it more striking though, have you considered something in yellow or orange? We will be going to the beach you know." Considering he had been wearing nothing but black just a few minutes ago, he knew he was being a little ridiculous but he had enjoyed the compliment and found that the lighter mood agreed with him a lot more than the suspicion and hostility. "A warm man beside you...there you go trying to seduce me again. I'll have to keep an eye on you, huh?" He'd chuckled, nodding to confirm that it was indeed saltwater as he had laid his head back. "I've had enough dreams about a warm man besides me anyway, and in those Harvey doesn't like to sleep much. Maybe I'll have him come share my tank, see what it feels like before I judge you." A smile was on his lips when he had closed the tank, As he had been falling asleep it had been impossible to ignore her feelings coming through from the other side, eyes closed his brow had furrowed. Loneliness, sadness, he could understand it given what she had been through. He had the feeling he should maybe get out, console her, even hold her, but part of him hesitated. He didn't know her...she didn't know him, all he knew was that hours ago she had been saying goodbye to the love of her life, and his arms around her would be a poor substitute for those of his ancestor, no doubt unwelcome, and he didn't want to drive a wedge between them when they were just starting to actually become somewhat friendly. It had taken a while, but eventually he had managed to drift off to sleep, to run from the Atlanteans in his dreams.

When he woke again, he was panicked, his hand shooting up to press against the window on the tank. His heart racing, it took a few moments for it to calm down, to remember, as he did a lot of mornings, that it was just a dream, that he wasn't there anymore, and for the events of the previous night to come back to him. Remembering his 'guest', and feeling the waves of discomfort in the air even through the tank he pushed the hatch open, sitting up to look down at her, frowning slightly. He couldn't actually tell is she was asleep or not, curled up as she was, and he spent more than a few moments just looking at her. She looked so...defenceless, like that. He could recall the first time they had met just the previous night, how she had looked angry and fierce, standing over him with the water dancing dangerously around her fingertips like a weapon, the look of disdain in her eyes and now this. Had he done the wrong thing, in letting her sleep alone? Xander was far from an expert in matters of the heart, he didn't do 'relationships' or have many friends, he didn't know when he was meant to comfort or leave alone, and seeing her like this he couldn't help but doubt himself. Climbing from the tank, he was about to go clear his mind in the shower when the tether caught his eye again as it so often did when he was just starting to get used to it. Still not long enough, though if he looked closely it did seem to be just a touch longer than it had been at first. Grabbing a towel and drying himself off, he sat down on the bed beside her, gingerly reaching for the phone so as no to wake her if she was indeed asleep and almost as an afterthought he covered her with the blanket, and locating the nearest marina. Renting a boat didn't prove very difficult, just his bank details and a scan of his driving licence, not even one for a boat but for his car, and he was able to rent a decent sized yacht for over a month. Shaking his head at how easy it was, he reached over to shake her awake, grabbing her by the shoulder. "Nerida, you awake yet? I kinda need the bathroom and I don't want to test the limits of this tether just yet."

He was trying to be funny again, he didn't even need the bathroom that badly, but he felt bad for her, knowing how she was feeling. His voice was quiet as he spoke, fingers curled tightly around his phone to distract himself, failing miserably. "You didn't have a very good night, did you?" Stating the obvious didn't really seem like it was going to help, but on the other hand he had the strongest feeling that she should say something. What, he didn't know, but anything was better than nothing, right? "I know he hasn't been gone that long for you, it's probably pretty rough, I've never lost anybody like that, only really had my own problems to deal with....but if you want to, you know, talk about...I'll be right here." Letting go of her shoulder, he sighed, laying back with his head on the pillow and opening his phone again. Ordering several breakfast foods to be delivered, not having a clue what an Undine actually ate, he figured that with the tether in place there really wasn't much he could do but wait for her to get up and drag her along with him. The night before, he had thought it was kind of cool, but now he could see the limitations if he didn't want to hurt her.

Jumbled · Aug 28, 2020

Catching onto Xander’s jokes a little faster, she smirked at him and huffed accordingly. “If I was trying to seduce you, Xander, you would feel it. But you feel free to look. I think you have a few times by now, right?” It’s not as though she hadn’t seen him doing it— and it was very possible he had seen her do the same. He was, in the bluntest sense, very attractive and appealing to her eyes. If she’d slipped into a primal state of the Undine, she would have been all over him, especially after his skin show. His comment about his dreams pushed her thoughts away with a bit of laughter. “Poor Harvey. Though, I don’t think you mentioned sharing the tank with me. Perhaps you’re more fond of Harvey.”

Nerida rested for a while, reflecting on the things Xander had said earlier. She smiled to herself as she recalled the comfort she’d managed to give him as he’d slipped away into his vision. He’d even been a little careful with his wording when he’d been so blunt at first about Ryker and herself. She didn’t mind what people thought. They really didn’t understand the situation, and that was okay. They didn’t have to. But, maybe there was an off chance that Xander was right. If they’d seen the two of them together, really met her, maybe they would have been receptive to their tales of Atlantis. She shook her head at the thought. It was so farfetched. Even so— she glanced down at the tank where Xander lay inside. It was nice of him to offer such a thought.

She looked down at herself as she’d remembered his mention of her clothing. It was the most ideal thing for her to wear, but perhaps he was right. Maybe she could borrow some clothing from him. She wasn’t sure about the colors he’d suggested, though, being so flashy. She would probably wear them well, but she really wasn’t after that sort of attention. She questioned his understanding of how blending in worked. Her cool blues and muted tones were far more suitable, but perhaps her ideas were considered old-school for the current times. She was certainly showing a lot of skin. The humans didn’t walk around like that, did they? Even back in her time they were more reserved.

Nerida tossed and turned on the bed that night. She could barely sleep. As morning neared, a thump against the tank caused Nerida to jump from where she lay on the bed. She had barely slept that night, so it hadn’t taken much to cause her to stir. She looked at his hand from where it was inside the tank, concern for Xander welling up within her. She wanted to comfort him, but she suspected he might not want her to have witnessed such a moment. It seemed like a terror one might wish to keep to themselves. She closed her eyes lightly, attempting to offer him that privacy. She settled back into her lonely peace there on the mattress. She could hear his movement. The tank opening, him hoisting himself up. The motion of his wet shorts moving around his legs and the slight shift in the air as he pulled a towel out to dry himself. Nerida focused on the unseen, allowing her other senses to paint the picture for her. She could smell the salt water. It was comforting. The weight shifted on the bed as Xander found a spot beside her. She resisted the urge to draw near him. She was so alone. She wanted comfort. She realized she wouldn’t have minded it from him. The more she had reflected on that night while she’d been there by herself, the more she’d decided she rather liked Xander. He was moving around, his weight shifting as he reached near her, though it wasn’t to touch her. She heard the soft sounds of his cell phone she’d left on the bed. Of course. But, to her surprise, he moved once more to cover her body with a soft blanket. It was a welcomed gesture— much nicer than simply lying there in a ball.

Nerida shifted a little as he touched her shoulder. She smiled slightly at his jest for the washroom but she hadn’t opened her eyes yet. Then, unexpectedly, Xander was very genuine with her. She wondered if it was because he suspected her to be asleep. She wanted him to say more. This was a side of him that she found she enjoyed. He would be right there... He wasn’t wrong. So long as they were bound, it was a very literal reality. But, it didn’t sound like that’s what he meant. There was no hint at humor in his tone. His arm pulled away and her hand quickly reached up to his, grabbing it before he’d completely taken it from her.

He laid back and Nerida shifted, laying nearly against him, peeking at his phone screen as he fiddled with it. She didn’t really want to talk. She didn’t know what to say. Her focus was solely on the warmth she felt in her chest; there was a slight happiness that seeped into her heart, filling her with something other than the sorrow that had overcome her. She had no doubt that— as he hadn’t deceived her in the night and was being so kind that morning— her own level of trust toward him had grown.

“I thought you needed the bath,” she finally said quietly. She was teasing him. Her head was half on the same pillow he used, just above his shoulder. She was actually quite comfortable and didn’t want him to go, but she wouldn’t admit such a thing. His skin was warm and he smelled like the ocean. She'd inhaled deeply as she stirred a bit more, her eyes running down along his bare chest. She glanced at the golden line that fell from there, falling down onto the floor, off of the bed and eventually wrapping back up to her. It was longer; coiled— perhaps even growing more as she stayed so near him. “If you have things you need to do, I will do my best to help accommodate that, Xander. I do not have any obligations other than to you, now.” she said. It was probably the first, truly loyal thing she’d really spoken aloud to him. Although she’d been staring at the images of food on his phone screen once she'd peeled her eyes off of his skin, she had slowly shifted to look up at him. "Thank you, for what you said. I— I appreciate that more than you might know. Even so, I don’t want to wear orange clothing even if that is something you’d like. I could be convinced, however, to wear something more suitable to your tastes. Something gentler.” she offered.

Staine · Aug 31, 2020

Xander hadn't taken her up on her offer to look, not exactly, though he didn't try to deny that he had already looked, just smiling as he closed the hatch to his tank. "Oh I'm sure I would, you're hardly very subtle, are you? Not that I mind, you are very easy on the eyes...I can see what..." He paused, knowing what he was about to say could still hurt her, most likely would considering how fresh it had to be on her mind and yet he had already gone so far towards it that there was little doubt in what he was about to say. "I can see how your kind lured sailors to their doom, I might have fallen for it myself if I was trapped on a ship full of one eyed, peg legged pirates." Her comment about sharing the tank almost went unanswered, coaxing a grin from him as he entertained the idea briefly, laughing it off as the tank closed. While he wouldn't have minded being so close to her he still felt a little off that she was the love of his great grandfather, conflicted feelings about it not making it so easy to flirt with her as he might have otherwise.

In the morning, when he had tried to pull his hand away and she had grabbed hold of it at the last moment, more conflicted feelings coursed through him. On the one hand, he hadn't meant for her to actually hear what he had said even if he did mean every word of it and on the other, he was kind of glad she had. Leaving it unsaid would have ate at him a little, He could still feel her emotions, swirling around in the air, ever present, the loneliness despite him being no more than a few feet away from her at all times since she had broken free of the coral that had entrapped her. Letting her know that she wasn't so alone felt...nice. Xander rarely felt like he did any good in the world these days, he had no real reason to care about anything but his own goals, laser focused on getting back home so he had distanced himself from other people, not let anybody get close. Nerida...he had only just met her but they were tied together quite literally, she was going to be close to him, she was close to Ryker...there was no hiding from the fact that he couldn't distance himself from her, not effectively and it had already shown, he had already started to open up to her more than he had in all his time on Earth. "Are you saying I smell, Nerida?" He feigned that he was hurt at the teasing, though on his lips was a warm smile. "I know, I know...but seriously, I am here if you need to talk or just let off steam. I'm doing my best to remember it hasn't been so long for you, not like it has for me, so if you do need somebody to lean on..."

Without him really paying attention she had moved closer, they were even sharing the pillow now and he felt he didn't mind at all, another oddity for him. His personal space was usually something he didn't like sharing, maybe in the heat of the moment when he had needs to satiate but beyond that he was very much a solitary man, but somehow he was still at ease with her so close, even leaning into her as he saw her glancing at his phone, showing her the screen. "Food, I assume you do eat, yeah?" As silly a question as it was, he didn't really have any way of knowing what she did or didn't do, but most species tended to like food, as a rule. "I ordered a few breakfast rolls, some with meat on like sausage, bacon...some with eggs. Nothing with fish." He grinned, wondering if she even cared about eating fish. He supposed it honestly didn't matter, it wasn't like she was a fish or anything, she seemed to be very much mammalian. "And I found a place to hire us a boat." He was starting to rise, getting ready to take her up on the offer and go shower, trusting her to join him when he paused again, smirking as she spoke about different clothing. "I don't think you understood me properly, I actually kinda like what you're wearing...it just might not fit in around here. Then again, you could get away with far less going to the beach, and we are going to be on a boat. Hmm, I'll tell you what." He reached for her hands, pulling her up from the bed and this time taking her up on her offer to look, his eyes roving over her. "When we do get near the marina we can stop by a store, you will need fresh clothes anyway, you can pick anything you like, maybe a nice little bikini." He wondered if she even knew what a bikini was. "And it doesn't have to be orange either, though bright clothes might fit in where we are going."

As he spoke he was pulling her backwards towards the bathroom, though looking down now as he was he couldn't help but notice the tether between them had already grown significantly, he wouldn't be surprised if she would be able to roam the apartment with him in there without tugging on it. As he reached the door, he stopped, letting go of one of her hands to turn the handle. "Okay, now I know you're hellbent on seducing me with your wicked ways, but try not to intrude, I'm going to take a quick shower before our food gets here." His expression took on a slightly more serious note for a moment. "So that means no peeking, don't think I didn't notice you looking too you know. If the tether stretches far enough, feel free to get a drink from the refrigerator, or to look around. Teach Hachi how to walk, I don't know what it is you like to do...I won't be long." Slipping through the door and closing it behind him, he almost turned the lock when he decided against it. He didn't expect her to actually burst in on him so he didn't feel he needed to, but just in case something happened he at least felt she should have the option, and as it turned out he trusted her at least a little. Turning on the water to let the heat build, he quickly slid off his shorts and stepped beneath the stream, closing his eyes and letting it wash over him, the heat soaking in as he reached for the shower gel he often preferred to use, a smoky scent of oak with minty notes and a hint of citrus that felt cool on his skin as he rubbed it in. While he was lost in his own little world, oblivious, he tried to picture how it was actually going to go, trying not to think about their inevitable destination, deep beneath the ocean waves. A mixture of excitement and trepidation...if he was back home those around him would be able to feel it so clearly, they would think he was terrified but that wasn't it, not exactly. No, as scary as the thought was, the idea of finally going home was far more overpowering, and as he stepped out of the shower, quickly drying himself off and wrapping the long towel around his waist, he knew without a shadow of a doubt that if it came to it, he would manage to deal with the ocean depths. Besides, he had Nerida with him...she had promised not to let him drown, hadn't she?

Without any clothes in the bathroom, he stepped back into his bedroom wearing only the towel, ignoring the familiar line of gold as it stretched along the floor, seeking out his wardrobe.

Jumbled · Sep 19, 2020

“Oh, yes, Xander. You do smell— quite lovely. Like the ocean, actually. I’m quite content to lay here and breathe you in. It’s no wonder you’d want to wash it all off.” she teased back. Her expression softened as he cycled back to being more serious with her. He was willing to be there for her, to be a pillar of strength when she was feeling her weakest. She smiled and stared at his phone screen if only to avoid looking him in the eye. Even so, she could see his face in the reflection of the screen if she looked in just the right way.

“Food does sound lovely. I haven’t eaten in more than a hundred years.” she said with a light laugh. “I’ll have to trust you on your choices. So long as you aren’t intending to poison me I’m sure it will be fine. And I told you, fish are mindless. It’s not like there’s much else to eat in the water. But, that being said, that’s all there is. So not eating fish sounds like a good plan, I think. Well done.”

Xander talked the way he did, jumping quickly from subject to subject, but she’d started to understand it better. He was just hyper; excited. He had a lot to say and wanted to get it all out while he had the opportunity. He was much calmer about it this time, however which allowed her to stay more at ease, riding along on the waves of topics he’d chosen.

“You did? That was very fast. I’m not sure how you’ve found the time. You’ve only just woken up.” her tone was genuinely impressed with him, even if it was just through the simplicity of the internet— a thing she didn’t fully understand yet.

Puzzled as he’d told her she misunderstood him, she tilted her head to finally look up at him. She looked a little alarmed, like she’d done something wrong. Instead, his words caused her eyes to shift down nervously, looking down at her own body. He liked her clothes? She smiled and glanced back up at him. “Oh, I see. I didn’t realize—”

Again she was reminded that the world was a different place. She couldn’t just walk around in her adventuring gear and expect the modern day humans not to stare. She didn’t want to draw any undesirable attention to Xander or herself. They had enough they’d be dealing with it seemed.

His hands found hers and he pulled her up. The blanket that he’d placed over her fell back onto the bed, half sliding down onto the ground. She watched him intently as he let his eyes trail more slowly and openly along her form. If she hadn’t blushed before on the bed, she certainly was after that. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other, though she didn’t attempt to hide herself from him. “Wouldn’t bright clothes make us stand out more? Don’t we want to blend in?” she asked him as her fingers clung a little more to his hands. She was beginning to like the feeling of his skin against hers. He wasn’t as bad as she’d initially assumed he was. She smiled and looked down, thinking to herself how she’d been too harsh the previous night.

He had started walking back with her, and the smallest grin appeared from the corner of her lips in her amusement with him. He stopped at the door and let one of her hands go and she almost looked surprised from the separation. She recovered quickly enough, looking at the door. Right, the shower. She remembered. He made some joke about her seducing him— was that the third time he’d said such a thing to her? She smirked and stepped forward, nearly pressing against him and pushing him against the half-opened door. “You might like me intruding, Xander.” She looked at him with hungry eyes before laughing and allowing her expression to shift back to normal. She waved a hand at him as she began to walk away, though froze as he’d told her he’d caught her looking, too. She turned back at him, her hair falling back along her shoulder as she gazed his way.

“You’re an attractive man. I’d be a fool not to.” she said quietly. It was clear that she wasn’t goofing off that time and that she meant what she’d said. “Enjoy yourself,” she said as she looked down at the tether curiously. It was certainly long enough to have some freedom in his apartment. She shook her head and huffed a laugh at the thought of teaching Hachi to walk. Xander was actually sort of funny.

Perhaps people that were in the shower only thought they weren’t taking a very long time. Nerida wandered around the living room, looking at the fish tank, feeding the little guys before wandering back over to the octopus. She smiled at him softly, placing a hand against the glass as he stirred and moved to meet her hand from the other side. She rather liked Hachi. He was well cared for, too, which only gave her a little more admiration for Xander. It was clear the night before that it simply hadn’t occurred to him how he’d trapped the poor creature, and even then, if Xander hadn’t, the octopus would have gone to some other home, or perhaps a sushi shop. This wasn’t the worst case scenario for the guy. At his suggestion, Nerida had gone off to get herself some water, drinking small sips of it without completely wrecking the bottle that time. She paced around the empty room, not knowing what to do with herself. It was cold in there. He hadn’t really personalized anything to suit himself, not like in his room. She wandered back there, looking at his mural on the wall of clippings and documents. She shifted uncomfortably as she looked back at the Imprisonment Stone. A heavy sense of dread filled her, settling at the pit of her stomach. She groaned and took herself back to the bed, still waiting for Xander to finish with his showering. She sighed, swaying her feet back and forth, only then realizing the bandage on her foot looked a little loose. She smiled, remembering how Xander had wrapped it. Perhaps it was less controlling of him and just incredibly awkward instead. She picked her foot up, bending her knee as she began to unravel the bandage from her foot, taking note of the damage that had been done. It wasn’t the worst in the world. She’d certainly been harmed worse than that. The bleeding had stopped. At best it was an ugly scrape that had begun to scab over.

The sound of a door opening grabbed hold of her attention and it wasn’t long after that she caught a glimpse of Xander, steamy and damp from his shower. She subtly bit at the inside of her lip. The new smells that filled the air around him were not that of the ocean, but were certainly pleasing to her senses. She watched him for a moment longer, then looked back down at her foot before she spoke up. “Do you feel better?” she asked him. She glanced back up at him, her eyes looking for his. “There’s not been any food delivery—” she began, though her words drifted off into the quiet as she stared.

The Search for Atlantis (JuumbledxStaine)

Withdrawn

Withdrawn

The original Bunny eating monster.

Withdrawn

The original Bunny eating monster.

Withdrawn

The original Bunny eating monster.

Withdrawn

The original Bunny eating monster.

Withdrawn

The original Bunny eating monster.

Withdrawn

The original Bunny eating monster.

Withdrawn

The original Bunny eating monster.

Withdrawn

The original Bunny eating monster.

Withdrawn

The original Bunny eating monster.

Withdrawn

The original Bunny eating monster.

Withdrawn

The original Bunny eating monster.

Withdrawn