Mermaids

Elijah
[how did I sleep?]

Dice: 4 d10 TN7 (4, 4, 5, 9) ( success x 1 )

Elijah
[Is this going to freak me smooth the fuck out? Willpower]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (4, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 3 )

Elijah
[Entropy 1: find the weak spot]

Dice: 1 d10 TN4 (9) ( success x 1 )

Elijah
OMG Max. There are mermaids at the aquarium.

It was what had spurred all of this. Elijah had a fascination with mermaids. Real, fake, it didn't matter, he knew they weren't real but he had a fascination with mermaids none the less because of the underwater grace and the skill of the performers to keep smiling while they were surrounded by a substance that was more than content to choke the life out of someone. Water was an intense thing, and this was bordering on good ol' fashioned exposure therapy.

It was a hard trade off, because Elijah had a fascination with mermaids but a genuine, seething, gripping something when it came to water. Every fiber of his being tensed up and wanted to be anywhere but inside of a place where he could literally tell each place on the glass that might potentially crack if someone pushed too hard or tried to tap one-two-three-four-forty seven times. Forty seven because that would cause a chain reaction that would piss off the-

"Oh fuck Chili!"

Which was about when Elijah remembered that he couldn't wait for Max inside of the aquarium because she had a dog and they had a problem- they couldn't leave chili inside, and the dog was too big to fit in a backpack… maybe. It was a hasty retreat to the parking lot.

"I'llbeback!"

Maxine
I'm so down.  That was the text message that Elijah had received back.  From there, a time and date was set-- possibly even later that very same day because whatever it was Maxine did it probably wasn't hold down a real job and make an effort at a typical life because by now Elijah had to have figured out that the girl slept out of her van.  He'll have seen the back of it by now, seen the fact that there's a hammock strung up and a few of those plastic mini-dressers stuffed with essentials.

He knew that the little black dog ("A schipperke," Maxine had informed helpfully if Elijah had ever wondered aloud) was never far from her or that van.  A faithful little transient animal with its transient mistress.  So it occurred to Elijah soon after cash had exchanged hands, that Maxine may still be trying to figure out what to do with Chili, and he fled to go greet them in the parking lot.

The big orange VW van is impossible to miss, parked near the front of the lot but as far off to the side as possible, with nose to a chainlink fence that had weeds and bushes creating green overgrowth through the wire crosshatch.  Maxine was standing outside with the passenger door open, cradling a lit cigarette to her face with one hand and holding the other hand on a slim hip.  She dressed in a bleach-bright white tank-top that cut off just above the navel and hung loose on her slender frame, and a pair of cargo shorts that were slung low on hips, held in place by a belt that probably sold along with the shorts themselves.  She wore pins in her hair to keep it from her forehead and face and had chalk dust dying patches gray-white where she'd touched with chalky fingers.  Marks on her shorts suggested she'd tried to dust them off rather than waste water actually washing them.

When Elijah strode up, Maxine puffed her smoke toward the green-grown fence and cast the tall blonde lad a smile.  "Well howdy, pard'ner.  You came to join us."

Us, being Maxine and Chili both.  The dog was standing in the passenger seat with her chin resting on the open window ledge.  She perked ears and watched Elijah's approach, but was far too middle-aged and crotchety to get excited over his approach.

Elijah
Thus far, his friends seemed to live out of suitcases. Elijah was an anomaly because he had an apartment he slept at somewhat regularly, if only because he was prone to escapades that required him to have some place to lay down and sleep afterwards. Or, you know, because he had the looming parental threat and couldn't very well sleep inside of Jenn's civic indefinitely.

Not that he hadn't tried before. During the great  oh fuck if we are moving into a place with bed bugs debacle, they'd spent a few nights in the civic before determining that they needed to live in a hotel instead. That was an experience he would have rather not relived.

"We should totally get Chili one of those little vests that says hi, I'm a service animal or something," Elijah said. he even reached out to pet the dog when he came over because… well… because Chili was awesome and gave precisely zero fucks about much of anything.

Maxine
Elijah's suggestion caused Maxine to blink big dark eyes at him through the miasma shroud that sprouted from the end of the cigarette she was keeping near her face.  It looked like she was trying to smoke it quickly so she could snub it out and get inside with him to see some goddamn mermaids.

"That's actually a really good idea.  Do you know where to get one?"  Her head tipped to the side, and the question was presented earnestly.

Either way, she'd wave her hand and hold the cigarette in her lips, freeing her hands so she could nudge Chili back away from the window.  The dog scrunched her nose but complied because she was left without much choice since her mistress's hand-heel was up against her snout.  The dog backed up onto the seat and Maxine swung the door open.  She stood then like a chauffeur, holding the door open for her boss, and swept a hand to gesture the little dog to exit.  With a huff she trotted on the seat a couple of times in place, then hopped down.  With a wheeze-groan, the stout little dog landed and walked away with a calm clackity-clack of claws to nestle into overgrown weeds and grass in the shade of the tree that Maxine had parked under (intentionally, hence the spot against the fence).

A final drag was pulled, and Maxine snubbed the butt out against her shoe and put it into a cup-holder ashtray that was sticky-glued onto the dashboard of the van.  She cranked the window back up to about 3/4ths the way up, then closed the door and said with a stage smile:  "Well, what are you keeping me waiting for?  Let's go see some fucking mermaids."

Elijah
Where could they get one?

"We could probably Google it? I have no idea, but then we could get Chili into all sorts of places, and just tell people she has to come with you in case we need to make sure you don't have, like, a seizure or something. Chili looks like she could smell seizures."

Because, apparently, that was a thing.

Elijah offered Max a grin, big and bright and his constant companion while he went to go and storm the castle with his current companion. Of course, that castle was full of water and the incredible possibility of drowning and the world would end right there but there were mermaids, so why would there not be a little peril when you were dealing with something that could be potentially awesome. He offered Maxine an art, all faux gentleman.

"Let's rock this shit," he replied.

And into the fray with them.

Maxine
An untraditional yet obvious solution to not letting your dog bake inside of a hot car was to let her out of the car.  Maxine trusted that Chili wouldn't go far because Chili was a faithful navigator and constant buddy.  She was an untraditional thing as a whole, Maxine, and though she hadn't shared this information yet were Elijah to know that she was aligned with a Tradition and to find which it was, she'd strike a whole new resonance of Abnormal.

The offered arm was looked at for a moment before being accepted with a one-sided grin.  Her small hand tucked into the crook of his elbow, and she kept pace alongside him, carried on a pair of (chalk)dusty Chuck Taylors.

"Hey, is Alicia meeting us too?"

Because, of course, she would ultimately have to ask.

Elijah
Was Alicia meeting them?

Elijah shook his head, no, and heaved a half-hearted sigh, "nah, she's been hard to get ahold of. We're square now, but we kind of had a falling out about her dad and me doing stupid shit."

Who knew why the sigh was half hearted, but the mention of Alicia kept the grin on his face. He was content to keep pace along with her, and even paid for them to get in (well, paid for Maxine because he already paid and it was rude to invite your friend who lived in her van out somewhere to do things when you weren't entirely certain she had the cash flow to live somewhere). Besides, Groupon is the shit and he did this with Jenn all the time.

We digress, "but, I texted a whole bunch of people so you might get to meet other people. So, it's kind of a plus."

but a minus, because no Alicia.

Maxine
"I didn't even know there was a falling out to begin with.  What'd ya do?"  She posed her questions in a way that were just so sincere and harmless that sometimes it was easy to forget that she was actually getting very out of line with her prying.  She smiled brightly at the girl who took Elijah's money, and onward and into the aquarium they went.

But other people might be coming too, and to hear that the petite example of androgyny perked right back up -- she'd seemed only slightly sombered to have heard that Elijah'd said something about Alicia's dad that had pissed her off (or that's what Maxine took away from the explanation, anyways).

"By a 'whole bunch of people', do you mean ones that Know?  I hope so."

It wasn't that Maxine was an elitist or anything, she just understood that nobody else really wanted them around anyways.

Grace
[Perception + Awareness!]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 10, 10, 10) ( success x 3 )

Grace
When Elijah sent Grace a text reading "OMG Grace, there are mermaids at the aquarium," the first thing she did was check the aquarium's website to see if the place was putting on a special mermaid show. He could have meant that actual mermaids had shown up at the aquarium, and that would be cause for a rescue mission of massive proportions.

Luckily for everyone involved, there was, indeed, a mermaid show in progress.

Mermaids eh? Sounds like an advertising stunt that has the puppy-like young Mage all worked up. Put some poorly-paid girls in revealing outfits, give them air hoses and fancy tails, and call it a windfall. It would be more interesting and less depressing if there were actual mermaids...

But she goes anyway, because Elijah is there and he thinks that this sort of thing is neat, and Elijah is a magical creature after all -- merman or no.

She gives the woman at the front her money and walks inside, and she can feel them. There's someone else here. Someone bright. She has to blink a couple times until she convinces herself it isn't actual brightness, but something else...

Maxine
[Perception + Awareness:  Good idea]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 6, 6, 6, 8) ( success x 4 )

Elijah
[are there people?]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 3, 3, 4, 5, 8) ( success x 1 )

Elijah
The question of what he did made him laugh the kind of laugh that indicated that there was a whole rabbit hole worth of disaster to delve into. It wasn't so much mirth as… something. Everyone's laughed that laugh. We know how it feels in the pit of your stomach.

"Iiii didn't answer my phone for, like, two days. I passed out in a chick's truck and Jenn couldn't find me. Jenn called Alicia. Both of them kind of freaked. When I called Alicia back, we ended up talking and I said I needed to see her and she said she needed to see her dad but she couldn't and she wasn't dying but I called bullshit and, anyway, I was kind of an asshole and now I'm trying to get people to help rescue her dad from a super secret quasi governmental organization."

Ah, that was the laugh that one can place. The one that you have because it keeps you form feeling utterly helpless and lost at sea. Or maybe that was all the water talking. he wasn't having any panic attacks at that juncture. he wasn't trying to flee in utter terror. No, instead, he was more interested in looking at a blue tang that looked remarkably like Dori. he feels something, but he's just a little too busy being distracted by the blue tang and the abundance of anemones.

"I texted a bunch of people who Know. And Jenn, but Jenn is cool… but not cool like that, but I think Jenn has a date."

Maxine
"Did I hear you say that Alicia said she wasn't dying but you call bullshit on that?"  Maxine looked up to Elijah with both eyebrows raised on her forehead.  She looked skeptical more than concerned, like she wasn't certain that he'd spoken correctly.  "Because if so, you just told me that you think she's dying."

She let go of his arm once they were past the counter where you pay for admission and instead folded her arms together at the small of her back.  Whatever the first tank was, she'd wander over and peer inside.  Maxine was the sort to take advantage of the establishment's air conditioner and take her time visiting each display if allowed.  She wasn't sure what time the mermaid show started, and figured Elijah would keep her on track in that regard.

Some freshwater animal was peering back at her through the glass when she sensed (she couldn't say felt, it was sort of like smelling bright lights and colors to try and explain) some other force, something stronger and shifting and bold.  Maxine straightened up and lifted her chin, turned her head to look in the direction that Grace would be coming around the corner from.

"A friend?"  As though she was going to just shift gears and let her attention be diverted from the topic of Alicia and her life expectancy.

Dan
Mermaids at the aquarium and god knows whether Seraf ne was one of the people whom Elijah might have texted but she's not here.  Not in the country or perhaps not sufficiently back in the country to respond but:

Dan does.

With a mild smirk and an "Oh really?" via text and later something about We might drop by. later and Elijah doesn't know whom Dan means by we but: he means Dee and a couple of Dee's roller derby friends and Rick who is in the band and This Guy Named Eddie whom everyone somehow knows - people meeting at the Aquarium before drinks or after, one or the other.

Dan has a lanky arm flung comfortably around Dee's shoulder and he might be willing to let that group envelope Elijah and Maxine without much of a second thought but then he sees Grace and sort of detaches himself from Dee with a kiss on her shoulder, pulls away from his larger group of friends and heads on over toward Elijah and Maxine alone, holding out a hand to Elijah to shake, with a "Hey man - " and a "Grace, hey," when the Virtual Adept is within earshot,

and then a glance at Maxine, the brief crest of a smile breaking through his blond beard.  "I don't think we've met."

Elijah
"Not, like, literally dying, more like she is figuratively- it's so complicated, basically I was a jackass and said she was realy messed up over her dad even if she said she wasn't, she totally was. Is. Still is, anyway, it's not like she's got cancer or something," that he knows of. Holy shit, what if she had cancer? That would be horrible. But, we digress, "anyway, she's not dying at a rate that is faster than the current rate we're all dying at. Blahblahblah gothkidrant."

was that a friend of his?

Elijah perked up, tearing his eyes away from the fish and turning just in time to see-

"Grace! Dan! Hey man," he said with a smile, bright and pleased, "Max, this is Dan, he's cool. Dan, this is Maxine, Maxine is also cool."

Because apparently being cool was slang for magical people.

Grace
Grace pops around that corner, and she's not really looking where she's going. She's looking at the walls of fish, not the people here to see the fish. But she knows that Elijah and Maxine are roughly in the direction she's headed, so eventually...

"Grace, hey," says Dan, and suddenly she's paying attention.

"Oh hey, Dan," she says, waves, and then notices he's here with Elijah and someone she hasn't a name for. She gets a wave too. And then Grace makes her way over.

She's wearing a red shirt with a screen-printed fish on it today. The fish is wearing a snorkel. It seemed appropriate.

"I see you have picked up the 'they're cool' thing from Sera, huh?" she remarks to Elijah, talking about the code word they seem to have for those in the Know.

"Also, hey Maxine. I haven't seen you around."

Dan
Grace greets Dan and he returns oh hey/i> with a mildly ironic smile.  He has, after all, just rocked up on an extended goth kid-style rant involving Alicia and whether or not she is dying at a rate any faster than the rest of us, which interests him enough that his eyes linger on Elijah's expression a beat or two or perhaps even three longer than necessary, even as Elijah is introducing Dan (who is Tall) to Maxine (who is very much Not Tall), and then Dan holds out a hand and though he's wearing a long-sleeved button-down shirt tonight fastened to the wrists hints of his tattoos creep up over his hands and his knuckles, peek up over the collar (and the bow-tie, he is hipster enough to wear a bow-tie with or without irony.  That's how he rolls.)

"Maxine," Dan repeats, because repeating the name of the person you just met helps you to remember it.  Because Dan doesn't have magic to help him remember this shit.  "Nice to meet you.  Also a fan of mermaids or did you just stumble on each other in an ordinary fit of mild coincidence?"

Dan
stop!

Maxine
All at once, two new people round the corner.  For a moment it was a hell of a lot more than that, and Maxine had made a 'Hmm' noise to see the posse that came around with Dan.  He peeled away from them, though, and joined the display of bland local freshwater pond fish (you know they love to put the local stuff up front).  Soon after came a woman with dark hair, not a hell of a lot taller than Maxine.  Not like how Elijah and Dan both were.

She smiled first to Grace, the expression genuine but not bubbly-- it was a little bit too sharp, too knowing to carry the sort of innocent mirth that typically brought 'bubbly' into the equation.  "Oh, well, I go where the wind goes.  There's just been a tunnel caught this side of the mountains the last few months."

Her arms had unfolded from behind her back, gone to her sides when she'd turned away from the fish to face the others that had come to see mermaids as well.  Dan had extended a hand that peeked hints of ink and design from under a shirt cuff, and it was accepted with an enthusiastic squeeze from a rather small hand.

"Mermaids are assholes.  But Elijah's alright."  She'd been summoned by a text, by someone else's idea.  Her acquiescence was on account of the company promised.

Elijah
"It totally works, too, I can say they're cool and people who are cool? Totally get what you're talking about. It's just precise and not precise enough that it works fantastically," he replied. And he was content to beam, yes beam, at the mention of people. there was a little bit of pride in that, and somehow he had managed to deliver exactly what it was that he said he would deliver- people. He'd told Maxine he would introduce her to people and now, with the promise of mermaids, he had delivered people.

He kind of wished they were real mermaids. At the same time, he hoped there weren't real mermaids at an aquarium. Quietly, he wondered if there was such a thing. If he could see them and if they did exist. if that would be the last sight he saw before plunging deep, down, downward into all of the water and being moored off and stuck in the water never to be seen again. Perhaps he was confusing mermaids with sirens.

Either way, it seemed dangerous.

"I may or may not have mass texted every cool person I know about mermaids and aquariums."

Grace
"Everyone? Geez, Elijah, you just do not know how to think small, do you?" Grace says, but she's not exactly chiding, just giving him a hard time because it's fun. "If Patience comes by with a net and trident because she misunderstood, I am blaming you, for the record."

Grace is not all that impatient to see mermaids. The local pond fish are pretty enough, as far as she's concerned. No, seems she's more than content to stand here talking to the cool people who are the true lure to this visit.

"Mermaids aren't assholes, it's the guys who don't pay the mermaids enough to swim around and get stared at by assholes who are assholes," Grace says, with a sniff. "Mermaids are just doing their job, yanno."

Dan
There is a sort of cross-conversation here.  Maxine goes where the wind blows and Dan - who is not just taller but who is also older than the rest - gives her the briefest of grins.  The spark of it slicing through his beard.  "Where the wind blows, eh?"

It is a subtle, and supple invitation to Maxine to elaborate, if she wants to elaborate.  Or to let it go, if she wants to let it go.  Easy as fuck.

--

Then, encompassing Grace and Maxine and Elijah all at once, Dan asks - quietly, "You ever seen a real one?"  Mermaids, he means.

Elijah
"I want to," he said with no small amount of awe. No small amount of wonder at the prospect of mermaids being real and genuine and even if there was the potential that it could mean his untimely demise, he wanted ever so desperately to see something magnificent. Unicorns were out. From what Elijah understood, they weren't keen on people who weren't exactly pure and while Elijah Poirot was pure as driven snow, that was more like snow that has been driven on instead of its actual intention. "Water freaks me out, though."

He says in the middle of an aquarium surrounded by water and aquatic things.

Maxine
"I've read about real ones.  Watched that shitty discovery channel 'exclusive', too-- which isn't the real ones, mind you, but it's not really that far off base."  Maxine looked the youngest by miles, even if she and Elijah were the same age.  He had the benefit of height and facial hair to help him out.  Maxine was petite, with the big eyes and narrow chin that wasn't uncommon down her heritage line.  She probably got carded every time she wanted to buy her cigarettes.

As for the wind:  "'Wind' is a figurative.  I'm no meteorologist, don't mistake me.  A 'current' is the better word for it."  She smiled up at the older man with the tattoos and black beard and jammed her hands into the pockets of her cargo shorts, where they remained up only by the grace of the belt having caught on her hip bones.  Her shoulders bunched up modestly as she went on.

"Y'know, put the feelers out, catch a vibration and go check it out."

And, following that, she glanced down at her naked wrist to check time on what must be an invisible watch.  She wondered aloud to anyone, but mostly to Elijah since he was the one that rallied them together:  "When does this thing start?"

Grace
Grace grins at Dan, and lowers her voice. "Nope. Never a real one. But I have ridden a dragon."

Granted, that occasion wasn't the best of times. She shot down a fighter pilot while riding said dragon. But there are still some good memories there.

"Maybe you don't really want to see one, Elijah, if the water scares you."

And, my word, could this guy be any more like Kalen? Probably not.

Dan
"How badly does it freak you out?"  Dan asks Elijah, rather thoughtfully.  "Does it rise to the level of I can't deal with the world right now freak out?  Or is it more cats and baths.  It doesn't matter much, really.  I doubt you'd see real ones anywhere these days.  This world would be harder for them than you - right?  Reality would snap its jaws closed on them so hard.

"Where they'd go or come from, I don't know.  But think about it - every myth you've ever heard about is real - someway, somewhere, somewhen.  Because, once upon a time, people believed in that shit."

--

A down at Maxine, white teeth in his blond beard.  This quiet huff of laughter when she explains that she meant figuritively, and that laughter crinkles the corners of his eyes.

"I didn't think you were deploying a windsock.  What sort of vibrations?  I mean, I get drifting, don't get me wrong.  I guess I'm asking whether you know what you're looking for, or if that question is part of the equation, too."

Then to Grace: "A dragon, huh?  And you weren't stoned at the time?"

Elijah
When did this thing start, anyway? "I think it starts on the hour," he said as he flipped through his phone. He had things to go through, and despite the cracked screen Elijah was trying to give the expensive phone a try again. he was going to have to figure out some way to replace the glass before his parents came to visit, presuming they ever came to visit, to try and give the impression that he was doing whatever it was. He nodded again.

"And it's somewhere between cat and fuck my life I can't deal with this shit, I mean I'll shower and stuff it's just.. y'know... anyway, mermaids. I'm sure there's somewhere that people still believe n them, somewhere that they would still exist, maybe in the amazon or something. there are places that haven't seen the modern world so there's probably still places where people believe in mermaids."

Did he sound... wistful?

Why yes, ladies and gentlemen, yes he did.

Maxine
Dan gets a raised eyebrow at first, and then a wry, slow and crawling sort of a smirk.  He asked what kind of vibrations and what she was looking for, and she answered by shaking her head (though she may as well be wagging her finger, given the tone of voice she answers in).

"Maybe it's not so much that I'm looking for something in particular, as much as it is that I want to just see everything."

But then, Elijah answered with the time and by flipping his phone out of his pocket, and Maxine leaned to the side to peek curiously at the screen to see the time.  Sure, she could See Time, better and more purely than most people in the world would ever be able to, but that didn't mean she couldn't suffice for checking a lit phone screen on occasion as well.

"There's a shit ton of people who believe in mermaids that live here in this city, thanks to that documentary.  A depressing amount of people believed it."

Though the rubber soles of her shoes stayed in place, spread apart from one another on the tile floor that ran throughout the place, Maxine twisted about at the waist and glanced over her shoulder at the fish through the glass behind her.  Eyes flicked quick to Grace's face on the way there, though.  That moment of interest was followed by a question:

"Where was the dragon?  And where'd it go?"

Grace
Oh, Grace had started something. Something about dragons.

"They're all far away from here. Catch me another not so public time, and I'll tell you all about it. And no drugs, Dan. You know I just say no," she says, sly and full of snark. She does not actually say no.

"I don't know if it's such a bad thing that people are willing to believe in the impossible. Sounds kinda promising, that."

Dan
"Yeah?"  to Maxine, quietly.  The yeah is simple inquiry.  There is not a shred of challenge in it, not a soup on of doubt.  "You looking high?  Or low."  The question has room in it.  Space to breathe.

--

A glance at Elijah, then.  "I think it's less Tinkerbell, you know?  It all has more to do with the genuine elasticity of experience - whether or not there's room for it all," and back to Grace, encompassing Maxine.  "But she's right, you know.  The more folks are willing to believe in miracles that have nothing to do with this rigidly defined, experiential world, well.  The more space there is within which people who are just a bit outside that rigidly defined, experiential world can work.

Maxine
Conversations to be saved for times when there were fewer ears about, and Maxine nodded her agreement to Grace's recommendation that they avoid the subject of her dragon mount for the time being.  She didn't think that people were paying what they had to say to one another too much attention, after all.

But then, Maxine didn't have a whole hell of a lot of experience with ears being all around-- the ones that were specifically listening for them, and would come for them if they knew they were out here to knock things out of balance and screw around with what wasn't meant to be screwed about with.  The slender-framed young woman turned back to face the man and woman standing ahead of her (she'd remained beside Elijah without being against his side-- she didn't need his protection or anything, she just knew him while the other two she'd just met).

"High," she answered, and flashed teeth bright for Dan when she did.  "Always and forever, High and Above."  Then, when it came to the subject of what people were willing to believe and if it was a good thing that they did, she wrinkled her nose just a little bit and shook her head.  "It's depressing when they believe schlock.  It's fucking elating when they believe The Truth."

Somewhere in the middle of her statement, Maxine's attention had shifted downward.  Her left hand pulled a small, simple, outdated cellphone out of her shorts pocket and she glanced down to the screen-- it was buzzing noisily and persistently, she was receiving a call.  How her mouth pursed when she registered the name on the screen was a peek into how (not) excited she was to take the call.  Apparently she couldn't ignore it-- the pursed lips betrayed that too.

"I'll meet you all at the mermaid tanks-- gotta take this."

And she parted from the trio to do exactly that, phone coming to her ear as she rounded the corner to go back out to the front of the building.

Eleanor
Eleanor has not heard from Elijah in some time.  He hasn't dropped by her office to chat about the nature of things both ephemereal and seemingly corporeal.  He hasn't run into her in the hallways, or at another bar.  Last time he saw her, she was making breakfast in her kitchen, and her enormously tall apprentice was helping her, and Elijah was most likely seeing them blearily as he woke up on her couch.  There were no sausages or bacon with breakfast, but there were avocados and eggs and yogurt and bright vegetables and, for good measure, piles of greasy hashbrowns to help with the hangover.

Eleanor drinks tea, but Eleanor makes good coffee.

--

Then he texts her to tell her there are mermaids in the aquarium.  And when Eleanor shows up, it is still raining outside, has been raining all day.  She is wearing thin jeans the color of a charcoal-rubbed twilight, and they follow her legs which seem longer when she is not in the company of a seven-foot-tall swimmer.  Over whatever shirt she has on she is wearing... well, it's sort of a jacket, and a bit of a cape, and it has a hood.  It flows loosely, and it is hard to tell where her arms are.  Her hair is in a braid, sweeping down her scalp and curving over her shoulder.

She has found him.  And whomever he's with.

Her eyes skip from Dan, who she saw the other night, to Grace, who she knows or has at least met a few times.  Then to Elijah.

"Mermaids?"

Grace
Schlock or not, it's the willingness that has Grace happy. Well, happy until the sudden sensation of drowning comes over her, and then...

Okay, so the walls are not crashing down and suffocating her. It's just Eleanor. She shakes her head as if to clear it, and then turns to see the expected woman.

"Mermaids. Because Elijah wanted to," Grace says, and shrugs. "Hi, Eleanor."

Elijah
[Awfuck!]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 9, 10) ( success x 2 )

Eleanor
[that reminds me]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 5, 5, 5, 8, 10) ( success x 2 )

Elijah
Mermaids?

"They're not real mermaids," he laments, yes laments, but he is old enough that someone must have told him by now that there were not going to be real mermaids at an aquarium, but there was the feeling of cold and ice and drowning and instead of being terrified (because it was so very, very scary to feel), he smiled and it was bright and pleased and, "hey Eleanor! Glad you could make it. You missed Maxine, but you might meet again at some point, because she's pretty freaking awesome."

Dan
Dan has a raw but oddly bemused little grin settled over his mouth as Maxine gives him that answer, that bright flash of her teeth.  Always and forever, High and Above -  and there is the passion skimming beneath it, as she announces that it is depressing when people believe schlock, elating when they believe The Truth.

"Somehow," he says, and he says this - really - to no one at all.  "I don't think her truths are my truths."  Then, a glance at Grace.  "Tell me someone has introduced that girl to Pan.  I don't know why she reminds me of fucking Joan of Arc."

Mermaids? Eleanor asks, and, "Swimmers in fishtails," Dan explains, though she must surely know that. Glances at Elijah, next, "Shows are every hour on the hour.  There's a restaurant down in Florida that has had them since the 1950s.  We had a gig nearby back when we were living in North Carolina.  Sera couldn't get enough of them."

Of course she couldn't.

They were wriggling around in the water half-naked.

But someone somewhere in the crowd is signaling to him and Dan makes his goodbyes, telling them all that he has to go see what Dee wants, exhorting them to enjoy the mermaids.  He'll see them around.

Grace
"Joan of Arc? Huh, maybe. She sure is bright like Pan is. Pan does not remind me of Joan of Arc, though," Grace says, and grins at a fish.

She waves to Dan when he leaves, but her eyes don't really leave the fish.

"I could believe that Sera would love watching mermaids, fake or real," she says, to no one in particular. "Shall we go gaze at the fish women then?"

Eleanor
In a place full of water, where there is much glass to break and rooms where there are sharks, there are turtles, there are even tigers, no one wants to feel anything sundering.  No one wants to feel like they are drowning, slowly sinking, suffocating not because there is no oxygen, but because that air is rushing into your lungs with a couple of hydrogen hangers-on in every molecule.

Dan departs.  Eleanor looks at Elijah as he explains they aren't real.

She sighs.  She seems to understand the disappointment.

"You had me worried," is all she says, and slides her hands into the pockets of her cape-jacket, hidden as they are in the folds.  She shakes her head, nods in some general direction.  "Let's go watch the not-real mermaids.  May as well get our money's worth."

Elijah
"People keep mentioning this Pan guy and I've never met him," he admits, though it wasn't much of an admission. it wasn't much of anything to be ashamed of, but really it was a tad surprising given that Elijah had managed to wrangle up so many people to see fake fish women, it was a wonder that there were going to be people he hadn't at least brushed past in acquaintance. he was a sociable sort. Gregarious was a nice word.

"Onward, to fish people," he pointed forward, and like Marco Polo, he was off to explore the aquarium.