engulfed.

“no!” ari gasped, flinging a potato chip ( oh, right, crisp, that’s what they called them here. and french fries were chips. england was so backwards ) at urania, his expression all shock and awe and horror. “i don’t like thinking about it! what if there are monsters? what if they are all waiting to come out and eat us? you know how scared i am of sharks, and the megalodon, and giant octopi! don’t play with me. i don’t want to talk about it. i don’t want to meet the sharktopus.”

for a moment, he thought he’d won. she was finally quiet- if not a little nervous looking. he went back to his files, occasionally sipping his coffee, content with entirely ignoring her existence for the time being. until, once more, he heard her small voice slipping through the blessed silence he’d been graced with. he pressed his lips together in a thin line, stared straight ahead, and let a rather long and arduous sigh out of his nose. “…nope. didn’t know that. s’cool, i guess?” he rubbed his forehead and turned his head to face in her direction. he could tell the difference between chattering to be a nuisance and talking for a need to fill the silence. if she was uncomfortable with it, well, then he could talk for the few minutes he had left. or at the very least, listen. or pretend to, depending on the conversation. “go ahead, talk about the ocean. i’d rather hear about the ocean, i’m not smart enough to understand gravitational waves.”

“It wasn’t like, Kraken level rage squid, though. It just inked at them and swam away. I think he got scared, poor thing. It would be kind of cute if he didn’t look like a lung with tentacles. King Triton, so typical of those royal types, right? Wouldn’t kill him to share once in awhile. Are you serious? That’s crazy. That makes seahorses a hell of a lot less cool, I always assumed they were little speed demons.”

“ so, it kind of just flipped them off squid style. not gonna lie, sounds like my kind of squid. kinda get it though---triton’s initial standpoint. i too would stay away from us; we’re terrible. so did i! it’s yet another thing the media lies to us about. but they are amongst the deadliest, most efficient predators, so still infinitely better than blobfish or sponges. ”

he gave her a long stare, one that was entirely unwavering and unchanging. he had a bit of a keen sense for the agents that were, well, easily intimidated. truth be told, he liked them the most- easily intimidated usually transferred to respect, in his book. and that was something that was very important to him. regardless, he was in a poor mood (as if that was something new) and he had exactly 0 patience for her conversation. “fascinating, but if you keep talking to me, i’m going to have to do something drastic, and i don’t think either of us want that.” please, drastic, like him getting up and moving was akin to the berlin wall. “so shut up, and swallow your food, we’re not in a barn.” he sipped at his coffee as he scanned the redacted files in his lap. “singing rolling stones to me, who does she think she is,” he muttered under his breath. 

Chlo couldn’t help but stare at the girl with a raised eyebrow, although the topic she brought up was quite intriguing. It was the food that took away from the seriousness, but she did her best to not let that act as too big of a distraction. “I’m totally an ocean baby so nothing’s gonna stop be from swimming, but…agh. You have my brain going to a place like they show in those Discovery Channel specials. Now all I can think about is like…giant mutant lobsters and ten foot long sharks and shit living down there.”

“ staying afloat on the beach isn’t going to get us killed; i mean, it could in the realm of possibility, and the shore’s alright---unless you step on jellyfish, get stung and die. but the problem lies at the bottom. i haven’t watched Discovery Channel documentaries as i’ve been binge-rewatching Cosmos for, like, the twelfth time, but there’s some shady crap going on, always has been. but maybe, it isn’t all necessarily bad---maybe we’ll find mermaids, or atlantis---MAYBE, atlantis is the reason we still can’t find what’s at the bottom of the ocean; atlantians want to keep us away from their treasured, high-tech city and have invented all kinds of magnetic force-based devices to halt us from ever confirming their existence. we do kind of ruin everything we touch. ”

“i’d rather not think about it. it’s W A Y out of my realm of reality. you know, like, golly why think about something you may never know the answer too? i prefer to think about things i can figure out. besides, i saw jaws once and that was more than enough reason for me to stay AWAY from the ocean. that, and one time i swear a fish bit my toe!!” a very true fact, as once upon a time, a fish did indeed physically attack her or atleast, by her account. and she wasn’t one to forget such close encounters. “why don’t you think of something more tangible like…you know what!! think about particle physics!! wowie, i could talk about that for days.”

❝ Might as well petition for this. I’m sure there are people who are willing to sign it. I mean, really, think of all the fossils we could find. Could it answer the unanswered questions the universe has decided to thrust upon us? Quite possibly. We’ll never know until we get someone –– cough –– the United Nations, to fund that. And they might not even approve of it, which is sad because I kind of want to see some prehistoric aquatic bloodthirsty animals. Then again, what kind of prehistoric animals weren’t bloodthirsty? Dragonflies used to be h u g e, and then you know Darwinism, and survival of the fittest and all that. ❞

“Firstly, CHEW your food please.” She joked. “I agree that fact is truly insane and equally fascinating. I mean, you think that us humans would try to figure out the mysteries of our own planet before messing with the rest of the universe. Think about that. There’s no way Earth can be the only planet in the entire universe with life.”

“It’s crazy to think what’s under there, right? Like that squid thing they found not long back that’s only like, the second in history and was bigger than most people’s cars. That shit is crazy, man.” Alce said, with a grin. “You know what I’m super disappointed in, thoguh? They haven’t found those giant seahorses that Ariel, The Little Mermaid used to ride. Man, I would kill for a giant seahorse. Also, mermaids, I guess, but they’re not so cool.”

“ the---what? my god. i don’t even want to glance at it. i’ve gone with two days nightmares free to come back to it again. no thanks. ” feigning a horrified look, urania mirrored alce’s grin with one of her own. “ king triton’s hoarded ‘em all. if you pay attention, you’ll see he was always a greedy bastard. i still can’t believe dwarf seahorses are slower than a galapagos’ tortoise---like, in what world? this one, and no one is surprised. ”

❝ i personally am more interested in space then anything else mainly because i’m terrified of the fucking ocean and i refuse to even go near it. ❞ he said while his hand reached for the porcelain mug sitting only a few inches away from him. he took a heavy sip of his coffee,  ❝ i don’t want to think about it because i’ll probably break down in tears and i don’t feel confident enough to do that in front of a stranger, you’re looking at the world’s ugliest crier. ❞

he sat silently, wondering just how she was able to form complete sentences with her mouth so full, and then cringing at the fact that she was still talking, and to him no less, as if his current and ever-present scowl wasn’t deterrent enough. “wow, incredible, thank you for your candor. ah, but here’s the thing-…go away.” well, he wasn’t the base grouch for nothing. “i have six minutes left until i have somewhere to be, and until then, i’d like to have unabridged silence.”

❝ We really don’t, but isn’t that what’s so mysterious about the ocean. Here we are, rooting for NASA to keep funding in order to send more ships into space. Clearly the fundings should be spent on deep sea exploration, though, I guess in a sense, maybe the ocean is just i n f i n i t e. Like space, ❞ Galateia mused with a small shrug.