s e h n s u c h t

Gabi frowned, thinking this an absolutely bizarre and wholly unnecessary phrase. She didn’t like how it rhymed and didn’t seem to say anything. This didn’t put this other person in her good books whatsoever. “No, you’re not alone. Unless you have ownership over the beach that I wasn’t aware of, I’m not going anywhere for a little while. I happen to be busy.” She knelt down, and scooped up the shell that had enough color to show against the sand of the beach. That was why she was here. If she was going to adopt an entire job, she was going to become excellent at it… even if she was relatively certain that she had picked the most difficult profession of all. No matter, she would succeed- one shell or piece of driftwood at a time.

“I’m Gabi,” she said, deciding that it was probably of use to introduce herself first and establish ownership of the conversation. If she was going allow someone who had exclamations of mooglies to steer the dialogue, then Gabi might as well just start using silly phrases herself (she was very fixated on this). It was also useful to know and understand as many people as possible.

If Charlotte were her mother, the response would have been laced with venom and promise, and yet she just smiled, snorted a laugh, and shook her head, “No, I don’t own the beach. I also wasn’t trying to piss anyone off and yet here we are.”

There was a sense of Gabi’s tone that set Charlie on the immediate defensive, but she often handled things different than Victoria would. She wasn’t good at throwing around her weight or name like they were anchor with which to bludgeon people, “I didn’t mean to interrupt,” a pause, followed by, “I’m Charlotte, Charlie to friends.” 

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Now Renzie really started to hunt for more sand dollars buried in the pebbles and sand; his compulsive need to find a matching pair, or three to make it a set.  One alone just felt…too alone.  It was okay because Char fell into a sort of quiet as well; and although Renzie often tried to fill silence with words, it wasn’t necessary with Charlie.  She was a postergirl for companionable silence.

The most Renzie found on their slow stroll, eyes to the ground, were bottles, plastic, fish-bones, more plastic, other shells, and…more plastic.  Renzie looked annoyed.  “Next time I’ll come out here with a garbage bag.  Damn pollution dragged up from the ocean from that storm, man…” he tutted, not realizing that piling garbage into a plastic garbage bag only sent it back out to the ocean.  Like most small-towners, he was short-sighted; and only wanted his wonderful Port Vale looking nice and clean.

“C’mon, she won’t marry you off.  If there’s anything I know about Victoria Wolfgang, and her rep even from high school, is that she’s always at least five steps ahead.  She was Student President even in her freshman year, did you know that?  Yeah!  Of course you did, I doubt they took down any of her accolades and trophies by the time you passed through school.”  Renzie grinned.  Even if Victoria was a few years older than him, her notoriety even as a teenager was renowned.  

“What I’m saying is - she’d know that if you even caught wind of her flipping through the mailorder husband catalogue, it’d be the catalyst for you skipping town. Whatever her plans are, they’re way more subtle for the ken of you or me, dude.  I think your best strategy is to throw her completely off.  Do something brave and unstoppable like…fall in love.  It would be romantic and I think deep inside her steel trap heart, Vicky’s a bit of a romantic…”  He smiled dreamily, thinking of Victoria.  Authoritarian, a force to be reckoned with…and like most Porties, Ren had harboured a gentle crush on the stately woman since his senior year.  “Two opposing forces colliding.”

He snorted in amusement.  “That is dramatic, but you’re that age where everything is dramatic so it sounds totally legit, Char.  Now if I said it, people would roll their eyes.  You saying it would make people go ‘oooh, she’s so profound’.  And it’s true kiddo - you’re profound as heck.”  As for what she was saying, Renzie exhaled in thought.   “You’re really that worried?  About losing yourself, and not in a good way.”

Renzie was neither the first nor would he be the last person to fall for her mother. The truth of it all was she had no misconception of how well received her mother was, both as a figurehead of the town and as a woman in general. She could never hope to reach those heights and yet in high school she might have aspired to. A lofty goal, if nothing else, but never quite reached. She’d been popular, sure, but she’d never, ever be as popular as Victoria Wolfgang no matter how many years she lived, but she truly wasn’t bitter about it.

Her head tilts towards Renzie and she lets out a slow laugh, “Yeah, I’ll fall in love with one of the eligible people in this town. Let me just run down a list of names and see which one is most likely to return my affections, right?” Charlie would love to be in love. She knew it was never really in her orbit as soon as high school came around — most of the people she’d known were into her for all the wrong reasons and as she grew into her own person she realized that her mother’s status and allure was what carried hers... not something stable and not something to build a relationship on.

She had eyes for a few people over the years, and most recently someone so outside of the realm of possibility that it almost seemed as fantastical as her idea of leaving the town to explore the realms outside of it and make her name on the world. She dared not give it thought or speak it because then it would no longer even be a happy daydream that she could return to over time, but instead a dream dashed against the rocks that littered the far shores of Port Vale’s beaches.

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It had taken Elistra years to begin reading the numerous, infinite books the humans had written about the sea. Tales of exploration and wonder and cruelty, and madness, like she and Charlotte were discussing. At first, Elistra hadn’t wanted to read them, thinking that no human could truly understand the deepest depths of the bodies of water they were so intent on allowing to be destroyed through the greed of the few. But when she’d finally allowed herself a spare moment to flip through the pages she found that they held a different kind of understanding. The ocean, the waves, could never be their homes, but it was clear that some humans wanted them to be. There was a yearning, a fear, a curiosity that Elistra identified with. Even being born into the warm, salty waters of the Caribbean, there was still so much she didn’t understand about her home.

Elistra was about to open her mouth to change the subject, to make polite conversation instead, but the words withered away on her tongue. The sun was gasping its last breaths on the horizon and it was harder to see Charlotte’s face like this, but her words seem deeply intimate as if to make up for it. Excalibur, between them, having no notion of their conversation, layed down and put his chin on his front paws in the sand.

“I don’t think it’s sad,” she said slowly, carefully, like someone creeping out on a ledge. “And I don’t think you sound insane, either, even if you don’t care. Looking to the sea as a way of escape…” She smiled now, and wished she still had the clarity of vision she used to have in the sea, the ability to grant it to Charlotte too, so that they could both see each other in the shrouded dark. “I think that’s a bone deep instinct in humans. The unknown of foreign shores and hidden depths are scary, but no one ever mentions how hopeful it can be, when the world you live in now terrifies you.”

Charlie allowed herself to recline back into the sand, head falling back and her hair dusting across its surface as she stared at the incoming night as if it were an old friend who she’d not seen in years. She didn’t have a lot of those, to begin with, but also the expression on her face was somewhat forlorn, considering. It was hard living in Port Vale sometimes knowing that everyone could (and likely would) just leave if they wanted and yet she could never get her heart fully there.

The silence was blessed for a time, letting both of them a moment to think, but as Elistra spoke about the ocean and mirrored back her sentiments, she gave a slow nod and offered, barely above a whisper, “You know, the thing that gets me the most is that we still have no idea about half of what’s down there? The same can be said about space, but it seems much farther away, whereas with the ocean we’re sitting here next to it and I couldn’t tell you what was down there even if I read every bit of literature on the planet.”

The vastness of the ocean was similar to the depths of space. Cold, lonely, and hiding secrets that they couldn’t know. Much like people said that to assume they were the only life in the galaxy was foolish so too did she feel that way about the ocean. She couldn’t truly say those things out loud on most days; people would frown upon her being so upfront on her belief in the hierarchy of the ocean’s residents... especially her mother.

   xx

   “Bump on a log, that’s funny - I like that,” Ridley chuckled, beyond pleased with the new human phrase and hopeful to use it herself one day. She had a mental filing for everything quirky or fun she heard in conversation - sometimes it resulted in oddly-timed phrasing, but so far, Ridley hadn’t gotten any negative comments on her eclectic use of figurative speech. 

   The point made about the cold was true, and Ridley was reminded again about how different weather was on land versus the sea. She pulled her light cardigan around her a bit tighter and nodded, “It is getting chilly, are the winters here very harsh?” Ridley had a bit of concern for that, if she were honest. 

   Taking a seat, Ridley settled down beside the woman comfortably. Stillness was not a talent of the siren, and she may not be able to be stay in one place for too long, but for now… it was nice, she reflected. “I’d love too, actually. It’s been, like, a hot minute since I’ve seen the moon on the water. I’m always too busy to just, like, do this. Sit and enjoy it. Angela, oh, she’s my boss - she tells me to just be still like every single day. Now I can tell her, I’ve practiced!” Ridley smiled, glancing to the woman, but then wondered if she was ruining the serenity by talking, and allowed herself to fall silent in the presence of the waves. 

There was a smile playing across Charlie’s lips as she listened to Ridley, finding that somehow conversation with the woman felt somehow far easier than she’d have anticipated. Her eyes move to the water as Ridley asks about the winters, pursing her lips briefly, “It’s colder than you’d expect but I wouldn’t really say it’s harsh. The water tends to stay unfrozen but it gets really cold. I still sometimes dip a toe in.. I don’t know why, it just always calls to me.”

“Sitting still is something I’ve gotten very good at out of necessity.” Charlie admits after a long beat of silence and purses her lips. She always wanted to be moving — traveling and exploring — and yet she’d learned to behave, do as she was told, and follow the status quo. It wasn’t as if it hadn’t worked out for her, but sometimes she wondered if she could ever pluck up the courage to just wander out into the world... sometimes she had dreams of doing that, but it was into the water — into the ocean’s depths.

Better to not voice those things. 

There's that tell-tale thump in her chest, like iron butterflies slamming in her ribcage and wanting to burst free, and yet she keeps a face of almost impassive acceptance; a trait she learned from her mother and practiced at her behest. Let no one know anything until you've had time to figure out how you want to say it.

"I think that, despite what some might expect me to say, that he is a wonderful human being. I refuse to judge him solely based on his name as much as I hate to be based on mine," And yet, most days she was and if her mother heard such a thing it might cause a slight amount of friction, "I wish I could get to know him better," read: spend more time with, "and I wish he got more time to just... exist how he wants."

Perhaps too much, but as guarded as she could afford to be without also giving voice to the crush she'd had for so many years; that alone was a thing that couldn't happen. Could it?

She reached out and touched Quinn’s hand briefly, as if she was lost in her own world, and his hand was the first thing to enter that world in a long time. He felt a recognition in that brief moment, like his hand was a reminder of the world outside her own. Once their fingers left each other, his hand retracted and plunged itself into his warm hoodie pocket. Too cold out here for keeping any skin uncovered, Q thought to himself.

He pulled his extra hoodie out of his bag, and draped it over his forearm in case he noticed her shiver. “It’s right here if you need it,” Q informed her and patted the jacket, “how would we both be in trouble if you started to shiver?” He didn’t understand. She was definitely mysterious, she didn’t seem to say a lot, but what she did have to say seemed as though it was worth listening to.

Lost. It was a word Q knew well. “I understand that feeling, I do the same thing,” Quinn felt he could relate to the young woman, “I like to go to the most scenic places around here and just find myself again through art.” He found himself wondering if she had her own way of finding a way back to herself. A map, if you will. “What’s your name, if you don’t mind my asking?”

Charlie seemed to revel in the cold, especially when laced with the salty sea air and flowing over her like a fine mist. Something in that moment of being borderline damp and freezing held her attention far better than any kind of partying ever could have. A sleepy town like Port Vale had to have some appeal, right? Why would she still be here, otherwise?

At his words, she snorted, “Nothing, just a comment on my mom being a bit over protective and insanely keen.” Charlie sighs, knowing that as much as she joked it was hard to deny that her mom would be aware of what she’d been doing, where she’d been, who she’d been with. Even when she escaped to the Inn she knew her mother was aware, and it wasn’t because Ren was tattling — Victoria Wolfgang just had a sense of things in what she considered HER town.

   He hoped that he’d not rattled her by his sudden decision to speak - traditionally a quiet man, Isidore as often prone to clinging to the sidelines and blending in with the wallpaper, but in the past years, slowly, he’d opened up more and more. Human lifestyle suited him nicely, and as he began to better understand the complex emotions of those in Port Vale, he found that he, too, was capable of complexity and lonesomeness. Charlotte smiled, and he gave a vague hint of one back. 

   “To be fair, I do not believe the mayor said for sure if his fiancé would be participating or not,” Isidore hoped to encourage her, though he knew little about the world of beauty pageants or fashion shows. With mermaid memorabilia surrounded them, he gave a little head nod to one of the statues of a half-fish woman, worn and aged but polished and well-kept. “Getting inspiration, or hiding?” 

   It was an act he knew well. Duck away into quiet spots, look enthralled, allow the mind to wander, time spent and a day lost. “Best case scenario, you do win, and get some sort of prize. Any ideas what it will be?” He asked, as if he were really interested; as if he would be needing to know. The chances of one very tattooed Isidore Delgado entering the mermaid beauty pageant were slim to none. 

“It doesn’t matter if she is or not, it’s up to me to make sure that if she doesn’t it seems as if she’s scared.” A moment of bald honestly and she wanted to claw those words right back into her mouth; it was truth and her mother played those kinds of games with the deft hand of a chess master, but she shouldn’t have shared such things so openly. She let silence hang in the air for a long beat after, thankful for his own addition and hoping that he hadn’t taken too much of what she’d said to heart.

“They’re not mutually exclusive. I doubt I can encompass the grace of a mermaid in any true capacity, though. No matter how long I study or daydream or hide... I’m just so normal that I doubt it’d go far with anyone thinking of me as some magical creature. I am Victoria Wolfgang’s daughter and not much else.” A shrug lifts her shoulders now, abandoning her staring at a mermaid figurine she’d been seeing since she was knee-high to a teeter-totter and focused wholly on Isidore.

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Ren could tell Charlotte was looking at him - at his face, his expression, whatever.  He kept himself neutral and pleasant, believing that Charlotte wasn’t particularly adept at reading others.  The vast and infinite mysteries of her own head was enough to analyse, for little Charlie.  But he felt, perhaps, that she was making an attempt - not to reach out to him, so much as to share in similar situations.

And maybe she was right - her family seemed to pin her to Port Vale as much as Renzie’s family did for him.  But there were differences as far as Ren believed, so he just gave her a quick glance.  “Well you know how it is, Char.  It’s a Catch-22.  Obligations make people feel wanted, and that feels better than going it alone, I guess.  Feels like you’re a part of something. Don’t you think?”

He smiled, happy to talk about his Uncle and Auntie, who he now called his mom and dad.  Charlie had been so young, when Ren’s parents were killed.   She’d remember Uncle’s heart attack better; and Ren thought it was sweet of her to ask.  “Ohhh, they’re doing okay.  Uncle gets bouts of energy and thinks he can do everything, then Auntie yells at him for it because she cares…the usual.  Never a dull moment, huh?”  He grinned at her.   

“And I’m sure old Vicky’s all spinning out over this whole engagement-thing with Xander and his new lady.  What the heck’s that all about?”

Charlie’s cool fingers brushed against his wrist, and he gently nudged his shoulder against hers, in a companionable way.  “Of course you’re still cute!  Cuter than all the buttons in the world.  Oh - “  Renzie paused and bent down, fetching a sand dollar from the sand.  “The storm dragged all sorts of weird shit up onto the beach.  Here we go.”  He cleaned the dollar off, and handed it to Charlotte.  

It was his turn to give Charlie a sidelong look now, at her musing.  “I don’t think the world’s big enough for you, Charlie.  If you ever go exploring outside of that room, it’d be floating up there–”  He pointed up to the sky, then nodded towards the ocean.  “Or maybe deep under there, since you haven’t learned how to physically fly yet.  Yet.  I’m still holding out hope for the Amazing Aerodynamic Charlotte.”

Charlie was good at asking after people. It wasn’t so much a gift as it was a necessity. The tabs she kept on people made her feel more connected to a world that, by the very merit of her existence, seemed distant from her. She knew well and good that no one was trying to keep her at arm’s length and it was all self-fulfilling prophecy, but there was a pervasive sadness in her every breath that people seemed to pick up on. And as far as Catch-22s went... the more she stayed, the sadder she got, but the thought of leaving filled her with such terror and sadness that she ended up wanting to stay in the original sadness rather than venture out and risk failure. Truly a fucked up situation for someone offered so much.

Her life was better than most and she was afforded more creature comforts than even some of the richer family’s in town were; her mother made sure of that. But still she stood there and at the mention of her mother and the engagement that had truly sent her off the deep end she let her nose wrinkle up, turning her attention up towards Renzie, “She’ll be marrying me off if I’m not careful and I’m not even sure there’s anyone she can foist me on. She’ll order a man from out of town to partner me with, mark my words.”

Her fingers curl against the sand dollar, careful and respectful even though the sand dollar itself was not nearly so fragile as she might be, and allowed herself another moment of reflection. She wondered, briefly, if every time she asked after her own ‘cuteness’ or touched someone if it was taken as flirting even though most of it was just a desperate and necessary cry for companionship from someone who felt as if they were drowning in all the wrong ways. She pushed the thought away with a sigh and tips her head from left to right.

I don't think about you all that often — in fact, I've spent more time trying to actively not think about you. It's not that your absence has had any effect on my life whatsoever — my mother has taken on every role in your absence and honestly I'm not sure exactly what you could have added in to my life.

Sometimes, however, I think about where we'd have been if you'd been in my life. Not about who you could have been for me but what you could have offered me in terms of escape; my life isn't my own any more with your absence than it would have been with you in it, I imagine. But I still wonder...

Call me crazy, but I think sometimes that you're dead. It's safer for me that way. Another person to miss and another way of letting go, an escape into sadness for someone I barely know and someone I still feel the loss of so keenly. I wish you were a wave upon the shores of Port Vale in reality instead of just within my mind.

I have no hopes that anything like this would ever reach you, or even that you'd respond if it did. I'll still throw it into the ocean, watch it wash away and sink and live quietly with the knowledge that my mother, sister and I are doing amazing without you.

Frustrated.

Charlie's attention was diverted for a second to her hands, tugging momentarily at the hangnail on her left thumb, before she exhales and offers a beatific smile, "I love her."

Truth, she really did. None of this was a lie, but she managed a touch more of it after a moment of bolstering, "I feel as if she doesn't take into account what I might have planned at any given moment."

    Spending time at the water was a bit of a love/hate relationship for Ridley. While she loved the way it looked from land, it made her only miss home that much more intensely. It only made her worry for her sisters back in the Black Sea, for the chaos that had befallen her family in the wake of her captain being overthrown… so she often chose to enjoy the pleasures of the sea from a far distance. 

   Even so, there were times the siren cracked, and found herself clutching heels in hand and her toes buried in the sand. 

   “Oh, sorry!” Ridley gasped with a strangled giggle, her unintentional fright to the brunette startling herself, too, in the process. She’d just been walking along the edge of the tide, her mind subdued by the sound of the lapping waves on the beach, and had damn near walked directly into the poor human woman if she hadn’t of spoken when she did. “I did, too, clearly. Since the storm, I guess not many people have hung out down here, so… well, we aren’t alone now, so I guess that fixes that, huh. I’m Ridley, and it’s nice to run into you- almost literally. My bad.” 

She could understand that want, should Ridley ever voice it, and they’d have found a common ground (or sea, as the case may be) to stand on. Sometimes Charlie wished the stories she’d read were true and that she’d find out she belonged to the ocean. She loved her mother, and she would never want any other family, but she wish they were somehow lost denizens of some underwater city where she could forever and freely explore its depths.

Perhaps not exactly the same as what went through Ridley’s mind, she had no idea what was actually out there and the other sort of did, which made it harder. She lets her eyes draw up further and catch full sight of Ridley, offering a smile, “You’re all right, I was sort of sitting here like a bump on a log, it’s as much my fault as anything. Actually it’s really all my fault.”

She laughs then, looking out towards the ocean for a moment and commenting, off-handedly, on chill in the air and their location, “I rarely find other people down here around now. Too cold.” Charlie was suddenly much more aware of just how much she stood out at times, a thing that would likely make her mother less than comfortable — she was the heir, after all, at least one of them — and continues, “Do you wanna sit and watch the waves with me? It’s like... getting really cold but I feel like it gets better once the moon hits the water.”

—

“No, not alone” Q smiled at the young woman politely, “I’m sorry I spooked ya, I’m Quinn, but you can call me Q.” He sat next to her in the sand and reached a hand out. One of the first things Q noticed was that she looked very at home in the sand. Like the beach was her bed and the crashing waves were her blanket, being pulled over her by a nurturing mother.

She was unbothered by the breeze, the moonlight cast shadows across her face as well as reflections from the water. “What are you doing out here so late, anyway?” He asked, “And it’s a little brisk out, would you like a sweater, i keep an extra in my bag.” She looked almost troubled, and Q’s mother always told him that if he sees someone who is troubled, it is his responsibility to find some way to help. It was in his very nature.

Like a shell washed adrift on a shore so far from its home but so familiar as it touched the sea, Charlotte sat in the sand like statuary; unmoving and content in her situation — at least for now. The hand was noticed and Charlie, being in need of something remotely attached to another let her fingers skirt out and brush against Quinn’s; friendly, brief, and accommodating. 

“I think the cold keeps me on my toes, honestly. I mean figuratively of course. I don’t mind it too much, but if I start to shiver shove one on me regardless of my protests or somehow we’ll both be in trouble.” She says, then looks over at him at the question, having let that... hang for a moment.

Moray wanders into Starbeach slowly. Some days he’s got this way of moving through the town, like he’s forgotten where he is: always pausing a beat or two in the threshold to survey the room before stepping on in.

He recognizes Charlie belatedly, squinting beneath the white lights, the deep set shadows around his own eyes telling it clearly: his day shift has only just ended. Rather than slouch his way into line for the next available barista, he wanders over to her booth, hands in his pockets, and hovers. Gives her a shrug and small smile in kind— one corner of the lips twitching up. 

“Stranger? Way the town would tell it, I’m Sworn Enemy.” He snorts with quiet humor, his own brand of teasing that bubbles up with those more familiar faces. “Here I thought we had something. Just stopping in for a coffee. Swill I make back at the cottage does the job, but hell, there’s no art to it.” He nods his head back toward the Starbeach baristas. “Not like theirs. How’s your evening going—?” he glances out the window to the inky sky and corrects himself, “—or, night.”

When his mouth twitches into the smile she feels a pull behind her navel that she’d been conscious of for half of her life. They were meant to be enemies and yet still she felt butterflies she tried to ignore every time they caught sight of one another in public. A thing she might not ever speak out loud to anyone but that she’d cradle delicately within herself like a flame — a small spark of hope, maybe, or just something that was wholly hers that her family couldn’t touch.

“Well, even mortal enemies can be nice to each other in public, right?” Not that her mother would have been and even if she pretended to be it’d be through gritted teeth and with every ounce of venom she could offer, but Charlie wasn’t Victoria, for whatever that meant, “I feel like we haven’t talked in a while, that’s all. How have you even been...?”