i know the truth, you just gotta believe • seaweed

BASIC INFORMATION

skeleton: Seaweed

character name: Stephanie Anand

age & birthdate: 31, born in 1990

gender & pronouns: cis woman, she/her

birthplace: Port Vale

length of time in port vale: her entire life (with some time away during college)

occupation: full time librarian, plus co-owner at the Mermaid Inn & The Starbeach Cafe

Isla would also describe Gabi as a badass. She even gave off that impression without the fins. Sirens were tough by default, Isla certainly never met a weak one before, but Gabi was special in the way she could be imposing but still diplomatic. She was a leader in so many ways Isla wasn’t. “Definitely badass,” she laughed with a nod, “but also very kind. She brought me a bunch of supplies while I was sick.”

She was still feeling the lasting symptoms of her illness, but she liked the sound of getting outside and walking around in the sun. She had been cooped up so long in her room that she was desperate for fresh air. Tonight was a nice opportunity to get out, but she had a lot of time to make up for when it came to exploring the town.

“Next weekend works for me,” she said eagerly. “We should definitely do that. There’s still so much I have to see. I could also use some sun after being inside for so long. We can text each other to figure out a time?”

Status: open to all  Location: beach

Her skin has been feeling like it’s too tight for days now.  A strange burning, a deep desire to get back to the water.  Even if it was dangerous.  Silver’s been standing with their feet in the waves for a good five minutes now, arms across their chest, hand spinning bracelet and it’s wearing clasp.  She’d probably need to get it fixed somewhere soon so it wasn’t lost.  But the tattoo shop was still training her and her so called ‘bad’ customer service.  As if sirens were supposed to respect humans.  Like they weren’t the ones responsible for everything along with the mermaids.   Feet dig into compact wet sand, water up to her ankles.  It soothes the ache a bit, but not enough.  She spins the bracelet again, rattles it to see if it would last in the water.  To it’s credit, it’s not the clasp that breaks but one of the tiny rings connecting the clasp to the bracelet.  Silver hisses, quickly snatching it from the ground before it was washed away.  Damn it.  Did Port Vale even have a jewelry shop?  They hadn’t seen one except for that antique store.   To worsen her mood, she’d been so focused on the bracelet she hadn’t heard someone coming.  Sand muffled the noise, air not carrying the sound as well as water did.  The siren jumps and glares at the offending party.  At least the person is looking at her so she doesn’t have to throw something to get their attention as her voice shuts down.  There’s no scarf this time to hide the marks over her throat.  It forces her to write in the sand ‘do you know some place I can get this fixed?’ while holding the even more broken bracelet.  Whatever decoration it had years ago had been dug out by salt water.  She really needed to get a phone to make communicating easier.

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A walk along the beach was just what she needed. It was nice and sunny out - not the warmest yet, but good enough for a walk where she didn’t have to worry about the cold wind or making sure her winter coat was zipped right up. She could just enjoy the salt in the air and the sounds of the waves.

Granted, her enjoyment was a bit hindered by recent events and she did keep a close eye on the horizon, on the beach and the water, but this was the shallow waters, it’s not like anyone could hide in the one inch water, jump out and attack her.

She noticed the woman dropping the bracelet from not too much of a distance and she moved automatically, trying to help and make sure the little jewlery didn’t get washed away by the next wave coming in, but the woman was faster, picked it up by the time she reached the person.

Steph was confused for a moment when the woman started writing in the sand and then realized what was happening, “Oh, there is a jewlery store that could help with that in the nearby town. And if it’s not too complicated, Mr. Thompson might be able to help too. And older man - he started working and making jewlery as a hobby after his retirement and he got quite good at it. During events he usually sells his own and-- oh, wait, I am babbling on, is it better if I write this down?” she asked, motioning towards the sand herself, mimicing writing motion.

Status: Open to all

Where: Starboard Parks and Recreation; just after sunset

Weldon didn’t know how long he had been away from Port Vale. When more mers started getting sick, he wanted to look into it. He didn’t want to put any of his brothers in danger, or any mer for that matter. As soon as he arrived, he grabbed some of his old clothes from Isidore’s place. Which didn’t go as well as he had hoped. The fact of the matter is, Weldon didn’t tell anyone he was leaving, where he was going, or why. In retrospect, not such a good idea.

Weldon figured a stroll through the park would ease his guilty conscience, though he would never openly admit to feeling guilty. He liked taking a narrow trail that winded through a wooded patch, but didn’t expect to see anyone else on the path at this time. He saw their silhouette about 4 meters in front of him, but couldn’t make out who it was. “Uhhh.. Who is that?” Weldon hollered.

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Steph was rushing to get home. She made the mistake of getting too wrapped up in her book in the library after her shift ended, and now the sun has just set and it was dark all around and the last time she was walking alone in the dark, that didn’t turn out too well and she just wanted to be home, home, home, not rushing through the streets and looking over her shoulder to make sure nobody was following her. Crowding her. She couldn’t always be so lucky to have Gabi show up just at the right moment.

Going through the park was supposed to make the walk from the library to her apartment faster.

And then suddenly somebody was in front of Steph, asking who she was, and she stopped, reaching inside her bag and gripping her hands on the pepper spray she recently aquired. She wasn’t going to be as defenseless as she’s been not too long ago. “Nobody,” she said, looking over her shoulder to see if there was anyone behind her. Thankfully, nobody was. “Who are you?”

Gabi was working off of a combination of experience and adrenaline at the moment. She clenched her jaw. Human teeth didn’t work in quite the same way as her teeth as a siren, so she had practiced this while training on land. She would have cursed about being irritated for being found out. They might or might know exactly who she was, but her top guess was rogue sirens at this point. Whoever it was, they were fools that didn’t understand consequences. If the last Port Vale mayor’s death was being investigated, this might make even more leads. She would have to deal with these idiots one way or another. Maybe see if someone had a basement that she could lock these all into and do some nice interrogation.

The attackers’ movements were awkward, which indicated to her that they did not have ample experience on land. If they had resided on land at all, it wasn’t among humans, and probably not spent much time in shoes. Perfect- she could work with that. She hadn’t had the opportunity to practice her kicks on people, but she had an idea of what to do with this knowledge. Leveraging how sturdy her boots were, she aimed for the lower legs. She got one of the knuckleheads felled in a way that looked like they wouldn’t be able to walk, but there were so many. She’d taken a few hits for herself, even if she was giving more than she took. But she’d gotten through decades of war before, and she wasn’t going to go down against some Assyrians playing games at having legs. 

Gabi knew that each word was a risk, so she ignored responding to the Assyrians. They could insult her all they wanted for protecting the somehow less-foolish human, but she wasn’t completely blowing her cover in public. Dodging a grapple, while slicing at another opponent’s arm and kicking at yet another enemy’s leg, she snarled at Steph, “I’m fine. Move away fast. Go for the calves if they get too close.” If Steph was the target, they might all try to go after the human. If she could predict their movement on those baby deer legs, then Gabi just might be able to divide and conquer. Between having knives and her legs to work with, she could try to go after them one by one instead of trying to create a one-woman shield wall. She’d take fewer hits if she didn’t have to play traditional defense. It had never been her style for good reason.

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While Gabi was a seasoned warrior, knew how to handle herself in battle, against probably much worse odds than what they were facing currently, Steph grew up in a quiet small town where this didn’t happen. In Port Vale, you didn’t have to worry about people jumping you in the middle of the night. You just had to worry if you were a teenager and you already passed your curfew. It wasn’t that hard for parents to find their kids if they stayed out too late, this was a small enough place that it was hard to hide out.

So Steph absolutely did not know how to not freak out and freeze up in a situation like this. She was panicking, close to hyperventillating and with the positions of the attackers she didn’t even have the chance to run away. Which she would have attempted to do if she was alone. But Gabi was here.

Gabi was here, Gabi was here, Gabi knew what she was doing, that is what she kept chanting for herself to calm herself down. Who, without a doubt, has done more than she has already, and for a few moments that froze Steph even more because she was panicking and she didn’t know what to do or how be helpful.

But then Gabi snapped at her to move away fast just when one of them jumped for her from the side and it was like her instincts kicked in and she jumped - granted, with a loud yelp, but it was still a fast enough movement for her to get out of the way. And then Gabi’s other words rang in her ears - go for above the stomach area.

They didn’t get too far into teaching, but Gabi did teach her one thing and when the hooded figure came for her again, when Steph jumped out of the way, she jumped to the side instead of backing further towards the wall, fingers into a fist and hit as hard as she could, aiming for the spot where Gabi taught her.

Stella dropped one of the notebooks, leaned down to pick it up, and then proceeded to drop another of the notebooks. Shaking her head, she scooped up both of the notebooks, and hoped that she would not encounter any other complications. “Oh! Uhm, I’m doing okay. It’s good to be here, though. I love libraries.” She hadn’t been to a lot of human libraries, but she liked Port Vale’s library. And the idea was amazing. So… she had to like libraries as a while. It only made sense until proven otherwise.

“Are you sure that the returns can wait? I don’t want to keep people from waiting if anyone had anything important on hold. I have basically an endless list of books at this point now that I’m getting hooked on these series books… But, uhm, do you have old newspapers available for public access? Local ones? Or just the other old records if you have any recommendations. I promise to take care of them if I’m permitted to view them. Do you ever wonder how many different trees go into one book?” Stella’s mind didn’t always make a lot of sense because she was just full of so many ideas that it was difficult to parse it all together. It made sense to Stella, and typically only Stella.

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Steph moved to help Stella pick up the notebooks, but the other woman was already on it, quickly picked everything up and then was right back to their conversation, and Steph couldn't help the soft smile she had on her face at the compliment and love towards libraries. "No worries, the returns can wait a bit, the customers whp come in are more important, including you. And I agree, yeah, libraries are great. But I might he biased, I do realize that. What kind of book series did you get into?"

Would it be something fantastical, or something more mundane? Nereida wanted something not normal at all and that turned out to be simple, non-magical romance books. She wondered if that was the case with Stella too. And just in general, Steph liked talking about books.

When Stella told her what she was looking for, Steph gave a big grin. "Oh yeah, we have records of the local papers and special editions dated back to over a century, and we have a special sections for sailor's journals and diaries, all kinds of logs and reports. Come with me, that is in the basement of the library, some of them need special conditions to remain I'm a good shape," she said, coming out from behind the counter and gesturing for Stella towards the stairs. "Unless you'd prefer to read some of it on the computer, we have digitalized versions, but if you ask me  it's more fun and immersive to flip through the original editions."

      When Steph no longer had the ability to yell, it meant the situation was likely without any form of saving. It was defeat in it’s finest form- and Isidore sighed, finally allowing himself to accept it. 

   She couldn’t make any promises, but she also didn’t dash all hope Isidore had. It was hard to decide if his attempts to speak with her had been a failure or a success; or something in-between, something not so easily defined as winning or losing. Everything in Port Vale was complicated… humans were complicated, Isidore had found. Perhaps the Seafolk were, too, and he’d just never taken enough of an interest to notice. Perhaps the war had blurred his vision, and made him believe that in Sea, right and wrong, good and evil, were so clearly defined. 

    Steph had changed him, so much, and in the best ways possible. Staring at her now, the thick, steady walls that had been placed between them… Isidore felt as if he were losing a piece of himself, too. A sliver of his soul, held captive by her, and the fate of their story in her own hands. Isidore wanted to beg, to plead, to explain again and again, but… she stood in silence, and so did he, and any words that could help him simply weren’t there.

    “Fine,” Isidore finally conceded with a sigh, and braced his arm against his side, and with only what seemed to be minimal effort, bumped the door off of it’s hinges until it swung open, the doorknob falling with a light crash. Crouching on his heels, Isidore inspected the lock & latch, and gave an approving noise. At least he’d be able to fix it. As much as he wanted too, Isidore stayed low to the ground, perched and focused on the doorlatch, his heart racing as he listened for Steph’s movements. 

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Isidore still hesitated for a moment, but in the end didn't say anything, just turned towards the door and started working on it. Which was even a wrong word to use, because just in a couple of moments, without really much effort from Isidore's part. Something that she would have fangirled over in any other situation, but now she just stood there, looking at the door n the ground, Isidore inspecting the hinges.

"Thank you, I--" she didn't know what to say, what to do, so she bit down the words, not wanting to say the wrong thing but not really knowing what the right thing were either.

This was Isidore. One of her best friend over the last couple of years, a friendship she worked so hard for. A friendship that felt like a blessing when it finally happened, when Isidore finally let her in, let it be more than just her annoying him. And she missed him. So much.

But she could get into her head too easily, especially about these kinds of things. She's never been good at interpersonal relationships, not when it was real and more than just surface level. And her resolution was often to run away instead of facing the yard things, the hard conversations, and that was what she did in this situation as well. She bit down her lips and got out if the supply closet, making sure not to accidentally kick Isi.

Nereida was still panting from the exertion as Steph inspected the scene. She didn’t realize she could still be this strong in her faux human form until just now. It still wasn’t anything like her true self. She was a lot less sharp and capable of ripping apart her enemies. Even without her fangs or claws, she still seemed stronger than an ordinary human and that filled her chest with excitement. She wasn’t weak. 

She broke from her thoughts when Steph held up the key, leading her to roll her eyes. Stupid younger humans. “They must’ve stole it when we weren’t paying attention,” she muttered. Some of that anger she held for Steph seemed to leave with the door, though she didn’t plan to let her too close any time soon. She still didn’t understand why she did what she did, and she didn’t like, but she was too happy about the turn of events to let it fester. 

“Fine,” she said shortly as she looked away from Steph, studying the splintered broken door instead. “Just don’t do that again. I don’t…” She trailed off, not sure how much she wanted to admit to. This wasn’t a topic she was familiar with and wasn’t comfortable speaking about. She always hated things she didn’t understand, and physical affection was one of them. “I don’t do that,” she decided on as a vague statement as she nudged the door with her foot before quickly changing the subject. “I’m not paying for this.” 

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The thing was, this was the kind of thing teenagers did. This was what Steph and other peers of hers did when they were teenagers. This was a small town and there wasn't a lot of chances to let lose and have fun. It was a great town, but as a teenager, sometimes it could get boring. But being on the other side now, being on the receiving end of it all, it was just annoying.

“Gotta pay attention to this from now on,” she grumbled, rubbing her palm over her face. “And tell Vera and Aster this, too, make sure they don’t pull this on them another night when it’s the two of them closing up.” That would be just ridiculous, and Steph wasn’t sure if that time maybe one of the windows would actually get broken, too. Though she doubted Aster’s and Vera’s reaction would be to break out of the library. Granted, if Nereida wouldn’t have insisted, they would still be inside, so who was to say what was good or bad strategy.

Steph raised her hands and shook her head at Nereida’s request, “Not doing that again, I promise. Some people like it, some don’t, to each their own.” She easily hit on others, sure, but she wasn’t going to keep pushing if somebody didn’t wanna spend time with her like that. She was curious about Nereida’s statement, though, “Are you-- not doing any of it at all, or just not casually? It’s totally okay either way, no pressure or anything, just-- you know, curious.”

“Hunh.  I never thought about the selkie myths from human times pre-dating selkies but…I don’t know.  If Scylla’s their mom, maybe she got inspired by the stories?  Maybe there’s some mermaid mom out there too, the OG mermaid who like incepted the mermaids based off of super-old ancient mermaid legends from human sailors.  Like ancient, like from Egypt and Polynesia levels of ancient.  Hella old, like 5,000BC old. How global and far back did you do research about mermaids in myths and legends?”

Renzie wasn’t particular concerned about the origin stories of the sea people, though.  That was Steph’s realm; Renzie was more interested in the impact the sea people had on Port Vale and the way the town had changed over the past few months.  Renzie couldn’t deny it anymore as ‘freak storms’ or ‘broken lighthouses’.  These things were deliberate - and if weather-controlling was deliberately done…someone wielding that sort of power was a terrifying thought.  

“Um…” Renzie frowned.  Emilia had been vague, not one to gossip as much as the Anands, but Renzie had inquired.  “Victoria thought Xander needed to step down from being mayor.  Something about making mermaids out to be a joke - I think that was kind of my bad, don’t know why she blamed poor old Xander for her stupid mermaid contest - and something about her knowing more than him.  Siobhan wanting to tell Xander something and Victoria wouldn’t let her.  I…honestly don’t know what to make of any of it.”

Sighing, Renzie stuck his hands in his pockets and looked at Steph.  “Honestly?  I was kind of okay with it because of you.  I had you for years, jawing on and on about how mermaids are real, mermaids are real.  Then of all the people in the whole of Port Vale, it’s Isidore who confesses that he’s a thing.  A sea-thing, not a mermaid but close enough.  I guess…I guess it was almost a relief.  Because when he told me the truth, then I knew you weren’t deluded.”  Renzie gave Steph a wistful, fond little smile. 

“He proved you were right, all along.  And I was glad for that, if for nothing else.  All your life’s work, not being in vain?  All the shit you took from people telling you that you were a kook?  But you were right all along.”

But his admiration shifted into stern older-brother look when Steph tried to defend her Walter-plan.  “Don’t involve Walter, it’s just mean.  He’s new to town!  You just wanna haze him.”

Steph didn’t seem as contrite as Renzie would’ve liked, but he let it go for now.  He nibbled his nail though, nodding at Steph’s worries.  “So you don’t want to betray the mermaids, what about the selkies?  Tell Victoria that I saw Siobhan shift into a seal.  Tell her I saw a strange woman, who shushed me and then jumped into the water right after Siobhan  It’s the truth, and I’m pretty sure it’s something Victoria already knows, so you’re not telling her anything new.”

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“It all goes back to extremely old times,” Steph confirmed. “They show up in all kinds of different cultures from Greek Mythology, Mesopotamian artwork to Eastern Mediterrean, especially Assyrian stories. A certain version of sea people who can breathe and live underwater even show up in One Thousand and One Night. Which isn’t as old as like, the Mesopotamian artwork, obviously, but it’s still pretty old. They showed up thousands of years ago, is my point, yeah. You’re right about it. And--”

This was hard to figure out without having all the facts, without having people who can actually remember how old they were - understandable that Mike didn’t, but still, in this case, it was quite annoying. “Okay, so wait. Hippocampi are the oldest. We know that. To the point where they don’t remember them, at least Mike cannot. And we know that Isidore is at least 700 years old. Which is-- already way too much. But I don’t actually know if he is older and that is what he can remember, or if he is around that age. But from what I gathered, mermaids aren’t as old as hippocampi. Which mean-- is it possible that whoever is doing it, they just keep on pulling from human mythology? And coming up with different ways for them to be born and live and work?”

And then another question popped into her head. “Do you think it’s possibly that this Scyllia woman is who created all of them? That she is like, thousands of years old somehow and whenever she gets bored, she creates some kind of new sea species?” Would that make her an actual goddess or just some kind of witch with extreme amount of power?

She hummed, listening to what Emilia overheard. “Not surprised that she thinks Xander shouldn’t be mayor, but... if she was upset that Xander made a joke out of mermaids - which, how, really, that makes no sense -, then what was her speech the other night? Sounded like some kind of war against them, not like she wants to protect them.” She shook her head. “But Victoria didn’t see Em, right? Didn’t know she overheard her?”

What Renzie was saying, that Isidore being a hippocampi helped him accept all of it so much more and helped him solidify that Steph was right all along made Steph quiet. She didn’t realize there were still doubts in Renzie - she was so glad that he took to all of it so well in the grand scheme of things, she didn’t realize there could be more behind the scenes that he might just not want her to know about because he wanted to support her, and the fact that Isidore helped in that... She didn’t want to feel grateful to Isidore, but she did.

She remained quiet for a while, before she asked, “Did you talk to him a lot? About all of this?”

Steph raised her hands in a defensive motion. “Fine, fine, I’m not involving Walter into any of it.” He was right, Steph knew that, but it felt like one of the more plausible plans still, especially considering Walter would be probably leaving soon. And if something really happened to Walter... they weren’t close, but Renzie did have a point there, Steph never would actually forgive herself on that.

“That’s-- that feel like the lesser evil, probably, yeah,” she nodded, slow and pondering at his suggestion. Especially after what Emilia overheard, it sounded like she wouldn’t be feeding Victoria anything new, and that would be her best bet. Give her something that is clearly solid information, but nothing she hasn’t known before. Which brought her to her next question, “So you’d be okay with you getting involved in this? I know that you told others about what you saw, but that is different than telling Victoria Wolfgang about what she saw. She might involve you like she is trying with me, are you okay with that?”

If anything, Steph would have wanted to protect Renzie from that woman. She looked up to her for so long, and now all she could think about was what kind of harm she could do to them.

Isla never got sick like that in the ocean before, and she didn’t have any kind of parental figure that would’ve taken care of her if she did. She had her advisors, but there wasn’t anything nurturing about them. There was Mike too, but she didn’t want to put him in a “parent” category, and he wasn’t always around. It was nice that humans had that–someone to care for them when they were sick. It could be so lonely being born from a gemstone. “Your mom sounds wise,” Isla observed with a smile. “Rest definitely helped me, at least.”

When Steph mentioned that she was learning self-defense, and from Gabi of all people, Isla brightened at yet another shared connection. She didn’t realize the siren was teaching humans how to protect themselves, that sounded very generous of her. “Really? I love Gabi,” she gushed without really thinking her words over. She didn’t know what Steph meant when she said it didn’t end well, but hopefully nothing too bad. 

“A castle?” Isla asked with a raised brow. She would definitely be interested in seeing that. Humans had such interesting architecture, and sometimes they had building no one lived in for years, but hadn’t been knocked down for some reason. “I would love to see that. I love old things.”

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Steph was unaware of the inside turmoil and desire for any kind of parental figure in Isla - it wasn’t something she intentionally thought about, or even considered. It was quite natural for her to just mention her mother in the most random ways. “Yeah, she’s pretty cool and smart,” she said with a soft smile.

“Yeah, Gabi is great, she’s-- she’s really badass,” Steph said. It was strange, with the way it all went down, even though Gabi still danced with her, still claimed she wanted to check on her. Steph still felt conflicted about it all, but she could not deny that Gabi was cool. She wanted to hang out with her more, it was just tricky, now, on how it was possible.

“It’s all ruins and some of it is grown in by nature and just in general pretty cool, so if you’re interested, we should check it out,” Steph suggested. “Next couple of days will be most likely raining and cold, but I heard it’s going to be sunny and nice next weekend? Would that work for you? It’s a couple of miles out of here, so we’d have to hike there, but that could be fun too, if you’re into it.”

@steph-anand​

Stella rocked up to the library juggling several notebooks and her phone. Among her hoard of human possessions kept where she slept, she had a purse and a tote bag that she switched between when it came to getting around. Unfortunately, she had decided on the purse for that day without regard for her impulsive decision to unearth the mysteries of the world. It was okay, though. She had hands for a reason. Unfortunately, human legs were not excellent limbs for carrying large possessions. The toes were not especially dexterous, and the legs typically only had function for this purpose if the leg garments featured belts, pockets, or linked ‘carabiner’ clips. She had not yet experimented with all of these yet, but her current outfit definitely would hold notebooks. Again, hands. She definitely had good hands.

Humming happily to herself a human tune that she knew neither the words nor the meaning behind, she pushed through the library and made her way to where Steph was. “Hello, Steph, how are you going? Is this a good time to look over books and things?” Her tone was warm; she was excited to be here, but also terrified of making a mess and causing too many problems here in conversation. The last thing that she wanted to do was offend the nice human lady whom she had decided could possibly be her friend by this point. It wasn’t the first time that Stella had showed up at the library ready to devote time to academia. “If it’s not, I can wait until it’s a good time. Or I can leave and do other activities. I don’t mind either of those at all, I promise!”

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Stella showed up ready and determined, hands full of notebooks, looking chipper and excited and it was kind of sweet, how prepared she looked, and Steph knew that the other was here to take her up on that offer about research before Stella even opened her mouth and said a single word.

“Stella, hey, I’m doing okay, just a bit of a lul at work, so I was gathering up some books to put back onto the shelves,” she gestured towards the trolley that carried the returns. “What about you? Hope you’re doing okay. And no, no, you don’t have to go anywhere, it’s okay. Like I said, I was going to do returns, but those can wait a bit, I can help you with finding books. What kind of topic did you think about jumping into first?”

Walter nodded and held up one of the two cappuccinos from the café he grabbed for Steph as a sign of peace.  The café was one of his usual haunts, as Walter preferred people making it for him than him doing it himself.  He couldn’t steam milk in the lighthouse coffee maker, or really, any coffee maker.  “I didn’t get any sweetener in it, though, I don’t know if that’s a deal breaker.  You might be wanting to go to bed as soon as you clock off anyway.”  He didn’t know his cousin well enough to know if caffeine affected her.

He caught the tone of his cousin’s question, that it probably had a deeper meaning than what he was doing a half hour early.  Walter hoped she was just curious and not annoyed already.  He shrugged.  “I thought it would be interesting to find out some more about what’s going on in this town.  I guess I saw an opportunity and physically couldn’t refuse it.”  He wasn’t going to bullshit his cousin about wanting to help the community.  That might work on people that didn’t know him, but not Steph.  “What about you?  Are you here only because you wanted to volunteer?”  Walter leaned on a piece of equipment.   “And to finish answering your question, I don’t usually make it a habit to show up early to my shift.  I was wondering if I could talk to you.”

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“Normally it would be a deal breaker,” Steph said, eagerly taking the cup that was offered to her, “but if I actually want to walk home and fall into my bed, I am going to need any kind of energy in my system, I might just pass out here once 6am hits, so I’ll take anything, thanks.” Her relationship with coffee was up and down anyway, when she was in college, she chugged it constantly, when she was doing research and got lost in it, she usually drank way too much, but normally these days she didn’t drink it too often. She was okay with tea.

She had to give it to Walter, at least he didn’t try to pretend and give her some good-hearted thing. She still wasn’t sure it was all of it, but she much easier believed that the journalist jumped out of him rather than anything else.

Steph nodded in acceptance and then looked around the lighthouse for a moment when the question was given back to her. “The guy who usually runs this place? Moray? I grew up with him. We weren’t the closest of friends, but we did go to school together and we hung out sometimes and we agreed on certain things that are really important to the both of us. And he loved this place. Adored it with all his heart. Moray disappearing? That’s scary, and I don’t really feel like I could do anything to help, but keeping this place afloat would mean a lot to him, so here I am, doing just that.”

Emilia wanted to be careful about how she approached this topic with Steph. They had already had one fight concerning Isidore and it was far too soon to get into another one. It was all so much to process and while they all had to go at their own pace to come to terms with this, it felt like the one who should have been loving this concept was the last one to accept it all.

“I’m just…worried. I hope you’re not holding a grudge just for the sake of it. I don’t know when you felt you wanted our fight to end but if Renzie didn’t tell us to make up would we still be fighting right now?” In a way, Emilia was hoping to be that kind of final push for Steph just like Renzie was for them. Maybe she wouldn’t be as successful but it was always worth a try to make sure that friends didn’t stay in a fight longer than they wanted to be. “Look, when he told me, I didn’t want to be anywhere near him. I came into work the day after to see him there and I couldn’t handle it. I made sure our shifts were alternate so I wouldn’t have to interact with him.” Emilia explained before taking a sip of her own drink, not even bothering to try and taste it like they should have been.

She didn’t recall if she ever mentioned to Steph how she and Isi kept themselves apart and she honestly wasn’t sure how long it would last. “But that entire time not getting to hang out with him sucked. Like, I don’t think I ever went that long without seeing him or talking to him and I really missed him. As freaked out by all of it as I was, losing Isidore is too shitty to just let happen. Just honestly tell me you don’t miss spending time with him even a little and I’ll drop it.”

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“No,” Steph almost snapped at Emilia, she was so fast to reassure Em that they wouldn’t still be fighting if Renzie didn’t tell them to quit it. She was planning on making something for Emilia, something artsy, but she didn’t really have a lot of artistic bones in her body that would allow her to do anything actually pretty, and before she’d gotten to the point of giving up, they made up, so it nothing had to see the light of day, but she was trying to figure out a way to make amends. “Of course we wouldn’t be fighting. But Isi is different.”

He was different, the two situations were so incredibly different from one another, and Emilia wouldn’t understand. But still, she listened about Em’s side - something that they would have been talking over and over if they were on good terms, but didn’t get to because they were avoiding each other and missing important parts of each others’ lives. Which was Emilia’s point too.

Still, when she asked if Steph missed Isidore, the automatic reaction for Steph was to say, “No, I don’t miss him.” Because of hurt, because of spite, because of stubornness. And then there was a pause and she let out a loud, dramatic groan (a couple by the other table looked over at them and shot ugly looks at them but Steph didn’t really care). “Of course I miss him! But it’s not that simple, Em. Just because I miss him, it doesn’t mean I am not angry still or hurt and I just-- I don’t know how to deal with that. I don’t know how to do all of it so I just-- it’s better if I just stay away. We stay away from each other and he will spend time fixing up his boat or whatever he said when we got locked into the stupid supply closet together, and it’s going to be fine. This is fine. I promise, Em, this is fine.”

Gabi didn’t have a good reason for being out late at night. The only real excuses that she had were that she couldn’t stand her apartment, and she was starting to go a little antsy after being away from her friends and opportunities for adventures for so long. Port Vale in the middle of the night wasn’t much more interesting than Port Vale during the day, but at least it was uncommon. And she couldn’t sleep anyway. Hands jammed into her jacket pockets, she walked just outside of the marked path. It wasn’t much in the way of rebellion against this stupid town, but Gabi would do anything to feel something out here right now more than frustration.

It seemed that she wasn’t alone. That wasn’t the best or the worst thing in the world personally, but the movement patterns were distinctly abnormal. She recognized one of the voices, but not the other. The weird part was that it was Steph Anand that she recognized. Gabi thought fast in the moment, and grabbed knife number one in her right hand. (She carried two knives at all times. One was good for carving wood, and the other was good for… most other things. This particular knife was the one good for many tasks). She didn’t like being outnumbered like this, but humans didn’t just attack each other in Port Vale.

Her left hand was the dominant one, so she went in for a precise punch behind the ear to one of the figures, and a second, swift punch with her right hand at the back of a second figure’s body- the target being around the kidneys. She wasn’t moving to stab in this instance, but she needed the knife. Even if Gabi was fast, she wasn’t letting herself be unarmed. “Back off,” she hissed at the hooded figures who very obviously came here for a fight. She didn’t know who they were, but she certainly hoped they weren’t any of hers. There was no telling who these creeps were, but they might have some political sway. She figured she could get away with anything non-lethal. “Steph, get back. I can handle this.” While Gabi very much wanted to tell Steph not to do anything stupid, she couldn’t undercut the human here when she needed to maintain authority. 

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The thing about this situation was that Steph didn’t think it was really happening, not until she saw the flash of the knife in one of the hooded figures’ hands and even then, her brain could hardly comprehend what was happening. This was Port Vale. This didn’t happen in Port Vale.

The last openly, outrageously violent act in town was when two teenagers ended up in a fight and both of them got a couple of kicks to the others in and ended up bruised up badly, but even that wasn’t actually dangerous. It was two people getting into a tiff and jumping each other for it. She did hear that Isidore punched a couple of people recently, and she punched Tayden, but those situations weren’t like this one either.

No, this only happened in movies and books and dingy parts of big cities, not in Port Vale. Not in this town and certainly not to Stephanie Anand. And yet, here she was and apparently it wasn’t even something completely random, these people, whoever they were, seemed to have been looking for her. Or at least somebody like her, who knew about the sea people, it seemed.

She pulled away, jumped back, everything leaving her mind and all she wanted to do was scream, but it wasn’t enough, it wouldn’t save her, it only resulted in her backing against the wall, and then more showed up and Steph was terrified except--

The new person showing up wasn’t one of the hooded figures, no, it was Gabi, and Steph could have burst into tears from joy, but she was just frozen on the spot at that point, as Gabi moved and punched and gotten in front of her, standing between her and the attackers now.

One of them surged forward, clearly not bothered by one more person - they were still very much outnumbering them -, and even though there was something weird, something clumsy about their movement, they attacked Gabifrom the left, while another one moved in from the right, trying to gain an upper hand, while Steph could hear one of them bark, “What are you doing? Protecting one of them? Protecting this one in particular? She could ruin us all.”

Oh no. Oh no! Ohnononononono. Suddenly it all hit Steph and she wanted to cry even more and finally she could move which meant she dumbly moved forwards too, “No, please, I am not going to hurt you, I swear, I am not going to hurt any of you,” she said desperately, her hands up in a defensive position, trying to convince them, and only realizing the last second that one of those who was staying back from Gabi moved in on her, and Steph was only able to jump out of the way of the knife the last moment, the tilt of it scraping against her coat. She hit without thinking, without intentionally doing anything Gabi tried to teach her, and it connected, but it was barely enough, probably, but at least it was enough to give her a chance to move back.

Nereida hated that she was right. If she was in her real form and in the ocean then she wouldn’t hesitate to drown Steph right then and there, but that wasn’t her reality anymore. Land had very strict laws, and, unfortunately, they did not allow killing each other without punishment, so she couldn’t indulge unless she wanted to spend the rest of her life in prison. Unlike humans, whose sentences were sometimes longer than their lifespans, Nereida actually could spend 90 years behind bars.

She didn’t have a response for that so she just let out an inhumane growl and turned her attention to the door when Steph pointed it out. Stubbornly, she didn’t want to listen to her. She didn’t even know if she could break down a door like this, but she had to admit it would feel satisfying if she could. She felt caged locked in here, and she just wanted to break something. 

“Fine,” she hissed as she met Steph’s gaze with a glare before centering herself in front of the door. She couldn’t imagine doing any damage with her weak, human legs but she still tried her best to pour all her anger into kicking the door, causing it rattle precariously on the hinges. With a grunt, she gave another harsh kick, and this time the door collapsed with a loud crash. Adrenaline rushed through her veins as she looked at Steph with a borderline manic grin. “That felt good,” she panted. 

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Nereida just stared and stared at her for a short time and Steph wasn’t sure what she would do, if she would actually go for the door or would still try to break the window. It was strange, how the first thought was the window, even, considering breaking glass was harder in Steph’s mind than breaking down a door, but then again, she’s never tried either before.

Eventually Nereida just hissed a word of agreement, turned around and focused on the door. Despite Nereida thinking of herself as weak, Steph didn’t see much of that in the woman kicking the door down with two huge, very strong hits (she didn’t think about differences in strength, didn’t even consider it as a possibility in that moment, she just saw the incredibly strong kicks) and was amazed. And kind of scared. (And found it hot, too, but that was off the table.)

“That-- that was certainly effective. Huh.” She felt so dumb, not even sure what to say in that moment. “But hey, glad it felt good at least. Uhh-- hold on, let me check something.” She walked over to the door and looked out-- there was a chair that was pushed further ahead that was probably propped under the handle of the door and near the door there it was, the key to the library that fell out when the door was fell over, and was used to lock them in. “This was the culprit, just wish I knew how the little buggers got their hands on it.”

“Honestly, I’m still confused what selkies are.  Why would they only show up recently, according to Isidore.  Then again, Isi hasn’t been in the ocean for fifteen years, so who knows how much he actually knows and how much is hearsay? I’m not slandering Isi’s word, just…how much does he actually know.”

Renzie vaguely remembered the speech, then felt abashed when he recalled how he’d reacted, to the idea of Xander asking Steph to help him do research.  Renzie thought the Mayor was just doing it out of pity for the town crazy.  Something to distract her.  “So both the Mayor and the Councilwoman want you to do their dirty work, because they know you’ll jump right into it…”  Renzie said, his tone a little bitter and annoyed.  

“Siobhan probably knows you’re onto her, that’s why she avoids you.  And I assume Victoria knows what Siobhan is, after what Emilia overheard of them talking at the Halloween contest.  Jesus, Steph.  We can’t trust anyone anymore.  I wish they’d just come out and tell you what’s going on instead of just using you.”

Steph snapped at him for his gloomy conclusions, and so Renzie tentatively offered,  “Well.  I think Isidore wants to love you, you know.  If you’d let him.  If you think about it, he was the one brave enough to finally come forward.  Not all the sea people can be as brazen as Mellora was, Steph.  And just be like ‘oh that’s Steph Anand, well clearly she’s wonderful and loves us, so I’ll just admit to her my deepest, scariest secret’.  But Isidore’s trying to bridge that gap between seafolk and you, which is more than I can say for the rest of them. I’m just saying.”

Renzie didn’t argue about the ‘sides’.  He was pretty sure that was how most of the sea people saw it: us against them.  ‘Them’, meaning humans, and any other species of people they disliked.  It seemed to him like sea people were, for all their longevity, just as prejudiced and bigoted as everyone else.  With a huge helping of superiority to boot.

But Renzie fortunately tuned back in at the mention of Steph’s plan.  Renzie came to a stop and stared at her.  “You what??  Steph!  You can’t start lying about your freaking cousin, what’s wrong with you? Why would you do that?!  What if Victoria calls in some government people to capture him?  That’s literally what we promised we wouldn’t do to sea people…but you’d do it to your own cousin!?”

Renzie was aghast at the coldness of that ‘idea’.  The way Steph had no problem kicking down a human, to protect her beloved seafolk.

He couldn’t wrap his head around his sister being so…brutal.  Renzie kept walking.  “Tell Victoria about Mellora.  And the emerald -  Mellora and the fucking emerald pendant are gone now right?  Just give Victoria that Mellora bullshit and keep your fricking cousin out of it, Steph.  Jesus.  Guess that answers my question of who you’d side with, huh.”

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“That really is weird and doesn’t make too much sense. But it seems like they sort of... Not all of them were created or born or existed or whatever word we need to use in this situation all at the same time,” Steph pondered. “Like, hippocampi are the oldest, some of whom don’t even know anymore how old they are, then mermaids later, then sirens come from the pollution and now selkies? And more importantly, how is it possible that our human myths and legends knew about them before they even existed?”

That last bit especially bugged Steph. They couldn’t really just jump out of the books and stories and became real, but they couldn’t really just become like the myths unless they were created by somebody who knew about them. And all of that was just very confusing.

“Yeah, but with Xander... that was all before the Siobhan thing. I am not sure he knew anything then. He probably knows it all now, like you said. Ans Siobhan... okay, yeah, it makes sense she would be avoiding me, but it’s still annoying. But wait, hold on. Hold up! What did Emilia overhear from Victoria?” That was all new information from her. Post-Halloween stuff kind of gotten muffled and complicated and Emilia didn’t say anything to her about it, she would have remembered otherwise.

And of course Isidore had to be brought up, of course he did. “He didn’t really just decide to tell me, I figured it out myself. Well, sort of.” She grumbled quietly, knowing that it didn’t really hold up. She didn’t really know what to say to Renzie, though - this should have been a good thing, but just like how it went with Mellora, it didn’t feel like the Isidore reveal went any good either. And she hated that, but she also just clamped up and shut down and dealt with it that way, stewing in her own anger for the most time. So instead of saying anything, she decided to turn it back to Renzie. “I know you are okay with it, all of it, and it’s kind of-- I don’t get how. You just found out about all of it and then suddenly Isidore just tells you he is not human, and you’re all fine and dandy, as if it’s not some kind of earth-shattering news.”

She didn’t really expect the kind of outraged reaction she got from Renzie about her possible plans. “I figured Walter would be out of here in no time and if anyone accused him, he is just a human!” Steph said quietly, defensively. “A simple blood test would be able to determine that and then Victoria just undercut herself or something.”

A Valentine’s banquet as a campaign stunt sounded like an odd idea to Gemma, but she supposed it wasn’t actually all that far off from her own use of festivities in the Coral Sea to lift her people’s spirits, sense of community and support for their leadership all in one fell swoop. The romance angle of it all was what she was having a hard time wrapping her head around using for campaigning, but the idea still made more sense than anything else she could think of. At the mention of Victoria getting married herself, Gemma actually managed a chuckle. “Yeah, something tells me that isn’t it - I suppose we’ll find out soon though,” she mused. It had seemed to her like the woman had not been happy about the mayor’s planed wedding to Siobhan at Halloween, so she couldn’t imagine a similar stunt being pulled by Victoria herself now.