#elsewhere

"If you have a sword, then you are a warrior. And if you are against the fell, you should come and battle alongside me. If you know how to swim. You DO know how to swim, don't you?"

"I've learned, si!"

"We all got lessons, but I knew how to swim afore, though my hooves aren't best for it"

"Maybe we cold get you flippers?"

"Oh sure, Symond said she could build me some"

Lu leans over the edge of the pool and gazes critically at Ariel's goat-parts. "They are no less sharp than the spines of a crab. They can scuttle, or use swimmerettes. Is that the sign of your apsara? I do not know this shape." Her eyes narrow a bit. "Neither fin nor fluke... can Dagon touch those who walk the dirt?"

"Ariel's a satyr." Helpful!

"All satyrs have goat hooves. But they're fast and sturdy."

A blank look. "How odd."

"My Aspara is a land animal, a goat!"

She does not seem ashamed

"Oh, you'll have to meet some goats, they're cute."

"With your teeth, you should meet a redcap. They're pretty fierce."

"Ferocity is important, but it must be hand in hand with cunning and intelligence. That is what separates the Lorelei from the beasts of the sea."

"These goats, are they fierce? Shall we do battle with them?"

"Goats are cute mostly, but nimble, and they can ram you" She assures

A swish of her tail. "This water is nice, but it lacks salt."

"Yes, but it's magical, and healing" Ariel says "It's almost as important as the Balefire"

"Your balefires sound dreadfully restricted. Oh, I must get back to my people. What if the bleedwaters are still attacking?" Her gill slits flutter anxiously.

"Do your people always send the childlings to fight?" Ariel asks

Her cheeks darken a touch and she looks away. "I am not a child! I am a warrior."

Ariel looks to Ellie, wondering if she put her own hoof in her mouth again

"I could check?"

"Perhaps... perhaps they do not need to know I am here. If I can just reach a current, I will go home."

"Are you well enough to go home?"

"The beach is across town. Dama Ash doesn't like it if we try to leave without a wilder."

The fierceness of her expression says that if she was missing limbs and shattered bones, she would yet insist it is so.

"That's... that may not be safe" Ariel says worriedly "I mean, I know you're a warrior but most cultures don't let their children fight because..." A blush "Well, don't they love you?"

"Perhaps they did not... allow me to fight." She thrashes her tail anxiously, causing water to splash over the sides of the pool.

"Of COURSE they love me." She sounds a touch offended. "But I am no Melusine or Syrinx to be swaddled in bubbles and kept from harm."

Head tilt.

"They did not want you to fight?"

"Yessica doesn't want me to fight, even though I am a Beaumayn and I have a sword."

"I -am- old enough!" She blows a spray of bubbles.

"SHe's really good with it too" Ariel admits

"Mother wishes me to stay in the grotto and learn music and dance. As though she could change my apsara by wishing. I am glad to be Mako and Lorelei, even if it means I never rule. I have a half dozen sibs who yet survive, and another still on milk. If I wish to fight, I should be allowed to."

"Oh but Dancing is fun" Ariel gives a graceful whirl

"How can you dance in only two dimensions?"

"I don't" She leaps up

"Just think of gravity as the strongest current there is, you have to respect it, but you can fight it for a LITTLE while"

"A current..." She nods. "That is an idea."

Ariel gushes at the agreement

"Wait, so not all of your siblings are sharks? I don't think I understand how asperae work..."

A bubbling laugh. “Of course not! Though, if Mother could have herded an entire school of fin fish into our grottoes… but no, it doesn’t work that way.”

She pauses, then realizes that she must clarify.

“We become more than milk-babies when we are joined with the spirit of our apsara. They come to us in a sacred grotto. Some say they are drawn by our souls, others think that it’s chance and we grow to match whoever greeted us… I was met by a Mako shark, and became Mer and me.”

Then realizing that perhaps… “perhaps I say too much.” Closing her mouth guiltily.

"Oh but that sounds wonderful, like a gift, being chosen" Ariel says

"If your mother is not a Mako, she might not understand that you need to be a warrior."

"Oh," Ariel realizes "Just like most of my family are trolls. They don't always understand Satyrs'

"Clearly. I thougth I could show her by returning triumphant from battle... and yet..." frown.

"And yet?"

"And yet you are not yet returned!"