The waves beat againt the shore, drowning out the frustrated cries of a mermaid ensnared in a net, and the horrified shouts of a fisherman escaping her.
"Oh, relax," Keeth wanted to snap at him as he ran about like an idiot two-legger. She couldn't eat him in THIS state, and she would have more dignity than to leave her victims flaying about! What a useless human. Besides, the net he had thrown at her had bizarrely captured her. Didn't mot men feel proud about these sort of sick things?
Keeth, priorities, she told herself. The mermaid hissed, her white eyes narrowing. The ropes rubbed and burned against her flesh, and somehow trying to move and cut her way out of it only got her arm and - even worse- hair entangled. She thumped her head back againt the sand, panting. It was harder to breathe out of the water.
How did this happen? she thought, utterly embarrassed. Even the best of warriors got tangled up in nets, as it was known, but like this? It was utterly embarrassing.
Some one help me, please, she thought, thumping her head in the sand, her antenna drooping over her eye. Though she was hungry, she made a mental note to not kill whoever came by her way. Beside, the day didn't seem to be in her favor, anyway. Besides, being helpless was boring.
Keeth took a deep breath and began to sing. Her voice was a little strained and breathless, but it carried out in the beach, a song in Common she had learned from sailors.
As it was with any other day, Ha'aheo found himself bored again. He'd spent half the afternoon harassing the Yoreiqi hunters like he always did, stealing their fish or scaring them away. Well, actually, he mostly harassed the local fishermen. However, even their exasperation could only amuse the mershark for so long. Actually, it would have amused him all day if it had not been for his friend Akala showing up to spoil everything and scold his naughty behavior. Had any other being tried to shame him, Ha'aeho wouldn't have cared to listen , of course!
Somewhat disheartened that Akala did not approve of his little cruel games, Ha'aheo had swam off to brood alone and console himself by consuming a ridiculous amount of fish in the shallows. However, in the middle of his violent little pity-party feeding frenzy, Ha'aheo froze and listened to a strange yet alluring sound that carried on the winds.
He took one last chomp, swallowing one last unfortunate fish whole and swam towards the shore more out of curiosity than out of the song's entrapment. He got as close as he could without beaching himself and looked curiously at the creature stuck entangled in the net. "Hrrrrn. " He did not speak common tongue, only a bit of Yoreiqi and so the words of the song did not translate for him. However, he knew that this creature was a mermaid and, well, as it was with most beings, she probably wouldn't take well to his presence. His experiences with mermaids had never been friendly ones. They attacked him and with good reason. His kind ate mermaids quite often, but Ha'aheo was not every other shark and his laziness and curiosity kept him from doing what nature should have dictated.
"Gwahaha! Stuck fish-woman," He guffawed and spoke in his broken command of Yoreiqi. He looked amused and he was! In his tongue there was a word for mermaids, of course, but mermaids didn't speak the shark tongue and so he opted to speak the language of a human peoples. Perhaps Keeth knew it , perhaps she didn't.
((Up to you whether there is a language barrier or not. Also, I totally just realized that this is not in Yoreiqi waters so I am going to leave it up to Ivory to explain why Akala is over here . I presume she and Ha'aheo are doing some traveling together or something?))
(OOC: Or maybe I won't explain! Hah! Take that!)
Akala felt a bit like a fish herself some days. She and Ha'aheo were in a strange part of the world with strange people, many of whom did not speak her language. She was learning a little Common, here and there, but, fortunately, the language barrier had seemed to cause little problem with these simple fisherfolk.
The problem was that their society was so much different...
In her search for the familiar, she often spent more time with Ha'aheo than she had done in Yoreiqi... That, and, because, as prejudiced against him as Kai had been, his protests were mild compared to the reaction many of these good people had to her friend.
And so it was that when a terrified fisherman came running by, Akala, naturally, assumed it had something to do with the mershark, and she hurried in the opposite direction. "Ha'aheo? Ha'aheo!"
It was difficult to say what she heard first -- Ha'aheo's loud, coarse mockery of human laughter or the singing; in either case, she stopped on the sand to take the pair in with a look of first confusion, then horror.
"Ha'aheo! Don't laugh at her...!" She exclaimed in Yoreiqi. The poor woman! Taking a shell from the pouch on her hip, the girl waded into the water to begin cutting her free of the terrible net.
It was quite obvious at even a glance that Akala was not a native -- the colorful clothes she wore, the etched swirls in her skin, and the small pair of wings on her back all-but screamed it. That...and she wasn't running in a panic from either of the predators.
Keeths song ceased at thr cruel laughter of the sharkman. She sat straighter in his precense, which ended up looking more awkward than intimidating. Still her figure eerily glowed in the sunlight and she flashed rows of sharp jagged teeth.
"The infants of my clan can outhunt you!" She snapped.
Her coloring grew greener with humiliation. Keeth flipped her transucent hair back.curse herr luck!
The woman with him at least had manners and thus more amniable.
"Thank you," saidd keeth in her most charming voice. She did not smile but instead peered curiously at her wings. She Knew This had To Be A sailor But She Had Never Seen Wings On People Before.
"Human?"she asked, shrugging off the net.
She kept a hand close to her blade least the shark man tried anything.
The mermaid's anger only made the shark-man laugh more. Naturally, he couldn't comprehend her words , but Akala's scolding silenced him. Poor Akala had to scold him more than once for tormenting the poor fisherman, stealing their catches, breaking their nets and eating their fishies. He couldn't help himself! He was hungry! Speaking of hungry, his stomach gurgled in protest. Ha'aheo made a pouty face at Akala, "Hrrrn. " Ha'aheo was still trying to figure out why Akala felt the inclination to help everyone although it was something he was quite used to by now. "Why no laugh? Is fun." Well, he thought it was pretty hilarious anyway! Although it would have been much more amusing if Kai had become tangled up in his own fishing net instead.
((Short post, but I didn't wish to further delay.))
"Because," the woman answered the mershark, as though she would a child, "She obviously doesn't find it funny, Ha'aheo, and it's cruel to laugh at those who aren't laughing with you."
Throwing the net off and to the side, she admired the woman she had freed with an honest smile. Some may have been afraid of the mermaid, but, well, perhaps Akala wasn't all that smart. Or, perhaps, it had something to do with her chosen mershark companion.
"Akala," she answered the woman's question brightly, placing her hands gently upon her own chest. "And that's Ha'aheo. Are you alright? Are you hurt?"
Keeth hissed as the sharkman continued to laugh. Rude as his folk ever werr. She nodded graciously at the woman who identified hereself as akala. Such A strange Tongue The Two spoke. Keeth never had heard the likes of itbefore.
"Akala," Keeth repeated.
She narrowed her eyes at the sharkman.
"Prey," she said.
Keeth turned her attentuon back to the woman and pointed to her own chest.
"Keeth," she said.
She drew herself to full height as tall as she could on land. Feeling generous she removrd a black beaded necklace and handed it to akala.
"I guess you can have this," she said.
"Hrrrn. " Ha'aheo did listen but he didn't look too pleased about being scolded. More frustrating was the explanation as to why his behavior was bad. Poor , patient Akala had tried to explain what this word rude meant , but Ha'aheo was having a heck of a time trying to comprehend. Many of the things he did were rude and inconsiderate. He couldn't help it, of course, because that was just in the nature of his kind for the most part. But it was amazing that Ha'aheo was curious enough to learn a perspective beyond those of his narrow-minded and simple brethren.
He moved beside Akala and stared at Keeth unblinkingly, seeming neither afraid nor impressed. Mildly curious though. What was a mermaid doing here? Trying to eat some sailors?
He pointed at the necklace Keeth offered Akala and asked, "What that?"
Akala breathed a soft sigh of appreciation for the necklace as her fingers ran over the beads. "It's beautiful," she murmured in her own tongue, adding, for Ha'aheo's sake, "It's a human decoration called a necklace. Many people think they look better wearing these sorts of things."
Lifting her eyes from the pretty piece, she switched to Common. Her own Common was heavily accented and every bit as broken as her companion's attempts at her own tongue. "Thank you." It was a warm thank you, delivered with a charming smile and elegant authenticity. Extending the necklace back towards the mermaid, she said, "No need."
Keeth blinked, not understanding why her gift was being rejected. One normally didn't reject gifts from mermaids.
"Keep," she insisted.
"Where are you from?" she asked again, when a word popped into her mind.
"Yoqui!" she suddenly exclaimed. The mermaid had heard stories, but that couldn't quiet be the word.
"Yoqui?" Keeth repeated again. "Yoreiqi?"
Suddenly, the loud angry voices of men could be heard in the distance.
"Of course," Keeth sighed. Annoyed, she slapped her tail in the sand.
"Dehco-dehcoray-rayshon? Dechorayshon?" Ha'aheo stuttered in his broken Yoreiqi. This was a new and big word for him; he pondered its meaning. "Is big word. Means make look good?" He stared at the necklace and frowned, wondering how such a thing could make someone look more appealing. "Yor-icky strange."This wasn't the first time he'd said this to her and it wouldn't be the last either.
His attentions shifted toward the angered voices of the men and he growled softly, " Not good sound. Sound like bad come." Ha'aheo wasn't concerned for himself, naturally. He was confident in his strength, but Akala on the other hand did not seem very good at protecting herself to him, let alone much good at discerning when there was danger to be found.
(( Sorry for the delay! ))
"Yes," she replied warmly. "Yoreiqi." Like the others, she turned her attention towards the approaching calls of angry men. Her shoulders drooped slightly in disappointment, and she looked apologetically towards the mermaid.
"Thank you," she said, pressing the gift to her chest. Her eyes went back in the direction of the approaching men. "You go?" she inquired of the mermaid. She turned her attention to Ha'aheo, then, adding in Yoreiqi, "And you should go too, Ha'aheo." Even though he hadn't done anything this time! She just didn't understand why people automatically jumped to conclusions about the poor mershark!
And, presumably, the mermaid as well!
Keeth frowned as five zombies came running from the bushes, with live men no doubt behind them.
Cowards, Keeth thought. Sending their ghosts!
Though in truth, Zombies freaked her out. They were unnatural. The mermaid began to push herself towards the water and swam out into sea enough where the water was too deep to wade. She peeked her head out from the waters to watch the activity on land.
I wanna see the mershark rip someone's head off, she thought eagerly. That would be kind of cool.
Ha'aheo had never encountered undead before and the stench of their decayed flesh hardly phased him. However , the appearance of corpses that seemed to move as though they were alive unsettled him. He growled softly, "Smell is wrong." He frowned when Akala told him to go, " No time.They come fast."
Sure enough the zombies had already closed in on Ha'aheo and Akala, surrounding them. The only escape option was the ocean. "Akala swim? " He knew the human couldn't swim as well as he or the mermaid but it was either that or face these creatures. "Go. Ha'aheo stay. Fight." He only meant to do so for as long as was necessary.
One of the undead men reached out with a rasping moan, grasping for Akala. Ha'aheo snarled and leaped forward, knocking bodily into the strange creature. He was surprised to find that in spite of its slight stature, it was much stronger than any human he'd ever encountered. It did only staggered back a couple steps.
"Strong. " Ha'aheo admitted with a twinge of embarrassment. The creature might have been more powerful than he was. Maybe.
(OOC: Sorry for the delays! *waves arms*)
Akala stared at the creatures, first confused, then horrified. It wasn't the fact they were dead that caused her horror; it was the thought of what had been done to them to keep them in this state.
She didn't even question Ha'aheo or argue with him this time. She simply nodded slightly and turned to splash into the water. Having lived by the water her whole life, she was an excellent swimmer and was soon swimming quickly and smoothly away from the shore.
Turning onto her back, she continued backwards at a much slower pace as she watched her friend worriedly. "Ha'aheo! Hurry!"
Keeth swam closer to Akala. If they could save themselves, then Keeth supposed she could guild the foreigners to safer shores. A fairer reward than a necklace, that she knew.
Shark man is never going to fight them all off, she realized.
Keeth rolled her eyes and prayed that her sisters would never learn what she was about to do next. It would be the end of her!
"Tell your shark man to cover his ears," she hissed before taking in a deep breath.
Keeth began to sing.
Her voice pierced through the afternoon, loud but sweet and pure. She sang of love and life and happiness, and smiled prettily at the ugly two-legged zombies. She learned long ago that part of their hearts and desire still remained. Some stopped attacking Ha'aheo and began to shuffle towards the water.
"Hrrrn. Ha'aheo hunter. No run!" The mershark called back over his shoulder to Akala stubbornly. However , as the unnatural creatures shuffled closer to him the shark growled and backed off. He heard Akala tell him to cover his ears. " Why do this?!" Then the mermaid sang and Ha'aheo winced and clapped his hands over his ears as he ran to the water!
((Getting a short post in here in case I lose power for a long while. >>))
Akala wasn't sure if she was supposed to cover her ears as well, but she felt it was better to be safe than to be sorry. She watched curiously, hands over her ears and feet moving beneath her to keep her aloft as the zombies changed direction...coming towards them.
"Are you going to hurt them?" she asked, although, of course, Keeth was singing and Akala had her ears covered anyway... Her expression, however, made her look like a kicked puppy, somehow. She hated the thought of hurting anything...anything at all.
(OOC: Also so short! Lawls~)
The moment the mershark got into the waters, Keeth stopped singing. The zombies moaned as they waded into the water until it reached their knees. When her song lost its effect, they stopped in their tracks. Keeth laughed at their dull expressions and Ha'aheo's frantic behavior.
"What's wrong? You don't like music?" she giggled, tossing her hair proudly behind her shoulders. "Guess you lack taste."
Keeth shrugged at Akala's question.
"No, they'll go away eventually," she explained, indifferent. "Though you probably should hide before their masters come. Do you know any good caves? I don't think you can breathe underwater."
Ha'aheo looked back over his shoulder at the zombies and frowned, "Hrrrn. What they do? Why no swim?" Ha'aheo was glad to be a creature of the sea. He couldn't imagine how terrible it must have been to be land-bound. With a snort he turned his head to regard the mermaid which was speaking , but again its words made no sense to him, but the tone was mocking and he growled at Keeth in response. "Hrrrn. Akala, what fish-woman say? Say bad things to Ha'aheo. Ha'aheo eat fish-woman!" He shot Keeth a dangerous glare and then whined, "Ha'aheo hungry."
Of course, it didn't occur at the moment to Ha'aheo that he was in the water and could have gone hunting for food without Akala's permission...until a fish swam by and his ravenous instincts got the better of him , "Oooh..." and he went after it, tearing the poor , helpless little fish to merciless bloody ribbons while the women discussed their next destination.
Akala blinked as she slowly digested the mermaid's advice. Hide. She gave her head a little shake. "No. Breathe air." And only air! So if the mermaid knew any good caves, it would probably be useless to show Akala...unless they were dry caves, anyway.
She glanced at poor Ha'aheo, who didn't have the benefit of even the rudimentary lessons in Common that Akala had had... If anything, this had taught her to respect Ha'aheo a great deal more for teaching himself the Yoreiqi that he had...
"She says..."
But, then, Ha'aheo was off to catch his dinner! She blinked at him, perhaps more accustomed to his feeding habits than, perhaps, she had a right to be...
Well, nevermind!
"Why hide?"
Keeth roled her eyes at the shark's mannerisms. Now was hardly the time. She could hear more shouts in the distance.
Time to go, she thought.
She wrapped a strong arm around Akala and darted across the surface of the water. The mermaid wasn't an idiot. She knew the two-legger had trouble breathing underwater. There was a series of dry caves not too far away.
The islanders probably wont' find us there. Probably.
By the time Ha'aheo was done gorging himself on fish , Keeth and Akala were long gone. The humans , on the other hand, were not but much to his amusement, the shark found that the land-folk dare not brave the waters to get to him and the strange ,twisted humans-but-not-humans still flailed about dizzying circles. The humans pointed at him and shouted in their strange tongues and shook their sticks furiously at him which was only amusing to the mershark for a whole span of thirty seconds before he realized that the mermaid and his human friend were gone.
"Huh? " Ha'aheo looked around but couldn't see them. "Where did they go?" Alone, he spoke the native tongue of his kind , a language that he'd nearly forgotten because he'd been spending far too much time with humans.
With a frustrated sigh, he dove under water where his nose would better serve him. He knew the scent of Akala and it wasn't difficult for him to follow the scent trail that she had left behind. Humans had such a pungent odor to them!
Akala, true to her nature, was less alarmed by the mermaid's sudden decision than she was surprised, then delighted as the mermaid's speed and strength propelled them across the waves. It was a sensation she enjoyed immensely, showing a childlike delight as she turned her face upwards and let the waves part before their energetic departure.
She wasn't very worried about Ha'aheo locating them. He seemed to have a knack for it, and he had managed to follow her all the way from Yoreiq, after all!
It was almost a shame, though, when they reached their destination. She had the good grace to look a little sheepish -- she hadn't known the mermaid meant dry caves, after all -- and sat down, still in the water, just far enough inland to keep her head above water. It would be rude, she thought, to go much farther.
"Thank you," she offered the mermaid warmly. Her fingers rose to caress the necklace, which she had slipped on, with a gentle and honest affection for the piece, and then she frowned slightly as she thought about how to ask her question. "They no like you?" Well, that was obvious... But trying to kill her all the time seemed a bit extreme...
Keeth smiled, revealing pearly white and pointed teeth at the question.
"No," she said, flicking her tail in the water. No point in telling the woman about her being a hunter!
"Why are you here?" she asked Akala. She pointed to Ha'aheo with a webbed finger.
"You sailors? What ship? Is he a trader?" Keeth giggled.
The shark man struck her as a terrible businessman.
Ha'aheo growled at the pointing finger. Pointing was,as far as he understood, a human gesture and it usually brought bad things for him when he was pointed at. "What she say?" The sharkman asked Akala in Yoreiqi while he kept his eyes warily on the mermaid. He wasn't concerned for his safety so much as he was for the human. Some mermaids were harmless, some were not.
Perhaps the only reason Akala didn't join in the giggling is because traders and trading still evoked a certain sense of absolute confusion in the woman. She understood the concept ("I will give you this thing, and you will give me that thing.") but what she didn't entirely understand was why such a thing was necessary in the first place. Greed -- all for a mountain of coins -- was a novel concept to her...so what she pictured was Ha'aheo trading for a mountain of fish...and those fish would not last very long before disappearing into his stomach.
"She's asking why we're here, Ha'aheo."
The answer required a bit of thought. She couldn't explain fully -- the details were lost to her lack of knowledge of the Common Tongue -- but she could summarize. "Ha'aheo hurt bad men. For me. Bad men want to hurt Ha'aheo. We come here." Her slender shoulders lifted in a slight shrug, accompanied by a somewhat sheepish look.
"Bad men?" Keeth repeated with rising interest. Well, this was new, but she should have expected the shark man to cause some trouble with humans and mess things up.
"But why run?" Keeth wondered. "Did he not properly hunt them?"
She smirked at this opportunity to find superiority.
"But you're not from here," she observed. "They must be powerful if you ran all this way."
Ha'aheo stared stupidly at the human, "Why here?" He wrinkled his nose at her and then made a face at Keeth . "Hrrrnh! Think fish-woman ask no good questions!" If he had the words, he would have told the mermaid it was none of her business, but even as he thought this Akala was attempting to explain their tale to Keeth and when Keeth responded , the mershark growled, "What she say?" He didn't appreciate the smug expression on her face.
A look of confusion passed over Akala's features. Dutifully, however, she translated for Ha'aheo. "She wants to know why we ran so far. And something about you not..." Her nose wrinkled ever-so-slightly. "...Not hunting them right? I don't think I'm translating that properly." (Because hunting, of course, evoked a different image in her mind altogether!)
In Common, she attempted to clarify, "Bad men say they hurt Yoreiqi. My people. We go. They no hurt." Simple as that!
Keeth nodded and listened. After Akala finished, a sudden realization was stuck with Keeth. She was sort of responsible for these two, now. Not that she cared much if they died, but since she couldn't go close to the island without getting killed...
Oh.
Keeth crackled, clapping her webbed hands together in excitement.
"You need out?" she asked. "Wait till night. Then we steal a boat!" she suggested.
"Hunt man? No! " Ha'aheo made a disgusted face, "Why Ha'aheo do this ? Is no good! Meat bad! Ha'aheo hunt fish! Hunt...things in water! Meat good in water! But Ha'aheo like...pineapple meat . Is good meat, Akala. We hunt more. " Yes, he decided they needed more pineapples because he liked them almost more than fish and he did not think it was possible to like something more than fish.
He narrowed his eyes suspiciously at Keeth's sudden enthusiasm , " Ha'aheo no think fish-woman is good for ...listen. Say things wrong. "
((I swear he'll make sense one day!))
(OOC: *giggles* This is fantastic.)
Akala offered her friend a light shrug. She had warned him that she didn't think she was translating properly, after all! Though his comment about pineapples made her offer him a beaming grin. Leave it to Ha'aheo. "I'll ask if they have pineapple here," she reassured him, then did just that. "Keeth, you have pineapple?" (Of course, she didn't know the common tongue term for it, so she had to rely on using the fruit's name in her language.) "It is food from tree. Yellow. And hard."
Though that grin was soon to be wiped off of her face by Keeth's suggestion. "Steal? No steal. Steal bad!" She had had that concept drilled into her head by the captain of their vessel, who had been thoughtful enough to attempt to explain to the Yoreiqi native that everything here had a price...
"huuuuh?"
Even if Keeth HAD seen a pineapple, she did not know what they were. She shook her head, impatiently, and slapped her fin in the water when she was scolded for stealing.
"Boat!" Keeth insisted.
Who cared if they stole? Besides, it would be fun. It was ALWAYS fun messing with the humans.
"Bad!" Ha'aheo mimicked, not even sure what he was saying since he spoke it in such awkward and unfamiliar Common tongue , but Akala seemed to take this word very seriously and so Ha'aheo felt it was entirely necessary to help put emphasis on this clearly important word! "NO!"
Had he known what was going on, he probably would have wondered why Akala cared so much about Non-Yoreiqi things and agreed with Keeth that it was fun to harass humans. Although he preferred fish over a boat for his efforts!
(OOC: This is devolving quickly. And it's certainly not going to end well! I love it!)
Akala gave her head a bit of a shake, though she was, as always, grateful for Ha'aheo's help...such as it were. "Captain say is bad to steal. Is dangerous." If they were home, all they would have had to do was ask nicely to borrow it -- but, of course, if they were home, they wouldn't be in this spot of trouble to start with.
For poor Ha'aheo's sake, she added, "Keeth doesn't seem to have any pineapple." Or she might be explaining it poorly... "She wants us to take a boat from them tonight and go..."
At Ha'aheo's out burst, Keeth leaned back a little, ready to fight. She made a disgusted face at he did a harsh attempt at the words.
He doesn't know what he's saying, she realized, stiffing a giggle.
The mermaid crossed her arms and and nodded her head as Akala spoke.
It's very bad, she thought, eager for some mischief.
She looked up at Akala, impatiently waiting for the right answer. Hers.
"Ohhh..." Ha'aheo felt silly now, but he didn't look embarrassed by it and appeared more like a slow, simple-minded creature only JUST coming to a realization. He blinked and glanced curiously over at the mermaid before he returned his gaze to Akala, "Why say bad? Bad men , Akala. Try hurt. Ha'aheo say take boat. " In his mind, the men would only be so lucky that a boat would be the only thing that they would lose!
He was saddened by the news of no pineapple though!
Akala frowned slightly, in spite of his persuasion. "The Captain said it would make the people very, very angry if we took from them without giving them payment." (She had to rely on the common word for payment, as there was no such word in her language.) "They're already quite angry, although I don't know why..."
All she had done was help Keeth!
Speaking of the mermaid, she glanced at her curiously, asking in Common, "Where boat go?"
"Hmmmm?"
Boat? The fisher men boats?
"Back home," Keeth said with an idle shrug. "Or hunting for us. But don't worry. We can go find one and steal one, no problem! You should rest first, though. It's easy for me and him to be invisible, but not you."