Alex-065
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Post by Alex-065 on Aug 11, 2013 11:12:55 GMT -5
Fairin nodded emphatically, as did Pelona and they gabbed over the news as Mairsile ate. Even then, Flower remained uncharacteristically silent. She seemed distracted, as if trying to make up her mind as Mairsile’s mother and sister gossiped. They didn’t notice when Flower finally spoke up.
“Babies, Mairsile. That’s why I’m here. Oylandra is having babies right now. Your babies.”
Flower had kept a straight face focused on Mairsile. The shocking words had been directed to her and her alone. It was possible for mermaids to have private, two-way conversations with one another, thereby exploiting one of the human envies of telepathy. Even so, this was rarely done. By custom and habit, mermaids projected their thoughts openly. Speaking secretly in the presence of others was considered underhanded and extremely rude. Not like Flower at all.
Oylandra’s guile was rubbing off on her. A troubling thought.
Even so, Mairsile understood the need for discretion regarding her induction into parenthood – as if her life hadn’t changed drastically enough—and that Flower’s manners were only lacking out of benign ignorance, not malice. The plated mermaid’s expression was touched with a hint of apology, but also an overbearing urgency. Oylandra would have sent her. Who else could command such a flighty maiden?
It took a moment, but all at once, Flower’s furtive message sunk in and seized Mairsile’s heart.
She was going to be a mother.
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Post by Ninmast on Aug 12, 2013 17:57:56 GMT -5
That wasn't actually the thought that went through Mairsile's mind. No, that one had been reconciled long ago with Oylandra's distending torso. However, the news did, indeed, cause the girl to straighten like a rod and go silent, as she had, for once, been enjoying casual conversation with her family, what with not having anything to strive for for once and actually having a connection to the conversation.
The whole your babies thing honestly didn't even really register with her. She knew that, because of the way they were conceived, they would be at least partly of Tide Water "blood," but the concept of "paternal" instincts was entirely foreign to mermaids, even the prolific Tide Water tribe. No, to Mairsile, the relevant thing was that someone very close to her was giving birth, an event she desperately wanted to be present for.
She was silent for a whole handful of seconds, then blurted off a psychic message to Flower to explain it to her mother and sister as she shot for the exit, both actions so fast that even the hyperactive Flower would be pushed to process what just happened. Indeed, the action might have been even faster than Kiki escaping Flower's game of tag three days previous. After all, Mairsile knew the same trick the twins used to move so fast. The undulating tail motion was something she was mildly surprised the otherwise adaptive Flower had not yet picked up, but at the same time, the rippling motion that sent the tail blitzing like a motorboat might have been physically impossible for Flower's impressive but comparatively stiff armored tail.
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Alex-065
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Post by Alex-065 on Sept 2, 2013 5:35:37 GMT -5
Mairsile sped down the quickest path out of the maze of mangrove warrens that had been her childhood nursery and playground. It's many paths as familiar to her as the scales of her tail, which pumped furiously, propelling her into the wide open waters of Blue Ring Bay, where maids from all clans mixed and mingled. Surprised to see their new champion, many called after her, but were confused and disappointed as she sped on. Her new admirers hastened in pursuit.
On the fringes of Mairsile's senses, one of the maids suddenly accelerated ahead of the crowd. It was not Flower. Mairsile felt none of the nubile neophyte's innocence in the almost predatory presence which swiftly closed upon her with ease.
A familiar voice arrived beside her. "Exciting, isn't it?"
Charcara. The seldom-seen shark maiden was easily keeping pace with seemingly little effort. Her grey-white tail blurred from side to side instead of up and down and her grin was as full of teeth as mischief. "Congratulations," she said, winking an obsidian eye. Mairsile knew what she meant, and so it seemed Charchara had been let in on her secret. But by who, and how much had she been told?
"Flower is stalling your family," she said. "She'll meet us there."
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Post by Ninmast on Sept 2, 2013 11:12:39 GMT -5
Mairsile was hard pressed to pay much attention to Charcara, though she knew she should. She couldn't say she was as intimidated by the shark maiden as other mermaids were, a product of her own time around the bizarre and unusual, but all the same, the other woman's presence was important. She forced some of her thoughts away from what was ahead so that she could answer her.
"Thank you, it is very exciting, indeed," she agreed as she swam. The possibility that Charcara worked for, or at least had contact with Oylandra wasn't what Mairsile could call surprising. Indeed, she was at a lack of what else to ask, though she felt now was the time to do so. Thinking of nothing else, she settled for a compliment. "Your swimming is skillful, Charcara," she decided. "I always have heard you were fast, but have never seen it before. I would certainly need my magic to keep up with your natural prowess if you were to go at your full speed, wouldn't I?"
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Alex-065
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Post by Alex-065 on Sept 7, 2013 7:48:23 GMT -5
For the first time, Mairsile heard Charchara chuckle. The shark maiden’s aura bloomed outward with pride. “We each have our talents,” she said, and still she smiled. It varied by degrees, but her toothy grin was never absent. Many gossiped that she couldn’t help but smile, just as true sharks couldn’t help but frown. But if it was genuine, hers wasn’t the kind of smile that came from being happy. It was a signature of the unique amusement found in knowing things – hidden things – that others did not.
The crowd that pursued the pair of high-speed disciples was fulling behind, but the presence of more mermaids could be felt closing in from all directions. Word of the Exalted Sister’s revival sister’s revival had spread quickly. Soon Mairsile would be surrounded and caught, trapped in a ball of praise and zealous adoration. Snippets of her hair might be taken as fertility fetishes. More pointedly, she would be late for something which she simply could not.
“My, my.” The shark maiden drawled. “Aren’t you the popular one?” Her smile faded so slightly that it might have only been by Mairsile’s imagination. “But this is a private party. We’ll have to lose your new friends. Follow me.” Charchara poured on greater speed with ease and took the lead. Then the maids were upon them.
“Mairsile!” They shrieked. “Exalted Sister! Look, there she is! Goddesses and ancestors, it’s Mairsile!” Charchara lead the new celebrity through harrowing series of loops, barrel rolls and quick escapes as they wove through the crowd of rabid admirers. Several hands quickly groped Mairsile, trying to take hold, and were gone again as she sped past. Some of those lucky enough to have touched the Exalted Sister were content to give up the chase and writhe in star-struck ecstasy. Others wouldn’t give up. The crowd was slower, but they couldn’t be lead to Oylandra’s lair. Especially not now. Charchara had to know this, so where in Oonali’s Abyss was she going?
The tireless, white-tipped torpedo had changed direction in the course of her evasive maneuvers. Now she sped south towards Oaken Bottom Sound, Moonscale Territory. Almost the exact opposite direction from where they needed to go and heading right into the midst of those whose admiration for Mairsile would be the most … Fervent.
The dread of having her scales plucked and ground to make beauty poultices loomed in the back of Mairsile’s mind, and was suddenly banished as she saw Charchara’s objective come into view.
The War Pod. The Sea Fire Clan’s last family of sacred battle whales, living remnants of a proud empire founded in the Mythic Seas before men built their first ships. The alpha male, huge and painted with streaks and swirls of orange across his black hide, roamed wherever he fancied with utter impunity. His females and their calves followed, as did a troop of young Sea Fire warriors. Not only was their duty to protect the pod with their lives, but it was also a posting given to maidens expiriencing thier first heat - a test to see if they would adhere to their sacred charge in spite of themselves.
This wasn’t good. Even the most agreeable Sea Fire could be exceedingly short tempered, but now half the mermaids in the isles were barreling towards a powder keg of hormonal rage. Disaster loomed.
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Post by Ninmast on Sept 7, 2013 15:49:18 GMT -5
Indeed, Mairsile did have to use her magic to keep up with Charcara, but she did, following her with absolute trust through every spin, twist, barrel roll and fake even as she was led through the thick throngs of fans. "They have horrible timing," she agreed with the shark maiden as they cleared them. "Or perhaps I do, for sleeping so long."
She noted their path and did, indeed, wonder what Charcara was up to, but figured she would loop about and lose them, though that seemed unlikely even at their speeds. But then she saw the shark maiden's objective. Dead ahead was the War Pod and its accompanying Sea Fire warriors. She did, indeed, see what kind of powder keg (a concept that did not actually exist to her) that was, but she had to admit, she was at a loss for any other way to lose their pursuers in any meaningful manner. The Sea Fire warriors would clash with the invasion of other mermaids and both would distract each other long enough for Charcara and Mairsile to escape and lose their tail.
And so the two speeding mermaids dragged the minefield horde of their brethren on a collision course with the sacred procession.
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Alex-065
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Post by Alex-065 on Sept 7, 2013 20:13:44 GMT -5
Charchara dove, and it was plain to see her southerly course had brought them to Oaken Bottom Sound. It was an underwater graveyard of sunken wooden ships, hence the name. How so many ships had come to rest there was a mystery, but site was treasure trove of human artifacts, nearly as sacred to the Moon Scale as the war pod was to Sea Fire. Now the alpha male was indifferently leading his family over the wreckage, compounding what might become an egregious inter-clan incident. Sea Fire would demand blood payment, and Moon Scale might curse them with infertility for a generation or longer. Could it even lead to war? Unthinkable!
The alpha male moaned and whooped as he and the other whale drew unwittingly closer to where Charchara had abruptly halted. She breathed heavily, passing water in and out of several fluttering slits between the ribs below her breasts; a second set of gills Missile didn’t even know she had. “Be still,” she said, seemingly as she waited to ambush the war pod.
The two women were hidden, for the moment, in the shadow beneath the huge stern of an ancient warship. Human runes - “letters,” Dr. Hackett had called them – were boldly inscribed across it. They were familiar to Mairsile. Under her scrutiny, the letters formed a picture of a sound. VETERAN, she realized. A gaping, snaggletooth eel glared at the mermaid intruders from it’s nest inside the hole of the “A” letter, but slithered inside as a massive form blocked out the sun overhead. The alpha male. The guards at his flanks appeared tensed, eyes and spears pointed in the direction of Mairsile’s overzealous entourage.
“Wait until he’s directly above us, then do as I do,” she said. A tense moment crept by...
“Now!” The shark maiden shot strait up at the belly of the alpha and clung to it like a lamprey. Was she insane?!
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Post by Ninmast on Sept 8, 2013 2:43:22 GMT -5
Probably, but it was too late to turn back now. Mairsile did exactly as Charcara did and prayed to the ancestors this wasn't going to be the doom of the peaceful coexistence of the clans.
As she clung to the bottom of the creature, she reflected on what she had seen. The shark maiden had been using a second set of gills in addition to the main one, and her breathing had been labored. Perhaps even she, as nearly legendary as she was, had limits to her stamina. They had to hope this would work, then. This being ... whatever it was Charcara had in mind. She believed she had the gist of it, but the specifics were still hazy at best.
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Alex-065
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Post by Alex-065 on Sept 21, 2013 7:44:52 GMT -5
“Time to play, little one,” Charchara whispered as she clung to the oblivious alpha whale’s belly. Did she think this debacle was a game? Before Mairsile could question, a frightened and familiar voice answered.
“No, I don’t want to play...”
The words came from very near to them, but Mairsile saw nothing. What she did see should have been impossible. She saw Charchara’s smile grow wider.
“Oh, but I do,” the shark maiden told her invisible friend. Her tone was eerily similar to that of Mairsile’s older sisters when they wanted to play “tail party” with her, whether she wanted to or not. She felt a flutter of childish dread, but it was not her own. The water shimmered faintly before her, tinged with ghostly pink light. It was her dark sight, gifted to her by Oylandra, denoting life where there had been none before. The voice came again from there, whimpering. “Please go away, big sister. I don’t want to play. There are too many here. I can’t…”
“Yes you can,” Charchara goaded her. “Your Exalted Sister is here and she wants to play our most special game.”
The water cloaking her seemed to somehow unfold, and Kalua the Unseen appeared, peeking out from behind the prismatic barricade of her tightly coiled tail. “But… Why?” she questioned, meekly. “Mother said that we should only-“
“Mother commands us to her side,” Charchara urged. “And with haste…” Kalua dared peek further above her tail with a cautious smile. “It is time, then?” “Indeed. Take us to mother, Kalua. Quickly, before we’re discovered. “
The din of the giddily pursuing crowd was growing near, louder. The Sea Fire guards became alert, shouting orders and forming an array against Mairsile’s cult following. All hell was about to break loose, and her senses tingled. Not with fear, though it sought to afflict her, it was magic. A surprisingly powerful conjuration was brewing inside Kalua, and Maisile divined it’s nature as easily as the warmth of the current. A spell of translocation. The three of them would vanish out from under the noses of her fans, impending moments before the whale guardians tore them apart.
This could not be!
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Post by Ninmast on Sept 23, 2013 12:18:50 GMT -5
Mairsile's mind remained calm despite it all. She thought perhaps the Sea Fire guards would simply blockade them, but as tensions raised and she felt the teleportation magic begin to manifest, she knew something more would be needed.
She stretched her hand out toward the sea behind the fangirls and concentrated. Coalescing in a bubbling spritz, the illusion of Mairsile appeared in the open water, and, with an extra force of magic on the real Mairsile's part, clapped her hands to seem to cause a sonic distortion that was the underwater equivalent of ringing a gong. Once Mairsile was sure the illusion had the maids' attention, she commanded it to shoot off into the depths in the direction opposite the warpod. It would continue swimming away through the open waters until it left her range, and then dissipate, leaving the mermaids with their trail lost, and Kalua's teleportation magic long since activated.
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Alex-065
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Post by Alex-065 on Oct 24, 2013 13:40:52 GMT -5
Charchara ran a finger down the bridge of Mairsile’s nose. “Pretty sneaky, sis.”
The shark girl’s thin lips closed over her teeth and she pursed them slightly as she studied Mairsile with a look that was both quizzical and apprehensive. Strange thoughts glinted behind her eerie obsidian eyes, maybe even dangerous ones. Even Mairsile, as perceptive as she was, could not gauge her mood. Even Oylandra had been easier to read.
At last, Charchara gave an approving nod, and her teeth flashed anew as Kalua’s building spell made the water around them tremble with pent up magic that suddenly burst and blew apart the reality around them. For a moment or a month, the three girls were hurled together through a colorless place of morphing shapes that melted and folded like the contours of a fever dream. There was no logic to any of it, and no telling when they might emerge from it, but they did, with painful suddenness, into the black reaches of Dark Fathom Abyss, miles away from where they had been. “Wow. I’ve never done it with three people before,” Kalua remarked with some small satisfaction. She seemed unfazed as Charchara floundered in a stupor. “Next time, be more gentle,” she groaned. Kalua steadied her. “Ooh, I’m sorry sister. I didn’t mean to. Something stopped me.”
Charchara opened one bleary eye at her. “Stopped you? Is that why I feel like I’ve been thrown against a cliff?” Kalua frowned and nodded. “I don’t know what it was. We’re close to mother, though. That way.” She pointed in a direction further below them before her concerned and chromatic gaze assessed Mairsile. “Exalted Sister, are you alright? I’m so sorry. Please don’t be mad at me…”
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Post by Ninmast on Oct 25, 2013 12:56:31 GMT -5
Mairsile didn't really try to figure out what the shark maiden's thoughts were. She assumed they were the same as hers, gauging if the horde was far enough away for safe teleportation without being noticed. Soon, whether that was what she was waiting for or not, she nodded to Kalua and they were gone.
And into a fevered mess of illogic between space. It seemed to pass by in a blurred instant, but also took an eternity long enough for her to trace the morphing monochromatic shapes as they folded and melted and reshaped and fell again. She found it fascinating. And then it suddenly stopped, as the realm seemed to belch them back into reality again. Mairsile rolled briefly before her senses returned and she caught herself. The shift even disoriented Charchara, though Kalua seemed fine.
"Please," she objected to being called Exalted Sister, "Mairsile is fine. My pride isn't quite large enough to accept such a title. And I'll be fine, you have nothing to be sorry for. I suspect it was Matriarch Oylandra's magicks that prevented you from bringing us closer, a defense while she is at her most vulnerable." The Tide Water maiden put a reassuring hand on Kalua's shoulder. "You did great, it was very impressive. I'd love to talk with you more about how you do it when time permits if that's okay with you."
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Alex-065
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Post by Alex-065 on Oct 26, 2013 14:17:08 GMT -5
Kalua’s tail looped over it’s self and she smiled shyly. “Um, Okay. I’d like that, Exalted… I mean, M-Mairsile. Thank you.” She blushed as Charchara rubbed her temples. “Oylandra sent us to get you. Why would she-“
“She’s afraid,” Kalua said. Charchara gaped, lost for words. Her bashful cohort nodded solemnly, her fixed on something far off and full of worry. “Mother is afraid, and she’s hurting.”
Charchara’s gills flared and her jaw set with renewed purpose. “Quickly, then.” She plunged ahead with Kalua on her back, holding on tight with arms and tail. The girl may have mastered teleportation, but she wasn’t as fast as Charchara, who was barely slowed at all. With Mairsile keeping good speed they raced into the dark, past schools of sightless fish, and even a giant squid, all fleeing in the opposite direction.
When they reached the abyssal cliff dwellings of Dark Fathom, the entire clan was congregating outside, listless and agitated. Tassita, Oylandra’s masked sister, who had been leading a circle of priestess in prayer, swam to meet them.
“You have come. Good.” She motioned to the reason they had not been intercepted by a patrol. Every entrance into the catacombs of the cliffs was blocked by an armed guard. If Tassita was concerned, it showed in her voice as much as it did on her porcelain face. Even without her mask, she was expressionless; a calm pillar that to rest of her distraught clan had rallied to in the absence of their matriarch.
“My sister is inside.” Charchara glared about at the guards. “Is no one else?” “No,” the augur said flatly. “Her birthing pains have driven her to cast us out.” The shark maiden sneered. “Has she lost her mind?”
“You do not know how birthing pains can affect a new mother,” Tassita intoned. Charchara smirked. “Neither do you.” Tassita did not reply. Kalua spoke next. “It isn’t right that she be alone. The guards, they won’t let anyone in?”
Tassita glanced to Mairsile. “Only she.”
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Post by Ninmast on Oct 27, 2013 20:35:55 GMT -5
Mairsile's gaze snapped up at that extremely unusual claim, and mentally ran through all of the objections to it, only to shunt them away. This was not the time to question. Instead, she only nodded to Tassita in understanding, swam a bit away and turned to face the three of them.
"I'll let you know when she's ready for visitors," she promised, unsure of what else could be said, then turned and quickly swam through the passages she knew through familiarity now to where Oylandra would be.
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Alex-065
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Post by Alex-065 on Oct 29, 2013 13:56:04 GMT -5
Not quite believing that only Mairsile would be allowed into Dark Fathom’s den, Charchara watched and was amazed when the guards submitted to the girl’s passing. “I’ll be damned,” she said in wonder. Kalua smiled. “She’ll be good company, and a good mama.” Tassita, her gaze more distant than ever, nodded and knowingly intoned, “She will be more than that…”
An occasional glowing anemone lit the way, each a lonely outpost of dim fuchsia in a long and winding labyrinth of passages and secret chambers that had been designed to stymie invaders with many dead ends, as well as it’s sheer narrowness. Mairsile had felt like a rock worm when she had first entered as Oylandra’s sequestered prodigy, but like so many other secrets, she had learned the true path to the chamber of her mistress. Indeed, memory as well as intuition guided Mairsile, and gave haste to the thrusts of her tail. A mother’s intuition?
There was no time to wonder. The passages were becoming wider as she swim deeper inside, so large that a whale could have fit through them, and the water grew warmer as well. The entrance to the Matriarch’s chamber came into view, a beacon of rosy light in the darkness that Mairsile felt soothed to look upon. It was uncanny. She sped inside and found her mistress.
She was not alone.
“All is well,” the stranger said, and she was a wonder to behold.
Her length stretched more than twice that of any mermaid Mairsile had ever seen, a beautiful giantess of the sea with a bountiful chest and glorious yellow hair who’s speckled peach and pink tail was coiled into a nest for the pregnant Matriach. Oylandra looked like child by comparison, despite her swollen womb. Mairsile had never seen her so vulnerable. She slept with a vaguely pained expression as the stranger watched over her, seemingly meditating with her eyes closed and gently stroking Oylandra’s forehead.
“Thankyou, Mairsile, for your haste.” The stranger smiled benevolently. She opened her eyes, and they shined like twin suns, and she said, to Mairsile’s shock and awe, “I am Purin.”
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