Coming to the Surface [2430-1-3-Tuesday]

[coralia]

Coralia rearranged the seaweed bag her father had handed her that morning when she offered to go and see if there were any trades to be made. He had developed a cough that week and it had grown worse with each day. Being apprenticed to the Healer had taught Coralia many things, but one of the ones she viewed as most important was that someone who was sick needed to rest not go about their normal routine. Besides, it was not that difficult to take over for a day... so long as none of the Outsiders showed their faces. If that happened, then there would be no trade. She refused to give any ground on that standard of hers.

The floor of the sea began to slant upwards towards the lighter water, causing a flutter of butterflies to take flight in the redheaded mermaid's stomach. She had to draw in a gulp of the cooler water before she could continue, reminding herself that her father came here quite often and never once got hurt while he was at it. Just fine, Lia, completely normal... nothing wrong with the Winged People. The few that she had met during her childhood were always very nice.

Despite that knowledge, she stopped swimming before she reached the point where she would have to put her head above the water, staring at the shimmering line with conflicted eyes, her sail bristling as much as it could. Drawing in another gulp of the life-giving, but too warm, water she lifted her torso up out of the water, raising a hand to brush strands off hair out of her face.

She would never be able to understand how anyone could live up here... the air was so... dry. But she could stand it for a time.

[Saphira]

Saphira was resting on some rocks at the cliff base of the rocky spires, enjoying the cool waves lapping at her bare feet. After her run-in with Piper, she'd been inspired to research further into the music archives on the Network, surprised to discover a station dedicated to Elven music. It sounded surprisingly like her own people's musical creations, though there was something a bit more melancholy about it. It intrigued her enough that she'd waited until she was off duty in order to listen and explore the music more fully.

This is why she was now lounging across some rocks in her favourite secluded spot, with the eInkr padd connecting wirelessly to a pair of earphones that fed the music to her ears. With most of the other sounds of the world drowned out by the melodic sounds of Elven tunes, she hardly even noticed the Mergirl pop her head out of the water.

[coralia]

When at first she saw nothing, Coralia debated turning tail and swimming right back for her home, or maybe the garden along the way... it had been almost a month since she had been this far from home and it would be interesting to see what had grown there in her absence... but then she heard the sound of waves lapping, an odd noise that drew her attention, and she turned her pale eyes towards the source at the foot of the rocks.

At the sight of someone seated there she swam back a few feet without thinking, dipping down so that only her eyes stuck out of the water. Ridiculous, she chided herself when she saw the wings that the woman had on her back. There was absolutely nothing wrong with the Winged People. Father would laugh himself senseless if he could see how I was behaving right now. Another gulp of water, another pause, and Lia made herself swim to within a few feet of the rocks, into the woman's line of sight.

"Hello?" she asked, her voice sounding odd to her ears above the water, raising her hand in greeting as well. That was when she noticed that there was something stuck into the woman's ears - something that resembled a gift her father had gotten her when she was younger. Did they have music players above the surface? Seems that way.

[Saphira]

Perhaps Saphira had been too quick to proclaim Winged music as the best of all, as she was easily entranced by the tunes. She could only imagine what the Elven music sounded like in person, rather than through a digital source.

She'd only met one Elf in her time working with the space faring people. She was under the impression that very few left their home planet, much like the Merpeople. But with the Merpeople, it was more of a logistics issue, and with the Elves, a simple state of unwillingness to embrace the outsiders. It made her wonder if she would ever be able to witness Elven music in person. Perhaps she would have to one day visit their planet. The thought of space flight scared her though, and she would most definitely feel homesick.

Saphira caught a flash of movement out of the corner of her eye and straightened up, glancing over to realize there was someone else there. A redheaded mergirl. "Oh! Hello!" She quickly popped the earbuds out of her ears and tucked them into the small cranny at the back of the padd for safe keeping. "I'm sorry I was just listening to some music..."

[coralia]

The way the Winged girl reacted, immediately removing the small things from her ears, made Coralia smile. Her few times above water had led her to the conclusion that people moved strangely there - amusingly quick without the water to slow them. I wonder how fast she can fly, if it's faster then I can swim... But that would be a very strange question to ask someone she did not know.

"I didn't know you had music players up here, too," Coralia admitted. Her voice sounded so strange to her ears up here and it made her throat feel funny to speak. "I don't really... know much about anything not of the ocean, that's more my father's sort of thing." He was forever going on about this or that that he had seen in one of the villages but, though she pretended to listen, Coralia rarely paid much attention. It was not as though she ever intended on sprouting legs to see it for herself.

Manners, Lia. "My name is Coralia; and I'm sorry for interrupting your music. I just... don't do this often." She gestured at the surface of the water and herself, indicating being above it.

[Saphira]

Music players? She glanced at the padd in her hands. "Oh well, yes I suppose I do, but only because it's human technology..." Saphira explained. "This does all sorts of things, especially keeping track of all my appointments. It's really quite impressive."

She paused for a moment, surprised as she thought about it more. "Do you have some in the ocean as well? I haven't seen many merpeople embracing their electrical things, but I suppose that's because a lot of them aren't waterproof..."

The mergirl introduced herself and Saphira realized she'd been equally as intrigued by the questions and forgotten to introduce herself as well. She smiled, getting to her feet and giving a little bow. "Pleased to meet you Coralia. My name is Saphira."

[coralia]

Human technology. Of course, that would explain why it looked so strange and alien. It was tainted if it came from humans. "Nothing like that... nothing human." The emphasis on the word was strained, but natural for her. "They're much larger and we can't move them on our own... really, they only play what we make them. Some of the traders put them together, I think." The idea that they had gotten the technology, or even just the ghost of it, from humans was one that Coralia was more than happy to ignore. So long as their hands did not touch it, it was safe.

"A pleasure, to be sure, Saphira," Coralia said in reply with an inclination of her head, smiling. Wariness had settled in the moment that this Saphira had admitted to using human things, but it could not overcome her amusement by how the Winged moved. Legs were really one of the oddest things - how did she not trip and fall over them? "Do many of your people... interact with the Out-... humans?"

The seaweed bag remained forgotten at her side. Coralia was far more interested in asking her questions now that she was actually facing a Winged Person on her own.

[Saphira]

"Oh I see..." Saphira nodded. She wondered what those looked like, a little disappointed that she probably would never see. Most Winged People simply didn't do well in water, and Saphira was definitely one of them. She knew a few who had waterproof wings, but that still didn't solve the issue of being unable to breathe underwater.

The question was posed about interacting with humans, and she had to think about it a moment. "Some do, others don't. There are many very willing to ignore their existence, though I find it very difficult to do so when I see their effect on this world. In fact it's my job to keep an eye on that, so I probably interact with the humans and other races who come on ships much more than most of my people. That's why I have this," she motioned once more to the eInkr padd. "Most of the others don't own one, though. I don't think even Lord Micha has accepted one yet, though I could be mistaken..."

[coralia]

Unused to speaking with Winged People and their expressions, Coralia found herself unsure of whether or not she should have said that about the music players found under the ocean. Compared to that small thing Saphira had been holding they seemed large and bulky, almost like something that should not be seen. But it doesn't really matter, the mergirl reasoned with herself, because she'll never be able to see it. So she won't think us primal. One trader had said that some people thought them such, but he had never said who exactly thought such.

"Their effect," Coralia snorted with a toss of her head, smile gone as though it had never been there. Her free hand slipped under the water to touch her torso and the scar that was still there, bright as ever. "Yes, that's very much impossible to ignore by anyone who lives here... at least, from what I've seen under the water." Fish with scars that never would have been there before or hooks in their mouth causing blood that should never have been seen without the aid of teeth. "An effect I've never seen as positive." She was not ashamed to admit it, no matter if Saphira worked with them. The Winged Person, from what she had experienced in the brief moments, had seemed like she could be a good person... even if Coralia could not fathom why she would want to be near the Outsiders.

[Saphira]

Coralia's friendly tone was gone in an instant. Saphira was surprised, realizing something must have gone wrong in her dealings with the Humans. "Oh, there are definitely negative effects," she nodded. "There are plenty of Humans who would use the planet only as a resource for their own. They would take all they can and leave nothing, if they were allowed. That's where I come in, as well as your people's ambassador. They are most definitely the headaches of this job, having to regulate their activities while they remain stubborn as can be."

She let herself smiled once more, sitting herself back down on the rocks, this time closer to the water. "But Humans are quite diverse, even more than us. There are very bad ones, some that are sometimes hard to tell, and many that are very very kind and understanding. Those ones are my favourite. They are here because they love learning about our planet. The explorers and scientists are the best kind, because I love getting to teach them all sorts of things about our planet, and they are so very grateful and quick to learn." She glanced up at the sky, in the direction of the spaceport, smiled fading a bit once more. "It's the hunters and businessmen that are the ones that an eye always must be kept on. They're far more likely to step over the lines we've given them."

[coralia]

Slowly, Coralia allowed herself to relax again, though her hands did not rise back above the water. Saphira was not one of the people who just thought that Outsiders and all of the things they brought were good and necessary. There were enough Merpeople like that for Coralia to know that she could not get along with them. My brother. But no, that was not a pleasant line of thought and it was bad enough to have humans being spoken of without bringing up someone so frustrating.

Well, Saphira had positive ideas about some of the humans, something that Coralia could not wrap her mind around no matter what was said. Ones who cared and only wanted to learn? No, she did not believe that they could exist so easily alongside people who were willing to take as much from the ocean as they wanted, using tools that hurt more than they helped. "The good does not outshine the evil, or what could be done with the knowledge" she said in reply, "I can never look at the Outsiders and see something positive of them coming here." She would not have been hurt, there would not have been an argument and her brother would not have left. Her family would have been better off without them coming with their spaceport. "I'm sure there are Winged People who would agree with me that our planet was better before." Her bitterness was evident in her voice and the way her eyes had dropped, staring down beneath the water.

[Saphira]

Nothing good can become of shared knowledge? Saphira was downright surprised at this line of thought. "There are certainly those who do do not like their presence, yes. Even a few who choose to remain ignorant on the matter. But whether you like them or not, knowledge can be used in prevention, and defense." She shifted a bit, finding a most comfortable position on the rocks. "To remain completely ignorant on the subject dooms you to either fall at the hands of the subject, or allow it's mistakes to repeat. For example, to not learn about the Humans would mean that we would not understand why they need to take the resources that they do, and one would not learn how to help them do so without damage to our own resources, as opposed to ignoring them and simply allowing them to take everything." She glanced down at her padd, sighing wearily. "Honestly, I wish I had more help in that regard. There are many outsiders, and the Merperson ambassador and I can only do the work of two... with more people to help, we really could regulate it all much better."

She smiled. "And I hope that sharing knowledge with the outsiders can help them learn how to better improve their planet with what they've already got, so they would not have to rely so much on ours. I would hope that learning from us has shown them that it's okay to live a simpler life, that they do not need so much to survive. I have noticed that they have so much technology that it makes many of them extremely lazy. Everything is done for them, can you believe that? That's no way to really live."

[coralia]

Saphira had some very set views on this matter of the humans, Coralia was beginning to realize. Still, no matter what she said, a mind did not change so easily. Especially one that had been convinced for so long of the cruel nature of anyone not from the planet of Corus. It only makes sense... they hurt me and I did nothing to them. The way that she viewed the world was simple enough and she did not like how Saphira was talking, trying to make it seem as though she were flat-out wrong.

"It doesn't surprise me that they're lazy," Lia grabbed onto something that would conform to her beliefs instead of challenge them. "Though really, I still cannot believe that they would destroy their planet so completely as to need ours. What's to say that even with efforts they will not use this superior technology of theirs to take more from us than can be allowed?" Her tail stirred restlessly beneath the water. "I think it's too much of a risk, with gains that might actually just make this world more like theirs."

She sighed, letting one hand float up to the surface. "I don't mean to argue with someone I hardly know, and I don't mean for you to try and change my mind. It's just that I don't like humans, as you can tell, it's nothing new."

[Saphira]

Coralia was certainly a stubborn one. And it seemed to Saphira, quite possibly a bit species-ist as well. Saphira had met more than enough Humans to know that they were kind and mostly meant well. They simply grew and expanded far too fast for their own good, and now they were paying the price. Would she be the one to deny them a right to survive, as long as it was done carefully and in respect of their fellow races? Not at all.

"They certainly would never be able to make this world like theirs," Saphira shook her head. "I have seen images of their planet. They would need flat land for the kinds of structures that have overtaken their planet. We don't have the terrain for them to build on. So unless they filled the skies with more of those space ports, it could never happen. And I hear that this space port is incredibly difficult to run and costs them an extremely large amount of money that they only keep afloat by the tourism industry. There are many wealthy Humans who see our planet as a paradise to rest on, and apparently pay very high amounts to come here. It's very flattering, wouldn't you say?" Saphira suspected that Coralia wouldn't agree, but it couldn't hurt to suggest it.