Roleplay

"Alright," Rain just smiled. She could understand not wanting to be called cute. She cocked her head. So mers could swim that deep. Strange. How far did they travel? And were they worldwide or just in the tropical areas?

"Oh, no no no I'll be okay," Rain thought about it and nodded, "Yeah I'll be fine."

She wanted to smoke the beef and keep it for later. She just pondered how she would keep it away from all the other creepy crawlies on the island. She also thought back to those cans of food.

"You know you speak English pretty well. Like I said, just a matter of practice."

(Ack sorry. Got lost in stack of notifs)

Coel nodded back to the girl. She wondered how far humans could swim down. Rain looked a bit odd, her facial expression thoughtful. The mermaid flicked her long tail. Would humans die under the pressure, like dolphins? It was seen as a bad way to kill dolphins by taking them too deep.

“Sure? Thank you for your nice words of me.” She said, translating an idiom directly to English. “The depths stretch fingers you today.” She said, nodding. Coel was a bit embarrassedly pleased with herself. She was supposed to be scary! A prison guard! But oddly, this human intrigued her, perhaps charmed her as a cute seahorse did.

Coel rolled further into the turf, quickly swimming to the bottom to grab a pretty shell, disk-shaped, and return to the surface. “Water.” She said, pointing at it. Didn’t humans need freshwater to drink? It was really too bad, it seemed annoying to always need to inhale the water.

(( Is fine ^ ^ ))

Rain pondered exactly what stretched fingers meant while Coel dove down and returned. She'd have to ask about that one.

Her eyes lit up. Water. "Oh. Yes, thank you." She took the canteen. It felt fairly full too. Yet another thing to do, find some method of gathering and storing rainwater. She'd surely be kept busy.

"What do you mean stretch fingers?" Rain asked. Meanwhile she stood and took up her walking stick, walking slowly back over to her campfire and beachwood house.

“Problem, not.” Coel said, placing the large shell on the beach. She flicked her tail back and forth serenely, shrugging as Rain asked questions.

“Stretched arms. Exetends kindness. It a idiom.” Coel expalined, a bit annoyed that Rain was walking away from her to somewhere she couldn’t go at all. Well, she could go over there, but she really hated being on land.

She didn’t understand the human’s need for wood boxes on the beach. Coel had seen large groups of these boxes, but this one looked rather different. She wondered if those were of less quality.

"Okay, okay. Gotcha."

After setting the flask down Rain looked up, then at the shore, then back at the rocks. She added some wood to the fire and ambled back.

She sat closer to Coel, smiling, "So you try to teach me something, you'll get a good laugh out of it surely."

Rain's gaze drifted upwards. The sky was dotted with stars and nebulas in the sky. Her mouth hung open as she looked farther and farther back. Suddenly she sat up, "Sorry! Bird brain moment."

“Okay.” Coel said, nodding to the human. She looked up as well, confused as to what she was looking at. She just saw stars. “What?” She said, not understanding the idiom.

“Yes is yes and no is no.” She said, shrugging and looking back to the human. Better start with the basics. The mer was sure that Rain could produce the sounds, but well? She wasn’t sure.

Coel reached for the other crab she had, killing it by crushing it first, then starting to eat.

"Oh. Birds, they're not very smart compared to humans. They get distracted easily. It's saying my mind is easily distracted," Rain explained.

She listened very carefully. After listening she knew that would take years to get even close to, if it was remotely possible.

After offering a sheepish smile Rain tried first to say yes. Her throat literally could not make that same trilling sound, a little like a dolphin. It came out more like a strangled cat sound. She tried again, using her throat more and her mouth less but that was a growl. When she tried balancing the two she just gagged and coughed.

Next she tried the No. That came out much closer, in her opinion. It was easier to make clicks than it was trills.

“Oh. They flappy..things?” She asked, using her arms to pump up and down in a motion that could be interpreted as flying. Coel didn’t understand the idioms, but she had seen the little creatures. They looked like mers, moving gracefully through the air.

Coel broke out in a fit of watery laughter as Rain attempted to say ‘yes’ but translated to something very different. “Hey! No insult me!” She said, her smile genuine, and stained with crab blood. Rain had said a very offensive word in her language, and she found it hilarious that the human didn’t even know.

After recovering from the little fit of laughter, she sat back up, tears dotting her eyes from laughing too hard. “Closer. no.” She repeated, trying to help the human get the correct, non-cursing sounds.

"Yeah, flappy things." Rain snickered at that. Until she was about five years old she thoughts birds were all called Tweetie. Once in school it lead other to believe she had a speech impediment and it never really got resolved.

Her smile broadened when Coel laughed too. Then she frowned. She puffed her cheeks out childishly for a moment, "I am trying!" She failed to understand she had cursed and interpreted instead her attempt to imitate was so bad it was insulting.

Rain blushed. She tried again, clicking her tongue a little more the second time. Her nose scrunched up as she repeated the sound again and again with little variations in the pitch.

“True. But yourself DID insult my.” She said, chuckling. Humans were weird. Flicking her fin, she raised her eyes as Rain tried again and again to get ‘no’ right.

She had to say, Rain didn’t seem..bad. She hadn’t tried to kill Coel, or even yell at her. They had even had multiple conversations with each other, with Coel being close, and Rain hadn’t tried to harpoon her. They had always said humans had a weapon that could fly from their hands at wil that could peirce whales and kill them. That freaked Coel out.

But Rain hadn’t shot one at her. The mer flicked her tail again, taking a slow bite of crab whilst staring st the human, thinking. Suddenly, the human got ‘no’ right. “One! There!” She said, again fustrated by her small vocabulary.