Nautalis ducked beneath the looming curve of the ship's hull, brushing a light hand across its furnished boards before sweeping back up again.
The deep, ever-present white noise pressed consoling to her ears, lulling and achingly familiar. The stretching lines of docked ships nudging and bumping the stilted docks added a constant drumming to the water's magnified sound, a steady rhythm of thumping that could be felt considerably far out at bay.
The siren slid over a diagonal beam mounted between the supporting legs of the pier, moving into the faint shadows of the already dark water. The slits between the dock planks cast weak lines of moonlight across the surface, dissolving and scattering completely only a few feet under.
Nautalis drifted forward, up to the thin surface, and allowed her head to slowly breach the water's skin, sharp eyes fixed on the boardwalk mounted over the shallows of the high tide. Her frilled ear popped gently as the water flowed down the sides of her face and streamed back into the sea, accompanying the waves of swirling dark hair fanning out around her head.
She slipped closer to the shallow water, allowing her chin to sink back into the dark liquid as she listened, intent to the sound of human voices and boots thumping on the planks. There were other humans further over the docks, loading ships and occasionally calling across the foggy air to each other. The siren drifted closer to the boardwalk still.
"I should have known..."
Nautalis smiled, twitching her tail slightly to turn parallel to the dock, the waves nudging her back and forth as she pushed off the wet sand with one hand, barely flicking her tail to fall in beside the footsteps.
Hello Jintao... you're early.
"I think I liked it better when I didn't know who you were." A pause. "You are naive, I'll give you that, but at least it makes two of us."
Perhaps. Yes, naivety will work fine for me.
She twisted suddenly in the water, ducking her head beneath the shallow surface again as she flicked her tail sharply, flipping a spray of frigid droplets up and into the faces of the two humans pacing the boardwalk above.
@_-Captain BRM-_
@Lacy Duckwing