Remnants of the Earth

"That'll certainly do!" Lynn laughed lightly, honestly a little impressed. In the years since she'd woken, she could count on one hand the number of people she'd met who could even do that much.

Although that might say more about the types of people she usually met than it did about the state of historical documentation or modern interest.

"I'll write the incantation out for you, just gimme a minute," she added over her shoulder as she started pacing a pentagram over the open upper deck. She couldn't physically ward the entire ship properly--that would have required dragging Serina around the outside of the hull, and, well...she didn't usually have passengers, and honestly wasn't sure her spare suit was up for the task. Not to mention it might be off-putting for the archeologist to see her walking about without one.

Not that she'd made a habit of that. Just tried it once or twice, to see if she could.

So that meant she was really focusing on intent to get the protections in place in this single room, then sort of pushing them outward. She'd done more complicated spells in her time, but they were never easy. Hopefully Serina was a competent enough channel to make things go a little smoother.

"What was your thesis?" Lynn asked as she walked over the shape of the pentagram again, then came to a stop in the center of the invisible pattern and started rifling through her pockets for pen and paper--archaic maybe, but she couldn't help having the preference. As she did, she surreptitiously slipped on a pair of thin leather gloves; she should have been wearing them this whole time, really, but she'd been a bit...distracted. Hopefully none of her guests would think her low temperature and penchant for covering extremities anything more than poor circulation and mild eccentricity.

Starting to write out the incantation she'd had memorized since she was a girl, she glanced up at Serina and added with a small smile, "I have a...particular interest in ancient Serendipity. I'm curious."

Seexa blinked at him, then repeated as though the word was entirely foreign, "Clothes."

She glanced down at herself. While her creator had drawn on Old Earth merfolk as a template to give her a distinctly, if vaguely willowy, feminine humanoid shape, she wasn't technically mammalian--or at least she didn't think she was--so the slight curve of her breasts was really more decorative than it was anything else. She knew from the data feeds in the before-place that most humanoid women used them to feed young, though without nipples she wasn't properly equipped to do that.

As for her legs, well...now that she was getting the hang of standing properly, they did look slightly more humanoid--barring the large, flipper-like feet on the ends--and the slight flare of her hips indicated that a little more thought may have gone into the functionality of this aspect of her anatomy. Aside from the filament-thin barbells on her head she was entirely hairless, which revealed that a thin, almost imperceptible slit at the fork of her legs was the only indication that her species may have been capable of live birth.

That is, if she'd properly had a species.

None of that seemed particularly dangerous to her--pretty much everything important was protected by thin-pebble scales--but if her new friends thought she needed clothes then she supposed she did. Now that she thought of it, she hadn't exactly seen any of the people who'd come to gawk at her in her tank walking about naked.

Torien's voice snapped her from the train of thought and she blinked up at him, vaguely dazed for a moment. Then she realized, "Oh!" and glanced down at their feet again. She bit her lip, glancing up at him, and took a cautious, shuffling step forward to follow him.

It was strange, and cumbersome, but she learned if she let her feet turn out slightly she was able to take proper steps, albeit tiny, careful ones. This meant she moved in something between a waddle and a walk, but she didn't seem to care as she met Torien's eyes with another breathless smile.

"It doesn't...hurt," she said, sounding both surprised and delighted. She wasn't entirely sure why she'd expected it to, but was more than happy to have been proven wrong.

Pink hummed quietly when he moved to kiss her jaw, letting her head tilt to the side just a bit. She chuckled softly at his response to her apology and murmured, “Don’t let it go too much to your head…”

She shivered a bit as his hand slid over her stomach, then actually gave a quiet groan and let her head fall forward onto his shoulder again when he mentioned a bedroom. They were still locked so closely together, and she couldn’t hide the new flush that rose to her skin at the idea. But…

“You have…no idea how badly I want to say yes,” she sighed, then lifted her head and continued with obvious reluctance, “but I—I do actually have to meet Reese. Preferably sooner than later.” She bit her lip, glancing away. Then she added, a little cautiously, “Maybe…if you’re still interested in going with me, maybe after we could, ah…”

She trailed off, cheeks warm, and glanced down at their hips unconsciously. Dear gods, they really hadn’t even gotten their pants off. Her blush flared a little hotter, but she looked back up at him with a wry smile. “Maybe we could…try for something a little less…rushed?” She let her hands slide up under his shirt a bit, tracing absently along the planes of his stomach. “Not gonna lie, I certainly wouldn’t mind seeing ya with this off…”

"Right, come on then." Lynn gave her a distracted sort of smile and led her back out of the kitchen and down the hall to a door near the end--last one on the left-hand wall--which opened on her bunk.

Well..."cabin" might have been a better word. It was certainly the largest of the sleeping quarters on the ship. And why not? It wasn't like she had passengers often enough for it to really matter. Still, it wasn't a large space, nearly a third of the floor taken up by the bed, even where it was bolted into the wall.

But it wasn't so much the size of the room, it was what was in it. Three of the four walls were covered in a variety of positively ancient weaponry--blades and bows and even some sort of long, coiled spiked chain--none of which would have been used in centuries. Maybe longer. "Antique" didn't quite cover it, these pieces were museum-worthy. A smallish desk bolted to the wall near the foot of the bed had a collection of haphazardly stacked tomes that most would probably have assumed were collector's replicas of some sort, because surely they had to be, or they would have been as old or older than the weapons.

There was also a frankly eccentric number of odd little knick-knacks strewn about, some on the floor, some on shelves, a few even tossed carelessly onto the bed. Crystal carvings, something that looked like a more modern adaptation of a very old embroidery stitching ring, and quite a few whose purpose was simply indiscernible.

"So." Lynn crossed briskly to grab up a small vial of silvery, viscous liquid from where it lay carelessly on the edge of the desk, lifting it and squinting as she shook it slightly. "You said you've worked with magical equipment--how much experience do you have with rune work?" It was an art that had declined sadly in recent centuries, she had discovered to her chagrin.

Seexa stared at him a moment longer, then a cautious, breathless smile started to spread across her face in response.

"I'm...standing," she repeated quietly, almost disbelieving. She shifted a bit when he straightened, instinctively adjusting herself with his movement. Her legs still shook, but she wasn't leaning the entirety of her weight on him anymore.

Vaguely, she noted that if they both stood straight--or as straight as she could get her new legs to go--she was much shorter in comparison than she might have expected to be. Well. Inasmuch as she could have expected any of this.

Carefully, she drew her awkward, webbed feet closer together. She nearly toppled sideways, but managed to grab Torien's arm and steady herself. She shuffled a little closer, instinctively leaning into the stability he offered. She glanced up at him with another quick, small smile, though there was a slight wince behind it. Everything below her waist still felt unreasonably sensitive.

"What..." She glanced down at herself, then up again, looking between Torien and Crem. "What do I...do?"

For just a moment, less than a full breath, Maya was stiff and tense beside him when he moved closer. It was...difficult, in her current heightened emotional state, to keep her mind calm and not just project instinctively to anyone near her. With how surprisingly receptive Elaros was to ala'oran communication, she didn't doubt he'd be able to feel her own anxiety and fear with barely a touch if she wasn't careful.

It was maybe half a second, then she had her "voice" reined firmly back in control and she leaned into his side slightly, glancing up at him and nodding. I understand. And Ferdix warned me the weapons will register I'm not Drakkonan, so I should stick close anyway.

She tried for a wry smile, letting her hand lay gently against his arm for a brief moment with a slight pulse of a manufactured kind of calm. Well. Better than nothing.

She stared up at him with wide eyes for a few moments, mute, when he stopped her from rolling off his lap onto the floor. She shifted slightly when he moved to lay her down, bracing her forearms against the ground as she watched him stand with a small frown wrinkling her forehead.

At his encouragement, she took a breath and moved to try to get her legs under her body again. She managed that part alright--now she just had to make them bear her weight, right? Glancing up at Torien nervously every few seconds, she awkwardly finagled herself into a sort of half crouch, one hand braced against the ground and the other arm out for balance.

Then she took another breath and tried to heave herself upward. She actually managed to get all the way up that time, though her legs shook and bent awkwardly. Her arms pinwheeled as she tried to keep her balance, threatening to topple over, and she gave another frightened little squeak as she instinctively staggered forward and wound up grabbing onto Torien's shoulders to hold herself up, which brought her in rather close.

She was still damp, water dripping from the ends of her hair to steadily form a puddle around their feet, and she realized belatedly that by now it was starting to soak through his shirt. Seexa blinked at him, legs still shaking but at least holding her up now. "Um...sorry?"

Seexa watched his leg move, then flinched back a bit, startled, when the blade emerged from his toes. She recovered quickly enough, and it was plain that she wasn't afraid, just curious.

She managed a small, slightly shaky smile when he laid his foot beside hers. "Like me," she repeated. Her hand drifted up to her throat, remembering that first moment of true connection when he'd first found her. When they'd both tried to speak and winced at the effort.

Me too.

She made a considering sort of crooning noise when he gestured to her gills, nodding sort of dazedly. "It feels...weird," she mumbled, taking a careful inhale and then scrunching her face up when air traveled into her lungs. "Really weird."

She looked up at Crem, busy cleaning, and winced apologetically. "Sorry. Can...I help?" This was mostly her fault, after all. She wriggled around until she could sort of tuck her legs to the side like she might have with her tail, making a face and shuddering at the over-sensitivity, but that was fading, thank the stars.

Very, very carefully, she leaned forward until she could place one hand on the ground, the other braced against Torien's shoulder. She took a few steeling breaths--weird, so so weird--and pushed.

She managed to get almost halfway to her feet before her legs trembled and buckled under her own weight, sending her collapsing back into Torien's lap with an indignant squeak.

Seexa tried to swallow back another quiet whimper as his hand settled gently on her shoulder. He'd touched her there before, it shouldn't have felt so strange--though any touch was still something of a shock to her system. Still, she realized she felt even more overly sensitive to it than she'd been before.

She really hoped that was going to go away. She could feel the air against her pebble-scaled skin like a physical weight, making her itch and shift uncomfortably as she tried to push herself up beside Torien, letting him guide her up and steady her with his hands on hers.

"Okay..." She managed to settle herself beside him, leaning carefully against his shoulder for support, and looked down at her legs sprawled out awkwardly in front of her. Despite her friend's augments, his legs were at least shaped human. Hers were not.

She frowned and carefully tried to flick her tail--or whatever the equivalent that would be in this new shape. It turned out that was curling her long, webbed toes. "That's...weird," she muttered, blinking in that rapid, dual-lid pattern, first one set then the other in quick repetition. She tried it again, slightly more aware of how her body moved now, and managed to point and flex her feet a few times--like a dancer warming up--before the sensation started to prickle uncomfortably and she stopped.

"I...have legs." She looked up at Torien, then to Crem, then back, clearly completely lost. "I have legs."

Lynn flinched slightly, drawing her hand back from Dawaski's shoulder quickly, but she didn't linger long enough to give him the opportunity to try to dissect her reaction. Turning to Serina, she offered with a small smile, "Just follow me. Rose isn't a big girl, you'll get your bearings quick enough."

She waved for the three to follow her as she ducked around a corner, leading them in the opposite direction from the airlock and then down a short ladder onto a lower deck, which was really just one long hallway leading back to the engine room, with smaller rooms lined up on either side.

"Here we are." She led them through an open archway along the left side of the wall, into a small but meticulously clean and surprisingly high-tech galley. There wasn't really a proper table, but a stretch of smooth, stainless steel counter that jutted out from the wall and hosted a variety of lower cabinetry and appliances had a few stools pulled up to its other side.

"Let's start with some water," Lynn muttered to herself as she moved toward a small cooler set back into the wall, gesturing airily at her passengers in a vague, go on and sit sort of motion. "Any allergies I should know about?"

They hardly needed someone going into anaphylactic shock after just barely escaping some sort of eldritch-void abomination even she wasn't old enough to remember.