2020-08-08 - The Sunken City

August was sleeping in his own bed in his own cabin with his fiance, for the first time in days, and it was amazing. He'd been so happy. Now, he's here, shirtless, with the lower body of a radiant lionfish. Tattoos cover his back and pepper his abdomen and belly, all of them over scars. And wow, he looks pissed.

"Son of a fucking bitch," he snarls, which sounds odd in the water given the baritone of his voice and just how righteously angry off he is. He can't really shoulder free of everyone the way he'd like to; the wounds from his surgery and the stabbing are angry red and tender, crosshatched with stitching, and his left shoulder won't support any weight. So he wriggles, trying not to nail people with the spiny fins which he knows, in the back of his mind, are poisonous.

I'm a fish.

That's as far as Ravn has gotten so far. He's probably a very comical figure at that, wiggling his tail fin and staring around himself as if wondering who slipped him peyote instead of coffee, and why the bloody hell --

I'm a fish.

This is either one of those Dreams, or it's the most fucking awesome nightmare I've ever had.

Vyv was also sleeping in his own bed in his own, well, apartment, though having not just spent the last few in the hospital, he probably wasn't appreciating it as much as August was appreciating his. That said, he was still pretty happy where he was, and where he was is no longer where he is. He's still shirtless, and still curled up against Grant, but now he has a tail again (which a glance shows has not ceased to be fairly fabulous, at least) and, worst, is awake. Or at least, not asleep, though clearly Dreaming. Actually, that might be worst.

"Really?" he mutters in that weird warbly-watery way, shifting to look around and take in who else is there, "Why does this never... no, actually, I suppose this is technically some of the better timing it's managed." A sigh, and he shifts position, trying to make more room for August and his spines to move -- HIS torso is unmarred by scarring, and he'd like to keep it that way -- and says in a voice more meant for others, "Good evening. Morning. Whichever it may be now." His accent, as it happens, is quite close to what Ravn's aspires to be, or at least what his teachers were going for. Ravn, spotted, gets a curious look. The others were here the last time; this one, he's never seen. Even with legs.

Grant wakes suddenly with that urge to escape high speed away from-... to-... He blinks. Where are they? The tattoos on his back descending into black dots and a bright metallic cerulean blue scalage and sharp fins, he line down his side shot with a saffron yellow racing stripe to the silver white scale in front like a California Marlin merman. Agility and speed. Well by the loosest definition he is technically an athlete so it still suits, and the skateboarder does a loop before looking at the blue-ish webbing between his fingers. He looks to Vyv first lifting an arm and wiggling a fin on the back of it and signs to him looking a bit assured as he's unharmed.

Looking around he twists in a circle with a slightly distressed expression. There's a familiar face so August is here. Cool. Something though... He does spot a new face and looks to Ravn with some concern. Hands move in lieu of speech but everything in his body language seeming to inquire if he's okay.

Free of the others, August works on convincing the spiny fins to lie flatter. He only sort of succeeds, but it makes at least a little more space for everyone. This is when he notices Ravn, and blinks at him. His anger cools in exchange for sympathy. "Well. This'll be a hell of an introduction to the bullshit." He waves to Vyv and Grant, and begins to drift outside the shell, looking for the source of the singing.

I'm a -- hey, I know some of those other fish.

Ravn finally manages to get his act together a little in the realisation that yes, he is in fact currently a rather nice half a blue tuna. The other half, mercifully, appears to be what he's accustomed to -- a somewhat skinny, tall guy. He swishes his tail testingly a few times as if to figure out how all of this works -- and nearly rams his head against the nearest surface in the discovery that actually, yes, tunas have quite powerful tails.

Rubbing his forehead with one hand he murmurs a rather sheepish, "Never bored in Gray Harbor, huh?"

Vyv waits until August and his spines are past and free before he risks actually swimming, the gauzy fins of his tail unfurling in the water as he moves, iridescent rainbows with a definite lean toward the blue portion of the spectrum flickering along the scales and webbing from about the waist down. «All all right?» he signs to Grant, and answers Ravn aloud: "Very rarely. A definite selling point, though whether that's the usual definition or an argument for taking offers..."

A few flicks of his tail, making his way out of the shell, though his attention remains partly on Grant, and he inquires in sign, «Easier if we mindlink again?» He's not a very good signer, and the water doesn't entirely help, but at least Grant's fairly used to figuring out what he's trying to say.

Grant just observes Ravn-fish who did not so much seem to answer the question insinuated, but seems okay. He signs back what is clearly at the core of it some pointing, something grabbed, and something...short? Maybe a child? His eyes move around and there's a glance to Vyv on the sly reaching out to he, and August and... he tries for the guy who is at least as jazzed about this as he is (look it's neat, okay??)

"Missing kids. Turned into guppies. Drown, remember? Here somewhere...or is this dream different?" He's trying to be inclusive and the sign goes fast...or he's a water bender. One of these things is happening. "I dunno if he can hear me. I don't think he's local." To being a fish. More hilarious if he had any idea the man had an accent.

Seeing Grant's signing out of the corner of his eye, August looks back over his shoulder at him. He accepts the Mental link, eyes shifting to Ravn and going unfocused. There's a little tingle that Ravn feels, like someone's touched his hair or brushed a finger over the back of his hand. <<He can't do this. His mind Art's not strong enough.>> Situation confirmed for Grant, he tells Ravn, "There were kids who got pulled into this last time with us. Turned into," he gestures at his tail, refusing to say mer-person, "and drawn towards a city." He nods his head at it. "That city." He returns to scanning the distant structure. "Not sure where they are now, though. And there was something else, something...dark. Like a squid or, something."

The Danish guy's blue-grey eyes are gleaming as he looks at his tail and swishes it again. This is clearly the most awesome dream he's had in a long time. This is fan--fintastic.

And then it isn't. He sobers at August's words. "Right." That's all he says -- probably in part because the whole idea of speaking underwater, however warbly, seems to so very wrong. But also because it's about at this point his subconscious mind politely taps his shoulder and then proceeds to yell at him about just how many times he's been warned so far that the Dreams are in fact absurdly dangerous, that you can get trapped in them, and that people die in them. He makes a visible effort to get his initial glee reined in, and well, fall in line behind the other fish.

Vyv's blue-grey eyes have less of that gleam, but they do keep flickering down to check out the tail -- er, his own tail, that is -- and the way it catches the light off the things around them that glow, and what little filters down. It is kind of neat. And it's very pretty. The other tails get looks too, and he sighs when the last visit's situation gets brought up. "Well, really, they were pulled in first. None of us would have got near enough the water to be taken if they hadn't been disappearing already," he says, sending the same over the mental link. It's easier than signing, even if he has to watertalk for Ravn's sake as well.

"I suppose we really ought to go investigate that city and see if they're there, shouldn't we. If it's the same time and place, it probably is why we're here. Or at least related to." He is far less enthusiastic about this than the glances hint he might be about the tail. 'Resigned and faintly annoyed' would be more accurate.

Grant sticks close to his dude. He watches August translate and then Ravn taking it in and floats slightly closer, and possibly trying to steal heat from a fish by proximity which is not a great plan if they are cold-blooded right now. There's something bugging him. Maybe it's when you have one sense damaged others get sharper but it's got him looking around and the reverb and current shift he's picking up in the water has all of his attention pulled... there! He doesn't say anything at first kicking off and drifting. After a moment he doesn't sign singing but he does sign, weird current. This way? he looks back rather than taking off having enough common sense to stick as a group.

August isn't so fast as Grant or Ravn; a lionfish just isn't a creature built for speed. It doesn't need to be, touching it is a dangerous proposition, after all. Few creatures are in a hurry to gulp down poisoned barbs. It doesn't help that the natural current-motions he should make are hampered by that bad shoulder.

So is getting free of the kelp. Not that he tires very hard, at first; he just wants to check it out. Dream Macrocystis! When is he ever going to get a chance to see something like this again? So he drifts close, running his hand over it, smiling even. Until it returns the favor, and then some.

"Great, sticky kelp," he mutters, trying to work himself free. At some point he gets annoyed enough, and the Art flares in him, brilliant. Listen here--let us the hell go. It works; the fronds unwind and release him...but not the others. Though the strands binding Ravn give a little, the Dane-tuna remains trapped.

It's a little sad, to be honest. A Danish guy, growing up by the sea in the sense that you can literally not go anywhere in his home country where you are not within an hour's drive of that very sea. You'd think he'd be a stronger tuna. The Dane flails like a Japanese schoolgirl realising just what kind of manga she's been recruited for, but the only actual result is that he seems to get more stuck. The spirit is willing but the sashimi is indeed weak. It's certainly clear to any of the more local men, perhaps expecting him to do something shiny, that the idea does not even occur to the man. Hands. Fins. Stop him before he tries teeth and gets his mouth stuck.

Seaweed is great in sushi. Vyv's got at least one dessert he's been working on that makes surprisingly use of it as well, and that's without even considering carrageenan. But wet seaweed, still in the water, where it's all slimy? And worse, in this case, sticky? NOPE. Vyv nopes right back out of there before he even really thinks about it, that backflip turning into a tight, graceful little twirl at the end to eye the stalks, and the others while they're caught. If he's at all aware that macrocystis is this, and not an extremely painful reason to see a urologist, he's still a heck of a lot less enthused about encountering it than August is. "Lovely."

[Is it hurting you?] he sends to Grant, and narrows his eyes at the strands. If he had any decent sort of plant influence beyond The Crowley Method and, apparently, texting August, he wouldn't have had to do the latter so recently. But maybe they'll respond to telekinesis? It's worth a try.

Grant darts fast. It's what he really does without flippers and fins and shit: go fast, jump lots. He darts right into the maw of the sticky kelpy forest. It sticks and latches on to arm and he flexes trying to pull it to get another that snags him and he pulls his arm up and it just about to bite it back out of spite realizing this is not a great application. Oh yeah, the super glue incident. He stops struggling and looks around making the universal hand sign and asking mentally "Scissors? This plant is groping me in ways I am officially not consenting to." Audibly? Well the sound that rises in his chest is a series of bubbles and small, distressed whine.

August curses as the kelp yanks Ravn and Grant away, immediately gives chase. "Oh no you don't," he growls under his breath, and reaches out to slice at the strands entangling Ravn, Glimmer flaring as he does so. "Keep fighting!" he calls out, eyes on that approaching abyss and the captive in it.

It's probably starting to dawn on Ravn that this whole Dream thing can be overrated. Yes, having a tail is great fun. Flitting about the ocean with your shiny blue tuna tail is fin-tastic. Being stuck to sticky kelp that literally rasps the skin right off his body -- that, on the other hand, is about as wonderful as that other moment, when the Headless Horseman's sword swished by an inch from his ear. It's not a game, he tells himself. It's not meant to be funny. Get your act in gear. Do something.

Do what? Flail harder? Not helping. Not that he lets that stop him from trying.

Remembering the entire bloody Little Mermaid? Not helping either. The H. C. Andersen story is not a Disney fairytale with a Disney fairytale happy ending. When the Mermaid gets stuck in the kelp sea there is nothing she can do to save herself. She's absolutely screwed sideways into Sunday, until the sea witch lets her out. Remembering things like that with perfect clarity is why Ravn just very occasionally thinks being a folklorist sometimes sucks big, ricy sushi balls.

Something tells me that that bloke isn't a nice, friendly sea witch who just wants my voice.

I have a voice. Hey, I could talk before, even if we're under water.

"I, er, think we need to free that guy," the Dane says lamely. Look how smart he is. Useful bookworm. So obsessed with thinking that somehow, he managed to flail free and not even notice until he suddenly looks very surprised and more than a bit sheepish.

Vyv growls at the amount of Grant-freeing his attempt accomplishes, which is to say, none, and the mental remarks don't make him look any happier. That yoink even less so, and he darts along the opened path after skater and folklorist, reaching to open water with his arms and the kelp around Bax with his mind, the motions and thoughts both trying to untangle and rip it from him. "Give him back, you overgrown excuse for a 1-dollar day-old kaiten-zushi cucumber roll!" Look, the only accuracy he cares about right now involves how precisely he can make those things wish they weren't grabbing Grant. Though if they turn out to have emotional insecurities, he'll happily aim for those as well.

Freeing the guy in the center is of secondary concern at best, but the glare at the singing children, let alone whatever that is far below, suggests he's feeling automatically on sharkman's side regardless. "Yes, fine." After Bax.

Grant is perhaps not in the greatest take team here having limited communication. OH the faces he's making though struggling and sounding a bit like a cat strangled by responsibility. There are things finally pulling back on the kelp and only that seems to give him enough purchase being spun around. He's usually built for these things but he's so damn tired and the weird reverbs are throwing his orientation off. And then the cutting remarks. Is that... an illusion of little emoji bubble hearts around his head? Yes, yes it is and he's not apologizing. But then there's the scene before them and it is grim.

He sends a mental relay back while gesturing with alarm in a very obvious WHAT THE FUCK??! at the scene before them. "Holy Children of the Hydroponic Corn, guys! There's a kiddie pool here trying to feed some guy to sharks and I DO NOT think it is David Blane!" Oh his inner commentary.

Looking to Ravn he squints and nods emphatically. There are gestures to the two of them and then point-points to the guy and makes a pulling gesture. Yes. Free the guy! Hopefully Vyv and August have a plan cause, uh, he forgot to make the rest of his and is just kind of depending on a carry here. Off top speed he goes to try to lifeguard rescue the sacrifice with Ravn.