2022-01-30 - Boba Tea, And Other Aquatic Creatures

January 30. Vejle, Denmark or Gray Harbor, Washington, it's the same damn deal as far as Ravn and the weather are concerned. It's wet and damp with the occasional shower and a lot of fog. Temperatures are enough above freezing for everything to be muddy and blech, with none of the white and pretty. He'll never get home sick living here. He may very well get sick for the tropics, or at least, somewhere with light.

Gray Pond is a pleasant little town park-esque scenery in summer. With the woods nearby, the picturesque little bridge across the pond, the weeping willows -- it's the kind of tranquil place, with a few park benches and in summer, the occasional concession stand selling ice cream cones. In winter? Empty benches, dark water, and -- well, the bridge is still picturesque enough.

Ravn walks along the gravel path because he's supposed to -- to walk. It's easy in summer when the sun is warm and the air is dry; this time of year, every deep breath rasps in his throat. Not as badly as it used to -- because Coach Kelly was right to prescribe steady, regular exercise to increase his stamina. Bad enough that this time of year, he cherishes the rare crisp winter's day and mutters a few choice words about leaden skies and temperatures ranging just around zero.

He pauses by the bridge. He rests his elbows on the railing, and he looks into the water below. Cold. Grey. Dark. The occasional bit of floating matter, like a cup of very unattractive boba tea.

Secretive.

Ravn isn't the only one out and about for exercise, today, despite the cold and the blech and the greyness of it all.

Perdita is there, too, her long dark hair pinned up in crown braids, excepting a few wisps of her usual thick fringe and warm, though form fitting, athletic wear in bright pinks and purples.

Running isn't in the cards for her day, with the ground being just treacherous enough to send someone spilling on their ass if they miss a slick spot at high speed. So she's power walking, looking almost like she should be chasing a couple kids named Breighton and Quartkneigh around. Spotting her favorite brooder, she approaches. Years of moving quietly (and high quality sneakers) mean she barely makes a sound before she's leaning on the railing next to Ravn.

"You know... we could be in Cozumel right now, relaxing in the warm sun, with scantily clad eye candy serving us cold drinks as an ocean breeze takes the edge off the growing heat."

Looks like exercise is in the cards for Grey Harbor-ites today.

Or maybe just a few of them. It's also an excellent day for tea (or hot cocoa or coffee or hot toddies, I mean, pick your poison) and binging Netflix, so not everyone's out and about. The cold is close, clinging to legs and ankles. Thank god for knee-high socks beneath running pants. Ariadne keeps up a steady pace along the path. She picked the one over by Grey Pond today after a little Google research that painted the place as quite nice during the summer and quiet during the winter. Samwise, her brindle Silken Windhound, is still getting his bearings, and she doesn't want to stress out the poor little sighthound any more than necessary. As such, he's clipped to the courier-leash belted around her waist and keeps up an easy, smooth trotting pace, tongue lolling from his narrow mouth.

Oh, hey, people. Ariadne reaches to adjust her wide headband (keeping the tops of ears warm, critically important) and prepares herself to murmur greeting as she crosses the bridge. She knows she might not get any reply, but hey, she will have been nice and it counts. A patpat of her thigh brings Samwise closer to her leg, a practiced motion and she temporarily mutes her earbuds with a touch of the phone at her jacket arm-pocket.

"G'morning," puffs the redhead as she sails past on the bridge -- and then her steps slow as she does a double-take, looking back over her shoulder. Whoa. It's that one guy, the European -- the Dane -- who is forever destined to court disastrously-sugary drinks from Della. She continues on for another few meters before slowing down entirely to a brisk walk, Samwise giving her an inquiring look. "Gotta go say hi," she tells him in a breathy voice as they then turn to walk back towards the bridge. "Hey!" A lift of her gloved hand. "Ravn!" Still not pronounced perfectly correctly, but hey, she's trying. The Midwestern accent lends its own coloring to the name. "You out walking off some sugar?" She's got an apple-cheeked grin, these cheeks pink from cold and effort, for him.

The other woman is new and gets the same grin, if a little more reserved. "Poor sap is apparently destined to death by donut-flavored coffee," she says to Perdita, then thumbing at Ravn as she comes to a stop a few feet away. Samwise slowly wags his tail and looks between faces, ears lifted. He's just going to observe for the moment. "Ariadne, I work at Espresso Yourself, new around here." Her half of the conversation is going to be broken up by jogging's effort, apparently.

Ravn looks up at his name -- better pronunciation than a lot of the locals manage, let's be honest here -- and lights up in a smile at both. Did he hear Perdita approach? Probably not. Ariadne? More likely, given the sound of sneakers and dog's paws pounding against the gravel path. He raises a gloved hand in a wave to both women and rests his hip against the railing instead of his elbows.

"It'll be the death of me for sure. Done in by my bitter jealousy watching the rest of you enjoy your pure, undiluted -- I can't even keep a straight face saying that, knowing that Perdita always orders something I can steal." He grins slightly; it's only a matter of time before Ariadne will see that for herself, after all.

He glances back down at the dark water below and then hitches a shoulder. "I was -- watching. They fished a woman's body out of this pond last week, right here. A Serbian girl by name of Violeta -- I knew her, a little. She came through the community centre about six months ago, and then travelled on to Portland. No idea how she ended up back here, face down in Gray Pond."

A moment's hesitation; and then Ravn decides against just saying it outright. Instead, almost as an afterthought, "People around here say Gray Pond is haunted as all hell. That there's some kind of portal to the Other Side here. Makes you wonder if one might take a stroll her sometime, bump into some girl asking for a ticket to Portland and a dry shirt."

"Oh, yes. The feud with Della the Day Manager is stuff of legends, already. Someday, if I'm unlucky enough to have children, I'll tell them about the war that was fought at Espresso Yourself."

Her eyebrows go up slightly at the name, her smile quirking, "That was almost my name, a lifetime ago. Nice to meet you, Ariadne, I'm Perdita."

As the topic turns more serious, Perdita's smile fades, and she looks out onto the water. "I went skating here a few weeks ago with Garrett, when the ice was frozen over. That poor girl." her hand brushes over the unicorn pendant dangling from the chain around her neck.

"I hope she's able to find the peace she couldn't in life."

A soft laugh from the redhead in her jogging gear, dog and all, at the idea of the war of the coffee orders. It's on the tip of Ariadne's tongue to call Ravn a cheater for mooching off of others, but she simply grins instead. Coffee is in the eye of the beholder; if there's a way to get what's wanted, she understands the necessity of it. Perdita surprises her, however, making her brows rise. 'Ariadne' is not a common name at all and she knows it well.

"Nice to meet you, Perdita," the barista replies nonetheless, honest in her intent. Her smile does fade, however, melting very quickly into a moue of concern when she learns of the latest horrible happenstance of the area. Her entire body language closes off, down to how she folds her arms beneath her chest as if suddenly very cold. Samwise tucks himself closer to her legs, sensing the discomfort.

"Holy shit..." she whispers just loudly enough to be heard. The general creep factor of the area just multiplied itself by an exponential amount. She finds herself too looking at the dark waters and wondering what else lurks in their depths. Right now, the reflection is simply the grey of the sky and monotony of the thick, cottony clouds. It's dull, leaden, uneasy. "So...like...really-really? They really did pull a body out of here last week?" Ariadne looks between Ravn and Perdita, her expression solemn and greatly uneasy. "And I'm going to guess that because it's supposed to be haunted, this isn't the first time...?"

"It's not the first time, but it's also not a regular Sunday happening. I've heard stories of other bodies found here -- the locals will happily tell the first dozen or so." Ravn looks back down. "But that's the thing. People tell me those stories because I ask them to. I'm a folklorist -- I collect stories, urban legends, tall tales, all of it. I do prefer it when stories stay stories."

He shakes his head. "And as none of us are police officers -- it is not our place to investigate a murder. I am simply curious because I knew this woman, and I thought she was safe. She was a victim of human trafficking, and we thought -- well, that we'd never hear from her again."

Ravn takes a deep breath and looks around one last time (seeing, to his vast disappointment, no ghost of Violeta, eager to tell him what happened to her -- if only it was that easy). "No point in dwelling on it. Did you know that this pond is home to a unique breed of crustacean that exists nowhere else in the world?"

Exchange the depressing for the bizarre. It's slightly less gloomy at least?

"Holy shit, indeed." Perdita says softly, looking out over the pond with a soft sigh.

"There are a lot of things haunted in Gray Harbor. Places, buildings... people. I own a thoroughly haunted old building in town, completely full of ghosties, goblins and shimulo of all sorts. Something on the third floor likes to listen to old jazz when I'm the only one in the building. I keep expecting some dapper fella to call me 'dollface' and ask me if I wanna cut a rug." Perdita glances over at Ravn, eyebrows raising.

"Why do I get the feeling you're going to run a murderous fighting ring of them next summer?"

Ariadne looks between the two locals, gone silent and apprehensive. Okay, so...bodies floating in a pond, probably other murders dumped here, human trafficking, and now Perdita telling her with very little trace of joking that she works in a haunted building. It's vaguely charming to hear that the local ghost there likes jazz. It could be worse.

It still doesn't make her feel better. Samwise shifts next to her, licking his lips, and leaning against her legs. It makes the woman reach down and gently rub at one tulip-flopped ear out of habit.

But what about murderous fighting...rings...?

"Wait, crustaceans. Here?" She points at her feet, meaning in the water spread cold and still beneath the arc of the bridge. "You're talking some kind of crayfish or...?" Now they're moseying a little more into her neighborhood. Her interest was more in the orcas and larger predatory creatures in her college studies, but rare crustaceans are still of interest.

Ravn quirks an eyebrow and then exchanges a look with Perdita. He chuckles; something must strike him as amusing, somehow. There is nothing condescending about the spark of amusement in blue-grey eyes -- just some funny coincidence.

He looks back down at the water. "Oh yes. They're crayfish. Lobsters can't live in fresh water. But the locals call them ghost lobsters and the name sticks. They are large, kind of white-grey, opaque. And they're all females -- they're all clones of each other. No one really knows where they came from or why -- they turned up at the cemetery first, and then for some reason decided to move here, where they seem to have settled in.

The Dane rests an elbow on the stone railing of the bridge again. "Supposedly they taste absolutely awful. Not at all fit for human consumption. But yes, I think it's a given we'll see some of them in the ring next season."

Another glance towards Ariadne, and then Ravn shakes his head again because he can absolutely hear how ridiculous his next words sound: "Lobster fighting is a thing here. And it is exactly what it sounds like -- lobsters, fighting each other, and the loser is dinner. I am not going to pretend I get what's so exciting about crustaceans but there you go."

“It’s absolutely barbaric but I haven’t been able to get it shut down yet.” Perdita gives Ravn a look that suggests she knows he’s responsible.

“I guess at least they’re being eaten...” she shrugs slightly and sighs.

“I should get back to my exercise before my muscles tighten up too much. Don’t want to require a full body massage, after all.”

She smiles to Ariadne, “It was really nice meeting you, sorry things turned a bit morbid. Nice meeting your companion, too.” She smiles at Samwise, and then she’s off at a brisk walk, barely making a sound as she does, smiling.

Ariadne thought she was doing pretty good at grey crayfish. She was still doing alright at the somehow-reproducing female-only population. It's about when Ravn brings up 'cemetary' and then follows it up, echoed by Perdita, at the idea of a fighting ring with the loser as a dish that her eyebrows stop dancing about to merely knit. There's a roll of her lips shut in a plain second of disbelief before the other woman is departing. Her reasoning does remind Ariadne to keep moving.

"Nice to meet you too, Perdita! Have a nice walk!" calls out the barista, dedicating a few moments to watching Perdita cruise along. Shifting weight back and forth between her own legs until she's gracefully, nearly bouncing on the pads of her sneakers, Ariadne looks back at Ravn.

"Okay, so...ghost...lobsters which are really giant crayfish and somehow, you're in charge of a fighting ring of them where, even though they taste terrible, the losers get eaten anyways. How much of a thing...is this? People bet on this?" She looks still somewhat disturbed as a whole, mostly uncomprehending of how this is any form of excitement.

"Tell Garrett to give you a full body massage anyway," the Dane tells Perdita as she saunters off -- because why miss out on something nice just because you don't technically need it?

Then he turns back to Ariadne and glances down at the water. "First off -- they're not ghosts. People call them ghost lobsters because they're big and white and creepy -- but they are just very large crayfish. And parthogenesis is not unheard of in crustaceans and other aquatic life -- it's rare and bizarre, but it's not as if I just told you that the laws of nature don't apply in Gray Pond. I think some lizards do it as well." Ravn chuckles; he's obviously been asked questions of this nature many times before.

"As for crayfish fighting... It's alocal thing, yes. It makes no sense to me, and I am not going to pretend otherwise. There's a very long story about how I got involved but the gist of it? Yes, the local mill workers have a party breaking the law and being very bad boys, catching lobsters and crayfish and making them fight mock battles, before eating them. It's not as cruel as it sounds like -- the animals pretty much just sit there and wave their claws at each other a bit, and then it's dinner time. But the boys have such a good time being all sneaky and anti-establishment. I'm positive the police knows all they want to know about it, and that no fucks are given because seriously, it's grown men playing sneaky -- with crayfish."

While the humans continue speaking, Samwise indulges in a sniff of the wind. Cold. Water. This male stranger. His human. The dog's ears lift as he tracks the rolling flight of a Stellar's jay from one tree to another; the bird jeers loudly in a flash of feathers marked as a gradient from a black bill and head to deep sapphire blue at the wingtips and tail. Whatever the jay is saying, it makes the dog sigh and look around again. The animals are quite aware of the thinness of the Veil around here, even if the rest of the two-leggers might pretend to continue on at life without acknowledging it.

"Grown men playing with crayfish." Ariadne nods to herself and then can't help the little snort-laugh. She shakes her head, a lost tendril from her messy bun bouncing off her cheek. "I mean, it's not the weirdest thing I've heard lately, but...it's up there. I guess I still don't understand why someone would want to eat them if they taste terrible, but maybe it's some delicacy." She doesn't seem overly inclined to find sense in it either. Public retail service has taught her that people are the weirdest things around.

She ends up drifting over to Ravn's side of the bridge and peering over the edge down at the dark waters below. Samwise followed sedately, still lightly panting, looking out across the pond once more. "And parthogenesis is more common in species living in freshwater than oceanic water anyways, so I'm not too shocked to hear they're doing it, the crayfish. I had a professor who figures it's the instability and unpredictability of the freshwater environments which encouraged this particular evolutionary trait. Makes sense to me. But hold up." Ravn is now given a level, again dubious look. "These critters showed up in a cemetery first? And they're corporeal things."

"They did," Ravn confirms. "It must have been pure coincidence, though. The cemetery is right over there -- " he raises a gloved hand to point at St Mary's Church in the distance, and the plot of land around it with headstones and the occasional little mausoleum. "They were digging in there -- for all we know, the place was, uh, easy access to food, maybe."

And then we talked them all into marching up into Aidan Kinney's truck and get driven over here, where they dispersed in good order and haven't bothered anyone since. Also, they flirted with August Roen.

He decides to leave that last part unspoken. Ariadne has the air of someone who will be thinking nothing of it in a year from now, maybe; but at the moment, she is still new in town, still adapting to the strange, still thinking that reality has to obey a certain set of rules. There'll be a time where thousands of girl lobsters marching in good order is just -- well, good news insofar at least they're doing nothing worse.

He glances back at the woman. "You're an academic, then? I'm technically an employee of Copenhagen University. The lobsters don't mind."

Ariadne follows the point of the Dane's arm towards the distant silhouette of the church in question. She squints, only barely able to pick out the cemetery grove in turn. Her twist of lips conveys her thoughts on crayfish rooting around there for a little snack: disturbing, abnormal, and yet somehow vaguely still in line with the general behavior of the species. Dead fish are always well-loved by crayfish. Why would dead humans be any different?

She still muses to herself that it's unconventional enough to be a disturbance. Dead people should be left alone. Geez.

"An academic? Sure," she then replies as she glances back, smiling without showing teeth. "It's just a bachelor's degree, marine biology. Like I mentioned earlier, my real interest was the orcas, but I am a huge sucker for the wolf eels. Those gigantic ugly dorks are just...really flippin' cool. Did you know if you go scuba diving over at the Narrows Bridge, the floating bridge from Tacoma which takes you to Gig Harbor, there are wolf eels under there? And I'm talking the biiiiig suckers, five feet long or more." She then laughs, remembering an incident. "If you ever want to hear a grown man scream inside his scuba mask, surprise him with a sudden wolf eel being curious."

Ravn can't resist a chuckle; that's a very vivid mental picture, and he can kind of hear the gurgling scream in his mind. "I don't think I have seen one of those. But I have seen moray eels in the Red Sea, and I imagine it's much the same thing? A long, strong eel that hides in crevices, with a mouth ful of daggers and a temper to match? They are beautiful in their own way."

He looks wistful a moment. "Marine biology? That doesn't sound boring in the slightest. You're hoping to end up working with the Coast Guard or some research facility here, in the long term? I can't quite work out whether the bay here is an unusual biome, or it's just -- well, another saltwater fjord. I've seen orcas out there, now that you mention them though -- and that surprised me, because I didn't think they'd come this close."

"Yeah, it's never really boring, being able to poke around with what I've learned with my degree. I'm, uh...not really sure what I want to do long-term around here," Ariadne admits with a little shrug and a lop-sided quirk to her smile. Samwise takes a moment to check in with his person, ears lifted. She glances back with timing just a little too quick -- maybe it was peripheral vision. Either way, the sighthound earns himself some gentle scritching about his ears and he leans into his owner's leg with a quiet groan of delight. "I'm kind of still getting my feet wet. Bah-dum-pssht," the redhead adds, shrugging.

"But wolf eels aren't pretty. They're cute, sure, but kind of how only something so ugly can be cute. They've got snub noses compared to the moray eels. I'm surprised you've seen orcas out here though. They don't normally drift this far south along the coast. They're more commonly found in the Salish Sea. I'll certainly keep an eye-out for them though, if that's the case. I've got some old friends who'll be interested to hear about any sightings down here. You're talking in the bay, the North Bay, not out by Ocean Shores?" she then asks, wanting confirmation in the nonjudgmental way of the scientist.

"This town does seem to love making statistics into a joke," Ravn murmurs and glances down at the water; something white-ish moves a little down there, like a pearl in a cup of boba tea -- but whether it's the sunlight causing a reflection on some lighter patch of rock or one of those elusive ghost lobsters he has no way to tell (at least not until it decides to come up and wave at him or something).

He thinks back to that sailing trip last spring. Just going fishing, him and Kailey Holt on the Vagabond, picnic basket and sunshine, bring some salmon home. Kitty Pryde sitting in the prow like a feline galleon figurehead.

Truth is, that great white had worried him. Until the orcas killed it. And whether any of them were actually real? Heaven only knows.

He nods. "It was here, in the Bay -- about halfway out to the ocean. From what the locals tell me it's not entirely unusual -- sharks, whales, you name it. We have fjords in my home country too -- shallow, like the bay here. When large whales find their way into them, it's usually because they are sick and injured. These were doing just fine, though."

Ravn's murmur has the redhead looking thoughtful. It's an interesting thing to consider, if it's true. Some locals just happen to have the odd-out variables -- rare sightings more commonly or clumps of creatures somehow surviving despite disparate odds. She follows the Dane's look and catches sight of that faint gleam deep within the pond. With an effort, the woman pulls her attention away from it. Crayfish? Maybe. Bone? Also possible, no thank you, she's good for spooky water today.

"It's unusual enough," the biologist notes, frowning in the direction of the Bay, " -- but that's the best thing about nature. You really can't predict it, not in the end. Orcas in North Bay? Totally possible. They're curious creatures, it could be that the matriarch of the pod thought the Bay was a good place to explore for new food sources, something like that. Or maybe there was a new baby in the pod and calmer waters were needed for a bit so baby could figure out how to breathe and swim better before trying the off-shore currents. God, I hope it was a new baby," Ariadne says wishfully, her brows knitting. "They're so beautiful and they're struggling. It sucks."

A sharp sigh. "Man, if I'm at the Bay and that pod shows up again, y'all are going to hear me shriek at some ultrasonic decibel to make the seagulls scatter," she laughs quietly.

"I can't say I know a whole lot about orcas," Ravn admits. "They're not very common to Danish waters -- too shallow, too much traffic, not enough prey. We have porpoises and white-sided dolphins, and on a rare occasion we see belugas and bottlenose dolphins that have wandered in accidentally. And, apparently, fin whales turn up now and then."

He reflects a moment, and runs a pair of slender, gloved fingers along his jaw. "In fact, the oldest fin whale ever examined swam into Vejle Fjord a few kilometers from my home back in 2010. He was more than a hundred and thirty years old. It was a pretty big deal in the papers at the time -- they tried to get him back out to sea to save his life, but he insisted on just lying on that little sand reef and eventually dying there. After he died they stripped the flesh from the bones and let the marine biologists loose on them."

Grey eyes return to the present and the woman Ravn is talking to. "My mind wanders, easily. I did see humpback whales here once -- a pod, singing, off shore, not here in the bay. I've seen spermacet, humpback, grey and right whales in Greenland, but I can't imagine any of those would venture into a warm, shallow bay such as this, unless it was indeed to die."

Adriane nods. "I remember reading about that old fin whale, yeah. What a grand old thing. Makes me wonder how intelligent they are and whether or not we're doing them some great injustice in general," she murmurs, following the Dane's gaze off into the distance. He comes back from his memory and she glances over at him again, quietly attentive. Samwise lifts his ears at the jay again when it jeers from across the pond, alerting to something in the grasses. It's probably some little creature, something benign.

The dog hopes. And the human hopes, unconsciously, by proxy.

"There are the humpbacks, yep. What a great sound, huh? Their singing. It's beautiful and...eerie," the barista decides, glancing down at her furry companion. "It's fun to watch them breach too. I hope we never get a humpback trapped in here. It's too shallow. There would have to be a huge effort to get it back out." Another long glance towards the Bay and then Ariadne seems to nod to herself. "Hopefully never." Samwise makes a soft sound and she looks at him again. "Cold toes, buddy?"

Urf, agrees the Windhound.

"Alright, sorry, Ravn, we need to get going. He's too skinny to be out in this weather for long," the redhead explains, adding in baby-talk, "Aren't you, you scruffy little sack of bones?" Bwuff, agrees Samwise, having risen to his paws and wagging his feathered tail. "It was great seeing you again! I'm glad you were out walking, good for your lung, like you said." Another grin. "I'll see you around again soon then. Come show me a magic trick!" comes the reminder even as the barista is turning away to see about completing her lap around the paths.