Despite her continuing annoyance at the landwalkers and everything they were putting on their river, Cloelia had found something of a silver lining. And, theoretically, it was even a silver lining that distracted her from eating the cursed creatures for being so... so... human. When the river – and apparently the rest of the town, but she didn't care about that part – had flooded, her Big White Box full of clothing had stopped being quite so waterproof and only the things she had cared enough to save had been rescued. Which included a few trinkets, her pink rubbery boots and her bag with her writing things. Very few of her clothes had survived it. There were lots of bits and pieces – t-shirts that were far too big for her because they had originally belonged to a man, etc. but those were things that apparently she wasn't supposed to go out in. Frankly, Cloelia didn't much care if the landwalkers liked what she wore. She didn't like what they wore. They separated their legs too much and it made her uncomfortable to watch. She was more interested in rebuilding the small collection she had lost.
Everything she was currently wearing had been taken from someone somewhere that day while they weren't looking, the over-sized t-shirt she had originally ventured out in having been stowed away in her bag. It was an accident that the shoes matched the dress and it had yet to occur to her that they did. She didn't usually wear black things because they weren't colourful enough, but the dress had sparkly bits on and shoes were shoes. Actually, she could have easily gone without the latter, but people gave strange looks. Stranger than usual. That she usually dressed oddly enough for them to stare that way was not something she was ever going to notice – she was covering up, what more did they want? They want to take their stupid vehicles onto our river and scare away all our fish. Looking up from her perusal of the bracelets she'd started hoarding on her wrists, Cloelia glared out at the boats. She wasn't living on a diet of shellfish forever. She didn't care what Charlene said. She really didn't care that that man over there had given her one of those boxes full of juice that you stabbed with a straw. At some point she would get round to doing that.
Shuffling her feet, her face set in a frustrated frown. Were the boats there because she and Charlene had let the other things go? Or were they going to do this anyway? Because either way, they still hadn't asked. Merfolk lived in this river. Three of them. And then there was Melia and she might have lived in the lake but that really wasn't the point. What if she wanted a change of scenery? It was their water-- Yes, boats. Even I knew that. But then she was a hundred and twenty years old and the voice that made that declaration was not. It was... small. Turning her head to find the source, Cloelia gave the approaching landwalkers a slightly curious frown. Really, she'd rather they didn't come near her. In all her years, she had never eaten a human while she looked like one, but she was still considering it. She was hungry. Well, no. She wouldn't eat the little one. It was too little. Food for kelpies. Which meant she wasn't eating it out of principle because she didn't like the stupid things. And it was kind of cute.
Still, she didn't understand what was so brilliant about the boats. From a mermaid's perspective they were deafening and dangerous and they scared your main source of food away. Which made mermaids more dangerous, really. From a landwalker's perspective... Well, she didn't see the point. They couldn't breathe under water. She knew, she'd drowned enough of them. So why risk it while simultaneously annoying the residents that would sooner eat you than the fish? All except Charlene.
Maybe these two knew. Smoothing out her frown, Cloelia untangled one arm from the strap of her bag and waved. She would have said hello, but she couldn't.