Nixie Pearl (silentwaves) wrote in light_of_may, @ 2009-11-18 11:19:00 |
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Entry tags: | 2009-06-22, charlene |
Big Sister Knows Best
Who: Charlene and Nixie
When: Mid-afternoon
Where: Some relatively deep spot in the river a.k.a. wherever Charlene sleeps.
What: A sisterly heart-to-heart... otherwise known as the elder talking down to the younger and thinking she's out of her mind.
Two years had passed since Nixie had forced herself to leave the wide-open waters of the ocean for these more confined ones. And for what? She was someone who scoured shipwrecks and flooded cities long forgotten for knowledge of the past. In her opinion humans and those likes them were more intriguing dead and really, they had the most interesting opinions about her race. Cursed by the sun indeed! Nixie snorted at the thought of one legend about as much as at the realization that her thoughts had gone completely off track again. If she kept this up then it'd be at least another day before she discovered whether or not her sister was one of the merfolk reputed to be in the area.
Untangling a piece of seaweed from where it had lodged in her hair, Nixie observed the wooden boat at the bottom of the river. Some may have thought it a ship due to its size and location, but she had seen real ships and they were much more impressive than this junk. Nevertheless, there was someone in there and she intended on waiting until whoever it was came out. If it happened to be anyone other than Charlene? Then they'd be able to give her more information. Win win in her book, so long as she stopped letting her thoughts drift off wherever they wanted to go.
To say that the previous day had been long would have been one of the biggest understatements that Charlene had made in her life - and she had made quite a few of those from time to time. But it was more than worth it because it had also been the best day the mermaid had had since she left the ocean. She ran over the events of the night, from meeting Roxy up to parting ways with that strange girl Imogene, as she sat in front of her slightly cracked mirror, arranging shells in her hair. A glance up through one of the holes in her 'roof' showed her that the surface of the water was dark and broken up by rain droplets. Even if she did leave the water, then, her hair could stay decorated.
Deciding that maybe she could get a bit more exploring of her surroundings done, Charlene swam out through her makeshift door, stopping cold when she realized that there was someone floating very close. A second glance had her dark eyes widening and a smile breaking out on her face, her excited trill loud as a shout above water. "Nixie?!" Before the other mermaid could even respond, Charlene swam at and threw her arms around the darker mermaid, laughing. "It's been over a decade! By the gills, what brought you here of all places?" She thought that she might know the answer, but she would rather not think about it. Maybe it was just a happy coincidence.
Tensing slightly as the mermaid emerged, Nixie immediately relaxed when she saw from the flash of silver that it was her younger sister. Definitely her, the older mermaid thought as she was struck by a hug that resembled a tackle, only just keeping them from going spinning towards the nearest riverbank. "Hi to you too," she responded, untangling herself from her over-eager sister. She raised an eyebrow at Charlene's question before tapping her on the nose. "I told you I'd come and see how you were doing someday. This is that someday." The fact that it'd been a two-year search she'd wait to mention until she added in that she had every intention of taking Charlene back to the ocean, by force if necessary.
"I'm just amazed to see you!" Charlene admitted. She had left the pod twelve years ago near Nova Scotia without looking back, making her own way rather well if she did say so herself - which she did, frequently if allowed. "How'd you find me? I didn't exactly leave a wide trail for anyone to follow..." Well, okay, there were the incidents in the Great Lakes and that time with a merman when she first came up the Huron river but she did not really count them. Anyone could have done the same thing. "Not that I'm not glad to see you! I am, really."
Or not, Charlene thought with a mental wince. Just the previous night she had acknowledged the fact that certain recent behaviors would have her sister coming after her with a fillet knife. Nixie would be that sister. Hopefully there was nothing sharp in that seaweed bag of hers.
Nixie raised an eyebrow again, this time crossing her arms. The years had lent to her forgetting just how naive her younger sister could be for all her intelligence. "Lene," she said patiently, "I watched you grow up; I know the sort of things that you like to do. For me, you might as well have been following a well-known current. I've had ships that were harder to find than you." That wasn't exactly true or else it would've taken her less time, but Charlene didn't have to know. Better that she think she was easy to track than not, or else she might decide to take off when Nixie wasn't watching.
Right... sometimes Charlene forgot that there was an extremely large portion of her life that had been spent with her pod, all of whom could doubtlessly name off her favorite things to do without much thought. She had also forgotten that Nixie was the one who had always been able to find what she wanted even if it should have been impossible. Good thing I wasn't trying not to be found. If that had been the case, then she would not have reacted so well to finding her sister waiting for her. Well, if it had been Kendra then she would have reacted quite differently, but since it was Nixie. "I guess you're right... so; how long are you going to stick around? The fishing's pretty good, the seaweed isn't so bad and clams are so easy to open it'll amaze you." One of her hands drifted up to toy with a piece of her hair, an old nervous habit that she had fallen out of after leaving the pod.
Typical Charlene, pointing out the good parts of being in freshwater and not seeming to give a second-thought to how unappealing all of those things would sound to someone who had never wanted to leave the ocean. "I've been living off the freshwater substitutes for long enough to know what is and isn't good," Nixie informed her younger sister. Subtle hinting at how inferior these waters were might be a good way to warm her up to the eventual 'time to leave' statement. Though if she hadn't changed, Nixie expected a stubborn refusal. "And I don't know how long I'll be staying here; there doesn't really seem to be much of interest in the area. Have you found anything?" Yes, that was a better way to ask what she had been up to then the actual question. It'd be good to know if Charlene still kept up her old ways of going among humans and their like.
"Nothing that would interest you," the younger sister answered truthfully, though she gave a particularly hard tug on her hair. She had met some interesting people by her own definition - here her thoughts did exactly what she had hoped they would not and conjured up an image of a blushing woman with pink and black hair and soft skin - but she did not want to tell her sister that. Oh no, that would be the worst thing she could do! If she had been in human form her palms would have begun to sweat at the thought of what Nixie would do if she learned that Charlene had - no, best not to even think of it or she might say it. She had always had a problem with blurting things out and regretting it the moment she did.
"Though I'm sure you could find something," Charlene continued, "there's one of those human universities nearby and they have a rather impressive library, or so I've heard. I bet you'd be able to find all sorts of books."
Nixie's expression became thoughtful, not because of what Charlene said, but because of how she pulled on her hair. That'd been one of her habits since childhood, pulling on her hair when she was nervous or trying to hide something. But what would she be trying to hide from her? Perhaps there was an attractive merman in the area and she thought Nixie might show interest... hmm, that was something to think on. But it was almost completely wiped away with the disappointment she felt at Charlene talking about human things. Of course her sister didn't actually like humans, she'd been more of a nuisance to them than Nixie, but she was still playing around with them. "Is that why you stopped here?" she asked, ignoring the actual context of what Charlene had said. "Because there is a city nearby?" Their mother would have a heart attack.
"Yes," Charlene replied, straightening a little with a slightly sullen look. As though there was anything wrong with that! Okay, so maybe there was when it came to her family, but still. If she had stopped somewhere that was barren of others then she might have gone mad by now. She simply was not a completely solitary creature, even if her idea of interaction was as easily accomplished with selling a few things she thought worthless. "It gives me something to do when I get bored and I haven't been given any sort of reason to leave yet." On the contrary, she had been given one to stay. No, no, no! She was not thinking about that!
"Besides, you're always looking at human wrecks and books, so it's not like you've got much room to talk." The fact that those were completely different things - one dealing with humans alive and the other with them dead and gone - did not quite occur to her.
That sullen look caused Nixie to smile even though it made her want to shake her head. It brought back memories of when they'd been with the pod and Charlene had been caught doing something she shouldn't. So has she been doing something she shouldn't? Nixie wondered. If so, all the more reason to get her away soon. "Please, Lene, there's a very big difference between the two and you know it," Nixie's tone was disapproving. "At least assure me that you haven't gone and spoken with any of them. Or worse, shown what you are." Humans were historically incapable of dealing with things different from them; their histories rife with wars caused over things just like that. Though, knowing Charlene, causing a war might be right up her alley.
Lying sounded like a very good idea at that moment, the only problem with it being that Charlene was not the sort to lie. Not out of any sense of moral obligation but because she simply did not do it. Before leaving the ocean she had not had any reasons to and after leaving the same was true. But now all she could think of was what telling the truth would do - upset Nixie and possibly set off one of those lectures that her older sister had always been so fond of giving. Again a previous thought came back to haunt her, she would fillet me!.
Instead of answering, Charlene turned her head away. She was an adult and had been for nearly half a century, but that did not change lifelong habits. Especially ones that were suddenly pushed in front of her due not only to her own actions, but the arrival of her sister who upheld all of those beliefs just like Charlene was supposed to. Nixie would never have done what Charlene had, not even if she was threatened with fire. Of that she was certain.
When her younger sister looked away, horror tingled along Nixie's spine. She had known that Charlene could be odd, but she had never suspected... wait, she could be blowing this all out of proportion. Maybe Charlene told someone and then took care of the problem, just like their mother had done. It'd be wonderful if that was what she had done and she was just ashamed to admit it. The fact that Charlene never seemed ashamed slipped Nixie's mind, she was willing to believe the best of her kin. "Lene," she said carefully, placing a hand under the other mermaid's chin to tilt it up so that she had to look at her, "have you shown anyone what you are?"
Charlene's dark eyes were miserable when Nixie asked her the direct question. "Yes," came the quiet reply, "I did that." There was nothing else to say, nothing else to do, but float there and wait for the lecture.
The way that Charlene said it and the look in her eyes told Nixie that her original tingle of horror had been right after all. Her little sister had come inland and revealed herself to humans. Or non-humans for all she cared, but either way they weren't merfolk. "Do you have a death wish? Have you forgotten what non-merfolk do to us?" She let go of Charlene's chin to take her shoulder and give her a good shake. "What in the name of the tides has gotten into you??" She wasn't sure whether she was more angry, horrified or just plain scared by the lack of common sense her sister had just revealed herself to have.
Squeezing her eyes shut, Charlene let Nixie shake her, feeling a bit like she deserved it. But only a little bit, because she was no child to be slapped on the wrist for making a choice. It was not like she had gone out and revealed to the entire city that she was one of the merfolk and she lived in the river! She had told one person and only after having been shown that she was no human herself. A spark of anger lit inside her chest and Charlene pulled herself away.
"I'm not a child, Nixie," she informed her older sister, "I can decide for myself and besides, I only told one person. She's not going to go out telling the entire world about me and I highly doubt she's going to hurt me." Well, the problem with that was that it might not be true. Something told Charlene that Roxy would be able to hurt her in ways that no one else had, not even the mermaid who had been part of the reason she left the pod. But Nixie definitely did not have to know that.
Perhaps this was a dream? Nixie had fallen asleep and dreamed that she had found Charlene, only she had become this mermaid before her instead of the sister she had expected. But then Charlene pulled away and Nixie was forced to accept that this was all really happening. But that was okay, she could fix this. Whatever had gotten into Charlene's head could be forced out just as easily with the right words. "You've been away from the sea for too long," Nixie said in her most soothing voice, "clearly all of this freshwater has gotten to your head and it needs to be cleared. Why don't you come back with me? Once you feel the tides around you again you'll forget all about this and everything will go back to normal." Once that was done, she'd be free to return to her studies. It'd be nigh on impossible to do that knowing that Charlene was putting herself into this kind of danger without even thinking of it as such. Little sisters clearly couldn't be trusted to be on their own until they were at least 150.
Charlene was surprised, and not very happy, with everything that Nixie said. Go back to normal? She was just starting to - after over a decade on her own - discover things that she never would have if she had remained with the pod. She did not want them to return to 'normal'! The only thing she wanted less was this idea of leaving and not coming back; or leaving at all for that matter. She had just begun to discover good reasons to stay and she was not about to give them up just because Nixie was set in her ways and thought she should be too. Well, I should be, a tiny voice piped up. And part of her still was, but there... well... things changed. Especially if they were influenced and Charlene had felt a stirring of influence the previous night.
"I'm not going back." Her fingers went back up into her hair, toying with a small shell that had come lose when Nixie shook her. "I left the ocean for a reason, Nixie, just like you left the pod for a reason." Well, Nixie had not actually said that she left the pod but it was easy to guess, otherwise she would not have come here. Charlene was almost positive that her old pod would not come this far from the ocean ever. The elders were a bit too set in their ways for a change like that. "I like it here and I'm more than capable of taking care of myself. Been doing it for long enough." Even while she had been a part of the pod she had still gone off on her own often enough. Right now, she thought that maybe Nixie was acting more like a mother than a big sister, but she was not going to say it. She had a feeling her sister might not like the comparison very much and she was already upset. Best not to tug her tail.
"Not going back," Nixie repeated slowly, the fingers on her left hand twitching. This wasn't happening, she wasn't being told 'no' by her little sister whom she had been searching for for two years. Surely not because she was enjoying life here so close to a human city. "This isn't like you, Lene, not like my little sister at all. You love the ocean and causing trouble out in the middle of nowhere when the humans have no chance of avoiding it. Don't you miss all of that? Playing with the dolphins, singing with the whales, racing away from sharks and crashing ships?" She used all of the things that Charlene had always loved to do. Nicely at first, she didn't want to be resented for what she was trying to do... though that might happen anyway, for awhile at least.
The worst part about all of the things that Nixie listed was that Charlene did miss them. She had loved singing with the whales, creatures intelligent enough to converse with and playing with dolphins. She could not do any of that in the waters that she had frequented since leaving. Sure, there had been that time in the aquarium but that did not really count because they had started out in tanks. There was no way to substitute some things from the ocean, but then, there were things she had found in the lakes and rivers that she could not in the ocean. And people who aren't there either.
"I miss all of it," she admitted with a sigh, letting her fingers fall away from her hair. "But that doesn't mean I want to go back. I meant what I said, Nixie, I'm staying here." Scarlet Oak and the population within it might be good for her as a whole, and on a more individual scale... yes, she was staying.
This wasn't how things were supposed to go. Charlene was supposed to react well to the idea of going back to the ocean with her and, barring that, at least agree to a 'visit'. Once she was there, Nixie knew that she would see that she belonged. "Don't make me force you," she sighed reluctantly. "From what you've said you're just getting yourself into a whole new type of trouble so close to humans." At least she was away from those dreadful commercial fishermen who frequented the ocean and lakes. But still! There was some sort of bad influence because she'd gone and shown herself to someone. "This way you won't have to worry about taking care of whoever saw you in your natural form." That was meant to be reassuring. If Charlene hadn't taken care of it already then perhaps it was too difficult for her. "You'll be gone and nothing bad will come of it."
It was hard, but somehow Nixie forced the disapproving big sister look off her face, replacing it with a more sympathetic one. "Don't worry, readjusting won't be that bad if I'm there with you. And who knows? Maybe we'll start a pod of our own."
Nixie must have gotten something stuck in her ears - but before Charlene could even respond to that she had to focus on getting her hands to not be fists anymore. Her sister had just made a suggestion that, several years ago, would not have seemed out of place to her. But now? It was unthinkable, mostly because of who it dealt with. There was no way that she was even going to entertain the notion of 'taking care of' Roxy. Well, not like how Nixie was implying. She remembered that look in Roxy's eyes when she had said she meant her no harm. That was the honest truth, with the addition that she was not going to let her sister do anything either. "What part of 'I'm not going back' is not getting through to you?" Charlene asked, trying and failing to keep the anger out of her voice. "And there's not going to be any 'taking care of' the person who saw me. Do you understand me, Nixie?"
"You're being ridiculous," Nixie snapped, frowning and swimming up so that she was only inches away from Charlene's face. "Merfolk belong in the ocean and you're no different than anyone else! And this human who saw you... why so defensive?" There must have been something more to it, something Charlene wasn't saying. Her younger sister had never been the sort to shy away from taking care of problems if it needed to happen. She wasn't quite as exuberant about it as most, sure, but she always did it.
Not only did Charlene think she was not being ridiculous - who was Nixie to say what she should do with her life? - she was beginning to think that her excitement at seeing Nixie was ill-deserved. But her anger faded slightly when Nixie, instead of indicating that something needed to be taken care of, questioned why she was defensive. Because I don't want to hurt her... I don't want you to, either. The worst part about it was that Nixie might well do so, if she thought that it would be good for her. But it could be worse if she did not tell her; she had a feeling Nixie would not be above following her one day to find out who it was for herself. And there was something that Nixie was very, very wrong about.
"She isn't a human," Charlene managed to say, eyes fixed on the waving seaweed just below their tails. "She's a were. Like Annalisa; you remember her? The wereshark who lived in Nova Scotia, we came across her not long before I left... so not a human." As though she would ever have anything to do with a mere human! Careful, a small voice piped up, one that she had very rarely heard throughout her life, you thought that once about everyone who wasn't merfolk. And now look at you. Charlene was not sure she liked that small voice anymore than the one that reminded her of all her family values. "And I'm defensive because I'm not going to hurt her; and neither are you."
Ah... ah. "Oh well that's rich," Nixie laughed with a shake of her head. "Telling me that I won't take care of a problem that might contribute to you keeping on with this insane idea of staying here." She was still laughing when she reached out to touch Charlene on the shoulder in a comforting way. "Lene, you're the strangest sister anyone could have. I'll deal with the problem and you'll come with me and never think about it again." She held up a hand to stop the protests she knew were coming. "Or you come with me and I don't do anything to this thing that's got your attention." She had tried playing nicely, giving Charlene multiple ways to agree to come and none of them had been taken. Sometimes, drastic measures were needed when you cared about someone.
Charlene's tail stirred the mud at the bottom of the river and her eyes snapped as she shoved Nixie's hand off of her shoulder. "You're actually threatening me!" No, that was not the right term, she was not directly being threatened. "No, you're threatening someone you don't even know!" Not that Charlene was sure how good an idea Nixie meeting Roxy would be... right then there was no point to it and besides, maybe Nixie would decide to go back to the ocean like she seemed to want to do so badly. "I'm warning you just this once - I won't stand for being blackmailed. I'm not going with you, Nixie, accept this fact and maybe you can hang around for awhile and we can get along. Don't and that's not going to happen."
Nixie was not the sort to be intimidated, and she was not when Charlene 'stood up' to her. If anything she was a little proud of her sister, even if she thought she was completely ridiculous. Insanity, that's what this was, but if Charlene was insistent.. she could let her have her little games for now. Eventually, she'd bring her back to the ocean. After she got over the novelty of being around humans and their like. "I'll leave your were alone," she said grudgingly. "But I'm not leaving without you, so you're going to have to get used to having me around."
"I can deal with that," Charlene sighed, glad that Nixie was done with not-so-veiled threats. "It'll be fun, you'll see, if you just come along with me a few times and get a look at the library... or if you just learn how to live in the river." She knew Nixie better than to think that she was done with this - the statement about not leaving without her - but she also did not want to dwell on it. It had already been a bad enough afternoon without adding to it. "I live there... you can have a look if you'd like, you could even stay for a bit." Reaching back up into her hair she motioned towards the surface. "I'm going to go for a walk, clear my head."
She's changed. "You do that. I'll see you later." It was easy to let her go off and do what she wanted. They could always catch up later, when tempers had cooled and Charlene's mind wasn't on what Nixie had tried to convince her to do. It'd be nice to talk about what she had discovered with someone whom she had always known. Even if she was a bit different now. Insane, I mean. With that, Nixie smiled her confident smile and turned to swim through the opening she had watched Charlene come up through earlier.
As soon as Nixie vanished, Charlene let herself swim slowly towards the surface, angling towards the tree where she kept her human-form things. She had not originally intended to leave the water that day, but anything would be better than staying in the river with Nixie. She was not very happy with her sister right then and a good walk would be better than getting into another argument. Stubborn, that's what she is, the mermaid informed herself, glaring back down at her home. Ah well, she was her sister. And if things started out that bad could they really get any worse?