[PRP] Land and sea (Raurava and Federico)

[Revolutionary Roniel]

Raurava flexed her toes into the sand. This was different from the sand around the lakes that the Padmapani herd bordered. It was softer, brighter. It was bright enough that she had to squint her many eyes against the light reflecting off of it, beaming down from a warm autumn sun.

She had never seen the ocean before now. The herdlands did not extend to the coast. She'd always wanted to visit the ocean, but had never been able to until now. Now, here she was. The ocean glittered before her, vast and seemingly endless. She inhaled deeply and smelled the salt in the air, and other things that she couldn't place. White birds flew overhead, crying lonely wails against the wind. It felt lonely to her, and desolate. Desolate, but beautiful. Even the shells that littered the beach were unique and rainbowed with iridescence.

She stepped forward, letting the waves lap against her paws. Though the sun was warm on her back, the water was more chilly. She would have liked to swim, but she thought it might not be the best idea in the current weather...  

[Revolutionary Roniel]

The water was indeed more chill in the last few days, but it didn't bother Federico. His body was suited for it. He had been building up a layer of blubber beneath his skin in anticipation of the colder weather. It wasn't an intentional act, just something that his body did naturally. He felt comfortable, at any rate.

He was currently grazing along the bottom, plucking from the sea grass that grew there. His mother had taught him that it was called "eel grass." He wondered if that was for the thin length of the leaves, or for the eels that he sometimes saw swimming within it. The eels didn't bother him, so he ignored them and ate on.

Eventually, he felt his lungs start to ache. It was time for some air. He lifted his head above water to refill his lungs, and it was then that he noticed a shape on the beach. It was a land-dweller! Curious, he began to swim over. The shore dropped steeply off into the water along this area. He'd be able to get fairly close to her without beaching himself.  

[Revolutionary Roniel]

Raurava was just about to step out of the water when she spotted it, a shape moving beneath the waves. her eyes narrowed in concentration. What was it? She'd heard of monstrous beasts that lurked beneath the waves, ones large enough to devour soquili. She'd even heard of creatures big enough to sink the wooden structures that humans built to move across the waves, though she had always assumed those were just fairy tales.

Whatever was swimming over to her was large, though. She backed away from it, glaring warily. Was she really going to have something attack her on her first trip to the water?  

[Revolutionary Roniel]

When Federico surfaced, he saw with dismay that the mare was glaring at him with mistrust. He also saw that she was rather unusual looking. His eyes did not see above the water too well so he hadn't noticed her strange features until he was close. She had a long toothy mouth, and legs that ended in paws rather than hooves. He blinked in confusion at that, and at her shifting shadowy tail.

Was this normal for land soquili? Without any experience to draw upon, he had to assume so.  

[Revolutionary Roniel]

Raurava's defensive stance relaxed some when she saw the emerging head of the soquili. It wasn't some monster after all, just a stallion in the water. A kelpi, then? There were no kelpi in the Padmapani herd, but she'd learned of them from her father. She took another look at him. It was hard to make out his form in the murky water, but she thought she saw a long and undulating body. That didn't look much like the descriptions of kelpis that she had heard of. Was he missing his back legs, or were her eyes deceiving her?

She was always wary to speak to strangers, knowing that they judged her harshly for her strange appearance, but she ventured to speak to this one. "Are you a mer?" she asked, voice hoarse from disuse. If he was not a kelpi, then mer was the only thing she could think of that he possibly could be... unless there was some marine soquili breed not even her father knew of.  

[Revolutionary Roniel]

"Yes, I am!" said Federico brightly. He lifted his tail a little above the water to show off. His long fins glittered with dampness. He had always been proud of the fullness of all of his ruffled fins. "And are you a..." he trailed off. What land breeds did he know? There were unicorns, those healed. There were kelpis, but those were just as much of a water breed. There were... angelos? Could she be one of them?

"Are you an angelo?" he asked, face brightening up hopefully. Just like soquili in the water had fins, it didn't seem strange to him at all that a soquili on land might have paws. They looked better to grip the sand, after all.  

[Revolutionary Roniel]

"... Angelo?" he had clearly spoken in the Kawani local language, but that was a word she didn't understand. She stared at him uncertainly. The only soquili breed she could think of that sounded even a little like that was the angeni, but she looked nothing like an angeni so couldn't imagine why he might suggest it. Her tail swished behind her and the shadows danced like flames. Belatedly, she kept it still again. She was familiar with the look of horror that most soquili gave her when they noticed her inconstant form.

"What is an angelo?" she asked, still wary and distant. She had never met her mother, so it was possible that this stallion knew of some breed she didn't.  

[Revolutionary Roniel]

"You know," admitted Federico, "I was hoping you could tell me." He laughed at his own mistake, a warm sound in the chill water. He noticed the flickering of her tail then, and he paused briefly. That looked somewhat unsettling. So did her elongated mouth and red eyes, now that he thought about it. He swallowed once, then internally shook his head. He was being foolish. He didn't want to look ignorant to this land dweller, and he was sure that she meant him no harm. He had never had a truly unpleasant encounter with a land-dwelling soquili.

"It is possible that I may not be familiar with you who walk the land with... ah... paws." He had almost said 'hooves' before remembering that she had none. That could have been his second mistake of the meeting!  

[Revolutionary Roniel]

Raurava grew a little colder at that. So he'd noticed her paws. Unsurprising. That was what many soquili noticed about her, though some of her more flashy features often were spotted first. She had so few encounters with strangers that didn't involve some amount of reassuring them that she meant no harm that she wondered for a moment if the mer had some sort of ulterior motive. She quickly recognized that as ridiculous. No one could have known she would come to this place and the mer hardly could have been following her over the land.

The silence stretched between them and she felt that she should say something to fill it. The mer watched her expectantly, but the best she could manage was "There are not many of us with paws on land."  

[Revolutionary Roniel]

Federico couldn't help but feel like he had done something wrong. The mare was cold to him, and her words came with a bit of a bite. He tilted his head at that. He hated to think that he had done something to sour an encounter so quickly. He thought briefly, then flashed her a warm smile.

"What is your name? I am called Federico. Some call me Fred, but I wish they would not." He winked at that and chuckled. It was mostly a very elderly sea turtle that insisted that his name was 'Fred.' He put up with it from the turtle, but wasn't keen on the trend spreading to anyone else.  

[Revolutionary Roniel]

Raurava's furred ears perked upwards. She snorted incredulously when he confided his nickname to her. It had been an involuntary sound, but an amused one. That was a rare response from her. "All right. I won't call you... Fred." The slight smile on her long mouth may have looked somewhat eerie, but it was genuine.

"I'm Raurava." She could see the wisping of her tail and even faintly saw the flickering of the red eye dancing above her crown out of the corner of one eye. She knew she always would look intimidating, frightening even. It wasn't often that she was able to have a normal sort of encounter, but it wasn't often that she encountered a mer either. Maybe t hey were of a different sort of temperament.  

[Revolutionary Roniel]

"Raurava!" Federico seized upon the name cheerily. "What a lovely name. I have never met a 'Raurava' under the water, so it is fortunate that I came so close to the land today, is it not?" For some soquili, statements like those could have rightfully been seen as blatant flirting. For Federico, charm and flattery were his way of speaking. He enjoyed seeing other soquili happy and would say what was necessary to make them so.

"What brings you so close to the water?" he asked, deciding she might be open to more discussion. "It does not seem like the sort of weather where those in the land enjoy swimming in the sea." This amused him too. All those on the land were so delicate. He had no choice but to stay in the chill water, and they whimpered even to get a splash of it on their fur.  

[Revolutionary Roniel]

She couldn't remember any time when someone had called her name lovely, either. In the Padmapani herd, most knew what "Raurava" was, which was not a lovely thing. Raurava was one of the hells, known as the screaming hell. Her father told her that he had named her that to remind her of her origins and to help her remember to stay above them. It wasn't a pretty name and it wasn't a pretty story behind it. She didn't know what to say to that. The mer meant to be kind, but in doing so, he brought up bad memories.

"I've never seen the ocean before," she said, though her voice was now wooden. She had come away from the herd to be away from their expectations, but apparently she had brought those along with her. That knowledge was a weight upon her heart. She had tried to learn detachment in life, but apparently had not been successful.  

[Revolutionary Roniel]

Now she was a gloomy one. Every time he said something, Federico felt like he had said the wrong thing. He almost started to frown, but smothered the impulse. She was down in the dumps. It was his job to be perky and cheerful to make up for it, or so he internally decided.

"It is a wonderful day to see the ocean for the first time!" he declared brightly. How strange it was to think that she had never seen the ocean and he had lived his entire life within it. But then again, there were so many parts of her world that he would never have a chance of seeing either. "Would you like to learn about the ocean? I could tell you all about the things you don't learn if you don't live in the water." There were a lot of interesting things about the ocean that the ones that lived on land never seemed to understand!  

[Revolutionary Roniel]

Not only was he still talking to her, but Raurava got the distinct impression that he was trying to cheer her up too. What a strange thought. She looked at the odd mer, but could find no trace of malice. He wasn't trying to secretly make fun of her, and this really didn't seem like some sort of verbal trap.

"I... uh..." This was new territory conversationally for her as well. "I would enjoy learning about the ocean." Despite herself, she could feel curiosity blooming. She wondered what sorts of secrets Federico might know about the endless depths of the sea.