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"Okay, okay, just calm down for a minute, girl." After her rather dramatic exclamation, the apparent mermaid - or was it siren? Helena had never been too keen on mythology - had started hyperventilating, breathing in short, hard gasps and clutching her clam with newfound fervor.

"Calm down, okay? We can't find your home if you pass out." Cursing inwardly, the older woman went down on her knees to get a better look at the girl. Scratches littered her, most prominently on her fingers; Helena hypothesized that she'd probably tried to crawl up the docks. There was a wild look in her eyes that spoke of hunger, and what had probably been a nice top at some point looked more like the rags of a beggar by now.

It wasn't a pretty sight, and Helena found her heart go out to the girly - she'd obviously had a tough time of it, although there was something about her that spoke of having been taken quite good care of earlier. Perhaps it was the hair, that although unwashed and dirty, seemed far healthier than anything Helena had ever seen on a poor child.

Well, she'd do no good for the child getting lost in her own thoughts. The older woman tried to smile soothingly (a rather foreign thing for her) and reached out towards the child: "I'll help you find your home, alright girly?"

But the girl shied away from her hand and just looked even more frightened, although she wasn't on the verge of passing out anymore, from what Helena could see. Sighing lightly, she silently cursed the girl's timidness: damn it, she'd never been this shy, and it wasn't like she was going to hurt the girl! She'd even offered to help.

But the mermaid didn't seem to think much of that: though in a city like Avendine, the older woman couldn't blame her. It seemed unlikely that the citizens of the port would miss a girl with a blue fin - not to mention the rest of her colourscheme - floating around in their main venue of business; she'd probably been accosted several times so far by 'well-meaning' thugs and bandits.

Helena sighed again. And that didn't help her at all, did it? "Listen kid.. I'm not going to hurt you, I just want to help you find your house. Floating around like this -" she gestured at the dock and it's less than savoury appearance, "won't do you any good. In fact, I'm betting it'll do the opposite."

Though she didn't come any closer, the girl was obviously listening. There was something in her countenance that hinted that all her senses were currently focused on the older human, and a thoughtful look had entered her eyes - no doubt she'd seen the thugs that hung around the docks, and if she'd been around for a while, she'd probably even seen a few fights. And those were never pretty in this area.

"Let's face it, I'm likely to be the best option you'll get, hanging around here." The gang wars of Avendine didn't exactly make it a good place for decent human beings to live, and the docks were practically the base of operation. Helena subsided and waited patiently for the girl to come to a decision.

It took a while, but finally, when the older woman had resorted to counting the glints on the water for entertainment, the young mermaid swam a bit closer: "Y-you promise? P-promise."

"Yeah, I promise." Smiling, she held out her hand for a shake. When the younger girl didn't take it and instead eyed her mistrustfully, she let it drop. Well, so much for progress..

"Do you remember your address?" Hopefully she lived on land and not in some fancy underwater place (Helena had never heard of a place like that, but then again, she'd never heard about a real-life mermaid - or siren - either).

"I do-don't-" she looked hesitant and on the verge of crying, "I don't!"

"Alright, alright.." s**t, that made things a bit harder. "Do you remember anything? City, style of house, anything?"

"I think.. I think.." The girl thought for a bit. "C-cyrus?"

Helena's eyebrows shot up at the word, a slightly disbelieving look on her face. Wow, the girl was far, far away from home. Had she swum all the way? Shaking her head to dispell the useless thoughts, she concentrated on the matter at hand.

"Hmm.. I suppose I could bring you back with me, and we'll look for your family then. How does that sound?"

"Re-really? Y-you'll find Mom f-for me?" Stutters wracked her speech, but her face lit up at the prospect of seeing her mother again. "Y-yes!"

"Alright girly." Helena couldn't help but smile softly, the motion wholly unfamiliar. There was just something so endearing about the poor girl. "I have some business to take care of today, but I'm leaving for Cyrus City tomorrow morning. Can you stay at the inn-room while I get my business done?"

"Ye-yes, I c-can!" The older woman couldn't help but be mesmerized by the girl's brilliant smile; who the hell knew that such a ragged little kid could have a smile like that?

"Okay then, we need to get you out of there." She stood and eyed the girl critically, trying to think of some way to transport her. "You can't.. magically get legs or something, can you?" It'd be awfully practical, but the girl's shake of her head nixed that idea. "Oh well. I suppose I'll have to carry you then."

"C-carry me?" The girl looked absolutely terrified. "B-but I, I-"

"Do you have a better idea?" Helena had no qualms about interrupting the kid.

"N-no." She looked absolutely crushed, now. How fast did this girl go through emotions, anyway?

"Then this is how we'll do it: I'll pull you out of the water, and carry you on my back." She reached down, holding out both her hands and waiting for the younger to take them so they could get her out of there. "Come on, my back is killing me, girly!"

"Y-yes!" The mermaid put her clam in the rags of her top so both her hands were free and took the older woman's hands. It took a while, but they finally got her out of the water with Helena's wheezing accompanying them.

"What's your name anyway, girly?" They'd found, once on land, that carrying the girl wasn't quite as easy as expected; for one thing, she was wet and quite slippery, and lack of legs made hanging onto her saviour more than just a little bit difficult. For another, her tail dragged along the dirt even when Helena stood upright.
They'd remedied the whole thing by getting the girl to hang onto her neck with her arms and curling her tail around Helena's waist. It worked, even if they had to stop a few times to re-adjust the girl's position.

"M-my na-name is Alelisa. Ni-nice to m-meet y-you." She added conscientiously.

"Mine is Helena. Nice to meet you too, girly."

"So? Do you like it?" Helena watched the small girl, waiting for some sort of reaction. Taking care of a kid had been surprisingly hard, not to mention the extra difficulties that came along with a mermaid tail - at first, their arrangement of transporting the kid by having her hold onto the older woman had worked well enough, but it hadn't held for very long. Eventually, Helena had needed to use her arms, and that was where things had gone wrong.

Not to mention the fact that the mermaid's tail seemed to dry out quite fast: they'd needed some sort of way to transport water along with them, and they couldn't do that with their current arrangement.

So Helena had thought about things, and after a while she'd had the brilliant idea of getting a wheelchair modified to fit Alelisa and her tail. They could even put a blanket over her fin so she wouldn't get harrassed in public by disbelieving citizens - the fins on the side of her face could always be put up to fashion accessories or something.

Finding someone to make the damn thing had been a bit of a hassle, though. No-one in her circle of acquaintances seemed to know anyone who sold wheelchairs, so eventually Helena had resorted to getting one custom made; it had cost a pretty penny too, what-with her needing it ASAP as well.

In fact, Alelisa seemed to be costing her a lot of pieces on the whole. Buying a bathtub large enough for her to completely submerge her tail in, the wheelchair, the extra travel expenses, the food cost (the girl was completely starved and practically wolfed down everything in sight) and that was just the beginning.

And the mermaid still didn't seem to like her. Not at all. She still shied away everytime the older woman came too near, stammered when she spoke and eyed Helena with mistrust when she thought the older woman wasn't looking. It made the whole thing rather awkward, especially since Alelisa refused to speak with her about anything other than the search for her mother, which wasn't going particularly well either.

Helena had talked to both the military and her less than savoury contacts, but no-one seemed to know where this 'Marina Nertch' had gone off to and she was left at a stalemate, taking care of a kid that didn't like her and looking for a woman that didn't seem to want to be found. And it wasn't like she could just abandon the young girl, because no matter what she might claim, Helena Adelaide Menon had always had a bit of a soft heart when it came right down to it, and said heart was currently forbidding her from abandoning the traumatised girl. It was a quandary of the sort she could really have done without.

The lack of reply from the young mermaid had her discreetly rolling her eyes, but Helena obligingly left the room so Alelisa could examine her new vehicle in peace. There was still the matter of a constant water-source to deal with, after all..

And if nothing else, she could always make this 'Marina' pay for all this stuff - provided she ever found the woman, of course.