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 Posted: Mon Jul 06, 2015 12:14 pm
"Well, maybe not 'baby,' but growing, sure." At the time he had been as intelligent a creature as he was now, he had simply lacked some familiar components. Over the span of the pictures he grew more and more human, more and more aware, and then finally in his suit which, at the moment, he was not wearing. "Yes, that is shortly after."
"Uh, no, I don't think so." He didn't remember his classification number even if he was. Someone on base there was an extensive file on him, but these were all the PR niceties the FBPI was willing to share.
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Posted: Mon Jul 06, 2015 12:29 pm
Maia looked from the picture to Dari again. She set the tablet down and moved to hug him. "I'm glad they took care of you," She said. If humans reacted as they had with her, she couldn't begin to imagine Dari would have survived being viewed as a villainous glob of black goo from outer space. There would have been horror films made about him.
Humans were so judgemental.
She let go of Dari and turned her attention back to Toby. "Am I in here? Other Selkies?" she asked. "Can you show me?"
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Posted: Mon Jul 06, 2015 12:35 pm
Dari accepted the hug and smiled. "So am I."
"I don't think anyone's gone through your file yet, so probably not," Toby admitted, "but yeah, I think we have some selkies in here." He took the tablet back and typed in a classification, coming out with a half-dozen different files. This wasn't all of them, but it was the most successful cases. He pulled up one at random, showing Maia a photograph of each form side by side and the little blurb about the woman pictures. She had been amongst the large pod that needed relocation.
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Posted: Mon Jul 06, 2015 1:02 pm
Maia looked at the pictures. She didn't seem as interested as she had been with the one of Dari. "Which one did you meet?" She asked, offering Toby the tablet. "Can you tell me about the Selkies you met?" He'd said he'd had Selkies try to escape from him before. And he'd seemed more friendly when she hadn't; that made her curious.
"Are there other types? You said there's other types of mermaids." She hoped there weren't unseelie selkies somewhere; what if she ended up on a beach with one of them?
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Posted: Mon Jul 06, 2015 1:20 pm
Alright, so she wasn't necessarily interested in strangers. That was fine.
"I think I've met all but one." He scanned through the files quickly and then nodded. When you had been around as long as him you tended to get to know everyone. "Other types of selkies? Not any that I've met. I mean, everyone's different, but I haven't seen a selkie turn into a sea lion or have seven arms or anything." He pulled up Niamh's file and smiled to Maia.
"I don't know. Pretty nice people, maybe a little skittish to start. Willful, musical."
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Posted: Mon Jul 06, 2015 1:44 pm
No other types of Selkies. Well! That was good. Maia seemed pretty relieved by that response, and wrinkled her nose slightly. "Sea lions are rather ugly," she commented. "Walruses too. I'd hate turning into a walrus. That nose! And those tusks on the males. Otters are adorable though. And so smart. They crack open shells and they can float on their backs. There's hardly any in Oregon now, though."
Musical? She made a face. However hard She had tried, She had never been able to keep a tune. At least, vocally. She was able to play a bit on the instrument she'd fashioned from the reeds on the sand dunes, but no particular song. "My mother was a singer," she recalled.
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Posted: Mon Jul 06, 2015 1:54 pm
Toby just listened with amusement. Well, everyone had their preferences. Of course a were-seal would find other animals particularly unattractive, it was like nature. He had yet to meet a were-otter, though, or a were-walrus. He imagined those might be a little harder to reason with considering size and speed.
"Was she?" Dari asked, "Professional or hobbyist?"
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Posted: Mon Jul 06, 2015 2:41 pm
"Hobbyist," Maia said, veering her attention back to Dari. "She could've been professional, but I think she was still too afraid of humans. She sang to me a lot." Sometimes to the sea, sometimes to her husband: she'd tried to teach Maia: she'd failed.
"I never learned," she said at last. "So this is your selkie friend?" she asked, glancing at the tablet.
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Posted: Mon Jul 06, 2015 2:44 pm
Dari nodded, still smiling. Most selkies were musical in some way so it was unsurprising to hear that Maia's mother had been a singer. He was curious about her, but then he always was about a new acquaintance in the time before relocation.
"Uh-huh. This is Niamh," Toby said, offering the tablet back. She was a slim woman with curly dark hair and dark eyes. Said 'neev' but "Spelled n-i-a-m-h because Gaelic's great like that. Of course you know that."
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Posted: Mon Jul 06, 2015 3:13 pm
"And she's an agent. Did she go through schooling too?" she wondered. Maia had no real desire to become an agent, though she did want to travel. She would have liked to meet other fae on travels, like Dari and Toby did: but she'd learned it wasn't always fun traveling with seelies. They met unseelie too. Creatures far more dangerous than the Kelpie they'd met.
"Gaelics a bit hard," Maia agreed, flashing Toby a smile as she took the tablet.
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Posted: Thu Jul 09, 2015 1:45 pm
"She did," Toby replied, nodding, "She stuck around a while, though, and we realized the potential in her, and she accepted the job offer. Now she's one of our international agents. We're just about the only federal agency to creep out into the world, but it's hard to find people willing to believe in all of this and potentially die for it." People who were in were in for a long time.
"It's like a secret code meant only for a tiny percent of the population. Out in Breyer almost everyone speaks it. Luckily English too, most of the time."
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Posted: Thu Jul 09, 2015 1:58 pm
They could potentially die for what they believed in: while Maia admired that bravery, she wasn't sure she shared it. She wouldn't fight a shark to save Toby: and she was fond of him. Fighting a shark for someone she had never met? She didn't think that'd ever happen. "Yes, I imagine it would be," she said. Humans seemed to want to not believe, even though they seemed to want their problems magically fixed.
"I could teach you," she offered.
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Posted: Thu Jul 09, 2015 2:14 pm
"Many have tried," Dari said dramatically, "None have succeeded."
"Hey, that's not true! I know a few words."
"How many of those words are curses?"
"...that's beside the point, they're still words!"
Dari smiled and shook his head. Toby just laughed.
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Posted: Thu Jul 09, 2015 2:37 pm
Maia shook her head at the boys' antics, smirking. So people had tried to teach Toby to speak Gaelic and all he'd learn were curses? That made sense, that he'd pick those words up with his personality. "They might have. But I haven't." Others' failure didn't necessarily mean she would do the same.
"Do you want to show me where I'll be staying?" She asked.
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Posted: Thu Jul 09, 2015 2:57 pm
Toby gave Dari a look like Maia had gotten him good, and Dari laughed. Then the werewolf turned back to his current charge.
"Sure! Your bags have already probably beat us there, we'll just need to get the key. Let me get this back to Annie." He stood with the tablet and went back into Filing to return the tablet. He spoke with a fairly confused Annie briefly about their purported plans for the night and then came back out to Dari standing with his hands in his pockets. It was weird how he had caught on to little mannerisms nobody had ever specifically taught him. He was an adaptive creature if nothing else. "Dari actually has a room down the hall. It's different than our permanent living situations, but most people want to go out on their own into human society anyway."
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