Welcome to Gaia! ::

Tom seemed to be perpetually busy these days. The administrators of Mer Co had deigned to not tell him about their new master strategy until the need for his department was pretty much immediate.

What that meant was that he was constantly doing something, whether it was sitting at his desk with mountains of paperwork and applications for education staff, or out on the grounds dealing with something-or-another.

On top of it all, of course, was the fact that he was now the adoptive father of the first of Mer Co's "master plan:" a small boy, well, "boy," who was a bluish white, squishy, and perpetually moist. He also had a tendency to dangle on Tom's back, holding on to his shoulders, arms around Tom's neck, soaking whatever clothing that may have been worn.

It was a common sight these days to see the education chief walking around the grounds with the spikey little one attached and gazing around. A "day care" was still not built yet.

At this moment, however, he was sitting on the company docks, feet in the water of one of their enclosed training areas, where Alex was drifting around looking at him, waiting for him to hop in the water too.

Tom knew there were other "mers," with new parents now (they had been getting them through some means that he was not informed), but he hadn't met any yet.

There was going to be an official meeting of them all in the next couple of days, but for now, it was a moment to relax.

"C'mon, Tom!" Alex practically chirped from the water. "You promised you'd play with me!"

"Okay, okay, just a second," Tom assented, and carefully placed his blackberry away from the water, before taking off his nice shirt, revealing that he was (due to his charge) wearing a wetsuit already.

Alex spotted the pair of arrivals before Tom did. He signaled that by sinking under the water and drifting in their direction. This was to hide...while going to see who they were.

Tom sighed as he figured out what his little boy was doing, and liberated himself of the clothes over his wetsuit before pursuing Alex, and waving to the somewhat worried looking lady on the edge. "Hello!" he called out amicably. "You look...lost. Can I help you find something?"

Under the water, Alex had spotted the purplish seahorse, and was continuing to inch toward the interesting sight, wide eyed and immensely curious. He always wanted to poke, grab, and try to crush whatever he found. Usually, he succeeded in squishing his own hand when he tried that last bit.

Tom blinked momentarily, then he realized what the lady had just said. "Oh! You have one of the company's little mers, then?" He grinned broadly from his spot in the water. "Excellent! I've not met any others yet, aside from Alex down," he paused and looked around in the water briefly before spotting the white blotch, "here." He pointed. "The name's Tom, by the way. I run Mer Co's education department." He held up a wet hand for her to shake.

Under the water, Alex was watching the purple one curiously. He then mimicked the hand motion as he continued to get closer and closer. "Hi!" he replied softly, but happily. He wasn't very fast moving, really, but he was maneuvering his way to be right up in the face of the seahorse, "I'm Alex! Who're you?"

Briefly, he remembered Tom telling him that people don't usually like him getting so close, but assumed that that only applied out of the water.

Tom nodded, smiling slightly. "I know how that goes. Alex is a nudibranch...which, to say the least, is very...interesting. He's really shy, uh, apparently only out of the water, though." He had been looking into the water at the blotches of color that showed where the pair of mers were, and he could clearly see how close they had gotten. Tom shook his head slightly.

Under the water, Alex stopped drifting forward abruptly. He stared at Cirri a moment before saying, "I wanted to lick your nose...see what it tastes like."

He let the seahorse move away from him...but not too far, he drifted forward again. "I'm Alex!" he repeated again happily when Cirri said his name.

Alex let the seahorse touch one of the spikes, which was soft to the touch, like a stress ball. "Tom said they're called 'serrato,'" Alex answered, "And that they let me breathe down here." He nodded slightly, then took the opportunity of the spike being grabbed to do just what he said he wanted to do. He licked Cirri's nose, smiling slightly.

Tom laughed slightly, pleasantly. "Yeah, I think I've got a few weeks on you in that regard, but we're all new at this." He stepped forward in the water and lightly pulled Alex up to the surface, seeing that he was doing the licking thing again.

Alex wriggled around a little in Tom's hands, and twisted around to look at the man. "I'm not going to bite him!" he practically whined.

"Yeah, yeah, I know, Alex," Tom said, and let him go again. "Just play nice..."

Alex looked up at the lady. "I'm Alex," he answered, looking quizzically at her with most of his body underwater again. "Who're you...?"

Alex always seemed to act like no one could see him under the water, and so would often mostly sink under if he was already in the water when he met someone new.

Alex waved at Kali. "Hi!" He then returned his attention to Cirri and shook his head, sinking back underwater to let the grownups do their grownup things. "Nope," he said, "He just wanted to remind me to not do this," he licked Cirri's face again. "You taste funny."

Tom sighed, seeing that, and shrugged. "Oh well..."

Tom shrugged. "I didn't think he would," he replied amicably. "So, tell me, how'd you land an, uhm...seahorse?" He figured they'd be standing there a while, what with the pair poking back and forth curiously, so he might as well start a conversation.


Under the water, Alex giggled. "Yeah, I know. It's fun to squish things sometimes..even if it's just myself." He looked at Cirri curiously. "So...what are you?"