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Mac now felt as though he had to explain, "I just wanted to know if there was anyone or anything under the sea nearby that would cause us any trouble..." he said with clarity. "...Because I feel I have to do something new. Its just this feeling" he explained.

Tianara and Nezik both nodded to Joshua's explanation, looking somewhat like a pair of twin bobblehead dolls. "But why would the coast need to be clear?" wondered Tianara. "It sounds like you're afraid of people being around, like we're afraid of ships being around. I thought humans liked being in clans."

Nezik, however, was distracted - and unnerved - by Mac's words. "You have to do something new?" he asked uncertainly. "That doesn't sound good...will it wake the others? They can't be disturbed right now, or they're not going to heal all the way. Can it wait at all?"

Tianara frowned a little, trying to think. Was there anything that she remembered the merfolk doing alone? Without their clan? Well, there was Sorry of course, but Sorry was a special case. She'd left her clan to avoid family issues. And since it seemed she was on the brink of falling in with their wishes and agreeing to the union with Narcis, she would probably be welcomed back into the fold with open arms fairly soon.

Thinking of Sorry and Narcis made her finally remember one of the few things merfolk were private about. "Oh! You mean like courtship?" she asked Joshua. "Do humans do that alone?" Merfolk did - they were very shy about their courting rituals.

Nezik tilted his head as though listening. "I think someone's awake," he announced. "I'll be back in a sec." He vanished under the water again.

Tianara looked surprised at Joshua's blush. Why was he embarrassed? she wanted to ask. Before she could, he changed the subject. Still curious, but willing to go along with it - she could always ask later - she shrugged. "It won't be Sorry," she said with assurance. "She pushed it too far. I'd be surprised if she's not the last one awake. Probably Jinx - they're younger and more resilient. Plus Narcis wouldn't have let her do too much."

When he asked his question, she turned to him in surprise. How could he not--? Oh. Right. He was human. Born and raised human. She kept forgetting. "Merfolk have...I guess it's kind of like a mental field of vision," she said, trying to explain it as best she could. "But you have to be focusing on certain other merfolk for it to work. Nezik probably was keeping himself tuned in to what they were thinking. As soon as someone woke up, they would have felt him there and he would have felt their thoughts tuning in to his. So he knew someone was up."

She couldn't explain it any better than that, so she hoped he understood.

There were a few minor splashes. Then Nezik surfaced again, with Jinx (as Tianara had guessed) in tow. The Siren still looked mildly sleepy and perhaps a touch annoyed, but even that didn't diminish her dangerous beauty in the slightest. "Hi," she said, waving at the assembled group. Then her eyes sharpened. "Where's the old man and the Mermaid Girl?" she asked.

Tianara wondered if he really did get it, or if he was just saying that to appease her. It didn't really matter, though. If he really wanted to know and didn't understand, he would have said that he didn't get it. Right? She couldn't imagine why not. So she flashed him a quick smile.

Her attention was caught by the rising moon. She shifted uneasily, looking from Joshua to the merman and the Siren. "Nezik," she said abruptly, "maybe you and Jinx ought to go stay with Sorry and Narcis until they wake up."

"Oh, it's just Sorry," Jinx told her. "Narcis was waking up when I left."

"Yeah? Good," murmured Tianara. "But still, you four should maybe stick together." Her gaze rose to the moon again, and she shivered once, hard and briefly. "I don't have a good feeling about tonight."

Nezik surprised her by nodding slowly. "I thought it was just me," he muttered. "It's okay, Tia. Narcis is still with Sorry, and we're together. We'll make sure we don't go off by ourselves. You do the same, though, right?" He looked from her to Joshua to Mac. "You three should stick close. I think we'll all be pretty impatient for the morning way before sunup comes."

Tianara looked at Joshua. "If it has a door," she replied, "a good, sturdy door that can lock, that's exactly what we need." She eyed Nezik. "Are you sure there's no way to convince Sorry to--" she began.

"None whatsoever," replied Nezik firmly. "She'll just get all haughty and insist that she doesn't need their help." He shrugged. Jinx was also apparently feeling the effects of whatever he and Tianara saw coming - she was glancing around, looking cautious and uncertain for the first time since most of them had met her. "We'll find a place to go to ground, don't worry."

He smiled up at the three of them. "But we'd better do it before it gets too dark. I'll get Narcis to take Sorry. We'll see you in the morning," he assured all three of them. Then he and Jinx took their leave, moving rather quickly even for merfolk.

Tianara looked at the two boys. "What he said applies to us, too," she said, speaking quickly and rather unevenly. "We need to find a place to go to ground before it gets too dark. Where's your cabin, Joshua?"

Tianara stepped into the cabin and looked around. She seemed to be judging it, though what she was looking for was impossible to say. At last, she nodded. "It'll do," she said, with the I hope implicit behind it.

Her gaze kept turning to the doorway, and the moment they were all inside she went around and shut the door firmly. Then she turned the lock and looked at Joshua. "Do you keep a key outside anywhere?" she asked. "I don't mean to be annoying," she added, a trifle embarrassed. "I just...I know some humans do. Do you?"

Tianara offered a small, slightly tremulous smile in return. "It should," she replied as she watched him put the key away. "We don't exactly know what we're sensing either - it would feel much better if I knew what was coming." She sighed, sitting cross-legged on the floor. "I just feel like being with a clan, or I guess being in town with a lot of people around us, would be much safer for all of us right now." There was a touch of wistfulness in her voice as she added, "I wish we could get Sorry and the others in here somehow - it'd probably be safer - but they'd dry out if we kept them in here all night."

She rose and looked out the window at the rising moon. "They'll find somewhere to hide and ride it out. When things like this happen, they always do," she murmured. It sounded like she was trying to convince herself more than either Joshua or Mac.