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((OOC: I thought so, too.))

Tianara tilted her head curiously. "And?" she asked at last, as Joshua didn't seem inclined to continue. "Is there anything in there? What are they saying about them? Probably fishing," she muttered in disgust. "Fishing is responsible for so many injuries."

Like Adamantia's, although she knew the little girl would be fine. It still rankled to know that she might forever be afraid of ships because of what had happened.

When Joshua stretched his mind out, Tianara stopped at the edge of the water. Presently, they would both feel a returning tug on the mental current.

Katalina's soft voice said lightly, "Here I am. Did you bring back your maps for me?" She sounded a little off - forcedly cheerful. Tianara personally put it down to Narcis having to leave, but she wasn't sure. She'd ask later.

The mermaid surfaced, smiling a little as she pushed away her soaked hair. "Anything?" she asked.

Tianara began to open her mouth again - to ask to see the papers, most likely - but then Joshua spotted Katalina and all else unrelated to the maps took a backseat. Bounding to the mermaid's side, Tianara splashed into the water and looked over first Joshua's shoulder, then Katalina's.

She'd already seen the maps, but she wanted to look again.

Katalina took the ocean-floor map and looked at it with serious concentration evident on every line of her face. At last, she sighed. "Someone will have to tell me what the different levels and currents are represented by - then I'll probably be able to figure it out pretty easily."

Tianara, about to point out the legend in the corner of the map, remembered abruptly that that was right. Katalina couldn't read. At least, not anything very complex. And while maps weren't precisely the most challenging literature around, it was likely to contain words and phrases that Sorry didn't know.

So she leaned over and began to point out what everything looked like, with frequent taps of the accompanying area of the legend as proof. She looked up at Joshua, hoping she was doing this right.

Katalina laid one map beside the other, looking back and forth between them. She seemed to be getting her bearings, and at last she nodded. "Let me see the others?" she requested. Tianara leapt to her feet and got them for her.

As the mermaid spread them out around her, worry seemed to wrinkle her brow. "I'd hoped they were closer together," she said at last, softly. "Hoped it could just be an outbreak of random violence, easily suppressed if we just helped those children move." She traced her finger idly along one of the maps.

So far, this didn't sound promising.

She sighed. "But it's happening through here," she traced along the edges of Central and Southern America, and then along the opposing coast from North America, "and in some places along here," tracing along part of Russia, "and through here," indicating a few European coastlines.

She looked up, and her dark eyes were bitter. "News travels fast."

Tianara was shaking her head no repeatedly, too distracted by what she was seeing to realize that she was as white as a sheet. "Sorry, no," she said softly. "No, that can't be right. Not so many, not so soon?"

Katalina met her gaze levelly, and sighed. "I can't know for sure myself without checking it out personally, but this is what I've been told. And our people have no reason to lie."

"There couldn't be a mixup?" Tianara asked tentatively. "Like maybe the water map doesn't cover the same places?"

Katalina shrugged. "It could always be like that, of course," she replied, sounding unsure herself, "but I think this is about right. We need to figure something out. Find safe places. Convince the ocean children to make their way to their families, or to those safe places. At least, the ones here." She looked at Joshua, and gave him a trembling smile meant to reassure. "In this side," she gestured at the European side of the map, "there are others taking care of things as best they can. We need only worry about our areas."

But she still looked worried, and Tianara looked frightened.

As well she should, considering it was her life and those of her kind in danger.

When Katalina spoke, her voice was slow and reluctant. Almost heavy. "It isn't the families or the children that are in danger," she said at last. "It's the ocean children themselves. They could go home, to their clans. And the families could simply...exchange places with another ocean child's family, perhaps. Move elsewhere temporarily. No one in their new home would have to know that there was another family member, right? At least not until it was safe."

That explained the reluctance. Katalina knew how hard a plan this would be to implement, but it was the only thing she could think of.

Tianara lifted a hand. "Maybe we don't have to find a place where the other humans can't get to them," she said tentatively. "Just a place where they wouldn't think to look."

Katalina gave her a glance and nodded slowly. "But where?" she muttered. She tilted her head, trying to think.

Tianara shrugged, trying to recall a place. She thought this had been discussed before, but where...?

Tianara lit up. "Yes, that was it!" she agreed. Then her face fell. "But...Joshua...that was just for the ocean children nearby...how would we get them all here without anyone noticing? I mean, they couldn't go through the town...people would notice if they didn't come back. Right?"

That faint hint of hope in her dark blue eyes had abruptly faded again as she began to puzzle out logistics. "And how will we feed them all?" she wondered. As she recalled, the plan had been to use it as a last-ditch defense area. Plenty of time to stockpile.

Only now, there was no time.

"Well," she muttered, "we know how to feed ourselves from the ocean, and..."

Katalina touched the girl's hand. "The waters can get at least some of them here. Rowboats and rafts and such. Then we can store those in underwater caverns so that they aren't seen. You can do some stockpiling in other towns, maybe...tell them a storm is coming where you live?" she asked, looking at Joshua, trying to remember how these things worked for humans. "And Tianara is right. All ocean children know how to feed themselves from the seas. They will not starve if it takes you time to gather the supplies. The important thing is getting them safe."

She looked from Joshua to Tianara. "Do you want me to start spreading the word?"

Tianara also looked at Joshua. Clearly, she thought this was his decision.

Katalina's lips twitched slightly at Joshua's blank response to their pointed stares. Tianara might have thought it was his decision, but she had just been waiting for his confirmation of what she thought was the right thing to do. If they both agreed, there was clearly no problem here. And they did.

She nodded. "Blankets, pillows. Clothing," she tapped the leg of the jeans Tianara was wearing, making the girl jump, "I suppose. Food if they have any they can bring?" Katalina was unsure of what, precisely, humans would need - she knew that it wasn't the same as merfolk. And while the ocean children themselves were more like merfolk than humans, their spouses or lovers and children were either entirely or mostly human. "Is there anything else?"

Tianara, brooding about the trip to town, blinked and sat up. "Heat," she muttered. "Like in the...plasstick. The air in the caverns, it's cold. There has to be a way to warm it."

She looked from Katalina to Joshua, and the mermaid nodded. "I'll leave you to it," she said. "I have to start telling people to tell people. Don't worry - it'll work out okay."

Shaking her long hair back, she turned and raced away into the waters, leaving Tianara and Joshua alone.