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((OOC: Okay, awesome, and how does as soon as the thing with Adrian and Tianara is over sound? >3))

Tianara smiled softly, and it was clear enough that Joshua's words were confirming her own opinion of Adrian - one that was very dangerous to a young, inexperienced and romantic girl. "That's nice," she said quietly. "I hope that I'll find someone like that to help me once I have to find somewhere to live."

She still clung to the hope that she'd have somewhere to live one day, rather than being trapped in a cavern. That she'd find a place in the human world, or make one. That she'd be able to make a family and live happy and in peace, knowing her family was out there in the water and safe - even if she couldn't see them again.

She had to believe those things, or she'd go mad.

Putting her hands absently into the pockets of the jeans, she walked into the woods, reaching out for the merfolk as she went. They shouldn't be far, and she'd reach them soon enough.

Tianara tilted her head, listening silently for some time. Then she nodded briefly. "Yes, I think so," she said. "No real news - the storm wasn't bad enough to do more than stir up the harbor, so they took shelter in some of the deeper waters while it was going on."

She glanced uneasily over her shoulder back at the woods they'd already traversed, wondering why she should feel so ill at ease when they were so close to

(home)

the cove. Joshua's cabin.

Her attention was mostly on the forest behind them, but she nodded to his statement all the same. "Yes, I hope so," she said distractedly. "It will be nice to have someone standing with me when I have to go."

Not when I go, or if I go. When I have to go.

She smiled, relief in her eyes, when they walked out of the woods and towards the cliffs. "They'll be there when we get there," she told Joshua.

Tianara followed him easily enough, no longer feeling ill at ease now that they were out of the woods. "No," she replied, "they're pretty good about knowing where to go."

This was confirmed shortly afterwards when Katalina surfaced, smiling at them. "Everyone make it through okay?" she inquired, looking relaxed. At least at first.

Then, frowning, the mermaid looked between Tianara and Joshua. Something felt off to her - she couldn't quite identify it, but something seemed wrong. Her dark eyes followed first one and then the other as they came down towards the beach, but she still couldn't get it to click in her head.

So she shrugged it off for a while - she'd talk to Tianara about it later. Instead, she asked, "What's the plan for now?"

Tianara looked thoughtful. "I want an update from you guys," she said at last, "and we should probably go check the caverns again." She looked over at Joshua. "To see what the gnomes have done."

Katalina was quiet for a second. "We won't be waiting long," she said at last, noting Tianara's terrified look. "Those whaling ships have been coming out in more force lately. Merfolk that live on the other side of the world have been coming here for shelter. They're telling...terrible stories." She looked sad. And scared. "Things are already heading to the worst point there."

She looked up at Joshua. "We have refugees and remnants of at least fifteen clans from the other side of the ocean - some of which were very strong. There have been attacks by well-equipped divers both here and there, and those merfolk in the open ocean who haven't already found shelter are doing so."

Hesitating for a moment, she admitted, "I sent Nezik and Jinx back to the family home, at least for a little while. Until we know just how bad it is, I don't want them in the shallows here with me."

"Why are you staying here, then?" asked Tianara fiercely. "It's not any safer for you than them if someone comes."

Katalina just looked up at her. "And who would you suggest in my place?" she asked. "You two are helping us - you need to know what the merfolk know. If I go, I'll just have to send someone else in my place."

"There's me," said Tianara in a low voice. "I'm here."

She looked to Joshua for some kind of confirmation, or some help in convincing the mermaid that she had to go.

Katalina wrinkled her nose and argued, "But what she does look like - and sound like, and feel like, and in fact is - is an ocean child, Joshua. They've been attacked as well. The Far-Siders have agreed with our suspicions that they have someone or something that can sense magic on their side." By the Far-Siders, she meant the European merfolk who had come to seek refuge with them. "If I go, I'm not at all sure I shouldn't take her with me, and then we really do have a problem."

Tianara snapped into the conversation, "I won't go back. Not with you, not at all. I can't go back. If you go back to your people, or to whoever you shelter with, there's still things you can do. If I go back, my mother will keep me sheltered and hidden away so I can't do anything, and I can't do that!"

Katalina listened to Joshua's mental suggestion, and replied reluctantly, "Perhaps. But I don't want to risk her again, so shortly after...after what happened last time. Her mother would skin me." Her dark eyes had gone speculative as she looked at him. Aloud, she replied to Tianara, "You have a point. You also have no idea how to protect yourself. If you do stay, there will be conditions."

Tianara sighed, but asked, "Like what?"

"You learn to use a weapon. A dagger, a gun, something - magic might not be enough, not if they really do have someone sensing it on their side. And you don't go anywhere, not anywhere, without Joshua." Katalina's voice was firm, and there was no sense she'd concede anything on these points. Though Tianara looked a little reluctant, she lowered her head to agree to them.

"And," the mermaid continued, "you keep me and Narcis updated. On your condition, on what's going on on the surface. All of it. Because this goes both ways - I'm here to find out what you know as well as to tell you what we know. If you're going to take that position, you have to keep us informed as well."

Tianara seemed a little more enthusiastic about that. "I can do that," she replied.

Katalina finally smiled, and it was just a little wicked. "And finally, you get to tell your mother."

The girl's protesting squeak was cut off by the mermaid's lifted hand. "That's how it is. Disagree with any of them, and I stay here to keep handling it."

"That's not right," muttered Tianara. "She can't do that, can she?" She looked beseechingly at Joshua. Help!

"Thanks," said Tianara sourly. "You're a big help." She turned to Katalina, pointed at her. "Fine. I'll go up to the cabin and talk to her there. But you'd better keep up your end." And she stalked off towards the cabin for what would no doubt be a very emotional few minutes.

Once she was out of direct listening range - and too occupied to bother listening in even if she wasn't - Katalina turned back to Joshua. Her eyes were direct and clear.

"Joshua," she said quietly, "we've been friends for a long time now. You're helping us through one of the most difficult times we as a species have ever faced. You've taken in one of our children despite the amount of time and personal space it's costing you, and the danger to yourself because of said difficult times. I'm grateful, and besides all that I'm very fond of you."

Taking a breath, she continued, "So I'm hoping you'll see it as a friend's concern, and not me poking where it doesn't concern me, when I ask why it seems to embarrass you so much that I ask that you and Tianara stick together."

((OOC: Short. >.< Sorry.))

Katalina lifted a brow. "And does the idea of that bother you so much?" she inquired.

Tianara, standing a distance away with her back to them and deeply engrossed in her exceedingly awkward conversation with her mother, would never know how lucky she was to not be hearing this.