18

[asea]

Who: Walter and anyone
Where: Island
When: 5th, morning
Style: Either
Status: Open

[The change is gradual and starts with faint discomfort when it actually affects him. The onset of something more severe begins much later.

Walter glimpses the network between then: I believe this week some of you might begin feeling a little chilly if you don't have physical contact with someone. He throws the communicator aside after that, and ignores the clatter of the thing against a table as he folds his arms.

He endures through Thursday, but by Friday, his senses have dulled and he doesn't quite see it or his paling complexion.

Something compels him to visit the island that morning. His gait on the way is more languid than that of his usual march, and he moves with a deaf ear to his surroundings, his inattentiveness being cause for the rare bump (or close call) into another denizen of Vatheon. But he cares little for the error and moves on without so much as a glance when it happens. He's strong yet – there's nary a stumble throughout the whole ordeal.

When he reaches shore, Walter sits where the tides reach. Perhaps it is against his better judgment, but his mind is a haze and why should he not sit there in the seawater? It belongs to the sea. He belongs to the sea.

His head rolls to the side in a fit of exhaustion, his ear brushing against the fabric of his attire. He's tired. Odd, considering he has neither fought nor trained recently, and he should be accustomed to a few hours of sleep; but he's tired nonetheless, the feeling reminding him of another time . . . a time he can't recall . . .]

Comments

[seaborg]

[Moving on automatic, Pyunma steps out into the water himself, and reaches out toward Walter, to touch a hand to his shoulder if he can.]

Wait!

[asea]

[He hardly feels the touch to his shoulder, numb as his senses are. What stops him more is the call, but Walter doesn't move – only glance slightly over his shoulder.]

. . . The sea is warm.

[Its embrace is better than that of the land, which can only swallow.]

[seaborg]

[Well, it probably would be, at this time of year. Since Walter isn't continue to move out into the waves, Pyunma lets his hand drop.]

Do you plan on staying in the water until it stops?

[asea]

[Does he?

He can do that. Need for nourishment aside, there's nothing stopping him from living in the water.

. . . is there?

That question drives him to take a few impulsive steps, just far enough so that when he drops to his knees, the whole of him is submerged in seawater as his hair begins to glow a dim blue – ]

[seaborg]

[Once again, Pyunma follows a few more steps, but when Walter's hair begins to glow blue, he draws back again, staring.]

What are you doing?

[asea]

[He can't hear the man with his head submerged. But when he deduces after a good ten seconds that he can still breathe the water as naturally as the air, Walter stands – almost sluggishly – with the glow of his hair fading away.

Then he turns to look the man in the eyes.]

. . . I can still breathe.

[He just had the urge to say it aloud.]

[seaborg]

[The little moment of surprise Pyunma experiences might not be for the reason Walter thinks- It's not every day you meet someone who can also breathe underwater, after all.]

How?

[asea]

[The easy answer would have been to lay down his race; however, the reason that comes to Walter is different. For once, a reason other than what race he was born into.

And that's all he has in his mind for that brief moment before he replies:]

The sea is our protector. Why would it deem to drown us?

[seaborg]

[Pyunma, however, misunderstands, possibly because his view of the ocean is more pragmatic.]

It seems more a danger to Vatheon, not a protector.

[asea]

It isn't a danger to me.

[For it to be otherwise is incredibly difficult for him to understand right now.]

Ever since the beginning, it's been a safer place than the land.

[seaborg]

Even if you can breathe underwater, there’s no safety in a place you can’t escape.

[Or at least, that’s his opinion. And it’ll only grow stronger once he actually encounters the Mosasaur.]

[asea]

. . . It was the same in our world. There was no place to escape . . .

[After all, how can one flee from land dwellers forever? Still – ]

The sea is safest. It's where we belong.

[seaborg]

[And now he's catching on that he and Walter might be talking about something else.]

Who do you mean by we?

[asea]

The people of the water . . .

[Who else?]

There isn't anyone else.

[seaborg]

Our worlds must be very different. There are no people of the water where I'm from.

[Only him. And he was made that way.]

[asea]

Of course there aren't.

[That should have tipped him off to stop talking, but it doesn't, in the end.]

The world from which I came is ours.

[That gets the slightest furrow of his brows out of him.]

Unlike there, this sea lacks a will.

[seaborg]

A will?

[It's not that he disbelieves it, it's just a strange concept. Water doesn't have a consciousness, so how can it have a will? He's once seen a fight with someone who could control water, but that's not exactly the same thing.]