The Little Mermaid (Darian)

[Walther Ebersbacher]

The pond. It was one of those places that there just wasn't a general consensus on. Some found it romantic, a perfect place to spend some time with the ones they loved. Others found that antiquated ideal to be stupid, why walk out that far to just hold hands and look at the sunset? Some found the place alluringly beautiful, with gently lapsing waters. Others just thought it was a dumb waste of time. With gently moving dirt re-settling back in to the ground, and a feeling of peace... Well, Walther was with the crowd that could see the beauty.

The day was surprisingly warm. Though he noticed the weather lately seemed to have been big shifts as of late. He was able to shed the coat for a day. Though the little hairs on his arm stood, and he had goosebumps for a little bit... It was pleasantly bearable. He hadn't gone swimming in a very long time, and he didn't trust his own ability. So what he did was instead just wear some shorts, leaving his tennis shoes with his socks inside of them just up-shore. He dipped his big toe in to the water, first, swishing it around just a little bit.

"Brr!" He exclaimed to himself with a little giggle, setting the bottom of his right foot inside. It was indeed cold, but the pond was almost trying to draw him in by rolling some water up to his ankles. He answered the call, and just stepped up to his ankles with both feet, wiggling his toes. Ohh, it was so cold in the water. But the lapsing of the water, now that he was a little bit amidst it, was just an absolutely beautiful noise. Calm, soft-spoken, but it carried with it the power and beauty of nature.

Which made him wonder... If it weren't so cold, what would his instruments sound like if he was submerged? His various noises. Sourcing his noise in the water, he ran a string of violin, to accompany a few clinks of a xylophone, from deepest to highest pitch it could muster. Without such constraints as actual physical resistance, Walther was essentially able to create an underwater orchestra! Though, he was alone out here... It would have been best to merely conserve. The headaches and nausea it caused, and he was ankle-deep in water. He usually wasn't one to be super-paranoid, but he just didn't see that ending well.

Walther turned around, having sufficiently sated that curiosity. Now, maybe it was time to just walk back to Hammel. Maybe Judah would be playing something or another in the lobby. He set his feet on shore, and started for his shoes... That was an interesting little experiment, after all! It was worth his time, which really could have only been spent doing schoolwork or watching TV. He was caught up with the former, and students were probably fighting over the latter. He got enough time on the tube alone, anyways.

[Darian Barker]

You'd think that after the last fiasco, which involved trapping himself under ice in the pond, Darian would have learned to be more careful when he went swimming. But it really felt too nice, too natural to ignore. He couldn't swim in the pool at the school, being that the chemicals didn't filter well through his body. The chlorine burned and he found it quite difficult to breathe. The pond, on the other hand, was quite fun to slip off to whenever he was afforded the chance. Before classes, between classes, after classes...

... Gee, he needed some kind of social life. 

That was, he'd never had many friends before. In regular school, he was the dim, quiet kid. People didn't expect anything from him and he didn't expect anything in turn. He didn't talk or spend any time with people, and romance was absolutely out of the question. And to be entirely honest, he saw nothing wrong with that. Besides, when it snowed out here it was the best. The water was nice and chilled and there was never anybody about. Now, however, it was only cold.

Resting in the muck, his ears turned in, he felt something moving in the water. Not any other fish, he was sure of that. He turned his yellow eyes up on the source of the movement, the movement of the toe seemed much like flailing, and he felt an urge to assume it was a fish, to scoop it up in his mouth. He didn't, however, choosing to stay his place and continue to watch. 

Then came music. It was... it sounded strange in the water, and in his ears. Whatever it was like above the water, it was eerily beautiful below, almost haunting. It wasn't until there was a rise in pitch, and then when it kept rising, that it began to lose its charm. He heard it loud and clear how high the pitch was, and it rang in his head! Baring his teeth, he kicked off the ground with his strong tail he shot up to the surface. But the person was on the shore now, out of the water. 

He poked his head up into the air and slowly brought himself onto the shore, back end still in the water down that deep slope.

"You!" he called out and, without really thinking, reached out and grabbed the stranger's ankle in a clammy grip.

[Walther Ebersbacher]

That scared him. So much that he let out possibly the most frightened -- and girliest scream ever. The scariest part of that exchange being that he didn't even /hear/ the noise of anything swimming. So scary that he kicked whoever it was in the face with his heel. His heart picked up at least ten paces, and he could feel the blood flow. Not unlike when he was first taken from his home by the Hammel recruiter. He slowly pulled with his trapped foot, turning to see just who it was.

Greenish-blue hued skin. Eyes of an odd shade of yellow. It looked like nothing human. Maybe some sort of alien. And then his eyes traveled down the body, that seamlessly blended in to a long, scaly tail. What a strange body! He'd never seen anything like it, except for in films. Though, really, nothing should have surprised him anymore, given the institution he was at. He'd seen pyromancers, to butterfly communication, and every little thing in between. So, while his face was frozen in a brief expression of horror, it quickly turned in to curiosity. And then, delight.

"You're like the Little Mermaid!" He pointed out, with a hint of joy. Maybe it was an offensive observation, given that the voice was clearly that of a male's. He didn't consider it, but that was the only comparison he could really make at the time. Disney movies were always somewhat of a treat for him. When he could catch them on the TV, he would. The musical numbers, in particular, were the most enchanting aspect of them...

In his mind, that was a compliment... At least in his mind. He represented the main character to his third favorite Disney movie! Ariel wasn't so bad, even if she was a girl... He had a tendency to speak before he could really consider if something might be offensive to someone else. But he meant everything in good faith, that was just something so hard to say... Even if he was gaining a handle on the English language.

"No, no... Sorry. I don't mean you are girlish..." Walther stammered, quickly, to cover his tracks. That made him feel pretty bad, honestly, in the few seconds he got to think about it.

[Darian Barker]

"..."

Darian just listened to him go on, eyes fixed on his every movement with a great amount of caution. The asshole kicked him in the face, though not very hard. He didn't look like he could kick very hard. So, confident that the boy wasn't any kind of threat, he just listened. The accent was the first thing that really jumped out at him. What was that... Russian? German? Probably German, though he wasn't very well-experienced with either of those things.

When the 'little mermaid' comment came by he grinned, which with those sharp and large teeth could have been misconstrued as a threatening glower. That wasn't the first time he'd ever heard that name. He remembered hearing it from his brothers all the time, when they discovered he was meta. During that short time that they knew. They used to chuck buckets of water at him in the hall, or spray him with the hose, which wasn't pleasant. It was brotherly bullying, rooted in what he knew was probably just a fearful attempt to cope with this new knowledge. 

So he understood with Walther, and didn't take offense. As the boy stammered to backtrack, clearly having some amount of trouble with the English words, he raised a hand to stop him, shaking his head.

"No, it's fine. I hear it a lot." he replied, pulling his long body to the shore with his hands, and some kicking of his tail. He'd dry off here soon, hopefully, "You were playing music just now, yeah? It was really beautiful ... except when it got up high." 
He winced and poked his ears, which were really more like vents flat against his head.

[Walther Ebersbacher]

Oh, he was indeed playing music. He didn't know it would hurt anyone as the pitch heightened. That was, again, something he felt a moderate twinge of guilt for. If he knew, he wouldn't have done it. He would have kept it nice and low. A haunting, but beautiful tone. Something to carry through the water and give everything that could be down there a nice tune to listen to. He thought about it for a moment...

Kettle drums, nice and deep, started to play a few feet below Darian's fin. The water rippled a little bit at the pure sonic energies. Walther twitched a little as he added a low violin, some horns joined them. Then, just as suddenly as he began, the noises simply stopped. They stopped dead, and the remaining ripples trailed back in to calm waters. The fish that also inhabited the pond calmed. Walther rubbed his temples, and sat down in the damp dirt.

"It's one power I have..." He replied, feeling the need to elaborate right afterwards. "I can... eh.. do the Sonic Manipulation, as my instructor says. It means I am in control of sound energies, too. It can kill, I was told..." The thought of that just frightened him, if he just accidentally killed someone. He'd never be able to forgive himself if that ever happened. He was just glad he found out by someone experienced and wise, rather than by... trial.

"So your power must be to be a mermaid... merman. Do you change when you want..?" Given the nuances and niches that a lot of people had around here, he would honestly be surprised if he was in full control of it. A guess he had was that he had to be swimming, maybe diving, in order for it to work.

[Darian Barker]

Darian could hear the music from the shoreline, and he smiled towards the source of it. It really was beautiful. He let his head sway left and right with the music, lifting and curling his tail. When the music stopped, however, it was quite abrupt. He cocked his head, scooting closer to Walther for a better look, "Are you alright...? You look like you're in pain..." 

He couldn't quite deduce that the power might have been causing him pain. His experience around active powers like that was limited to classtime, and rarely anything else. 

"I do change, but only when I get wet. It's a pretty big pain in the ass... And when I dry off again..." he 
scooped up some dry sand and weed and wiped his tail, and as he dried, he gradually returned to his eventual bare and human form. He offered a smile, looking down at his toes and wiggling them, "Sometimes it takes longer than other times, but if I don't turn sometimes I get kind of sick."

[Walther Ebersbacher]

He pinched the bridge of his nose, eyes clenched shut for a few fleeting moments of absolute silence. It really did hurt him. Reverberating a sort of ringing in his head. It offered that sort of headache that came from a combination of a really bad toothache and a migraine at the same time. Sometimes, he really thought that was going to kill him some day, that his head was just going to pop, or he'd go deaf. But, until then, he supposed he'd enjoy what he could do.

Blue eyes opened again, slowly, turned away from the light. He let his hands burrow in the sand a little bit, before braving a reply. "Yes... If I use that much, it hurts badly..." He gestured to his temple. "It's really hurting... Like a big headache, except no medicine helps... Just a short amount of time." But Darian, well, he looked over to him. He didn't seem to be hurting at all!

And then his eyes averted again when he saw that he had no clothes. He didn't know what he was expecting. How could he keep his clothes? They wouldn't melt in to his skin at all. Even then, his cheeks quickly burned a deep crimson. He was a modest sort. Walther possessed a sort of shame and embarrassment at the thought of his bare body being revealed.

And yet, here was this Merman, just sitting there next to him. In his birthday suit, uncaring. Since he didn't find it too awkward, he tried to just carry on the conversation, as if it wasn't awkward for him, either. "That must be pretty interesting, though... I see a lot of people who can be animals, yet you're still you..."

[Darian Barker]

"I guess all our powers have negative sides..."

Being that had just been explained, the reason for his pain, Darian simply passed the red cheeks and signs of embarrassment off as part of the side-effects. After all, he had grown quite used to feeling this way. He simply sat on the beach, bringing his knees up and throwing his arms over them, watching the sky. It was kind of nice out, a little cold, but not terrible.

Some time during his thoughts, it occurred to him that this might not be decent. The idea came through his mind quickly and he felt quite stupid, glancing over to Walther to discreetly get a feel for how he felt about it. Well, he still seemed to be carrying on the conversation. Didn't ask him to dress. Well, he shrugged, remaining how he was. That was a relief. He loved being like this.

"It's kind of weird. My body feels different, and I think differently. I guess I just... hear things better, and feel more..." he hesitated to answer, "Nervous about it? Aware? I don't know. But being in the water feels really free. It's like, no other feeling in the world."

He stopped what he was saying, and put up a finger, "Darian Barker! I'm Darian and I never introduced myself."

[Walther Ebersbacher]

He still didn't want to be rude, but his gaze remained affixed forward, on the calm lake. The fish occasionally rose to visibility, only to swim forward a bit, and swim downward again. He had to envy that a little. It must have been the most peaceful feeling in the world, to just get down there, and swim with nature. To have nature swim with you. He always wondered that about those that could fly, too. Was it fun to fly with the birds?

He still had to be thankful for what he had, though. Walther's jealousy didn't last long. Everyone was unique. And he was the only person within Hammel, as far as he knew, that could do what he did. And yet, how many pyromancers and aeromancers were around. How many people that could manipulate water in its very barest form? A lot more.

And then it hit him, no, he didn't introduce himself, either! That was rather rude of him.Perhaps he was distracted by the fact that Darian was nude, to avoid shaking hands. But he actually turned to face him, focused on his face, on his eyes. "I'm Walther Ebersbacher. It's nice to meet you." He nodded slightly, offering his right hand after shaking the sand off of it.

Darian... That was a name he'd never heard before. Then again, a lot of these names he'd never heard. Phoenix, Kodiak, those were some of the more interesting names he heard around here. Philomena... Iggy, Judah. It was certainly more diverse in Hammel than anywhere else in the world! And, funnily enough, that did sound like a name that had roots in Europe. But it was a stupid curiosity. How likely was it that he looked up the origin of his name? He dropped the thought from his mind.

[Darian Barker]

Darian took his hand and shook it, nice and firm. Walther, where had he heard that name before... or maybe he read it? It was familiar, whatever the source. And then it hit him, and he lit up, letting go of the other boy's hand and instead pointing it right at Walther's face, "Walther Erbessbaker. We're in a dorm room together!"

Or at least they would have been. Darian tended to go to bed very late and leave bed very early, dedicating very little time at all to his roommates. All he knew was one of them was a bit old, one of them was quiet... little else. What a lucky coincidence that he'd actually find himself an excuse to interact with one of them, aside from mandatory greetings.

He leaned back in the sand, letting one leg lie flat and keeping the other knee up. Very slowly, then, he reclined against the grassy half and looked up at the sky, "Maybe I wanna spend more time there from now on if I've actually got somebody to talk to."

[Walther Ebersbacher]

The way he said his name... Oh, that was a very typical mistake. But he understood! If all he had was a brief reading of it... He wasn't German, he wasn't used to how things were pronounced. As far as he was concerned, he had the most simple last name in the universe, only because it was the thing he learned after his first name. Oh well, though. He wasn't going to be one of those people that corrected him. He just smiled and nodded, politely as ever.

"Well, I haven't met really anyone in the dorm room besides you. I think it would be very nice." With all of the time he spent in the room, it would have indeed been nice to get to know one of the people he slept next to on a day to day basis. Perhaps he made a new friend, just now! For some reason, he had a feeling that this would be the sort of person he'd watch a lot of TV with, or just hang out in general. He seemed like the most sensible person so far. /And/ he was in the roundabout age group.

He laid back in the grass, mostly just following Darian's cue, watching the clouds streak across the sky, from one side, to the other. The pace was pretty slow, they rolled. Occasionally, sunlight would peek between the spaces, dance along the water, along the dew-covered grass, and the shiny white sand. It was beautiful in and of itself, he wondered if there was something a bit larger. He heard about a lake, but hadn't yet been there.

"Since you're done swimming, maybe we can go back to school-- Hammel now?"

[Darian Barker]

Done swimming? Well, really he wasn't. He'd planned to be out here for a lot longer, otherwise he would have dressed. However, on quick consideration, Darian found an opportunity to spend time with this new friend was actually preferable to sitting in the muck at the bottom of the water like he did absolutely every other morning. Besides, he'd had his obligatory soak, he could probably just soak a little more in the bath tub later.

So Darian just nodded and his eyes shot around the immediate area, looking for his clothes. When he found them, he got up on his knees and crawled the short distance, picking them up off the grass and getting dressed. He stood up off the grass and curled an arm in gesture towards the path up to the school, "Come on, Walther."