She still hadn't adjusted to the darkness. She was a creature of sun and sea, after all, designed for beaches in high summer. This night, and the cold it brought with it, was as foreign an experience as flying was to the mermare.
The little balls of luminescent water she had scooped from the sea when talking to Tiercel had stuck around. They were her small rebellion against the night. Hardly any light at all, but she was grateful nonetheless. One or more hung by her shoulder almost constantly during her waking hours now. They had been welcome company on her systematic walks of the island, looking for others caught out in the dark.
Her path carried her along the shorelines, and today there was an unexpected shape that interrupted the emptiness. Pale as a ghost, she stopped in her tracks as the figure appeared. She wanted to be afraid, to wheel about and run the other direction. And then she didn't. Happiness, such an out of place sensation took her over, and she couldn't swallow the hysterical giggle that forced it's way out.
The nereid gulped and choked on the feeling until the figure was right beside her, and then she quieted. The surreal Happiness drained from her as quickly as it had come, and she was left cold and shivering in the dark. "Your family really is awful about that," she hiccuped, remembering the bolt of Peace his brother had used on her. Weaponized emotion, it was beyond her comprehension, but very effective.
Her orb of glowing saltwater had splashed to the ground when the foreign emotion had invaded, broke her focus. She didn't feel like reforming it. "You're safe then," she commented, stating what was obvious first. "Your family is too, I hope. All your children accounted for?" That was one of her worst concerns. That in the darkness, children would wander, and walk into the sea, or onto a sandbar. Not be able to find their way back.
@[Pteron]