Welcome to Gaia! ::

((OOC: O.o))

Tianara smiled briefly at Joshua. However, at Allen's words, she paused and blinked, hesitating. "I...She..." She sent a quick, pleading look towards Joshua, and remembered her own words. What harm could there be in making an old man happy? In granting the wish he seemed to have held since forever? "My mother," she said softly. "My mother could be the model. She looks just like this." She picked up the statuette very tenderly, tracing the tail with her finger. "Even the scales are the same shade. I suppose she must just be the stereotype - blonde and beautiful."

Tianara glanced back over her shoulder, her dark-blue eyes sleepily amused. "Well, she's not my birth mother, obviously," she replied to Allen's question. "But she's always given me everything I need." When Allen mentioned the part of the legend about human girls with sea-coloured eyes, she stiffened marginally. Her eyes turned to Aria, and she crossed the room to the other girl. "May I?" she asked as she crouched slightly so that she and Aria were at eye level. She stared intently into those sea-green eyes, looking for...something.

She spoke not a word for several minutes. At last, she sighed, rose and turned away, walking back to the statuette. She stood silently, her back to the room as she gazed at the mermaid figurine.

Mac looked at her. Something pulled at him, and these two seemed to be the cause. Then he heard very faint sounds. It sounded as a lullaby, like something a mom would sing to a child. The voice was so distant sounding and it sounded echoic, no one would hear it normally. He then realized it was his memory. He seemed to look through Aria and his eyes gave a look of both curiosity and contentment.

"I need to know who the descendants are. Its very important" he said out loud. He seemed to already know, but he wanted to ask.

Tianara's gaze went soft as she looked over her shoulder at the old man. "Yes," she said quietly, her accent becoming more pronounced. "I was. It's why I walk funny - I'm not used to it. My mother..." She trailed off. "She's very shy of humans. She lives out in a very deep cavern with her clan. You can't meet her specifically - she's too shy. But there are others that live in Joshua's cove. They'd be happy to meet you." Looking at Joshua, she asked, "Do you think Narcis and Jinx would mind? Sorry and Nezik won't, I know that."

At Joshua's question, however, she sighed. "A touch," she said softly. "The mermaids...once you've lived with them, you get a feel for their magic. It's not really sensing it, it's more like seeing it. I was looking for it in her."

Tianara glanced back at the three of them, seeming to have forgotten what they had been saying. "Hmm? Oh," she said in response to Joshua. "I think so. I thought I saw something, anyway. But it's so faint," she murmured. "So faint I can't even be sure. You'd have to take her to a real mermaid to know."

She smiled a bit at Allen's reaction. "You were right," she said lightly. "Perfectly." When Joshua looked nervous - presumably about Narcis's reaction - she chuckled. "You know, I think that if Sorry's there to keep him in line, he'll be all right." She had been more worried about Jinx, who seemed to have Narcis's opinion of humans without anyone to soften her. But since she'd remembered that the younger Siren had taken Nezik and gone off to find the chained creature, she wasn't worried anymore.

"Well, I think we should go, Joshua, Mac," she told the other two. "That way we can do two things at once. Sorry can check Aria and make sure of what I just think, and Allen can meet some of the merfolk. What do you think?"

Tianara smiled a bit as she went back towards the cove. She walked alongside Joshua - she didn't know the way through the town. "Sorry," she said apologetically. "I thought I would be able to tell, but it's hard if it's not an actual member of the merfolk, or someone very closely descended from them. If Aria was the daughter of a mermaid, maybe, but as it is, I just can't be sure."

She glanced back to be sure that Allen and Aria and Mac were all with them. "I hope things go well when Allen meets the merfolk," she murmured. "It would be dreadful if they turn out to be less than what he was expecting. Maybe it would have been kinder just to leave him with his dreams."

Tianara flushed slightly under the stares and the whispering. Perhaps Joshua and Allen were used to it, but she was not. People were still so strange to her. "Yes," she said, in a brave attempt to ignore it. "Sorry will know." She, too, glanced back at Allen. "He seems like a nice man. There must not be many like him," she murmured, her eyes gentle. "Why does he live so far away from the other humans?"

After a second or two, a horrible thought struck her. "Joshua," she began as they passed into the wooded area that stood between them and the cliffs that would lead to the cove, "can you contact Sorry from here? I just realized that Narcis might try to take her back to her family. Tell her to tell him to wait, if you can, maybe? We can't introduce Allen to the merfolk if none of them are there, and Jinx and Nezik are gone chasing that chained thing."

She could have slapped herself for forgetting such an important detail. Neither Narcis nor Katalina knew that they were bringing Allen and Aria back with them, after all. So they might leave, assuming that there was nothing important going on until the three humans had tracked down the merfolk descendants - and she didn't want the old man to be disappointed.

Tianara's eyes were sad. "Why would they tease him? He's so nice," she said, sounding unhappy. Was this what her family was going to leave her with, for the rest of her life? She didn't want to live like that. It sounded terrible. Nodding as he spoke, she murmured, "Yes. Try hard. It'll be tough this far from her, if she's not initiating."

For several seconds after Joshua reached out to Katalina, there was nothing. Then her voice came through to him, sounding soft and rather dazed, but happy. What? Oh. Joshua. Hi. I'm sorry, I was...distracted. What did you say? Then there was something that sounded very much like a soft laugh.

Tianara wondered if she should also have thought to warn him about the possibility that Katalina might not welcome the interruption.