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Tianara smiled obscurely, letting the subject die. She listened to Joshua's words with silent fascination and a kind of serious concentration, a pupil who knew she was going to be tested on this. If not now, soon. Very slowly, she touched the ends of her own incredibly long black hair. So...if pale hair, hair close to Joshua's, was the norm, she might get a few funny looks. But a few funny looks weren't too bad. She could live with that.

She smiled when he was done. "So it's almost like the merfolk," she murmured, reassured. "Except on land. Maybe this won't be so hard."

On those words, her eyes drifted closed slowly. She remained seated upright, though, and any hope that she might be falling asleep was disrupted by her next question. "What would I have to do? Or I guess not do. To look sort of normal, at least. I don't want to be just like everyone in the town, but I'd rather not end up exposing the merfolk because I act so strangely."

((OOC: Short post. >.< I went red today. I like it! biggrin ))

"I know how," said Tianara, looking surprised. "To read, I mean. I don't...write?" She smiled over at him. "We had a few merfolk in our clan old enough to change shape. They took me up to the beach so I could have one of our graduated ocean children teach me. We never got on to writing, because Sarani left us very suddenly." Tianara's face grew sad and distant for a moment, then she shook it off. "I can read, though. And maybe Kiro can teach me the writing, if you're too busy saving the seafolk from the humans." She gave him a little grin, knowing he knew she was teasing.

All joking aside, Tianara was a little worried about imposing on him. "You don't have to do it if you don't want to. Kiro can help me. It's always been that way," she said with a small shrug. "The graduated children teach those who will be coming into the world the skills they will need. I know about money, too," she added. "At least, I know what it is and how it's used. Mostly. I still don't really understand the little cards."

There was a slow stir in the water, as though one of the merfolk was beginning to awaken. Tianara glanced out at the water and waited, but no one surfaced. She shrugged philosophically to herself. Maybe one of them had awoken temporarily and gone back to sleep.

Her eyes were closed again, but she was still awake. She was just thinking, she insisted to herself. "You know more about humans than any of the rest of us, Joshua," she said, sounding quiet and sort of faraway. "What will the reaction be if humans find out about the seafolk? Not through the chained creature, but if it just happens. If it can be proven. What would happen? What would they do?"

"Sorry wouldn't," said Tianara quietly. "I know that. The happiness it's brought her, and although they wouldn't admit it, the others, to know that there are humans who aren't and weren't among them, but that still care...Joshua, I don't think you can know how much that means to them. Just to know that there are humans that are decent out there." She shrugged, turning to him. "Since we can't trade it or take it back, might as well know that we have something to be grateful for."

When Mac spoke up, Tianara glanced over at him. She'd pretty well forgotten he was there. "Well, you're a special case," she said absently. "In most cases, I think the outcome of land and sea coming together - especially if people react the ways Joshua described - not only could, but probably will be bad. We can't put the kelp over our eyes and pretend like nothing's wrong. Weapons would be good, but we've already talked about that." She shivered once, more from weariness than cold, but resolutely finished what she had to say. "But learning to use them will take time. Time I don't know if we even have."

Tianara glanced over at him, a little surprised that he'd pulled away. Was he embarrassed? The idea of that caused something sad to move in her. She didn't want him to be embarrassed for being kind. But she didn't say anything, in case it just made things worse. Instead, she turned her gaze back to Mac. "I really think that if we have to have weapons, guns would be the best we could do." She glanced quickly at Joshua. "They don't take much training, right? Just point and click?" Really, she didn't know anything about guns. She was just guessing.