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Tianara's hands, which were running lightly over the dog's fur, fascinated by the feel of this foreign stuff, went still. Her eyes flicked up towards Adrian, troubled and nervy. She gathered herself as best she could before asking, "Fishing?"

Her voice hadn't broken. Small mercies.

She turned her eyes back to the dog, trying to keep up the same lighthearted voice she'd had earlier. "Bet she helps a lot," she murmured, but the laughter had gone away for now.

Fishing was a serious problem for her and her kinfolk, and it disturbed her to think that it was something he did.

((OOC: Booooo, dead-brained Silent is dead.))

Tianara flushed and looked away. She wasn't sure how to handle his questions. With unsteady fingers, she rubbed Shally's ears. "I..." she smiled weakly, apologetically. Her eyes were still on the dog. "Some bad experiences with...fishing. A long time ago."

She sincerely hoped he wouldn't push her any farther than that. How she was going to work it into the background Joshua had given her - particularly since she couldn't remember any of it at the moment - was too confusing to contemplate.

So she just focused her gaze on Shally's ears and willed her blush away.

((OOC: So sleeepy...))

Tianara blushed vividly at Adrian's touch. Part of her stood back and was uncomfortably aware that this was the first time she had ever touched a man who wasn't family or...well, Joshua. She felt shy and awkward, but just nodded at his first words. When he brought up swimming, she smiled very slowly. She loved swimming. "Yes, definitely," she agreed.

She only glanced at Joshua after she said it, realizing abruptly that this might not really be a very good idea. Then she changed her mind. She'd get Joshua to show her how humans swam, and how often they had to come up for air. Then she would be all right, as long as she remembered how to do it properly.

So she smiled a little more, easing shyly back from Adrian's arms. "Yes, we'll have to do that."

Instant paralysis. What was he asking?

She glanced to Joshua in confusion. "What is that?" she whispered into his mind, pushing so as to make sure he heard it. "That stuff you said?"

Hot chocolate was another one of those things she had never heard of, and she had to make a quick decision now because Adrian was starting to look - to her paranoid eye, anyway - quizzical.

"Um..." Helpless look at Joshua.

Quick decision.

"Okay. Yes. Thank you," she said, stuttering over the words just a little bit, and separating them out so that Joshua could interrupt if he thought he needed to.

She looked out the window at the lashing rain and wondered if the merfolk had gotten to a safe cove in time.

Tianara relaxed a little bit once Adrian was out of the room - the places he'd touched earlier when he'd hugged her had felt like they were burning the entire time he was standing there. She looked curiously at Joshua, and was about to inquire further into the strange properties of this hot chocolate thing when a shrill whistle made her jump at least a foot in the air.

She glanced around the room, looking for the source of the whistling, but when Adrian came back in she turned to examine the cups in his hands. Huh. It smelled okay, she thought.

When he handed her one, she smiled back at him with all the innocence of someone very young. She was still thoroughly oblivious to his 'special' attention. "Thank you," she said softly, gazing down into the cup now, very aware of Adrian sitting beside her.

It looked a little funny. Like really, really wet mud, she thought. Cautiously, she took a sip. Despite what Joshua had said, she was half-expecting it to taste like mud - wet and thick and vaguely fishy.

Instead, it was the sweetest thing she'd ever had. Pulling back, she blinked down into the cup as she let the taste linger on her tongue.

Weird.

Tianara was still gazing down at the cup, frowning at it a little bit. Did she like it? She wasn't entirely sure. It was...odd. Maybe a little too sweet. She wasn't used to that kind of sugar content, anyway - that much was evident from her face.

When Joshua spoke to her, she managed a little smile. I don't know if I like it. It's very sweet, and it's nice and warm. I think I do. She laughed softly at the behaviour of the dog.

Every time Adrian's arm brushed hers, her face flushed slightly, and she would look very intently across the room at something that only she could apparently see. "Yes," she said quietly. "The storms can get very bad out here."

Dark. Cold. Lashing rain and fierce winds. And a fall...

A very long fall. A long time ago.

She shook her head and pushed it all away, taking another cautious sip of the drink.

Tianara looked up, startled, then glanced away shyly. "Oh. It's nothing. I was just...distracted. I'm sorry." She wasn't sure what to say to him. How could she explain what she had remembered?

Joshua would have understood, because she knew Kiro had talked to him, but this wasn't Joshua. This was Adrian, who she liked very much, but who she didn't know very well.

Could she talk to him freely?

She thought not. Not yet.

So, now looking at the dog as a proxy for its master, she said, "Just thinking about other things. I'm sorry."

Had Sorry and the others found a safe place for the night? She hoped so. It would be hard to reach them through the storm, so she had to hope.