Snakes. Why did it have to be snakes?

[chalicejoker]

Heads up--if you run into Teruo, Kinji's infiltration, some kind of yellow sea snake mermaid--be really damn careful. He's a menace.

Asshole goaded me into what I thought was a spar, but then he started singing, and it...

[Hajime's mental voice trails off in embarassment here before picking up again.]

Look, I'm not proud of it, but it's hard to get me to back down from a fight. And what he did, it...I just stopped fighting. Didn't even think to defend myself. He kept it up long enough to hit me with a cheap sucker punch.

[The irritation is just coming off his mental voice here.]

He also said several times that if I was a warrior, I should be sticking closer to the boat and protecting my school--I'm still not sure if that was a threat or not. I wouldn't put anything past him.

...and if you do end up talking to him and he mentions someone named Chalice, that's me--I'm not about to go by my real name in the same world as the Bando, even if I'm a fish this time around.

Comments

[thornsofmalkav]

Yeah, uh. The more he doesn't check in, the more sure I am that he's probably back to being Mercuin again. So that's a thing.

Um. I don't know how much I can tell you. Like I just told Hajime, I don't have knowledge of how to Siren, just sort of common knowledge stuff, like how to identify it. I mean. I guess once we reach the island, I could try to see if I can find a Siren to teach me that shit.

I'm sorry.

[professorwolf]

It's all right, don't apologize. You know more than most of us do, and that's somewhere to start, at least. What other common knowledge sorts of things do you know? You recognized one song-- do you know any others?

[thornsofmalkav]

Sure. Song of Breath, Song of Calm, Song of Rage...

[She goes on to list a bunch of the well-known songs that any mermaid would have heard of.]

I can't sing them, but I know 'em.

[professorwolf]

That's still more than most of us know, so that makes you valuable for recognizing what might be done to any of us.

Er, there's a Song of Rage?

[thornsofmalkav]

Yeah. Joscelin Sang it at Alcuin during Melisandegate.