Chapter 25: Discussions
1719 Words
“Welcome to my humble abode.” Alister waves his hand mildly as he leads them to an open office. Kaelonne raises his eyebrows as he takes in the surroundings. It’s a large office, quite similar to Hartley’s lab, but the walls carried a coat of blue and the floor was carpeted in a soft green. One of the walls was completely glass, overlooking the ocean, and the couple tents on the ground that covered the work area that Alister was inhabiting hardly an hour ago.
It’s the mess that took a longer time to sort through. Much like the open room they were in minutes ago, papers were strewn everywhere. The young royal runs the tips of his fingers over a couple of open books, careful not to shift them as he runs his eyes over the pictures and newspaper clippings that were tacked to the walls.
“Messy, I see not much has changed.” Hartley snorts beside the Mermatian, hands shoved in his pockets as he takes in the room at his own pace. He look slightly at home with the mess and faint smell of sea salt that seemed to be embedded in everything.
“I know, it’s just so freeing to put things without a necessary order.” Alister chuckles as he rummages through a few drawers, pulling out a couple files dumping them on the desk.
“What is it that you wanted it show us?” Kaelonne asks softly, not really wanting to interrupt their conversation, but the pain in his leg was making itself know and he’d rather have a clear mind to listen to the marine biologist.
“Ah, yes, let me just, ah-ha!” Alister pulls out his chair from behind the desk and rolls it over to them, gesturing for the Mermatian to take a seat. “You probably still want answers as to how I know about your kind, but that comes with a story, so it’d be best if I explained everything to you now.”
“You seem to be quite familiar with the wound on my leg.”
“Yes, the poison. I will definitely get to that.” Alister walks up to one of the walls covered by a large sheet of paper, sighing as he pulls it down. “But I think that it would be best to show you this first.”
“What on earth?” Hartley trails off from where he’s leaning against the back of Kaelonne’s chair, the young royal found himself inclined to agree with the sentiment. Tacked to the wall was pictures and clippings, strings of all colours knotted around pins on the board, leading from one item to the next. It looked like something that was cumulated over years, with extreme precision and time.
“When I first met you… I was quite shocked at the luck of meeting your kind twice in a lifetime.”
“Twice?” Kaelonne latches onto the sentence, turning to face the marine biologist fidgeting with his hands, “You’ve come across a Mermatian before?”
“Something like that. Years ago, when I really started building up this place, I’d spend a lot of time by the shore.” Alister waves his hand to the view of the ocean, “Imagine my surprise when one day I came across a lot of blood on the sands one day.”
“Injured?”
“Yes, my first thought was a dolphin or at the very least, a couple of large fishes or even a beached shark, but no, it was a creature… looking both human, and not.”
“What did you do?”
“What any person would’ve done, I freaked for a while.” Alister leans against his desk, rubbing a hand down his face as he let out a tired chuckle. He massages his temple for a few seconds before shifting a few papers on his desk and grabbing his glasses, resting them on his nose. “Then it moved. Once I realised it was alive, I tried dragging it back into the water. I wasn’t sure if he’d have lived on land.”
“You did the right thing, Mermatians react to air the same way humans would to water.” Hartley glances at him, resting a heavy, comforting hand on his shoulder as he motions for Alister to continue.
“He, as I later found out from his broken English, woke up after about an hour, enough time for me to drag him closer to the cliffside, out of the sun. He was to injured to leave, so I’d taken a chance to get my first-aid kit.”
“Did he spend long?”
“Not very, just enough for his wounds to heal. We talked some, he’d been attacked and separated from the rest of his group, and he needed to return to assure them that he was well. He never returned, so… I tried to assume the best.”
“What happened after?”
“Well, helping him was actually the main fuel for me to start the ‘Rescue and Research Marine Centre’, so that was a plus.” Alister huffs with a nostalgic half-smile, gaze slack as his mind wandered through memories. His face fell after a few seconds as he waved a hand to the crowded wall, “But then I started this.”
“What exactly is… this?”
“I started researching the existence of mer-life… or Mermatians as you said.” Alister points to a cluster of papers with old dates, plucking gently at the string attached to it, “Pictures to date, news of sailors, anything I could get my hands on. As the research centre got larger, I wanted to know everything and anything I could, just in the case that I could help if I ever came across one again.”
“You did, didn’t you?”
“I did, but… it wasn’t exactly right.” Alister’s face fell into a frown, “I went out on a trip on my own, as far out as I could in the night. I fiddled with some tech I had with me. The Mermatian I had the chance to work with used whistles pretty often to communicate, so I figured I’d try to mimic it.”
“What happened?” Hartley leans forward, slightly resting his head atop Kaelonne’s. The young royal wanted to bet he hadn’t even realised he was doing that, intrigued as he was, he wasn’t planning to move from his comfortable spot to tell him.
“I got attacked, but it wasn’t by a Mermatian… at least I think it wasn’t. Its scales were all wrong, grey, and dull compared. It snarled instead of whistling.” Alister shuddered, “It swiped at me, but I was able to get away, it’s hands getting tangled in the rope net I’d shielded the boat with. Despite my panic, I didn’t exactly want to hurt it, so I tried to cut it lose. That’s when I came across it, the poison.”
“Were you injured?” Kaelonne could already feel his protective streak for fragile humans coming in, and he mentally stomped on it as hard as he could. They have prven time and time that they could handle themselves.
“No, thankfully not. The claws caught in the net were stained black and green, at first I thought producing it, but then I realised it seemed to be placed there.” Alister gestured to his hands, mimicking rubbing something on his short nails, “It got lose, but some of the poison remained on the nets, so I had it analysed, and a cure produced. You’re actually the first person I tested it out on, so you’re very lucky it worked.”
“Hmm, thank you for that.”
“Don’t be, I’ll be pestering you for questions as long as you are here.” Alister chuckled, “My first one being, do you have an idea what it was that attacked?”
“Grey, dull scales. I have a good idea.” Kaelonne sighs, “That was not a Mermatian, you came across a Sirinian, and by the sound of it, a very angry one.”
“A Sirinian?”
“Very dangerous. They don’t carry out mercy like Mermatians do, you are a very lucky human.” Kaelonne explained the differences of the two species as carefully as he could. This man was a fellow researcher that had just saved his life, the least that he could do was repay him with information he himself would have wanted if their roles had been reversed.
“I see.” Alister pushed himself off the desk, walking to the door, “So, I must ask, what is it that happened that could possibly put a creature of the sea on land?”
“That is long story.”
“And what if I said I was willing to help with whatever you planned next?”
“You do not even know if I am on the good side.”
“You’re with Hartley.” Alister said in a ‘no nonsense’ tone as raised an eyebrow at the pair, Kaelonne followed suit and glanced at the confused human behind him.
“Fair point.”
“Wait, what did I do?”
“Nothing.” Kaelonne chuckled before giving Alister his full attention, “Then I must say that your help will be greatly appreciated.”
“Thank you.” Alister waved his hand and opened the door, “But I do have someone to add to what seems to be quite a motley crew you’re growing. Nora!”
“Wait, Nora’s still here.” Hartley stood up properly, angling his head to see the person coming up the stairs.
“Who is Nora?”
“That would be me.” A young woman, close to Hartley’s age walked through the door. She was dressed in a purple and black jacket; her hair cut to her neck and sticking out in multiple directions, bright green eyes full of mirth.
“Kellon, meet my assistant and an old friend of Hartley’s, Nora.”
“Good to meet you.” Kaelonne nodded his head respectfully, tilting his head in curiosity of the new addition to the conversation.
“Same here, so, what’s the story behind all this.” She gave a lopsided smile and a small wave before mimicking Hartley’s stance and sticking her hands in her jacket pockets.
“You know that thing you were helping me research?”
“I thought we weren’t supposed to talk about that.” The smile goes strained on her face, her slight swinging motion going stiff and she fixed Alister with a pointed glare. Friendly, but formidable, Kaelonne raised an eyebrow as he was reminded of Eirian in this young human.
“We’re not, but it should be perfectly fine to discuss it with one of the natives.”
“No freaking way.”
- Writer
