closed.

[adlantisag]

CHARACTERS: Kida (adlantisag) and Helga (anteil)
DATE: backdated to after the storm, before exploring Pu'ulai
WARNINGS: none.
SUMMARY: A tense meeting; how can you know someone you don't know?

[ Komo is left ravaged long after the waves recede. Kida throws herself into the work of repairs: mending houses, building nets, fishing, cleaning the day's catch. The Nalawi are deft hands but they aren't used to relying on their own bodies to carry them through, and they need teachers. She fills her days, up at dawn and returning to the inn only to fall face-first into a bed. Her sleep is short, fitful and nightmarish. She dreams of Atlantis and the sea swallowing her up.

Two days pass like this.

She goes to find Helga only after she can be certain the infestation of crab has passed, eager to get back her primary tool for fishing and paring large catch. It's less about the woman herself, though there's some vague recognition still inhabiting her, and by extension, a sort of camaraderie. In Atlantis, dispatching foreigners was her duty, but the centuries had eroded her; she'd become desperate. She saw possibility in their strange group, small though it was. She wanted to believe change could be real.

The beach is littered with refuse still, most of it washed-up broken bits of furniture, dead crab. There she finds Helga, helping a group of Nalawi mend an old fishing boat. She calls out. ]

Miss Sinclair!

[ What else to call her? She hardly remembers this woman's given name. Heidi? ]

I only need a moment of your time.

Comments

[anteil]

| Helga's hand is on the spear at the sound of the voice, before she even properly registers that it's her name that is being called, much less who the caller is. She had brought it in case there were more crab creatures that needed to be disposed off, but it hadn't proven to be necessary. The Nalawi hadn't seemed to mind the precaution, but as she had helped find some of their numbers after the storm, it might only be due to her having earned the smallest bit of deer trust.

She rises from her crouching position, spear in hand, and seems to offer up one last bit of instruction before approaching Kida. No, boats weren't her forte, she just has enough experience fixing things that needed immediate and effective fixing. Combined with the knowledge of a Nalawi sailor, albeit now giftless, their odd little group seems to have made it work.

She approaches Kida, weapon loosely by her side. There is tension in her shoulders, just as there had been when they last met. This is it, then. Moment of truth. |

What can I do for you | maybe the next bit is brought by Helga pushing her luck. She needs to know whatever Kida knows, whatever she remembers. If all this is pretence of sorts, something she does will have to make it crumble eventually | princess?

| Not insulting, not downright insulting at least. But there's an undercurrent of teasing. |

I suppose you'll want your spear back?

[adlantisag]

[ Not the first nor the last to call her that, and Kida interprets the tone as a kind of familiar teasing; aren't they 'familiar', in a way, for being from the same...place?

She knows no more about this woman than she does about the birds of Nalawi, and yet feels close to her. What a strange thing to feel.

It makes sense that the other woman would remember that much about her, though in turn Kida is embarrassed that she's grappling for anything similar--only to realize, with some pleasure, that Riza and this woman's rank title were the same. ]

I would, lieutenant.

[ There's a small smile on her face, though she hasn't missed Helga's grip on the weapon. She attributes it to the adrenaline of these last few days. ]

If you have no more use of it, that is. [ She looks at the beach, and the boat, then back at Helga. ] I was going to use it for fishing, but if you need another set of hands on that boat...

[anteil]

| How suspicious would it be if she kept clinging to the spear? And how much use would it be, really, if she had to fight someone who can employ a weapon they are properly acquainted with? More than nothing, in either case.

She offers Kida her spear back, then. |

Thank you.

| Again. She should correct Kida's use of her rank – it's not proper military, and as such, died with Rourke putting an end to her employment. She couldn't explain this, though. No matter what went right (or wrong) here, Kida doesn't seem to remember much of their encounter at all. It doesn't take a lot of memories to know that Rourke and her had seen perfectly eye to eye before. She would have to lie excessively – even for someone with her experience in deceit, it's too easy to mess up. Better to lie by omission.

Even if it's far more bitter than sweet.

The next part is trickier still: she should keep her contact to this woman as minimal as possible. While Helga leans towards the memory theory, it could also simply be a trick. What exactly Kida gains by forestalling swift vengeance, she can't tell, but that doesn't make it an unlikely possibility. Keeping your enemies close is done best if they aren't aware that you think of them as such.

But if she sends her away now, not only would it be odd, it also robs her of any chance to monitor the princess warrior's behaviour. And how else would she know if anything changes for the worse? |

You have more experience with these types of boats than I do, your help would be rather welcome.

| And, to add an incentive, because she herself would need one beyond the goodness of her heart, and because Kida spoke of fishing... |

The Nalawi offer food to their helpers, if that's a concern for the night.

[adlantisag]

[ The spear's weight is familiar and warm in her hand. She can't help but let it sway a bit in her hold, as if testing it, before it returns to its holster.

Kida wouldn't know proper military if it bit her--she knows twenty-odd different names for seaweed, but then, the former was never much use in Atlantis while the latter was a diet staple. ]

It is not, but they have my thanks all the same. If you are ever lacking-- [ Her head cants, brows rising lightly just to say, I doubt that would be your case ] --you need only say. Ninat and I will provide.

[ Fishing, after all, is something of an Atlantean specialty, and while she knows Helga probably has want for nothing, she's eager to help. She turns her head towards the boat, taking stock of it. It's not in a style she's familiar with, made of various branches of wood seemingly fused together. Now that its Gifted creator has been stripped, however, some of the branches have come loose, or begun sprouting. ]

This will need to be sanded, then tarred. [ Tar is the word, isn't it? Atlanteans usually carved simple fishing vessels from single pieces of wood; the tar came from volcanic pits. She looks at the assembled Nalawi as they discuss between them, one confident there's peat tar to be found in the village. She turns to Helga. ]

Do any of you have a saw?

[ That would be a good place to start. They could use their bare hands to strip the branches, but that would take much longer. ]