Seaside 6: Six at the Beach

[5a Violista]

[Found Beach]

Yeah! Get mad. It's the right reaction. Perfectly justified in being mad after some long-lost twin stole your boyfriend.

Wait, no, don't do that, that's unhealthy. Unless it's, like, TPing her house or putting a microwave on her roof or something like that.
"No! Um, not that. No you shouldn't," June says. "Get mad, but wait until you've cooled off before you do anything. If you do something while mad, you'll make Mr. Boyfriend disappointed."

[bc56]

Found Beach

"Oh, uh..." Selekhael looks a little confused. "But she's tricking him! I need to save him!" She seems ready to rashly rush off and perform this ill-advised rescue right now.

[5a Violista]

[Found Beach]

It really is ill-advised.

"But what if Mr. Boyfriend already knew this and has been planning something!" June retorts. "If you just run in to save him, you're going to mess up everything he's been doing and planning!"

June thinks about what might be best. She's not really sure, since she doesn't know the situation at all, just that it's pretty awful and involves twins somehow, but she says, "You need to find a way where you can just talk to Mr. Boyfriend alone. Like, without any chance of running into your sister. Then you can ask him what you need to do. And if you just go right now without any time to think about it then you might mess up whatever plan he's been doing!"

[bc56]

Found Beach

"But, uh, what if he's not planning anything? He's been with her so long, he might not be able to escape!" Selekhael seems unconvinced. "What if he fails, and she hurts him? I have to help!"

[5a Violista]

[Found Beach]

"Then...then you need to talk with him! First!" June reiterates. "If he's planning something, you have to first talk with him alone so that you can know what he's planning. If he's not planning anything, then you need to first talk with him alone so you can decide on a plan together. If his plan fails, then you have to first talk with him otherwise what if you hurt him too?"

She seriously doesn't know whether what she's saying is right or not, but she does know that talking it over is definitely the best choice. Like, what if he's been happy and didn't even know that she was her twin sister or something? Then Selekhael suddenly butting in without consulting him would, in his eyes, make her the evil twin! And that would be entirely counterproductive. "You don't want to hurt him, right? Then you have to meet up with him and talk with him alone."

[bc56]

Found Beach

"But but but, uh..." Selekhael answers. "I, uh, I need to go think. Uh, bye." She spreads her wings and takes off, flying out over the ocean.
June might want to chase her down and prevent her from doing something she'll regret.

[5a Violista]

[Found Beach]

Needing to go think is great! June thinks.
But
Going off alone is probably bad.

June isn't sure how well she'd be able to follow out over the ocean, but maybe she'll be okay if she does? She looks around for something she could easily climb up and jump off of...there! It's basically a shipping crate. Probably. She thinks it's a shipping crate, but that doesn't matter because it looks pretty easy to climb up.

June climbs it, grabs the diadem and puts it on, and then - after a few experimental wing-flaps - jumps off and starts flying.

She doesn't try to catch up, obviously. Selekhael definitely needs time alone to think. But she follows from a distance, making sure to keep her in view.

[bc56]

Found Beach

Selekhael keeps flying off over the ocean, brooding. After a little bit, she looks back and sees June. She changes direction, quickly flying towards June. "Stop following me! I need to be alone!"

[5a Violista]

[Found Beach]

"I know! That's why I gave you space!" June calls back, shouting to make sure her voice isn't lost in the air. "Didn't you notice?" There was a bunch of space between them.
"Just didn't want you to fly too far and then fall in the ocean!" Although, to be honest, June's probably more at risk of that happening. Especially since Selekhael can breathe fine underwater.

Then, she adds, "Besides, you're literally the only person I know in this whole...everything!"

[bc56]

Found Beach

"I'm okay. You should go. I can't have anyone distracting me." Selekhael turns and starts flying away again. Will June keep following, or not?

[Purple Eagle]

Silver Sand Stretch

Sekhmet shakes her head. "I, uh, don't know. I've never done it before." She looks very worried when Zabb starts talking about her matrimonial home. She's not even sure what that means. "Uh, okay?" She looks nervous, as usual.

[Silver Sand Stretch]

"You gotta pile the sand as big as the castle will be! I'll help!" Zabb declares, starting to help her pile on more sand until it's big enough. "Oh my, no! Don't look so worried, Sekhmet! How can I make you feel better?" He wonders for a bit, then brightens. Hugs should help, right?

For someone in Sekhmet's state though, that might be unwise, she'd think he was trying to eat her or something... but he decides to try regardless. Instead of glomping her like he planned, he slowly and gently puts his arms around her. "A hug will help!"

[5a Violista]

[Found Beach]

"O...okay!" June replies. She does not follow. If someone insists that much, you probably should respect their wishes. "If you need anything, make sure to use your quest compass on me!"

June stays mostly in place and watches her fly away, then turns back to land.

[bc56]

Silver Sand Stretch

Sekhmet is hugged, but gently. She's willing to accept that and even hug back a little, although she's still very afraid. She begins slowly piling sand, handful by handful. It's not a quick process. When there's a modest pile, she stops. She thinks she has enough.

Found Beach

Meanwhile, Selekhael just keeps flying off into the distance. Doesn't June feel a little bit guilty about persuading her to hate her twin?

[5a Violista]

[Found Beach]

Why would June feel guilty for something she didn't do?
She tried to make it so Selekhael could vent without hurting anyone, and then convince her to get in a situation where she could come to terms with it on her own. If Selekhael continues to ignore and refuse to do what June said, then there's nothing June could have done anyway. If Selekhael hates her twin, it's in spite of what June tried to do.

So, no, she doesn't feel even a little bit guilty.

She lands back on shore.
With no idea where she is, and having lost the one person who said would help her, June prays the best for Selekhael and hopes she actually takes June's advice.

[Purple Eagle]

[Silver Sand Stretch]

Of course, Sekhmet doesn't get to do it alone, for Zabb helps as promised, and with a shovel! He's glad she accepted the hug and even hug back a bit, but she's still scared, clearly. There's little doubt in Zabb's mind that she probably expects to do something that'd set him off and get her smitten with all the angelic might he can muster.

Or maybe she's the type who's always scared? Much like Dread, that lady underwater he befriended. Her case is more complicated than Sekhmet's, however!

Once they're done, Zabb hands Sekhmet a paint stirrer, holding another one for himself. "It's for shaping the walls! Isn't this fun, Sekhmet?" It'd be more fun if she could just stop being scared, but he has lots of patience to spare. "I hope one day you'll stop being scared of me! And then, we can be real friends, oh my, yes!"

Zabb, make some conversation! But what'll she be willing to talk about? "Tell me about your husband, please?"

[bc56]

Silver Sand Stretch

"Uh, yes?" Sekhmet's honestly too afraid to have fun right now. But asking about her husband is a great way to get her talking. "Oh, he's wonderful. He doesn't care at all what I am, and he's always willing to help when I'm in trouble. He saved my life once." Sekhmet's practically beaming as she speaks about him. She must really love him.

[Purple Eagle]

[Silver Sand Stretch]

Zabb doesn't like her lying, and he momentarily stops what he's doing to point that out. "I know you're scared, too scared to have fun, so please don't lie!" Of course, this is before asking her about her husband, wouldn't want to ruin that smile of hers.

Speaking of talking about her husband, he can't help but smile wider when she beams. "Love is so beautiful, isn't it? Oh my, yes it is! I can feel your love for him, it's great! I wish you both happiness, genuinely!"

He has to mention something, however. "He doesn't care what you are, because he looks deeper, beyond your appearance, to the woman inside. Why don't you look deeper, beyond my angelic appearance and the fear you have of it, to see me for what I am: a kid who wants to have fun? I'm a celestial, lethal to evil, but I don't mind non-malicious demons, like you." He rambles as he sculpts his side of the sand, hoping she'd get what he's driving at.

[bc56]

Silver Sand Stretch

"Uh, sorry?" Sekhmet gets what he's saying. He doesn't want her to be afraid. But that's hard. She can feel the divine power radiating off the angel. She has a good sense for such things. If he found out who she was... Well.
Sekhmet slowly shapes the side of the castle near her with her hands, moulding a small tower out of the wet sand. "So, uh, what do you do?"

[Purple Eagle]

[Silver Sand Stretch]

Zabb in turn can feel her demonic presence, and it's quite strong! Whatever she may actually be, either low-ranking or high-ranking, she's not given him cause to doubt her, so he's choosing to give her a chance. If only she could see that!

As he sculpts his side of the sandcastle in silence, working on the walls of the second floor, he asks himself if she'll ever stop being scared of him. Would that instead of merely looking at the timestream, he could drift back and forth!

Then she asks about him! She's probably only making conversation as a common courtesy, but his silver skin and purple eyes seem to beam as well as his smile. Progress!?

"Well..." Prepare yourself, Sekhmet, for this is still a kid, powerful or no. "... I watch over an island in Seaside, and I help out in GLoG, and I play with my friends there! I have angel friends from different worlds, too, and together we go out on missions to smite evil! It's fun, oh my, yes! They'd like you, too... well maybe not Eao, she's super smitey, but the others will, I think!" He rambles. "And sometimes I come here to play in the sand! With my power, I could do it the quick way, but my guardian says there's value in learning to do things the mortal way! Like that time where I made a baby calm down with my power and her mother got mad. I could do it to you, too, but you're a demon so it'd hurt, and I don't want to hurt you, oh my, no!"

Good thing he doesn't need to breathe!

"Have you met the Trollfingers? Tuskfang is my very good friend! I love him, he's so fun! We play everyday! Then there's Brinika and Iknika, and I think they'd like you too." He squeaks at her.

[bc56]

Silver Sand Stretch

Sekhmet shakes her head no. She hasn't met any of those people. "What are they, uh, like?" She cups her hands together and uses them to round out the top of the tower she made. She pokes her claws into the sad to carve out little windows, then starts piling up sand next to the tower for a wall. "I, uh, don't meet a lot of people." It's safer that way, for her and for everyone else, although she does have some friends, and her husband, of course.

[Recaiden]

[Coast Crawling]

As the mermaids begin praying and setting the stage out in the river, the cavern is altered by their actions. Along the walls of the cavern, glowing pictograms appear on the stone, in sets of two.

When the blade meets the claw, the blade cuts through the void. Steam(?) comes out of the wounded claw, which annihilates the water that touches it. (Just water, though. Not anything else.)

The creature reacts to what she's saying by not following up with an immediate attack, showing that it can clearly understand her.

However, like a child throwing a temper tantrum, it wails in response and throws random attacks all around that aren't even directed at anything. Claw marks gouge into the ceiling and into the floor and the altar (notably, not the glowing walls), water is diplaces in random areas around the room, and a flailing attack even -by chance- goes at Anchor.
Since the attack was random and flailing and had no direct bloodthirst behind it, the obsidian sword doesn't assist this time. Anchor will have to find her own way to dodge this attack.

The ritual preparation then gets to the point that something within the altar starts glowing with a white empty light, with light escaping from the cracks and gouges.

If the altar is meant to be containing something, it doesn't seem to be doing a great job in its current condition. That same empty white.
Oh, it is listening. What a welcome surprise. "Who are you? What are-" But then a flailing claw comes in, and Anchor twists to throw up her other sword to block its sweep through the water. Just moving is hard in the water like this; she wonders for an instant how mermaids manage it.
"Do you want all this to be pointless? When else is anyone going to listen?" she cries at the creature.
But she doesn't return the attack, holding the crystal sword in a guard position and the obsidian sword back.

[Purple Eagle]

[Silver Sand Stretch]

"They're fun, and friendly, and try to be good people! I'm not sure if the mortal children will be scared of you, some might, but others are so used to the Nexus that they'd barely react." Zabb rambles on as his hand briefly turn into animal claws, and he does the same on his side of the sandcastle. He uses his paint stirrer to make the walls have the appearance of being bricked, but does it quicker than normally possible for any child. "You're doing great, Sekhmet! Yay!"

The smiling angel boy gets more serious as he returns to the topic of friends. "I truly, deeply understand, Sekhmet... worried both about yourself and about others, you keep your social circle small... what if I introduced you to other people? I'll make sure they're people willing to give you as much of a chance as I am... and then you'll have more friends! Yay!" He's thinking of Brinika and Iknika, of course, and people of GLoG in general. "Are you in GLoG?"

[bc56]

Silver Sand Stretch

"Uh..." Sekhmet isn't sure about that, so she focuses on shaping the wall of the castle. She starts adding little crenellations to the top of the wall. "I don't know. I'd, uh, have to think about it." She looks confused when she's asked about GLoG. "Uh, I live there." What does he mean, "in?" She's not there right now, so she's not in GLoG in that sense, but that wouldn't make sense to ask. Is there some sort of GLoG membership she didn't know about?

[Purple Eagle]

[Silver Sand Stretch]

"Tell me what you decide, please! Iknika and Brinika are nice, and also teens! And if a celestial is introducing them to a demon, then they'd be more likely to trust you!" Zabb says reassuringly, glancing up at her horns and the fireball on top of them. With that rather crown-like thingie on her head, she can't be small fry. He refrains from saying how much he knows, last thing he needs is to have her panicking even more.

She's already scared because angel. No need to scare her further by revealing the extent of his abilities, some of which he's purposefully limiting for one reason or the other.

"I know!" He replies when she reveals she lives in GLoG. "You're right, you live in GLoG but keep to yourself. If you've seen me around, you probably give me a wide berth, right? Buuut this isn't the first time I see you, only the first time I confronted you. See, if I was dangerous to you, you wouldn't have seen me coming!" He says, trying to prove to her that he's no threat to her... but she might see it as another implied threat.

"I know I'm too little for you, but I hope we get to play again! It'll be good practice for when you have a kid of your own! YAY!" He squeals happily, then returns to making archways for the doors and entrances.

[bc56]

Silver Sand Stretch

Sekhmet nervously shakes her head. "Not now. I need time." She doesn't want more people tangled up in her problems. And the angel is not helping her nerves by repeatedly bringing up how he could kill her. She steps away from the castle and looks at it. "It, uh, looks nice."

[5a Violista]

[Coast Crawling]

The attack is blocked by the crystal sword.

After flailing for long enough and throwing out a few more (probably-easily blocked) attacks, the creature stops. Probably tired.

After a few moments of respite, it begins doing something again.
It starts exuding oppressive waves of despair. Of course it's pointless. Everything's pointless. Nobody is ever going to listen. Moving around in this water is too hard, should just get it over with and give up. The ritual's going to take too long. In fact, they probably just gave up on it out there. Nothing's going to change, nobody ever listens.


Invisible claws start to wind up, for more attacks - actually directed this time, so the obsidian sword starts moving, wanting to slice through the water at the creature,

but then the ritual has actually started outside.
Blank white hands reach out of the altar and grab one of the invisible claws, and grab the invisible creature, to hold them in place. One of the attacks is not stopped by the hands and is still going towards Anchor, but if she just lets the obsidian sword pull her along, then she'll quickly be able to close the distance and escape the attack, even in all this water.
(The sword is, of course, pulling towards where this water-displacement-creature's neck would be, if one assumes it has a normal human-like body.)

[Recaiden]

Anchor holds her ground, blocking each attack neatly with the crystal blade.
She starts to hope there will be a real answer-

-and then slumps down in despair.
Of course the monster wasn't going to say anything. No one ever does, and she ends up hurt for trying. It was pointless to talk at all. Why is she even here? Solving the mermaids' problem that the humans caused, that no one asked them to deal with - for what?
And of course when it comes to it, she's left to deal with the giant monster alone. Without even her shadow. She should just let the world go by as it will.

Except, there's this annoying sword in her hand. Crying for cutting and bleeding, devouring and killing! It tugs her forward. She remembers liking blood and violence once, even if she can't understand why at the moment. Why not let the sword do its thing? Not like stopping it would help.
And in her other hand, this other annoying sword. Demanding that she stop blocking and go on the offensive. Cut the void monster, spill its boiling blood, set its head on the wall as a warning! The sword cannot appreciate that an invisible monster head wouldn't be very intimidating, and Anchor doesn't bother trying to correct it. What's the use? But maybe it'll stop bothering her if she goes along?
So she trudges forward, and then steps forward faster, and then lunges at the displacement-creature, guided by the obsidian blade, and then following up with a jab from the crystal sword, aimed a bit lower.

[5a Violista]

The invisible creature is decapitated.
Its invisible head falls downwards and sinks to the ground, and air pushes out of the wound.

However, even decapitated, it still tries to move and act. Luckily! It got stabbed right in the chest. Pressurized air blasts out, pushing away the water. It starts to go limp. The despair dissipates, washed away in the water.

Before it can drape itself across the altar, though, the white hands get a better hold on it and start to pull it apart, and into the altar - filling the cracks and scrapes. The altar eventually stops glowing (but the symbols along the walls still do).

The obsidian sword is satisfied, and without any active danger around, it decides to fall still again.
The air coming out of the invisible head makes the water stop swirling around, and instead pushes it out of the cavern, to the waterfall and river. The head is still very much there, but it's still invisible. Would make a terrible trophy.

It
s t r a n g e l y
and unsatisfyingly
appears to be over?
Once the water drains, water stops falling from the ceiling, and nothing else seems to happen.
Except, of course, the mermaids are still doing the ritual outside, at the base of the waterfall. All the mermaids (except the original one, whose shadow left with Anchor's shadow earlier) are now participating in the ritual.
In fact! Zophiel seems to have finished up, and is heading towards the waterfall. He'll know about the glowing symbols and the white hands and maybe even the faded-cloth-strips, since he learned about how the ritual used to be and how he changed it.

[Purple Eagle]

[Silver Sand Stretch]

Zabb realizes what he's done, only made her more scared. "I'm deeply sorry, Sekhmet... That was supposed to be reassuring, not threatening." He says, meaning every word. His eyes look rather moist, but no tears fall.

Here he is, trying to make her feel good, and yet he keeps scaring her. Uriel wouldn't make such mistakes... he truly is still a young one. It almost makes him want to cry... almost.

"I understand... can you and I at least be friends? Get to know each other? You might never fully be rid of your fear of me, but perhaps in time, the sight of me will bring a smile to your face." He stands up and dusts his hands, looking at the fruits of their joint labour, but says nothing.

When he turns to look at Sekhmet, he's actually started crying. This time, it's not for him, but for her. "You're going through a lot, aren't you? I don't know the specifics yet, but I can sense it." He says, voice full of compassion.

And then he hugs her again, his body shuddering from sobs as he cries for her.

[Recaiden]

The obsidian sword falls in her grip, and for a moment Anchor wonders what's happened. An opponent who can only be seen by displaced water is not the easiest to read!
But then she realizes that she's won! The unnatural despair is fading even as the swords calm down. How wonderful to fight, and to win! And surely now the ritual will be a success. How did she doubt it earlier? With Zophiel helping the mermaids even. There was no way it would have failed.

She lowers her stance to not get carried away by the water flowing out of the cavern, and only once the water level has dropped a lot does she turn and head back towards the entrance at the base of the waterfall.

Anchor's shadow follows along with Zophiel. It seems like the time, finally.