2618/On The Beach

On The Beach
Date of Scene:	25 July 2020
Location:	Cape Carmine
Synopsis:	Fight some Old Ones, share some stories, drink some tea. A tete-a-tete between the children of the sea.
Cast of Characters:	Meggan Puceanu, Namor

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Meggan Puceanu has posed:
Summer rages on the Eastern Seaboard quite unlike anywhere in the sheltered Celtic Sea.

Oh, those tigrine waters thrash and hiss when in a tempestuous mood. Any perching on a headland along the broken isles marching south towards Ireland's ragged fjords might hear the basso thrum hammering on thin, rocky shingles. Jade-dark waves spit in dismissal of terrestrial concerns, the currents stalking the Insular seaways of Britain, but it's a world apart from this.

The sky is rarely bruised plum, battered by divine fists and electric triforks blasted through the thick, almost choking air. Brine singed by ozone culminates in a pressure cooker atmosphere weighing down on many, hastening them to the safety of their air-conditioned homes or hotels. On the slender cape thrust defiantly into the sea, man's handiwork in a solid stone tower and adjacent keeper's house stand out against the violet-black relief of churning waters and towering clouds.

Great barques used to wage war blow with that skirling wind, flattening a line of plants in poor condition. Meggan's efforts to take cuttings and revive them might be tossed over jumbled rocks plastered in surf and seafoam, not a few bits of kelp flung into her gardens. The hour isn't fully night but descending, sunlight smothered by the storm-veil, patches of rain ripped asunder to show the heaving, gasping seas. Red sky in morning presaged ancient mariner's tales, and for good reason. Maelstroms rage around the occupied outpost, connected by its stony backbone to the land itself, a jarring memory of safehaven and protection for those who cast themselves to the mercies of the deep.

Hardly a pussycat, this ocean, this coast. The girl watching through a small window and sipping a cup of tea, however, seems enamoured of the confluence of extremes, and she puts down her empty cup on a table. Braving the outdoors without a waterproof coat, galoshes, fisherman's gear is pointless, but here she is anyway, in little better than a t-shirt and a pair of shorts sure to be instantly soaked. A hand shields her eyes, scanning the nearer waters rather than the horizon. Lightning crackles to the thundering boom of trouble overhead.

It's not the same as the untempered Atlantic hurling aqueous fists on the gentler shoreline curving in drowned estuaries and deep, placid bays. Great rollers prowl the length of the coast, pouncing on broken rocks and unfortunate piers where summer holidayers might have tied up their craft. But her? She sings in Irish Gaelic.

Namor has posed:
It happens in that brief moment between lightning strikes and crashing waves, when the sound of the storm hangs silent for a scarce handful of seconds, and the raging clouds block the waning sunlight. The rocky shore is barren and deserted save for the tempestuous waters and the flotsam heaved forth by the roiling brine just as the dark silence settles. Then when the storm rages once more, illuminating the sky and the surrounds in flashing electric light, the waves roaring against the coast in protest, a man appears cradled by the water as if it dare not disturb him. In his hand he holds aloft a golden trident, his upper torso mostly exposed to the elements save for armored pauldrons and gauntlets clad over his shoulders and arms. On his legs, a similar armor cleaves to his outer thighs over a pair of green-and-gold leggings while his feet are bare. Dark hair, soaked by the ocean's spray catches in the storms wind as he turns to face the waves, trident readied as if he seeks to attack the raging waters themselves.

Again the stormy darkness envelops him, and when next lightning illuminates his figure it is locked in battle with a creature straight from H.P. Lovecraft's nightmares. For a tense several seconds they struggle against each other, tentacle and chitinous mass driven against flesh and fist. Blood pours freely from both combatants, but the downpour washes it away while the sea itself seems unwilling to interrupt. Finally, in a surge of strength, and with a roar that mingles with the thunder the man casts down the beast to the rocks beneath his feet, impales it on his trident, then lifts and hurls the monster's now limp form back into the sea before he staggers back and collapses on the shore.

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
Wrath descnds from the seething morass overhead where the regathering forces loft their weapons for celestial battle once more. Seizing whatever suits in the upheaval, boiling clouds pile up into ephemeral siege engines miles high through the stratosphere, trailing away into long, thinned out tails. These behemoths conceal the interlocked forces raging for control along a northeasterly front, fed by the enriched warmth of the Gulf Stream and the abundant moisture percolating from the Gulf of Mexico north. The moment she steps out, perhaps, the blonde becomes a player in a larger game. Wind tugs at golden hair pulled back into a hopeless braid, disordered strands torn free to halo her face. Peppered sparks kindle violent flashes of light, strobing bursts to outline the structure of the waves plying a journey to extinguish themselves on the very shore, bringing the forest plunging to the sea in stark relief and igniting the world to high noon. Silver sparks on her shirt paint a saltire, but otherwise she is barefoot and little impeded by becoming soaking wet as soon as a wave splashes in billowing wrath against the shore. Such electrified incandescent renders gold to sunfire and the living metal to the very wrath of the cosmos teetering on the waters from which life arose. All a stunning picture for a girl picking her way past the bench strewn in jetsam, pushing back against the wind inclined to slam whatever it can into the bricks. But it cannot quite manage it, and she heads to where the very edge of the land surrenders to the boiling oceans, to churning horrors in blackened lamentation.

Bloody night, those ichorous waters stained and the man within them dueling the unknown holds her on the threshold. Bitter conquests and lost lives stain the roots of every lighthouse, their tenders sworn or forced by custom to bring safety to those in peril. Peculiarly the wind spirals around her and the rain averts itself with quite so much force as she frowns, and then does what anyone would only if lacking their right mind. She darts forward, not even thinking to dive, leaping in an arc that should send her sailing smooth into the choppy white caps blackened by midnight's caress. Not so: the tip of her toes might breach the surface, no more, a hastened path cut in the troughs and through the smashed crests until reaching the duelist daring one of the leviathans of the deep. Perhaps she reaches him before he notices. Perhaps the sea-king is in no trouble at all.

"Love of night, this had best be the only one," she murmurs, though if it's not... life's interesting that way, isn't it?

Namor has posed:
Ultimately, the already slain beast is the only one to dare the land, but as the ill-dressed lighthouse keeper steps lightly across the angry waves, shining eyes in the scores peer up out steadily out of the dark waters with burning hatred. Without warning, the water surges up beneath her feet, but rather than the explosive prelude to an attack filled with tentacles and sharp, snapping beaks, the water itself seems to be urging her away from the creatures. Once more the man on the shore has raised his trident, but rather than use it to strike, he seems to be pulling the water she somehow stands on towards him and away from the waters.

"Back, woman," he calls to her, momentarily unconcerned with her apparent excessive buoyancy, "They look to feed and will take a fresh meal of human flesh just as happily as the flesh of their fallen brethren." Even as he speaks, thrashing ill-formed limbs emerge from the frothing waves and lash at open air while they seek to make good on their search for prey. The King of Atlantis grimaces as he spots the blind attack, and starts to leverage himself up into a sit. Though he bleeds heavily, none of the wounds seem fatal, and though he growls and grits his teeth, Namor pushes at the ground to begin the laborious process of standing.

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
The storm of her golden hair writhes of its own accord in the wind, pulled this way and that like a banner carried into war. No cavalry charge here, but a single figure. An innocent unaware of the path she carves, or someone willing to ocntend with the elements. Loathsome eyes agleam with the bleakest emotions halt her in her passing for only a moment, flitting higher as though to find shelter or conjure an aegis against the stifling crash of loathing. Droplets drip from her lower extremities, the gleam of diamonds and pearls cast into the shallows. Hard not to feel a sense of brimming disgust reflected back at them, a rich vein ready to be mined if she only tapped into its molten core. For that alone, the wisdom of a shout snatches her back to the moment, and a sudden arc of motion sends her hurtling to the sandy shoreline on the lee of the cape. "Best they go and seek their meal elsewhere, though they might need a nudge," she offers as quiet commentary.

That accent is British utterly, though slashed by the musical concord of Gaelic and Welsh, lending a softened melody to her vowels in particular. Assessing Namor's state of injuries takes her a few moments, slanting over scrapes and cuts and bites. His attempts to rise beckon some kind of response; her hand, outstretched.

"Much as staying put seems wiser, I doubt that is likely to pass." Introductions are brief and sparing, given the trouble. "Meggan. I mind the buildings. If this ruins the oyster bed, I'll be cross." A bit of a smile as she turns, and if the blood perturbs her, she is as good as any not to say much about it. Not with the prehensile shapes like a sullen, warped crown on their doorstep.

Namor has posed:
Namor ignores the outstretched hand with a grunt and settled resolve, allowing his warrior's instincts to kick in and wash away the pain with an unshakable calm. "Ready yourself," he tells Meggan as he rises to his full height, "They gather their courage, but will attack quickly and without remorse. They feel no pain, and do not easily tire. Strike for the head or heart." His trident comes up and points aggressively towards the waves once more, prepared to catch any attacking creatures upon the wickedly sharp spear points. A momentary silence reigns between them, even if the storm and the ocean do not elect to participate, before he finally offers: "Feel honored, Meggan. You fight side-by-side with Namor, King of Atlantis and Emperor of the Deep this night. Lesser warriors have died wishing only for the privilege, for Namor has never allowed a companion to fall while he still draws breath." A faint grin turns the corner of his lips upwards, and he allows the bloodlust to settle over his vision just as the first creature beaches itself on the shore, followed swiftly by two more.

Each seems a horror of its own, related only by a common thread rather than any sort of recognizable biology. They surge across the rocks, horrible malformed amalgamations of other, more natural creatures. Snapping crab's claws, tentacles that writhe and slap against the ground, and chattering beaks threaten violence as they close. With a roar, Namor throws himself forward, trident lancing out to spear one of the terrors as he bears down upon it and pins it to the ground. Immediately he abandons his weapon and the momentarily restrained monster to clash with a second, fists pummeling with the force of the Atlantean King's full anger while the third snaps and chitters while it bares down on Meggan.

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
The blonde drops her hand, acknowledging that denial with minimal fuss. An abbreviated nods to Namor still carries shadows of worry painted across her brow, teeth bitten sharply into her lower lip. "This explains the unsettled feeling. No point in reasoning with them when they want nothing but blood." A frown would be the more appropriate response there as his explanations speak to the dire situation they find themselves in. Her eyes widen slightly, the leaf-green shade too brilliant for a wholly human origin. At least in this light. "That's a cardinal honour. I strive to be worthy of it, then."

What, exactly, is a girl in a pair of shorts and a t-shirt precisely going to do against the lingering nightmares of the hadean zone going to provide? She tilts her head to the side, gauging the length of the beach and then the depths of the water, performing quick calculations. In doing so, her heavy braid slides off her shoulder and reveals ears rising to an elven point almost the same as his. Three creatures pouring out from the blackened waves loom in heaving, jostling mounds. He is the first to launch, rather than her, but the difference will scarcely matter too long. Racing in reach of those chitinous claws might be foolish, and she has the advantage they do not in the air. Tremors shiver underfoot even as she takes three bounding steps forward, the earth in its upheaval sympathetic to their anger. She needs the height to gain sufficient momentum, leaving Atlantis' master alone in the field. For breathless moments that spell a difference between life and death, perhaps.

Electricity churning through the atmosphere comes raging down ahead of her, crackling lines poured from her outstretched hands ahead of the girl hurling herself at full speed sidelong into one of those snapping claws up towards the joint.

His joy in the battle is hers, a closed cycle.

Namor has posed:
Once more lightning flashes and serves as the sole source of proper illumination in the turbulent dark of night, and for just that brief moment the scene is captured. The King of Atlantis, his torso bloody and bloodied, grappling a monster from the depths of horror. For the moment he holds the advantage, his back arched in effort as he draws back his fist in preparation to deliver a titanic blow against the creature that has him captured in its terrible limbs. On the ground nearby, another scrabbling uselessly at the mystical metal trident that cleaves it to the ground, bucking and fighting with an animal's furious strength. Just a few steps beyond, a third and final monster with its claws outstretched in the hopes of catching more distant prey screams in wild pain as electricity blows clean through one of its limbs, severing it at the joint as the pure energy of the strike atomizes its malformed shell and the flesh beneath.

Then, all at once the darkness sweeps back in and the sound of clashing battle is no longer drowned out by the roaring boom of thunder. The furious roars of an enraged Atlantean King mingle with the death cries of an unnatural horror as limbs and flesh thrash against each other, the latter finally ceasing with a resounding crack as Namor brings a double-fisted hammer blow down on the thing's head and ends its life with enough force to momentary pulse the rain around him with the shockwave. The two remaining creatures yet live, but the one pursuing Meggan is currently stunned by the sheer pain of having its limb blown off by the force of a lightning bolt. It shrieks and thrashes in pain, its threat momentarily neutralized as Namor grabs hold of his kill's lower limbs and turns in place, spinning the creature's body once before he releases it far out into the ocean's depths then turns to the pinned third. "Finish it!" he calls through the storm to Meggan as he turns to assess her well-being, pointing to the stunned creature on the ground, "Quickly! They regenerate!"

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
Where sea and sky converge, cupped in terrestrial palms, the elements dance most strongly. Short of a seam of magma just under the surface, Meggan could not benefit more from a choice of partners. The collision almost causes her to cry out, the sound torn from the depths of her throat with a certain keening ferocity. It almost mirrors the carnal wail of joy, victory's voice freed in a shout. Not so soon can they be declared triumphant, not by a long shot. Light bleeds away in the hungry maw of the dark to consume the pair locked in the struggles of death and life itself, but not completely: a pale radiance clings to her. Last embers of a hidden sun caught in the furious natural strikes from her and the calculated approach taken by the Atlantean king. In him is the poetry of long ago, scribed by the arc of the closed fist or the supple bunch of the muscles unleashing their potential. How great a travesty no opportunity to admire the battle in the thrashing waters stained dark and inky affords itself, not in the thick of it.

Meggan has not his experience to weave together into a series of blocks and strikes, lacking the sharpened edges eloquent in their efficiency of death. Hers is a gift for adaptation in extremis, brought together by plunging her clawed fingertips into the wall of flesh rippling and thrashing around in front of her. Twisting limbs strike at her, knocking the girl like a particularly tenacious ragdoll into the air and coming right back down. Gore seethes around them both, the pulsating flesh hard to keep hold of even with talons driven in deep. Chittering beak snaps and tries to bite whatever it can, purchase a horrid thing to find. The shockwave's energy smacks through her and the backlash gets redirected almost immediately into the length of her arms, joined to the blast of raw elemental energy summoned up from the ocean's heart itself.

Through and back, pointed at the horizon rather than the forest as it struggles to throw her off. Tactically sound enough as the rain goes sideways and the water judders to a violent dance, and the horror explodes away from her mired hands.

Namor has posed:
The King pauses to watch a moment, safe either in the knowledge or the arrogance that comes from being as thoroughly durable as the Atlantean Mutant is. Though she may not have his experience or his intimacy in delivering swift, practiced death, he recognizes strength when he sees it. She is, in appearance and ability, a singular entity apart from the mass of humanity, and that alone is enough to earn the respect of the Sea-King. It is not enough to hold his attention for long, however, not when he still has another combatant to finish. Even as Meggan prepares to launch her opponent with the furious force of the elements, he plants his bare heel on what passes for the impaled creature's throat and simply leans his might into the step. It screeches and thrashes with renewed desperation, but Namor is unrelenting, his expression set in an uncaring frown until a meaty crack signals the end of the violent thrashing and the desperate battle between man and monster.

"Meggan," he calls, bending down to retrieve the corpse and toss it into the sea, "How do you fare?"

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
Should those horrors not concede to getting away, the slick components of the tentacles and the chitinous plates might be taking form in more diminutive Englishwoman standing in the waves. A luxury of time she can hardly spare, stalking through the water to move closer to Namor and the remnants of the melee already being erased. If nothing else, the sea always remembers but erases the wounds, a kindness perhaps unworthy of those who reap her fathoms of the wealth and sustenance offered freely. The struggling form under implacable foot holds her turbulent gaze, marble and slippery onyx positioned with a timeless balance. Their enmity radiates away and almost hurts to see in such clarity, but she flexes her fingers into a fist, as though prepared to give a good last smack to the doomed horror. It takes a moment for its death throes to fully register and roll through her, strangely pallid and absent emotions without lasting impression.

"Your Majesty," she replies, and being an actual subject of a constitutional monarch, it isn't ironic. A proper little dip plunges her deeper into the water, and then bobbing back up to stand again. "I will be scrubbing well under my nails, that's certain. Would you let me offer you proper hospitality?" She gestures lightly behind her, and looks through the rain at the lighthouse. "Though it may be finer underwater, if quieter."

Namor has posed:
"They will linger to feast," Namor declares, observing the turbulent sea with a settling calm, his bloodlust running dry to leave behind only weary exhaustion and a rigid force of will. For a handful of seconds that threaten to build upon themselves until they become minutes, the King stands silent sentinel. At last he breathes a heavy sigh and turns to regard his impromptu shield sister, scanning her briefly for wounds, and then again, slower, to satisfy his curiosity. "I would not dare refuse such an offer," he decides after a moment, undoubtedly having refused hundreds of similar offers in the past.

He still bleeds into the course sand of the rocky battlefield, but his unique physiology has already begun the process of healing his wounds, his blood clotting quickly until what was a thin but uninterrupted sheet of red darkening his form is now simply a pink stream as salt and rain water dilute and wash it away. The King has suffered worse in defense of his realm, and so easily ignores the relatively minor pain as he begins to stride purposely through the storm back towards the lighthouse and the keeper's home.

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
"Is it wise to let them do this?" Meggan asks, uncertain, turning her head from Namor to the ragged shroud drawn against the cape's crescent arc. Somewhere beyond casual sight, chunks of floating meat hang suspended in a feast for the unseen horrors. What barbed talons pierced into monstrous flesh have since resumed their delicate proportions, and she stoops to rinse the worst back into the water. Not perfect, but it at least removes the worst and reveals a network of small cuts stinging mildly from the salt worked in. A slight frown and her lips pressed tight give the only indications for discomfort, though better that than sluggish bile and ichor melting in. "Banishing them or driving them off deeper doesn't end the problem, but as long they leave the coast be, I can tolerate that." The uncertainty there does not belong to the strategy so much as negotiating the fraught situation of dealing with a proper monarch of a place thought buried under the city, lost in Plato's era. It's within every cell to seek a response in grace, though her smile for Namor has shades of concern still.

But lend a monarch their pride, the unspoken mantle of privilege and power that in turn personifies the strength of their people. Calling attention to the obvious hardly works. "Shall we go round the long way? I would see that nothing happened to the beach," she offers in a quiet tone. Matching his stride is easy, for all that the maritime submersion mends his pains and aches back to whole. "What would your preference be? I have most beverages but milk, unless it's for tea or coffee. Fresh fruits from the garden." What do you /offer/ a monarch?

Roma never warned about this.

Namor has posed:
"It is their way," the King declares simply, without formality or judgement. Despite slaying at least three and paying witness to the death of a fourth, Namor doesn't seem to harbor any ill will towards the creatures. "No surface dwellers will enter the sea in this storm, and by the time the waters have calmed, the Lurkers in the Deep will have returned to their sunless waters, sated on the flesh of their fallen." He doesn't verbally respond to her suggestion of 'going round the long way' but his steps do lead him in a broader, sweeping path that would allow Meggan to sate her curiosity.

For a long while, he doesn't respond to her questions or indeed speak at all. The Atlantean dwells deeply in a brooding silence while he contemplates the events of the previous hour. After several minutes though, he finally glances to her and says: "They are not the problem, merely a symptom. They normally do not dare to come so close to the surface. Their presence is why I am here. It is an anomaly I seek to correct." A pause. "Though perhaps not tonight. The symptom is soothed for the time being. I have a few things to consider before I venture into their realm."

Then finally: "Tea will be fine."

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
None of the Lurkers dare impinge on the monarch's declaration or question the ordained fact, too consumed by devouring their own or the scanty morsels cast off from the see. A shuddering darkness convulses itself in knots, little known or observed by the snug land-dwellers on the seashore that lie in a digital stupor or track the mayoral races planned for the next year. Meggan moves with some alacrity in rounding the storm-tossed spit, where the water is never less than waist-deep. Her propensity to simply float through the rushing heave of the surf serves well enough, though the more exuberatnt waves hit her on the backsplash and she makes no efforts to stop them. Other than a length of seagrass-strewn rope tangled up on a block, little presents itself as particularly concerning. The erosion and movements of the tide to resurface the beaches won't be apparent until low tide displays the platform to the strand and the shellfish beds laid out deeper. No doubt it will all be a squall come morn to most.

The low-slung keeper's chambers are more of a house than the neo-Gothic lighthouse itself, the slender spire holding watch over the bitterly greyed afternoon sliding into evening. Comforts lie in the shorter of the two buildings, fit with a rather handsomely large table and cuttings from the garden, a snug pantry well-stocked with simple provisions. The windows are open to the sea, cracked for circulation. "Troubling they choose to come so close," she agrees when he finally speaks. Namor is her guest, and as such, treated with the respect this entails. And a dash of curiosity tempering the vibrant fire under there. "It bodes poorly for the future, having such things nearby. What disrupted their usual patterns? Has something drawn them?" A question that might be answered and maybe not, as she sets water on to boil in the kettle, and arranges a few varied options: sharp cheeses among crackers and fresh bread, the loaf pan still set off to the side. Strawberries ripened by the sun are set in a precise crescent, infilled by the same blackberries pended by an elemental's hand. Past that, what can one do? Offering a British chocolate bar is just not how it goes.

Namor has posed:
As this is their first meeting, Meggan has no way of knowing that the Atlantean King is in a particularly brooding and thoughtful mood, this evening. He doesn't question her process or her interest in the borders of her territory where they touch upon the sea. She seems to respect his sovereign domain, and beyond that her decisions are her own. The only break from the silent stride of the King comes when, near the end of their roundabout passage, he pauses to approach the sea and examine the waves. After a long moment he simply states: "They are gone," and then turns and lapses back into solemn thought.

When they come to finally enter Meggan's quarters, Namor elects to stand in the middle of the room, bare arms crossed over bare chest while he stares out the nearest window. He knows full well that the land dwellers prefer to keep their furniture dry, and seeing as he's still dripping wet from ocean and storm alike, he does his very best not to drip on anything that looks important while maintaining his royal integrity. "I do not think they were drawn," he answers when Meggan sets to asking follow-up questions, "I think they were driven." A pause as he comes to fully understand what it is he's saying. "I believe their normal nesting grounds were intruded upon, and they fled to shallower realms. It is... concerning, to say the least." His somewhat ominous proclamation is undercut somewhat when he reaches for a strawberry and finds himself pleasantly surprised at its flavor.

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
Whilst the tower's circumference would scarce accommodate them in more than subdued comfort, at least the snug construction of the stone-shod house is another matter altogether. Hailing from a time when heat originated from a hearth, the keeper's chambers are very much part of a house. Modernity gives those blessings of electric heaters and electricity for the appliances, but another place and time are enshrined to a degree. No oil drums to feed the great light, however, long since replaced by electrical cables. Still, the focus is fully on views to the sea and service to the comings and goings of those bound to its mercurial moods. Most of the furniture is wood or metal, if not stone, and the flagstone floors all but made for someone to run out to the beach and return sopping wet back to comfort.

Blessings then for being an empath, or simply pragmatic. Glasses are set out, teacups likewise. A freestanding rack has various bottles of wine and liquors in differing measures; a dark, stormy rum to the bottom and a port at the top. "A larger predator or a hostile environmental force?" she asks, setting down the plates with an addition of cream, as promised. "We take the berries with that and a sprinkle of sugar back home. I come northwestern England, close to the Irish Sea." Which does nothing to explain the pointed ears still very much under that sheet of blonde hair, still rather wet. "That is concerning. Deeper creatures rarely thrive coming this close to the surface, much less land. It's hard enough with the competition out there."

Namor has posed:
"I do not know," Namor concedes, and by the pitch of his voice, it is this single fact that grips so tightly to his thoughts and turns him quiet and subdued. "They are numerous and voracious and are feared by the citizens of my realm as terrors in the dark. If something is driving them from their home..." He trails off, glancing back towards the sea. "I would not worry for their well being, Meggan. This was a relatively small group that was driven to the surface by hunger. Since they have now managed to feed, they will return to the rest of their kind deeper beneath the waves." Again, the tone of his voice says what his words don't: Deeper, but not deep enough.

However, she offers a distraction and he's keen to focus on it, his smothered curiosity returning in full force as he turns away from the window and towards his host. "Do you?" he asks when she mentions her origins, one eyebrow raising as he steps towards her, a hand reaching out with the arrogant presumption of royalty to brush back her hair to reveal her pointed ears again. Only if she moves to stop him does he relent, but he does not so easily forget, and even without the visual reminder he cants his head to regard her curiously. "Are you a mutant?" A pause as he considers her abilities -- the way she walked on the water and wielded the energy of the storm as a weapon. "Or perhaps half-Atlantean? A Water Witch?" he asks, forming the last as a respectable title rather than an insult.

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
The terror of not knowing drives some to extremes. For others, it's a grain of sand in the mind, wearing itself a space their thoughts crystallize around. Gifted with precious insight may keep Meggan up for long hours into the night, keeping watch from a low altitude or a midrange depth. Not that she can fathom any better explanation than Namor himself offers, and her sidelong look to him seals a certain wonder with the infinite unknown of the waters themselves. "Just reason to concern yourself. The disturbances will only ripple out from there. Have there been other instances like this, or is it only a start?" Most malleable of elements is also the most secretive, the enduring memories of time and civilizations carried by the playful brooks and the immense currents wound up to the poles. Like king, like kingdom.

Safer to pour the tea, for himself and for him as he wishes. Those movements articulate an inhuman grace and steadiness; the same hands cupping brittle china shatter a chitinous claw as big as he is. Namor halting to brush away her hair bids her to freeze, her eyes shifting a green known only in the hearts of glaciers or tropical lagoons, a faint blush striking the arrogantly high cheekbones. In that they're a pair, sculpted to the high art of nature's way.

"In truth, I do not know." The tilt of her head leaves bare the point of her ear, the finely drawn features. No gills, at least not here. Another story if he hurls her halfway into a brine-strewn bath. "I was put in fosterage at birth. My parents..." She gestures, not a helpless motion so much as an open-ended path for him to decipher, the arrogance borne with a calm old as the tide. "Whomever they were, they could not keep me. Perhaps one carried a mutation, for the machines in Washington seemed to have a special liking for some of us. I was one. Marvel Girl, another. I hear the ocean singing though, but it's rather rude to go commune with it and find out why. I suspect it's be on my best behaviour."

Namor has posed:
"Perhaps both, as I am," Namor murmurs in thought, his voice pitched low in self-reflection though his proximity to his host ensures the musing carries across. Very briefly his fingers brush the tip of her ear, his gaze on her but his mind a league away while he considers her lack of gills. That is of course until he notes her creeping blush and withdraws his hand without a hint of apology. "There are tests," he offers in a firmer voice, once more bearing a conversational volume as he retreats half a step and takes the offered china. "Most of the surface world lacks samples of Atlantean DNA for comparison, but if you are indeed a lost daughter of Atlantis, I offer the means to discover your origin," he supplies as if it was a mere triviality.

A pause as he turns away from her and strides a few steps closer to the open window facing the shore. Peering out into the deepening darkness of the oncoming night, he sips at his tea and grunts approvingly. "There have been reports of my people being attacked by the Lurkers. Patrols going missing, their war sharks returning home, limping through the water," the King reports, his tone grim. "There are many dangers in the sea, even for a full patrol of Atlantean soldiers, so it wasn't viewed with suspicion until a pattern formed. I decided to investigate and was ambushed. I fought my way to the shore..." He turns from the window and looks at Meggan, nodding to her once as he concludes: "And was joined in battle by you."

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
The pallor of her skin holds warmth of the dawn sy, rose and faded traces of gold and cream. "I don't mind," she says as Namor pulls his hand back, though the words speak a melody with increased weight of the Celtic tongues over the dominant British English. Perhaps the absence of that connection weighs more heavily than it should. The air feels lighter and her hair falls back, sliding against her shoulder while Meggan completes the ritual preparation of the tea. In some ways it actually is a rite, the prospect of pouring two equal cups and not spilling the brew. To brew it at all correctly, not tossing a bag in after a splash of milk. Cream and sugar sit out, lemon in reach with honey in a capped pot as his imperial tastes may play out. Blotting her lips, salt still upon them from the dance with the sea and its harrowing creatures, she smooths her hands against the polished tabletop that could seat half the Justice League or Avengers with ease. "Is it wrong to say I wouldn't trust any institution to peer into a sample? An appalling lack of trust on my part, especially as they have done me few wrongs." Her palm lifts, the traces of blue lines running along her wrist. "My origins have never been lost from the start. I'd be honoured to consider."

Politeness matters every bit in this space, every moment rendered down to the bones of civility and cautious exchanges with a carefree air around her pushing at the boundaries. "Do they ever come to the surface? Your people." It isn't from a personal angle that she inquires, but something reflected on the shining glass and the sinking disk of the sun lost behind stormclouds sullen in their tumultuous heights. Those great craft ram into one another like the war-barques of old, shod in lightning at the prows and billowing sails guiding them to wreck and ruin far outside the reach of man. "Such patrols might stand a little chance of survival along the shores where their prey cannot come. If you have been driven this far, it cannot be a small thing. The Lurkers together with what pushes them forth..." The rest needn't be said. She smiles wanly over the teacup.

"It was a good fight. If fights can be called good. Fighting for something more than just the thrill."

Namor has posed:
"Not wrong," The King answers, his head shaking once easily, "Just prudent." Still, though he doesn't seem to think ill of her over the expressed lack of trust in any institution he regards her with a flat and pensive calm. "From one mystery to the next, it seems." Again Namor's tone drops into a low murmur while he considers his host and sips at his still black tea, content to extend the silence for the moment. Abruptly he settles his teacup on the tabletop and reaches for his temporarily forgotten trident. When his fingers wrap once more around the golden haft, he sweeps the head out and to the side as if he were trying to flick something from the pronged head, but in slow motion. As he does, whatever lingering moisture that clings both to him and Meggan lifts itself from their bodies, clothes, and hair. More gestures with the trident, and the water streams through the air to twist and mingle and coalesce into a small ball that then launches itself out an open window with one last movement of Namor's arm.

That settled, he shifts over to nearest chair and seats himself with all the regality of a King mounting his throne. In that instant, no matter who is host and who is guest, that space is undeniably his. His royal presence exudes from his posture, and though it seems mere habit, there's an undeniable challenge there, open and broadcast to the world at large to move him if they dare. "My people do not do well outside of the sea," Namor explains now that he's comfortable, "However we have developed ways for them to survive if necessary. They do not concern themselves with the affairs of the surface. I will not have them patrol the shores here. It is not their place to defend the land dwellers, to potentially bleed for them."

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
The strong bite of a good black tea engulfs the palate and eases into the bloodstream, heady and smooth mist percolating through the forest. Nuances unfold over time, a hidden kernel of citrus held back to bloom slowly. Mysteries play out step by step, unchallenged by Meggan as she concentrates over her own additions to the conversation and the alchemy between camellia bushes and boiling water. Some mysteries can be understood and others surveyed from a distance, experienced in the here and now, to be delved into later. That's the case where Namor himself is involved, much less the sacred golden weapon that pulls all ambient light filling the wide, warm chamber to itself. Almost all.

It certainly bends in subtle ways from around her, a resilient sheen holding fast in a tenuous, atom-thin veneer. Water, on the other hand, has no hope of resistance, sliding away to the call of its king and joined back to the deep where it belongs. Habit drops a look to their feet, the formerly wet prints on flagstone cleared away. And in that, she laughs; the melodic swell of sound aloft in her throat and lilting over her tongue, bubbling up to her lips. "Thank you. How convenient, and such small considerations appreciated by those without quite such a blessing of your resilience." Rolling her heels against the floor, her legs slide in fuller extension, supporting the slight shift in weight as she balances back against the table. Her palm supports her, hardly necessary given the air offers just as much to hold her up.

That dare has its appeal. Marked, a curious tilt answering, but not quite daring to shunt him in his regal space elsewhere. "I see. No, they aren't responsible for us any more than countries send their armies indiscriminately along. Is there any lasting harm to you being driven this far? Do forgive me if I am prying, but I wouldn't like to see you hurt or an incident started by my failure to provide basic care."

Or advanced; that's another matter.

Namor has posed:
With a wave of his hand, Namor dismisses Meggan's thanks as unnecessary with the familiarity of one who is comfortable dismissing people and words with a gesture. "I have learned long ago that those who dwell on land are very particular about what does and does not get wet," he explains, however a sudden thought halts his words as he openly regards the Lighthouse Keeper. "Though perhaps not so much in your case." After another minute or so of consideration, he lays his trident across his knees and begins to work free the clasps that bind his armored pauldrons to his shoulders and upper arms, removing each in turn to rest in his lap.

As he works, he glances up and over to Meggan and offers with a trace amount of sympathy: "Though these Lurkers were ranging far from the mass in hunt of prey, they followed /me/ to the shore. Fisherman have more to fear from them than anyone who resides here." He pauses when he finally frees one arm, rolling the shoulder and working the muscled tendons there loose with a sigh of contentment. Once finished, he starts to work at the opposite shoulder, once more looking over to Meggan. "In the morning, I will dive to the depths and solve this mystery. Whatever I find there will not stand against me, and the Lurkers will once more return to their accursed home."

When she asks after his well-being, he once more waves away her words, "I will be fine. I am not like other Atlanteans, and can survive on land as long as I must." When finally the second pauldron is released, he sets it beside the first and leans back in his claimed chair before he looks directly at his host and says simply: "I will require only a bed."

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
Meggan shakes her head slightly to his comment about being wet and staying wet. "The cold never bothered me. I had homes not as well heated as here, and I learned to adjust." It's no secret of her humble origins on social media, though she rarely crows about it or uses the fact to her advantage. Rather another facet that makes her real to her followers and incomprehensible to the wealthy plundering the riches of oceanic depths or mountainous heights, and all in between. "Though it eases combing out wet hair and waiting for it to dry." A realistic consideration given it hits past her waist and seemingly to Rapunzeline lengths in flight, though her braid never quite hit the water before her bare feet. As he sets aside the pauldrons, her gaze follows the movements, equal parts fascinated and assessing.

Their pretty work and functionality are not wholly lost on her, but that appraisal jolts aside for later as he speaks. His sympathy is not lost; still, Namor gets a raised brow. "They have more to fear from you. A lesson they might learn in avoiding the trouble, though perhaps not. I can't help but think their minds to be fairly alien. They felt like an open volcanic vent to me." Long in the measured silence that comes where two people abide without need to fill the air with words, her movements dwindle into the minor ones needed to sustain awareness and engagement. Breathing, a lift and fall of her chest exuding no traces of discomfort, and the slight recline.

"Lucky for you, I have just the one. It's made up and the bedding freshly changed," she wryly offers as a rejoinder, meeting his regard with her own. A bit fearless in matching gazes and wits, a game played at levels shallow and deep. "I can bring along another blanket in case you need to stay warm."

Namor has posed:
Meggan's professed tolerance of the cold draws Namor's gaze from the wounds scattered across his chest, his fingers working to probe and assess. His look clearly communicates his thoughts, brows drawn together in consideration: 'More evidence for the half-Atlantean theory.' Instead of voicing his opinion however, he returns to his task as he checks the depth of a slash across his abdomen without so much an intake of breath. "The Trident of Neptune belongs to the Atlantean King, it serves as both royal scepter and weapon and its mystical might is matched only by its twin, once thought lost to the sea," he explains, a faint hint of bitterness entering his voice when he mentions the other trident. When he looks back up to Meggan though, he wears the ghost of a smile as he finishes: "Drying the hair of beautiful women is but one of the many abilities it grants its bearer."

"The Lurkers do not know fear," Namor explains solemnly, "I could strike down hundreds, and thousands more would happily throw themselves upon my spear while even more feasted on their fallen. They are indeed a force of nature, though a hurricane would be a more apt comparison I should think. They are cold and uncaring, concerned only with their next meal." While the silence reigns, he finishes his self-diagnostic care and leans back in the chair once more, apparently satisfied that he's in no pressing danger of bleeding out on Meggan's floor.

When she mentions her bed, his eyes rise once more to rest on her, the faint smile playing around his lips returned. "I'm sure there will be heat enough."

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
The ocean sings lullabies as often as war songs, evoking hymns in lilting aqueous voices. Many moods stitched into the careful pronunciation of a word different from the norm can carry off the blonde elemental, following the lyrical rhythms infused in Namor's voice with unconscious acuity. Some find their north by compass and others by tracing lines, and those prove relevant alternatives. Unwise to dismiss the tug to another direction, intuitively floating along in tis wake. "The mark of the ocean god's favour, and his right of royalty. The gift taken instead of the lightning bolt or the helm of invisibility, wasn't it?" Willing to feel out the extremes of her knowledge in that direction, she lifts a hand to trace the arc of a moon. "The tales from my shore differ only a little. Manannán mac Lir wielded Fragarach, the sword, and Ctann Buide, the spear. Possibly an ancestral memory or inspiration taken from scraps of lore floating on a kind tide running soft, when handsome men took favour on the land-dwellers who treated fair."

She can no sooner ignore the bitterness than the cool stone underfoot. Any of those subtle or strong emotions he draws around himself in a technicolour mantle worthy of a crowned and enthroned sovereign trill with clear notes to her. Still, being rude by pushing the boundaries is premature: she isn't quite so bad, returning the smile with the full force of a desert sun.

"We are lucky they do not employ venom or poisons.Their hunger seethes, the kind of consuming hunger fire has when unchecked. Its volatile devours everything until it extinguishes itself. Lurkers make me think of the same. They might devour too much and leave nothing behind." Guesswork, making them especially large locusts of the sea, but better to wave her hand and the notion away until no more tentacles risk the safety of the littoral gathered up beneath the steady beam of the lighthouse flicked on from its immense Fresnel lens, projecting a glorious shaft of radiance far into the thickening storm-sheen gloom.

The tower hums to the awakening, serving its purpose, while the keeper's quarters are little altered but for shadows cavorting in resplendent abandon, taking up the dance held frozen and in check by Namor's golden shine. "I'd be shocked if there were not enough. It might inspire me to get creative as a precaution."

Namor has posed:
"As one such legend tells it," Namor answers with a faint nod while he eases in his seat, readjusting for comfort now that his arms are free of armored adornment. "Neptune himself gifted the first King of Atlantis with his trident, bestowing it upon a man nearly unparalleled in all the Seven Seas, and with it the divine right to rule. Another telling claims that the first King instead wrought the trident himself, and Neptune finding it to be a creation rivaling Vulcan's best granted it a spark of divine power." The Emperor of the Deep seems to favor neither story over the other, as he runs his hand over the middle prong of the weapon, "The only thing that is undeniable is the origin of the Trident's power and what it means to be worthy of wielding it."

He looks up again and smirks at Meggan's proposed theory on the origin of a similar tale in Celtic Myth. "Perhaps it is. Atlantis was old before the surface world had yet discovered the flame," he boasts, "Undoubtedly over the millennia some of our history was repeated to your people and shaped your legends." Lending credit to the hypothesis is the existence of creatures that come from the depths that seem all too reminiscent of Lovecraftian horror, though the Sea King would have no reference to point it out. Instead, he cants his head as he regards Meggan, then rises to his feet and approaches her, brashly invading her sovereign space as he leans passed her to set the trident down on the tabletop that serves as her perch.

"They need no venoms," Namor explains in a softer voice to accommodate for their renewed proximity as he withdraws his hand and attempts to capture her attention, pulling it down to his wounded chest. A fingertip outlines the ragged edge of the deepest cut, opened diagonally from shoulder to hip, though it doesn't quite reach either. "They swarm their prey with numbers, employing beaks and claws that are at least as sharp as any volcanic rock and ten times as hard. Normally they target whales and great sea squids, but in truth they will eat any flesh in reach," he tells her, his gaze never shifting from her even as he explains the hunting tactics of their common enemy.

When he's finished, he lets the silence hang once more, dark eyes scrutinizing the Lighthouse Keeper with an interest that needs no concealment. It lingers, and he waits, measuring the pause with an expert's ear, in this at least as skilled as any empath. When he has judged enough time to have passed, never once moving more than a single, very short step away from her, he asks: "And what, exactly, might you think up?"

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
The story of the trident is not callously dismissed. Meggan opts against puttering about the table or pouring more tea, though such an activity requires the bare minimum of attention to replenish the hot brewed tea to either cup. Even in sleep-dulled wits, she can achieve that balance of a splash of milk and two lumps of sugar, mingling them together using a spoon that never clinks the sides. No, instead her gaze holds fast to Namor instead as he spins mythohistory from clever words barely suited to the concepts he shapes them to contain, imperfect vessels next to the constructed ideas buried in the mists of long ago and far away. Her ankles cross, the weight on the table limited at best as her palms scarcely touch the fine-grained wood of a behemoth felled in times past when such trees populated the Eastern Seaboard and didn't fall to English axes for the British navy.

An irony given who perches above it, separated by inches and bare air. "Someone calculated Plato's tales out to eight thousand years prior to zero, so that must count to something. A ten thousand year old story, eroded in the restless ebb and flow of empires." Hardly a callous observation to be dismissed at least, though his boasts might go a bit past the mark for someone like her, so much inside the circles of speculation. "It seems true old, half-forgotten bits of our stories have truths from a long time ago. They come up and everyone acts entirely surprised that a folktale preserved something valuable."

That scoured damage left not by time but a far more recent encounter settles in, as though she can find from the gouges nicked into marble flesh a pertinent truth, archaic patterns resolving as language. Where is the Rosetta Stone to decipher beguiling secrets almost within reach?

Those impossibly vibrant eyes steal their hues from a submarine palette, blue and green crude terms to encapsulate the blend of gemstone and watery gradients to one. Namor doesn't send her backpedalling, but that would be rather unfair as she floats to stand on the balls of her feet, defying gravity entirely. A cant of her gaze down and back up gives him part of his answer, a bubble caught in the immense weight of his concentration.

A wait stretches out both ways. Not quite as exacting as the length turned against her, but the bladed patience delivering her riposte is efficiently exercised in hand, clashing in mute aplomb. A stylish flourish in that smile. "I can think of a few things. Though for hospitality's sake, I may inquire about your expectations."

A careful bit of wording speaks volumes. But in the ephemeral Otherworld, the legendary kindred of sea, sky, and earth do have a cautious way of feeling out such things.

Namor has posed:
Though Namor pays due respect to the tales of Atlantis' past like any proper Atlantean would, his is the realm of the physical and present. The here and now and the force of flesh and strength of arm. Analyzing the past and the legends that dilute it for their connection to true history is not beyond him, but it lies well outside his interest, and so his attention slips easily when given another stimulus to distract him. "Indeed," he murmurs, offering true agreement to her observations, but little else in addition. His focus is on her eyes, caught for a moment by the color and a memory of warmer waters, and youthful days spent hiding in kelp forests.

"My expectations?" he asks, the words coming at first distantly as he draws his attention back to the present. "The King of Atlantis expects many things of many people. You will have to be more specific," he informs her after a pause to quirk his brow, not in surprise or disbelief, but instead bemusement. Proper consideration is given to her request, and then more seriously he replies: "Of you? Tonight and beyond? I neither expect nor demand anything. What I desire and offer are another story."

Without stepping away, he raises a hand and gestures to the door with a simple motion and a canted head. "In truth, I can be back in my home and Palace before true night arrives if it is preferred."

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
Oh, worlds collide and worlds separate, spinning on their axis through a blinding undulation of the waves taking her down. The empath laughs again, accepting that misstep in good humour rather than blushing, faulted horror at what may have been squashed and not seized. Carpe diem, the ancients said, and they meant it over every moment. A check made in the past as she gestures lightly to the deepening shadows rendering their world in shades of grey, violent, charcoal, and ultimately the basalt of the deep sea bedrock hewn from the very marine plates themselves. "The King of Atlantis, you, may have his own wishes too. I would never ask you to separate yourself from your position. By your own terms, then? You might want something, and surely that lies within my means to grant."

An upturn of her smile becomes brighter than the silver moon in its fullest face, that sheer satisfaction with the moment and the world they inhabit in this particular second, this given place, abundantly clear. The drowning darkness of his gaze registers the same effect. "It isn't preferred, not at all." Mirth and humour turn in tandem.

Then swift as they come, she steps in, her palm lifted in the most archaic of gestures. One as old as the settlement of man in that nebulous insular culture, one reckoned far and wide. "I take guest right very seriously and all that involves. You are under my roof." The serious, firm quality of the statement is about as dolorous as she might get under that turbulent sky, fed by the same churn of atmospheric pressures and powers building up the massive thunderclouds all around. "Even beyond that, you shared stories with me. We fought together against the Lurkers and danced in the surf with common purpose. You may go if you wish, but I would not and cannot cast you out." Even the sea collectively holds its breath when they clash or duel in a waltz.

Seriousness fades, flashing asunder as though a slippery eel not about to tolerate human hands clutching its sinuous body. "There's always dancing on the cloudtops, in a sense."