It was frustration that twisted her countenance this time, and Talia didn't bother arguing any further. Rather than ask again, she simply reached out and took the soldier by both arms, proving exemplary strength when she catapulted the both of them over the pool's gentle edge and headfirst into the water. They surfaced immediately, the mermaid still gripping her soldier in a tight grip.
Without any warning, she pulled them close and fastened her lips to his, kissing him just as she had before, sharing with him the inherent magic in her blood. An eternity later, she released him, and dark lashes lifted to gaze right into his eyes as she told him, "Now, you can breathe. Come with me, I will keep you safe."
Bucky hadn't expected to be thrown into the water and kissed and while it wasn't a romantic kiss, it was a long one, and he's puzzled as to what it means until he dips his head under the water and realizes he doesn't have to hold his breath. He can breathe underwater. He can breathe underwater.
"Shit. I mean, sorry, I shouldn't curse in front of you. Okay, where do you want me to go?"
Bucky wants to explore the fact that he can literally breathe underwater (and swim a little faster too, but maybe that's his imagination) but he's following Talia deep down to the bottom of the ocean to wherever she thinks is safe from the storm. There's something that almost looks like...a sunken ship? Do mermaids live in shipwrecks?
"Is this your house?" he asks, feeling stupid as soon as the words are out. "Why are you wasting your time up there with me?"
Now with fins instead of feet, Talia hauled her companion down through the tunnel leading to the ocean and out into the lagoon, emerging into the salty water not a minute before a large streak of lightning split the sky far above. The flash danced across the surface, illuminating the depths for a brief second before disappearing, and the mermaid didn't waste any time.
She towed Bucky further into the reef, swimming along a large, colorful shelf before abruptly diving deeper, taking him to her own shelter, a sunken schooner that had settled here centuries before. It lay on its side, but there was a large, splintered hole in the bulkhead, and it was through there that Talia took her charge, settling them both in what had been the captain's quarters at the rear of the ship. The glass was still intact, so they could see out into the reef beyond, but at least they were protected from the ocean's angrier currents, just beginning to swell with the storm's emergence.
"I live here," she confirmed, floating comfortably against an ancient divan. "It's a good place to shelter, when the outside becomes too rough."
He looked a little silly, she decided, smiling in amusement, with his gangly legs and arms everywhere, but that was okay. He'd learn how to move in the water soon enough.
Bucky knows how to swim but he's never been practically at the bottom of the ocean before either. He's not really sure what to do with himself, honestly, but he manages to lean against the hull of the ship opposite of where Talia's divan is and looks at her.
"So how am I not dead? Are you magic? I'm assuming it's magic and stuff."
He's read a few books with wizards and things and while he never thought magic could be real, he guesses if mermaids are then that is too.
"Magic? No..." Well, not that she knew of, anyway. "It is a gift that we have. To share our breath." A delicate bare shoulder lifted and dropped. "All of us can do it." Talia absently brushed her long red hair aside, to float out behind her. A few silvery fish flitted here and there, darting around their two larger forms.
"I brought you here before," she confessed. "After the crash. You slept here for a while." A small hand brushed the divan's damask, faded from the salty water. "Then I brought you to the shore, before you woke up."
So it is magic, then, if she can share her breath with him and he can breathe underwater. Maybe they don't call it that among their people but it's magic to him and it's all relative. When she says she'd brought him down here before to rest, it makes sense that he had felt better when he woke up than he should have.
He doesn't have much time to think about that, though, because Talia has moved and her hair is flowing behind her instead of covering her breasts and he finds himself staring, eyes captivated by how beautiful her body is. God, I shouldn't be doing this. It's not right.
She blinked at him, again confused by the apology. So Natalia simply shrugged it off, giving him a smile before swimming to the edge of her shelter, peering up at the surface. The skies above were still dark, the ocean beneath a dull, flat blue, and even though they were beneath the waves, she could still smell the electric anger in the air above.
"This is storm season," she told him, glancing back over a bare shoulder. "They come almost every day for months." No doubt it was one of those massive maelstroms that had sunk his craft. "Very dangerous, up there." She swam back to float gently in front of her new companion. "Better you stay here, with me."
The mermaid took Bucky's hand, threading their fingers together and smiling in enthusiastic delight. "I will show you the sea. And then bear your daughter, after storm passes."
"Wait a second," Bucky says, catching the last thing she said. He still has his fingers linked with hers but his face is full of shock. She wants him to give her a kid? Really and truly just...give her a kid? That's insane. They just met.
"Bear my daughter? That's...if I'm having a kid I want to have a say in it! That's a big thing for a guy. I gotta help take care of them and we have to be parents together and that's literally not something I have planned for at all. Not yet. Holy shit."
Again, her brows knit in confusion. "Parents...together?" Natalia shook her head, a small jellyfish floating between them, completely unperturbed. "No, that's not how it is," she told him. "I bear your daughter, and you go. Home. Or, somewhere. Fathers never...stay."
At least, none in her memory had ever remained. Her father certainly hadn't. And the mermaid wasn't entirely sure that her own mother hadn't eaten him, after mating, but that wasn't a concern right now.
Pulling her hand from his, Natalia planted both on her hips, giving her "mate" a speculative look. "--why are you so confusing?" she demanded, as exasperated as any human woman might become when faced with a flabbergasted man.
"Well I'm not just gonna leave you with my baby all alone," Bucky says stubbornly. "Am I not allowed to have a say? I can't see my kid once she's born, she just belongs to you? That's not really fair. If you're gonna...the whole thing is weird," he admits, "But I don't wanna have sex with someone who doesn't care about me and then have to leave my own kid behind. That's just not how it works."
He guesses mermaid society is really different but that's the way he was taught and he isn't gonna change that. It's wrong. The sex he guesses he could do - she is beautiful - but he isn't just gonna leave his own kid behind. That's a part of him.
She was starting to understand why her sisters didn't bother talking to their mates very much. Not if this was what they had to deal with. Natalia huffed rather than answer again, tossing her head and flicking her tail, abruptly swimming outside of her shelter to gaze around once more.
Infuriating male! She considered, briefly, tossing him back on the beach and letting him fend for himself, but she wasn't, at heart, cruel, and she...liked him, besides. Maybe they could just...not talk about things? A familiar shoal of silversides flashed by, teasing at her long hair and making her laugh; they were residents of the reef, too. They flitted around her, this way and that, considerably lightening the mermaid's sour mood.
By the time she returned to the sunken ship, she was calmer, and rather than say anything at all, she swam to her companion and put her arms around his neck, meeting his mouth with hers. Kissing was far preferable to talking, anyway.
Kissing was good. Natalia is a good kisser and Bucky lets himself sink into it even though it's a little crazy that he's underwater with a mermaid and he can still breathe. She's got her arms around his neck and he slips his around her petite waist, holding her close to him.
"I don't wanna leave," Bucky says softly. "Do you want me to just go after I give you your kid? Because that's not what I want to do." He kisses her again, so soft, and presses as close to her as he can.
"How will you stay?" she asked after they broke apart. "You have feet. No fins. Daughter will have fins. No feet for...many years." That was a skill that each mermaid had to learn, finding their feet. "I must have daughter. This is how we continue. All of my sisters have many daughters. I...have never."
She lowered her eyes, letting him go and drifting away a bit.
"Males...cannot stay, after. None ever have." Pushing her long hair aside, she looked back at Bucky. "Why do you want to stay? Give up life on land?" To her, it made no sense.
"I don't want to just...you don't leave your kids," Bucky says. "You don't leave the woman who gave birth to your kid and not help her. And I want to see her. She's gonna be a part of me, you know? I want kids. I don't want to just have to leave her and never get to know her or hold her."
This is bothering him more than it should, he guesses. Plenty of men would be happy to be absolved of responsibility and only get the fun part.
Her expression twisted again, realizing that he was probably right. "...no," she agreed, shaking her head. "I...and I shouldn't have told you." Now she realized why her sisters never bothered talking with their mates. Words just caused problems.
Rather than talk anymore, or even kiss, the redheaded mermaid flicked her tail in an abrupt about-face, and swam out of the shelter, veering abruptly to the left and vanishing amid the coral and sea grass. She couldn't even look at him right now, not even as pretty as he was.
A few familiar fish tried to follow her, curious, but she warned them off with a few threatening strokes of her tail. Above her, the ocean was still roiling as the storm raged, but deep in the depths, near the coral beds, the current was steady, and the unhappy mermaid settled to the sandy bottom amid a colorful bouquet of plants and creatures, blending seamlessly. She just...wanted everything to go away, right now.
Shit. Bucky doesn't know what to do, really. He looks up and while the water blocks his view, it looks turbulent and he doesn't know if he can go up on land just yet. He doesn't want to dive as deep as Natalia went because what if his enchantment wears off? He won't survive if he's that far down. Except - isn't he already if he's on this ship?
He does the next best thing and just calls out for her.
"Natalia? Look, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. You can take me back up to the surface if you want and I'll leave you alone, okay? I'm just not gonna make it up there by myself."
Rather than answer him, the unhappy mermaid simply swam up from the bottom, grabbed him by the arm, and towed him towards the surface, speaking not a word. Nor did she bother to even look at him, the confusing creature! Once they reached the shallows, where the waves were picking up strength from the storm winds, Talia released Bucky, giving him a little shove towards the beach. That done, she flicked her tail and abruptly turned to disappear back into the depths.
One of her sisters was waiting for her when she returned to her reef. Yelena was roughly the same age, but far less tolerant, especially of the males salvaged from the sea's fury. Her bright orange and yellow fins flashed in the gloom, and she greeted her sibling with a succinct nod, followed by a wry look.
"Talia," she began, a little exasperated, no doubt having witnessed her sibling's last interaction with the human, "what have we told you about them?"
In no mood to be lectured, definitely not chastised, Talia just returned a darker look at her sister before heading into her shelter, moody and sullen. Yelena followed, not at all daunted, and paused just in the entrance, arms crossed and head tilted, long blond hair floating behind her.
"They cannot understand, sister," she told the redhead, who was lying prone on the faded divan, facing away from the ocean view. "Better just to take them and say naught of it. Words just bring problems, you know this."
Unceremoniously dumped back on the beach, Bucky can see the clouds rolling in and the rain and wind are starting up. It's a hurricane and while he doesn't know much about them, he knows enough that he's not going to survive out on this beach. He needs to find a cave, he thinks, and he heads inland to do that. He finds one after what feels like miles and it's just in time, too, because the storm's really coming in now.
He doesn't have food or water but he can drink water from the rain and he'll just go hungry until it's safe again. Maybe that little grove Natalia set up will still be there when the storm's gone and he'll have something to eat without having to look for it.
He tries to sleep but he can't; the storm's too loud. When it's over, it feels like days, and he heads back to the beach to see if he can get back to where the food was.
The little redheaded mermaid was lounging unhappily in the lagoon near her shelter, absently toying with a ripe mango, rolling it back and forth between her hands as she propped on the pool's edge. Her sister had been right, as usual, and Natalia had sulked through quite a scolding before Yelena finally gave up and left her to her own reef.
Disconsolate beneath the waves, out of sorts with everything down below, the petite siren had swam here, to what remained of her perfectly structured shelter, realizing how stupid she'd been to even think a male would even appreciate her effort. That one surely hadn't, she thought sourly, slapping the fruit sharply and watching it roll out of reach. She gave an irate flick of her tail and swam to the opposite side of the freshwater pool, huffing as she filched a few pebbles out of the sandy bank.
Then she sank back into the water again, perched atop a smooth stone just beneath the surface, and began to irritably toss the pebbles into the clear water, watching them sink one by one. A rustle caught her ear and she glanced up with a gasp, instinctively ducking beneath the surface as the crashing came closer.
Bucky doesn't see Natalia in the shelter but he does see that it managed to survive the storm so he goes back in and tries to see if the food survived too. Luckily, it did, and he sighs in relief. The last thing he needs is to be starving to death while he figures out how to get home.
"There's got to be a shipping lane really close by," he mutters to himself. "Since I'm not the first guy to get shipwrecked here. If I can manage to get the attention of someone, maybe I won't be beached for long and I can get back. Natalia's probably gone for good so I need to figure out how to get home as my first priority."
Maybe it's strange to talk to himself but who is gonna hear him? No one.
Even though he was above the water and she wasn't, Natalia nevertheless heard his muttering quite clearly. And she snorted through her nose, bubbles emerging from the pocketed air. Crossing her arms mulishly, the mermaid briefly considered lobbing a rock at his stubborn head, but couldn't find one to her liking light enough to lift.
Idiot male.
The longer she listened to his prattling, the more irritated she became, and finally she broke the surface to retort, "There aren't any ships this time of year. The storms are too bad and they always get wrecked. So they stop coming until the monsoons move on."
Arms crossed under her breasts, she floated at the back of the clear lagoon, giving him dark looks beneath equally dark lashes, green eyes almost glowing in the cloudy gloom.
Oh. The last person he expected to see (Really, was he expecting anyone on a deserted island? No.) but he's glad she's here anyway. Bucky thinks he'd be very lonely if he had no one to talk to until he got rescued. Besides, maybe they can patch things up.
"I guess that makes sense. I didn't think you would come back."
Bucky is too hungry not to eat so he bites into a mango without waiting for her reply. If they're talking, he's going to eat at the same time, and his manners will suffer for it.
She didn't give a single whit about his table manners. She ate her own food raw, after all. "I built this shelter," Natalia told him crisply, turning to give him her profile, arms still crossed. She crankily flopped wet scarlet hair over a naked shoulder. "Why wouldn't I come back to it?"
Yelena had told her to just let this one go, that talking to a human male was pointless. They were only good for breeding, her older sister had said. Well, Natalia hadn't even gotten that far, unfortunately. She'd tried to do things the nice way and not just take what she needed, but it had, alas, backfired.
"I haven't eaten in three days," Bucky says, managing to swallow before he says anything so he's at least not talking with his mouth full. "Storm was too bad for me to go looking for anything. I had to go inland to a cave because I didn't know if the shelter would be safe."
He's quiet for a moment, though, and just looks at her profile.
"And I didn't want to never see you again. I didn't want the last time I saw you to be a fight."
She gave him a flick of her lashes. "What does it matter? When the storms leave, so will you." She snorted softly, muttering, "...no one ever stays."
A moment or so later, Natalia turned only her head to look at him, briefly, then straightened. "There's more food in the back of the shelter. Cans, bags of things. Hopefully they didn't all get wet." Supplies she'd salvaged from those wrecked ships. Flour, beans; food she had no idea what to do with, but humans could probably figure it out.
"...and there's fish, if you have any skill in catching them."
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Without any warning, she pulled them close and fastened her lips to his, kissing him just as she had before, sharing with him the inherent magic in her blood. An eternity later, she released him, and dark lashes lifted to gaze right into his eyes as she told him, "Now, you can breathe. Come with me, I will keep you safe."
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"Shit. I mean, sorry, I shouldn't curse in front of you. Okay, where do you want me to go?"
Bucky wants to explore the fact that he can literally breathe underwater (and swim a little faster too, but maybe that's his imagination) but he's following Talia deep down to the bottom of the ocean to wherever she thinks is safe from the storm. There's something that almost looks like...a sunken ship? Do mermaids live in shipwrecks?
"Is this your house?" he asks, feeling stupid as soon as the words are out. "Why are you wasting your time up there with me?"
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She towed Bucky further into the reef, swimming along a large, colorful shelf before abruptly diving deeper, taking him to her own shelter, a sunken schooner that had settled here centuries before. It lay on its side, but there was a large, splintered hole in the bulkhead, and it was through there that Talia took her charge, settling them both in what had been the captain's quarters at the rear of the ship. The glass was still intact, so they could see out into the reef beyond, but at least they were protected from the ocean's angrier currents, just beginning to swell with the storm's emergence.
"I live here," she confirmed, floating comfortably against an ancient divan. "It's a good place to shelter, when the outside becomes too rough."
He looked a little silly, she decided, smiling in amusement, with his gangly legs and arms everywhere, but that was okay. He'd learn how to move in the water soon enough.
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"So how am I not dead? Are you magic? I'm assuming it's magic and stuff."
He's read a few books with wizards and things and while he never thought magic could be real, he guesses if mermaids are then that is too.
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"I brought you here before," she confessed. "After the crash. You slept here for a while." A small hand brushed the divan's damask, faded from the salty water. "Then I brought you to the shore, before you woke up."
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He doesn't have much time to think about that, though, because Talia has moved and her hair is flowing behind her instead of covering her breasts and he finds himself staring, eyes captivated by how beautiful her body is. God, I shouldn't be doing this. It's not right.
"I'm sorry...I'm sorry I'm staring."
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"This is storm season," she told him, glancing back over a bare shoulder. "They come almost every day for months." No doubt it was one of those massive maelstroms that had sunk his craft. "Very dangerous, up there." She swam back to float gently in front of her new companion. "Better you stay here, with me."
The mermaid took Bucky's hand, threading their fingers together and smiling in enthusiastic delight. "I will show you the sea. And then bear your daughter, after storm passes."
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"Bear my daughter? That's...if I'm having a kid I want to have a say in it! That's a big thing for a guy. I gotta help take care of them and we have to be parents together and that's literally not something I have planned for at all. Not yet. Holy shit."
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At least, none in her memory had ever remained. Her father certainly hadn't. And the mermaid wasn't entirely sure that her own mother hadn't eaten him, after mating, but that wasn't a concern right now.
Pulling her hand from his, Natalia planted both on her hips, giving her "mate" a speculative look. "--why are you so confusing?" she demanded, as exasperated as any human woman might become when faced with a flabbergasted man.
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He guesses mermaid society is really different but that's the way he was taught and he isn't gonna change that. It's wrong. The sex he guesses he could do - she is beautiful - but he isn't just gonna leave his own kid behind. That's a part of him.
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Infuriating male! She considered, briefly, tossing him back on the beach and letting him fend for himself, but she wasn't, at heart, cruel, and she...liked him, besides. Maybe they could just...not talk about things? A familiar shoal of silversides flashed by, teasing at her long hair and making her laugh; they were residents of the reef, too. They flitted around her, this way and that, considerably lightening the mermaid's sour mood.
By the time she returned to the sunken ship, she was calmer, and rather than say anything at all, she swam to her companion and put her arms around his neck, meeting his mouth with hers. Kissing was far preferable to talking, anyway.
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"I don't wanna leave," Bucky says softly. "Do you want me to just go after I give you your kid? Because that's not what I want to do." He kisses her again, so soft, and presses as close to her as he can.
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She lowered her eyes, letting him go and drifting away a bit.
"Males...cannot stay, after. None ever have." Pushing her long hair aside, she looked back at Bucky. "Why do you want to stay? Give up life on land?" To her, it made no sense.
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This is bothering him more than it should, he guesses. Plenty of men would be happy to be absolved of responsibility and only get the fun part.
"Maybe I'm not a good mate for you, Natalia."
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Rather than talk anymore, or even kiss, the redheaded mermaid flicked her tail in an abrupt about-face, and swam out of the shelter, veering abruptly to the left and vanishing amid the coral and sea grass. She couldn't even look at him right now, not even as pretty as he was.
A few familiar fish tried to follow her, curious, but she warned them off with a few threatening strokes of her tail. Above her, the ocean was still roiling as the storm raged, but deep in the depths, near the coral beds, the current was steady, and the unhappy mermaid settled to the sandy bottom amid a colorful bouquet of plants and creatures, blending seamlessly. She just...wanted everything to go away, right now.
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He does the next best thing and just calls out for her.
"Natalia? Look, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. You can take me back up to the surface if you want and I'll leave you alone, okay? I'm just not gonna make it up there by myself."
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One of her sisters was waiting for her when she returned to her reef. Yelena was roughly the same age, but far less tolerant, especially of the males salvaged from the sea's fury. Her bright orange and yellow fins flashed in the gloom, and she greeted her sibling with a succinct nod, followed by a wry look.
"Talia," she began, a little exasperated, no doubt having witnessed her sibling's last interaction with the human, "what have we told you about them?"
In no mood to be lectured, definitely not chastised, Talia just returned a darker look at her sister before heading into her shelter, moody and sullen. Yelena followed, not at all daunted, and paused just in the entrance, arms crossed and head tilted, long blond hair floating behind her.
"They cannot understand, sister," she told the redhead, who was lying prone on the faded divan, facing away from the ocean view. "Better just to take them and say naught of it. Words just bring problems, you know this."
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He doesn't have food or water but he can drink water from the rain and he'll just go hungry until it's safe again. Maybe that little grove Natalia set up will still be there when the storm's gone and he'll have something to eat without having to look for it.
He tries to sleep but he can't; the storm's too loud. When it's over, it feels like days, and he heads back to the beach to see if he can get back to where the food was.
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Disconsolate beneath the waves, out of sorts with everything down below, the petite siren had swam here, to what remained of her perfectly structured shelter, realizing how stupid she'd been to even think a male would even appreciate her effort. That one surely hadn't, she thought sourly, slapping the fruit sharply and watching it roll out of reach. She gave an irate flick of her tail and swam to the opposite side of the freshwater pool, huffing as she filched a few pebbles out of the sandy bank.
Then she sank back into the water again, perched atop a smooth stone just beneath the surface, and began to irritably toss the pebbles into the clear water, watching them sink one by one. A rustle caught her ear and she glanced up with a gasp, instinctively ducking beneath the surface as the crashing came closer.
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"There's got to be a shipping lane really close by," he mutters to himself. "Since I'm not the first guy to get shipwrecked here. If I can manage to get the attention of someone, maybe I won't be beached for long and I can get back. Natalia's probably gone for good so I need to figure out how to get home as my first priority."
Maybe it's strange to talk to himself but who is gonna hear him? No one.
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Idiot male.
The longer she listened to his prattling, the more irritated she became, and finally she broke the surface to retort, "There aren't any ships this time of year. The storms are too bad and they always get wrecked. So they stop coming until the monsoons move on."
Arms crossed under her breasts, she floated at the back of the clear lagoon, giving him dark looks beneath equally dark lashes, green eyes almost glowing in the cloudy gloom.
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"I guess that makes sense. I didn't think you would come back."
Bucky is too hungry not to eat so he bites into a mango without waiting for her reply. If they're talking, he's going to eat at the same time, and his manners will suffer for it.
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Yelena had told her to just let this one go, that talking to a human male was pointless. They were only good for breeding, her older sister had said. Well, Natalia hadn't even gotten that far, unfortunately. She'd tried to do things the nice way and not just take what she needed, but it had, alas, backfired.
And now, she had no idea what to do.
"Why did you?"
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He's quiet for a moment, though, and just looks at her profile.
"And I didn't want to never see you again. I didn't want the last time I saw you to be a fight."
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A moment or so later, Natalia turned only her head to look at him, briefly, then straightened. "There's more food in the back of the shelter. Cans, bags of things. Hopefully they didn't all get wet." Supplies she'd salvaged from those wrecked ships. Flour, beans; food she had no idea what to do with, but humans could probably figure it out.
"...and there's fish, if you have any skill in catching them."
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