(Ok! Four hours for me is going to be about 3 pm so we’re good)
Touch The Sky//One-On-One//Closed
Keiran thought for a moment, letting out a breath of air as he did so. "Well there are large animals like elephants and giraffes, elephants are these massive grey creatures , I think they are usually around 3 meters tall and they have these big wide floppy ears and a really long nose called their trunk. Giraffes are also really big but their body and heads are a fairly normal side just they have these big long necks and long legs that they use to get food from tall trees. They are both pretty silly looking animals." He laughed lightly. "There are also things like bears, they are these like chubby fluffy things with a wide head and they are like, maybe a meter tall maybe less. They look pretty cute but you don't really want to mess with bears." He stated moving on to the next animal he could think of. "Their are all kinds of little animals too like Squirrels and Chipmunks, they are small and fluffy and have long fluffy tails, they like eating nuts and they are usually in trees. They are pretty cute." He answered, stopping there as to try not to overwhelm her with animals.
Nautia closed her eyes and imagined all the animals with a content smile, happily listening to him. They all sounded so unique and different, with way more variation than she was used to. “Wow…” She said softly, eyes opening as she looked back over to him, “You’ve seen all those animals?”
"Yeah! I've seen lots of animals in my travels." He paused, trying to think what kind of animals would potentially be on this island. Probably mostly birds…and bugs? "Hold on, I'll be right back I want to show you something." Keiran stood up and waited for the go ahead.
She nodded with a smile, waving that he could go as she flicked water over herself with her tail. Her mind drifted to imagining the animals again and she wished she was a human. Walking on land sounded much more interesting than swimming around, though technically she could form human legs, it was absolutely forbidden to walk along with humans and animals like she wished to.
Keiran smiled and walked off into the trees. He searched around some trees for a few minutes before walking back to the beach, his hands cupped around something.
“What did you find?” Nautia asked, head tipped to the side in curiosity. She watched his hands carefully, curious as to what he had found even just on the island.
He sat back down beside her and opened up his hand revealing a tiny, scaled, greenish brownish patterned creature with 4 legs and a long tail. "This is a lizard, a very small one you can find ones that are really big too." He explained, holding out the lizard to show her and shifting his hands around as the lizard crawled about.
She gasped and her eyes lit up, amazed at the tiny creature in his hands. Gingerly, she reached out and placed her hand next to his, the edge of her hand brushing up lightly against his so the lizard could crawl into her hand. “It’s scales are similar to mine…amazing,” She murmured, focused on the creature as it crawled about.
The lizard crawled into Nautias hand and Keiran put his hands down onto his lap. "Their are other scaled animals on land too, like snakes they are like…a chubby noodle." He chuckled lightly at the only description he could think of. "They don't have legs or arms so they just kind of wiggle around."
She laughed slightly at his description and held both hands together so the lizard could move around, “So like an eel?” Her eyes showed how fascinated she was with the lizard and in her head she decided she would have to explore this island, even if it was forbidden to do so.
"Yeah! Like an eel." He answered, recalling what eels looked like from a book he used to read when he was younger.
She smiled, thinking of the giant and mean eels she was used to and deciding the snakes he was describing couldn’t be as mean as them. The lizard apparently had enough of being held and scrambled out of her hands, dropping to the ground and scrambling off before she could do anything about it. “A lizard,” She repeated, putting the name to the animal and tucking the information away in her brain.
Keiran watched as the little lizard scrambled away, disappearing into the island. "That one is very small, you can find lizards that are a lot bigger."
“What’s the biggest one you’ve seen?” She asked, genuinely interested. Her attention drifted to the clouds for a moment before she looked back at him with a smile, “I want to explore the island.”
"Hm I'm not sure, I haven't seen many of the big ones." He answered, wracking his memory to try and figure out what the biggest one was but nothing came to mind. "What do you mean by that?" He asked referring to her wanting to explore the island.
“I mean, I want to explore the island,” She said with an excited smile, giving him the bare basics of why they could form legs and why she hadn’t already “Mermaids have the ability to form human legs, though it’s forbidden to walk amongst humans or very far inland with them. If I was caught I would be executed, but it’s a risk I’ll take.”
"Are you sure? I'm not going to try and stop you just execution seems like a pretty big risk?" He asked a bit worried.
Nautia shrugged and waved a dismissive hand, “I’ll be fine, no one will know.” Her eyes flicked to the water and she assured herself that no one would know or wander over and spot her.
"Alright if your sure you want to do this, I'm happy to help with whatever you need me to do." He answered, Keiran was a little worried about the consequences of getting caught but pushed those feelings aside and reminded himself that Nautia knows the merpeople world 1000 times better than he ever will.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve used my legs, but if I remember correctly, I just need a pair of bottoms and a top.” Her face flushed slightly and she looked at her tail, “For…obvious reasons.” Hanging around him was already basically treason, so exploring the island wouldn’t break any more laws than she already had.
"Oh uh yeah" He laughed awkwardly. He slipped off his button up shirt that he had been wearing and handed it to her, leaving him in a loose quarter sleeve shirt. "Here you can use this, it might be long enough to be used as a dress?" He tried to think. "If not I can find some big leaves to use as a skirt."
Nautia smiled and her face flushed more as she took the shirt and laid it gently on the beach away from the water, “It should work, I’m actually surprisingly short when I don’t have my tail.” She motioned for him to spin around as she focused on forming her legs, not a terribly painful process, but one that took a lot of concentration. Her tail started shrinking and her scales faded, the outline of legs appearing as it continued to disappear.
Keiran nodded and turned around, giving her privacy to get dressed once she changed into human form.
It only took her a few more minutes to form her legs, and she stayed silent the whole time. She grabbed the top he gave her and pulled it on before attempting to stand, her knees buckling and bringing her to her knees. “Ok, you can turn back around now,” She said, shakily standing once again and looking up at him with the top covering her body. True to her word, without her tail she was short, barely reaching 5’2”.
Keiran turned around to face her, it was a bit strange to see her with legs after knowing her with a tail. But she looked beautiful. "Wow…you look great." He smiled "You weren't lying about being short though I see." He joked, laughing lightly afterwards.
She smiled and laughed lightly, a faint blush covering her cheeks, “Sadly, average tail length does not cross over into average height, and it seems I got all the shortness from my family.” Nautia pulled her hair over her shoulder and wrung our all the excess water she could before brushing it back against her back. The only bright side to having legs and being short was her legs were very defined and toned, she did swim constantly.
He laughed lightly before looking towards the water. "Maybe we should go farther into the island? So that no one sees you and so you can see the island."
She nodded eagerly, the mention of the island making her want to explore that much more. Nautia just had to make sure she wasn’t caught and she could explore as much as she wanted, “The farther inland the better, mermaids have very good vision thanks to swimming in the dark sea.”
Keiran offered his hand out to Naudia and smiled. "Let's go explore then." He was happy that she would be able to see on land for herself after hearing her excitedly ask him questions about what it's like.