The Sky's Eternal Sunset

Blood In The Water

Look me in my eyes
Tell me everything's not fine
Oh, the people ain't happy
And the river has run dry
You thought you could go free
But the system is done for
If you listen real closely
There's a knock at your front door

Beg me for mercy
Admit you were toxic
You poisoned me just for
Another dollar in your pocket

Blood// Water -Grandson

(⁠灬⁠º⁠‿⁠º⁠灬⁠)⁠♡(⁠灬⁠º⁠‿⁠º⁠灬⁠)⁠♡(⁠灬⁠º⁠‿⁠º⁠灬⁠)⁠♡(⁠灬⁠º⁠‿⁠º⁠灬⁠)⁠♡

In the following week, their activities at nightfall vary depending on the day.

Roxas more often than not eats and immediately passes out on Sora's bed, still tired from the trip and not quite reenergized yet. Sometimes they manage to talk about their adventures while apart and their plans for the future. At least they do for a few minutes, before devolving into wet hungry kisses and eager touches. But it's not long before Roxas is nodding off mid-kiss and Sora encourages him to just rest. They have all summer after all, and Sora is working on making sure they have longer than that.

That's always such a relief to hear that Roxas then goes without a fight, whooshing out a great sigh and drifting off to sleep.

During the day, Roxas is with his pod. They hunt, rest, and the like but Roxas always keeps an eye on the shoreline. Sora, on the other hand, spends his waking hours doing cataloging work with the others, and he finally gets to meet the new interns.

Baldr and Hoder are nothing like he expected.

The two of them met at Scala University in Caelum four years ago and from the way shared looks casually lean on one another, Sora gathers they're close. They started out studying marine ecology and biology respectively before joining forces for a project on how to preserve their local coastline and local species, preventing overfishing by locating spawning grounds and turning them into no-fishing zones. The project was very successful and they've been teaming up together ever since. Several of their professors pointed them in the direction of mer-preservation thinking they'd do well there as well.

📙And that's why we're here, studying migration habits of the mer,📙Baldr says with an easy smile. 📙Once a route is locked down, specific points of rest taken into account, we can actually start drafting plans for how to make proper safe zones for them.📙

Sora has already decided he likes them.

It really is such a shame that he and Roxas have already planned on pranking the shit out of them on meet and greet day.

There are a number of new mer to meet this year, children mostly but there's a new species too. They arrived a bit late, but an entire Hippocampi pod of mer made their way to Falmouth, adding a grand total of twenty six new mer. Cid is shocked beyond all reason as that species of mer are rare for these waters. The last he heard, they were only seen in Santa Rosa National Park in Costa Rica. It's Axel that reveals why they aren't there.

Turns out the P.K.W. mer's usual migration ground has become overrun with poachers.

Cid checks in with the sanctuary and it turns out the local government is stretched too thin to deal with it. So the pod took a chance and followed the long distance pulses from the Marakihaus to temporarily join their pod until their old grounds are safe again. They're extremely skittish of the scientists, no matter how much the Marakihaus assure them that it's safe here.

The humans don't take it personally. Where the P.K.W.'s come from, they're more likely to meet a dangerous human than a safe one. It's Cid's hope that they'll come to trust them better over the summer and he asks that Axel relay that they are welcome to stay at their sanctuary any time they need. It's supposed to be a haven for all mer who would use it, not just the regulars.