The Stars Between -- (VLD)

[44] Turns out I'm just really hard to hypnotise

"I can't believe I let that happen!" Nyma was ranting, swimming from wall to wall in the cave they were currently residing in. "I knew it was coming, and I still- ugh!"

Lance remained quiet, trying his best to gather the pieces of scattered memory that had led up to this point.

"Daughter?"

Nyma didn't even look in Lance's direction, eyes wide with fear as she stared up at the mermaid Queen.

"Nyma, what does she—"

"Don't."

Roy shrugged. "I'm as confused as you are."

"I welcome you all to our kingdom!" Queen Luxia said, sweeping her arms out. "Here, we are all safe and warm."

Nyma squeezed her eyes shut, shaking her head.

It went fuzzy after that point, but Lance could remember some things with clarity.

A dinner.

Safe and warm.

A dance.

Safe and warm.

From what the three jellyfish-headed people speaking with Nyma were saying, they had been 'mind swished' (... brainwashed, going by context), something that was apparently happening to the entire mermaid population. Lance believed them, but at the same time, it sounded like a crazy conspiracy theory.

But they had rescued Lance and Nyma. He wasn't sure how, exactly, because they didn't seem the most competent of warriors. Then again, Lance probably wasn't the best to critique that, being taken out by - what was it?

Oh yeah. An octopus.

"Seriously though, thanks so much for saving us," Nyma said, finally stopping in her swim-pacing to face the jelly squad.

"No problem, Nyma," one of them replied. Lance was pretty sure her name was Plaxum. "It's what a team does."

"Yeah," the second one added. "They stick together." She sounded angry over something, but then again, her speech could have just sounded weird coming out from underneath a jellyfish.

Nyma sighed. "Look, I'm sorry for leaving without telling you guys-"

The second jelly huffed, folding her arms and turning away.

Swipe? No, that wasn't it.

"-But you know that it was safer with me gone."

"That's not the point!" ... Swindle? (No, that wasn't it either) shot back. "Our numbers were already low when you left, and you were our best fighting chance! We were in it together, but you only thought about yourself!"

"No, I—"

"Nyma, you leaving nearly doomed us," Plaxum said, darting in between the two and holding her hands out. "We're all that's left now."

"I'm sorry." She mumbled, head down. "I'm so sorry."

Plaxum drifted over to Nyma. "I know," she said softly.

Spurn (nope, not that) huffed. "If you were actually sorry, you wouldn't have left."

Was it Swine? He really hoped that wasn't her name. That would feel like he was insulting her whether he wanted to or not. Kind of like how his autocorrect occasionally changed Hunk's name to junk. That was one of the many reasons he had turned it off. Another being that it tended to disagree with the entire language of Spanish. You didn't just switch keyboards simply to type a single word, that's not how it worked.