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Bella didn't mean to take so long about eating her dinner. It's just that this book is really interesting. Supplemental history reading, recommended by the professor, by a different author than did their textbook, one who can really write, she'll have to find the rest of his work - and now she's one of six students left in the dining hall and it's closing. Four of them are a group of dwarves who she can only assume live in the dwarf housing; individual dwarves sometimes find their way into Harlowe and there is even one in Thatcher, but not a bunch of them. The other one's a mermaid.
Bella doesn't think the mermaid lives in Thatcher, which makes it Harlowe, but Thatcher's on the way to Harlowe from here.
She knows not to go swimming with her and this will have to do.
She goes up to the mermaid.
"Excuse me. I try not to walk around outside by myself. Are you heading towards Thatcher? Harlowe's right past it," she adds.
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subtly_artistic
After a few more seconds, Jala says abruptly, "Can I ask you a - strange question?"
"Is it true humans eat dolphins and whales?"
subtly_artistic
"I think some do. They're not a major part of Pax cuisine. I never have. Why?"
"I heard it was but I wasn't sure," she says. "Some of the things the shorebirds say... anyway. Just curious, I guess."
"Shallow-water merfolk. I'm from the depths," she says. "We don't see a lot of humans there."
Jala giggles. She has a sweet laugh, too.
subtly_artistic
"Is there a reason you're curious about dolphins and whales in particular?"
"...What do you mean?" she asks, confused.
subtly_artistic
"Why are you asking about dolphins and whales and not - seals, octopuses, penguins, sharks, jellyfish?"
"I don't know, do humans eat those too?"
subtly_artistic
"I don't know about penguins. Everything else on the list I think is eaten by some humans."
"Oh. Well, it was whales and dolphins I heard about," says Jala. She seems slightly uncomfortable, for some reason.
Jala hesitates, slowing down, shifting uncomfortably.
"...Have you ever eaten a dolphin or a whale?"
"...Have you ever eaten a dolphin or a whale?"
"It's just weird because humans make such a big deal about how they don't eat people," says Jala, twisting her hands together nervously.
subtly_artistic
"Are you saying dolphins and whales are people?" Bella asks. "That's not common knowledge among humans, if true; I certainly didn't know it."
"Well, maybe you don't know it," she says. "Are you sure everybody doesn't?"
subtly_artistic
"I would expect to know it if lots of humans knew it. I suppose a handful of humans could know it and not be publicizing the information and then I wouldn't have found out. I really doubt that the humans who eat the whales and dolphins know they're eating people, although I could be mistaken."
"I don't know how they could not," she says. "But maybe humans are just dumb."
subtly_artistic
"Inattentive, perhaps," suggests Bella. "If I go near enough a dolphin or a whale should I expect to sense its mind with subtle arts? Do they speak a regular language of some kind? Do they do magic, tell stories, have names?"