Twintails is gonna get that eel over there. The one that's swimming weird, like it's injured or something. (That's why she's gonna get it.)
She swims closer. She is so gonna get it. Look at it, it's soooo slow.
…Uh. Wait. Is that even an eel? That actually doesn't look like an eel, from this distance. And she can't figure out what it does look like.
…Which means that it's Something Weird and she needs to Get Away NOW.
"This is a building! Try living in this one for a while, and that should help you know many more things! Wouldn't you agree?"
She walks off, coming back with the 2 men. They had been waiting just out of sight of Twintails. They wave at her, trying to seem friendly and approachable.
Does Twintails get the impression that they were nearby enough that they actually heard the whole conversation?
The 2 men look at her. "We heard you wanted to talk to us, and that you need to... know more things about living in buildings? Was that what you said?"
Ooh, this one's voice is deeper than the other one's. Come to think of it, when she's gone on land most of the human voices she heard sounded more like this one than the first one. Does the first one have an unusually high voice? Now she wonders what the third one will sound like.
…Also, this one has longer cirri than the other two. It's technically within normal variation, but it could mean that they travel less, which might mean they're higher status, if humans work that way…
…Wait, actually, no, those don't look like cirri at all! They're super thin and they haven't moved on their own even once since she got here! How is she only just noticing this?!
…She's getting sidetracked. That's going to get her killed someday.
If being unobservant doesn't get her killed first.
"I was just saying to this other human…"
Twintails tries, to the best of her ability, to repeat what she said earlier. She doesn't get it word-for-word, but she manages something equivalent.
"…So, what do you have to say to that?"
"I mean, even on beaches there can be storms or powerful waves or drastic weather changes? Or maybe there's a beach that's perfect for not having any of those. If you were in a building, you'd be protected from all that. And it'd be easier to get to other people, and get food to eat."
Twintails ducks her head under the water, mainly to hide how much her 'hair' is fluttering with agitation.
After a few seconds, she pops back up. Her 'hair' is still twitching, but only a little.
"I don't think you're understanding what I'm saying. Am I talking to you wrong? Am I speaking your language wrong somehow?"
"Well, it's just... your world is so different, and it's really hard for me to think how a beach can be better than a building! But you can have robots bringing you food whenever you want, and you can use the television to see what's happening or read or watch people doing performances, and of course the temperature and climate will always be fantastic for you, just look how cold it was out when you arrived here. There are many good reasons that people live in buildings! I'm... just not sure which of them mean anything to you. And the thing about things being toxic to mermaids... I think we're much too similar for that to have any chance of happening."
She is not looking forward to figuring out what to say to all that, which is why she instead says, "What do you mean, 'my world'?"
"Well, the one that has mermaids in it? This world doesn't have mermaids in it. So this one can't be your world."
She suppresses a sigh. (She's never suppressed a sigh before, it almost feels weirder than actually sighing.)
"In 'my world', most humans don't know about mermaids. Most humans don't know about magic at all. So you not knowing about mermaids doesn't mean this isn't my world."
She has to admit, though, it never actually occurred to her that this might not be her world. That could be a really big deal. And it sure would explain a lot. Like why she isn't being glamoured in front of people who sure act like how you'd expect Veiled people to act. (Earlier she consoled herself that it's possible to be both Unveiled and ignorant of magic, but all those situations are rare enough that you wouldn't expect three different such people to even know each other, let alone be in the same place at the same time.) If this isn't her world, maybe there are no gods here, which means no one's around to glamour her. (…But then why does she speak the language? Maybe there are different gods here, with different agreements? That sounds both fascinating and terrifying. She sure hopes she doesn't accidentally do something they hate!)
"…I'm not saying you're definitely wrong. Maybe you're right, maybe this isn't my world. And if it's true then it's really important, so I'm glad you said it, because I didn't think of it. But me being the first real mermaid you've ever heard of doesn't really prove it."
"Really? And everything here is just like the world you knew, nothing being strange or unfamiliar at all?"
What?
"I wouldn't know. I haven't seen my whole world. Especially the land parts. This could be another world, the opposite end of my world, or a few days' travel from my last location, and I wouldn't know the difference. Even in my world I already see 'strange' and 'unfamiliar' things all the time, just by travelling, because the world is different wherever you go. Maybe it would be different for a human. They're the ones who make buildings. So maybe a human from my world would know this isn't their world just by looking at a few buildings, or even just this one building. I wouldn't.
"The one thing that seems really different is you being Unveiled but not knowing about magic. That's not impossible in my world, but it's very strange. That's the main reason that I think you could be right."
"Well... that makes it pretty clear you're not from my world, we can be utterly certain that magic is not real and I have no idea of what it could possibly even mean to be unveiled the way you use that word."
"…How did you go from not even being sure what I mean by 'magic', to being 'utterly certain that magic is not real'?"
"Because there isn't anywhere left for the magic to be! We've chased every possible source of magic for centuries, and hundreds of times, we've shown that something that seemed like magic was a trick or a mistake. Now there just isn't anything we know of or even know to be possible that could be magic. Especially the kind of magic that sounds like it's affecting lots of people, if being both unveiled and ignorant of magic like us is the exception."
How would they know if there was anywhere left for the magic to be? If there was, by definition they would not have found it yet.
She's not going to say that. It's not a completely valid argument, and even if it was there was more to what the human was saying than that first sentence.
She suppresses another sigh, and she suppresses her cirri from twitching more. It hasn't exactly occurred to her that if she rescued somebody and offered them shelter and succour, she might not appreciate them arguing with her vehemently about how her world works; but it is starting to occur to her that she might not appreciate them being visibly frustrated with absolutely everything she says, no matter how sincerely and deeply felt the frustration was.
"The magic wouldn't be affecting lots of people even if it was my world. Most humans in my world don't know about magic. People who know about magic do their best to hide it from people who don't, and they're pretty good at it; and when they fail the gods pick up the slack, and they're really good at it. So it's to be expected that everything humans have 'chased down' turned out to not be magic; the fact that humans could notice it to chase it down in the first place means it wasn't magic. That's why I've been thinking you're Unveiled, because you can see me as a mermaid. 'Unveiled' just means you're allowed to know about magic. If you were Veiled, which means you're not allowed to know, some god would be making me look and feel and sound like something that isn't magic, like a normal animal or another human. And the fact that being Unveiled and ignorant of magic at the same time is so rare is the main reason I think you could be right that this is a different world, but that still doesn't prove there's no magic in it. The gods here could just have different rules about it. The concept of 'Veiled' versus 'Unveiled' might not even apply. They might decide on completely personal whims who gets to see it and when. Maybe they just randomly decided to let you three see it as of today. Actually, if you're right that this isn't my world, me arriving here from another world could be the whole reason they suddenly made an exception."
"Do you know what recording is?" She brings out her phone again, and moves it around Twintails, making a quick video. Then she shows the recording to the mermaid. "Are the gods supposed to do something here, or what?"
Twintails has to take several moments to process what she's seeing.
Her initial gut reaction is mostly alarm and confusion. It's not like she's never seen an image of herself — water is reflective, that shiny stuff humans use is also reflective, somehow that not-eel's face was reflective — but the image has never been this clear, and it's never been anything other than a reflection, which this clearly isn't.
Beyond that, the fact that it moves startles her pretty badly.
But once she gets past that adrenaline spike, she doesn't take long to understand that this is… sort of like the… phone…? …was looking at her, and now she's looking at its memory of looking at her? …Wait, is the ?phone? alive? Can it think?
Pondering this makes her thinks of something else that gives her another adrenaline spike.
She points at the video. "Is that a copy of me?"
They claim they don't have magic, but they keep implying that their not-magic is really really powerful, so she doesn't know for sure that they can't copy people.
"No it's not, it's just... like a note describing what you look like! You're still out here, and nobody's been able to make all of you, just what you look like right now seen from certain angles!"
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