Merren was rowing and Io was singing to Ehxeyr when the fog came on. Suddenly, and thickly (and with a strange tint, maybe, not that she's an expert on fog.)
The lake has no current and they weren't near shore but she still didn't like the idea of hitting some snag or rock she can’t see. But it's only a few minutes later that the fog disperses.
Their surroundings are not what they used to be.
In fact, they are now in salt water! It's a relatively calm day, fortunately, but out here on the ocean there are still rather more waves than there would be in a lake.
The fog seems to be burning off quickly in the sunlight; it's reasonably warm out, and in the distance they might just make out the shape of another vessel - a fairly large yacht, with more wind turbine than you might ordinarily expect on such a craft.
If they had any way of receiving radio, they might notice that there was quite a considerable quantity of unusually orderly noise on the airwaves, although no recognisable music or voices.
Io goes wide-eyed. Looks around, almost reaches her hand overboard to touch the water but preempts herself. Moves protectively in front of Ehxeyr, in as much as this is possible when they're both sitting in a boat and the thing that happened is the boat being somewhere else.
Ehxeyr looks around more slowly, drawing into the body language Merren recognizes as knowing she will be called on and expected to make decisions about the situation.
(They do not have a way of receiving radio. They weren't somewhere out in the wilderness, they were in a park with a boat rental with a phone, and every shore in sight.)
What the actual fuck. To say this was not in her threat model at all would be an understatement. She checks her collapsable baton and knife and other such items. Thinks some brief negative things again at the court proceedings that decided she couldn't carry a gun. Not that this would have been in their model either.
Is there any land in sight?
Nope! There's - probably another water vessel, over there, though? It's a fairly big yacht, sleek and colourfully painted, with some kind of fancy spiral wind turbine things where you might reasonably expect sails.
She would highly prefer ‘land, where they can attempt to get some bearings’ to ‘completely unknown strangers, while vulnerable before them on basically every axis’. But if they are out in the open water, they will die there alone, land they can’t see isn’t a gamble to take, and it wouldn’t be a good gamble to wait and hope a different vessel comes along later on either.
Not that it’s hers to decide.
Ehxeyr looks around again, at the day and water, at the other ship, at Io and Merren. At the other ship again.
“We should see if we can get their attention. And try to head towards them.”
Yeah.
If this is their option there’s no point in delaying and very much a point in not losing the other ship. She rows at a pace she can keep up, but not slower than that.
Io holds her position. Somewhat clutches at Ehxeyr. When they get some amount closer she can wave and try to shout.
There is activity from on board the yacht! It appears to be populated by some kind of... Lizard bird people? About half a dozen distinct individuals with highly varying feather colours are visible; after some to-ing and fro-ing they lower a smaller boat into the sea, with two of them aboard and space for about four more, and it starts approaching with considerable rapidity, leaving a serious propeller wake...
…Alright, that’s… a thing. If you’re going to get transported to another body of water by fog she’s not sure she can say it makes more sense if it’s to aliens but she can’t really say it makes less can she.
Their decision’s been made already, the aliens coming out to them doesn’t change anything about it. (Unless Ehxeyr says otherwise but she doesn’t think Ehxeyr is going to.) She keeps rowing, partially because that might disguise the way she’s orienting to being ready for attack, should the alien yacht turn out to be the worse gamble after all. She attempts to gauge the approaching aliens for weapons.
The 'aliens' have no obvious weapons, but they do have a considerable quantity of claws and talons.
As they get closer, one of them picks up a big cone device, and speaks loudly into it - "Are you in need of rescue? Incoming weather likely to overwhelm your vessel!"
She mentally runs through what might be the tactics to pull first (and second, if she has to immediately readjust, and third…) for claws and talons given whatever she can see of how the aliens move.
It is at this point the occupants of the boat will notice that the alien did not actually speak in any language they knew or had ever heard, that they understood fully anyway, and that this is because they now-mentally-noticeably have the ability to both understand and speak this language.
(Merren looks to the sky for signs of weather (not that she’s an expert in it). That could be true; that could also be some attempt to maneuver them.)
The incoming boat slows right down as it approaches, to avoid hitting the newcomers with too much wake turbulence, and carefully manoeuvres in close.
"What are your towing preferences, or do you want to abandon?" calls the alien not busy wrestling with the small rescue boat's controls. "I'm going to deal with the whole thing where you look like featherless apes later, when no-one's in danger. I can't promise we can get your boat onto the main ship, but we can at least make a better go of salvage if we bring it along - are you still seaworthy?"
Neither vision nor any other set of senses is letting her distinguish the aliens beyond the individual level. Not a surprise, that doesn't work for most of everything on the same planet. (They could all be either alphas or betas and once they get to a larger group this'll be like a bad sci-fi show after all, can't rule that out yet. Reality gets to be as stupid as it happens.)
"The boat's not damaged. We'd doubt it was built for the open sea."
"Okay, we're going to try to get you fastened alongside so that it stays that way. It's going to be a challenge getting it up on deck but I'm sure we'll think of something.
How many ropes can you secure? We've got, like, half a dozen set up ready to go, could secure a couple more if need be. I'll put out some fenders."
The two aliens are quite differently plumaged, but likely not in a way that will actually help Merren's attempts to categorise them. The pilot starts manoevering alongside whilst the other crew member starts chucking squashy waterproof-fabric-coated foam objects with short ropes over the side to pad that side of their rescue boat.
“Thank you.” If the language knowledge has body language to go with the words that her body can come close to, she’ll attempt it as well as she can.
“We rented the boat. If you have a guess it’ll be better than ours; you know more about it than we do.”
She does examine both boats - their own for anything that looks like it’s for securing ropes, the aliens’ as an example.
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