Glory cuddled closer to him for a moment.

"I'll be alright," she said. "Don't worry so much about me."

Léan nodded, giving her a brief hug before pulling away. He laid his head on the sandy ocean floor, and patiently waited for her to leave.

Carefully, Glory pulled herself up onto a rock to look around. The beach seemed empty...

Robert Archer couldn't believe his luck. Just when he wanted to look for a friend for his pet, one practically presented herself to him! Such a pretty one, too, all dark hair and pale skin. Quietly, he took a mesh net out of his bag and snuck up behind her. Without warning, he caught her in the mesh and pulled her onto the beach, not giving her time to scream or struggle. He didn't know if there were others in the area, so he quickly picked up the soaking wet bundle and wrestled the struggling mermaid inside, to the main tank.

The main tank inside--which was well-taken care of, and filled with random exotic fish--seemed empty, except for the coral, plants, and fish. No merpeople in sight, for the moment. If there were any, they were hiding.

Glory yelped as she tumbled into the tank, out of the mesh net. Her tail had turned back into her legs while she was in the net, but changed back as soon as she hit the water. She looked around wildly, not sure where she was, and her gaze jerked upwards when she heard a voice from the surface of the water.

"I was right, you ARE a lovely one..." She could see a man standing on the catwalk, maybe ten feet above the water. "Play nicely, now." Obviously, whoever it was hadn't noticed that she'd had legs before she hit the water.

Because of Glory's distraction, she hadn't heard the low, almost instinctual territorial growl coming from under one of the stacks of coral. There were bright sepia eyes shining in the dark cave. They weren't cruel or nasty...simply wary, and territorial.

The man had walked away before Glory could regain her bearings.

"Damn it..." she murmured to herself. "This is bad..." She tapped experimentally on the wall of the tank. The glass looked thick, which didn't surprise her, and it was slightly curved outward like in an aquarium. It looked well-maintained, too, which meant that there were no cracks for her to take advantage of. She blinked and turned around when she heard the growling, backing up a bit until she hit the glass.

The growling died down as those bright eyes assessed her. Whoever, or whatever, was in that cave, stayed put. The eyes looked much more docile, curious...not predatorial, or angry. There was shuffling, and then there was a bit of a fin visible from beneath the rock--pitch black, with a bit of gray at the tip of the fins.

Glory blinked, but didn't move.

"Black," she murmured to herself. "I wasn't expecting that. Red, maybe, but not black..."

"English?"

The voice was soft, but sharp--a melodic soprano. Those bright eyes were narrowed in confusion. "You speak as if your native language is a human one." She didn't move from beneath the coral.

It shouldn't have surprised Glory, but it did all the same.

"And if I said that it is?" she replied cautiously. She was very glad that this other person spoke English, but it wouldn't get her very far if the other person ended up attacking her.

She blinked a few times, then shook her head. "His eyesight must really be going if he didn't notice that his newest plaything grew legs out of water."

"Well, I'm not going to give him time to notice," Glory replied. "I need to get out of here." She could see a window from the tank, and it overlooked the ocean, though she couldn't see the shoreline very well. "He must be going out of his mind by now..." she added, much softer as she looked out the window.

A soft chuckle came from under the coral. Quietly, the mermaid hiding beneath the coral edged out, and into the open water. She was pale, with very dark hair. It looked like it was black, at first glance...but it was an extremely dark shade of fire red. With her almost-golden eyes, she looked wild, feral.



"Good luck," she hummed. "I've been trying for the better part of three decades."

"That long?" Glory asked, impressed. She had a pretty good idea as to who the other mermaid was, but she wanted to be sure. "I'm Gloriana, by the way. Most tend to call me Glory." In the back of her mind, she was glad she hadn't been holding her plastic bag of clothes and things when she'd been caught. It would be a pain to have to replace her cell phone and wallet.

"Charmed. My name is Honeydew. And yes, that long."

Honeydew...so this was indeed Léan and Archie's mother, and Betelgeuse's mate. It was confusing, however...Léan and his brother were both blonde and blue-eyed. Betelgeuse and Honeydew were both dark-haired, with sepia-toned eyes. Where did they get their looks from?

"Then I guess it's a good thing I was originally here to bust you out," Glory commented as she explored the tank for any potential weakness. "I just ended up on the wrong side of the glass."

"Say what?"

Honeydew eyed her cautiously, with one eyebrow raised. She thought she'd heard something about Glory being here to break her out, but she couldn't have heard that. This 'abomination' was not familiar to her. Why would she bother?

"You heard me," Glory said. "Elsewise you wouldn't be looking at me like I was crazy." Not finding any apparent weaknesses in the tank, she sighed and stopped looking for the moment. "It took more effort than it should have, because it's apparently impossible to get any of those men to talk, but I managed to worm enough information out of them to figure out where this place was and the fastest way to get here."

"Fff..." Honeydew, apparently still not believing her--heaved up and swam towards the surface of the tank. She settled herself, perched comfortably, on top of one of the tall stacks of coral, tail flicking back and forth.

She didn't believe her, and probably still thought she was insane.

"Betelgeuse gave me that same look, you know," Glory said dryly. "When he bothered acknowledging that I was even there, at least." She sighed and got as close to the window as she could. She could barely make out two vague shapes in the water, and she was fairly sure neither of them could see her.

Honeydew straightened up a bit at the mention of her mate. But her expression barely changed--a cautious raised eyebrow and curious eyes. "Who are you?" she asked, pointedly, folding her arms across her chest. She was way too wary at this point to act too friendly.

"I told you, I'm Gloriana," Glory replied. "Other than that, I'm not really all that important. I live in a beach house almost a thousand miles from here with my grandmother, I have a pet shark, and I'm cutting school for this." She sighed and looked back out the window. "And Léan is probably going out of his mind because I told him I'd be alright while I scoped out the beach."

Honeydew straightened up more at the mention of one of her children. But still, her expression did not change. She'd lost the ability to easily trust, having been locked up for so long.

Glory drifted down to the bottom of the tank and leaned against the glass. She needed to think of a way out, but she was still so tired from the trip... On top of that, she was worried about Léan. She didn't want him to do something stupid because he was worried about her...