"My girls will have to deal with it if I bring in another one," Tristan retorted.

Rory snorted. He didn't have to deal with Tristan's girls anyway, so Tristan could do whatever he wanted.

"Well, have fun trying to acquire her."

"We'll see how it goes," Tristan said. Because yes, he wanted her as part of his harem now.

Rory just snorted again and meandered over to the other side of the exhibit to look at the seals. And leave Tristan to his plotting. Because really he didn't see the appeal in having multiple women, but whatever.

Rory didn't have to see the appeal in multiple women; there were typically enough mermaids and mermen to go around. Selkies, however, had far more females than males. Ergo, Tristan's harem.

In the next exhibit, Lotus was leaning against the railing and watching the seals play.

Rory recognized her as the woman who'd been sitting next to the other selkie, so he went over and leaned against the railing about a foot away from her.

"Come here often?" he asked, glancing over at her.

Lotus glanced over when someone spoke, and rolled her eyes a bit.

"That's the most cliche pick-up line," she said.

"Hey, I'm allowed to be curious," Rory said with a shrug. "You look comfortable here, and you were sitting with an employee earlier. It's a reasonable question, don't you think?"

"It could have been phrased better," Lotus pointed out. "But to answer your question, yes, I'm here all the time. The employee is my roommate."

"Ah. Interesting roommate." Rory paused for a moment, trying to figure out how to phrase this more tactfully. "She seems to enjoy her work. She's playing with one of the sea lions, or was last I saw. She seems very fond of them." There. That was fairly ambiguous in case this one was a clueless human.

"She is fond of them," Lotus replied evenly. "She's also not looking for a relationship right now, so if that's what this is about..."

Rory laughed. "No, no! Certainly not for me. My friend might be eyeing her, but he's on his own for that." He shot her a quick grin. "No, I just thought it interesting that she has such a great relationship with the sea lions. You don't see that often."

"She likes the sea lions," Lotus replied, shrugging. "Them, the seals, things like that."

"Mmm. I see." Rory paused there, trying to figure out how to actually ask her. "You both look like you swim a lot. And the water off the coast around here is very nice."

"Clear and warm," Lotus replied absently. "Most of the year, anyways."

Rory nodded. "Yeah. Although I like to go a little further out, sometimes. There's this cove where my friend and I go all the time." And sometimes Tristan's harem came along but oh well.

That made Lotus pause. She knew of a cove, but it was quite a ways out, much farther than any human should venture. That was interesting.

Rory smiled faintly at her. Clearly that had made her think, and that was what he wanted. He wanted to see if she'd give him some sort of hint, now that he'd given her one.

"I haven't seen any coves close enough to the shore to get to easily," Lotus finally said. It was all technically true.

"No," Rory agreed easily. "But that's part of the fun is swimming out there. No one else is ever out there."

"Quite the swim," Lotus commented, looking at him a bit differently now.

"It's not that bad." Rory shrugged. "I'm something of a... natural swimmer, you could say."

"I see," Lotus said. A natural swimmer... or naturally something else? That was the question.

Rory shot her a smile. If she was something other than human, hopefully she'd give him some sort of hint. If she was human, she'd just think that he was a great swimmer.

He kind of hoped that she wasn't all human.

Lotus blushed slightly at the sudden smile, and then her eyes widened when she felt a tingling itch run down the side of one leg. She glanced down and managed to stifle a gasp when she saw a line of indigo scales ripple up through her skin, and she frantically made them disappear again.