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Once upon a time, there was a mermx named Ziv. Ziv, being a Good Spring ™️, or at least attempting to be, always helps out with people's Clarity issues when asked. The problems come in when they don't know that they're about to walk into a dreamscape right out of the first portion of their Durance.
So they just wandered off into the streets of Philadelphia, at night, on their own, in a sort of drifty daze. Fortunately, Lux, while realizing their presence might not help things, had the foresight to contact Aaron, who reached out to Rieko... and Rieko could pass on the geotag attached to Ziv's phone to Rosalyn & Bailey.
It blips its way across the city, and then stops right by the Schuylkill River, running through the southwest part of the city.
Look, Bailey doesn't know shit about geo-whats-its. Rosalyn likely has control of that. But Bailey does have Relentless Pursuit, which they also use to help track down the merx--cause the anti-technology changeling doesn't completely trust that weird phone beepy shit.
She walks along the river beside Rosalyn, hat tipped back on her head, eyes narrowed. "I think they're close."
Rosalyn usually enjoyed a good hunt, but the target being Ziv in a clarity crisis sat like a stone in her belly. Agate flew high above, sharp eyes keeping watch out for Ziv as they headed towards the river. She looked grim, but kept an eye on the geotag and let Bailey handle the Relentless Pursuit. She didn't trust the technology tracker doodad at all, but with Bailey handling the 'proper' method of finding someone, she kept hold of the thing Reiko had pressed on her. "They're going to be alright," she said. "Got to be."(edited)
Agate's keen eyes probably spot something first, just from the perspective that flight gives: at first, it might look like reflection on the surface of the water, but it moves unnaturally, and besides, none of the lights at this section of the Schuylkill are subtle blue neon and clean white halogen, shifting and flickering through greens and yellows. Whatever it is, it's under the water.
Bailey follows that solid gut feeling of Relentless Pursuit right toward the river itself: here, during the day, crew teams from Temple practice, locals jog. At night, all is quiet, and a little further southeast from here, the famous fraternity houses of Boathouse Row send their shimmering lights across the water. But here? It's dark. So it might take a minute for Bailey to spot the lump of baby-pink leather on the ground by the water's edge. Apparently even in clarity crisis, they won't ruin their favorite jacket.
Bailey squints into the water, then eyes the jacket as they come upon it, crouching to pick it up. "...Makes sense for them to go for a swim." She drapes the jacket over her shoulder, eyeing the water. "We going in, or trying to lure Ziv out?"
Agate cried out her victory for spotting and distress for being unable to reach Ziv. She circled, swooping low over the water where they were. Ros kicked off her own boots, not wanting to risk them and chewed on her lip. "I'm not sure luring will be very effective in their current state of mind. If it were anyone but Ziv I wouldn't want to risk going in there with 'em. Plenty of stories of mer drowning people after all. But I'll take that risk.
Now that they're by the water's edge? It's much easier to see the form of someone underneath the water. Not that there are a lot of people in Philadelphia who have glass-bottle bodies with squiggles of reflected neon running through them like hyperactive and mobile veins.
Or like... eel-like tails. Or who leave behind piles of ridiculous slogan crop tops and tiny shorts and baby pink leather jackets.
So probably that's Ziv on the bottom of the river.
Bailey glances towards Rosalyn as she takes off her boots, then sighs. "Ain't nothin' for it." They slide off their leather jacket to set down beside Ziv's, then work off their own boots--leaving the hat behind too. After a thoughtful pause, their hedgespun revolver is hidden underneath their coat.
Then she starts walking carefully into the river, nose wrinkling as their burlap and straw body soon fills up with water--like a wash rag dropped into a bath rub. But she moves on and starts swimming towards the neon lights.
Agate landed on a tree nearby to guard their things, and dove in after Bailey, swimming down towards Ziv. Visibility wasn't that great and opening her eyes in that kind of water was a pleasant experience to begin with, but she kicked through the murk towards the neon light.
It's not the cleanest of water, to be certain. In fact that's probably the understatement of the year, but, well. The things we do for love/family/etc.
When they enter the river, the neon lights stop cycling from blue and white and yellow and green to a sharp, hot pink, oranges, and yellows, and the lazy loops and figure-eights Ziv had been doing under the water stop as they go to flatten themselves against the bottom of the river like a catfish or eel.
Bailey swims out to the center of the lake, having to kick at the water to not just... sink, as heavy as their water-filled body now is. She looks down into the water with a frown. "Ziv! Come on, it's us! Ya need to come on outta there and some home with us... Home to Reiko an' Aaron," they call down towards the water, then take a deep breath before diving down, swimming towards the bottom.
Rosalyn's hair gleamed gold in the dim light filtering through the water even as she flailed around, trying to get to the bottom. Frankly, Rosalyn was not a terribly proficient swimmer but she was strong and athletic enough to fight the current of the river and more or less keep going in the proper direction. When she got as close as she could before she started really needing to breath again she held out her arms to Ziv imploringly, begging her to come up.
Ziv lays flat on the bottom of the river, ensconced in the lee side of a rock, clinging to it as if they can just, you know, hang out there all day. Which probably they can, given the way the gills on the sides of their neck flutter under the water, visible with the way the neon lights flicker along the flared edges of their skin as they breathe the absolutely shitty river water. That's got to be super healthy.
Bailey and Rosalyn swimming toward them makes her curl up even smaller, as if -- at first -- she doesn't think that they're looking for her. And when they realize that, yeah, these two ... people? ... are looking at them? They flap their webbed hands at the pair, which makes them lose their grip on the rock, sends them tumbling down the slow-moving but inexorable current... and forces them to swim upward at least a little to right themselves in the water.
Bailey waves back at Ziv, bubbles floating up from all over their body as bits of air escape the cloth skin. She's a pretty decent swimming, it seems--though she's having to work double time with her body not being terribly buoyant. After a beat pause, Bailey opens their mouth, closes it, then starts to hum. It's a song Rieko has played for her a lot--more on the country side, to be more Bailey's tastes, but... maybe the song would be recognizable.
Though it must be said, Bailey is awful at anything musical. Even the humming sounds off key. Granted, the song might not carry very well under water, anyway.
She surfaced to gulp in the air, then tore one of the roses growing out of her hair, sliced open her thumb on a thorn, and let a few drops of blood fall on the water. A little sprite- like the one that kept the hollow's pool clean formed from the water and tugged Ros back under and towards Ziv far more efficiently than she could swim on her own. Ros held the rose out in offering to Ziv.
They right themself under the water, or at least -- they gain control again. Their eel-like tail ribbons back and forth in the water, propelling them sort of... towards... but across, coming at Bailey and Rosalyn on an angle. Their head snaps toward Bailey when their keen ears pick up the song, but then Rosalyn zooms toward them, making them drop back a bit. But the rose? A careful webbed hand reaches out toward the offered bloom.
Bailey continues humming a moment more--but then kicks hard at the water, slowly bring themself up to the surface--just long enough to breathe in and out a few times, before ducking back down. She waves a cloth-sewn hand at Ziv again, then gives a point up towards the surface.
Ros echoed Bailey's request, gesturing upwards when Ziv took the rose. She smiled a little, then let go of the sprite to join Bailey while the sprite zipped around Ziv for a moment and then raced for the surface itself.
It's hard to read Ziv's expression underneath the water, when mostly the neon colors flashing under their glass-bottle skin are visible, but after snatching the flower out of Ros's hand? They curl it against their chest, and let out a high-pitched trilling sound that neither of them have heard Ziv make before. But it seems -- maybe? -- to be some sort of affirmative noise, because they ribbon their tail again and push themself upward to the surface.
Relief was sweeter than the air when Ziv surfaced, and Ros broke into a smile. "Ziv! Thank goodness. Are you alright? What happened?"
Bailey gives a relieved expression as well, kicking upwards to the surface. She gasps in another breath, then looks over at Ziv, frowning. "Do you know who we are?"
They bob slowly up in the water, subsiding down into the river's surface and then pushing themself back up. Their solid-black eyes yield up flashes of their bright-white irises, visible only when they make eye contact with someone -- there and gone again. She stares at Rosalyn for a long moment, mouth slowly opening, and then when Bailey asks her question, slowly shakes her head. The mermx keeps their distance, just out of reach.
""That's ok. We'll figure this out. We're family. Shit, this is easier when it's just about breaking through in a dream. We love you, Ziv. Do you remember that you're free? This is earth, not... There."
Bailey nods slowly, frowning. She's not the most comforting of Lost, by far... But they understand what it's like to have your clarity in the shitter.
"Yeah. You might not know us, but we know you. That song I was hummin'... Do you know it?"
The first thing they do is slowly shake their head toward Rosalyn, which doesn't seem to make much sense, really. It's not like she asked a question or anything. Bailey gets the full attention of those bright white irises for a moment, and they sort of nod? shake their head? nod? Like maybe??? they remember? One of their webbed hands flutters to the only thing they're wearing currently, a black metal Star of David on a similar black-metal chain.
Ros nodded a little when Ziv touched the star. "Hold onto that," she said softly. "Onto your faith. Aaron. Reiko. They need you too."
"It's a song Reiko sings a lot. You might not know what Rieko means either, I know, but..." She looks to Ros, then to the star. Frowning, wishing she'd paid more attention to Ziv's faith before... "Do you know what that means?" she asks, pointing at the star. "It's a Star of David, right? It's important to ya."
They sort of ... wobble in the water for a moment, turning their head to look up and down the water, and they part their lips and close it again. Ziv tips their head back and forth a little bit, distracted, maybe, or just checking for -- something. They stare at the lights up and down the river, checking to make sure none of them move, perhaps. And when Bailey asks their last question, their fingers press on the metal, and they frown a little. They don't say anything, but hum something in response: a little rising and falling tune, a few bars of something that probably doesn't mean much to either one of them.
"Your favorite jacket is on the shore. Agate- the griffon up there in the tree- is guarding it right now. She misses you too. Elio, lunatic that he is, misses you too. You've a pool at home to swim in that's nicer than this river. Safer too."
"Cleaner too," Bailey agrees with a nod, pushing wet straw from their face. "That song ya's singin'--what's the words? Can ya sing it to me?"
There's a long pause -- like both sets of information are being taken in and turned over in the mermx's head. They roll their narrow shoulders, look at Agate briefly, and shrink down into the water for a moment so that their nose is down in the water, and just their eyes peek over the river's surface. The question that Bailey asks pulls them back to looking at the other Lost, and they blink slowly, rolling the question over in their head, or maybe trying to remember. Then Ziv pushes up out of the water again, and answers Bailey -- still not speaking, really, just... repeating. Singing? Praying, the words rising and falling: "Baruch atah, Adonai Eloheinu v'Elohei avoteinu v'imoteinu, Elohei Avraham, Elohei Yitzchak, Elohei Yaakov, Elohei Sarah, Elohei Rivkah, Elohei Rachel, v'Elohei Leah. Ha-El hagadol hagibor v'hanorah... "
"I don't speak Hebrew, can you translate that to English for me?" Ros sighed a little, doing her best to stay in place. She was clearly feeling a bit out of her depth but figured every moment talking and urging Ziv to remember more would be for the good.
Bailey doesn't know shit about Ziv's faith--so mostly it's just... a lot of staring, though occasionally bobbing--all the while still treading water to keep from sinking. "Yeah, uh... what does it mean?" she urges.
Their teeth snap shut, audibly, when Ros asks them to translate the prayer. Their eyes widen slowly, and they shake their head rapidly, backing away slowly.
The stress had even more roses blooming in her hair and Ros rubbed her face. "Ok, so no. Um. That's ok. Do you want to talk to your rabbi? We could give 'em a call. The phone's on the shore with your jacket."
"Oh... Uh--yeah," Bailey agrees, glancing towards the shore. "You don't even gotta get out of the water. We'll put it on speaker phone."
That, at least, works: Ziv swims a little bit closer to Rosalyn and reaches one hand out toward the roses. They stop their hand partway toward her hair, and blink slowly at the question asked. They may not remember who Aaron is right now, but somewhere in the back of their brain, they understand the concept of talking to your rabbi. A slow nod, and they turn their head back toward the shore, where Agate (and their coat) wait. Ducking underneath the water's surface, they swim back toward the shore.
The river sprite offered Bailey a hand and took Rosalyn's for a quick tow back up against the flow of the river and to shore where they'd entered. "Ziv!Ziv!" Agate glided down from the tree in excitement and worry. "I found you first, from above!" Ros tromped out of the water, happy to be on dry land again, and squeezed some of her clothing out. "See? All of your stuff is still here. Phone too."
They exhale with relief, accepting the sprite's help to get back to shore. She steps up onto the shore, water pouring from all over, and starts... wringing dirty water out of their cloth and straw flesh.
"Do you know their rabbi's number?" they ask Ros.
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