2424/Cover Up! It's Cold Here

Cover Up! It's Cold Here
Date of Scene:	22 March 2025
Location:	Plot Room 1
Synopsis:	People come to the Arctic library to look for info on Michel. A person that largely matches is found, but his behaviour seems to differ.
Cast of Characters:	Coco Kiumi, Madoka Kaname, Hinoiri Kirara, Usagi Tsukino, Catra, Amanda Faust

---

Coco Kiumi has posed:
It has been almost two weeks of worry, self-blame and trying every possible thing to get Seira to appear from the Orange Pearl, but to very little avail. It hadn't even recovered from that eerily pale colouration. In the meantime, however, they have finally been able to get into contact with Noel, and the Arctic Princess had agreed to bring them to her kingdom.

More like she'd insisted to have her come, after what she had learnt about Seira. The news had made her appalled, and while she had confirmed she didn't know anything about someone named Michel, or winged creatures responsible for the mermaids and the Panthalassa, she had asserted immediately she would start looking before it's time for Coco and her friends to come.

The yellow mermaid this time had opted to have them meetup in front of the Pearl Pier in Yumegahama Ward, explaining the circumstances and when they would gather. At the time of the meetup, both Coco and Noel are waiting in front of the hotel, both girls exchanging worried and exhausted smiles.

Madoka Kaname has posed:
Madoka is here out of henshin, because the Chara who are coming with her wanted to play underwater. The pinkette is wearing her school uniform because Mermaid Magic stops her from getting wet and it's never been a problem before. Her Chara who came along, however, are wearing tiny little fish costumes because the last time they went underwater wasn't very fun and Madoka wanted to make that up to them.

    Lydian, ever eager to visit the land of singing mermaids, is wearing a clown fish costume with her face sticking out of where the mouth would be.

    Kamiko, always at Madoka's side, is wearing a costume much like an angelfish, with pale blue and black stripes and long flowing fins.

    Rens has decided to dress like an anglerfish because it means that she has a convenient light source if she wants to read any books.

    The impracticality of these costumes is mitigated by the fact that they are fairies who can just fly wherever they want and freedom of movement doesn't really matter. As for the rest of the Chara, they decided to stay home. (Despite the fact that Tia wanted, and acquired, a betta fish costume.)

    Madoka and the three Chara with her are meet up with Coco and Noel. The Chara Bearer is the first of them to speak. "Hi, Coco!" Turning to the new face she says, "You must be Noel... I don't think we've met before?"

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Hinoiri Kirara had invited Catra over the other night because... well...

Hinoiri hated being alone. She'd grown used to having a roommate. And the other bed was... clean. Too clean. Unused. A lot like Adora's likely was i nthe frightzone after she left. Hollow, empty. Only holding memories.

...Memories that, even if Catra didn't have them, she could probably 'hear' them, in a way, having been through something of her own. It was probably the first good night's sleep she'd had in her room since... the incident.

And later, she got a text from her patron. She'd groggily looked at it before her face had lit up. "Ohhhhh. Catra! Catra Catra Catra, wanna go to a magic library? Not my world's, this world's!" she said, almost squealing with delight.

... She really should have mentioned the 'Mermaid' part of the 'magic library'. Oops. For later, apparently. Either way... now?

She gave Coco a huge hug. "Oh my gosh, I can't WAIT! I've always wondered what your magic libraries were like." Pause. "We can never tell Riventon about this." That was partially for Catra's benefit... and just in general.

Then she looked to Noel and gave a sheepish smile. "Heyyy... uhhhh... long time no see."

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
Usagi Tsukino arrives with a companion of her own - Luna, the cat dangling on her shoulder. What Usagi had described to her of Michel had piqued the Mau's interest, and with the goal of today being a chance to explore a library, with no expectation of a fight, she had chosen to follow along.

Of course, because it's cold, Usagi has insisted on bundling her into a kitty parka, which Luna has agreed to begrudgingly tolerate. She looks adorable, with her black fur shining against the blue-and-white of the parka. Usagi is wearing a jacket of her own, a thick and ugly purple thing with many pockets, over a simple jeans-and-short outfit, none of her usual 90s patterns visible this time, and she's among the last to show up.

"Usagi-chan, I told you we should have left sooner," Luna hisses quietly.

"Okay, okay, but we're still here, see, we're here and not you know, totally abandoned, so it's fine!"

So saying, she jogs lightly towards everyone, waving a little.

"So we're a little late, but Luna really wanted to see the library too, so... ahaha. Oh! Hi, I don't think we've met, but it's good to meet you. I'm Usagi Tsukino, and this is Luna."

Catra has posed:
Waking a cat that wants to be asleep is no easy task. It's not that they sleep deeply; they don't, it's just that they're experts at pretending that they didn't hear you even when you're causing enough noise, six inches away from their eardrums, for it to sound like a nuclear apocalypse is in progress. But, eventually, after Hinoiri has squealed her name for the fourth time, Catra mutters something about it being whatever time of day she thinks it is and gets up, stretches, clips Powersend onto her belt (she's not going anywhere without that while Obsidian clean-up crews might be/could be/probably are/definitely are looking for her, and mumbles something about okay let's go.

Which finds Catra standing in front of the Pearl Pier. Which is a beachside place BUT THAT IS FINE as long as they don't have to go swimming.

Which they don't have to do, because they just don't have to, because why would they. Right? Right then.

"So where did you say this library was?" she asks. "'Cause that doesn't look like it has enough books in it to count."

Amanda Faust has posed:
    Amy arrives not dressed for the cold per se; Between mermaid magic, ability to henshin and conjure clothes, and she's not sure what happens if she wears heavy clothes will they kind of get soaked? So she's wearing a rash guard as a shirt, black with pink stripes down the shoulders and sides, and a pair of green cargo zipoff pants of some thin synthetic material. Her phone is in multiple ziplock bags in a pocket. If there is any kind of magic failure, her clothes will be OK getting wet.

    Like Usagi, she's a bit behind -- she waves, "Hey!" And starts to jog too, and then stops, and hesitates for some reason, and then resumes walking, waving to the group and taking a little longer to reach them.

    Still, she can hear Hinoiri gushing in excitement about the library and smiles, calling back, "I too have wondered how mermaid libraries work. Do you have magic paper that works underwater, or use something else? I guess I'll find out!"

    As she walks up to the others she smiles to all of them, and upon seeing the Charas gives Lydian a fistbump. Well, she extends her arm partway, briefly hesitates, then extends her index finger before extending her arm the rest of the way so that Lydian can fistbump her fingertip if she wishes to return the gesture.

Coco Kiumi has posed:
Coco gives a giggle at the appearance of the Chara Guardians all dressed thematically for an underwater trip, and it lifts some of the heaviness she feels. She really needed something like that. "I see somebody is raring to go", she winks at Lydian, Kamiko and Ren. She can especially understand Lydian's excitement, as Madoka's Chara of music.

"Hi, Madoka", Coco gives a wide smile, contrasted with Noel's more polite one. "Hello, nice to meet you", the girl with indigo hair bows towards the pinkette. "You were there for Gaito's defeat. Thank you for helping bring back the peace." She gives the Chara a long studious, look. "Mini-Madokas? Are these the Chara fairies I have heard about?"

Noel reserves a surprised look to Hinoiri before it changes to recollection. Right, they had talked about her. The mysterious saviour that gave Caren all the credit. "Thank you for helping Caren rescue me from Gaito", Noel bows to the redhead.

"Hello, Usagi-chan", Coco greets the blonde girl with another smile, and then asks Luna is being petted on the head if something she enjoys, following whichever reply the cat gives her. "I am Noel", the other mermaid introduces herself.

There is another cat(girl) they are waiting for, and this one Coco is both surprised and content about. She still remembers that night of so many month prior when the older Adora had dragged her out of bed (even if she wasn't asleep) to go fight a youma Catra had created as part of her quarrels with the Etherian heroine. She is definitely glad to hear she is doing better and distancing herself from Obsidian.

"Hey, Catra. It's nice to finally meet you among us", Coco smiles to the catgirl. "Have you been doing well lately?" A serious concern, considering Hinoiri has proven how clingy Hinoiri is. And then she introduces Noel to her as well.

"Hi, Amy. Just a reminder: we are to look for information about Michel. This is very important for Seira's sake", Coco reminds her with an undercurrent of urgency. "We are not here to talk about our society, or culture or other aspects."

With everyone here, the yellow mermaid lets Noel speak up. "Hello, everyone. So in a moment, I am going to open the portal to my kingdom, specifically the history section of the library, but first I would like you to have this", she distributes to everyone sheets of paper with the words "air", "wings", "paradise", "angel", "Michel" in a colum. Next to them on the same line, there are unknown characters.

"This is our language. Pease bring to me or Coco any book with those words", she finishes explaining, and then in an indigo swirl, the portal opens and both mermaids move inside. On the other side, stone shelves go all the way to the ceiling, holding many books of what looks to be normal paper.

Madoka Kaname has posed:
    Madoka gives Hinoiri a sideways glance at the mention of Riventon. She actually has no opinion on the guy since it has been a while since she had any real interaction with him. Thinking so far back, Madoka has a moment of feeling glad that Hinoiri is on their side now. Even if they still sass each other sometimes.

    Usagi comes and Madoka's face brightens up a little. "Hi, Usagi-chan!"

    Kamiko floats just a little bit further away from Luna. Neither Rens nor Lydian understand why.

    As Coco notices the Chara, all three of them giggle with her and flap their little fins around playfully. Right now they look like fish swimming through the air, but that will likely change in a bit. Each of them in turn look towards Noel and introduce themselves one after the other. "I'm Lydian, the Chara of self-expression and especially Art and Music."

    "I'm Rens, the Chara of enlightenment and scientific understanding."

    "... and I'm Kamiko, the divine Chara, formerly known as Gretchen. I represent..." She actually has to take a moment to consider that, because she's not really 'potential' anymore.

    Madoka chimes in. "She represents Hope, in this world and the next, especially for souls who would otherwise be out of reach."

    Lydian notices Amy's finger-fistbump and looks down at her costume which... doesn't actually expose her hands or arms at all. So she flops in such a way that her clownfish tail hits Amy's fingertip.

    The four of them become quiet as Noel explains their purpose here. Madoka already had some indication but it's nice to restate it with everyone else here. As Madoka receives her paper, all three of the present minidokas peek over it for a closer look. Rens pulls out a tiny clipboard and Lydian grabs it from her to draw on it, making sure all three of the minidokas have a tiny copy.

    Once they cross the portal, the fairies start splitting off to find their own things to look at. "Be careful not to swim too far!" calls out the Chara Bearer. "Call out if anything happens!"

    Feeling confident that her minidokas are probably going to be pretty safe here, she takes her own sheet of paper and starts swimming around, trying to look for books much like her fairies do.

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
"It's wonderful to meet you Noel. Thank you for letting us help you with the search," Usagi dips in a little bow of greeting, Luna dipping right with her, and she most certainly does allow Coco to pet her, offering a little purr of contentment.

"Yes," Luna confirms, "We appreciate this chance. Hopefully, we'll be able to find something that can aid against this Michel."

"Madoka-chan, hi," Usagi returns cheerfully. Luna eyes Kamiko floating away, and there's a distinctly sheepish look on her face for a moment.

When everyone is gathered together and the plan is explained, Usagi and Luna are ready to follow through the portal, Usagi holding up her sheet of paper with the Japanese to Mermaid translation so that Luna can more readily review it.

Luna can already tell that she'll be asking permission to scan the language samples they've been shown, and to have the opportunity to scan the Mermaid language - but for now, she'll hold off, because they do have a mission here, and need to remain focus. The reminder Coco gave may have been spoken to Amy, but it's a valuable one for the advisor as well - today they have a narrow focus of the search.

Once Coco and Noel have passed through the portal, Usagi and Luna follow suit. On the other side of the library, they exchange glances, and then Luna sets off as well, having memorized the characters to look out for. As a cat, it's much easier for her to simply climb the shelves and scatter off to find a corner to explore.

Usagi wanders at a much more sedate pace, stopping in front of a single bookshelf at a time and slowly comparing the characters in the titles to the ones on her sheet.

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Hinoiri Kirara wondered why Catra was so tense, it wasn't like they were going on a boat. She gave her a smile. "Don't worry, we're not--" ... Then paused. Eyes went wide. And quickly pulled out her phone and typed something out on it.

<< TXT to Catra: I mentioned the mermaid part, right? >>

... Oh buck...

On the upside, Noel remembered her. Her cheeks went a little red. "Well... I uhhh... I don't... like seeing people trapped in fish bowls, I guess? Just... yeah. I couldn't do it openly then... probably can't do it too openly now. The last thing I need is Obsidian finding out I can fight again and trying to off me... again."

She then glanced back to Catra and gave a small smile, mouthing 'trust me'. And offering her hand to the cat, if she wanted to, you know, hold hands when they went in. Just in case. And look, she wasn't even in henshin! "And don't worry, I've been going through ancient, forbidden magical tomes since I could read. I'll be fine. Ohhhh, I wonder if they have a ponynomicon..." she mumbled softly. Her eyes did wander over Luna for a moment... talking cat... right. Well... at least she never seemed to have outted anything special Hinoiri said... She'd then head through and...

...Yeah, no, that'd be it. She was already pulling out and flipping through tomes, seemingly looking for... something... The words, of course, but also... something... else? Girl had gone through a LOT of ancient magic tomes... so she was also looking for little signs and symbols that might pertain to the angels... also, pictures. Always pictures. Ancient people LOVED their old arcane looking pictures.

Amanda Faust has posed:
    Amy nods as Coco warns not to get distracted researching mermaid society or magic or anything like that. If Michel first taught the mermaids as he claimed, she'll probably pick up bits of information about mermaid culture and magic anyway..

    She briefly looks awkward when Lydian looks down at her costume's alck of hands, then a smile is brought to her face when lydian helpfully finbumps her instead.

    Hello, everyone. "Hi!" Amy responds with a smile, and then is handed a piece of paper, and her face falls. Oh. Oh no. This isn't going to be reading or researching at a library. It's going to be scanning text she can't understand looking for a specific sequence of characters, in an unfamiliar character set. A task much more suited for computers than people. And she realizes another problem she's trying to think of an answer to: "How am I even gonna know which books to look through if I can't read the titles...?"

    She also takes a picture of the paper with her phone before folding it up and putting both in her pocket and following them through the portal.

    Stone. I'm-not-sure-what-I-expected.jpeg And the books look like they're made of normal paper...

    Amy takes a moment to adjust to swimming again -- conjuring ties into her hair like she did a few weeks ago so it won't get in her face as much -- and then looks at the paper, and looks at the nearby titles. Then she has a thought, and swims after Noel, "What sort of order are these books arranged in? Is it alphabetical? If so, can I see a list of the letters in your alphabet in order, and otherwise, um... is there a list of subjects somewhere...?"

    She feels a bit awkward, having had to stop and ask a question so soon after being entrusted with what was supposed to be a straightforward task...

Catra has posed:
Catra takes the... piece of paper... with the symbols on it and the translations and just stares at it. ...Right, they're doing nerd stuff. She should've worked that out in retrospect, she figures, given that Hinoiri did indeed say 'library'. As if you'd go to a book repository for any reason other than nerd stuff. (Or maybe having a really cool fight sequence, especially if there's two people there who can light everything on fire and basically everything in the place would burn. (Probably best to do that one inside a barrier.))

Catra's phonze blippidy-bleeps for attention, and it doesn't immediately receive it because the feline is too busy being introduced to people, having some deep introspection about not being with Obsidian right at this moment (which gets commented on but Catra doesn't really reply), looking at Madoka's mascots all dressed up like fish like... if... they aren't meant to be eaten why do they look like fish?! and just sort of generally acclimatizing herself to things.

Until she does look at her phone and reads the text message, puts the phone away, then pulls it out and reads it again and

<< TXT to Hinoiri: NO YOU DID NOT YOU NEED TO TELL ME THESE THINGS THESE ARE IMPORTANT WHAT THE HELL >>

She puts the phone away, and looks around at all the... people here... ready to go do things WHERE APPARENTLY IT WILL BE FULL OF WATER. She looks at Hinoiri's hand, and her ears somehow become even flatter.

Luckily Adora is not here to see this.

Catra grumbles something about 'fine whatever' and takes Hinoiri's hand when as few people are watching as possible so they can go through the portal.

Coco Kiumi has posed:
"These are all beautiful things", Noel comments with softspoken delight when the Chara Guardians need their fields of expertise. And they were all so adorable. Her gaze especially lingers with a smile on Rens. She may have to talk to Madoka at some later date in the future so she may meet her Chara her again when things aren't so hectic.

"Thank you for being willing to help us", the indigo mermaid points out. After all, her and Coco are the ones being helped out here. Meanwhile, the yellow mermaid has started covering book after book at a rapid pace, but so far none of the titles covered anything particular relevant to the subject. But the library was vast, and the only real clue they had was the fact Michel talked about the past ancient enough that the mermaids hadn't any recollection of.

"If we had a list of subjects that mentioned Michel, we would have found what we were looking for, Faust-san", Noel points out calmly, at some point having started to wear glasses while they were busy looking. However, asking to look through their alphabet, and cross reference it with the title, is a very reasonable solution.

Spending a few minutes finding pen and paper and writing on the alphabet, Noel gives it to Amy so she can continue her search.

The library itself was vast, filled with rows upon rows of books, ranging from those bound in what one could only presume was some kind of magical papyrus, to ancient ones seemingly made of stone and leaf.

It had walls that seemed to be made of glass and, on occasion, one might even notice a small orca moving about, positioning books and the like back on shelves. The books themselves were filled with ancient text that was inscrutible to all of them, an obviously very strange, ancient text, but some did have diagrams, pictures and even images to help them along on their way.

Madoka Kaname has posed:
    Madoka and the Minidokas are now hard at work. The three tiny fairies dart down the watery paths between the various bookshelves, quickly looking over the titles for anything that stands out.

    Lydian is just looking to match the patterns to the symbols she's been given. Whenever she finds something that looks almost right she darts in a little closer, hmms thoughtfully, and then shakes her head.

    Rens is taking a slightly more thorough approach, opening books that seem older and skimming through the pictures. Sadly, she doesn't have a time for a lesson in mermaid script.

    Kamiko, the one Chara here who is actually multilingual, is kinda fascinated at seeing a language she hasn't ever gotten to study before. If the books had minds she could try to read them, but sadly there's no such luck. Instead she's focusing on signs of divinity, traces of ancient magic, or the like.

    As for Madoka herself, she spends a moment looking at what her fairies are doing, and then tries to think of something else: going after the biggest tomes. Bigger books are often older and have more information, though... if it's something really old, it might be so frail that she's afraid to touch it.

Amanda Faust has posed:
    (Actually, besides the hairties preparing for underwater work takes a few other small adjustments as well -- Amy dismisses her conjured sneakers and socks, slightly tightens the web belt on her pants so they won't slide at all, and unzips the lower part of the legs, converting them into shorts, -- or swim trunks -- rolling up the unzipped legs and stuffing them in her velcro'd cargo pockets. She smiles with vindication: she was appropriately dressed for the day!)

    "Well, obviously it wouldn't mention him in the subject, but like, given what he said I might want to check ancient history or merfolk mythology, say."

    A pen that writes underwater. "How does that work? ...Sorry, right, focusing on finding passages that might hint about Michel..." She takes a picture of the mermaid alphabet too.

    Anyway, she'd prefer to narrow her search by subject if possible, but if the library isn't organized in such a way then she just scans the titles.

    She does try taking a book off the shelf to 'read' it, but... No, she can't make heads or tails of it. Damn. This is like trying to read Japanese before she learned it...

    Japanese... Hmm. That does give her a thought.

    She seeks out Noel again, and points to the last three words on the paper she was given earlier -- paradise, angel, Michel. "What about synonyms? Utopia or heaven, messenger... Oh, come to think of it, he mentioned a god too. We might also want the words for like, creator, supreme being, omniscient, holy, et cetera... And is Michel's name here a phonetic spelling? Are there some other ways it could be written?"

    She is so glad she's come up with something to do other than brute-forcing a text search in a langauge she can't read!

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Hinoiri Kirara gave Catra the most sheepish of smiles before they went in, at least. And once they DID go in together... she'd whisper. "I'll make it up to you, promise. And thanks. For like, not mangling me or leaving me more scar tissue than flesh for it."

... Listen, it was Catra, she knew how that cat dealt with issues she didn't like.

After a bit, she frowned. And started pulling away from newer books, swimming and... heading towards the older things. "So, like... this Michel is supposed to be old, right? Realllll old? So I doubt he'd be in many newer things."

Interesting, she didn't let go of Catra's hand. Like... if the cat pulled away? She wouldn't stop her. But she didn't let go on her own. Instead, she just let the cat know... no, she wasn't alone. There was someone here with her, under the sea, at all times. Besides, they could breathe underwater. So it was... totally fine. And she imagined if Catra ever needed a hand to hold, now was it.

"So like... if we could narrow down the time, and fine what kind of writing implements and materials were used in the closer times, then it'd likely be useful to just find all the books of those eras. If he was that big a deal and all."

She did, however, put down a few books from time to time, as she worked... and... if Catra did let go, but stayed close? She'd even from time to time ask Catra if she could grab a book or the like for her. You know. Keep her useful.

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
Luna takes care to explore the books and shelves - whenever she finds something that might seem promising, she pulls the book from it's shelf to consider it more carefully, glancing through before returning it to its proper place.

In fact, at a certain point, she's no longer a cat, but another teenaged girl swimming through the library, leafing through books and exploring their contents with curiosity. Ah, she can't read them, but oh if she could -! There are such interesting things here, surely.

Usagi's search is much more hectic, consisting only of leafing through titles, looking for anything that matches and not finding anything. She doesn't seem to mind that though, given that she's swimming up and around shelves casually, doggypaddling through the 'air' as it were.

"Nothing over here yet," she calls idly, "But wow, there are so many books here, Noel-chan!"

Catra has posed:
Catra

Can't

Swim

Well she can, but only in the most absolute basic sense of 'keep head above water, don't drown, go that way'. So after a brief panic (which might result in some claws getting dug into Hinoiri's wrist) and ultimately realizing that she can, in fact, breath here and won't drown (Hurray for magic) she just kind of hangs on and lets herself get tugged around by Hinoiri, wherever the Unicorn decides it'd be a good idea to go. And after realizing that she actually doesn't have to hold her breath, she just... grits her teeth and does her best not to pay attention to the fact that she's entirely immersed in water and this is awful and she kind of hates it, as she uses her free hand to hold the paper and look at books in passing.

"You're welcome," she half mutters, half growls back to Hinoiri; wether she's angry or just tense is difficult to tell. But, the lack of mangling might be a positive clue? Just perhaps?

Eventually, she does snag a book off the shelf; but she just tucks it under her arm and holds onto it, rather than commenting what it's about. Maybe it's about something relevant to what they're supposed to be looking for. Maybe it's about Runestones and Catra's opted for a different learning source than Glimmer's caffeinated-cricket-brain. Or maybe it's just a glorified mermaid comic book. Who knows!

Coco Kiumi has posed:
"Not really sure it wouldn't mention him. With what Coco told me, he seemed to be acting like he had seen things happen himself", Noel considers to Amy while she moves in between shelves, occasionally swimming just a row over to the Puella, occasionally being all the way in a completely separate direction. There were a lot of books she skipped right away.

Noel passes closer to Amy. "I wouldn't be sure about that. Coco says he talked about the past like he had been there and to Kamiko he called himself the supreme god. Considering it's the only lead we have and what he could do, we are better off treating them as at least somewhat true."

"Considering his preference for referencing the past and seeing himself as the corrective god, we cannot exclude his direct involvement", Coco remarks as she swims by Hinoiri, putting away a book on the history of sea serpents.

"Thank you, Usagi-san", Noel smiles to her. "Our library is the pride of the Seven Seas."

Madoka Kaname has posed:
    Kamiko, after a while, realizes that she may have been acting a bit unfair to Luna, because honestly the fairynapping escapade was a long time ago and she was kinda evil-coded back then, so she starts wondering where the black cat might be. Going to where she saw her last, the tiny divine fairy comes across... a very pretty girl with hair buns and a moon crescent forehead?

    She gasps for a moment and says, "Ohh... your hair's like Tia's." She points up at the top of Luna's head with her tiny fish fins and asks, "How do you make buns like that?"

    Rens, meanwhile, has stayed focused in her search, eventually running across Madoka as the two of them look together. The pink girl doesn't mind if her fairies have a little underwater fun, but she does want to get things done and Rens seems the most focused of the three of them.

    As for Lydian she's... kinda given up on actually trying to find anything and is just opening up books to look at pretty pictures from ancient mermaid culture.

    Overhearing bits of Noel and Amy's conversation, Rens chimes in saying, "I find it interesting that he is more or less forgotten by time. Is there a specific point at which your records stop?"

    Madoka hears that and asks, "Are you asking if there was a point in history where the records got wiped?"

    Rens adjusts her tiny glasses while looking at a her book. "Well, it's just a consideration. Someone that powerful, and that involved, had to have some impact on Mermaid culture, so it's difficult to believe there's no record of him."

Amanda Faust has posed:
    Usagi doggy-paddles. Catra can't swim. Amy's own treatment of the swimming is...

    ...Like, it's not something she's in the habit of doing much, outside of when PE class does swimming? And going to the beach a couple of times last summer. And when they went to Gaito's palace the first time, but she relied more on her powers for mobility while fighting then.

    Swimming isn't new but it's tied to a lot of memories of disliking going to the beach and then being fine once he was actually in the water and covered. Now, sometimes she stops and looks down at her body and the swimclothes clinging to or floating around it and smiles.

    Of course, there's also the novelty of being able to move about a space in three dimensions without the usual issues of needing to surface for air or burning through magic to keep her flying. It's not exactly like flying, but it also is kind of really neat actually that 'up' and 'down' are added to the directions she can easily go at any time, and that she can traverse space without being limited to where there is floor.

    So there's a lot of things about this whole experience that are simply, innately delightful, even though she's here for work and not for play!

    Like Sailor Moon, Amy does doggy-paddle some when she's not thinking about it, but mostly she prefers to (hang on, the narrator has to look up technical terms) use an elementary backstroke -- and a leg motion parallel to the arms -- to accelerate when beginning traversal or after sharp turns, (often followed by a 180-degree aileron roll, force of habit since she can't just tilt her head to look ahead on the surface) and then just using a stiff and amateurish attempt at a flutter kick, sometimes with the aforementioned arm motion, which she can do while looking ahead since she's not on the surface. She tries a breast stroke or back stroke sometimes when swimming in long straight lines, but ultimately ends up mostly doing what she's comfortable with. In three dimensions, when using her legs for propulsion she has her arms free for controlling angular momentum; she also uses them for smaller repositioning like moving up or down a shelf.

    She does sometimes wonder if she should have brought foot fins and should learn how to swim better if she's going to keep going on adventures with mermaids... but there's nothing to do for it today unless a passing mermaid offers suggestions for her technique.

Amanda Faust has posed:
    Anyway, once she's gotten some additional search terms, she asks for direction to the ancient history and ancient mythology sections and swims that along the shelves looking for any of the keywords in the title.

    Does Coco have a communicator? Amy will call her, or come find her, to ask if Coco or another mermaid (it's a library, are there librarians? Scholars? Students?) could accompany her to the stacks to translate any titles that seem to contain the words.

    At some point, Amy's widened search terms have got to get a hit, even if it's a false positive. -- and if it does, she'll take it to... wherever they're bringing findings, to page through it and see if she can find any of the search terms being mentioned in the text, too. If they are, she'll ask the nearest person who can read mermaid to check if the context is relevant -- if it is, she brings the book to Noel; otherwise, she continues the search.

    Sooner or later, Amy is briefly surprised to see a human she doesn't immediately recognize. "Uhh... hello?" Of course, Luna's voice is more recognizable. "Ohh, wow, so this is what you look like as a human?! Cool!"

    When Rens is nearby and brings up the question of history...

    "Well... if you think about it..." Amy rubs her chin thoughtfully. "Knowing what we know now, can Mermaid civilization be more than 14,000 years old? I used to assume it must not have interacted with the Moon and Golden kingdoms, but... if Sailor Saturn wiped the planet clean of all life, that includes the seas and the mermaids too, doesn't it? I don't know if her re-seeding the planet with life included mermaids, but if someone or something associated with Michel didn't create them, he still could have found and influenced them very early on, before they could build much of a culture on their own."

    "But then why did he leave them? Why not live as an eternal king ruling over them? Why has he only come back now?"

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
Luna, again, cannot read the books... but she is using her own more advanced communicator to take scans and photos. She's going to ask about an alphabet later, but for now, anything of interest is being scanned while she looks for answers...

And that's what the Mau is doing when Kamiko, in her rather adorable (and tasty-looking) fish costume floats up.

"Hm? Oh, it is? That's lovely, this hairstyle was popular in Capital City, given the Queen and Princess," Luna chirps cheerfully, and then ponders, as she looks at the little fairy. "Well, I could try to explain, but it might be easier to demonstrate. Though, in water like this, the physics might be a bit different..."

She's pondering that now, actually.

When Amy spies her at a different moment, she waves a little, awkward in the motion as she usually is in her human form. "Thank you? Thank you! This is indeed what I look like in human form."

Later, she'll rejoin the others, if they gather, with a few books she thinks may be useful.

Usagi, meanwhile has been swimming about, though she gathers with Amy in time to hear that, and shrugs, "I don't know if there were Mermaids back then, I never saw them, but - I mean, if we planted the seeds of life, the way we think, with Saturn's power... who can say if Michel's people - if there even are more of him, I guess - didn't help speed things along?"

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Hinoiri Kirara gave Catra's hand an affectionate squeeze. "Sushi after this?" she asked. Sure, she wasn't a big sushi person... But Catra was underwater and put up with this for her to go through a bunch of old, magic books. The LEAST she could do was go with her, take her out to something nice. Also, like. Underwater. Fish. The girl wasn't trying to eat one of the orcas, rewarding her with sushi seemed only fair.

Her search had turned up a few tomes, as it were. But well... without a lot of knowledge of the language (yet), she didn't find much of value. Only a few dozen books that she thought... might, maybe, have some information. Which were now all neatly stacked up for Coco and Noel to go through.

However, when she caught sight of Luna, she froze, mouth falling open. "Wait, who..."

... And then she pieced it together. And opened her mouth. And then... hmphed. "Oh, this is some... how come she gets to have a cat and a human form, but I just get human? And Swiftwind just gets alicorn? That's some..." She grumbled under her breath. SO unfair.

"For all we know, though, Michel's people weren't from here. There's a lot of little dimennsions stacked up near here, after all. For all we know, Michel's people were adjacent in some way. Or there's some time differential, even. Hopefully there's some information in the old tomes... but if he really is some ancient force? There might not even be any records. Angels aren't exactly a... rarely seen mythos in this world. Not really surprising, though. They're like humans but pegasi, it's probably pretty cool for humans to imagine."

Catra has posed:
"...Sure," Catra replies, in answer to the notion of sushi. Which, given her current emotional state, is the direct equivalent of anyone else bouncing off the walls with excitement.

The drenched (and hating it) feline allows herself to continue getting tugged around; she puts the effort in of course, so she isn't getting just dragged about like a ragdoll, but all of her agility and physical prowess seems to come to naught when she's in the water. (At least her sword is in its scabbard so all it does it bump against bookshelves and not slice ancient and irreplacable tomes in half, because that would probably be awkward.)

"Maybe you have two forms, and you just haven't figured out how to access the other one yet?" she suggests, and shrugs as best one can shrug in this environment. "Apparently the Spirit Ember was always mine, I just didn't know until a few weeks ago." She pauses. "Also don't give Swiftwind too much credit, he was a perfectly ordinary horse until Adora accidentally gave him wings, the ability to talk, and -- unfortunately for everyone within a hundred feet of him at any given time -- sing."

Catra breaths out -- HER LUNGS ARE WET AUGH -- and resumes looking at books as the shelves float past. "Speaking of the Spirit Ember, if you see anything that might relate to runestones, let me know? I'm not expecting anything but you never know."

Coco Kiumi has posed:
"Maybe? It's hard to say. There is so much of it in here that we cannot really go through it all in a timely manner. It's not so much that there is a chance we overlooked something, rather that we have overlooked something. We try our hardest not to, but you cannot help it a lot of the time", Noel replies to Kamiko, stopping her search among the books to try and go through the chronological ledgers instead.

Doesn't really help them with finding a specific theme, and the oldest records are still only around thanks to magic, so there is a lot they must take care of when they consult them. She delicately grabs the oldest record, and she can see the sparkling lights when she turns the pages guiding the paper through the motion for her.

"Says here they started adding books sometime around 10000 years ago", she sighs a bit as she swims back to Kamiko. What does it mean, sometimes? Would it have been too much to put down a specific date?

Coco shows up right around when Amy needs it even if she doesn't have a communicator herself, nods to Amy while she passes by. "If they taught us, what would be actually looking for? A book on when they made contact, or a list of their supposed teachings, or a kind of different third approach altogether."

She is mostly talking to herself, because nothing much is coming on, and she thinks they are just shifting around sections. "I wouldn't be surprised if they have something similar to do with us", Coco mutters to Hinoiri.

"If we had wings, we could have explored sea, land and air, so I am sure we have had the same aspirations. Would explain why Aqua Regina's scepter has wings, or why the Live Stage can fly." She sees Catra being all uncomfortable in the water, and swims out of the library for a moment, coming back soon with a towel to put around her neck. Maybe it helps mm make her feel less uncomfortable? "Try to see if lessens the discomfort", she smiles at the catgirl.

Madoka Kaname has posed:
    Kamiko nods as she listens to Human-Luna's explanation. It's almost too bad that Tia didn't get to see the past dimensional bubble, though Kamiko supposes she could always show her kinda what it looked like. From what she remembers anyways.

    Maybe she probably should sit the other Minidokas down and have a little recap episode. Something to note for later.

    "Oh, yeah, I suppose a lot of people like the hairbuns, huh?"

    Rens looks up to Noel as she hears the explanation, and starts scratching her chin. "So then it's possible that there was a total info loss back beyond a certain date. Either that, or that's merely when the Library was founded." She taps her chin and says, "Did he give any indication of how long ago al this was? I have to imagine that if he did help create the mermaids, then it's possible that such a story predates the Library... Though that doesn't mean there are no records.""

    Rens starts piling books into Madoka's arms to take back and search through with the others. Lydian, meanwhile, has found a book with a lot of pretty pictures that she's kindof... pushing through the water, gently, so she can take it over to a table and get a closer look at it. Madoka notices this, snatches the book out of the air, and carries it over to a table. She starts placing each book down and reading them a bit more carefully.

    Well, in as far as she can. Really Rens and Madoka are just looking through the pages for things that look kinda angelic. In the way that Michel is, not the way that Gretchen's Familiars are.

    Though really if they saw anything like that they'd probably note it, too.

    Meanwhile Lydian's book is probably on ancient Mermaid fashion, because it seems to have a lot of pretty dresses. She's sketching a few down in her tiny little sketchbook, which works underwater because Chara magic. Lydian will not be explaining that.

    After hearing a bit more of what the merfolk have to say, Rens speculates out loud. "If he could fly, and we can only assume that's very likely considering the wings, then is it possible the information we're looking for is actually stored on land somewhere? Are there any land-based sites important to Mermaid culture?"

Amanda Faust has posed:
    SO unfair. "I know, right? Everyone should get multiple forms." Amy smiles at Hinoiri.

    "We're looking for intel on Michel and anything connected to him." Amy answers Coco. "Legends might hint as to a weakness -- something he told merfolk to never tough or look into -- or to other allies or enemies. Also, it might be helpful to have a better idea of his M.O., stated philosophy, any organization he's a part of, what this 'god' he's under is."

    She looks to Hinoiri. It occurs to her that common knowledge to a westerner raised around Christianity might not be common among others here today, although she expects Usagi's osmosed some of it through pop culture. "'Angel' means 'messenger.' As in, of god. It does not escape my notice that Michel mentioned 'God' and, not by some name, as if there's only one that matters to him -- and angels appear in the mythology of humanity's monotheistic religions. Michel may have visited humans as well -- it's close to the name of one of the angels from human mythology, Michael."

    She looks down at the book she's looking through. "Although. I forget if winged humanoids were described in the original myth or were added in later depictions -- most angels were described taking the forms of stranger things, like a burning bush or wheel with too many eyes... you know, like some of Kamiko's familiars."

    "Humans once called that god yahweh, or something like that, before deciding to stop saying the name. I'm not a religious scholar. Still, we might want to add similar phonetic spelling of that to our search terms. I think I heard that he might've been based on a wind god from an earlier religion."

    Beat.

    "...But you can see how finding myths from mermaids' ancient history might tell us something more about what we face. I don't know how close the human myths are... I think those about a single 'god' being the only one are only a few thousand years old, although some stories of that mythology, like that there was once a great flood and a man who built and ark to survive it, are older stories that humans have been telling since before recorded history."

    Amy blinks. "...I wonder of Michel plans to flood the world... that would be one way to get rid of humans without affecting merfolk..."

    And now that Coco's mentioned wings... "You know, that's interesting. The wings on the Live Stage and the scepter... Mermaids don't see as many birds as humans do. Do they look like the wings of any seabird? Or could they be angel wings?"

    She looks curiously at Rens discussing total information loss. "If there was a flood... and he had mermaids' records erased so no one would remember he massacred humans... ten thousand years ago would be plenty long enough for it to only be myth to humans." She taps her chin. "Was that around when the bronze age collapse and the sea people was? Ugh, I'm not a historian..."

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Hinoiri Kirara blinked a few times at he idea of having another form. "Oh, if I find out there has like, been a simple way to change my form all this time, I'm going to be sooooo annoyed. Happy, but annoyed," she said firmly. "And... yeah, I guess it's thanks to Adora... but... Swiftwind is still an alicorn now. We apparently had magic that could do it back home, but uhhhh... I never learned it. Sora was pretty mad I even found out it existed... And sure, if I see anything, I'll let you know."

As they went through the books, however, she gave a light yawn. "We're not likely going to figure anything out for weeks, though. Research like this takes a lot of time. I used to spend weeks going through old, dusty tomes when I was trying to find some old relic or the like. It could take so much time trying to translate old tomes, then figure out which words were pivotal, and just... don't expect instant location of anything of value. Research is a marathon, not a sprint."

She cringed at the idea of books being on land. "I hope not. Most magical stuff tends to... evaporate, after time. For lack of a better word... you'd need to have someplace that was on land and protected from the veil." If only she knew about Setsuna's time gate...

"... so let's just not get our hopes up too much for a quick answer in this."

Catra has posed:
When Coco comes at Catra with the towel, the feline visibly has to fight the reflex to respond with claws but she manages to keep herself from lashing out. Coco is, afterall, trying to help. Which admittedly is a strange notion to Catra, since the first time she saw Coco she tried to have a Youma throw a truck or something at the mermaid, and yet here we are. So she accepts the towel, albeit without comment. But hey at least she kept her claws to herself.

"Wait -- WEEKS?!" she does reply to Hinoiri, "We canot be here for weeks! Well maybe all of you can but I cannot be, I will freak. Completely. Maybe like, another..." she trails off, calculating in her brain, how much longer can she stand to stay here versus how weak she might look for being desperate to get out of this LITERAL LIBRARY FULL OF WATER because who even does this and why would they do it oh that's right mermaids do this and why do they like water so much THESE PEOPLE REMIND HER OF MERMISTA

"Like, for me, another twenty minutes or so and then I have GOT TO GO BACK okay then."

She is still scanning the books, and sees one with a symbol that she's pretty sure was on the list that Coco gave her, it might at least be close, so she just pulls it off the shelf in passing and while the mermaid is still nearby she thrusts it at her. "Maybe this one?" she asks.

"Hey," she directs towards Amy, "Wasn't there some place called Atlantis in this planet's history? Every now and then someone says something about it on TV or whatever except they usually give off the vibe that they basically know a bunch of words but not what they mean and like to use the words because they sound smart."

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
"I am a Mau," Luna informs Hinoiri, looking amused, "To have both humanoid and felinoid forms is my nature. You are a unicorn, are you not? It is only natural that you have only a human form given that you come from a world that makes humans into ponys."

Still, they're all congregating now, and with that, she's begun leaning on Usagi like she would if she were still a cat, her hands hooked around her shoulders and her fingers kneading at her flesh, making biscuits in human form.

Usagi allows this with casual ease, still comparing books.

"I might have the characters wrong, but some of these seemed a little close," she offers. "And I mean, I don't know a ton of religious stuff either for the not-Buddhist, not-Shintoist faiths, sorry! I only know angels from like, aesthetic stuff, you know? It looks neat."

Evangelion. She knows it partially from Evangelion.

"...yeah, I also can't study here for weeks," she says sheepishly, "We have finals coming up, and technically I'm still grounded. But you know - the Black Moon Clan have been a little quieter, since... Rubeus, and the Sisters, so I can try and come again. Mamochan might like coming sometime too, if I swap off with him and Chibiusa-chan... or it could be a family trip..."

She has starry eyes. Luna digs in with her nails a little, to bring her out of the daydream, and Usagi wails -

"Lunaaaaa, that still hurts, even if you don't have claws!"

Coco Kiumi has posed:
"Amy, I know what we are looking for. Do you seriously think I called you here for something I didn't know about?", Coco replies irritably. "I was considering which form it would have taken, not what we were doing here. And what do you mean, this god he is under? He is the god we are looking for", she stares at the redhead. Has she just stumbled in an alternative dimension when she was running around?

"There are no wings on the Live Stage, never have been", Coco reminds Amy, wondering how that got past her, before focusing on the part she can answer. "It's impossible to say whether the wings on her scepter are angel or bird wings. They are kind of the same thing if not attached to a person or animal. They are stylized enough that they could be either."

"The information we are looking for would have to be here. We are looking for something we mermaids recorded, not something he would have put somewhere for himself", Noel tells Rens after another skim.

Noel takes one of the books she has been offered, and murmurs something unintelligible, before repeating it more clearly. "This book talks about a Michel. Something about a god of an ancient race that came to Earth after finding it empty, picked us up, taught us many things, before simply disappearing one day."

Madoka Kaname has posed:
    Kamiko waves her little costume fishie fins and says, "Fun fact my Familiars are based upon the weirder kinds of angels because of reasons that Madoka probably prefers I not get into, but also the 'winged human' kind of angel is also explicitly biblical. It's not just one or the other, though I think the 'flaming wheel' type is a lot older."

    Madoka makes an awkward laugh at Kamiko's infodump, but then she notices Human Luna leaning on Usagi like a cat and can't help but 'aww' at it.

    Then she sweatdrops at Luna 'digging in' with nails and kinda looks away because she's not sure what to say about that.

    As Noel mentions that she's found a relevant book, Rens drops hers and goes over to peek at it, shining the light from her anglerfish costume on the page. Madoka does likewise, looking over Noel's shoulder. "God of an ancient race? Huh... his first visit seems a lot more peaceful than his more recent one."

    As an aside, Kamiko notes, "Amy I think you're mistaking the Live Stage for one of my platforms."

Amanda Faust has posed:
    If there has been a simple way to change my form all this time, I'm going to be soooo annoyed. "WORD." Amy agrees, a bit loudly.

    'A world that turns humans into ponies' gets Luna an extremely confused look. "What?"

    I know what we're looking for. "Oh. I... sorry. I guess I misunderstood something." No wings on the live stage. She winces. "I didn't remember any, but..." she glances between Madoka and Coco, curse her imperfect memory, what was it Coco said that prompted that?

    Amy furrows her brow and looks away, "Sorry."

    At least looking in Usagi's direction gets her something to bring a smile to her face again. Amy has to resist the urge to pull out her phone and record human-Luna kneading. Awwwwwwwww.

    She nods to Usagi. "That'd be a treat for Chibiusa huh, has she gotten to see any mermaid cities yet? Do they have merfolk in her timeline?" She looks back to Hinoiri. "I can't stay here for weeks," she looks to Coco and Noel, "but I'd like to visit again. Maybe I could stay here tonight, but... there's going to be a limit to how much I can meaningfully help with research when I don't understand the language."

    Research like this... "This isn't even research. This is a text search for keywords, because we can't read and understand the text. I don't suppose mermaids have computers? A historian I'm not, but if you've got this library archived in digital form, that I might be able to do more with!"

    She looks to Catra. "Atlantis was a myth... In retrospect, I think it was probably some sort of political metaphor? However... Given what I know now... The ancient greek story might well have had a more factual basis. And like. Even if there isn't clear evidence of a worldwide flood... it's a myth common to multiple sources."

    Beat.

    "I would say that anyone talking about Atlantis now, as if they factually know about it, is just a crazy conspiracy theorist or a cultist of some new-age religion... but I guess there's always the possibility that someone exposed to magic just sounds crazy."

    Beat.

    Amy turns to Noel. "Where are the atlases? Known mermaid settlements, ruins, and historical sites. There could well be a place, inhabited now or not, where Michel gave knowledge to mermaids and panthalassans. ...Also where are known panthalassan ruins, historical sites, and legends?"

    "...Also it's possible that some myths of ancient civilizations, conflated with Atlantis, might have been inspired by the Golden Kingdom. I wish I knew where it w--" She looks at Usagi and Luna. "You could point to it on a globe or a map, right?"

    Beat.

    She looks at Noel. "Wait, you said we found it? ...This god... what ancient species was he a god of?"

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Hinoiri Kirara blinked a few times before nodding. "That... that sounds promising. Ancient race, huh? Sure seems to be a lot of those in this world. Still... useful," she said before getting up and stretching.

"I don't think like... we're going to be here for weeks, don't worry. I'm just saying it'll likely take weeks to get anything that's useful against him. Research takes time. I... however, think I need some rest from looking at old, wet books. And I think my fri-- colleague does as well." Can't call Catra a friend, she'll get all bitey, probably...

Hinoiri reached out and took Catra's hand. "So, wanna head back?" she asked, smiling up at her. "Thanks for coming, by the way. It means a lot to me. And I think I owe you sushi." And, frankly... She was sure there were vegetarian sushi's. Or ones that weren't... meaty. If there weren't? Well... Maybe she'd try it, just this once. If he cat girl can go in the underwater library, she can stomach a little bit of meat. Just a little.

"When I go back to Kirakirafantastica, I'll try and see if I can find anything here, okay? I mean, it's a long shot and probably not going to happen. But... it can't hurt to try."

She then gave a small smile at Luna and Usagi's antics, then Madoka and her little charas. It was at times like this... she really wished she had a mascot, too. Oh well... "Come on, let's go, Catra."

She was totally going to get wet-cat-shaking all over her. Or maybe the portal magically dried them and...

... Wait, it probably did.

... BUCK DID SHE REMEMBER TO LEAVE HER PHONE BEHIND?!

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
Luna does not unlatch her fingernails... but she does release her human form, popping into shape as a cat hanging off Usagi's shoulders, and at least that makes her weigh less when she's digging in.

Usagi reaches back, scroops her up, and holds her upside down as punishment. Luna allows this, because she is unrepentant.

"...angels might be under gods in other stories, but here in our real world, it does sound like this angel is a god," Usagi has to agree with Coco, looking apologetically at Amy - there's some obvious tension happening, and she's a little uncomfortable but not so much that she's going to just walk away or anything.

Kamiko's infodump is nodded at, but Amy's questions regarding Chibiusa have her smiling - well, a little. "No merfolk, I think, she's said before that it's just Senshi for magical beings, and well, I think Merfolk count?"

Is this research?

"I think it counts as research. We're finding the books and handing them off to the people who can read. It's like, delegating, you know? Not everyone can do everything, but we can help Coco-chan and Noel-chan by handing off things."

But then Noel reads from a book - a book that actually has information -

"So he really was considered a god," she whistles, and Luna purses her lips.

"A being who came, educated the population, and then simply vanished is an unusual case. If we could learn more of why he disappeared, maybe we could learn more of why he returned? Like, he says humans ruined the world which, rude, where was he when Metallia was around - maybe, not around..."

Eh?

"I didn't actually know Earth super well back then! Mamochan and his boys would probably be your best bet there, actually!"

A beat -

"Bye, Hinoiri-chan, Catra-chan!"

Catra has posed:
Catra is out of here. When Hinoiri suggests they leave she's all too happy to agree and follows Hinoiri through the portal somehow managing not to push her out of the way. She doesn't even respond to Amy about the stuff about Atlantis, she's in such a hurry to leave. Cat. Wants. Out.

Once they arrive on the other side, the feline takes a second to poke at her hair, where it's all plastered to the side of her head, and makes a growly sound of frustration. She takes a step away from Hinoiri and tries that whole think firey thoughts thing; just a little bit, just enough that she dries herself out -- and then a little bit more which results in most of the plants within ten feet of where she's standing getting reduced to ash.

"Alright that was overdoing it," she mutters, as she pats her now back to normal hair and straightens her completely dry jacket. Nothing singed at all. So what it there's a big blackened circle in the middle of the Pearl Pier (or whatever it's called who cares) front lawn.

"...Thanks for bringing me. Even if it was a giant swimming pool full of nerd stuff." Catra shakes her head. "I'm gonna go for a walk. I'll probably crash on your couch again in a few days, okay?"

Coco Kiumi has posed:
"There are some old Panthalassa outspots here and there still standing today", Noel replies to Amy, her eyes still on the book gleaning for more info, but not finding much of anything. "But they don't have much of anything. Probably you would have to look for things in their palace", she smiles awkwardly. Yeah. That's not really happening now.

"Chibiusa hasn't visited any cities yet, but we had talked about her, Usagi and Mamoru coming to my kingdom one of these days", she tells Amy. And the chances of Black Moon finding them all the way under there were so rare that they could probably win a lottery thousand of times over.

"Just "creatures of the air", nothing more interesting than that. We could theorise that they would all have wings like him, but it doesn't really say. There is really no name in this part of the book. All I have is the name of the book it took the information from", she swims away for a second, going through their catalogue again.

"It's all really mysterious, part of it fit with what Michel has said, but there is nothing really that seems to fit with his actions. Maybe it's just the same name?", she takes the book herself.

"Bye Hinoiri, Catra", she tells the two while she keeps reading, but Noel's summary seems all they have.

Madoka Kaname has posed:
    Madoka notices the way Catra and Hinoiri are latched onto each other and her mind speculates for a moment. She smirks, then tries very hard not to smirk, then says, "Bye, Hinoiri-chan. Nice to meet you Catra-san."

    The fish costumed minidokas also wave as the two of them depart.

    She doesn't have that much to say about Chibiusa, but what Usagi says makes sense. Not every world or timeline has every type of magical. "Kinda makes me wonder if there are mahoujin we don't see in this timeline, but appear in others. Then again I guess that's kinda what Device Mages and Etherians are, huh?"

    So... creatures of the air. How strange. "I mean, there are a lot of creatures of the air, but like... do they mean some kind of bird people, or... just birds?"

    Rens scratches her chin. "That's not a whole lot to go on, but... it kinda lines up with what he said?"

    Kamiko recounts, "He claimed to have taught both the mermaids and the Panthalassa... and called himself God. Seems weird for him to vanish for all this time and then come back. How long ago was this again?"

Amanda Faust has posed:
    Amy doesn't really know how to deal with this sort of tension, either.

    Perhaps it's a natural consequence of neglecting making friends at school besides magical folks and the RPG club.

    No... it's because she's been so busy with other magic bullshit and recovering from it, because as a result of that she hasn't made up with Coco yet, isn't it? Otherwise, her mistakes would be laughed off, right? She has to have made similar mistakes in the past.

    And all her wild theories and suggestions inspired by the others' musings weren't helpful either.

    Her social instincts are screaming louder and louder to run.

    "I wonder if creatures of the air could poetically mean everything above the water? Maybe that's reaching. In Japanese, angel (tenshi) and heaven (tengoku) both have sky in the name kinda, right? ...But that's another language... I'm really reaching..."

    She's just getting increasingly awkward. Her mind screams at her RUN. Before she makes it worse.

    Amy looks around nervously. Catra and Hinoiri are leaving. This may be her only chance at a non-awkward out. "Oh uh... I think maybe I'll head out too... It sounds like you found the trail of what you were looking for... bye!" She waves to those assembled and swims after the others towards the portal.

    It will be okay. She'll see friends again soon.

    And when she's feeling better she has to figure out how to make up with Coco... The mermaid was one of the very first magical folks she met and they've been at eachother's side more times than she can count. They were close, once! That's why Amy ended up with one of the pearls!

    Navigating teenage friendship drama is something she was supposed to learn in high school the first time and didn't because she had no friends... Guess I'll have to figure it out now, she thinks to herself.