645/A whole new type of masonry

A whole new type of masonry
Date of Scene:	25 October 2023
Location:	South Pacific Kingdom
Synopsis:	Coco and Miya visit the former's home in the South Pacific. Architecture is admired, food is had, and Miya gets an explanation on the birth function of the Yellow Pearl. The Elusive Tuna is also finally identified.
Cast of Characters:	Coco Kiumi, Miya Sakamoto

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Coco Kiumi has posed:
We last left Miya and Coco when the two girls had discovered each other's secret identities. And this time Coco decided to do something different for a change and show Miya her palace all the way over to the South Pacific Ocean.

Luckily for folks not used to breathing water, Coco's Live Stage was more than good enough to provide breathable air for normal water, and the Palace had a breathing enchantment for the rare human visitors. How did they traverse all those kilometers in an hour? That is not the point of this story, and so we shall not cover it.

Coco is standing next to Miya inside the perimeter of her golden castle, her friend safely able to breathe without the need of the Live Stage. Her clothes weren't even slightly humid. The portent of mermaid magic.

The former is in her mermaid form, taking in the sight of her rebuilt kingdom. "It has been such a long time since I last saw it whole", she smiles, serene at replacing the last memories of her home with happy ones. "What do you think, Miya?" Coco smiles at the brunette.

Miya Sakamoto has posed:
After getting over the amazement and surprise of being able to survive underwater, and not being drenched to boot, Miya is now completely enthralled by the architecture.

At first, she's walking the way one would be overland, her ponytail sort of trailing behind her like a banderole; nose pointing straight up, she is the embodiement of amazement. "Would you look at that...", she whispers with reverence, smitten by the ceiling. "This is..."

The small bubbles that leave her mouth make her realize something.

She bends her knees, gives herself a little push, and soon she's floating up towards the ceiling, where she manages to stop short of touching it; her swimming movements give her away as an okay, but not expert, swimmer.

"This is likely the most stunning example of architecture I've ever seen, underwater or not!"

She spsins in place, with a low gurgling noise, while her ponytail describes an arc behind her and the folds of her baggy overall take a bit longer than on land to catch up with the rest of her owner.

"It's mind-blowing! So different, yet so obviously masterful! Whoever built this must have been-"

As if realizing something all of a sudden, which she probably does, she interjects, "Wait- what do you mean 'saw it whole'? Was it torn down?!", with shock in her voice.

Coco Kiumi has posed:
Coco doesn't stop smiling, although it's easy to tell it isn't as sincere as it was a second earlier. "Yes, it happened many years ago. A storm fell on the South Pacific and destroyed everything." How could a storm destroy her kingdom, and why it took so long to start rebuilding, she doesn't say, preferring instead to pass the whole thing as a random whim of fate instead.

"But everything is alright now, and I am so glad you like it", the princess says, speeding past Miya with but a few strokes of her tail. Coco waves at Miya, signaling at the brunette to follow her, guiding her to a room with a huge assortment of tables and accompanying assortment of cushioned reclining chair.

"This is where we eat, and our chairs also offer the comfort of laying down at any given time. You would hard-pressed to find chairs that aren't reclining, everyone just prefers then like this", Coco explains.

Miya Sakamoto has posed:
Miya turns somber, more somber than she's ever been so far. "Like tsunamis and top-tier earthquakes in Japan," she comments in response to Coco mentioning a storm that destroyed everything. She floats down to be face to face with Coco and express genuine condolences.

"I'm surprised you have chairs at all!", admits a flabbergasted Miya, too enraptured by the curious furniture to focus on playing catch-up with her semi-piscine friend. "Given your anatomy, I'd have expected you to just... I don't know, float about all the time? I don't think I've ever seen a fish or a dolphin sitting or lying down... but then again, if you mermaids tried to guess our habits by comparing us landlubbers to monkeys, well... uhm, that wouldn't be completely accurate either, I guess."

A short pause.

"I certainly don't spend most of my time swinging from trees!"

Another short pause.

"I do enjoy the occasional banana, though."

Coco Kiumi has posed:
Coco looks at Miya with appreciation when floats down to offer some consolation. "Thank you, but now my palace is rebuilt, and..." she pauses, words stuck in her throat. "And everything is back to how it was." If only that were actually true.

"I mean, would you appreciate having to walk around for a long while, and suddenly you get to lie down somewhere?" she nods as if confirming herself. "Instead of staying afloat at a certain level or lie down on the ground, we have these comfy chair that allow us to abandom our limbs to the softness of the furniture" she motions towards the chairs.

"But if you are not tired I have other places to show you", Coco specifies once again pushing past Miya to lead her somewhere else. This time they enter a huge bedroom, a large circular bed showing up on the left side and windows that open onto a balcony. This is where, the mermaid goes, the external floor decorated with corals. At the center of it lies an oval bad merely large enough to fit Coco.

The princess swims forth, looking at the sea landscape extending before her. "I like resting here", she comments towards Miya. "The view it offers at the same time is irreplaceable", she smiles.

Miya Sakamoto has posed:
Not for one moment has Miya's expression ceased to radiate admiration. Every time she has been shown around, to a new room or new space, she has taken far longer than the average visitor to take in every single details -- especially about the palace itself; she's been an almost neverending stream of pointing out interestingness in the craftmaship, and asking the kind of advanced questions Coco might or might not know the answer to.

Possibly toning down the questions if it turns out that Coco just let the craftsmen take care of the details and did not go in depth herself.

Upon reaching the balcony, she floats back down, closer to the floor, and swims around the chair. "It does look comfortable," she declares at the end, and doing a half-flip in the water, spinning once again, she turns to face the vista.

And for the first time, she shows the same level of admiration for the natural view, framed by coral, she originally showed for the edifice.

"...it -is- beautiful...", she murmurs, barely above a whisper.

Silence, as befits admiring such a natural marvel.

"...you must miss it a lot in Tokyo," she tells Coco.

Coco Kiumi has posed:
Coco is quite enthusiastic to answer Miya's question, and is doing her best with the information she gathered from her time living there. Enthusiastic questions merit enthusiastic answers, and the mermaid really appreciates how energetic the brunette is about knowing the details of her castle. Unfortunately, eventually the information Coco has at her disposal begins faltering, since the original palace had been way older than her, and she wasn't around for its reconstruction, busy as she was with seeking traces of Gaito and Sara in Tokyo.

So when Miya starts toning down her answer because of Coco's lack of in-depth knowledge, the mermaid swims closer to her friend, and tells her she will have a book on the history of the palace translated into japanese especially for her. She has no intention to allow her friend to go away empty-handed.

"I am glad you think the vista is beautiful", Coco replies with a fond smile. She has been missing this place so much. Even with regular swim sessions in the sea to allievate her homesickness, nothing could truly replace the desire to see home once again, especially since the last time she saw it, she had been 11 years old herself, and the rest of the time had been spent prisoner of a deep sleep in Gaito's palace.

"Next comes the throne roon, and my birthplace", the mermaid mentions to her friend, swimming quite fast towards her destination, her tail giving potent kicks from the anticipation of being there.

The throne room is at it ever was before the incident, immense columns decorated by swirls supporting the ceiling, and windows with glass so transparent you couldn't tell it's there, allowing one to admire the natural beauty of the sea outside. Majestic corals decorate the base of each column, while reliefs emerge from the walls, narrating the story of the kingdom to any who may have the patience of watching. The main piece is at the center of the hall, a white and yellow shell throne, a cushion comfortably resting on it.

Coco swims to it, and sits down for the first time in ever, passing the hand on the back of the throne, a serene and joyous expression on her face. "This is where I was born from the pearl's magic, Miya", she mentions still enraptured to her friend.

Miya Sakamoto has posed:
The time comes to leave the luxuriant view of undersea flora (and possibly fauna), coral and colorful vegetal strands swaying in the mild currents; Miya gives it one last glance before heading into the throne room.

And this is where Miya is overwhelmed: instead of simple jaw-dropping, now it's a continuous opening, closing, and re-opening of her mouth at each single one of the details. After the sensory overload of the ensemble view of the room, she focuses on the columns, swimming in a corkscrew pattern around one of them, tracing the helical grooves almost, but not quite, touching them, keeping her fingers at enough of a distance to avoid being disrespectful to such a sculpted mastepriece, her hands slightly limp, like Michaelangelo's Adam.

Having ascended all the way, close enough to the high part of the windows, she darts there, boggles at their perfect transparency, cranes her neck left, right, up, turns her head sideways-

-and zips again, to float towards the friezes. She zigzags between the walls, like a ricocheting bullet, while finally deciding to float back down, to settle in front of Coco.

By the way her breathing has accelerated and she's having trouble calming down enough to articulate her words, one would be forgiven for suspecting that she's at the incipient stages of Stendhal's syndrome; but when she -does- calm down, she swallows, and asks, "What... what was that part about you having been born here? From magic?"

Coco Kiumi has posed:
While Miya was darting around examining every single architectural piece in its finest detail, Coco was half-looking at her, half-enjoying her own time back on her shell throne, enjoying the opportunity to feel at home again. Occasionally she shouted at the brunette to be careful after she thinks a curve Miya has taken is particularly risk, but nothing actually happens.

The mermaid princess stretches her arms and lies against the back of the shell throne, letting memories overtake her: the time light first graced her vision, back when she was still just an apparition of the pearl, the information of the previous princess' thankfully peaceful death being transmitted to her, the amounts of inservients of the South Pacific palace showing up to her, then finally her birth, the appointed Tuesday, when her spirit was ready to take the next step and assume physical form.

After that came all the joys of exploration of the underwater world, the learning of her kingdom's tradition and workings, as well as how things were proceeding at the kingdoms, the sadly simultaneous passings of the princesses of the North Pacific, South Atlantic and North Atlantic and the grieving that followed, for how briefly she had gotten to know them and the joy of the new births.

Miya's question shakes Coco back from her reverie and the mermaid stretches, getting back to a sitting position. "Hmm, it's what it sounds like", the princess explains, analysing the sudden pause Miya took when asking that question. Is it far too weird for her? 'Unlike other mermaids, who take on a similar approach to humans, mermaid princesses aren't born per se, but they come to life as a direct product of their pearls on a predetermined day of the week, which in the case of the Yellow Pearl is Tuesday. We are a bit of an oddity even compared to other mermaids, and of course we don't have parents, but we tend to consider Aqua Regina our mother."

Miya Sakamoto has posed:
"You... you don't have parents?", Miya asks Coco. She swims in place, and... thinks. She looks over her shoulder, at the imposing majesty of the castle, its sheer size, its beauty, and then back to Coco.

"It's funny, one of the first things I thought when I saw this palace was how well it fits a large family like your royal family must be. You mean... you... you don't have much of a family living with you, here?"

Behind her Japanese countenance, Miya seems to have developed a hint of melancholy at the thought. There was some sudden pain, very well masked, letting only the barest of hints through. Whether it was a mere sting, or an all-out heart-wrench, it all depends on Miya's ability to withhold emotions.

"But it's good that you have... she's called 'Aqua Regina' you said, right?" Miya finally beams, in an attempt to steer the discussion into a happier direction. "Who is she? Does she live here?"

Coco Kiumi has posed:
"No, well, no." Coco peeks up at Miya. Wondering what she is thinking. Why she brought that up. What kind of matter it is to her? Should Coco be worried about what was going on in Miya's heart?



The mermaid princess shakes her head. "Not really. If we consider Aqua Regina my mother, then the other princesses would be my sisters, but we are usually not supposed to venture out. We usually have stay in our castle and continue our duties, anyway. Only a grave threat like that of Obsidian or Gaito lets us move around."

This of course meant that once those threats had been solved Coco would say goodbye to the surface. There was no reason to be so down. Coco has always been aware of this. It was a duty that constituted part of them since their birth and it will continue until they die.

"Aqua Regina is the goddess of the seas, and doesn't live here, or anywhere", Coco clarifies. "300 years ago, she fought against the threat of the Panthalassa and won, but..." Her heart squeezes at the thought, the sorrow clear on her face. "She exhausted all her strength as a result, and now she can only appear in the world for brief periods of strength, or if all 7 of us princesses are together."

Miya Sakamoto has posed:
Miya listens to the story of Aqua Regina with interest, especially the part about her exhausting her powers, and now being limited in her ability to appear.

Miya takes a moment to think, and remains silent for quite a few seconds.

She eventually floats down to sit on the floor, arms wrapped around her knees, raised so that she can sink her face among them.

Her ponytail wafts in the current, with the occasional sudden whipping, like some sort of underwater plant that would not look out of place among the corals, until she turns to look at Coco. "But that life is normal for you, right? I mean... for a mermaid princess? The part where you don't have parents?" To avoid lingering too much on a potentially sad subject, she continues, "Plus, I'm sure you have plenty of friends in the other mermaids, right? I'm... I'm sorry if it's a bit strange, but... as a human, this sounds like a very... alien lifestyle. And anything different from what we're used to might be misread if thought of in human terms... but maybe, that's where I make a mistake. Thinking that what is sad for humans is for mermaid princesses."

That could explain Miya's moment of sadness -- from a human standpoint, not having parents, or not having a family, is a sad thing. And she likely has been worried about Coco because of that.

Coco Kiumi has posed:
Coco gets up from the shell throne, her swimming warning Miya about the mermaid's movement as she slowly approaches her friend.

She sits down onto the floor next to Miya, gathering her tail to her chest, arms wrapped around it, not quite sure as to what to say. How to overcome a lifestyle difference so big?

A few minutes of silence later, she finally says something. "I don't get how alien this whole thing feels to you, but yes, I don't really feel perturbed over it. I have always been surrounded by people I could connect to, so this lack of parental figures... I have never felt it." She takes a breath. "Does that shock you?"

She caresses the shell pendant with the Pearl. "For what is worth, I am used to this like you said. The sea has always been my home, and will always be it. And after this menace is over, I will leave the land, and come back to this palace."

Miya Sakamoto has posed:
Miya looks at Coco.

The brunette's expression remains fixed for a few seconds, then relaxes in a smile. "No!", she exclaims in response to Coco's question about whether or not she's shocked by a lack of the mermaid's parental figures. Her cheerfulness has returned in full. "It's actually a relief!", she says, and pushing herself away from the ground, zips to Coco's side, taking the long route that goes around the princess' back.

"See, I love hanging out with my parents," she starts, "But I suppose that... I also love how, now, I get to live on the school premises and get to manage on my own! Independence!", she exclaims.

She darts upwards, spinning like a drill bit; "It's all so strange, and wonderful..." She does not specify whether she's talking about her switch to living on her own, about Coco's palace, or about Coco's alien lifestyle.

Likely all three at once.

Miya's her eyes sweep the area once again, before she zips down again with a couple powerful strokes of her arms. "And I am learning so much! Thanks for inviting me here- oh, is that the pearl you were talking about earlier?", Miya asks, pointing at the item Coco is caressing.

And then, with a lower voice, she adds, "...and what menace are you talking about? The... the -things- that are attacking all over the place, and that we are fighting?"

Coco Kiumi has posed:
Coco looks at Miya, moving her arm to hold her friend's hand. The brunette's cheerful disposition is enough to reassure Coco, leaving her to answer Miya back with a smile of her own. "I am glad it doesn't weird you out", Coco replies way more relaxed now. "To have missing parents is one thing, but not to have any at all..." Coco coughs, then goes back to smiling. "Thanks for being so calm, Miya."

"I suppose getting to make your own choices isn't so bad", Coco exclaims, thankful for her friend. Not that it applies to her. Her responsibilities have always limited her choices, and this is the first actual break she has.

Coco propels herself up to Miya when she sees her swimming up, before having to reach back down when she notices the girl was going back to her. The mermaid assumes her prior position, keeping her long hair from draping Miya.

"Yes, that's the one", Coco nods, taking the pearl out of her shell locket and leaving it visible onto her open palm. "This is both the source of my powers, as well the place all princesses of the South Pacific come from, both my predecessors, as well as my successors."

Miya's other question gets another assent from Coco. "Yes, we are only supposed to leave our kingdom if there is a menace going on elsewhere. Otherwise, we are supposed to stay here and keep ruling over our people. Though, more important that ruling is the fact we are the kingdom's only defense against water demons." She sighs. "I will miss you so much, but that's the one rule not even I can break. We can only stay on land if something threatens the world." She made so many friends in Tokyo...

Miya Sakamoto has posed:
"I mean, you... you are not human, right?", Miya says, gesturing towards Coco's tail. "It would be arrogant to assume that your species must do things the way we humans do, or otherwise is wrong." She thinks for a moment.

"I suppose I'm calm because I've already been numbed by the majesty of this palace," she says, and once again, her head describes an arc, left, up, right. "After taking in so much unusual, you kind of hit your stride and start going, 'oh, so your species has no parents? Cool, cool.' You have a magical pearl you are born from- ok, no, that one is still mind-blowing." Miya swims closer to the pearl to take a much closer look. She tries, she tries hard to keep her countenance (after all, she just went 'I'm cool, I'm cool!', and she has a facade to keep up!), but the pearl, apart from its already exceptional appearance, has also been revealed to have exceptional magical properties. Not to mention being the Birth Artefact of Coco. "This is so amazing!", she whispers, under her breath. "So... this is ort of like... the closest you have to biological parents? Is that why you' were so protective of it when I was repairing your Bubble Maker?"

Miya's shoulders slump at Coco mentioning her eventual having to return to, and stay in, the ocean. "...Oh." she says, looking up at Coco. The prospect of losing her friend does cast a passing shadow on her expression. "You mean... you mean that the... the Rules will prevent us from visiting each other? Well, prevent me from visiting you, I suppose, since you've kind of established that you'll be stuck here..."

Coco Kiumi has posed:
Miya is right, they do have a completely different world thanks to being different. Even so... "That's quite special, Miya." Saying you're quite special would be too cheesy now, would it? She can't really say that.

"They have done a good job with it", Coco agrees. And to think this is something they didn't even know when she would get to see it. "They could have taken their sweet time with it, and instead..." She gestures around. "I owe to them many thanks."

Coco shakes her head. "The pearl is actually that precious yes, only the other 6 are like it, but that wasn't the only reason I was cautious around it." Besides being the source of her powers, of course.

"You were working with water then, and water reveals my true form if it comes anywhere near the Yellow Pearl. It's a thing like that, and it would have been trouble at that time, no?" She would have dissolved, and then who knows what would have happened to Miya. "I would have inexpicably disappeared, and you would have forgotten about me next, so nobody would even know I turned into seafoam, and Cho... she would probably torment herself over it", Coco realises grimly. Now THAT is frightening. A chill passes down Coco's spine at this time. "A new South Pacific Princess would have been born though, so there would have been someone else to fight in my place."

Miya Sakamoto has posed:
Miya would like to meet 'them', the people who built this masterpiece, but right now there are more pressing issues.

"Turning into seafoam? Like in the story by Hans Christian Andersen?", asks Miya with concern. Seems like she knows her classics! Or, at least, this particular classic.

She shudders as well. "I was about to do that to you? Dissolving you, making people torment themselves... I... I didn't know... That's... that's... terrifying..."

Serious, she lowers her head, and offers, in a quieter tone of voice, "Is it that bad if you get splashed with water on land? I'll... I'll try to protect you!", she exclaims, with determination.

Only to be suddenly clenched by doubt, as she looks down, "...I mean, uh, to the best of my abilities. Water is... surprisingly common on land." She looks at Coco. "It must be a dangerous existence just to go around! And... I dare not think of what happens if you have to go wash your hands!"

Coco Kiumi has posed:
Coco didn't realise Miya would have taken it so badly. Why didn't she? That was an obvious conclusion to reach. "Wait, Miya, you couldn't have known!" Coco tries to defuse the situation in a panic. "It's an accident that could have happened, but things turned out well, don't beat yourself up over it!"

"And it's not something nearly as drastic, I can touch water just fine! I only need to make sure it doesn't touch my pendant!" She twists her hand in a panic, her tail also doing some small nervous swings while she tries to fix her mistake. 'Why didn't I word it differently? I should have foreseen this!" she thinks.

"And I appreciate you wanting to protect me, there are never too many open eyes!" She smiles nervously. "See? That's a positive thing you are doing!"

Miya Sakamoto has posed:
Coco's reassurances progressively calm Miya. Her breathing slows down progressively, or at least, progressively on average; there are bumps and ups and down as Coco's own levels of panics rise and fall. But despite the short term oscillations, the overall trend of the agitation graph is falling.

"That... that... that explains so much, though...", Miya finally says, standing there, barely audible. "The running away, the sudden flapping sound of a large tail against tiles..."

"...You have brought a tuna with you from your underwater kingdom to assist you in times of difficulty like these! Clearly, a trusted advisor and/or an elite member of your personal guard!"

Miya's smile widens again. "Think you can introduce me to them now? I think that now we know enough about each other's secrets for it to be a safe revelation?"

Coco Kiumi has posed:
A large tuna? She is still on about that? Coco looks perplexed at Miya as she wonders whether that's just a joke to calm her down or if it's something she should address.

Better make the figure of the idiot herself than leave something unaddressed, she figures. "That was me the whole time, Miya. When the water fell on my pendant, I made a run for the bathroom and barely made it."

"So, see? It all worked out perfectly! I am still here and nobody got to panic for anything." Besides the two of them just now, that is. "How about we go back to the guest room and relax over some food?"

Miya Sakamoto has posed:
"...oh. That... that makes even more sense, actually!", Miya admits. "Like how there was no tuna, and nowhere to hide it, or for it to escape."

Miya pushes herself to float in the water. "Food would be great!", Miya agrees, as she does a flip in the air- well, in the water, really, and returns to float semi-vertically, ready to head in any direction Coco may point to. "One of these days I'll have to show you the source of my own powers. And explain how they work..."

"...as soon as I understand it myself. I'm... still in training, as Enji pointed out last time."