"Ulla felt hate bloom in her heart."

[neverwaitslong]

Who: Ulla & open
When: Early August
Where: around the Clipper
Warnings: Anger, possible ineffectual violence
What: Furious mermaid is not settling in well

Being captured all over again was bad enough.

But then there's this, her power stripped from her, stuffed into a body that used to be hers but doesn't feel like home anymore. A body even more ill-suited for being trapped in the confines of a ship than her eel tail was. At least that let her slither. Slow and unwieldy, but not impossible. Now, she'd flop on the deck like a caught fish.

The beautiful silver scales on the fish tail she grew up with are a reminder of all that she lost, and she hates it.

"Warren!" she yells. Because if he's here, it would at least be some consolation. He has to be here.

--

Eventually, Ulla figures out that the ridiculous ostentatious open seashell is meant for her, as a form of transportation. It feels like a mockery of a throne, an absurdity. She misses the fishbowl Warren got her. She misses her old cabin, with the comforting weight of water pressed around her. She misses Warren. And she's furious all the time.

All of the songs she sings are angry, impotent things that would tear the ship apart if she could put any real power behind them. She composes spells of destruction, and wishes they were more than an intellectual exercise.

[For Nanny Ogg]

Ulla glares daggers at her new warden. Or assistant, or whatever they're calling themselves here. "I've already had a warden for two years. You aren't him."

Comments

[lastexit]

"You'll get in trouble for angry singing too."

Maya lounged on something, her affect was 'bored' if you had to call it anything but 'absent.' She's not really in the mood for false positivity, but she wasn't trying to get her sentence extended anymore than it was. Which meant helping, whatever she could do, was better than nothing.

Although, honestly, she just understood the anger. Anger woven in song more than anger normally. "Not that I think you care about getting in trouble right now, but I figured you should know."

[neverwaitslong]

Ulla glares at Maya, because she's been glaring at almost everyone here. "This isn't the ship I belong on. I was prisoner on a different one for two years, and I'd made progress by those standards. This place is worse, and it doesn't have the only person who really matters on it."

[lastexit]

Maya may have recoiled away from the glaring, not that it'd get her to stop talking. She just- looked elsewhere. It wasn't her fault. So she didn't get why she had to carry any of that weight.

"Will getting in trouble help? Get you back those standards, or get you to your friend?" Maya didn't really believe in the system here, as much as she did try to follow the rules. She trusted the Nurse wanted them safe, but that was more out of no other good explanations for any of this shirt.

"I get venting, but eventually you need to figure out what you're doing, right?"

[neverwaitslong]

"Nothing is going to get me back to him, unless he somehow manages to find his way to me. We aren't from the same world." A deal of her own would do it, but Ulla frankly isn't optimistic about ever escaping this ship, let alone staying long enough to successfully get a deal.

[summonshadows]

He finds her the same way he had those centuries ago: by following the music. Not immediately, it wouldn't do to fail to savor the fact that his mind is clearer than it's been in months, wouldn't do at all to rush into something over sentimentality.

But he knows he's right the moment he hears her nonetheless. Sildroher magic is unmistakable, and her rage soothes the festering cracks down the center of whatever is left of his heart.

He waits for her to finish her current spell and then he's there - older than when she last saw him, made smaller by this place and his time here, a set of silvered scars raked across his face, but still unmistakable and still with an unmistakable weight and sharpness to the dark of his eyes - clapping slow and steady and perhaps not as sarcastic as one might expect, only wry because he knows how impotent those spells are just now.

[neverwaitslong]

For a moment, Ulla just glares. She's come a long way from the young girl hungry for any scrap of approval, and moreover, she doesn't appreciate anyone witnessing her helpless.

But then, as she takes in the details of his face, the eyes that are all too familiar even though he's older now and marked by pain and scars, her gaze softens a little. "It's you."

[summonshadows]

He waits for the same reason she glares, because he doesn't care to be left more vulnerable than he is by a wrong assumption, because this ship does play tricks sometimes. But she recognizes him.

He smiles. "And you," he agrees. Yes, it's him. "I'd say welcome aboard, but I wouldn't wish this place on even our enemies."

[qingofcats]

Da Qing perches on a low branch of the tree and listens to the fish-lady sing her angry, angry song, and when she's finished he jumps down next to her, nostrils flaring delicately.

"You smell like dinner," he observes, his mouth not appearing to move despite the voice of an apparently young man clearly, audibly coming from him--it's not telepathy, he's talking somehow.

[neverwaitslong]

Ulla shoots him a glare. She remembers being cornered by a creature very like this, only giant, during one port they made on the Barge. This one isn't large enough to fear.

Tone entirely matter of fact, she tells him, "And if you try to make a meal of me, I'll return the favor."

[qingofcats]

"I said you smell like dinner, not that I'd try to eat you," he counters. "It's bad form to eat people... even crows," he adds with a twitch of his whiskers. He holds a grudge, who can blame him?

He paces around her, definitely eyeing the tail, but comes back to sit primly in front of her, his tail wrapped around his paws. "I liked your song, it sounded angry."

[routemistress]

Iris follows the singing, because it feels like home, but she recoils when she sees Ulla wearing the wrong tail.

"What in the flying fish sauce 'ave they done to you, Ulla love?"

[neverwaitslong]

Ulla breaks off her song as Iris comes into view, grimacing at the question.

"Given me back the tail I was born with." Which she does not sound happy about. It feels like a slap in the face, a reminder of everything else that she lost along with her silver scales.

[routemistress]

She eyes it with distaste.

"And didn't even ask first? What a load of sh..y weasels - what the 'eck. I really don't like this boat, Ulla. I don't like it one bit."

[cantbebuggered]

Nanny Ogg sits opposite Ulla, stirring her tea with a spoon. Between them sits the fearsome Greebo, the tom cat who's not quite convinced that Ulla isn't just a very large fish and he's figuring out how best to eat her.

Nanny only blows on her tea, and gives a nod to the toast slices she's brought Ulla.

"Jam's getting a bit runny."

[neverwaitslong]

Ulla folds her arms over her chest. Bringing food was not the right approach to take. It's another reminder of Warren, sharp and painful. He always offers to feed her. Offered. She can't imagine getting free of this place, let alone earning a deal to get back to him. A part of her hopes desperately that he'll manage it, but most of her hates the temptation of hope.

She ignores the toast. "I don't know what you hope to accomplish."

[cantbebuggered]

Nanny continues to devour her own slices, as Greebo eyes Ulla evilly from the floor.

"Currently? Trying to eat mine before the cat gets his." Nanny nudges Greebo fondly with the toe of her boot. "Silly bugger. Greebo, she's not for eating. Kindly sod off, will you?"

[packhound]

Mikodez can't sing. It's part of why he enjoys singalong time whether he's an Assistant or a Patient, cheerfully failing to hit anything that might be called 'a note'. But he can enjoy other people's songs, so he sits listening to Ulla, distracting himself by trying to record the tunes.

[neverwaitslong]

"What are you doing?" Ulla asks as her song draws to a close. She noticed him recording. If she had the anger left to spare, she might be more possessive of her music, but she's spending it all on being here. On losing Warren.

And he's only a child.

[packhound]

"I'm trying to write down the notes you're singing. My teacher says it's good practice." Easily and without seeing any reason to hesitate. If she didn't want someone writing it down, then she would've gone some where private. That's the rules back home, and he's never seen a reason to update them.

[why_me]

For all that Garion can look like a hayseed of a man, he's pretty observant. So not only does he pick up during the singalongs that she's one of the musical types, but hearing her sing beautifully all the time elsewhere makes it pretty clear. The fact that she's angry-

Well, he knows that's not his fault, not around here, but he's still the sort of man who knows it's best to apologize if you think you've upset someone. So he'll take the time to find her when he can, when she doesn't seem to be doing anything else (including singing) and he'll offer a low bow.

"I owe you an apology."

[neverwaitslong]

Ulla has no idea who this man is, so she only glares at him for his apology. "Unless you're the one who decided to hold me prisoner here, I don't know what for."

[why_me]

He slings a thumb back towards where the morning sing-along happened. And given his singing, talking about it like a crime is appropriate.

"You're good enough at singing, listening to me is pretty awful. I promise, I'm not there because I want to be."

[tinstar]

It had taken Raylan a few days, a tantrum in the common room, and a stay in the sick ward and several arguments with his new Assistant, to start to calm down and maybe pull his head out of his ass a little. He hadn't much lifted his head in the morning, hiding under the brim of his hat as he waited for hell to finish it's sing a long time, but there was no missing the seashell or the mermaid that sat in it.

Ulla looked different.

Raylan waited until after morning songs to try to approach her and he was happy that he'd gotten to see her a little more on the Barge before they both arrived here. Context of what should be verses what is.

"Don't suppose you could sing all the Assistants into givin' us a break, huh? I think I'm gonna scream if I listen to any more of this childish music."

[neverwaitslong]

"The best I can do is sing songs that clash with the ones they try to feed us." And she hates that the only power left to her is this small act of rebellion.

[tinstar]

"I'm guessin' it doesn't all work quite the same here. 'Course, why would they leave us with anythin'." He sighs, eyes falling on Ulla's tail again. "What's up with your bottom half? Why'd they make it all weird like that?"

It was gorgeous, honestly, but it wasn't her and Raylan was a little concerned that they were altering people's bodies now. If that were the case, he'd be pissed about it on her behalf but the last thing the world needed was someone like him getting offended on behalf of someone he didn't know well enough to represent.