{action}

[guidance]

base:

[waking up, Fi finds herself definitely not in water. everything about the situation registers on her systems as new, and yet corresponding to the dream that was so fresh in memory. curious. strange. worthy of investigation - instinctively, she knows that to sit and wait idly is not the best course of action. there will be time for rest later.

so she begins to look around, beginning from the second floor, leaving the Sea Equipment room with the drone that had greeted her following behind after they exchange telepathic pleasantries and "Miss Fi" states her intentions. nowhere that anyone else can go is off limits in her investigation. Fi floats, gliding in the air gracefully, taking in locations and what the rooms seem to be purposed for. all for the sake of data. all for the sake of understanding and building a complete map as soon as possible. poking her head into everything, she can't be anything else other than another new arrival.

Fi doesn't greet others first, but she pauses and will remain a respectful distance away from them when she sees them, looking and observing who they are and what they seem like to her. sorry to those that find the looks that are halfway to staring more unsettling than polite. she wants the lay of the land before anything else, including names.]

water:

[of course, the base is not the only place to go. the world outside is far greater in scale and still calls to her to come and see without stopping. a wetsuit is not even a thought for her, and she drifts through the water as she is, a streak of blue that doesn't so much swim as simply travel through the water. but her work is interrupted by those of the aquatic species that come to satisfy their own curiosity, the more bold or friendly sorts coming closer and causing her to halt and acknowledge them.

for them, she drifts a little, lets them come closer or turns so that the edges of her cape fan out, as interested in them as they are her. the concept of some of them being dangerous is there, but she wants to know. wants to see them, record them, take in the data about them if it's allowed. in a way, she looks like she's having fun, as though they're innocently trying to communicate instead of a mutual moment of trying to understand what the other species is about.

there are different types - rabbitrays, some are called, gasopods another, or hoverfish another group, so URSULA's logs will say when she looks at them later. so much to learn. so much to see.]

wildcard.

[Fi is pretty much anywhere and everywhere right now, so if you have a scene in mind you want, go for it! cave exploring, floating in the dreamscape, whatever's wished.]

Comments

[expulsions]

[Fi isn't the only one in the water today without a wetsuit. Percy's jumped back into the ocean to explore on his own though he seems to lazily be letting the water carry him wherever it wishes to carry him. He doesn't plan to venture too far from the base just yet and it's for this reason he's busy watching the rabbitrays play together.

However, they seem to have found a new playmate and zip forward, leaving Percy in their dust.]

Where're you going? [His voice might echo to Fi even if he's trying to talk to the fish. He'll swim forward, cutting through the water to catch up before he stops a few feet away from the newcomer.] Oh.

[...give him a moment to look her over. What is she? He just doesn't know. But that doesn't stop him from watching the animals curiously check on Fi.] These kind are really friendly but they scare pretty easy too.

[guidance]

[her cape floats in the water, and her head turns to follow the creatures, studying them but saying nothing for a second while she takes in their coloration and patterns.]

They have nothing to fear in my presence. They should not be scared.

[she lets them swim around her as they would, one of the bolder ones coming up under her cape to dart through.

[expulsions]

I don't know if telling them not to be scared is gonna work on all of them. [He watches the fish duck in and out of Fi's cape even as he swims closer.] Have you ever done this before?

[guidance]

Have I done what? Communicated with fish?

[it's an honest question, as most questions are with her. so far she's determined that careful movements are the best to not unduly startle the creatures, and that they are more attuned to simple things.]

[expulsions]

Yeah. You don't seem to mind that they're circling you like that.

[guidance]

There is no reason to mind them. They are curious, and by my calculations there is no logical reason to insist that they stop.

[should she be minding? she's as curious as they are.]

[expulsions]

I don't know if everybody would think about what's logical or not. [But it also makes him wonder a little more about Fi.] I haven't had a chance to really get to know these guys yet either.

[It's then something else occurs to him, and it's probably a dumb question but it's one he wants to ask.] You're not worried about your cape being too heavy in the water?

[guidance]

Why would it be too heavy?

[she seems truly puzzled by the question, even as one of the fish comes up to look at her face.]

The weight of it has never posed a problem.

[expulsions]

Wait really? [He finally approaches to get a better look at Fi herself. Really, there's only one explanation.] Magic?

[guidance]

It is easiest to explain it as such, yes.

[as if he was a rabbitray himself, she lets him come close to her to examine. the cape drifts behind her in the water, floating like seaweed would on a plant, the two halves of color simply existing. magic is one word for it. that it is part of her is another.]

[expulsions]

[He sort of wants to touch it. That's just instinct, that's Percy's nature to touch things and look at things but he swims a slow circle around her instead. She may notice that one or two of the rabbitrays follow him as well, doing their best not to get too close but also not entirely worried about him.]

Who are you? [It's probably a more polite question than "what are you" which is his first instinct, but when you're from a world like his you start to just accept that some things are weird and magic comes in various forms.]

[guidance]

[his hesitation is registered and noted, and when he pauses in his swimming, she is the one to swim a little closer. there's a sixty percent chance that it will have positive results.]

My name is Fi.

[that doesn't answer the what of her, but it at least gives him a name to work with.]

[expulsions]

Fi. [That doesn't answer much, no, but he allows her to approach.] I'm Percy. What did you mean by "it's easiest to explain as magic"? Is it something else?

[It's not that he cares (well, okay, he does), but he also wants to get a sense of what kind of people are on-base. Peter had told him there are other people around with powers and abilities. He's still getting used to that idea, too.]

[guidance]

It's part of me.

[and to prove it, because people need proof, the cape wings move up, like raising your arms slowly, before she lowers them.]

Part of this form.

[expulsions]

[Ooh...he nods in understanding as he watches the cape wave.]

So you DO have another form. Are you stuck like this?

[guidance]

I am not. I can travel between my forms freely.

[in a different sense than she could before, but just as easily. if she was a more emotional being, she might have offered to show him, but as it is, she remains as she is, the idea that he might want to see passing through her mind but not seeming significant enough to stay.]

[expulsions]

[Suddenly he's reminded of a friend, someone he'd met years ago who asked him a lot of questions and though they'd annoyed Percy at the time, he wonders if maybe Fi feels the same way. That doesn't stop him though.]

And...what other forms do you have?

[guidance]

The form of my vessel, the Master Sword.

[Fi is the sword is Fi. just like that.]

[expulsions]

The Master Sword? [Lady you do not look like a sword? Also why does everyone have a talking sword but him, this is a ripoff. (Please don't give him a talking sword.)]

But that means you belong to someone don't you? Or is that...sorry, I've never actually talked to a sword before.

[guidance]

[for a moment, she is quiet.]

My master and I had an arrangement. Once our purpose was complete, it was dissolved, leaving us no longer master and servant, but...I would approximate it to "friends."

[that doesn't answer Percy's question, and yet it does. she used to belong to someone. she is always Hers. and she is his, but...what was it now? not something she had time to address before she had to sleep.]

[expulsions]

[That's fair, he thinks. He thinks that makes enough sense and though he has to wonder if it's solely because Fi doesn't know how to describe friendship or her master doesn't, he says nothing.]

Then I guess this is as good a form as any. You're free to do whatever you want without your arrangement. Were you together before you showed up here?

[guidance]

No. I had to enter into sleep, and he had to leave. And somehow, across dreaming worlds, I came here to wake up on this base.

[it was still peculiar, but she had accepted it as the way things were at the moment. there had to be a reason. something there was to be done. something for the travel, and Fi is patient enough to find out what it might be.]

[expulsions]

[Another one huh...]

A lot of us aren't entirely sure how we got here because we were all doing different things. But I think you're one of the first who's said you were in a sleep and woke up here. Everyone else was in the middle of something.

...the base isn't that bad though. You get used to it pretty fast. [He twirls a bit when a rabbitray swoops by him.] Or enough, at least.

[guidance]

It is...unlike anything I have seen before. Even in dreams, or listening to people speak of their imaginations.

[that much is true. she's seen and been told of so much, but never a society under the waves.]

I think it is...useful.

[that's the word she settles on, lacking the right way to describe how it makes her feel. (she does not feel. she is what she is.)]

[expulsions]

Not everything you enjoy always has to be useful, Fi. Remember that.

[But he looks through the water and seems to sense something.]

I should keep moving. Maybe I'll see you soon back at the base.