bakerstreet | open mic night

Nisere whistled quietly, unsure of exactly what they were talking about. Still, he pulled himself up onto the edge of the boat a little more when one of the humans cut through the iron and the lock was removed.

He'd been trying to break into the box since he'd first found it, when he and his pod had settled here as young adults.

Inside, though, was just a bunch of paper. Dry, but paper. Nisere leaned up and reached out, but before he could touch anything, the man Eliot had been talking to reached out to touch his wrist.

"Wait, let us take everything out." Because inside the chest was a thick stack of what looked like bonds of some sort. Carefully, he scooped them out. Despite its trials, the inside of the box was still safe from water. Nisere could paw through whatever else was in the chest, but the bonds would benefit from staying dry and untouched by saltwater.

Nisere watched the paper be taken out, but leaned forward, staring down into the bottom of the box.

There was another box, wooden, and he dragged that out, fumbling open the little latch. He hummed, pleased, when he saw what was inside. a blade, in a sheath. It was heavy, with little sparlking jewels over it. Carefully, he tested the blade and bubbled, pleased. This was useful, at least, not like the paper. Holding it in one hand, he looked into the box, but there was nothing else except some round gold coins that he also had no use for.

Nisere lifted the knife to his chest and bubbled again, as if to say, 'This is mine'.

"All yours, buddy." Eliot said, smiling again, "Pretty sure you can have the coins too, if you want them." He wasn't sure if they'd be useful as decoration or net-weights or anything for the Mer, though he knew they'd be worth something to the right collector, and trusted the captain to make that call as needed.

He was already glancing over the bonds and letters of writ himself, brow creasing just a little, not as old as he'd expected, but definitely old enough to be worth a fair deal, something that they would probably discuss as a group later.

"Can I take some photographs of that first, Nisere?" Shelly asked, holding up her camera. "You can have it back afterwards."

Nisere paused for a moment to consider, then nodded and held out the knife. Shelly took it and set it down on the deck, starting to photograph it from every angle.

"I think we should all agree right now that, no matter what these are worth, the money is going towards the research funds. That we don't take any for ourself. It's not ours, it's his," the captain said and nodded to Nisere, who was watching him with those eerie eyes. "And we'll use it to help him and all Mer."

There were murmurs of assent all around, and Eliot relaxed further, nodding once. If push came to shove and the Captain couldn't get the money funneled correctly, he knew a guy who knew a guy and they'd get it figured out soon enough, if it needed figuring.

Once Shelly had finished taking pictures of the knife, Eliot inspected it for a moment to see if he could place era or origin, finally just handing it back to Nisere with a smile, "If you find any more boxes, let us know?"

Nisere nodded, but couldn't immediately think of any other boxes he'd found recently.

"Or if you find any more ships, especially if they're really buried in the sand." Nisere nodded again with a grin. He then looked to Eliot questioningly - was he going to get back in? - starting to sink back into the water, his increased body weight making it a bit uncomfortable to stay up for so long.

"How about tomorrow I come back again?" He asked, just watching Nisere, "Bring a camera so the rest of the crew can see too, so I don't have to explain everything." It would mean that Eliot was carrying more gear, at least somewhat, but he didn't think that was necessarily a bad thing.

Nisere frowned, a bit disapponted, but nodded. He was pretty hungry, after all, and he wanted to rest for a bit, and his pod would be glad to have him home and where they could keep him well-fed and fat.

"I wonder... keepers training dolphins in captivity with cue cards... Could we do the smae with him? Or even teach him sign language. It'd be fascinating to have some insigt from him that we don't have to interpret through charades."

Eliot gave Nisere a smile, "Tomorrow will be better, I'll get a camera and have more time to prepare, be able to stay down longer."

He nodded to Shelly, "Don't see why not, if we've got a dive board and some magnets I can take them down with me tomorrow."

The next few days passed in a bit of a flash. Nisere grew more and more visibly round each time the crew saw him, but he also took to the dive board like a Mer to water, even going so far as to write in the sand when the board wasn't enough to express a certain word or thought.

He'd also agreed to wear a camera, but on a strap around his body that could move freely and he rarely thought about pointing it at anything in particular, so it was mostly footage of water or sand - mostly it picked up audio of Mer songs.

they didn't mind the lack of video, or rather, the video that was like home movies many of them had filmed before they knew how to properly operate the camera. A few of them were working out how to get a smaller camera on a chest rig because aside from when they were actually swimming, that would give them a better idea of what Nisere was actually looking at.

It meant sacrificing sound, though, and most of them weren't sure they wanted to do that, not when they were getting so much input from the vocalizations.

Some of them were surprised at how quickly Nisere picked up what the board was for and how to communicate with it, though none of them were surprised at Eliot making a go at learning the Mer written language in turn, at least what of it Nisere would teach him.

Nisere surfaced at the edge of the boat like he'd done so many days in a row, but this time, didn't pull himself up to lean on the edge, instead just gripping with his fingers, resting his chin on the edge. He warbled a few notes in greeting. He was tired of eating, and fat, and he wanted his Queen to call for him already. He was ready for her, ready for eggs and then babies.

He reached out for his dive board, which was usually left near the edge so he could pick it up and use it whenever he wanted. It was much easier for him to learn whatever language the humans spoke than them learn Mer, even if his writing was based more on pattern-recognition than understanding the actual words.

Instead of writing, though, he started to draw. He first drew the slope of the ocean floor, from the level of the water sloping out a bit, then dipping down dramatically. It was there he drew the same Eliot would recognize as a Mer - but small, and then beside it, a much larger shape - his Queen. He also drew the little cave and an even smaller mer and the grid-shape he'd come to associate with human pods with.

Next to the drawing of the Prince he drew the Mer symbol associated with the self - that was him, there. That done, he rested the board on the end of the boat, careful to not leave it close enough that it would fall in, then settled in to wait for somebody to emerge from the ship.

There was usually someone up at that time of morning, just checking the feeds and making sure the prior day's information had been archived, which was why Eliot had heard the greeting warble, and made his way to the end of the boat, brow furrowing a little to find that the mer wasn't sitting there as he often did -though less often as of late, given how big he was getting, something that still worried them a little- and so Eliot just sat there himself, close enough that he'd be able to pull himself back up should he fall in, but letting his feet hang over the edge, "What's up, buddy?"

Catching sight of the board his brow furrowed a little, studying the drawing and trying to make sense of it, turning it back around, "Okay, so this is you," He gestured at the indicator, "So what's this one?"

Nisere pointed to the Queen and whistled the exultant litany of notes that was his Queen, before he tried to simplify it. But how to do that? How to make it into something Eliot could process? There was so much to a Queen, she was so much. He tried, but no matter what he did, he couldn't get it to less than five simultaneous notes. So he gave up with a small sigh.

Then he pointed to himself, then to the 'home' on the board, before dragging his finger down the slope to the drawing of the Prince and the Queen. He whistled her again, then made the noise he'd used before to refer to a baby or adolescent animal. It was clumsy, to try to communicate to a human in his own language. He had to make it easy to understand.

They'd learned that it was usually important, or even just complex, things that needed the additional harmonizing and notes, and even then their understanding was limited, but they were working on it.

Eliot's brow creased a little, "You're going home?" He was fairly sure he had that part right, but the rest was still a puzzle, because while he knew the tones meant something younger, it had been used for dolphin pups and pictures of baby humans alike -once the mer had understood that they weren't just smaller adults- but it was the first part that was still puzzling him.

Nisere frowned, then shook his head. He pointed at the grid and the smallest mer shape, then made the 'home' noise, like the quiet rushing of water over a reef. This was home, here. His pod was home. He pointed to himself and the Mer again, repeating the 'home' call, looking up to Eliot, hoping he would understand what he meant. He was home, but he would be going away soon.

His brow furrowed a little, venturing: "I got it backwards. You're already home, but you'll be going away." And then, brow furrowing more deeply, "Because there are babies?"

He still wasn't sure he had it right, but knew that Nisere would correct him again if he wasn't, though the mer already looked tired of trying.

Nisere whistled and nodded. He patted his fat, his blubber that would protect him from the cold and sustain him while he carried the eggs, before returning to the board. He pointed again at the Queen, then the Prince, then made the baby sound again. Then he hesitated and replaced it with the more complicated, more accurate 'Mer egg' trill, all full of joy and warbling notes.

Then he trailed his finger back up the slope to the home.

And that was babies again, only more complicated, and Eliot wasn't sure what to make of it, so he guessed again, "You're going away, for the babies, but you'll come back?"

He suspected that was what the return trip was, though he couldn't be completely sure, "And will you bring them with you?"

Nisere trilled again, whistling loudly. He pointed at the Queen then rolled onto his back, forming his hands into a roughly ovular shape, heels of his palms and fingers pressed together, then he brought his hands down to his cloaca, making the wonderful and lilting 'Mer egg' call again.

His brow furrowed once more, shaking his head, "You lost me again." He could make a guess, certainly, and it wasn't like there was no precedent for the males to carry the young, but he had no real frame of reference as far as mer physiology to work from. Just speculation.

Nisere frowned and rolled with a small sigh. He was cranky and his patience was wearing thin. He righted himself and made the same shape with his hands, using the simplified baby sound, staring at Eliot expectantly. This was an egg, a mer egg specifically.

He was still trying to work it out, though he was hindered by the fact that no one knew whether Mer had live births like whales and dolphins, or if they laid eggs like other fish, or even had anchored egg sacs like sharks did.

Though realization dawned a moment later, or something like it, "Eggs? Not just babies, but eggs? Where the babies come from?"

Nisere whistled again and righted himself. He moved back to the edge of the boat and took the board again, wiping it clean roughly. He drew the symbol of a mer egg, an ovoid shape surrounded by the Prince and the water around, then drew the egg - not perfectly an oval, but slightly curved, one end slightly elongated and curved.

He waited it out, letting Nisere draw what he was going to before he nodded, "Okay, so... you're going away, to have eggs, and then you'll come back?"

Mostly he just wanted to make sure he had everything in the right order, if Nisere even fully understood what he was asking.

Nisere squinted a little. That was mostly close. He made the egg shape with his hands again and rolled onto his back, mimicking the same motion he did before, pointing the tips of his fingers towards his cloaca and again made the Qeen call. He was going to go away, get eggs, come back, then have them.

open mic night

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