Hiding the Marks

"Bloody-.... Shoot!" the young siren hissed irritably, sending a nearby flock of birds into frantic flight.

Adonia sat in her usual hiding spot under the weeping willows by the water's edge. She rolled her eyes at the silly birds, and looked down at the large, angry-looking bruise on her left arm which she had been attempting to conceal by creating a new growth of the greenish scales she wore a clothing.

Taking a deep breath, she calmed down and tried once more, concentrating all her energy into the growth of a new pattern of scales across her arm to hide the bruising. A few minutes later, she looked down to see her handiwork and hissed in frustration once again. The usual blue-green of her scales was a strange, greyish purple in the places where they covered the bruises.

"Well, I guess I'll be wearing my hair down for a while" she said undoing her ponytail to hide the large bruises along her back and lying back on the grass. A number of the discolored blue-green scales lay scattered about from her earlier attempts at concealing her bruises.

"Now what am I going to do about you?" she sighed scraping off a small segment of the discolored scales to peer at the bruise, wrinkling her nose as she accidentally rested her head back on the bump on the back of her head.

"Bloody blond menace...." she muttered, closing her eyes and enjoying the warmth of the sun as she remembered her encounter with Eos and the extraordinarily violent blond. "At least Jack doesn't know" she muttered with a small smile as the sun warmed her face.

((eh, I was bored >w> Wheee! Darn you Bjorn! *fist-shake* XDD))

Jane had been down by the lake when she noticed some birds fly up suddenly. She frowned. She wasn't much of one to watch bird patterns or anything, but they never did something like that unless they were disturbed by something...or someone. Was someone over there?

Slowly, all her senses focused to see if there was someone else around, she walked towards where the birds had taken off. "Hello?" she asked. "Is anyone there?"

Adonia's yes popped open at the sound of the voice. That voice sounded familiar, but she couldn't place it... It was definitely female though.

She sat up rapidly, careful to keep her hair over her back and hoping no one would notice the discolored pattern of her scales as she looked around for the source of the voice.

For a moment she considered staying silent in her hiding spot, but instead, he responded in a quiet, but carrying tone, "Y-yes... Who are you?"

She advanced slowly towards where she'd heard the voice, coming from amidst some trees. "Jane Aire. I saw some birds fly up and wanted to see who'd disturbed them..."

That voice sounded slightly familiar, but she couldn't place it. There were too many people she didn't know here, and it frustrated her...but she was getting better at it.

"Jane..." Adonia thought back to the events of the past couple days before finally remembering. "Oh Jane! I remember you," she called to her, recalling the older girl with the dark hair.

"Its Adonia.... er... yes... that was my doing... quite unintentional, but... well yes..." she said sheepishly as she listened to the girl's approaching footsteps, wondering if she would find her hidden clearing in the willows. "So what brings you to the lake?"

"Just wandering," she replied, trying to place the voice. However, the willows were getting thick and she frowned, trying to find her way through or around them. "I was also thinking of going for a swim, but it's a bit chilly today..."

She wondered why the other girl was hiding. Maybe there was some obvious way of getting through that she didn't know about...that would make her feel stupid...

Adonia smiled nervously as Jane's voice got closer. "Is it?" she said looking around curiously. "I don't always notice the cold since I tend to spend time in the water in all kinds of weather..."

She couldn't help but gulp nervously. Jane would find her sooner or later... and then there might be questions about what had happened to her. Adonia disliked lying, but she began to seriously consider it in order to prevent the story from making its way to Jack's ears.

"But then, I'm a siren, so the water is my natural element no matter where I am. You are... human correct?" she said from her spot in the clearing, listening to the older girl move though the trees.

Jane paused to glance around, figuring that there must be a better way through the willows. Moving in a direction that looked slightly less dense than the rest of it, she tried to keep up the conversation. "Yes, I am, and I guess the closest thing to my natural element would be a city."

"A city.." Adonia mused, trying to understand. "Oh! You mean like one of those places with a ton of people living close to each other right?" she said cocking her head as she remembered the small town she used to sneak into back home.

"Yeah. I think the population of mine was around...6 million? It's hard to remember." Jane was finding that the going was getting slightly easier, though she wasn't headed straight for Adonia's voice anymore. Oh well, she could find her way around...where was that girl hiding anyway?

"That' quite a lot of people" she said, quite shocked. "Or at least it sounds like a lot...." She listened to the girl's footsteps moving away. wondering if perhaps she had given up looking for her.

She nodded, though she knew the other girl most likely couldn't see her. "It is, I lived in a pretty big city. But it wasn't the biggest..."

Finally giving up on trying to find a way through to the other girl's voice, she put her hands on her hips and looked around. "Where are you?"

Adonia giggled and sent a little floating orb of water through the trees to hover in front of the girl. "Follow the water" she said as the ball began to move back toward her hiding place. she would have stood, but she hoped to keep her hair covering her back and arm as much as possible.

She followed the orb of water, feeling slightly foolish. "Thanks." The trees looked thick, but when she pushed through them...there were ways.

When she reached the clearing she shuffled her feet a little awkwardly before glancing around. "Nice little place you've found here," she remarked.

Addi looked around with a smile, her hair spread out around her. "I am rather fond of it... Its a good place to think.." she said, sounding a bit distant. "And a good place to hide." she said with a grin. "How have you been as of late?"

She shrugged, sitting down. Something seemed slightly off about Adonia, she just couldn't place what it was...

"I've been fine," she replied. "Not spectacular, but better than I could be." She smiled wryly. "And you? How are you?"

"Oh... I'm fine!" she said, perhaps a bit too cheerfully. "Are you certain you're OK?" she said cocking her head and looking at the older girl, her hair shifting slightly as she did so.

"Hm? Oh yeah, I'm fine." Definitely something funny....it seemed like Adonia was being overly cheerful, and compared to her behavior when Jane had first come along, there was most likely something wrong. "I mean, as fine as I really can be, which is, admittedly, better than I am normally. So yeah."

"Oh that's good" Adonia said smiling kindly at the girl. She seemed so distant, but then Addi had never been an overly social person either. She fiddled with a piece of her hair as she tried to think of something to say. "S-so how are you enjoying your classes?"

She shrugged. "They're certainly different than what I'm used to. Different in a good way, I guess, because they're not as hard of some of mine back home were."

Jane tilted her head to the side, studying Adonia through slightly narrowed eyes, as if that would give her the answers she was looking for. "Are you sure you're okay?"

Adonia, shifted uncomfortably, with an awkward grin. "O-of course I'm ok... w-why would I not be ok?" she said, still fiddling with her hair.

She shrugged. "That's why I'm asking. You just seem nervous...like really nervous." Turning her head back normally, she gave Adonia an intense green-eyed stare. "You know, if you need to talk about something, I can try to listen without interrupting too much."

"Er.... n-no I'm fine... nothing's wrong" she said bringing her hands up in front of her, failing to notice that doing so slightly exposed the discolored scales along her upper arm.

"Hmmm...are you sure?" she asked, wondering what could have been so bad that Adonia would be denying it so much. Maybe she shouldn't pry...but it was so hard not to... "It looks like something happened." Jane nodded towards the discolored scales.

Adonia looked where Jane indicated and her face turned a bright shade of pink. "O-oooooooooh..... that" she sighed, looking at Jane with a resigned sort of expression. "Is it really that obvious?"