She so wanted to start tearing ass up the beach. That would've been the intelligent thing to do. That would've been her self-preservation instinct kicking in and saving her reckless, tempting fate ass. Too bad that on both counts, something had obviously malfunctioned in her mind.

Instead, she just sat there and stared back at those eerie red-violet eyes and grinning mouths filled with razor sharp looking teeth. She didn't even bother pulling her foot away from the probing touch. One part of her screaming with fear. The other with curiosity.

It was a paralyzing effect.

Thank whatever deity was looking down upon the situation; the two creatures didn't seem intent on harming her. For now at least. They both seemed...curious. And amused. The red colored one more so than his gold twin.

Still her strangled exclamation garnered her an unexpected reaction from the two. Really, she should have expected it, given how...entertained they seemed. Because as soon as she uttered the words, they both burst into laughter. The red one falling against the gold one as they did so. It was enough to almost send her into a fit of giggles.

Oh hysteria, thou art an exasperating bitch.

Cautiously, while they were apparently distracted by her distress, she begins to ease herself back just a little more. A girl needs distance you know? Too bad she's always been terrible at estimating just how much attention she garners.

Stealthy she is not.

The gold one notices and one of his hands snake out, lightning quick, to grasp her ankle. Now, she's not an overly small girl, so the fact that his hand is able to wrap around it entirely, is almost as startling as the move itself. Enough for her to try to flinch back and away.

She's lucky. She is really, really lucky. The involuntary reaction isn't enough to even budge the unnatural strength behind the grip. Otherwise her foot would be shredded. Those wicked looking claws would be more than enough to do so.

Grip firming the slightest bit, almost like the squeeze of comfort you'd get from a friend or a warning from some creature that you're sure could very much destroy you if it wanted, the golden one gave a gentle tug at her ankle. "Now, don't go running away dear. We're not going to hurt you! We're just curious and would like to chat! Well, Sides would anyway."

The voice that came from him was bewitching; her gaze immediately shot up from his hand to meet his eyes. Steady, almost lyrical, and slightly haughty, the voice was one she wouldn't mind listening to again and again. It was pleasing. And augmented by those pretty glowing eyes of his.

Head feeling slightly foggy and disconnected, some deep hidden instinct roared from the back of her mind. Distant. Almost ignorable. Almost.

Reeling back slightly for a second in surprise – When had she started to lean toward him? – she instead folded forward to curl over her knees and glared into those pretty eyes. Whatever it was that he'd done, it had since eased and cleared.

And oh was she mildly pissed...and scared. She could feel her voice deepen slightly and fall into the cadence it does when she's being serious. Or angry. She's definitely a little angry right now. "Please let go. I won't ask twice."

Simple. Blunt. Funny how fear and a sense of slight indignation can make you fearless. As paradoxical as that was. Or maybe it was just that reckless streak acting up again.

The way his eyes widened then narrowed, and the way his brother's head jerked up with a surprised "oh", would have been comical any other time. Right now though. Right now she was very much aware that she was at their mercy. It was something that she expected to be called out for.

Except it didn't happen. She got an analyzing look from the gold one and a slow grin that morphed into an outright smile from the red one. Sides, she thinks his name was.

Meeting their eyes boldly, she tentatively and slowly began to pull her ankle away. Refusing to look away at any point.

And she was allowed to do so; the clawed hand's grip relaxing minutely and opening enough to let her ankle pull free with little issue. She doubted she'd ever forget the sensation of those claws brushing lightly against her skin as she did so. He did that on purpose. She knows he did.

Whatever. She's free now and that's all that matters. In this moment anyways.

Opportunity presented, she pulled her legs up until they're as close to her chest as they could possibly get. When that didn't garner anything more than an amused snort and arched brow, she slowly scooted a little farther away. She was not taking any chances with these two.

Expression turning a little mutinous and feeling braver, than before, she tilted her head and really looked at them. They were as strange as her initial panicked observations showed.

Flaring, ruffled fins where ears should be, twitching every now and then when she shifted. A patch of dark colored...hair? A shock of dark hair curling from the front of their heads and disappearing toward the back. Fucking wild.

Brilliantly colored scales where only skin should be, tapering off into completely scaled tails that sported larger fins along the back and sides. Dorsal and...pelvic fins? That's what they're called, she thought at least. Those fins looked a bit different than the ones along the sides of their heads, from what she could see at least. These fins seemed more rigid.

The glowing eyes, cat-like slit pupils, teeth and claws just wrapped up the package of strange and dangerous. They both were some odd amalgamation of human and sea creature.

They held a certain attractiveness though. In a beautiful, but deadly, off-putting way. She could admit that. Not aloud though, she had a feeling that if she did, their egos would swell and they'd float away or something. They just had that kind of smugness about them.

So yeah, no saying stuff like that out loud. Ever.

In all the time that it took for her to formulate her thoughts into something cohesive and understandable, they had drawn their own conclusions about her.

Bolder than they'd initially thought, bright eyes that lit up challengingly at them, an accented voice that was as odd as it was captivating, odd, wiggly things that she used to walk, and a stubbornness spoken purely in the set of her shoulders...she was exactly the type of person they loved to tease. And more importantly, she had given them an opportunity to learn about something they'd been warned to fear.

And honestly, she'd won some respect by not freaking out and running away screaming. Especially after the stunt Sunny pulled.

All in all, for them, their curiosity was fixated entirely on her for the time-being. If they were being honest though, it had been since the second or third time she'd shown up. Not many humans would do so and seem completely unaffected, or less affected by their mischief.

So they were very curious. And that curiosity needed to be satisfied.

They'd never interacted directly with a human and this was a chance they were willing to take, since she didn't seem very dangerous.

In their opinions, this was two worlds colliding, so to speak. It would be an exciting tale to tell. Hopefully. And they'd get to learn.

It just so happened, in their favor, that she was just as curious about them.

Because, moments later her shoulders relaxed down slightly and her expression turned thoughtful. The fear was quickly ebbing away and rapidly being replaced by a rampant desire to know more. They were entirely unique beings, to her at least.

And you know what they say, curiosity killed the cat.

But this was just too tempting too pass up. And really, if she was going to bite it, then she was going to bite it, learning.

Nodding resolutely to herself, she carefully folded her legs from their cramped position into a cross-legged position. If she was going to be here for however long this would take, she was going to be comfortable dammit.

The feeling of butterflies swarming around in her stomach made her hesitate and swallow dryly, though. She was not expecting just how intense their gazes were. She'd been distracted with her fear and anger earlier and never really noticed. They were watching her every move and that in itself was terrifying.

She hated being the focus of anyone's attention.

Add in that they're kinda attractive, well...she wasn't going to be comfortable anytime soon.

Eyes flicking between them, the dock, and back to them, she gathered her voice to speak, wincing at the hoarseness of it, "Soooo, who- or what are you?"