Jack awoke many hours later, feeling a bit disoriented as he looked around. It took him a few moments to remember what had happened the day before. He couldn't remember sleeping so soundly, or feeling so refreshed upon waking. He wondered whether there had been something in the food, but after a moment's debate figured it was just the aftermath of his revival from death and everything that had happened afterwards. He rubbed his eyes before stretching, then sat up and looked around. The chamber was empty, though from the depressions in the sand it was obvious that someone or several someones had been asleep nearby. He sighed softly, wishing he could remember. Maybe Nicolaren and Caterin weren't siblings, but were a couple, and he had gotten the relationship wrong.
He shrugged to himself. Either way, it didn't really matter, since he wasn't really interested in an intimate relationship with either of them. Well, if he had to admit it to himself, if one of them offered, he wouldn't turn them down, but that wasn't the purpose of his visit. He froze as the implications of that thought continued onwards. Was there an incarnation of Ianto in this world? And if there was, would he find him? Jack shook his head. If ever there was going to be a man who was incompatible, it would be one who was half fish. Jack thought about that for a moment. It seemed that no matter where he traveled, he never found the right version of Ianto. Maybe there wasn't another one like the man he had known. But he did have to admit to himself that he couldn't stop searching, and that each discovery made him fall in love all over again.
He lay back in the soft sand of the sleeping chamber and pillowed his head on his hands as he stared upwards. Even if he found Ianto in this world, he had a language barrier to overcome. And he wouldn't be able to bring this man back to his universe. He would be a fish out of water. Jack barked out a harsh laugh at his thought. Maybe he should leave now, and not pursue this world any further.
He was brought out of his thoughts by the arrival of some of the older children, who had come looking for him again. They splashed noisily into the bed chamber and their antics made Jack grin. If he hadn't been awake before, he would have been by their actions. He propped himself up on his elbows and watched them. Karakin was at the head of the group and he waved to Jack as he made his way through the water and hurled himself up onto the sand with one powerful stroke of his tail.
"Granoren," the boy said as he all but belly flopped onto the sand beside Jack. Jack laughed as water sprayed all over him and the other children tried to emulate the older boy's antics, each with varying degrees of success.
"Granoren?" Jack echoed, feeling a lesson coming on. Karakin nodded and made a motion with his hands. Jack shook his head, not understanding. The boy saw that and rolled over so that he was lying on his stomach next to Jack. He swiped his arm across the sand in front of them, smoothing the surface. Jack followed his movement with his eyes.
When Karakin was done, he started drawing. The boy drew a horizon line and what was probably supposed to be a sun, close to the edge. "Granoren," he stated. Jack nodded. It meant morning, or something close to that. After making sure that Jack had gotten the message, he then went higher and drew the sun again. "Nonoren," he stated. Jack nodded again. It meant noontime, and he began to see that in some ways, the language had a logic as Karakin went through other standard times of the day and night. He then wiped the sand again and began to draw more complex objects. He went over the names for men, women, children, and then began to make the differences between relationships, using the other children as examples.
Jack learned quickly. It helped that he had an eidetic memory for languages as well. Some things he managed to forget all too easily when he wanted to, but languages were something that he picked up quickly and hung onto the longest. It had helped him out a lot in the past, and he made good use of it now. When Karakin had drawn the difference between siblings and a married couple (signified by the small child drawn in between them,) Jack pointed to the drawing on the left. "Nicolaren and Caterin?"
Karakin nodded and Jack was pleased with himself that he had been right in his first surmise that the two were siblings. Karakin pointed to the other and said something that was too fast for Jack to follow, but he thought he had just been given an example for the family, he just didn't recognize the names. He furrowed his brow and tried to follow, but Karakin went onto other things and Jack was forced to keep up with him or lag behind in his lessons.
Eventually the other children became bored and went off to play, leaving the two of them alone. They were interrupted by Jack's stomach growling and Karakin laughed at the sound. Jack grinned back unapologetically. Karakin rolled off the sand and into the water.
"Marowen," he said. Jack recognized this word from the day before. It meant to come or to follow. He wasn't sure which, but if it led to food, he was all for it. Jack slipped into the water, this time finding it soothing. His myriad cuts and bruises had healed overnight and he was feeling good today. He swam surely behind the merboy, finding himself fascinated with the way the boy swam. He wondered what it would be like to have a tail and found himself wondering how they reproduced. Definitely not a conversation he could have with a child, he thought to himself.
They went through several passageways that he hadn't remembered traversing the night before until they came back into the common area. The large cavern was busy with women and children working. There were some older members of the community perched on rocks doing mending of nets and other such things, but for the most part the men were gone. He assumed they were off fishing or hunting. It was a simple life, and not the first time he had resided amongst a technologically primitive world. But they were often the most happy, not having the trappings of technology getting in the way of living their lives.
Many of the women stopped in their work as they watched the boy and the strange man they had brought into their midst. The two were talking slowly as they moved through the chamber, and it was obvious that Jack had quickly picked up the language. The more vocabulary he got, the more he wanted to practice. He felt a need to communicate with these people with something other than gestures and facial expressions. Karakin brought him over to where the food was and told Jack to help himself to what was there. Jack looked at the offerings and picked up whatever seemed interesting. He had yet to find anything he didn't like about this place. He hauled himself up onto a shelf to perch on while he ate. One of the women came over with a clay pitcher and mug so he could have something to drink and she smiled as he thanked her in her own language.
"You are learning," she replied with a twinkle in her eye. He grinned as he realized he was finally understanding what the others around him were saying. It had been several hours of work for Karakin to go through most of the basics with him, but he had eagerly lapped up the words, knowing that they would unlock the barrier he was behind because of the differences in languages.
"Poorly, but yes," he replied. "I am Jack," he said, introducing himself to the willowy blonde. So far he hadn't found any sort of contractions in this language, which was probably for the best. It was less confusing that way to learn.
"Lauran," she replied. She said something else that was outside of his learned vocabulary, but he got the gist of it, which was "I am pleased to meet you." Someone called to her and she glanced over her shoulder. "I must go back to work."
"Thank you again," he replied and watched as she quickly went back to the other side of the cove where she went back to work. He finished his meal and sat back, feeling idle in this rather busy community, but not sure what he could do to help them. Though he had worked as a sailor back in the 1800s and early 1900s when he had found himself marooned on Earth, he wasn't sure his somewhat rusty skills would be of much use here with these people. Instead he just listened to the conversations between the women, trying to pick out what words he could recognize and puzzle his way through the ones he didn't.
Once he had sat long enough, he decided to see if he could be of some help. He made his way over to where the older gentlemen were repairing the nets and pulled himself onto a ledge there. One of the oldsters glanced in his direction and nodded briefly. They continued to work at repairing the tears and rips and after a pause he offered to help. A second older gentleman snorted in disbelief, but tossed a portion of the net in his direction. Jack moved over and pulled it onto his lap. The wet netting weighed heavily in his lap and he bent his head to examine it.
"Here," the first man said and handed him a shuttle with some twine already worked into it. Jack thanked him, making the man raise an eyebrow in response before he looked down at the hole that he had found. He started in on repairing his section, well aware that they were watching him. When after a time it looked like he did indeed know what he was doing, they went back to their idle chatter as they worked. Old habits helped Jack to get into the swing of things as he repaired the rip he found in the netting. His fingers worked in patterns he had thought long forgotten, but which were there somewhere in his memory. He settled into his work, content that he was doing something useful to give back to the community.
He wasn't aware of the passage of time in this underground lair and it wasn't until the men started coming in with their hauls that he realized he had been working for several hours on the nets with the older men. He looked up as one of them sighed and saw the look of satisfaction on the older man's face at the size of the catch. He had also learned that was how Nicolaren had found him, as he had dropped down to the seabed floor quite close to one of their more prolific traps. He wondered if they would have found him otherwise, but put that thought out of his head.
"Enough," the older man told Jack as he reached for more to work on. "Rest." Jack looked up in surprise and the man nodded at his hands. When he looked down, he was surprised to see that they were raw from having worked so long on the webbing of the nets. He let the old man gather up the net they had been working on and put it away for the night. Jack felt stiff from having sat so long in one position, bent over the net as he worked. He stretched, easing the kinks in his muscles. Several of the children who were not busy helping with the evening haul came over as they noticed him. They chattered at him, and he just nodded, only half listening to their talk. This tired he wasn't able to parse the words as well as he had in the morning, so it was turning into a blur. The older man seated next to him saw that he was tired and shooed them away. Like puppies they cavorted in the water and Jack smiled gratefully at his benefactor.
"Richendon," the older man said, and held his hand palm up towards Jack. Jack placed his own hand face down on top of it.
"Jack," he said with a tired smile. "Thank you."
"Thank you for helping us mend the nets. You do good work." Richendon said. Jack nodded, accepting the praise. "You are welcome to help us any time you wish."
"I will," Jack promised. Richendon urged him to go relax, and Jack slipped off the rock shelf and into the water. He made his way over to where the families were working on getting the evening meal together and figured he could be put to work there helping out. It made him feel good to know he was earning his keep. He noticed that while the fishing seemed to be a male dominated job, all of the other tasks were shared equally. In fact, as he watched, he could see family units working together to make their own meals. Those people who weren't attached to anyone else gathered together in a communal group. It was here he found Nicolaren and his sister, who smiled at him and gestured for him to join them.
"Good evening," he said with a nod as he reached for a bowl of water tubers and started pulling the husk from one in an attempt to assist with preparing the evening meal. Nicolaren turned with a surprised look on his face.
"Evening," he responded with a nod.
"Good catch today?" Jack asked. Nicolaren stared at him for a moment before chuckling. He reached past Jack to grab a tuber as well and peeling the top, took a bite out of it, earning a rebuke from his sister. He grinned at her unrepentantly before turning back to Jack.
"Yes, very good. I see you have been busy today," he nodded in response, acknowledging both Jack's increased language skills as well as the marks on his hands. "How much have you been able to pick up?"
"Enough to hold a conversation on my own," Jack replied with a grin. He was tempted to take a bite out of the tuber in his hands just to see what Caterin's reaction to that would be, but decided to err on the side of caution. The root felt hard in his hands and he wasn't sure if his teeth would appreciate it. Instead, he finished peeling it and set it off to one side. Caterin snatched it up with a glare at her brother before moving it out of his reach.
"Good. I see you must be good at net repair as well, though your hands seem a bit worn," Nicolaren observed. Jack glanced down at the cuts and nicks in his hands and shrugged.
"All part of the work that needs to get done," he said as he peeled another tuber. Nicolaren nodded and leaned back. He just watched Jack as he cleaned the root and placed it to one side (on the other side of the bowl away from his friend,) before picking up another. He felt the other man's eyes watching him, but kept his own on his task. He wasn't sure what was going on in the other man's head, so he continued with what he was doing. Caterin deftly removed the tubers as he finished them and added them to the fire to grill. She slapped her brother's hand away when he tried to sneak one to eat and he grinned at her.
"Go on you two!" She cried exasperated. Jack made a sound of protest since he hadn't been the one causing trouble, but she shooed him away. "You worked all day on the nets with the elders. You deserve some time to relax. Go over there somewhere and sit." She crowded her body against Jack and her brother and pushed them both out of the way.
They laughingly obeyed her, seeing that she was determined to get them away from the food. The two men moved away and off to one side where they lay on the sand watching the other families together. Jack observed with interest as the small family units broke up and made for their own separate spaces in the common area. He assumed that each family had its own space and that once the common tasks where shared that they went off on their own. He wondered if he should move off and give his friends from privacy, but Nicolaren didn't seem to be bothered, so he didn't know how to broach it.
"Is there someone special here for you?" Jack finally asked, trying to ask without being too forward about whether his friend was interested in someone. Nicolaren glanced over at him before looking back towards the groups of singles who were flirting with one another in the water and didn't seem to be part of a particular family unit.
"No," he replied, idly trailing his tail in the water back and forth. He glanced over at Jack speculatively. "Do you have someone where you come from?"
"No, not anymore," Jack replied. He was looking out at the younger people and didn't notice Nicolaren's expression. "Is this everyone in your village?" He asked.
"No," Nicolaren answered. "There is an enclave not too far from here where we have another fishing group. We try not to thin out the schools too much in one location, and we migrate from one place to another so we do not deplete the stock in one area. The other group is preparing our winter location. It is larger and much more comfortable than this place once the weather turns."
"Is winter coming soon?" Jack asked after taking a moment to puzzle out the terms that he didn't understand. Winter was a new word and he mentally filed it away as a new part of his vocabulary. Being inside, it was hard to tell what season it was, and from his very short glimpse of this world before he plunged into the water, he hadn't had much time to make an assessment for himself.
"Soon enough," Nicolaren said with a shrug. "We will be moving shortly. Already the fish have begun to migrate, so it is only a matter of time before we move on as well. The catch from today was showing signs that we may want to start in the next several days."
"If I can be of help," Jack offered to his new friend, "please let me know. I would like to make myself useful to the tribe." Nicolaren grinned at his offer to help and nodded amicably. He was intrigued by this man who didn't have a tail. There was something that seemed so solitary and alone about him, even when he was in the midst of a group. The merman felt sorry for him. Was he the last of his kind? How did he come to fall into their ocean? In some ways their communication had been very simple, and he wondered if Jack had been able to grasp enough of the language for more complex terms.