Another 5 pages for your reading pleasure. I'm hoping that the chapter after this squeezes in some quality Prumano bonding before the major shit goes down. Anyhow, enjoy?

After some walking, the pair circumvented the village to come along a small cottage lost in the thicket. It was small, run-down—made from interlaced sticks and logs and sealed with dried mud while the thatched roof, patchy in areas, littered clumps of hay into the grass. Nearby, trees clustered around a riverbed, but the water was only a trickle in the intense summer heat.

"It isn't much," Gilbert grunted as he lowered Lovino out onto a patch of ground near the door.

Immediately Lovino sprawled out over the grass, stretching his fingertips to dig into the dirt, tail swishing back and forth, eyes brightening at the strange textures and the coolness of the shade. He buried his nose deep into a patch of clovers with a long exhale; a little laugh escaped him as pollen tickled his nose. Then, satisfied, he rested his chin on his hands and closed his eyes.

When he did speak, his voice grated, long separated from water. "S'grass."

In the meantime, Gilbert worked to jimmy the door open and stepped inside to sit on the little rug just in the entry way. He used an old rag to wipe at his feet—bloodied and dirtied from the long trek—then stood, offering a hand to Lovino. "You want to come inside, or would you rather roll in the dirt like some kind of muddy pig?"

"…Pig?"

Gilbert shook his head. "S'nothing. A land animal." He hoisted Lovino up.

Gilbert had to rotate mid-step to fit Lovino's tail through the door, but he managed to haul and deposit the mermaid onto a pile of blankets near the back. Lovino sat, blinking, fingers curling into the unfamiliar texture of wool as he looked around.

The cottage was just as small inside as it appeared out, the one room furnished only with blankets, one rickety table mismatched by an old crate for a chair, and a little firepit made from an iron tub. Sunlight poured in through the gaps in the wall that Gilbert had failed to stuff with rags. The floor was packed dirt.

"This is where humans live?" Lovino asked. He'd finagled the one blanket to cover his tail. He sat picking at the fluff escaping a hole in the other.

"Um, sorta," Gilbert muttered. "It was the cheapest shit I could find, had to trade promised labor because my money is kind of on a ship in the middle of the ocean." He pinched his nose with a long sigh, "But s'life, I guess. I don't really need all that much anyway, and this is better than nothing. Damn lucky find, if you ask me. But no, it's not exactly typical. Most people can afford tables and chairs and wooden floors and stovetops and cupboards and all that shit." He glanced over at Lovino, realizing that he was not following. He waved his hands, at a loss for words, then clasped them together and shook his head again with a breathless little laugh. "You don't know what any of that is, do you?"

Lovino shook his head. "…No?"

"Well…uh, human stuff. Okay, fine, then where do Mermaids and their girly little tails live, then?"

"How bout I slash you with my spines, gonna call it girly then? Also you'd be surprised, the women are scarier anyway. More spines. Claws. Sometimes pointed teeth." Lovino scoffed but leaned back against the wall, drawing his tail closer. He picked absently at his scales as he spoke. "But, um, I haven't had a home in a long time. Usually we just live in caves anyway. Ice caves, normal caves, rivers, I don't know. Just any place kinda sheltered like that so we can hide. We sleep on shit we make from seaweed, but sand can be comfortable too. We don't…build shit. S'not like we have trees."

"True," Gil mused.

Lovino winced, irritated by the sting of dryness slowly seeping across his tail.

Gilbert blinked. "Oi. You okay?"

"Get me water," Lovino said. "Tail's drying out. That shit ain't good. S'not supposed to do that."

"Yeah, one second." Gilbert raced toward a jug of water he'd been keeping in the corner. Half he dumped over a wadded old blanket, which he wrapped slowly around Lovino's tail, taking care to be gentle when the other winced and hissed. The tail, once slimy, had taken on the texture of a scaled reptile—and an angry red rash splayed irritation out over where the scales slowly bled into the skin of his midriff.

Lovino closed his eyes. "Better." He cursed quietly to himself. "S'why I have to stay near the fucking ocean. I hate it."

Gilbert shrugged. "I think…when there isn't a drought that river should be filled with water again…" He took a second rag, dipping it into the water, and started to dab at the dried skin on his chest and up to his forehead, where beads of sweat plastered his hair to his forehead.

"Can't wait that long," Lovino groaned. "Fuck this. Fuck this fucking sun and this fucking tail, I just want to—" He scowled, biting his tongue.

"…Want to what?" Gilbert asked, lowering the rag.

With a long sigh, Lovino rolled over so that he faced the wall. He cut off Gilbert's exclamation with a whine. "Get my back too, asshole." Only when Gilbert started dabbing between his shoulder blades, did he continue. "I haven't seen another one of me in a long time—at least not people from my pack, just some random stick-up-his-cloaca shark-bastard who needed to mind his own business—"

"A what-?"

Lovino waved him off. "Look. S'not fair. I can breathe the same air as you. Why can't I survive on land? How can you possibly be fucking lonely with so many people colonizing this area, all crammed together, building shit out of trees and running around on their walking-leg-sticks."

"You'd be surprised," Gilbert said.

"I'm just fucking tired of empty darkness and silence and wandering aimlessly around. You have sun and the sound of birds and more of your kind than you can count. And places you can return to and call home and people to talk to. I don't have that. I don't even know if my family is alive, okay. They left me and vanished." His shoulders quivered, hunching as he hung his head and swallowed, teeth gritting audibly.

Gilbert hesitated; the cloth went slack in his grip, still pressed against Lovino's back. "Hey now. Don't fucking cry." He resumed rubbing at his back, more out of comfort than rehydration. "I get it, okay. I know what you mean. Maybe not literally, but I do. So you want to live on land? We're going to make it happen, one way or another. I'm a pretty clever guy, despite what people might think. We can improvise." He stood, dropping the rag on Lovino's head. "In fact, hang tight. We're going to make this easier on you right away. I'll talk to the landowner. He's a pretty eccentric guy, so I think he might have some supplies that I can make use of to make sure you're comfortable."

Lovino turned his head. A confused array of emotion twisted his face into something vulnerable—something he couldn't reign in as hard as he tried to scowl. Instead he frowned. "O-Oi, why are you helping me, Gil-less-bert?"

Gilbert winked. "I kinda owe you my life."

"That's a shit reason." The rag slipped down over his forehead, hanging down over his eyes.

Gilbert shrugged, "Plus I think you're funny as hell in your own irascible way." He plucked the rag from Lovino's face with a cheeky smile, which fell into a more serious expression. "I've kind of been…in a rough place. I would have been okay with drowning, to be honest. I don't want to get into too many details while you're sitting here drying out…but somehow I'm glad it was someone like you who pulled me out of the ocean." He dropped the rag onto Lovino's head again. The door creaked open and shut again.

Lovino flopped over onto his back with a long sigh, lifting and dropping the rag onto his face. The soggy blankets were soothing to the irritation on his tail, but he felt his motion restricted by their strangling hold. "To gain one thing, you have to give up another," he muttered to himself.

In the muggy heat of the afternoon, he was able to doze off, dreaming up scenarios where he lived in a massive river which fed into a cottage where he could crawl up onto the floor and lounge, tail dipped into the water alongside Gilbert's feet.

He barely woke to a second creak of the door and a loud scraping and sloshing—until water splashed onto his face and he thrashed into an upright position, wiping at his eyes, disoriented and confused. "The hell-?!"

"So, you weren't lying…"

-An unfamiliar voice, a peculiar lilted accented, unlike the guttural harshness of Gilbert—

"What's going on?!" He blinked up at Gilbert, then his head whirled around to the second stranger, who kept his distance, watching him from the other side of an unfamiliar large, tin container that now dominated one wall. Gilbert leaned panting against it.

"I got you a bed," Gilbert managed. "Um, sorta."

Lovino continued to stare at the stranger, who took a few tentative steps toward him and knelt down to stare into his face, overgrown eyebrows scrunching together, vivid green eyes fascinated. "So you are Lovino?" He was smaller than Gilbert, petite with a disarray of blonde hair. He wore a green sweatervest completely unsuited to the heat.

"Y-yeah, and you are-?"

"The name is Arthur Kirkland. I'm the owner of this cottage. I apologize for intruding. I was intrigued about the reason why my tenant wished to make use of my laundry tub, you see. I have a certain interest in the mythological-"

"Do I fucking look like a myth to you?" Lovino frowned.

Arthur blinked. "Touché." But he smiled, bemused.

Gilbert, finally regaining his breath, lifted Lovino up and slowly lowered him into the tub. Water lapped up around his sides. The human spent the next few minutes carrying buckets from a cart just outside and dumping the contents around Lovino, until it lapped up to about midchest.

Lovino sighed, irritation vanishing. "Thank fucking god."

Arthur looked to Gilbert. "What is it exactly that you are planning to do, then?"

Gilbert shrugged. "Right now? Earn enough money to survive for a bit, then buy some kind of carriage so that Lovino and I can move further inland. Talked to some villagers—there are mountains a few days travel away. Mountains mean cold streams, fresh water. Maybe even caves. Places that my angry little friend here can't complain too much about." He spoke with strange fervor, eyes shining with pride, excitement. He kept glancing over at Lovino to gauge his reaction, but found that the other was too absorbed in soaking up the coolness of the water.

"Are you sure that taking him away from his natural habitat is wise?" Arthur asked.

"It was his decision."

"Very well," Arthur said. "I may be able to help. I know a little bit of magic. I can…make the illusion of legs so that the two of you can venture to the marketplace without raising alarm—and that you do not have to leave him alone all day long. If he is determined to get a feel for this place, then so be it. Let him experience what the human world has to offer." He gestured to a wheeled chair padded with an old straw cushion, then dropped a little necklace into the palm of Gilbert's hand. "Put this around his neck to draw the illusion. It is visual only. Anyone who tries to touch him will know the truth. You may borrow the chair to transport him."

"I—okay…?" Gilbert stood, watching as he slipped from the house. "I mean I guess—"

The carriage groaned as Arthur climbed up onto the slat that served as the driver seat. His friend, long-limbed and broad shouldered, cocked his head, an easy smile fading at the apprehension on Arthur's face. "Art? Was what he said true?" He scratched behind his head then adjusted his glasses, biting his lip.

Arthur nodded once. "Impossibly so. Alfred, please, let's just go home."

"Yeah, of course—" A snap of the reigns urged the lone grey pony to amble off toward the path cut into the foliage. The carriage rocked and swayed. "Um, so you think that this could be a problem?"

Arthur sighed. "Unfortunately so. I only hope that I can dissuade them from this foolish venture before anything happens. I cannot bear the thought of a repeat of last time. This is too heavy a burden for one man to carry."