Deserter

Do you ever wonder what it'd be like
To have fans?
It must be nice
Having people who look up to you all the time.
We'll have some someday.
We should do nice things for them
So they know we like them, too.

While Callie deletes Judd videos for Marie (because Marie can't bear to get rid of any of that cuteness), Marie massages the stiffness from Callie's tentacles, closes her eyes, and breathes.

Marina the Octoling is in Inkopolis, but she doesn't seem to be a spy—or, if she is, she's more convincing than Marie ever imagined anyone could be. But spy or no, she's the first Octarian to leave Octarian lands that they know of, since—according to Gramps—the great turf war, when they were declared extinct. Who was she before she came? Why did she leave? Why come to Inkopolis?

And what does she want now?

Trying to act normal, natural, like her snarky pop-star self while getting those answers will be near impossible, and Marie sighs. "I hope she's on your team."

"I don't." Callie nudges her head back, and Marie obligingly starts tying her tentacles back up. "You handled the first time much better than I did, Mar."

Only because she made sure she'd finished crying before going to find Cal. "Yeah, but this time I have to pretend to be normal." Honestly, if she does see Marina on her team this time, she may pretend she didn't. She may need another two or four or eight hours of splatfest, to be loopy on sleep deprivation and too many energy drinks, to go through with this.

Someone knocks on their door. "Go time," Callie mumbles, handing Marie back her phone. Marie flicks to the recording app, triple-checks the sensitivity's high enough to capture any conversation she has even in the mess of splatfest, and turns it on; she can delete it when she doesn't talk to Marina. Or Pearl—the inkling girl who befriended the octarian, who's starting a singing career. Does she even know what she's done?

Marie's out the door first, holding her plate with its two slices of pizza and her oversized sweet tea, but she stands at the door for a moment, scanning the crowd. It's too much, there are too many people, the matching t-shirts making them all look the same; how is she ever meant to find one specific person? Even someone so distinct as an Octarian...

Callie nudges Marie. "Follow me," she says, her voice just audible above the crowd, and Marie does so instinctively. Callie must've seen one of them, the one on team Fancy Party, and will sit with someone nearby—

At a small, square table just ahead, a short pink inkling stares at them both with bright eyes, wearing a costume party t-shirt. Across from her sits a dark-skinned girl with her back angled to them in a fancy party t-shirt, with the suckers on the outsides of her tentacles.

Marina and Pearl, members of different teams, sitting together for a splatfest.

The irony is not lost on Marie.

Callie's going for the closer chair, so Marie makes her way around the side, behind the Octarian. That means she's close enough to hear the girl choke when Callie sits. "Whew. Looks like you two know how to party!"

Marie has to agree; the two of them have enough food for half the crowd. Still, her goal is to question the octoling, not splat her, so she waits until the girl's breathing normally again before clearing her throat. "Is this seat taken? We don't see squids from different teams eating together that often, and we'd love to spend our break chatting with you." Cod, it kills her to call Marina a squid, but no doubt everyone's listening right now. Calling her an octoling would either make Marie look like an octarians-lived conspiracy theorist or draw too much attention to the splatoon.

The inkling recovers first. "C'mon, siddown! You can totally eat with us!" She gasps for air, grinning so wide Marie's cheeks hurt looking at her. "We're in a band too, ya know, and we're gonna be even better than you soon, so you'd better!"

"Pearl!"

"What?"

"You can't just—"

"Just did." Marie doesn't even try to hold back her giggles as Pearl gives Marina a cocky grin. "Face it, Rina, we're awesome."

The Octoling buries her face in her hands like hundreds of Marie's fans have done before, when they've been too shy to talk to her and their friends started telling Marie about them. It all makes Marie laugh louder, because what are the chances? Still, she doesn't try to be mean about it as she sits. "Fellow musicians, even. This is going to be a good meal."

Callie locks eyes with her, raises an eyebrow, and eats some of the octoling's food. Marie knows a test when she sees one. "Callie, stop stealing their chips."

The octoling lifts her head at once, but she doesn't attack. Interesting.

Marie focuses on her pizza while Callie cajoles the two into introducing themselves—really, they need to act normal, but they already know both girl's names. She only pays attention when Pearl says, "Marina's your biggest fan."

Marie just barely holds herself back from snorting.

"You can sing Calamari Inkantation backwards," Pearl says then. Calamari Inkantation, that at least is a song an Octoling could have heard. Back when they were assisting Agent 3 with Octavio. "You told me it changed your life."

...It changed her life?

If she heard it, if it changed her life, she was there. She had to be a reasonably high-ranking member of the Octarian Army to have heard that song and be directly affected by Octavio's absence. Callie is staring at her, and it takes Marie a moment to realize she's staring back.

She gives herself a fast shake, because that is not normal behavior, and puts down her pizza. It makes Marie's skin crawl, but she pats Marina's hand, even though she's an octoling. "It's always nice to know we've made a difference in someone's life," she says, shooting Callie a look, because Callie has to continue and distract them while Marie takes a deep breath. She knows Octarians don't have cooties, that's such a childish way to act, but she's never actually touched one before.

She gets a hold of herself when Marina confesses, "I ran away."

Did she? Or does she just want them to think she did?

"I don't know if I—no, I wouldn't have even thought of it without—but..." Marina covers her face with her hands.

She credits Calamari Inkantation for giving her the courage to run away. Well. If it made her run away, it must've been something she thought about previously, or would have wanted—honestly, Marie can't blame her; from all she's seen of Octarian society, she would've run away the day she grew legs.

But Marina's over-emotional, and Marie is completely out of her depth here, how do you keep the conversation going after—

"Well, you're here now, and that's what matters." Callie smiles brightly and steals some fries off Pearl's tray. "And you're in a band! Have you put out any singles yet?"

Thank you, Callie.

"Two of 'em!" Pearl throws her arms in the air as Marina pulls her face from her hands. "Ebb and Flow was our first, it came out in December, and Acid Hues came out in early April. We're working on another. I wanna call it Dusty Splatterhouse, but Marina keeps saying there's nothing dusty about turf war, and we keep going back and forth on the lyrics anyway."

Marie smiles. "I've heard Ebb and Flow a few times. The different languages are marvelous." And nearabout made her hearts stop. "However did you come up with that?"

Marina blushes. "I spoke it at home."

Interesting; she doesn't mention it by name, or give any details. "I don't recognize it," she lies, "but I'm not good with languages. That's all Callie. Anything that might help me recognize it?"

Marina blushes. "Everyone had to wear the same uniform, all the time," she says; when she looks at Pearl, Pearl rolls her eyes at that. "Complete with goggles; mine broke, at the concert, and it's felt strange ever since, not wearing them, but it was like I could—I knew what was going on, I could be free for the first time ever. And I used to wear seaweed in my tentacles—"

"You never told me that part," Pearl says, shuddering.

"They told me it meant I was special and important," Marina says; she fiddles with her short tentacle again. "All it really meant was I did what I was told without fuss. That the goggles worked well."

That's twice she's mentioned goggles.

The broken pair hung in the back of Marie's closet, waiting for her to do something with them.

From the sounds of it, she needs to examine them—or get them to Sheldon—soon.

But she can't ask any more now without being suspicious, so she returns to her pizza and lets Callie steer the conversation back to music. If they need to, they can track down the octoling for another talk. Later.