Delphine hears the slow, lulling song before she can see her.
Her voice... soft and silken despite the slightly rocky cuts in it with every syllable. It was like nothing she's ever heard before. It wasn't any wonder that she couldn't help but peer over the edge to look down at the woman from below.
Her skin is almost the color of algae, strangely translucent as she floats easily near the boat, beckoning her closer and closer over the railing until the singing stops.
The next thing she knows, she's falling (and screaming) as she goes head first over the railing and into the water.
She hasn't been in the water in years and the tail that swiftly lashes over her head leaves her underwater, quickly losing air as she struggles to remain conscious and attempts to swim to the surface.
Her limbs feel like lead.
...
Cosima swims forward at a near break-neck speed towards the yacht.
She almost stops when she feels Emi brushing against her, swimming behind her and towards the commotion.
At least it wasn't her.
She felt like a bitch for doubting her, though.
They continue forward, quickly in sync.
Emi manages to barely keep up with Cosima, something that only Beth could do (because of her lung capacity as a land runner).
When they're mere yards away from the chaos, Cosima changes direction, making quick gestures to Emi for her to deal with the attacker however she'd like before she's swimming off in her own direction, grabbing the body and pulling the woman against her back, never once minding the faint pain in the cartilage-like dorsal fins on her back.
She quickly swims out of sight for both privacy and safety, finding an area along the shoreline that's undisturbed by humans and lacking traffic. Hauling the woman to the shore, she quickly moves her onto her back, testing her breathing before feeling her gills relax.
The woman is breathing fine. No scary human CPR required (and thank god because getting Scott over here would take too long).
She really needs to get certified, the amount of times this has happened in the past few years has become undeniably inconvenient.
Her head will definitely be bruised, but she doesn't look like she's in any dire danger.
So why is she finding herself staying?
It's the danger, she'll tell Emi and Scott later.
She doesn't want to risk the woman becoming unconscious or falling into a coma after all.
Totally not because she's drop-dead gorgeous even with the bags from a lack of sleep under her eyes.
Cosima rests back, groaning loudly before remembering to sink into the water until her torso is submerged.
It doesn't help, considering the change affects her entire body, but at least she won't have to explain the tail.
.. And she doesn't have to breathe out of her lungs like a human, which hurts during the change.
As if out of every cliche Cosima's ever seen on drowning victims, the woman in front of her sputters, coughing up a small amount of water as she comes to.
"Careful.."
She can't help but stay. Especially when warm eyes stare back at her.
Only, rather than a thank you, she's almost met with a rock to the face.
"Vous! Vous avez changé!" Delphine shouts, crawling back on the wet sand in an attempt to put distance in between her and the brunette.
Her hair was different.
She was blue, now.
Merde.
"Easy!" Cosima's hands are up in the air, sitting on her tail fin as she backs up slightly, "Dude, I have..."
Cosima shakes her head.
"I'm sorry. Can we just... do you speak any English?"
Delphine hesitates, brows furrowing as she lowers the rock halfway in the air.
Her voice is different, too.
"Oui," Delphine shakes her head momentarily, fighting a migraine, "Who... was that your sister?"
"What?" Cosima furrows her brows, "Did you see someone who looked like me?"
"Oui."
At least that narrows it down to a potential three.
Where's Emi? She should be back by now...
"I.. have a lot of sisters. It could have been one of them, but I doubt it."
"You.." Delphine drops the rock, panic subsiding as she looks the brunette over, "Êtes-vous une sirène? Ehm... Mermaiden?"
"I think you mean Mermaid," Cosima corrects almost shyly, offering her an apologetic smile as she visibly relaxes enough to return to her previous position, "And we prefer the term Siren."
"We? There are more of you?"
Cosima nods, "Yeah, look, can you just do me a favor and come up with a story to tell the others that doesn't involve me? We kinda like to stay out of the limelight."
Not her best moment.
"-Also, you're going to want to get that checked out by a doctor," Cosima gestures to her head, "Someone hit you pretty hard. Can you stand?"
"Ehm, oui, I think.." Delphine moves forward, getting up clumsily before swaying in her spot.
Cursing under her breath, Cosima shuts her eyes, "I don't s'pose you have a phone with a waterproof case on you, do you?"
Delphine shakes her head.
"Alright. Wait here. I have to check up on someone. Sit down and keep your knees up. I'll be back in a minute."
Delphine watches wide-eyed when the girl flips backward, almost disappearing in less than a second.
What just happened?
...
Emi watches as Cosima swims back to her quickly, remaining safely underwater, "What the hell, Cosima?"
"I have no idea, look, can you do me one last solid and go get Scott? The chick that was attacked has a concussion and she should go to the docs."
Emi blinks, eyebrows raising, "Wow, already moving on, Cosima?"
"Jesus, just-Please, Emi? Whoever attacked her apparently looked like me. We can swap details later, but she's seen what I looked like and letting her see you could put us in more danger," Cosima swims towards her, staying under the cover of the trees around them.
Us.
Emi hesitates, cursing under her breath as she looks around them, "Where is he at?"
"The peer by our favorite bar."
Emi sighs and rakes a hand through her cropped hair, "Fine. You owe me an explanation, though."
"Totally. Will do."
Emi doesn't look back.
She doesn't have to to know that Cosima is mostly speaking through gesticulations.
...
Cosima swims back up to the woman, impeded by human legs, "You doin' okay?"
"Oui. It is easier to lay down." She raises her head to look her in the eyes, "You changed again..."
"Yeah. Happens when you don't want people to freak out." Cosima clambers up to her on her hands and knees, taking care not to fuck with her feet, "How's that head of yours?"
"Aching in waves," She watches as Cosima crawls next to her, head hovering above her as she examines the wound, "What's your name?"
"It's safer for you not to know," Cosima quips, cringing over her own words as she folds her legs, doing her best to cover herself modestly, "That's gonna leave one hell of a bruise, it's still surfacing. What's yours?"
"Delphine." She blurts without a moment's hesitation before blinking and blushing, "Ehm, Delphine. Delphine.. Beraud."
Her mother's maiden name. It's a little white lie but it will work in a pinch.
"You sure you're doin' okay, Delphine?" Cosima cocks her head to the side slightly, pulling the soaked black shirt Emi gave her closer around her.
"... ... Dizzy."
Cosima nods, "Just shut your eyes and keep talking to me. Where were you born? Do you have any family in town?"
"Ehmm... Lille. I don't have any family in town." Delphine does as she's told, rubbing the unbruised side of her forehead in an attempt to fight off the stress she feels growing in her muscles, "How... many are there of you?"
"There's just one of me." Cosima smiles, laying down on the sand before leaning back, "But there are... six that I've met so far."
"Just five?"
"What were you expecting, some crazy underwater civilization?" Cosima smiles, "Those of us living with humans tend to be pretty territorial, so we usually just keep to ourselves. Every once in a while we might meet someone, but it's pretty rare. We're usually only drawn to each other to mate."
"Oh," Delphine opens her eyes, looking up at Cosima curiously, "Does it hurt? Were you born this way?"
"Yes and yes." Cosima fights another tiny smile, "You're taking this surprisingly well."
"I've had enough existential crises in my life."
"Fair enough," Cosima shrugs before looking up, hearing the familiar brush of Scott pushing past plants in order to get to them, "Our help is here. Can you sit up?"
Delphine nods, breathing in shakily before doing so, putting no mind into the fact that her movements are clumsy.
She hopes she doesn't have anything serious-
"Cosima?!" Scott comes brambling out of the tree line, racing up to her with her wheelchair folded under one arm and her pile of clothes in the other, "Are you okay? Did you-" Scott stops, catching sight of the blonde next to her, "Holy..."
"Yeah." Cosima grunts as she stands up, stumbling over to him before grabbing her clothes, eager to get changed and temporarily feeling less pain in her feet after the adrenaline rush that had ensued.
"Do you want me to get the chair..?" Scott watches, bug-eyed as Cosima pulls on her clothes.
"Can you help her stand, first? If she can't walk then we can just take an uber to Marion's." Her voice is at a whisper by the time she's putting her cardigan back on.
"Sure..."
...
"How is she?" Cosima looks up at Marion by the time she leaves the small room she brought Delphine into moments before, "Is she okay? How much did she remember?"
"One question at a time, Cosima. She should be fine, but we want to keep her under observation for a little longer. She didn't admit to much."
"Thank god.." Scott sighs, rubbing his forehead stressfully.
He loves his sister, but she has a knack for saving everything in sight that gets to him sometimes.
She could have been hurt, or worse...
"Do you mind if I go in to speak with her?"
"Sure, just call if you need anything."
Cosima nods, pushing her chair towards the door only to stop when she hears Scott behind her, "You should stay back.. maybe go home early or go to the game tonight?"
Runewars with his buddies.
Shit. He almost forgot.
They'd been hounding him because he hadn't come in often enough recently...
"Sure."
...
"Hey," Cosima offers Delphine a small smile when she enters her room.
"Allo..." Delphine croaks sleepily, settled into the hospital bed she'd been provided.
"Feeling any better?"
"Much, thank you." Delphine smiles back at her, "They will be keeping me here overnight."
Cosima nods, pushing her wheelchair over to Delphine's side of the bed, "Do you need to call anyone still?"
Delphine nods, thanking Cosima quietly when she's handed her phone before texting out a message to her boss, letting him know where she was.
"So, uhm," Cosima hesitates, watching as Delphine's fingers fly over the keyboard, "I feel pretty shitty about what happened... and was wondering if I could maybe make it up to you over brunch tomorrow?"
Wow. Smooth, Cos'.
Delphine stops mid-text, looking up at Cosima with a soft smile, "Sure. Let me just save my number in your phone once I'm finished."
...
Cosima rubs the back of her neck as she turns her chair so she can get into her bed easily, barely making it under the covers before she moans and shuts her eyes, relaxing almost immediately.
She hasn't felt this exhausted in... ages.
Who would hunt in her territory? They'd never had an issue with the others before...
Was it really one of her sisters? Or..?
God.
She needs to get baked and take a nice, long nap.
Cosima shifts in her spot, looking over towards the window.
Delphine...
...
"Come again?" Sarah leans over the table slightly and into her mother's side in order to peer into the tiny camera on the laptop.
Marion fights the urge to bristle in annoyance at the sight of her as she nurses her drink, "A human girl."
Sarah snorts, arms folding as she shakes her head, current piece of laundry being abandoned on the table in favor of heading out the door as Sarah grumbles under her breath.
Both Marion and Siobhan only pick up the words 'high horse' and 'bloody well figures' before the door is slammed shut.
Marion and Siobhan meet each other's gaze for a moment, a small conversation being held in silence before Marion finally breaks it, intruding on the quiet, mostly-peaceful haven Siobhan's created for Sarah and Alison.
"He reached out to me a week ago. They seem to intend on making a come-back. Should we tell them?"
"No. Don't do anything yet.." Siobhan's voice is patient when she finally musters together a coherent plan, "We need to see how this starts to play out..."
"But Cosima-your daughter-"
"-Easy. She's had you as a teacher. She'll be fine, leech."
The nickname has become almost affectionate at this point.
Marion fights a nervous fidget, eyeing Siobhan quietly. She's older now, almost approaching her own body's age.
Yet she's all and more of the woman her brother had become so deeply enamored with.
"They're her children, Marion..."
"I'll leave the decision to you, sissster."
Siobhan looks up when she hears the hiss at the end of Marion's words, unable to help the slight smirk before ending the call.