Jemma knew very well that it wasn't going to be easy to get Bobbi to let her go. She had to prepare ahead of time, so the minute everyone else was asleep, Jemma grabbed her bag. It was made out of burlap found in what Jemma could now recognize as a sunken boat. It was basically a pouch that she could tie around her waist and swim at her fastest speeds without losing it.

Jemma knew that she needed an excuse to leave the pod for most of the day. There was no way Bobbi would let her go and use the same clam gathering excuse if she didn't actually bring any back, so Jemma set out in the middle of the night and did her best to find them in the dark and fill up her bag. Next she swam all the way back to the grotto she'd left Skye at the first night and dumped all the clams on a rock there for her to get later.

It was almost sunrise by the time she left them there and she had to hurry back to the caves to be there when everyone woke up, and she just barely made it. Bobbi was already coming out of the cave system, a worried look on her face, probably having discovered that Jemma wasn't with her inside when she woke up. Jemma quickly untied her bag and began to tie it again when Bobbi appeared, doing her best to appear as if she was just now getting ready.

"Jemma?" Bobbi questioned. "What-?"

"I wanted to get an early start today to make up for my failure to actually find anything yesterday." Jemma blurted out, finishing the tie around her waist for the second time and looking back up at Bobbi. Keep eye contact, don't look away...

"I'll be back later!" Jemma took off and called behind her before Bobbi could stop her.

"You better actually bring something back this time!" Bobbi shouted after her, frowning. She knew something was up with Jemma, she was never so enthusiastic about simple tasks like clam gathering, and she just hoped Jemma wasn't doing anything she wasn't supposed to like she had been the previous night. She was going to be holding Jemma to her promise of actually bringing back clams today.

Jemma wasn't even tired after being up all night, she was too excited to see Skye again, to talk to her. She got back to the beach in no time flat, in fifteen minutes at her top speed. Jemma didn't know what to do to wait for Skye, but she managed to gather some rocks and pull herself up on shore and stack them, it was a signal to let Skye know she was here. Now all she had to do was wait.

Skye was wide awake long before her alarm ever went off, just lying in bed staring up at the ceiling, lost in thought. The last couple of days had been as close to a roller coaster as they had ever been. It was an island. Not a lot happened, and even less happened that people didn't know about the day after, if not an hour after. Word got around fast and as it happened, the previous day Ward had just been leaving her house as Skye arrived back.

She got him to go away with her excuse about having to go to the diner, and in all honesty it was the truth. She did have a shift, it just wasn't for another few hours. He had skulked off all disappointed after giving her a good shove, which, now that she moved her shoulders, still sort of hurt. He had apparently told her mother that she had been so wasted she had jumped off the boat like an idiot.

Skye of course spent an hour arguing with her mother that that had not, in fact, been the case, but either way by the time she got back to her desk the pattern in her head was lost and Skye's image of the mermaid's face hazy. Disappointment hadn't even begun to cover it. Consequently she had been snippy at the diner and almost spilled coffee onto a man's lap and was sent home early. She had used her extra time to draw, but nothing came out right and she had gotten frustrated.

The artist had woken several times in the night to dreams of drowning, which led to her being awake now. Finally her alarm went off and Skye sprang up out of bed, now excited and very determined to go and meet her new acquaintance. She had thought of so many questions for her. Skye didn't even know if she would still be there, but as she tugged on a tank top and threw a snapback onto her messy short hair, she realized she had hope. It was insane, really. Mermaids couldn't—didn't exist. Her mind had to have been playing tricks on her, but she just couldn't accept it. The vividness of that tail…it had to be real.

She pulled on shorts instead of pants today, since she knew she would be on the sand and rock climbing, and chose sandals instead of her usual running or flat shoes. Once dressed she was quick to dump a sketch book and several pencils into her bag, along with her camera before she closed it and left her room.

Skye had gotten ready faster than usual today, and her mother took notice.

"You're heading to class early."

"Oh, uh, yeah there's a quiz today so I want to get there early to study some more," she lied, shoving some fruit from the counter into her bag before she moved around the island counter and over to the pantry. She stuffed a granola bar in as well as a pack of cookies.

"Well good luck. Make all A's so you don't have to work at the diner everyday like your mother."

"Already on it, mom," Skye shouted as she walked out the door. She walked to the side of the house and grabbed her bike, pushing it out the front gate before she mounted and started peddling down the street and coasted down the small hill.

Skye did feel a little guilty for lying to her mother, since in order to meet Jemma 'when the sun is high' she had to skip her English class. She hadn't been enjoying it so far anyway. She knew writing was just another art form that people loved to participate in and Skye was glad that people liked to read and appreciate them, but she just couldn't. If she couldn't see it, all laid out, she didn't grasp it very well. She was very much a visual learner, which was one of the many reasons she enjoyed art so much.

There was a little congestion along the sidewalks and the streets and so it took Skye a little longer than normal to reach the access point to the beach, by this time the sun was, what she thought, high enough. It was a warm day and Skye was thankful now that she had chosen a tank and shorts. The artist locked her bike up on the rack and crossed the dunes and out onto the beach. It was still a twenty or so minute walk to the grotto, but she didn't mind it. Most people were busy but a few other people had decided that the beach would make for a good day. The grotto was far from any prying eyes though. People rarely made it down that far, if ever, and Skye doubted anyone would make it today, especially since the tourist season was officially over and mostly only islanders remained. The population was plenty busy with other things to do than to be out on the sand.

The walk went by fast enough and soon Skye could see the wall of rocks in the distance. She made a sprint for it and when she came to the wall, tossed her satchel and sandals over and proceeded to climb up and over, landing down on the other side with a soft thud. When she turned around, she was very much surprised to see a stack of smooth rocks, built up into a small tower right at the edge of the tide line.

"Oh sweet," she was already knelt over and pulling out her camera from her bag. She scanned what little she could see of the ocean from the bottom of the wall as she walked over to the rock tower and sat down next to it. She took a couple of pictures then set the camera to the side, sitting back to wait. She supposed maybe her new acquaintance had set up the tower as a signal, and if not, perhaps more people came out to this place than she thought.

When Jemma's keen ears picked up on noises coming from the shore, her face lit up. She'd been waiting behind a large rock out in the water since just after the sun came up, concealing herself in case someone who wasn't Skye stopped by. It was highly unlikely that anyone else would, but Jemma still only peeked around the boulder to check.

What she saw made her smile. Her little tower apparently pleased Skye, she was doing that weird thing from yesterday, but she was pointing her thing at the rocks.

"Hello." Jemma called out shyly, peeking around the rock a little more so her head and shoulders were visible.

The sound made Skye jump a little, even if it hadn't been loud enough to really be startle worthy. She just wasn't accustomed to people springing up out of the ocean and saying hello, but that honestly had been what her last two days were like if anything.

She grinned though, finally when she caught sight of the mermaid behind the rock and shifted her weight so that she could use one of her hands to wave. "Hey," she settled back against the sand and watched Jemma curiously.

"So uhm...is-is this the right time and everything? I'm not really accustomed to hearing to meet 'when the sun is high'," she used air quotations and smiled awkwardly, "I mean I can come uhm...I can come back later if you're busy now?" What did mermaids even go about being busy with? Skye didn't know, what she did know was that it was around lunch time for her and that the sun was pretty high. She wasn't quite sure if it was at its highest point or what. Maybe she could get her a waterproof watch or something. Would that even work? Skye had no idea. Suddenly she had no idea about a lot of things, but as she watched the mermaid, she realized she wanted to learn.

Jemma's grin widened as she watched Skye speak. She was pretty sure human emotions were the same as the ones of her own people, so she could tell Skye was just as nervous and excited as she was.

"The time is all right." Jemma assured her. She didn't want to hide behind the rock anymore, it was Skye here and no one else. Sinking beneath the surface again, Jemma swam as close to shore as possible before reappearing and pulling herself up and out of the water just a little more so that she was closer to her new human friend. She lay down in a similar manner as yesterday, but she settled her chin into one of her palms and just looked at Skye. Jemma didn't know what was considered attractive for humans, but Jemma realized that she thought Skye was quite beautiful. That was a crazy thought, though, so she tried to ignore it.

"What is that?" Jemma finally asked the question she was so curious about, pointing to the object Skye had brought with her both times that she pointed at things.

The artist sighed in relief, having been afraid the time was wrong and that the mermaid would have to leave. When she asked about the camera, Skye chuckled and picked it up, turning it over in her hands.

"This is a camera. It takes pictures,". Skye realized then Jemma probably didn't know what pictures were and she sighed heavily, brow scrunching up in confusion as she tried to think of a way to explain.

"It uhm...it helps you capture an image of something you like. Like..." She looked around and her eyes fell back on the rocks, "like say you see these rocks and think they're pretty and you want to keep them, but without moving them or taking them with you." Skye leaned over and snapped a picture of the rocks, then got on her knees and walked closer to the water, waiting to see if Jemma would move away. When she didn't, she settled back down and pulled up the digital image and held the camera out to show her, "It takes the picture. It's like...a permanent memory. I...can't really explain better than that."

Jemma's eyebrows furrowed in confusion at Skye's explanation, but whenever she came closer and showed her the screen of the camera, her eyes widened in surprise. This was probably the most amazing thing she'd ever seen, and Skye would be able to see it on her face.

"So you can just look at a...picture...whenever you want to see something again?" Clearly Jemma was starting to get the idea, but the little identical image of her rock tower on the screen still had her in awe. "That's amazing!" She exclaimed, tapping the screen with one finger just to see what it did. It looked just like her little tower, but it was flat.

Jemma hadn't really realized how much she wanted to touch Skye until she was this close. Skye's hands were right in front of her with the camera, and Jemma couldn't help it. She'd touched Skye before, but that was just to save her life. Slowly, Jemma let her still damp and slightly sandy fingers wrap around Skye's forearm gently, and she looked up to make eye contact.

"Thank you for coming back." She said brightly. She wanted Skye to know how genuinely glad she was to have made a new friend outside of her pod, and especially for being so nice whenever Jemma hadn't expected it.

Skye's mouth was open to answer, smiling at the amazement on the mermaid's face, but stopped short when Jemma's hand wrapped around her arm. She was quiet, listening intently to the girl. The eye contact was so intense Skye didn't realize she had been holding her breath till she opened her mouth to speak again, blushing a little bit and pulling her arm and the camera away.

"Y-yeah well...you're a mermaid so...it's not like I meet one every day. A-and you saved me, so," she shrugged and put the camera up over her face to hide the redness, pointing it at Jemma and snapping the shutter.

She looked at it for a second to make sure it came out alright and she had to grit her teeth to stop herself from being amazed. She was definitely real. "Here, look. I can delete it if you want...uhm, so no one else will see it if you're worried about it, but now you're in a picture," she turned the camera back around to show her. "You can try if you want. Just don't drop it in the water. It won't work if it gets wet."

The way Skye spoke made Jemma smile even wider, if that was possible. She was nervous and somehow it was cute. Maybe sometime soon Skye would get used to talking to her.

When Skye handed her the camera, Jemma really was confused.

"That's me?" She asked as she stared at the screen. She'd really never seen herself before, only slight, blurry reflections on the sides of boats or her own shadow on the ocean floor. Never like this, though. It was like looking at a stranger, even though she knew it was herself.

She tried to get past it though and put the camera up to her face, like Skye had. It made a bunch of lines appear in her vision and it was weird, but she pointed the camera at Skye and did the same thing she had. It came out a little blurry since she was inexperienced, but it was still a picture.

"And that's you." She smiled, looking down at the screen with pride. When she remembered the picture of herself, though, she also seemed to just now realize what Skye's question meant. Skye could look at the pictures all the time and if a human that wasn't so nice saw it...

"You should make mine go away." She said carefully, holding the camera out. "Bobbi says people are bad, and even though you're good, I still want to stay safe." Jemma told her, not really realizing that she'd just mentioned her sister until it was too late. She'd never talked to anyone that hadn't known Bobbi, so mentioning her like her partner in conversation knew her was normal.

"Yeah," Skye laughed, taking the camera and looking at the blurry picture of herself, "That's me..." She flipped back one image per Jemma's request, looking at it one more time before she deleted it. She showed her afterwards to prove the picture was gone.

"Your secret is safe with me. I know people can be assholes...err, bad. I know people can be bad and mean. I know a few people like that. I won't tell anyone," the artist promised and set her camera aside on the sand out of reach of the waves softly rolling up.
She was intrigued by the mention of another mermaid, or so she assumed by the way Jemma said they felt about humans. She was mildly upset to be put in that category, but she supposed they didn't know that not all humans were bad. Skye knew one bad egg could spoil the whole cake.

"So...who is Bobbi? Are there more of you? I-I mean of course there's more of you...you can't just live alone. That would be terrible. You don't have to tell me if you don't want to. I'm just...uh, curious. You don't have to say anything you aren't comfortable with...". Skye knew she was rambling, but she couldn't help it. She wanted to know as much as possible. She was talking to a mermaid for heaven's sake. Skye didn't figure that sort of thing happened every day, but now that she knew one, she hoped it would. She was so interesting and amazing. Yeah, Skye was amazed. She was talking to a mermaid. She still couldn't believe it, but she knew Jemma had a right to keep anything from her she wanted. Skye could understand why. She was different...but she was still a person...or at least half of one.

Jemma definitely felt relief when Skye showed her that the picture was gone, she was already taking risks just by talking to Skye, so not having any evidence of it was assuring.

Skye was still speaking in that strange way of hers, like she wasn't sure exactly what she wanted to say, but she could get the gist of it. Skye was very curious, and that was something Jemma could relate to.

"I don't mind." Jemma assured her. "Bobbi is my sister. Well, not by blood, but she takes care of me." Jemma explained. It really was more of a long story, so she tried to give Skye just the hard facts. "She was the one calling me when I had to leave yesterday."

"Oh, cool," Skye smiled and sat back, taking her eyes off of Jemma finally to look at something else. They almost needed a break. She had been looking at her the entire time, afraid if she looked away Jemma might disappear. She looked to the ocean instead, suddenly curious.

"I didn't hear anyone call you yesterday," she shifted again, leaning towards the mermaid instead of away, eyes back on her. Of course they didn't just speak English all the time. That was silly, so Skye was curious...what did mermaids sound like?

Jemma laughed, like the idea of Skye being able to hear Bobbi was ridiculous, which it actually was. Sure, Skye would be able to hear them if they were talking to her, but not from so far away.

"You couldn't hear her because she was over ten miles away." Jemma informed her, ready to see the same amazed look Jemma had had only moments before, but on Skye. "Do you understand how whales and dolphins speak? It's sort of like that." Jemma explained. "Our whole pod communicates that way, and if we all collectively try hard enough, sometimes we can talk to other pods several hundred miles away."

Skye was still sitting there, mouth agape. Ten miles away. She couldn't comprehend hearing something from that far away unless it was loud enough for everyone. She couldn't contain herself, "Can I hear? I-I mean, I'd like to know what it sounds like. I mean I know what whales and stuff sound like but..." She started to slow down, having blurted it all out at once in her excitement.
She was holding her arm, suddenly nervous again and she had to look away. She couldn't focus when looking at the mermaid. She was almost too mesmerizing.

"I've never heard what mermaids sound like...well, because I've never met one before."

"Of course." Jemma smiled. It made her very happy to have Skye just as curious as she was. If Jemma was going to ask her all kinds of questions, it was only fair that Skye got to ask them, too. "It's different above water, but I can give it a shot."

Jemma cleared her throat as Skye watched intently, and she almost had to consciously switch the way her vocal chords worked. She didn't really know what to say, but she guessed it didn't matter. She could be speaking gibberish and Skye wouldn't know the difference. The only thing that dictated what words she had to pick were the pitches. She had to say something in the middle of the spectrum, since she knew already that Skye's hearing range wasn't as wide. Skye would only be able to hear the simplest of words, but Jemma could still try to share her language.

She started out softly, trying to adjust her voice to fit the air instead of the ocean, but once she got going she was sure it sounded the same. It was quiet, so that none of her pod could hear, but still loud enough for Skye. Her words were series of clicks and mews, combined rhythmically and almost sounding like a song. I think you're very pretty and nice, I like you a lot already, she said, though Skye wouldn't have known it.

The artist was patient, sitting back and listening intently, willing to give Jemma all the time she needed for whatever was about to happen. When the mermaid finally opened her mouth and sound came out her eyes steadily opened wider and her mouth hung open. By far, she could swear, it was the most beautiful sound she had ever heard.

When Jemma finished, Skye couldn't even form words. She just stared at Jemma in wonder, mouth still open and a stupid, silly grin on her face.

"Wow..." She shook her head to try and clear her thoughts. She sighed too and finally shut her mouth, "That was beautiful..." So far everything about her was just that. Beautiful. Amazing. Enchanting. If Skye had ever thought about mermaids before she imagined them as fantastical, beautiful creatures...and she hadn't been disappointed.

"Thank you." Jemma said quietly, switching back to English. She could feel a small blush creeping up her cheeks, which was a very rare thing indeed. It wasn't often that Jemma felt particularly flattered, but Skye seemed to think the simplest things about her were impressive.

"What about you, do you have a pod?" Jemma asked. She'd been wondering how exactly the humans' social structure worked, and it was time to ask Skye a few questions in return. Did Skye have family?

"A pod? You mean a family?" Skye questioned, figuring that's probably what she had meant. It was sort of a complicated question but she didn't see harm in trying to explain.

"Yeah, I do. It's just me and my mom. My dad left a long time ago. So it's just us two. It's not too bad..." She shrugged and sat back, getting into a more relaxing position against the sand. She was probably going to be here awhile talking, she might as well get comfortable.

"A small family is still a good one." Jemma told her. She was glad Skye at least had her mother, she'd been a little worried that she was alone, but she felt better about it knowing that at least she had someone.

"I haven't seen my parents in ages. A while back our pod got too big and we split into two, we ended up on different halves." Jemma explained, thinking of them fondly. It had been what, seven years now? Bobbi had pretty much always been the one to look out for her.

When Jemma noticed Skye getting comfortable, she did the same. She chose to get up, switching from her lying down position to one more like Skye's so they could be at eye level. She sat up and folded her tail so it was slightly wrapped around her, and she relished the feeling of the warm sand against her scales. She'd never been completely out of water like this except for when she'd saved Skye that first night.

Skye got her first full good look at the mermaid, tail and all. Her scales sparkled in the sun just like they had the day before and the artist found that again, she could not take her eyes off of them. The sudden clear look at them gave her the urge to draw and paint. She wanted to sketch that pattern until she got it down to a science.

When she finally realized that she was staring, and that the girl had spoken, Skye cleared her throat to respond, but what came out was a terrible, stuttering mistake, "Y-you're beautiful." It took her a moment to catch it and when she did, her face heated up again, "Wait, wait I mean, your tail! Your tail is amazing…wait, I mean," She knew she was getting fidgety now. She must look ridiculous. It was a miracle Jemma stayed to talk to her at all, "Your tail is cool. I like the colors and stuff…yeah."

She had to look down at the sand then, quickly occupying herself by drawing small designs in it with her finger before she sighed. She could barely compliment human girls let alone stunning ladies from the sea. "Yeah, you picked a great human to learn from when you saved me…" Skye sighed, it was sarcasm of course, but she didn't think about maybe Jemma not understanding. She was too embarrassed.

Jemma didn't understand sarcasm, it wasn't really something that the members of her pod ever used. Still, she agreed with Skye's statement, she did pick a really great person to learn from. She was flustered at Skye's comment about her tail, though she was a bit more used to this.

"Thank you." She smiled. "My tail is actually a lot more colorful than those of most of my pod members." It was true, and only slightly annoying. There were so many mermen and even mermaids that complimented her on it with the intention of courting her, but it usually only annoyed her. She'd come to dislike how attractive her tail was, but for some reason she actually felt complimented when Skye said it, it didn't feel like she was saying it for some ulterior motive.

"And you're very beautiful too, you know." Jemma told her, and it was the truth. She thought Skye was even more beautiful than many of the mermaids she knew, and that was saying something.

Skye couldn't handle it. For a second she had thought her hearing was on the fritz but when she looked at Jemma, Skye realized she had meant it. Beautiful? Her? Jemma probably only said that because she hadn't seen other humans, or she was just being exceptionally nice.
"You're kidding right? Me? Nah, I'm pretty average. You just haven't seen enough humans..." She trailed off. She was used to receiving compliments, but about her art, not about her. She shook her head, shaking it off before scrambling up and walking the couple feet back over to her satchel, which she brought back with her to the edge of the water.
Skye took the opportunity to sit a little closer to Jemma. She wanted as good a look as she could get at the girl's scales. She pulled her sketchbook and a pencil out and then quickly, starting to blush again as she looked at Jemma, "Uhm...d-do you mind...uh, if I draw you? It's like taking a picture with a camera, except you have to make the picture yourself. It's Uhm...less real if you draw it. Like, people can draw things that aren't real. It's for your imagination, the pictures in your head, as well as what you can see." She tried to explain, but she wasn't very good at it and she could see the concern and confusion on Jemma's face.
"Ok here look," Skye scooted even closer, their arms almost touching, almost, as she flipped through her sketchbook, holding it over for the mermaid to look at.
"This is a dragon. They don't actually exist. They're just mythical creatures, like you're supposed to be. Humans don't think you exist..." She flipped another page, "and this, this is a lion. It does exist. They live in Africa. It's another continent...I don't know if you've been there or what you call it. You would be like the dragon. No one would know you are real if they ever looked at it. But no one looks at this but me...and now you," she watched Jemma's face carefully, trying to judge if she would let her or not.

Jemma could understand what Skye was saying, or at least get a good grasp on it, but she was too focussed on the drawings to let Skye know it. As Skye flipped through the pages, one at a time, Jemma found herself more and more enthralled by Skye's abilities. It was hard to believe she'd made them herself.
"These are very good pictures." Jemma nodded, never taking her eyes off of them. She wanted to remember it all. Lions in Africa, dragons... There were so many new things. And if it was as safe as Skye said it was, she believed her. For some reason she trusted her, Skye had been nothing but honest so far.
"Okay," Jemma nodded enthusiastically. It would be a lie to say she wasn't actually excited to see Skye make a picture of her.

Skye let out an intake of breath through her mouth, smiling in relief when Jemma agreed. "Great!" She took the sketchbook and put it in her own lap, quickly flipping through the pages of other drawings till she found a blank one, "Now I need a good view point so I'm going to have to sit back a little bit. And I may not talk a lot because I'm concentrating, but if you want to ask questions or just talk then I'll do my best to answer you and listen," the artist smiled wide, grinning so big that her teeth were showing. She looked genuinely excited.

The girl took one last long at Jemma's scales to try and commit the pattern to memory before she got up and brushed herself off a little bit, taking a few steps back and sitting back down cross legged. She propped the paper up in her lap and snatched an apple from her bag. She took a bite and then looked back up at the mermaid.

"Oh and you don't have to stay still, but you can't flop about like…well…like a fish. No offense. Just you know…don't suddenly decide to go swimming. I need to see you to get it right," Skye explained and now that she was 'working', let her eyes freely roam over the rest of the girl. Her previous embarrassing statement had been true. Jemma was very beautiful. After looking enough, Skye finally looked down and set to work.

"So you said you haven't seen your parents in a long time? Do you mind me asking why your pod split? I know you said it was too big…" She paused to look up again for a minute, her eyes so fixated it was intense, before she looked back down, "but I mean how did you and your sister uhm…Bobbi end up in a different one than your parents?"

Jemma got a little more comfortable so she could sit relatively still while Skye worked. She leaned over to one side and put her weight on her arm, as well as stretch out her tail a little more, both for herself and Skye.

"That's not unusual for us." Jemma started to explain. She wondered if it was different for humans, it probably was if Skye still lived with her mother. It was hard for her to explain since Skye didn't know already, but she was going to give it her best shot.

"In our pods we're all family. No relationship is stronger than another, the only exception being...significant others." She did her best to explain, but Jemma wasn't sure Skye understood.

"For example, my relationship with my mother is just as strong as with any other mermaid in the pod. Children belong to the entire pod, not just two parents." She finished. "So it isn't really considered when it comes to splitting up."

Skye nodded to herself as she drew, but more to let Jemma know that she had heard her and understood. Skye figured it was probably the same as growing up in a close knit neighborhood or in an orphanage. The kids belonged to everyone or all the parents on the block knew everyone else. It wasn't quite the same, but she could grasp the concept.

She looked up again and then back down, drawing more and making quick lines on the paper before going back over them and making them darker. She flicked her eyes back up several times, the last time taking another nice long look, before she sighed to herself and kept going. She had been quiet for a while, so she suddenly remembered to speak up again.

"So…what's it like under the ocean?" She realized, a little too late, that it was probably a very broad question and she had a huge piece of apple in her mouth by the time she noticed. She chewed quickly and swallowed it, almost choking in the process, having to cough a little before she continued, "Sorry…I mean I guess in general…or what is life like? Like, what is a typical day for a mermaid? Do you just…I dunno, swim around all day and find random hydrophobic, inept people to save?" She chuckled a little and looked up from her paper.

Jemma laughed at Skye's joke, genuinely laughed, and grinned at her. It was quite funny that Skye had managed to fall into the water twice when she was so weary of it.

"I guess it depends." Jemma caught her bottom lip between her teeth and tried to take her eyes away from Skye's hand on the page. "There are certain things that need to be done, so everyone in the pod has a job. Some of them catch fish, some gather, some keep a lookout for-" Jemma paused, changing the old vocabulary in her head to the new word that Skye had taught her. "-boats. Some make tools, other products, all kinds of things. Others take care of children. It varies really." There were so many jobs, Jemma couldn't list them all.

"I have the boring job of gathering clams for us to eat, though I hope to switch to something more interesting once I'm older." Jemma concluded, glancing back up towards Skye's face.

"What about you, what's daily life like for a two-legged?" She asked, laughing a bit as she used the mermaid slang for human.

Skye snorted a little when she laughed at what Jemma had called her, not looking away from the page now as she lightly shook her head, brushing some eraser shavings off the paper. "Two-legged," She repeated with a grin, grinning some more before it faded and she sighed.

"Well, it varies for us too. There are so many jobs I can't list them either. For me…" She paused, trying to think of how easy it would be to explain, or what she should say, "Well for me I have school. I don't know if you guys have school, but we go and we learn things like math uhm…how to add numbers. One plus one is two, that sort of thing. We learn history about people and places, we learn about books that people think are important…uhm…" Skye stopped drawing and sat back, staring at Jemma for a moment until it became too much, like staring at the sun. So she decided to stare at the actual sun instead.

"There's languages. We learn different languages, but I'm not very good at them so I don't take those classes. We can learn music, like how to sing or play instruments. I'm not good at that either. OH!" She grinned then and sat forward, putting the sketchbook down beside her, "We learn science. Science is hard to explain, I would have to show you, but there's so much to it…like…gravity. Gravity is science. Gravity says that if I drop this pencil," She held it up, "it's going to fall. NO matter what" She dropped it, "And uhm…other important things. I'm not good at science either, but it's more fun to learn that math. I also take art, which is…" She picked the sketch back up, looked at Jemma, and made a few more lines, then turned it around to show her, "This. This is called art."

Skye let Jemma take the sketchbook to look at as she got up and got closer again, sitting down next to her like she was before. "It's not too great. It's just a quick little thing…the scales aren't quite right…but I doubt a drawing could compare properly anyway. Other than school I work at a restaurant. Uh, a place where people go to eat. I take their order and give it to the cook, who makes the food, and then I bring the food to them. It's not a lot of pay, but it's something. Mom works there too. Other than that really I'm in my room or walking around trying to find stuff for art projects…do you like it?"

Jemma nodded continuously as Skye spoke, taking in all the new information. Skye had seemed to barely just scratch the surface, there was so much Jemma didn't know. It was like she had been living in a little bubble before and was just now starting to see everything outside of it for the first time.
When Jemma finally looked down at the sketchbook in her hands, her jaw practically fell open. She hadn't seen herself very much, but Skye was wrong, it wasn't bad at all, her sketch was amazing.
"This looks just like a picture but without colors." Jemma said, amazed. "You made this with your hands?" She just couldn't believe it. She grabbed for Skye's hand in curiosity, linking their fingers together and wondering how such a thing was even possible. "I love it." She said, still staring down at the book.

Skye was quiet, just soaking in the compliments on her drawing like a sponge, although, being the artist, she couldn't really see it as Jemma saw it. She would always see the flaws and where she could have done just a little better. Sometimes she wished she could look at her drawings like other people did, but the compliments would have to do. She was already blushing from the sudden hand holding.

"I'm glad. I-I would uhm…say you could have it but the water would mess up the paper…so I'll just hold uhm…hold onto it," just barely stammering through her sentence she reached back for the pencil, "But yeah, the pencil helps, see?" She softly removed her hand from the mermaid's and flipped to another page, making a mark on it with the pencil then handing it to her, "you can try too. But yeah, I did make it with my hands…I make other things too. I like to paint and sculpt…but I'm the best at this."

"What is sculpting?" Jemma asked curiously, trying to figure out how to hold the pencil. It was nothing like how Skye did it and she was only making scribbles, but it was new and entertaining all the same. She liked all these strange but amazing things that the humans had, it was such a shame that none of them seemed to work underwater.

"Sculpting is…" Skye tried to search for the right words, but she was better at doing things than describing them. "I'll show you. Here, keep the book out of the water…actually…just yeah, just let me have that back," Skye took the sketchbook and folded it up, taking the pencil too and putting both by her satchel.

How was she going to explain sculpting? All there was around her was rocks and sand, and she didn't have any rock carving tools. She supposed building a sand castle was like sculpting. It did have some of the same aspects, even if infinitely more temporary.

"Okay here…" She hesitantly got as close to the water line as possible and scooped her hands into the wet sand and put piles and piles of it onto the dry sand, before she finally sat down in front of it. "it's when you take something…and shape it into something else," She tried to explain, and has her hands worked in the sand, before long she had a somewhat decent tower, followed by a bridge and a small series of lumps that served as other towers or houses.

"Sand is really bad to explain this with, but it's sort of like how I shape the sand, but I do it with other things like…clay or metal. Boats are made out of metal. And wood sometimes, but, most boats are made out of metal. The big ones anyway. Clay is…harder than sand, but softer than rocks. It's the perfect between," She wiped her hands together to get the sand off and sat back, looking at her pathetic excuse for a castle.

"You know so much." Jemma told her, still staring at the small sculpture. It seemed as if every time Skye spoke Jemma learned something new, and she loved it. She was still just staring, looking at Skye's face and trying to remember every detail about it, like a picture. Suddenly there was a call, and Jemma's heart sunk.

It wasn't a frustrated call, but it was Bobbi letting her know it was time to come home. She hadn't realized how long she'd been talking with Skye and was incredibly disappointed that she had to leave. It was probably visible on her face as she looked sadly behind her at the water.

"I have to leave now." Jemma sighed and pushed back into the water, immediately swimming to the rock from before and stuffing clams into her pouch while giving Skye an apologetic look.

"Oh…" Skye's face dropped too when Jemma said she needed to leave and when she pushed back into the water so quickly. She stood up, walking to the edge of the water, one hand holding her other arm before she waved.

"Bye I guess…uhm…hey, when will you be back?" She wanted to talk to her more, and she wanted to say so, but she also didn't want to sound demanding, especially since mermaids were afraid of humans and everything. She didn't want to come off threatening in any way. It made her sad though, to think that maybe the mermaid couldn't come back. She wondered if they migrated…like whales and other sea creatures did. Probably. It made her even more upset to think that, but she tried not to show it on her face. Skye would do her best to remain hopeful.

"When the sun is high?" Jemma grinned, pointing to the sky. Although leaving was sad, she couldn't wait to come back, and that excitement would get her through the night. Without another word, she disappeared under the surface.