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Miriam and Cynthia

Continuing his walk, Lance froze the moment he saw Miriam and Cynthia. At the sight of the former, he could have sworn his stomach was beginning to crawl up into his ribcage. He might not have known her as long as some individuals had, but the fact was he had really been the rubbed way when they had first met. Clearly, the day was not favouring him, but still, he could find some amusement in the fact that Miriam did not yet know who she was reading for in English class.

As Miriam took notice of Lance, he became certain that his stomach was trying to crawl its way up into his ribcage. There was no other way to describe this feeling.

"Lance, how are you?" Miriam asked, sounding as false as she could be with her friendliness. "Out looking for a new nose?"

Lance would have rolled his eyes, but instead he replied: "Depends, Miriam. What are you looking for? A new personality or a new voice?" He might not have ever heard her sing, but Lance guessed that one of the greatest dangers to public safety would have been Miriam's singing voice.

Suddenly, an empty feeling appeared in his stomach. The last time Lance had said something like that to a girl like Miriam, his face had been on the receiving end of her open palm.

To his relief, Miriam did not slap him across the face. Instead, she merely glared at Lance, but that did not make Lance feel any better… Maybe the slap would not be immediate.

"What are you up to, Lance?" asked Cynthia, genuinely curious. She was nicer than Miriam, at least that was how Lance felt about her from their limited interactions.

With a shrug, Lance replied: "I'm just out for a walk."

With a somewhat annoyed tone, Miriam walked past and dismissively commented: "'Just out for a walk', how boring can you get?"

Lance wished he had the heart to say something, but at the end of it all, he could not help but wonder if perhaps, maybe just a little, he was boring.

Sighing, he put his hands in his pockets and began to walk away. What else could he do? Stay and argue? That would be a waste of words, especially on someone like Miriam. There were people like her everywhere, why should he have given her the time of day? Just because she was a classmate of his?

"Hey, hold on, Lance!"

Lance turned and saw Cynthia still standing there.

"Yeah?" he asked. "What, you just want to say I'm not boring or something along those lines?"

"Well, I hardly know you." Cynthia replied. "We only met today."

Nodding, Lance commented: "Yeah, we have." His eyes stared at the shirt she was wearing with the flag on it. It didn't matter what flag it was, just seeing someone wearing a shirt with a flag on it was rare for him. Once more looking Cynthia in the eye, Lance inquired: "So, Cynthia, how exactly do you get to be friends with a teenaged gorgon like Miriam Kent?"

"She's not so bad once you get to know her." Cynthia's answer caused Lance to roll his eyes. That was such a run-of-the-mill saying, he once heard someone use that to refer to snakes of the venomous persuasion… Still, he supposed Miriam did not have a venomous bite.

"I've yet to see something positive about her, but I'll keep an open mind, or at least try to." That was the most he could do.

"Besides, she was really supportive of me entering that robotics competition a few weeks back!" Cynthia added.

That was good. At least Miriam had some standards it seemed.

"So, you have an interest in robotics?" Lance asked.

Giving a nod, Cynthia answered: "Yeah, I do."

Lance was about to ask another question when Miriam came marching back. He could only wonder how long it had taken Miriam to realize that Cynthia was not with her. Had she been walking along, talking to herself not realizing Cynthia was next to her or had she been standing ten feet away waiting for Lance and Cynthia's conversation to be finished?

With arms crossed and eyes glazed over, Miriam said in a tone that was more than a little annoyed: "Cynthia, come on. We are going to miss the movie."

Giving a small laugh, Cynthia laughed and said: "I'll talk to you another time, Lance."

And with that Cynthia walked away with Miriam. Feeling a little bit skeptical, Lance wondered just how much of a heart of gold Miriam truly had.

Scratching the side of his head, Lance carried on. What was he going to do? Probably just continue walking around town, what else did he have to do?

Still… Miriam being a supportive friend? Who would have thought that possible? From what little he had seen of her Lance had gotten the impression that Miriam was little more than… Well, not a nice person. His first meeting Zane had not been too different and people could be complicated with many faces… Of course, even monsters could have standards.

Shrugging to himself, Lance looked in the window of a nearby store… Just some furniture… What did he think he was going to see when he turned his head?

Was the furniture ugly? He had no idea. A couch was a couch, a chair was a chair, to his thinking whether they were comfortable or not was more important than how they supposedly looked.

Walking on, Lance set his mismatched eyes upon a store with a painting of a tiger in the front window. It was beautiful, exquisite, aw-inspiring, maybe even a little bit nightmarish… What was that quote about cats? "The cat remains an impressive hunter, a figure of great power, strength, agility, ferocity and an object of fear."

Nodding, Lance stared long and hard at the tiger in the painting. It did indeed cover all of those.

Looking to another painting nearby, Lance took a small step back. It depicted a lion and it was nothing but nightmarish, evoking images of the Nemean Lion, the Tsavo Man-Eaters and Belthar.

The style was that of a different artist, no doubt someone with a different view of lions, though in Lance's opinion, even a painting of a lion that did not look nightmarish would still be an object of fear. How many times had Lance seen a gruesome painting of a horse being attack by a lion? Ever since George Stubbs had painted such things, there was always some such imitator, that was always the case in the art world… No, that was the case outside it as well. How many things had come into being because someone wished to imitate another in some way?

Even without attacking a horse, the lion still looked fearsome, and why should it not have? Lance had had nightmares involving lions at some points, it was what reading "The Man-Eaters of Tsavo" got him he supposed. Those two lions, the Ghost, and the Darkness…

Sighing, Lance shook his head and walked on. He was no Heracles, no Samson, no John Henry Patterson, no Tarzan, only in his dreams could he have faced such creatures… And sometimes, all he could do was run.

Life was strange, there was no doubt about that. Why have nightmares of things he would never be in danger of encountering? Lions in this part of the world? Might as well have been a Smilodon in this age. He had a better chance of running into a mermaid while out for a swim and he was of no doubt that such a thing was equally as impossible, if not more so.

Nightmares, like all dreams, sometimes made no more sense than reality did. Life was strange, dreams were strange, was there anything that was not strange? If not, then why were they strange? Was it the strangeness that made things wonderful? Lance had no idea.

Rubbing the back of his neck, Lance's mind began to wander and in his mind's eye he saw all manner of things, while hearing the allure of the Deep, that siren song… What was he to do? Just go for a swim? Would that help focus his mind at all? Images of lions, tigers, heroes of myth and literature, a British military man of long ago, the face of a friend…

Maybe a nice dip would help.

Taking a moment to stretch, Lance began to make his way home. He would drop his backpack off, change into his trunks, grab a towel, say hello to his parents if they were both in, then it would be too the beach.

As he walked home, new images began to fill his mind: basking sharks, mermaids, sea monsters like the HMS Daedalus had seen and abnormally large cephalopods, the Ships' Graveyard, ghosts and ghost ships, treasure lost to the Deep…

Pausing, Lance looked at his right hand. His skin was not scaly, there was no membrane between his fingers and toes. That was how he knew there were no such things as mermaids, sea monsters, etc.