RP:Hook,Line, and Sink It!

Part of the Two If By Sea Arc

Summary: Aptera attempted to carry out her mission from Zirael, which was make sure the sirens don't get fixed...While Hudson is attempted to go about his business, Aptera comes up all chatty and distracts / tricks him into running off to go after his "girlfriend". This might not be considered a win for the mermaids, just yet....

Sea Breeze

Hudson has a six pack of beer and a mission, which is to fix the mermaid siren once and for all. The darned thing kept malfunctioning. To troubleshoot, Huds has a large leather-bound tome, bookmarked in many places with ribbons. He presently is seated on the sand, poring over the book, beer in hand.

Aptera is thinking about what Zirael had said as she approaches the shoreline. 'Does he trust you? Could he come to trust you?' Hudson was coming into view, with his back towards the ocean. The sirens must be down again, obviously! It was starting to look like she wasn't going to have to do anything extreme to keep them that way. Not that she wouldn't. She'd tear him to pieces in a hot minute. Murderous Mermaid Maulings. This mantra is chanted a few times to herself beneath the whisper of the waves before she calls out to him. "Hey Handsome," She calls, doing just as Zirael had instructed and lacing her words with a hint of her song instead of throwing the full force towards him. Make it seem like a chemical reaction more than a magical stimuli. Only then does she remember the last time she saw him, and how pouty she'd been.

Hudson 's devotion to his studying is short-lived, and he shifts his position on the sand to face out to the sea, catching Aptera in his sights. The way her hair splays out in the water to frame her poreless skin is incredible! She seems much hotter than last time, or at least in a better mood. No... But somehow also hotter? Perhaps he is mostly drunk. At that thought, he drinks from his beer and relaxes as she approaches. "What's up, mermaid version of my girlfriend? She has red hair too." He gestures at the six pack, which, upon inspection, is halfway finished. "I think I forgot your name, sorry. You want a beer or did you not like that?"

Aptera looks at Hudson, tempted to say she was without a doubt MORE beautiful than whatever land dwelling female he was shacking up with but she kept her mouth shut, giving him a light laugh and a flutter of her eye lashes without overdoing it. The strands of her hair are speckled with starlight where light reflects off the surface of the water and back into her glistening hair. It made her look comforting like...a smoldering fire. Safe, inviting. She leaned against the shore, keeping that magic lining in her tone and grinned at his offer. "I would love one." When he notes forgetting her name, she shrugs as if that's a common thing for men to do. " Aptera, friend of Fairfax?" She reminded him, twirling a loose strand of coral hair through her delicate looking fingers. Remind him you're harmless! That other mermaid didn't kill him! Why would I?!

Hudson feels a little guilty for admiring Aptera. There's a complex self-assessment that takes place here, but mostly he feels guilty for admiring her perfect arms, neither of which are made of metal. (Well, he tries to be a good boyfriend, but every guy has one secret thing they'd change about their girl...) At her reply, he reaches into the six pack to supply her with a beer, which he rolls down the slope of the sand toward her. "That's right, Aptera," he says, pantomiming the motion she has to make to open her drink. "You here to harass me while I'm fixing the mermaid siren? You want to help me test it?"

Aptera reached for the beer with her dainty perfect arms, watching his motions like a fresh spring doe and popping the top of the beer off. Just the cap, this time. "Actually, I just wanted to visit, if that's all right. It gets..." She pauses, biting her lower lip and averting her gaze in seducing 101 fashion. "You know, it gets a bit lonely sometimes. Not a lot of Merman, if you catch my drift." She shoots him an inviting smile, lids half closed with just the right amount of leaning forward to make it worth his while to stare a little longer. I'll show that catty Zirael 'useful', she thought, sipping the beer in a lady like fashion. "Will your girlfriend mind if we chat for a little while? I mean, I already promised I wouldn't kill you, seeing as Fairfax would be miffed if I broke her walker. You would be doing me a favor. Besides," She giggled, "you know those other girls are just going to keep trying to break your sirens. And once you fix them for good, we won't be seeing much of each other." Her bottom lip juts out just a bit, as if the thought of life without him was just unbearable.

Hudson tries to find where he was on the page he'd been reading, but he's under a siege of distractions from Aptera. He finds himself looking at her once more, under the pretense of being an attentive listener to their conversation. "You're funny," he tells her, gesturing with the mouthpiece of his beer. "Would my girlfriend mind? If you had a man and he flirted on the sly with beautiful murderesses, would you mind? Proooobably, right?" He holds his beer up to the light to see how far he's gotten, and then he drinks from it again. "It's OK, we won't tell her. Alright, stop trying to seduce me. Got to do work." He pushes himself to a stand and hovers over the siren, visibly contemplating it for a second. He then kicks it, with some force, because he hops around on one foot for several seconds following. Curses fill the air.

Aptera is set on frowning when she has a brilliant idea! Hudson thinks she looks like his girlfriend, so why not use a bit of mermaid magic to further that illusion! He stands to kick the siren base and looks to be a bit unstable. Drunk? Perfect. "Hudson?" She calls, in a voice that should magically sound like that girl he's always going on about, making Hudson see Aptera as a strange...girlfriend clone. "Why do you keep messing with those things? Forget the sirens..." Her tone softens, inflated with his own imaginary love. "Please?" She begs, "I really want to kiss you..." The flairs of her siren song should be exactly on point. Hudson should be feeling all kinds of warm and fuzzies, especially if he's intoxicated. Aptera, while knowing she could have waiting out Hudson's reservations about cheating on his girlfriend or whatever, opted for the faster route. Lies! Her arms reach out to stroke his cheek with a soft smile. "Yeah, I saw her dart away just a second ago. I think I spooked her." She laughted, like whatever mousy brat he was dating, and tilted his chin towards her lips. "I think she had something to do? But really...I was hoping you would come here and kiss me..." Her lips press against his with an inviting warmth. She's the spitting image of whatever his girlfriend looked like, his mind filling in holes like...fins? No fins! She's sitting on her legs all proper so her dress doesn't flap about in the breeze. Classic Alvina. "It's okay. She's gone." Hudson still looked to be panicking, so she kissing him again with fiery intent. "It's been a while...since we've been on the beach..." Aptera's song weaves to stir all kinds of exploitable motions as Hudson is finally in her grasp. No need to kill him yet.

Hudson lowers himself to sit beside Aptera-Alvina, glancing in the direction that she's indicated. He is somewhat soothed by the affectionate little touches, but still wondering when Aptera must have made her retreat. Perhaps after he'd kicked the siren and hopped about in pain like a Svendarned idiot. At least Alvina doesn't seem mad at him. He slides an arm around her. "Okay, we have to look out for her, though," he replies, meaning Aptera, before he kisses her. There's a bit more sizzle than he'd ever expected, there. What's with the secret minx maneuver on the beach? "Babe, we have to--" he's trying to remind her that there's a mermaid nearby, potentially. All the same, with kisses like those, she obviously wants him, after all their recent stresses. "Babe, the mermaid is probably around here, can't believe it's me saying this, but we can't--" he begins to tell her, prying himself free. "What's going on with you? You're like a crazy minx all of a sudden and haven't touched me with a ten foot pole since all that stuff went down? Are you sure?"

Aptera-Alvina gave Hudson a reassuring smile. "Of course I'm sure." The mermaid in disguised grinned, realizing this method alone wouldn't be enough. She could only distract him for a little while longer. And that would keep the sirens broken. "I guess your nervous because of your mermaid friend? Baby, it's okay. You fix the sirens and I'll go wait for you back at my place." Apt-vina have Hudson a tender, but still smoldering folks, like of kiss before shooing him up the beach in the direction of the sirens. All it would take was one second for him to look away and she'd be under the waves, invisible to human eyes. And there she'd wait, keen on resurfacing once he was back to work on the siren. The wind would become laced with her subtle charm, intent on causing just a small mistake in his repairs that he wouldn't notice until it was far too late.

Hudson doesn't understand how Aptera-Alvina can be all over him one second, raring to go in the sand, and then asking him to fix the mermaid siren and meet her back at her place. That is so far away, both temporally and physically! The couch at his place is literally about ten yards away! And it's definitely OK to use in case of emergency, which this is. Safe to say he's reeling after this last kiss, and finds himself numbly shooed along, toward the siren. "Babe, how about, I'll get it la--" he begins to say, turning to catch Alvina and entice her back to his place (notwithstanding her oath never to return). She's not there, though. Nobody's there. Record scratch. He trips over the six pack and lands, face-first, in the sand. He curses, pushing himself upright, and begins to call Alvina's name. He feels a sweat bloom along the nape of his neck as he assumes the worst. ...The mermaid. He kicks (though gently) the mermaid siren, for good measure. His feet leave wet prints on the sand as he swerves around the shoreline, retracing his steps like a caged tiger as his calls for Alvina grow more hoarse and alarmed.

Aptera watches Hudson dissolve into a mad panic and moves back into sight, on the other side of the shore. "Whoa there, lover boy. What's got your jets I'm a whirl? Was that your girlfriend I saw running off towards the inland? Fancy little piece, that." The mermaids prepares her response for the inevitable line of questioning which will involved something like is she telling the truth or what the hell had she done. Those were normal. "Hey, focus here." She points towards her face. "Of you think we mermaids are rubbish, do something about it." She glares him down, daring him to come at her. " I've never done anything to you, and I don't aim to. I told you, your broad is safe. No mermaids around but me. If you keep screaming, you'll draw more. Nothing like a screaming sailor to draw a crowd." Her eyes narrow, waiting to see how this will play out.

Hudson is on his way to being drunk and is short one Alvina, who had gotten rather frisky with him on the sand and now, if this mermaid can be believed, up and bolted. It's not like her. Even though she had said...... He shouts Alvina's name several times, pacing up the beach as he does so. She's nowhere to be found. "Tell me what happened, exactly as it happened," he demands of Aptera, who doesn't look like somebody who's just attacked his woman, but is nonetheless not part of the search party either. He curses, and stops his abrupt pacing. "She's not a world renown sprinter, how am I supposed to believe you that she just ran home basically instantly? One second we are kissing on the beach and the next she just runs off, when I live literally right here?" Repeating it, it sounds insane. Alvina wouldn't do that. He looks at Aptera like she's got all the answers. "Say something! What is going on?!"

Aptera looks behind Hudson at the shack he is referring to as his home. “I can see why she wouldn’t want to go in there. Can’t you?” She’s tempted to say more but didn’t want to risk Hudson spiraling into an unconquerable rage. Still, he’s miffed, and now wouldn’t be the best time to get smart or push buttons. No matter how tempting it was. “Look,” she spins to the side and splashes the water surrounding her onto the beach for his viewing pleasure; a sign of good faith since there is no blood in the water. Her hands were clean…of murdering. “I saw her coming up from behind and didn’t want to ruin your fun. You’re so moody today, it isn’t like you.” Like she knew him so well! “I drifted out to let you have some privacy but before I got too far, I saw her dash off. I thought maybe you had a tiff or something.” Aptera shrugs. “If I wanted to eat the both of you, I could have!” she screams back as he yells at the waves, demanding answers. “Maybe if you were doing your job and fixing the damn sirens, you wouldn’t have to wonder if your girlfriend was just eaten! Which she wasn’t! Because I’m not a crazy monster!” Cue the tears. Because, yes, of course she was a crazy monster. But she was still a woman, and Hudson wasn’t being very nice! Neither was she, but, in her mind that wasn’t her fault.

Hudson reaches for another beer and hears out Aptera's responses to what essentially constitutes a deposition. How dare this chick act like he's the one overreacting. She literally eats people for a living and she's shouting at him for asking her some reasonable questions about the whereabouts of his girl. Something didn't add up/was fishy, pun intended. Then of course Aptera's face crumples in tears, and he feels the anger let out of him quite abruptly, like the air out of a balloon. His jaw hangs loose and he stares at her, dumbstruck by this development. He feels embarrassed suddenly to have gotten to this point. Like a police officer with an overly stern approach trying to ticket a girl for speeding and seeing it blow up in his face. "Fine," he tells her. "I guess we're done talking about it. I'm going to go after her." He tries to pick up some of the bottles, putting them in the six pack for transporting to a nearby waste bin on his way out. "Sorry," is the last thing he says before he leaves.