Tavras had just teased her by offering to train her, rescinding his offer, only to then reinstate the arrangement with serious intentions. As profoundly happy as Val was, she could not help but feel a little bothered by him. Mood swings from her concussion were definitely setting in.

“Ugh.” Whining, she threw her head down into her arms. “Can you make fun of me once I’m not concussed anymore?”

“Sure thing.” Tavras leaned into her vision to flash her a smile. "Let’s fix that right now. Could you lay your head back into the tide pool for me?”

“Excuse me?” Val pulled her head up from her arms enough to peer back into the tide pool.

So many creatures wandered beneath the surface. Sea anemones twitched with their tentacles, representing a burst of color within the pool. Other, scarier animals also occupied the rocky bottom. Some crabs meandered about with their claws extended, ready to snap.

“You want me to put my head in there?”

“Normally I would not advise it, but it will be easier for me to heal you like that. The brain is much trickier than bones and muscle.”

“What about all of the animals? I would hate to disturb them.” She could always use Keep the Peace to keep puny animals like that from attacking her, but she did not trust her ability to work properly while concussed.

“None of them will hurt you,” Tavras reassured her. “If a sea serpent will follow my command, then so will these tiny crabs.” Completely disregarding its claws, he scooped up a hermit crab. His hand extended out to her, as if offering her the little animal.

With careful fingers, Val picked it up by its shell.

“I can ask it to shake hands with you.” Tavras leaned in closer, putting his face level with her hand and the crab. “Go on.”

The crab waved one claw in her direction just as it had always been doing, providing no evidence that Tavras had it under his control. That motion easily could have been natural to an unruly crab.

“I expect that you are just trying to trick me into getting pinched.” Still, she might as well humor Tavras. With the full expectation of receiving a sharp sting of pain, Val stuck one finger out to the crab and let its pincers take her fingertip gently.

The hermit crab moved its arm up and down in a handshake.

Meanwhile, in a squeaky voice, Tavras asked, “How do you do, Val?” He lifted his eyes—presently a blue lighter than sky—and peered up to her, past the crab and her fingers which loosely cupped it.

Val could not help but laugh. “Thank you for this introduction to Mr. Crab. I think that I feel more comfortable intruding on his home now.” Carefully, she returned the crab to the water where Tavras had plucked it up. From there, she spun around to allow her head to lay back into the water.

Her hair splayed out to cover the surface of the tide pool. The gentle lapping of the water from her disturbance tickled at the underside of her scalp. While she laid here, trying to relax, she tried not to think about Tavras, soon to heal her head. Would he touch her face at all, even for the briefest moment? Val closed her eyes, unable to trust herself to look up to him by any means.

His hands indeed touched her face. The pad of his thumbs traced over her forehead and down along the tops of her brow. By his hands, the water all around her head alleviated the cloudy ache of confusion that had settled over her mind ever since the sea serpent had whipped her into the ocean. Against her better judgement, Val opened her eyes.

Tavras leaned over her. Naturally, his head faced the opposite way as hers. This angle made his face appear upside down to her. His long hair, colored a silvery blue at this time, fell over his shoulders to merge with hers in the tide pool. As he looked down to her in the image of concentration, the color of Tavras’s eyes shifted. His irises now reflected a shade of turquoise from within the layers of the tide pool. It was a profoundly beautiful shade.

Val found herself entranced, staring up at his serene face. “Do the colors of your eyes mean anything?”

“No. Sorry to disappoint, but my eyes are not a mood ring.” Tavras smiled down to her, almost seeming to draw closer to her.

Their noses spanned an inch apart. Regardless of the distance between his ears and her chest, her heart probably pounded hard enough for Tavras to hear her pulse from here.

“Your head should be healed now. How do you feel?”

Val sat bolt upright. Instead of doing so gracefully, she bashed her forehead into Tavras’s chin.

“Ow! You have a hard head. I’m surprised that you even managed to sustain a head injury like that. You seem to be in a bit of a rush, trying to give yourself another one.” Tavras leaned back on one hand while the other rubbed at his chin.

“I am so sorry!” If their faces were going to touch, that had not been Val’s preferred way of doing it. Not that Tavras would have had any intention to do anything with her, but his nearness just before had flustered her in an inexplicable way.

Perhaps had Tavras done something else to her head when she had laid in the tide pool for him? There was another possibility in the fact that he could have failed to fully repair her brain. One of these things had to be responsible for her strange behavior.

Certainly, Val refused to admit to herself that she found herself really and truly, hopelessly attracted to a man for the first time in her life. Sure, she could acknowledge when other men had been attractive before, such as that idiot Percy back on the ship had been kind of cute at least until he had opened his mouth. Never before, had Val developed an interest as seemingly genuine as this one towards anyone before. She just had to like somebody as many eons out of her league as the Sea Itself, at that.

Without any further teasing, Tavras jumped to his feet. “Come along.” He swung his arm in a broad motion for her to follow. “You are all healed, so it is time that I have made my assessment of you.”

Once again, Val followed him dutifully across the beach. She was plodding after Tavras in much the same way that Foofy followed her around.

Admittedly, she might just prefer a different sort of assessment than the one that he would likely give her on her tactical and combat abilities.

Character Update

* New information is marked in cyan.

* All entries are based on what Val knows.

Tavras Title: The Sea Itself Rank: God, Fifth Seat Attributes: Water Abilities Name Class Description Aquatic Rejuvenation medical - heals injuries with water Bend Water combat, practical - move water at will Marine Ally combat, practical - controls aquatic animals

Unknown

n/a

- probably has a lot more abilities