The first patrol path of the day is often argued over between the three of them.

Marie hates waking up at dawn, Aria can’t be woken up until at least noon and Clive usually ends up having it foisted upon him because he wakes early anyway to do household chores.

The chores that Marie and Aria have to do, can be done at any time of day. Because Arias’ mother doesn’t dare to try and put her foot down anymore and because Maries’ parents don’t care when things get done, as long as they do.

Aria can still remember the day she decided she was in control of the house now, and she wasn’t going to work herself to the bone every day anymore. When she was seventeen and she told her mother that she needed more rest if she was going to be able to make anything to trade with and that if her mother would please, consider pulling her own weight, then Aria would make so much that they would have everything they ever wanted or needed.

Her mother had still thought she was in control, so she’d slapped Aria for the insinuation that she wasn’t doing anything. Listing off all her little ‘jobs’ as if that mattered.

‘Yes, mother, I’m sure it’s very difficult for you to clean your own room and shop for groceries. Sweeping the floor also seems difficult,’ she recalls her thoughts and thinks them again, spiteful. ‘However, I have just as much difficulty doing the dishes, the laundry, watching my brother and even cleaning the entire bathroom and kitchen whenever you get into a snit about it. So perhaps you could take up a few of those duties and I would have the time to create the paintings that pay for our meals-- as you refuse to learn to hunt or fish and we have no other means of supporting ourselves!’

Breathing hard through the bad memories, she recalls that she segued from her thoughts about the morning patrol paths. She was thinking about how lucky it was that she was able to catch Clive before he’d started his patrol and offered to take the morning loop as she had ‘awoken too early’ and ‘needed something to do before her own work began’.

He’d accepted the explanation easily, even seeming to be happy that someone finally offered to take up the duties he usually did himself every day without fail.

The trade-off was that he only had to take one patrol path a month ‘officially’ at any other time of day because most of the rest of his shifts were accounted for if he was doing the mornings by himself. So this would mean he’d have to take another shift during the day to compensate, but…nobody had to know.

And that’s what she told him when she took the shift. ‘This can just be between you and me’ and ‘you can just pretend you already patrolled before everyone woke up’.

He’d been aghast at the very idea. Of course. But she’d been so very desperate for nobody to know where she was and what she was doing, that she asked him to please just take the time to rest and touched his arm the way she used to when they were close.

Aria is afraid she pushed it a bit too far there, but she hadn’t intended to imply any interest in him. They hadn’t slept together in at least a handful of years and they’d not spent any protracted time together in at least that long plus a few more.

Clive had been something of an experiment. And Aria realized she really did like sleeping with men, it was just…Clive that she hadn’t been interested in. Because he didn’t…behave, the way she wanted him to. She really had no other words for it. She didn’t want to be the one being protected and cared for while she was with someone, she was…well, she was strong and independent and she’d always had to be, but…she also really liked to be.

She never really had to take charge in their house. She could’ve just taken her brother and left for the Temple, committing them as initiates and living with her father. But she decided instead that her mother would be easily controlled if she could just find the right angle. Get her off their backs and then they’d live relatively free.

If they’d gone to the Temple, there would’ve been so many restrictions on their behavior. Their thoughts would no longer be their own, because they would come to hate any thought that did not center around the gods. That is how priests are.

And while that may be a perfectly fine existence for one meant to be a priest, it was not something to take up when one simply wishes to leave home and get away from their mother. So, she found another way. And eventually, she wrested control of the household away from her mother. And now…

The cold, lonely walk of the morning loop is just what she needs, to hide what she’s doing and where she’s doing it. And to think about what she’s doing and why.

When she finally reaches the small abandoned lake, the sun is just beginning to peek out over the horizon, sending shadows dancing this way and that. Her eyes blink hard a few times to adjust and she can see nothing in the lake. But that's probably because it's still dark enough to hide the very bottom and they tend to hide there until it's full dark out and only pop up once or twice during the day.

This lake is so near the shore that she marveled when she first found it, that the people who'd dug it, didn't seem to understand that it was only a matter of time until the wall near the cliff collapsed.

And now the sea feeds into that lake. Or 'pond' rather, but... as it flows out into a greater body of water, she figures 'lake' is more apt. She isn't sure. She never took that much interest in geography and nature classes.

The first time is usually now.

One of them begins to poke their head out of the lake, and she shifts behind a tree. They have good hearing and senses of smell, but can't see too well. At least not far away. They've never seen her, as long as she stands right here. She fades into the tree, maybe.

The Qupasols are forbidden beings. 'They are the wrath of the gods brought down on our heads'. That's what she's always heard from the priests. But personally, she believes that if that were true... wouldn't fleeing that punishment be turning away from whatever gods might exist? Wouldn't it be saying 'I know I have sinned and done wrong, but I refuse to be punished'? Not that she believes every person alive today should be punished for the past's mistakes... but if they've sinned recently and they're afraid of what would happen if the Qupasols caught them...

It just seems like maybe if someone fears a Qupasol, they've done wrong.

Aria herself feels that Qupasols are more than likely just a creature in the sea that looks similar to humans, and that's why people think they're so scary. Being frightened of animals that look like humans seems a bit strange, but she supposes it's the intelligence in their eyes. The old pictures of monkeys sometimes made her feel like they were actually looking at her. She can understand a strange feeling up your spine, looking at a think with a face just like yours.

But the fear seems a step too far. The Qupasols never come out when humans could see them, just like any other animal. The only times they might do so, is if they feel threatened.

This one is a cool green. Stripes of darker green and blue all over it. Aria's read about camouflage in animals-- those books were always long-winded but... she liked the pictures.

Certain ones she's seen have had a head fin and antennae, but they seem to be twice the size of the others. And they're always accompanied by at least two or three of the smaller ones. The smaller ones have large, bulbous heads. No ridges or antennae. Just gill slits on either side of the skull-case.

They tend to be more colorful than the smaller ones, though. The big ones could be in shades of purple or pink or bright shades of blue and yellow. But the smaller ones had to be shades of green, grey, dark blue...

Rising so that their head and shoulders are above the surface of the water, they stare out at the sunrise. Taking in the beauty of the moment. They often do this. And like some other times, the bigger one rises behind the smaller one and curves around them. She's come to the conclusion that these ones are mates. Like many of the others she's seen. That 'wrapping around' action seems to be their way of showing affection. Like a hug, but... possessive and protective and all-encompassing. And only for one or two members of their little... packs?

Marsha wants to make paintings of them, but she'd need something like salamander skin to get the texture right, with fish scales for their tails. She doesn't want to catch and skin salamanders just for something like that. Or buy skins, thereby encouraging other people to do so...

If you can't use more than just one part of the animal, you probably shouldn't hunt it.

She thinks hard, once again, trying to figure out what else she could use.

Silk is too... thready. It needs to be more like sealskin but not as rough, or so she believes. It looks soft from a distance. Who knows... maybe some other kind of fish skin? She contemplates rubbing the scales carefully off a fish and then fileting them to get what she needs. But she doesn't know how to preserve fish skin to keep it soft... she'd have to take some fish to the tanner in town. He works with fish skin regularly. She's just never felt the need, because he was there. Though she thinks she should learn, for future projects.

But how to get the right color skin? These Qupasol skintones aren't strictly 'fish' skintones. And to get those patterns, she'd have to cut the hides apart and sew them together.

Sighing, she feels a bit wistful as they sink back beneath the water's surface.

Even Qupasols have mates. People they can find to understand and support them. And they aren't the only ones. Animals, humans, every kind of creature in the world has some kind of companion. Aside from the animals that are asexual reproducers, but really, that's a small number.

Friends, family, lovers. All Aria has is Marie and even Marie isn't exactly supportive of Aria's many little quirks.

Maybe if she had more people like Marie who supported different parts of her, she wouldn't feel so unsatisfied. But even Clive, whom tolerates her and is tolerated by her, doesn't really count. They're too different, so their acceptance of each other basically means nothing. It's just how you should see other people in general. 'Do whatever you like, I'll do whatever I like, but we don't have to be friends' kind of mentality.

Marie is the only one who finds her foibles charming and she's not inclined toward romance, so they will only ever be friends. Which is fine, or would be... if Aria had a lover that satisfied her, emotionally.

She keeps looking to Marie to fill roles that she cannot fill, and that isn't fair to her. But it's something she feels she needs. And she can't find it here.

'Just five more years,' she thinks to herself. 'Sheldon will be thirteen in five. more. years.'

And then, she leaves the lake behind, biting her lip and wondering if the fishmongers will have the right shades today after she's finished the patrol circuit.