Kei was being judged. Betrayed by her own friends and one friend in question's suspicious human friend.

"Remind me again why I'm driving?" she sighed, steering their merry boat across the waves as Ari made sad noises about motion sickness. It seemed Ari and long boat rides were not an ideal combination. All the banging around as they tried to leave the docks before Kei took over probably hadn't helped either.

Aidyn snickered. "Because you're the only one who can go straight." After the unfortunate misplacement of Damon (Cynth Leeyung didn't seem like the type to return him to a lost-and-found) and the confusing debate on where exactly they were heading with a stolen boat, Aidyn had retreated into himself to brood.

Except for laughing at the weak jokes they often cracked to ease the tension. It was just Kei's luck that the running joke of the past hour had been about her straightness. Because apparently discovering she was only into guys (romantically — Kei was ace, the revealing of which had resulted in a fistbump with Aidyn) meant everyone had to immediately crack several terrible jokes, make equally terrible puns and feign betrayal at having "a straight infiltrate [their] ranks." Honestly, at this point it was just straight-up bullying.

Six tides, she couldn't even say the word with a straight face — never mind. The point remained that despite a not insignificant amount of time passing, they were somehow still going, and progressively getting worse.

"What if I just reversed us all the way back to Altiu? We'd technically still be going straight, just backwards." Kei examined the steering wheel. Jared watched in not-concern. Calix just sighed. Cybele looked up from her unofficial post leaning over the railing as Kei examined the steering wheel. Maybe it could go a full 360°, maybe it couldn't. There was only one way to find out.

"That would probably not be a good idea," she said tentatively. Kei raised her eyebrows. Cybele hadn't caused any trouble so far, but she was also one of the humans who'd been there on the beach. Maybe Cybele hadn't been the one to shoot her, but Kei was allowed to be salty, and so she was. Also, her opinions on humans in general had recently received a small revamp, not in their favor.

Anyways, Kei had her disapproval now. That meant it was a good plan, because the only thing the people in this group all seemed to agree on was bad plans. Kei knew this because she'd helped to come up with several said bad plans.

It took her a few tries to hit buttons and play with levers, but Kei got the boat to reverse despite several half-hearted attempts to stop her from the more sensible members of the group, who then gave up and just let her screw around with the controls. Besides, Kei was pretty sure most of them also wanted to see if one could reverse a boat.

One could, in fact, reverse a boat. Except then they started rocking.

Severely rocking.

"Uh, Kei, was this boat meant to go backwards?" Jared piped up.

The boat rocked more, waves splashing up the sides as it continued sailing merrily backwards. So maybe it wasn't. Unfortunate.

Ari peered at the controls as Cybele and Calix grabbed onto the railings in an effort to not end up in the water. Aidyn lunged forward when a particularly hard shake almost sent him flying. "Make us go forwards again!"

Kei paused, examining the mess of controls. "Uh, small issue, I don't actually know what I did?"

Fortunately, or perhaps less so, Kei was saved from having to actually figure out how the boat worked by simply falling off of it when the entire thing flipped. Several of her crewmates (namely Jared and, slightly quieter, Ari) screamed as they got pitched in graceful parabolas straight into the water. Or perhaps less so, especially in the case of Jared.

The sudden cold seemed to temporarily freeze Kei's senses as she sank like a very surprised stone before her brain took over and said, Hey, survival. Kicking her shoes off, Kei mourned the loss of a perfectly good pair before swimming up to the surface and doing a quick headcount. Aidyn and Cybele popped out of the water, half-swimming half-dragging Ari along as they started swimming towards the beach. While most caeli could use their wings to trap air and help them float, Ari's could only serve as extra weight to carry. Calix, although very waterlogged, was dealing with the situation with surprising equanimity and paddling away. Jared, on the other hand...

Actually, Jared was nowhere to be seen. Honestly, they lost him a slightly concerning amount.

Sucking in a deep breath, Kei dived back underwater and pushed aside a few suspended boxes. Box, someone's shoes, distressed snake boy, rapidly sinking bag — wait. Distressed snake boy. Priorities. She swam deeper, grabbing Jared's arms. Out of the corner of her eye, Kei spotted what looked like a dark-skinned rana disappearing into the depths of the lake, but ignored them in favour of hauling a panicking and more-than-a-little-wildly flailing Jared to the surface. He coughed up some water while Kei sighed and treaded water for both of them.

"Moons above, how much water did you swallow?" Kei asked after a bit.

Silence.

"Jared, you have not lost your voice, please do not stare at me like I hold the secrets to the universe because I don't."

"I wish I did, but such is the tragedy of life."

"Jared, you are getting ridiculous and I'm getting tired. Can you at least swim?"

Kei smacked him across the face, which seemed to do the trick.

"I don't even have feet," Jared said sadly, with none of the joy that permeated his words the last time he'd said that strange word combination. "How do I swim without feet?"

Kei pondered the issue for a moment. "Okay, true, just try not to be dead weight while I drag you back to shore." Sighing, Kei eyed up the distance from where they were to the beach with concerned silhouettes watching them and Jared made a vague attempt to float.

Kei was regretting several life decisions as she started paddling back with a footless snake boy in tow. Firstly, snake boys were heavy. Secondly, Jared kept up a running commentary which in theory would have made the time go faster, but in reality did the exact opposite.

"You have nice feet," Jared noted.

Kei stopped swimming. "I what?"

"You have nice feet," Jared repeated.

Kei looked around them. There was one of those floaty ring things, well, floating nearby, which would have been useful earlier. The rest of their group watched from the beach, blissfully unaware of the terrible fate about to befall their companion.

"Jared, look me in the eyes." Jared looked at her innocently as if he hadn't just, in the weirdest it-is-not-weird way possible, complimented her moons-damned feet. Kei looked at him. He looked back. She let go.

"Die."

Jared floundered in the water, reaching out blindly for the floaty ring thing. "Kei! Wait! I'm sorry!"

Kei paddled away, laughing as Jared called out in vain. She emerged dripping wet but still laughing, reportedly nice feet sinking into the soft sand. The others looked from her, to Jared bobbing helplessly with his floaty ring thing, to her again. Cybele opened her mouth.

"Not a word about the feet."

Cybele nodded and closed her mouth. It was hardly Kei's fault that she got her mom's rana feet, and it was frankly just rude to stare. No one had stared at Aidyn. Aidyn had literal scales on his hands, but moons forbid Kei have feet. Ari choked down a laugh as she connected the dots to Jared's current predicament.

Aforementioned half-snake boy peered at the still helplessly-bobbing snake boy. "Someone should probably go rescue him."

Kei nodded sagely.

Aidyn sighed. "You're not going to, are you?"

Kei shook her head a little less sagely. Aidyn eyed the water.

"I'll go," Calix broke into their silent civil discussion on who was going to save the stranded anguis. Kei blinked.

"There's some ranae further up there," Cybele noted. Kei craned her neck, finally spotting the group standing near what looked like yet another lake. From what they'd seen sailing here, Alto was basically majority lake. They had seen many lakes.

"Okay, Calix can go save Jared, and I guess I'll just go talk to the ranae, unless anyone here has newfound linguistic skills?" Everyone shook their heads, so Kei just sighed and made her way across the sand. "Don't burn the beach while I'm gone."

"Kei, this is sand — "

✧ ☾✧☽ ✧

The very first thing the five or six ranae did was stare at her feet. Ranae. Staring at her rana feet. Or maybe they were staring at her in general, though Kei didn't think that was much better. So she stared back, because she didn't really know what to do. Which resulted in their staring at each other for a few moments while Kei tried to get her brain to speak Rana. She remembered all the swears, sure, but she doubted they would appreciate the strange hibri cussing them out on the beach. Especially without any context or leadup whatsoever.

"Why are you here?" one rana said when the silence progressed from suspenseful to just plain awkward.

"Why did you tip our boat?" Kei countered. There was a word for capsize, but Kei didn't know it, so tipped the boat was.

"So she does speak her own language," another one mused. Kei raised her eyebrows, unsure whether she was supposed to be amused, flattered, or insulted. Judging by tone, it didn't have all that positive of a connotation. Insulted, then.

"Okay, but why did you tip our boat? All our stuff is gone now."

The first rana simply shrugged. "We don't like more humans arriving, figured you'd be easy enough to stop."

There was literally one human, which Kei pointed out to them.

A rana with long braids twisted around their head started, "Well, there is the half-human boy — " before another one smacked them on the shoulder.

"The boy can't help his ancestry, you know what happens if you say no to a human. This girl, on the other hand..."

Excuse me? Kei knew the ranae could be a little conservative about hibri and other species. Her own maternal grandparents were tide bringers, but she'd still been hoping they were a minority amongst the not-racist ranae of Selino.

Apparently not.

The lead rana must have seen her reaction, quickly interjecting with "Enough, both of you. No one can help who their parents are." Turning away, they pointed towards what looked like a forest bordering a small plain. "Most of the rana villages are by the lakes. If you head towards the mainland, you can buy more supplies from the angui villages there. They might be a bit more... accepting of your group."

Kei didn't know how much better the angui would be, but at least they were still an unknown variable. "Thanks? I guess?"

They shrugged. "It's the least we could do, after capsizing your boat." Oh, so that's what the word was.

"We don't owe the humans anything — "

"We also don't punish many because of one. We're not them." There were humans on every continent in Selino. Judging by the last rana's tone of voice, it seemed pretty safe to assume the humans here had made an example of someone at some point. The other ranae muttered something or other as Kei turned and started to leave, assuming she'd been dismissed. She could see a waterlogged Calix sitting next to Jared on the beach, so they were fine. The sand was also not on fire.

"Oh, and, hibri girl?" Kei turned back. The rest of the group had started to disperse, slipping into the lake to wherever their village was. The rana who'd (sort of?) defended her earlier was watching her contemplatively, as if questioning her life choices. Kei was too, but here she was anyway.

"If you truly care for your friends, you'd do good to leave the human and the other hibri behind. They'll only cause everyone trouble in the villages."

Kei didn't know how to respond to that, so she just nodded mutely and wandered back over the sand to her friends, who she was not leaving behind, thank you very much. Even then, she couldn't stop her brain from quickly compiling a list of all the various undesirable consequences of going into a village with this crew.

Seeing her start to return, a couple of them started waving as if Kei was blind and couldn't see the conspicuous group. They really needed a name, even if she couldn't think of one right now.

"What did the ranae say?" Aidyn asked when she got back. Ari was busy tending to the various scrapes and bruises acquired during their fell-out-of-a-boat escapade. Jared was chattering in Anguis to Calix with renewed vigour, the former clearly faring none-the-worse from his abandonment, the latter just incredibly confused. Cybele sat a little off to the side, occasionally exchanging wary glances with the others.

"They apologised for capsizing us. Kind of. Not really, but they did say there's an anguis village somewhere near the forest edge. We may be able to afford supplies that aren't a literal boat."

Aidyn patted around his pockets. "I think I have some money, how much do the rest of you have?"

"Some, but not much." Cybele pulled out a few coins from a hidden pouch, gold glinting and definitely damp.

Ari and Kei both shook their heads as Calix turned to Jared. "How much rat jerky did you buy?"

Jared paused to think. "Not that much."

Calix sighed. "I have a bit." Okay. That was good, because otherwise they'd have to steal stuff, which was significantly harder when the stolen goods were not a means of transportation. The main goal of stealing was to evade capture.

Aidyn stood up, waiting for the rest of them to follow. "Ari, are we good to go?" Ari nodded, dusting sand off her feathers.

"Uh, wait. Aidyn, Cybele, technically me too but I'm the one talking." Kei cleared her throat, thinking through how she was supposed to say this. "You're going to have to be, I guess careful's the word, in the villages. We don't know how the patrias here are going to react, but I doubt it'll be positive."

Cybele frowned, while Aidyn looked mildly upset but resigned. "How bad would it be?"

Kei shrugged. "The angui are supposed to be more accepting, hence why we're going to them, but considering our boat got tipped after the ranae saw your face..."

"Angui don't like humans much either," Jared supplied cheerfully.

Aidyn rubbed his bracelet, twisting the beads around his fingers. "We don't have much choice. It's either the ranae or the angui, and from what we've seen the ranae are hardly welcoming. At least with the angui we have Jared to help us."

"Are we certain the ranae won't help us? I mean, maybe it's just the small group who have a personal grudge," Cybele suggested.

Kei pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed. "Even if I speak the language, ranae aren't exactly known for being accepting of hibri. We'd be waltzing into town with three pariahs instead of hopefully just two, and at least with the angui our ambassador is actually, you know, socially accepted."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

Ari peered into the forest past the lake. "Do we go now? Kei, you said it was near the edge?"

Kei nodded, and there was a general brushing-off of sand around her before they finally set off for the anguis village. A blanket of tension seemed to be slowly laying down over them, started by the addition of Cybele and spurred on by the knowledge that hey, basically everyone here was a minority now, they might get hate crimed!

Kei was joking. Moons above, she was joking. She didn't want to get hate crimed. They still had a source to find, after all, and moons be damned if she let racist tidebringers let the significantly more racist and also significantly more dangerous humans get the sources instead.

✧ ☾✧☽ ✧

Thanks for writing, wewannabeus! We love Kei. Look forward to a lot more Kei. And Kei-os.

With virtual hugs, purple Google features, and flammable sand (highly flammable; one might call it flammalicious),

Grand Financial Compensation

(G.F.C.)