Teatime

"Purple, plum, where's magenta?" Heliotrope fingered through the box of crayons, annoyed at the selection. She was trying to colour a cottage scene. Muggle cottage, not magical. Nor underwater, but for what amounted to a loch bound half-merperson's 'front lawn' was various shades of lake greens with the occasional vibrant magenta kelp. So the sky was as if it was the refractive surface of the lake, the cottage a stony gray, and the people received merfolk skin tones.

Even though this was ostensibly in a muggle neighborhood. But the unicorns and dinosaurs from the other pages kept wandering into the scene. "Out, I'll fill in your page later."

She hissed and went back with a worn-down lite-grey crayon. Her year-mates, Obderedria Pienas and Philo Falkin, were trying to help suggest other hobbies for stress relief given how swamped she was at work. It was the Mermish Translation Office, 'swamped' was not being used as hyperbole.

Besides crosswords from Philo, Drea had given one of her promotional copies of a Bev-Scapades Activity Book!! of a volume Helio didn't bother to remember. It used the characters from Drea's comic strip, like the giant rabbit and the magic folk that went to 'Piggy-Lumps' instead of Hogwarts and kept using odd replacements for wands.

But the chance to meet up with Itzayana Grimlish for tea couldn't have come at a better time. She interned with Beast Division last summer and her skills with translating Mermish made her a natural fit to work with Helio. The soggy Hufflepuff made sure she was dry, in her nicest casual clothes in her namesake hue, and had Floo'd in early so she attempted to color as she waited.

Once she noticed Itzayana arriving Helio perked up. "Itzy! You made it sound urgent. But tea and cakes doesn't suggest urgent."

While most of the people who frequented Puddifoots entered through the front door or the fireplace, Itzayana Grimlish was not most people. She, instead, walked down the stairs from the family's home above, a girl of about six clinging to her hand. When the pair reached the bottom of the steps, the gal scampered off to the kitchens and Itzy made her way over to where Heliotrope sat.

Every Grimlish who had gone through Hogwarts since her Aunt Cassie's time considered Puddifoots a second home. Rhiannon Grimlish, known the world over for her skills in tessomancy, was the Puddifoots' in-house Diviner and had been for several years. Itzy noticed her aunt, of course, and Rhi noticed her. Her aunt's eagle-sharp gaze rested on Itzy for only a moment before returning her attention to her supplicants, but that glance was full of curiosity. Itzayana had been upstairs with the twins for most of the morning, avoiding her aunt at all costs. Rhi was as well known for gossiping as she was for reading tea leaves, and Itzayana hadn't wanted her personal problems to spread through the family like fiendfyre. She would surely have some evading to do to escape the tea shop without giving her aunt some sort of answer, but for now the rules of propriety ruled - Rhiannon Grimlish would never interrupt friends sharing tea.

"Tea and treats with friends is always urgent," She said with a nervous laugh, settling into a plush armchair across from Heliotrope, "But yes, I did have some things I wanted to discuss with you that I would rather not leave to correspondence,"

A few moments later, the young girl from before came scampering up, struggling to carry a tray laden with a carafe of hot water, two unmatching mugs, and a bright purple canister. "Thanks Cupcake," She said to Artemis Puddifoot, relieving her of her burden and placing the tray on the table beside Heliotrope's coloring book and crayons, "Don't forget to tell your mum I'll be by this weekend to take care of the boggart in the basement,"

After the girl scampered off, Itzy turned her attention back to her companion and got down to the business of pouring tea. "This is from Dora's own stock, a white oolong, I think," She said off-handedly while passing a mug over the table toward Heliotrope. Being friends with the owner had its perks.

"Your coloring looks very nice," She said seriously, settling back into her seat with both hands wrapped around a steaming mug, "How are things at the office?"

"I've found not everyone can be as spotinat. Spotty, tainus," the word escaped her, "quick to arrive to sudden invitations," she added spontaneously.

Heliotrope nodded at the mention of a discussion without sending letters. Helio had allotted most of her post to come to her Ministry desk rather than home, even with the extra screening. She was often traveling, for one, and the seldom used boat-fold of the memos, rather than aeroplane-fold, became quite important when you got to the aquatic sectors of the RCMC. Better at headquarters than delivered by confused owls waiting for her to surface.

The implication of a boggart in the basement of a tea shop was lost on Helio. Pudifoot's, formerly of a Madam's (but not that kind) was known for the namesake family and their Grimlish connections. For Heliotrope, it was one of the spots in Hogsmeade her Hufflepuff sisters kept dragging her for the weekend visits instead of further dips in the lake. Especially in the winter.

"Oolong." Helio sniffed the cup. "Very tasty." Also letting the tea radiate heat through her webbed hand, Helio looked between Itzy and the coloring page a few times, unsure what to say. This seemed like a question where you either said too little or far too much, as Heliotrope couldn't compartmentalize easily.

Everything going on since March was glossed over. "I miss having you around, Itzy. Or other people who can translate Mermish well enough." Hers wasn't meant to be a solo job but for the past three years Helio had been the most consistent as the office shifted through personnel. "I've got a full quota of translated books to deliver to the Library next week.[1] But I didn't want to turn down your invite. I can call this a, what's the phrase? Mental health day."

1.	Take a Look, It’s in a Book - April 11 2018

Itzayana offered Heliotrope a warm and genuine smile before taking a sip of her tea. She knew others found Heliotrope to be a bit of an acquired taste, but Itzy found she actually enjoyed the other woman's company. She was quirky, sure, but so were all of the Grimlishes. Some might have taken offense at the half-mer's words (she only missed Itzy because of her translating skills?) Itzy, however, took it for a simple fact and her grin broadened. Heliotrope LeJean was half-merfolk, so a compliment from her on Itzy's Mermish was quite the ego boost.

She didn't attempt to correct or help Helio when she stumbled over words. Itzy had found that people often felt put down by being constantly corrected, and besides, discovering new words was the best part of language. She wouldn't want to steal her friend's joy.

The tea was, indeed, tasty. Itzayana wasn't one for sweeteners, and this tea needed none - it was light with a slight natural sweetness. How Pandora found these incredible gems was a magic all its own. After another sip, she sat her cup on the tabletop and brushed a lock of dark hair from her face. "We are all three - mind, body, being. To neglect one is to neglect all," She replied, nodding agreeably in reply to Heliotrope's mention of mental health.

She wanted to talk about work, to ask Heliotrope which interesting bits she'd translated lately, to beg her colleague to take her into the field over the next few days before she had to return to the boring mundane life of a Hogwarts student. What she asked, instead, was, "Have you ever been in love, Helio?"

It wasn't a question Itzayana would normally have asked. Perhaps it was because of the atmosphere, or having spent time around the loving Puddifoots, or maybe it was because Itzy had been feeling a few feelings herself. In any case, the teen found herself blushing at her awkwardness.

"Threefold of mind, body, and being," Heliotrope parsed Itzayana's term as she sipped her tea. "Being, or spirit maybe? Vim? That existence of your lifeforce beyond your fleshen shell."

It was a sticking point for her for the government's definition of Being, although she knew Itzy indicated something else. Merfolk had many teachings about one's existence, the soul. Your time on earth was its own journey from the seas of before & beyond. A partial reason to why some merpeople learning English were bad at grasping plurals. They usually referred to their 'mind, body & being' as a collective identifier for the self, rather than separate constructs.

Helio's problem hadn't been with plurals, it was comprehending the intended meaning when meanings kept changing. Setting her teacup down, she realized she should fold away her coloring for latter. She was packing crayons back into the box when Itzy surprised her with the question.

"Have I been in love?" A prime example. There was no further resonance to the word 'love' spoken this way to indicate which kind of love. There were over a dozen words for love in regional Mermish and several kinds of love-based relationships. This originated from the Sirens, one of the oldest species, which allowed some shorthand since the most common expressions were similar to what the ancient Greeks used.

"I'm going to guess you don't mean agape or philia. You indicate one of the romances that might lead to Union." Effectively marriage but without the weight of human history behind the term, given the merfolk perspective of being. "So not storgic, the familial love."

She didn't quite remember the remaining two of Eros or Ludus, leading to her unabashedly cheerful phrasing of a reply that sounded a lot worse than it had in her head. "I've been in several loves but can't say I've been erotic with anybody! Not when I'm lucid."

Itzayana hadn't considered any religious implications in her speaking and was surprised when Heliotrope began picking apart her statement. There was no unifying religion the Grimlish family could claim, each member of her sprawling family believed as they wished, and so Itzy's own thoughts on the matter were complicated. In any case, her inexperience in the area kept her from expounding further.

She was fascinated with the way Heliotrope dissected the way people spoke, digging into the bloody nerves and roots of the words people say. Most people, Itzy herself included, didn't think about the words they used, they simply used them. Meanings and definitions were secondary to the colloquial collection of human interaction. In other words, the words themselves were unimportant, so long as the people around her understood them.

Everyone thought as Heliotrope did, their minds parsing the words others used to tease out their meanings, their subconsciousness picking up context and ascribing meaning based off a myriad of factors. English didn't need twenty words for love because others could infer what someone meant by the other words a person used. Everyone did it, most just did it quicker than thought, and none but Heliotrope LeJean did it aloud.

The youngest Grimlish was tempted to rescind her question, but her curiosity overrode her discomfort, and Itzy just sat and sipped at her tea. Her pale face blushed furiously at the half-mer's embarrassing, yet comical, reply. It was not the response she had been expecting, to be sure.

"Nothing quite so intimate as all that," she said quietly, glancing around to make sure no one was staring at them. "No Union, no mating," The last word came out barely in a whisper, "Romance was an appropriate word, perhaps,"

"Or, maybe better, the feelings that lead to romance. Not carnal feelings of lust or desire, but the tingle in a touch, the need to be together," Here, Itzy could understand why Heliotrope had issues with English, because even though Itzayana considered herself fluent in two languages, she couldn't find the words to express herself in either one.

The spiritual, almost philosophical or religious aspect of the conversation remained oblique to Heliotrope. There hadn’t been much delving into faith-based topics when she took Muggle Studies. So the emotional reasoning she understood, when there was a slight resonance to what she had known when viewing other faiths, if not always remembering the differences of practices.

Yet such deep subjects didn’t sound fitting for the shallow environment. As in, having tea with a friend/colleague who sounded like she had a pressing query. Swirling her tea in her hand, Heliotrope beamed in thinking she was getting better instincts avoiding the proverbial “social bends” in navigating the flow of conversation. Not plunging from one topic to another too quickly.

Or not. Her face fell in confusion, in reflection of Itzy’s reddening blush and nervous glances around the shop.

“Intimacy and mating?” She blinked rapidly, which never fully obscured her grey-blue irises. “You meant pro-,” no, stop, listen to what it was Itzayana was saying. She was describing the more conventionally human version of romance, or perhaps ‘courtship’ as they called it. Which to Heliotrope, was a very ridiculous place to moor a ship, the interior yard of a set of buildings. Whenever Durmstrang had visited Hogwarts they had the sense to keep the ship in the lake!

“Those little things that make you like someone. Before it gets to sharing air, I mean, kissing.” Helio’s own embarrassed response wasn’t the same color of blush Itzy could pull off. Her skin almost greyed, looked more clammy and she slumped in her chair slightly.

With hardly a change in her posture she had retrieved the Tangle from her mermaid’s purse. The elder Hufflepuff, Molly King, had picked the right kind of gift for a fidget toy.[1] “Then no, I haven’t done as much of that. Being in love or feeling love things. With others.” Her hands traced the irregular snarl of the Tangle. “Seen others floundering in it just as much.”

1.	Dragonberry, Ocean Water & New Flavors for Spring - Mar 4 2018

Itzayana began to perk up, now that the initial burst of awkwardness had passed. It was embarrassing to be talking about these topics, to be sure, but it was also fascinating. Itzy had spoken of these things with her closest friends, of course, but they were as inexperienced as Itzy herself. Poem was probably the most worldly of all her friends and had had several boyfriends, but Poem was so prim and proper - not exactly the type to kiss and tell.

Itzy had called a Hufflepuff bloke her boyfriend the year before, but those were just meaningless words, no feelings involved. It didn't last long enough for feelings to grow, as she had heard sometimes happened, and he had broken off contact after only a couple of weeks. She, apparently, had undesirable hobbies which was understandable to the youngest Grimlish. It was important to take an interest in one's partner's interests, or so she had heard, and if Harry Breckendorf didn't enjoy the things she did it was probably better that things hadn't progressed further.

It hadn't ever really bothered Itzy - her lack of intimate relationships. She had never felt the need to be coupled up, as many of her classmates seemed to think was important. She had deep, meaningful connections with several people; her friends and family were the most important things in Itzayana's life. The lack of a boyfriend had never felt lacking.

Lately, however, things had begun to change. No amount of preparation could prepare a gal for puberty and no amount of research could properly portray the feelings of young love.

"That's an apt metaphor, innit?" She said with a sigh, "Floundering,"

Itzy had hoped that Heliotrope would have some sort of wisdom to share - some easy solutions to complex concepts. It seemed, however, that maybe no one had the answers she was looking for. Maybe there were no easy answers - maybe there were no answers at all.

The wix watched the half-mer twiddle with her toy for a second and then sighed again, "I've been... spending time with someone lately," She began haltingly, "A boy," A mer-boy, she added internally. "I really enjoy spending time with him, and I think he enjoys spending time with me, but we live in totally different worlds and I just don't know if he likes me the same way I like him,"

"Er... I meant, it's like we live in different worlds," she said, blushing at her blunder. Itzy wasn't sure if she was ready for people to know she had a crush on a boy with a tail instead of legs. Her peers didn't need any more fuel for their casual cruelty.

"Very apt. Flatfish like flounder live on the bottom of the ocean. Until their eyes switch sides they aren't as good as hunting." Heliotrope calmly sipped her tea. "Unlike that fat yellow flounder, but even though Drea showed me the cartoon I told her fish don't talk." Only the siren was right, if a bit pasty skinned, but crabs with displaced accents made even less sense in the setting. Much like the adage of 'fish are friends, not food' you weren't going to get enough protein from kelp alone. All nonsense.

Heliotrope took in Itzy's continued embarrassment as she let the Tangle rest on her lap. 'Different worlds' threw her for a loop, although if Itzy had been honest Heliotrope would have picked up on things a lot quicker.

"Well, you hopefully won't wind up in deep water with him. Like flounder." Helio's advice was minimal given the little context. "Don't lead off with what you find attractive if it makes him uncomfortable." She'd seen the sidelines of that break down when one of her friends told the other he liked her for her size.

"It's probably unhelpful but avoid the tragedy of blurbeng Mirabella Plunkett. Not telling the right people if the love feels forbidden." She used the term for Loch Lomond's more infamous adoptive outsider who was graced with a Chocolate Frog card.

Heliotrope rubbed at an itch on her forehead, as the critical flaw in her reasoning took hold. She figured Itzy meant 'different worlds' much like how magic folk talked about their attraction to muggles. "He doesn't know you're a witch, right? That's something that has to be breached if it gets, um, past dating."

Heliotrope's tangent on flat fish just confused Itzayana more. A fat, yellow flounder? A... kartune? Itzy had heard all about kartunes, of course, from her Aunt Cassie, but she didn't know any about talking fish. Perhaps it was some sort of mover about an animagus and a siren? Itzayana wasn't sure if she'd want to tell anyone if her own animagus form were a mud-dwelling pancake, even if it was just a mover where anything could happen.

And... don't tell him that she found him attractive? Well, that was easy enough, she supposed, even if the advice seemed to directly contradict things she'd heard from other people. She didn't find him attractive, at least not physically. Itzy thought that looks were rather unimportant anyway - chances were, no one her age would look the same a few years down the road. Trim figures would fade as metabolisms slowed, taut skin would sag and wrinkle with age, flawless skin would one day be marred with liver spots and skin tags.

The things Itzayana found attractive about people were their actions - their personalities. Kindness was attractive, humor was attractive, compassion was attractive. These things could change with time, but looks would change with time. One was conditional, the other definitive, so in Itzy's most humble opinion attraction was wasted on looks. Is that what Helio meant? That she shouldn't tell him how sweet he was? Or how much she enjoyed his laugh? Why not? Itzy hated not understanding things.

Plunkett? Forbidden? Beads of sweat popped out on Itzy's forehead as Heliotrope got uncomfortably close to the truth. A reply came to her lips, but thankfully Helio continued before Itzy had a chance to open her mouth and spill all her secrets.

"Not exactly," She said, thinking quickly, "We don't go to the same school," Not a lie, "and he doesn't use magic the same way I do," also not a lie, "Our cultures are wildly different and there are a million other reasons why I should not like him, but I do,"

"I dunno," The Ravenclaw lass continued with a sigh and a shrug, "Poem says I should just find someone at school to date, but I don't think anyone likes me romantically at Hogwarts,"

"I wish someone could just tell me what to do," She said with another sigh, slouching into her seat.

After the confusion over the terms of love, Helio was finding she had very little direct experience with being in the kind of love Itzy mentioned. She'd seen others date, share air, and that was nearly what everyone had been focused on besides their studies going into their late Hogwarts years.

Helio wasn't non-romantic, but she hadn't fully considered it. Because there wasn't just the question of whom, but which side of peculiar lineage she should look towards for romance.

Helio was about to pour more tea, appreciating the heat from the teapot as Itzy further explained things. There was enough specified vagueness to almost suggest... "Is this a long distance relationship? If you owl him at his school?"

She echoed Itzy's sigh as she filled her cup. Direct answers Heliotrope couldn't provide, even if she was older of the two witches. And she'd said enough about Philo and Drea's awkward love confessions, they didn't need to be embarrassed further. "Do what's right for you," Helio added simply. "Since you went back to school, I had to interview a lot of couples involved with wix and merfolk relations."

"The, uh," vague gestures made over the table. Itzy was of age but what Helio tried to indicate was still a minor vulgarity. "Physical. Hook ups. But most of them are coming from a genuine attraction. There are places that used to coerce the practice for profit. Or keeping the saltwater partner from returning to the seas. But that's happened throughout the ages, even before the most recent disaster..." She looked down at her teacup, darkly.

Itzayana almost laughed at the absurdity of the situation. Here they were, after Itzy had called Helio up for tea, and Itzayana couldn't gather the courage to speak plainly. They were circling round and round the topic, getting so close Itzayana would soon have no choice but to speak her truth or let the matter rest.

Itzy nodded in response to Heliotrope's question - it was long distance, though it wasn't a relationship and she didn't owl him. They met in person during holidays and exchanged messages through her grandpa, she wasn't even sure if an owl would know how to reach him.

She wasn't sure why she was so hesitant to speak up. Itzy had an uncle who was a ghost, an aunt who dated vampires, her grandmother was a muggle who only thought her husband was a ghost, but that man, her grandfather, was very much alive. He was also one of the leading experts in Wix-Merfolk relations, though his focus had always been more social than political. It wasn't as if anyone in her family would have an issue with her feelings, but if she spoke them aloud, she would have to confront them herself and she wasn't sure she was quite ready to do that yet.

Helio speaking of her work at the office had Itzy resigned to her fate - she was about to open her mouth to tell her half-mer companion every little detail when the end of Heliotrope's statement pierced her brain. The most recent disaster? Suddenly, foolish hormone-fueled teenage emotions seemed far less important and Itzayana's posture immediately perked up.

"You're talking about those muggle drownings, aren't you?" She asked, having read about the incident in the Daily Prophet, "That's why I asked you round in the first place - I've only heard what's been in the papers, not even granda knows more. What's going on?" Her love life could wait - this was important.

Muggle drownings. The phrase would steel Heliotrope's face like a collision course with an ocean liner. Nothing she had against muggles, it was the ugly truth to the incident where the Ministry ultimately had to cover up the crime for the protection of the magical world. Multiple worlds, you could say.

Also, discretion wasn't Helio's strong suit. It usually required extra-explanations as to why something should be kept under wraps, and then an equal amount of time tricking her brain into not focusing on the taboo. Itzy had worked the translation office before. The full ramifications went above both their pay grades. She might not have been brought into the initial search if she was an intern out of school, but she would hear enough about it during her summer hours. Let alone her grandfather, Osgood Grimlish. Murm's the Word had been the most informative book on merfolk of the North Sea, let alone a well researched book on merfolk from a wix author period in recent history. Even though Helio had particular distaste for the Finfolk chapter.

So Helio threw caution to the waves and figured Itzy might as well know. "A selkie drowned them. Sulesk, we still don't know if she hails from the Atlantic or the North Sea. As Vincent Fournier says, it's complicated."

A small sip of tea to steady herself. "She was provoked, because she was trying to protect her younger sister Ve'sker from the muggles. Because they had stolen her pelt. There haven't been leads there either. And almost every day, besides my usual duties, I have to oversee Sulesk's care after I promised to help but can provide no answers. When she hates everything about humans, wand-folk, and me especially."

Spoken without any strong emotion. Only a hint of a resigned tiredness. Setting down the cup, her hands returned to tracing the Tangle.

"You should keep that on the undercurrent," Heliotrope finished as she reached for a plate, with a turn of phrase akin to 'down-low.' "Same if you tell Osgood. Tea biscuit?"

All Itzayana could do was gasp, wide-eyed, as Heliotrope unfurled a story as dark as any she'd heard. 'Complicated' didn't begin to cover it, in Itzy's opinion. Provoked or not, Itzy wasn't sure how she felt about the deaths of anyone, muggle, wix, or creature, but she also knew that she hadn't 'swam Sulesk's seas', so to speak, and was in no position to judge.

"Skyrlliphyllx," She whispered when Heliotrope finished speaking - borrowing one of the half-merfolk's Mermlish curses. Itzayana didn't remember any Sulesk or Ve'sker from her own visits to the North Sea colonies, but Itzy had been at Hogwarts during much of the time that her grandfather had spent gathering information for his book. Even Osgood would be unlikely to be able to identify if the pair were from the North Sea or not - it wasn't as if he'd visited every single colony and taken names.

And a stolen pelt? Itzayana couldn't imagine how terrible that would be. But... wait... there were no leads on the pelt, but Heliotrope hadn't mentioned Ve'sker again. Helio was overseeing Sulesk's care, but what happened to the peltless selkie?

"And Ve'sker?" she asked, grabbing a biscuit automatically and then promptly forgetting about it, "How's she holding up without her pelt?"

The universal vulgarity in broken Mermish wasn't missed from Heliotrope. She looked towards the rest of the tea shop's tables, almost expecting an off duty professor or Headmaster Storm to show up out of nowhere and dock Itzy house points...no, it was term break. Nobody else looked of the sort to comprehend dry merfolk language.

"She is," Heliotrope began, returning her cup to the saucer. It rattled against the dish in her shaky grip. "She's unable to return to the seas with it lost. Human for longer than she expected. But she's, still lost..."

Heliotrope wasn't staring at anything with her gaze past Itzy's shoulder. She was having to keep her breathing focused, with an involuntary flap of her gills. Coiled, tense, like when she lost her composure the first day of the search when Fournier sent her home. Years back, before she had left school, an argument she'd had over the spring holiday with her mother Danielle...

In the present, Helio caught herself before spilling the tea. "Can we," she gulped. "Change subjects."

She let go of the held breath in a low tone. In trying to relax she changed her seating in the chair. Crossing her legs together, folded as if she was sitting on a yoga mat rather than a dainty chair. She looked back at Itzy, blinking. Although the translucent film of Helio's strange eyelids never did obscure her eyes.

"You had something else you wanted to talk about?"