Spawn

There were a lot of mysteries about Ulrich, questions left unanswered. The biggest by far was exactly why he was on the island. Nicolas had filled in bits and pieces, but there was still a big fat question mark. Why? Why come to this island, of all islands? Where did he go? Why even hire a 'bodyguard' (really, he was more of a human culture coordinator) when you were going to sneak off to who knew where? More than once Nicolas had woken in the dead of the night to find Ulrich gone, run off to who knew where.

Today he hadn't run far, at least. Ulrich was out on the porch, talking to a guard - to a thing that looked all fish and not at all human, just barely poking it's head above the surface. The creature from the black lagoon looked more friendly and human than that thing, and it made Nicolas hang back, lingering near the doorway and waiting for Ulrich to be done with his business.

If he'd been smart about it, he'd have done that exact thing a long time ago, because he hadn't been waiting thirty seconds when he heard - just barely, and only in part - the answer to his question. Or at least the answer to one of his questions.

Ulrich was upset - upset that he hadn't been warned that 'Emma' and 'Luca' were at the tree lighting. That explained their sudden departure, but left him with a big fat question. Answers weren't forthcoming - probably they would have been, only he couldn't understand fish, so he was only getting Ulrich's side of hte conversation. After a few moments, he stepped back, taking a seat and waiting for Ulrich to come in.

Time for some answers.

They were both unhappy, so they were even. Nicolas sat by the table (he hesitated to call it a dining room, considering how open the floor plan was), his one arm crossed over his chest. If he'd had two, he'd have been crossing his arms, but as it was it just looked awkward.

He waited for Ulrich to come in before he addressed him.

"So, now that you're here because of Luca and Emma, I want to know who exactly they are." Were they a danger? Luca was ambiguous, but Emma was certainly a woman's name.

"Yes." He wasn't going to deny that - it was rude, but he didn't give a shit. "So is hiding things. You practically jerked my arm out of my socket when you decided to go before the tree lighting, and you hired me specifically to deal with this sort of shit. How am I supposed to... to what, hide you? From people I don't even know." Was he hiding him? Or what? He genuinely had no idea. Normally he was pretty good at figuring stuff out, but this stuff was so alien to him he couldn't begin to. He knew there were two people, and that Ulrich was avoiding them (or did he just not want Nicolas to see them?). He didn't know if they were human, or if they were Panthalassians, or what. It was all too general and vague, like a hundred piece puzzle he'd been given three pieces to.

"I really don't see the point in hiring me to help you out, and then telling me basically nothing." He'd essentially been living rent free and doing goddamn nothing. The greatest amount of work he was doing on any given day was explaining to Ulrich the idea of different human meals.

It was making him hard to deal with. Normally he'd have fallen back into neat professionalism, acting like Ulrich was his boss. He was paying him enough money that his word was god, only Nicolas felt like he was going stir crazy. He didn't know anyone, he was in a strange place, and he had absolutely nothing to do the overwhelming majority of the time.

"Then why the hell are they here?" That was the question, wasn't it? There was an entire ocean for Panthallassian's to hide in, and they'd come here? There was no way it was a coincidence. No, they had to be here on purpose, likely for the same reason that Ulrich was. Nicolas was no political schemer, but he was no idiot either. He could take a guess at the odds that Ulrich, who hated taking human form, had just so happened to end up on the same island as those two.

Unless...

Nicolas' mind ran away with itself, jumping to a conclusion that was about halfway right.

"You slept with her. And that's why you're here - because you slept with a human." God only knew if it was self imposed or if Ulrich had been banished or something. Maybe a few years on land was the punishment for sleeping with a human. It would certainly be poetic justice to stick him on an island with the person he'd hooked up with as a reminder.

That did leave the question of who Luca was. Another woman? No - maybe a child. That would explain it, although he didn't say that part out loud.

Nicolas squinting at Ulrich, and if you listened carefully, you'd be able to hear the gears in his head whirring along and then finally coming together in a clatter of metal.

"She's one of you!" He exclaimed, although he truly just meant 'things that aren't human' as opposed to strictly claiming she was a Panthallasian. He just realized that if she wasn't human, she was some kind of freaky sea monster. Whether she was the same kind of freaky sea monster didn't really matter - what mattered was why the fact that he'd slept with her mattered.

Which was Luca, apparently. It wasn't hard, given the pieces he'd been given, for him to realize.

"Luca's your kid." With an ambiguously gendered name. "And you're here to... well, not raise him, because you've been doing fuckall of that. To bargain? Truce? Some ancient seamonster custom that prevents you from being in the ocean while you've got a woman with spawn?" He couldn't really imagine any kid. His brain just wouldn't wrap around it. A tiny Ulrich?