She tries not to stare but finds herself looking at the wounds. She feels bad about it, he wouldn't have gone there had she not mentioned it. In retrospect she should have brought him to a different beach where there was little chance of coming across that thing though all the other beaches she could think of off the top of her head might have had other students that either skipped class or had no classes at the time which would have lead to all sorts of questions. By nature Rhaine wasn't too devious.

Aware that things here hadn't been right she hadn't investigated at all or attempt to figure out anything figuring that she was incapable of changing any of it even if she had learned more about her situation. She still believed she was on Earth on a remote tropical island.

“Your hurt?” He didn't move as if the injury had impaired him. Did he regenerate? Or perhaps those cybernetic components helped. She was unsure. Casting her eyes back to the blanket she gave her head a little shake.

“No, it's not for sleeping,” even she wasn't so stupid to take that chance. “When I take brakes I dry off and sit here for a bit. Rest up, eat snacks, whatever. Sometimes I work on a few mathematical equations.

“I find that whenever I get stuck it's best to take a brake and go back to swimming, let my head clear and return to the problem with a fresh mind. I find it fun,” she explained watching his interest in the basket. The scent of fresh linen would greet his senses along with the faint smell of freshly baked cookies.

Opening the basket after a small moment a fluffy towel was revealed along with a text book, notepad, a few pencils, a Ziploc bag full of peanut butter cookies, a spoon which was sealed in another clear baggie and her favorite, a plastic jar of marshmallow which she had been scooping straight out of the jar rather than making sandwiches.

“Have you ever had marshmallow?”

"Had a good batter, ya, but no big deal, gave good asss I got," Aulopis answers merrily. "Knocked hisss beak in, gave him a tummyache he'll remember, ya? Good ssscrap, all told. Banner day."

He makes his way up to the blanket and squints down at it, rubbing a corner between two of his fingers. "Forget ya kind have the fair ssskin bit, can't be rubbing on the coral, the bark, or the sand much, can ya?" Aulopis murmurs. "Fragile lot ya are. No offense, mind. What'sss marssshmallow?"

He sits at the other end of the blanket and glances between the offerings Rhaine puts out - his eyes blink once, the nictating membrane sliding horizontally to sheathe inky black in blank brown, before he leans over and sniffs first the peanut butter and then the marshmallow. Both are sealed, so he cracks open the baggie of peanut butter cookies - his fingers are rough and featureless, no nails or fingerprints to speak of, but slick with an oily sheen - and sniffs once he's got them to the open air. Then he cringes back. "Yugh. Tree fare. Ssspare me that, I cannae eat that ssskuff."

Then he pokes at the marshmellow, curious, and cracks that too, sniffing it. His tongue flicks through the air, forked and agile. "Ay, thisss lot though. Ssssweet in the throat. Ya mean to ssshare with Aulopis, then?"

He did that to the squid? He could have been spinning a tale but Rhaine knew what these things could do and that squid thing struck her as a squid with no special powers, well maybe it could do all the things that squid could do like jet ink and such. So she didn't think he was lying.

She smiled, gazed at the wound and wondered for a moment why it wasn't bandaged. Probably because he's aquatic stupid, she chided herself.

“No argument there. We humans are rather frail in comparison to all the animals and aliens I've seen there are few weaker. Bugs for the most part and some of them have venomous bites and can kill or can cause allergic reactions in others.”

She watched his with the cookies that feigned a hurt expression. “But I made them myself.” Then she smiled taking out the spoon, removing a cookie and scooping out some of the marshmallow plopping it onto the cookie before eating it.

A sandwich, kind of, without any bread. Though she had eaten the marshmallow by itself. Half the cookie gone she glanced at him, chewed then nodded her head.

“Yes. You can try some of it. It's a bit messy and sticky. You can use the spoon to scoop some out and give it a try.”

"Lack of competition will do ya that," Aulopis advises, as he sniffs the marshmallow again, then pushes himself back up and on top of his legs from where he'd nearly laid out prone to sniff the condiment. "Ya planet be a wildlife ressserve, muchlike. Every kind of creepy comes in, takesss what they like, amble out jussst as they like. This ssschool be a more blatant example, but the principle be the sssame. Maybe humanity ssshape up and knock around any lowlife think he can do what he pleassse, but it take a wake-up call. Loud one, like."

The monster pushes himself up and plants one hand on his hip. "Well, if we're to have palaver, there be a proper order to the thing. Wait a trice, ya?"

Aulopis turns and bolts off, long limbs pushing him away and through the trees quick and easy. Barely a minute passes before he returns with a wide, broad elephant leaf, on top of which is a meaty slice of raw, wild honey. That he adds to the picnic blanket. "One condiment - and coming up -"

Then he goes the other way, into the lake in three long bounds that take him through the air in a glittering arc right into the water. Whatever his swiftness on land, it's nothing compared to his agility in the water, and he swiftly dips out of sight, only to breach the surface a moment later and come back to the shore with a wriggling trout in his jaws. By the time he makes it to the picnic blanket it's stopped; he'd bitten its head off sometime in between the breach and making it to the shore.

"An' that be the fisssh," Aulopis says, satisfied, as he reaches down to one of his legs and pulls a panel away to reveal a set of sharp, needle-like lengths with a barb on the end. These he swiftly arranges into a makeshift spit, then spears the fish over it. It's definitely more meat than Rhaine can eat, over a foot of healthy trout, but looking at Aulopis's tongue flickering in and out of his mouth, that won't be a problem. "Fair exchange, ya? Gimme five to cook the thing, gotta make it even."

She considers that. Humans, fighting back. Well maybe special teams but what could she do? She was a meager girl, a student with no special training with little that she could do. “Whatever advantages we had once upon a time are no longer applicable.

“We were more resilient to the cold. Stronger. But we've mastered tools, learned to make clothes. Not that it's often that we get challenged these days. Well, this island is the first time I've ever encountered anything supernatural. There were tales of course. Myths and such but most people don't think there real.”

She explains then watches as he goes off to fetch things. She almost recommended trying the marshmallow on fish but that combination didn't seem appealing to her at all. Seeing the wriggling fish her stomach churns a little. He didn't expect her to eat that raw?

The fish stopped wriggling by the time he neared. Good. He was going to cook this one. She looked at the fish then nodded slowly. She only had the one utensil but that was fine given the spits she would have to eat her portion off the stick. Just as well since it was easier to work around the bones.

“Alright. It's not necessary. Just be careful with fire,” she glanced around though she wasn't too concerned. “There was a plant thing around here and I can't imagine that it would take too kindly to fire. Well, it's a ways off from here.”

She waved in the general direction that she had encountered the thing at.

Aulopis gives a Gallic shrug, hands raised and lip overturned, those glittering teeth showing behind. "Then adapt, ya? Ssstrength be nothing. Poison your enemy, lay a trap, diet on what they find 'ta be poissson, lead them into ambusssh, turn one againssst another. If ya only look to sssurvive, that be the only prize ya win. Sssomeday, you lossse, then no more Rhaine. If ya fight, make it for sssomething worth tooth and nail, an' go for it."

Aulopis remembers the reefs he'd learned about, after the Tannhauser Gate wars - returning to the shoals of his people. Ipnodans leave enormous tracks of eggs that hatch into nonsentient nymphs, little beastly bodies that then cannibalize and consume each other, anything they can get their mouth around, and are devoured by the environment for three months - the Morning, they called it - until the proto-sentient nymphs gather enough protein to both spin a cocoon and survive their growth into a juvenile adult. Native Ipnodan families 'adopt' healthy cocoons, taking them in and raising them, but he's always wondered, having wandered the galaxy now, how much difference those early months make in the psychology of his own kind - to know that from the start, it had been kill or be killed. Not like this live-bearing race, where savagery is repellent, where survival is not a primary concern.

It's not a blessing, but he doesn't immediately assume it's wrong, either. He doesn't know enough to judge like that, and it's not his style, anyway. They're all survivors, until they're not. That's his law.

Rather than start a campfire, he pulls another little gadget out of a different leg, planting it in the soil under the fish and flicking it on. It hisses and spits a bright blue flame, bright enough to cast shadows behind them on the grass. Aulopis swiftly sears the fish flesh and then peels the scales off with the skin, leaving just the tasty meat underneath. Then he scoops up the plasma torch and gestures with it out at the forest. "If he doesn't like fire, better not tangle with this one," Aulopis says, matter of fact. "Gunsss that go boom underwater be nassstier than ya average land popper. I be not fond of bringin' them out, truth be told. Rather have a good ssscrap than a ssshootout."

He's not really interested in killing people anymore.

Rhaine considers what he says. Truth be told she doesn't think that most of those ploys to work in her situation but she gives it a little thought. “In a war some of those things might work. The problem is that I know just about zero about them, not that I could go toe to toe with them … no more than that fish there could go toe to toe with you.

“Just what do you think it's odds would be in a fight against you?” She inquires but her voice never raises reflecting on his words a bit and using that example to show him the vast differences between her and one of the many guests on this island. Even the weakest scared the hell out of her.

“I don't know what any of them eat. About all I can reliably determine is that they attack students but not all of them. Just some of them. I don't know of too many that have been targeted outside of the ones that were with me at the time. Three or four others. As far as I know they all gather somewhere else to eat.

“Most of the time there's only one of them so it's hard to play them off against one another.” She paused. “Some are a bit protective. Most are not.” She had no weapons to equalize things and her mind wasn't the sharpest so fighting wasn't much of an option for her.

She eyed the plasma torch watching as he used the piece of tech and handled the fish. She smiled a little and shock her head slightly. “Maybe I should point you in his direction. You know pit one against the other.” She teased a little. She wasn't so much concerned about that plant thing, probably because she got out of a bad situation twice. “I doubt that he would bother with you anyway. Not saying that you're beneath his notice but more the fact that you and he probably don't have any common interests where you'd cross paths unless you were setting fires or something.” She shrugged. “What interests a plant man any way?”

She gazed at the fish that looked far more appealing now.

Aulopis shrugs, tears the fish in half - the plasma torch has evaporated the blood inside of it, so it's surprisingly less gruesome - and jabs the other end on a stick, which he offers to Rhaine. "Be careful of the fissshbone, ya?" he says, as he casually munches into his own. There's a faint popping sound as he probably gnaws right through his. "I doubt ya kind digessst them well. And ya, the point be not to go toe to toe, if ya can. Jussst to be more trouble than it be worth to nail down. Sssurvival be the highest commandment, ya?"

She asks about his chances versus the tree thing she's been mentioning, and Aulopis shrugs, ambivalent about engaging it. It's not likely to veer onto his territory, and mobile fauna didn't really learn in his experience - there's no point trying to teach them to veer off, because they didn't have a brain to learn that with. Well, they may not be the brand he's familiar with. "Depend on term of engagement, ssstarting range, all that guff. But if he be flammable, bessst he veer off. Cavitation weapon be no joke."

Aulopis cracks a smile at the girl's daring. "Well, if ya manage to draw him thisss way, we'll ken what happensss," he says, magnanimous, as he swallows another bite of fish and then smears marshmallow on it. His tongue flicks out and takes some of it - it's shockingly sweet, and he downs the rest without complaint or pause, eyes nictating completely as he savors it. "Mmmh. I'll give ya kind credit for culinary innovation, that much be worth note. Better to have ya cook that eat ya. It be a patron thing, then? Each girl, they go out and find a Massster to protect them?"

He still doesn't like the system, but having had some time to reflect, it's not his planet anymore. What use would they have for his ways?

She takes the skewered fish. “Thank you.” It has been some time that she's had fresh fish. Granted the fish that she's had on campus isn't bad but it's of the frozen sort. Instead of biting into it she tares portions of meat off the stick. Taring small chunks off and eating is easier for the avoidance of those bones that he doesn't seem to mind.

“I remember hearing that the human appendix, an useless organ we have use to assist us in eating bones and marrow. But since we stopped eating that stuff it does nothing of relevance. Don't quote me on that. If it's not math I probably mixed it up or misremembered something.”

She reflects on what he said about the plant creature. “You'll probably never see it.” Uncertain about the orientation here with the residents and guests Rhaine didn't give it much thought. She smiles at his reaction to the marshmallow.

“You like it? It's the best. I once ran across someone that could make their bodily fluids taste like anything. An endless source of marshmallow.”

She considered those that she knew that had been attacked. “No, not really. Out of everyone only Etolie has one, Tidal. At least that I'm aware of. I guess some have their favorite targets, I've picked that up from some of the others and there was this thing that I ran into twice. Then plant guy, Ania, this little demon thing, well he's about my height but small from what I hear.

“And of course, I'm on that list two. I'm sure there are a lot of other girls that have one. I'm not at any of their meetings so I can't say for sure how it goes but it doesn't stop every being from coming along and ...” She trailed off munching of another portion of fish then glancing to the sky for a minute or so.

“There seem to be a lot less of them now.”

Aulopis shrugs. "Ya, my kin - Ipnodan - they have a tail ssspur, woulda once injected poissson. Nowaday it be a poky bit with no meanin', and often it be pulled out in youth. Not that'd I'd know much on the topic, ya?" He raps on his metal appendages and shrugs, then wolfs down the rest of his half of the fish, throat working. This close, the crackle of crushed bone is audible, but he certainly doesn't seem worry about choking.

The bodily fluids anecdote makes him suspicious, eyelid flicking across his eye in a defensive reflex he doesn't have much control over. "Sssound like a trap. That kind of thing in the water - ssscent, it do carry far in the water. I can sssmell blood a half-mile away, asss your kind reckon it. Anglerfisssh in the water, morelike. Anyway, can't tassste much. I don't get bitter, sssour. There be a kind of lipid flavor but - eh, it do not transsslate well. Filling?"

Aulopis shrugs at the attempt, his limited and mangled English insufficient to communicate the nature of his senses.

"More familiar hunting ground and livessstock, then, eh," Aulopis murmurs, taking in what Rhaine paints for him. It's a grim picture, and there has to be some kind of standing agreement - because otherwise the monsters should be vastly outnumbering their prey, just due to attrition. Are they getting bored and wandering off?

What for?

"Befuddle me, that do," the big fishman remarks, and licks off his fingers for any trace of the honey or marshmallow. His tongue flicks between them, forked, swift, and agile. "Ssshould be a prime hunting ground, ya? No bigger predator. Or did the competition get lethal?"

Her gaze shifts back to him pondering his senses. Rhaine had been aware that there were more than five senses though that was something that was sort of taught. In the animal kingdom there were other senses. Sharks could sense electricity, their was sonar, echolocation, the direction sense of birds, sensing magnetic shifts and such. She heard that humans possessed other senses then the five that they overlooked but she couldn't recall where she heard that before or just what senses they were. If it didn't involve a mathematical equation in some fashion she was often foggy on such things.

“A trap? No, I don't think it is. But I guess it could be in certain situations adding a scent to an area to draw things in. I never really thought of it being used in such a fashion. Anyway I don't think it would draw in humans all that well. Maybe prey animals.

“But I'm sure she can even make something you can taste.” She gestures towards the honey then pats the container of marshmallow knowing that Ania could replicate that taste. She wonders if she could product alcohol though she doubts Ania would approve of that.

She didn't really consider this place being a hunting ground. She gave it a bit of thought not one to rush into things Rhaine might not have been the brightest but made up for this by thinking over matters a fair bit when they were presented to her. She ate a little more fish then spoke.

“You can say that. I don't know the ins and outs with cooperation or such. But a hunting ground makes sense. People go on safari for a short while then leave after a hunt for new hunters to arrive and so forth. Some people hunt more than others and go on more safaris. The repeat hunters here. Then there are the one offs and those that really enjoy it.”

Was the island a game reserve of sorts? Some fishermen did catch and release. Maybe the theme was rape instead of killing. “If you want I can ask Ania about some of this stuff, if there's an orientation or something she's probably been through it. She's here a lot.”

Aulopis shrugs, annoyed at the lack of inventiveness. For all the purported prowess and potency of the local monsters, it seems so far they don't actually use their powers for much but flashy displays. "Ya sssay the humans be weak, and may that be. But the creepsss, they not be much better. That be a terrific tool, and lemme guesss what it do be usssed for: matin'. One more party trick on the hula-hip pile. Tragic."

If something can taste like anything, it also alters its scent; scent and taste, after all, are the same sense distributed across different organs. That's a tremendous advantage in the wild, eliminating scent, and would make whatever monster she's talking about a ghost in the brush, given proper camouflage. In the water, where light refraction distorts depth perception, it's even more important. It's a useful trick, no doubt.

"I be willing to meet anyone," the old fishman says with a shrug, his mouth parting in his snaggly, wide grin again. "I be here for the ssstrange, to have a tale to remember when I go home to lay for the night. Ssshe want to meet, let me know, I'll be there."

His life is borrowed time. Best to make every moment of it something worth remembering.

Aulopis scratches his head as Rhaine describes the school, starting to make sense of it. Catch-and-release really is the most apt description - the monsters come in, pick off a nubile girl they find interesting, and then dump her off somewhere later. There's not a whole lot protecting them, but there seems to be some common agreement pressing them into decency, or at least not abusing the girls so much they perish. "It be a ssstrange life," he admits, then sticks a finger in the marshmellow outright and sucks that off, totally unashamed of himself. "But if it do hold, what complaint can I raissse? How long you be here, younglin'?"

If this truly was a game resort of sorts maybe the things hunting them had dulled in their abilities seeing how she and her fellow students couldn't put up too much of a fight. Still, some might be simple ambush predators and never had been designed for conflict.

“I've seen lots of abnormal stuff while here. Abilities that defy explanation, too many so I haven't really considered them. Nothing seems impossible anymore.”

She cants her head to the side looking at him at a different angle. The gears are turning in her head then her head returns to it's upright position and she takes a bit more fish munching on it. After picking a small bone out of her mouth and discarding it she speaks.

“I don't see why Ania wouldn't come. I don't know where to look for her though. She sort of finds me when she's around. But I do have stories. One really strange one, well not so strange since I already told you about Tidal turning me into something less than human.”

She tries remembering all the details. “It involves a robot and another student. There's a place here. Well two actually. One is a basement where students are sent for punishment. I hear a lot of stories. I guess the more the stories get out there the less students misbehave.

“But a lesser known place exists. It's a lab or something. I'm not sure what they make or do there but I was there once. They might build robots, I dunno, but that's not all they do.”

She drifts off. “It will comeback in time, that is if you're interested in hearing it.”

As he inquires about how much longer she was bound to be here she gives him a little smile. “I take it you don't mean here,” she gestures around her. “But on this island. Two more years. I'm at the midpoint more or less.

“Though I'm not the best student barring one subject. I don't think it matters much with everything else going on. It makes it hard to focus on much when you're always looking over your shoulder. In the dorm, classrooms, wherever. There isn't a safe area that I've found. In fact there's only one other being that hasn't done anything ...”

She trails off rethinking that. “Well outside of using some sort of drug and leaving me to suffer it's effect.”

Aulopis nods, unbothered by the proposition of strange and bewildering tricks. "A hunter bring the tool he need. You fisssh, ya have teeth to catch them with, ya? Their defenssse be ssscale and ssspeed; that what punch through, it be ussseful. Like that with the creepsss; ya brain be ya top tool, ssso they need to keep that from working. Illusssion, mindgamesss, hypnosssin', all of that play againssst the brain. It be a cussstom tool for the hunter of a thinking prey."

He shrugs and sags backwards onto the grass, eyes nictating over fully to protect them from the sunlight. This time, the lids stay out, insulating against the bright light with earthy brown lens. "It only be a thought. Would I like 'ta meet her? Ya, courssse. No need to run on my account, though. I'll find what hold my interessst quick enough, no fear."

The robot bit catches his attention, and Aulopis tilts his head. "I didn't ssstart with the legsss, ya," he muses, though he doesn't sit up or look at Rhaine proper just yet. "Got 'em ssspliced on later, and I have an expiration date basssed on when they go bad. Might be worth me checking it out, if they be about the robot guff."

He also flaps his hand about Rhaine being a bad student. "Sssurvival here teach you more than any book," the fishman says, breezy. "Grit, how to fight for what ya want, decisssive choice. You can learn from a book anywhere, but moving when there'sss moving to be done - can't teach that with anything but the real deal."

“The right tool for the right job. I've heard that before, don't know where,” she reflects. She didn't have teeth or speed though there were fishing nets and poles for the capturing of fish. She had never gone fishing but she was well aware of the concept behind it.

She had her running shoes on today not that the slip ones had much of a tread they should hold up well enough. She gazed at him perking up an eyebrow. “Should I be running?” She mused not that she could have hoped to get far against his sped, probably not even to the treeline she guessed.

Another piece of fish later and she let what he said mull over in her head. Expire? If it were her she didn't think she would want to know turning her attention instead to crossing off items from her bucket list. Correction, first she would have to write one then go through it. She was much to young to consider that.

Her gaze went to the metallic legs and she had thought to ask him where it had begun but thought better of it. “They could have something better. Either the robot I encountered was all machine or a brain in that contraption I didn't see any organic parts.

“From what I remember it was part of security given what it did. Mostly detaining me so I could escape that place and observing what was going on.”

She used the spoon to scoop out some of the marshmallow, eating the treat. “Book smarts can only teach you so much I guess. Practical experience is better though neither really helps here.” She spread her arms. “Survival is the only thing that matters in the end so I guess who said what famous quote or won this war and that is rather useless given the situation.”