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Stella looked at Antheona, and then back to the fire. " This? Oh no, this is fire. Fire is the result of a chemical reaction, called combustion. At a certain point in the combustion reaction, called the ignition point, flames are produced- like these. " She pointed to the fire, and continued to explain. " Flames consist primarily of carbon dioxide, water vapor, oxygen and nitrogen. Fire, like this emits heat and light- unlike the sun, which emits electromagnetic radiation and solar wind. In order for combustion and fire to occur, three things must be present: fuel, oxygen and energy. Which is what I have here."

Stella was one to explain something till the entire thing was now easy to see- never did she take the easy way out. Which was one of the reasons why most, if not, all of the assignments that she was given to from the first year of her academic career to the last. " I didn't take a piece of the sun, that would be catastrophic and possibly apopcalyptic. Plus, the sun is some 93,000,000 miles away from here, and it's probably 20-something million degrees. You, me, and probably everything on this side of the planet- let alone solar system, would be burnt crisp. "

Speaking of crisp, that's the state of the fish she was cooking.
 
During the explanation, Antheona's gaze went from interested to confused to blank. After it was over, she was silent for a little while - she had a very, very good memory and could practically play it back by heart, which was what she was doing now, several times, until she was sure of her conclusion.
"I have no idea what you just said." She said this almost proudly, as if accusing the human - Stella, she had a name now - of not making sense. Of course she knew she didn't understand human speech perfectly, so she realized that she was probably at fault, but she just wasn't very good at being humble. Especially not with someone who was still mostly an enemy, even if they had a truce. Enemies have to be intimidated, one just doesn't admit to a weakness in front of them, any weakness. Still, maybe she would get to learn some more human language. So she tried. "I don't understand every word." Not half of them, of course. But it was a good try, better than most.
 
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Stella sighed, and started using hand signals and motions. " Sun. Very bright. Very hot. Very big. Very far away. " For her explanation on the sun, she pointed to the sun, that was setting in the distance. She pointed to the fire. " Fire. Not so bright. Not so hot. Not so big. Very close. " She then proceeded to point to the sun once more. " Sun there. " She pointed to the fire. " Fire here. " That was a good explanation for now. She added on. " Fire very good for cooking, and making things. Sun very good for warmth. "

With that, she took one of the fish off of the stick, and began to pick away at the scales and eat the flesh beneath.
 
It was actually harder to understand Stella without the proper structure of sentences. Not only that, it was infuriating. Antheona considered climbing the stone tower and going up there to wring her neck. Instead she just snarled; her face lost all semblance of humanity when she did that, and if she had known, she would have been glad of it.
"I'm - not - stupid! Are you?"
 
" I must be pretty smart if I made it this far. " She said as she chewed. " You said that you didn't understand. I just wanted to make it easier for you, so you could understand. " Stella took another bite, and chewed silently. She swallowed, and turned towards the mermaid. " Don't you have someone who studies humans? Did you know that the adult human body is about 53% water? I bet you didn't. Tell your fishy friends that, I bet they'll laugh. "
 
Antheona didn't mention the fact that she didn't know what a percent was. She flew further and further into her rage, and it would not be long now until she actually tried climbing the structure.
"We do study you and we know quite a lot. Why, how much do you know about us? I can speak your language, can you speak mine? Did you even know we were alive? You aren't helping, you are... mocking me!"
At least part of her wrath came from indignation. Because she admitted to not knowing something, and the human acted like this in return. That was inexcusable. It was a bad idea on her own part, too, of course, but since she wasn't her own enemy and being angry with herself was a very bad practice no rational creature did, she would just remember that for future reference and focus on the surfacer now.
 
" I know plenty of you, just as you know of me. " Stella said, as she finished her first fish. " I know that you breath through gills, and like most fish, you're cannibalistic. I know that you have plenty of members in your school- or tribe, or whatever you like to call it. I can't speak your language, but because you have one, I can guess that you have a scribe and that you can write. You must have your own little civilization, and to that, I truly am flabbergasted. "

" I was trying to help you, believe me. Making a mockery of you was never what I intended to do, honest. "
 
Well... all right, maybe Stella wasn't trying to mock her, Antheona admitted to herself that that would be possible too, after all she didn't have much experience reading humans. She still didn't like it, but she would keep the possibility open that Stella was being sincere and just really thought she was that stupid. Which wasn't that much of a step forward, but she at least possibly had good intentions, although as some liked to say, you can't eat good intentions.
"I know you didn't know about us," she said coolly, though at least that meant she wasn't yelling now. "You are guessing. And I think you are guessing from fish and humans. We aren't fish and we aren't human. But I'll tell you about us if you tell me about you."
 
Stella thought about it. Long and hard. It was obvious that this person wanted something- she just said it! But for what? Was she going to use it against her at some point? " You drive a hard bargain... " She started. Was this really a good idea? Stella though long and hard about it once more, but hey, all in the name of science, right? " Fine. Don't do anything tricky, alright? If you do, I'll have my friends find out about you- every one of you, do you understand? "

Stella put the remains of the fish she just ate to the side. That would be for the birds. She then did the same to the other fish, and began to eat near the fire.
 
Well, that certainly wasn't a desirable prospect. But the fact was that Stella had admitted earlier that she couldn't contact humans, saying something about a radio station that Antheona didn't yet understand. So, assuming that - as Antheona thought - Stella had been too scared then to not say the truth, there was no danger of that, at least for now. If the humans come back... well, that was another matter. And in any case, they had a deal, so this shouldn't be a problem.
"We promised. I don't hurt you, you don't talk about us."
The mermaid neglected to mention that she or someone else from her people was most definitely going to use the information against other humans just as soon as the need arose. But, well... that wasn't in the bargain.
 
" Five minutes ago you looked at me like you wanted to climb up here and rip my head off. How can I trust that you can be true to your word when your body language states something completely different? " When she was explaining the sun and the fire like she was talking to a three year old, the snarl on her face- that was absolutely gruesome. She noticed, but didn't react, in fear that she might go against her word.

" We both know that I have no way out of here, unless I want to lug two twenty pound air tanks to God knows where. I can't contact them, but they're coming to get me. " She hoped that they were coming to get her. " Go against your word in any way, and somehow- someway, I'll go against mine. I don't have claws or fins or wings or a tail of any sort, and we both know that, but I have weapons of my own. "
 
Body language. Antheona hadn't heard that before, but it was a good expression, and she didn't have to ask what it meant. Stella actually had a pretty good point there, she did forget about their agreement, she was so beside herself. But she didn't really think that was all her fault. She may have had an excellent memory, but she also had pride, and when that was injured enough, memory and everything else simply stepped aside.
"I'll keep my word. But you could try not to make me that angry. I'm not stupid, just... a foreigner." She pressed her lips together while she was thinking, as if to keep herself from speaking too soon; she was going to try to be diplomatic again. "I keep my word while I have this" - she lifted the lock of hair holding the keys with one hand - "because I'm honest. Make me so angry I forget it, make me kill you, that will be your fault and you won't be able to tell about us. But I don't want to, because I want to talk. And because I'm honest."
 
Because she was honest. That's why. She was honest. She would have to remember that. Stella took a bite of her fish, and chewed as she thought it over. " What do you want to know? " Stella asked. Might as well make friends with the enemy, considering that she was to be there for a while. " You're lucky you ran into a scientist. I specialize in humans and animals, and often plants. Dr. Maris, nice to meet you. " That was the same introduction that he had to give on her first interview.
 
That was a rather difficult question. Of course Antheona knew there were many things they didn't know about humans, but the problem was that she knew they didn't know what they didn't know - that is, what questions she should ask. However, both their conversation and the situation itself supplied her with many questions; these probably weren't the important ones, but she would get to those later, once she had the good fortune to find out from their conversation what the important things she didn't know of were. What was a radio station, and what did it have to do with calling the other humans? Why would somebody heat and light up a fish before eating it? She had a lot. But she had one she had been wanting to know for a long time.
"You have people" - she said, remembering the original inhabitants of the towers - "who wear the same colour, do things at the same time and shout a lot. What do they do?"
 
Stella thought about it. Same movements. Same color. Lots of shouting. A marching band? They shouted, and wore colors and marched. But was it on the island? Maybe it was something else... Her peers didn't tell her about the island at all, so she just stabbed blindly at the question. Then, it hit her. " A few years ago, the government took a group of willing soldiers out here, and I'm guessing that they trained them out here. The American government though South Korea was up to something, so they got the soldiers and trained them... I think this place sunk, because of an earthquake. That's what the news said. "

" Those people were to protect other people. They have a job to do, like I have one to do. "
 
As much as she hated humans, Antheona didn't like this. She didn't know what American government and South Korea were, probably different rulers or tribes or such, and the soldiers - so that's what they were called - were apparently meant to protect one tribe from the other. Now she didn't know which was which and didn't care which would win, and shouldn't have cared about the fact that they destroyed a lot of these soldiers.
What she was uneasy about was first of all that they didn't know the entire significance of what they were doing. That was always very dangerous. Of course one could hardly judge the entire significance of anything at all... but still, it always caused an uneasy feeling in her when she did something totally unrelated besides what she was trying to do. It made her worry about her future actions. One of them might cause something she wouldn't want.
Yet that wasn't all. She didn't exactly like this human either, but they had a truce now, and they were talking, so this human was a person now, Stella. And one doesn't enjoy telling a person one is not presently directly hostile towards that she killed a lot of the soldiers who were going to protect her tribe. All right, not alone, but she helped, and she would help again, because this was her people. But it didn't seem right not to tell either. Not that it should matter to Stella why the soldiers died. Not that it would change the fact that they are dead. Still, it would only be honest that way, because not telling things was one thing, but letting the other come to an erroneous conclusion and talk about it as if it wasn't erroneous was another.
"We sunk the island. It was above the sea and it was very big. We lived under there, and we couldn't anymore because it was dark. The fish left. The plants died. There is a lot of land already, and this is not land here. And we didn't like having so many humans so close. It was very dangerous. We also protect our people."
 
Stella was right in the middle of eating her fish, but then, she froze. So, it wasn't an earthquake? It wasn't a natural disaster? It was someone else's doing? It was a group of someone else's? Who knew of this? She really didn't know what to believe. Stella put down her stick, and sat criss-cross. She often did that when she was to think long and hard about something. Stella put her hands together, and rested her chin between her thumb and her pointer finger. She spread out her hands as she thought, and also put them together again.

After a while of doing that- a long while, Stella turned to the fish person- the mermaid, and sighed with a shrug. " You had every right to. " She said. She really didn't know how to feel about it. " It was your land. The humans- the foreigners had no right to come here and kill the life. I know for me to say sorry for what they did isn't the same as them coming and apologizing. The satisfaction you must have felt when- you must get that, right? Humans do after they defeat an enemy. But, nonetheless, it probably felt good to you when you saw them sink. "

" I mean, it was just a war, right? "
 
Antheona waited patiently as Stella thought, and inwardly braced herself for whatever may follow next.
And what followed next wasn't what she had expected. She expected Stella to lash out at her, call off the truce, declare vengeance in the name of her people, try to kill her, or something of the sort. Not that what she said wasn't true - it was. But those weren't the words of someone who had just learnt who was responsible for the death of many of her comrades. Those were the words of an independent observer.
Was this what it meant to be a scientist?
Does somebody still count as an enemy if she refuses to count herself as such? If she doesn't take sides even when her own country is on one side of the battle, is she still an enemy? If she openly draws herself out of the conflict... then Antheona can no longer think of her as such, not if she wants to remain honourable in her own eyes. That sort of honour was not someting she owed her people; she owed that to herself, so there was no one to tell her she did right if she didn't believe it herself.
"You are strange," she said in a thoughtful voice. "But you are not an enemy of mine. It felt good. But it would not feel good to kill you."
 
Stella smiled. " You're kind for a fish. " She said. " If I am no enemy of yours, you're no enemy to me. " With that, she stood up and climbed over the edge, and soon, went inside. She collected a bucket, and dunked it in the water, and climbed up. She stood up, and put out the fire- thus putting her in total darkness. Stella took the rest of the fish she didn't eat or fry, and put it in the empty bucket. " I can sleep well tonight, knowing that I won't be drowned in my sleep. "

With that, stella took the bucket and the wood, and climbed down onto the window. She then climbed into the building, and put the wood away in a corner, along with the bucket. Stella was tired, and she wanted to sleep. She set up her tent, and got her sleeping bag. Well, time to sleep.
 
If it wouldn't have felt good to kill Stella, it felt unexpectedly good to make peace with her. Safe, in a way, in that Antheona could now hope their volatile truce wouldn't be on the verge of breaking every second. That sort of assurance was all the more welcome as she had noticed she had a way of testing that truce with every other sentence.
She watched as the human got ready for sleep, then, before sinking back into the ocean herself, she called out to her.
"Good night!"
This would be an interesting night to her too. She wasn't entirely sure what to tell about Stella to the others. Not that she had to tell anything - no one had the right to tell anyone else not to have secrets. But it was still good to give the others as much information as possible, that's how they all became stronger, and she wouldn't have hesitated to talk about her in other circumstances. However, she wasn't sure how convinced others would be that Stella wasn't an enemy, and endangering her would go against their agreement. She decided to give others the information without specifying the source, but not immediately, because it would be very hard to avoid the conclusion that she had been talking to a human, and that human is nearby. For now, she would not talk about it. Stella would eventually go back - she had said so herself - and then it would be safe to tell everything, even perhaps about Stella.
And because she didn't want to lie, she would have to avoid being questioned on it. Of course the others would accept it if she were to say she must not talk... but they might still investigate. She would have to be careful for a while.
 
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