Delving Deeper [CLOSED: Gao, Ekik, Sin, Claria]

[LuckyBlackCat]

Moving closer so Gao could read more easily by her light, Claria watched the gleam reawaken in red eyes. "Not sure I'd attribute any kind of parental affection to a poaching scenario," she murmured, although she couldn't deny that strange undertone of fondness in the writing. Adorable... She'd disagreed, to say the least, when Gao had described the Froxlings so, but was he not the only one who thought that?

"It doesn't bite."

Evidently he wasn't.

Claria fixed a blank stare on Sin, who casually continued looting even while aware of his sharp-fanged passenger. Was he that overconfident? "It doesn't bite... yet," she warned. "You can't be too careful around wild animals. Especially monsters." Instincts on high alert, she studied the Frox for any sign of hostility. Yet it simply perched, quite contented as if about to nap right there on Sin's head. As if it felt safe. Although it went against every reflex, Claria willed her muscles to unclench, shifting her feet out of battle-ready stance. For the time being, the creature, demonic minion that it was, remained as calm and languid as the pet frogs she'd kept during her childhood. If she acted like it was bound to attack at any moment, she could give off potential threat signals and drive it to do just that in a self-fulfilling prophecy.

"...He's going to end up keeping the lil' guy, aint he?"

"It looks that way, as disastrously ill-advised as that would be," Claria grumbled. She doubted there'd be any talking Sin out of this, logistics be damned. "For one, the little guy's going to be a big guy some day... a very big guy indeed."

Gao lowered the journal, concern creasing thick eyebrows. Not about the Frox, but about the limited success of the search for loot. Still beating himself up over the team's misfortunes, it seemed. "And-... what did you uncover for yourself?"

Claria gestured to the book in his hands. "Not much in the way of tangible treasures, I'll admit, but I took a look through those notes. Any information related to the Depths counts for something."

She turned her gaze to Ekik at his side, sitting down next to him and stretching out her injured leg, recalling the tidbit of conversation she'd overheard. "You study the Depths, did you say? They also happen to be my area of research." Usually in a more official manner, but she left out that detail. Her eyes glimmered with awe as she beheld the towering fungi, the delicate curls of plants, the feathery fronds of the woodlands once again. "Fascinating, aren't they? I see why some people theorise them to have once been an ocean - much of this flora has similarities to eelgrasses, and some is structured more like wrack than like true plants, among other parallels. As for the ruins and machines, you've got to wonder about their history. There's so much we have yet to learn."

Not even this complete shipwreck of an expedition lessened her enthusiasm any. She, Gao and Ekik had that much in common. "So if we cross paths again here some day, I'd be glad to assist you."

It struck her how utterly the group dynamic had changed in a short span of time. The initial distrust driving rifts between them had thawed into a sense of camaraderie - for the most part, anyway. Getting along with someone as arrogant, hardheaded, and downright sketchy as Sin wasn't going to happen any time soon. Still, he'd at least cooperated with them.

As for the newfound companionship between the others? If anything positive had come of this catastrophic mission, it was this.