( closed starter for @steph-anand )
It wouldn’t be accurate to say that Gemma was starting to enjoy her time on land, but at the very least she was starting to establish routines and habits that made the situation at least slightly more bearable. For one, she’d taken to going for a lot of walks - walking was nowhere near as satisfying as going for a swim, but it was at least better than locking herself up in her cottage. Today she found herself walking along the beach, looking out to sea and trying to decide if the view was calming or only serving to make her stress worse. It was nice to at least see the ocean, on some level - but it still felt so very wrong, observing it from beside instead of within. She couldn’t go for a swim though, not after one of her own had risked so much to get a warning to her to stay out of the water. Frustrated, she looked away - only to spot one of her least favorite humans nearby.
It wasn’t really Steph’s fault that Gemma wasn’t a fan - the woman was perfectly friendly, and did seem to be genuinely kind. Unfortunately, she also seemed to have a habit of asking a lot of questions, which was an unfortunate trait for someone with a made up backstory to have to contend with. And now they’d made eye contact, which according to human behavior meant there was probably no avoiding a conversation. Oh well, better to take control of it and try to get it over with sooner rather than later. “Hey,” she greeted nonchalantly, hoping that would suffice and she could get on with her sulking.