( He hears the cry, Chenqing in hand and at his lips in the moment he recognises what's happened. He understands the cry with his crystal on, and he understands even more the aim of the undead fish-women swimming for the one gone overboard.
Chenqing's music cuts through enough of the air to reach out and battle in the way he's not yet needed to test; on his world, there were not the bodied dead to control, just the energies and spirit left behind once the body had ceased to operate. Here, it's not the same, and the alien nature of what he's calling on, what he fights against in the process, almost makes him too slow.
The first mermaid to respond to his command, to defend the strange fallen not-fish, shrieks before turning, blocking the surging attack of another mermaid. He's eyeing the person in the water to see if they swim; he's going to have to change his command at that point, even as the defending mer's tail swooshes back, cutting toward Alina's legs and possibly right into them, not to injure on purpose, but capable of it at the undead mer's strength. )
iii
Chenqing's music cuts through enough of the air to reach out and battle in the way he's not yet needed to test; on his world, there were not the bodied dead to control, just the energies and spirit left behind once the body had ceased to operate. Here, it's not the same, and the alien nature of what he's calling on, what he fights against in the process, almost makes him too slow.
The first mermaid to respond to his command, to defend the strange fallen not-fish, shrieks before turning, blocking the surging attack of another mermaid. He's eyeing the person in the water to see if they swim; he's going to have to change his command at that point, even as the defending mer's tail swooshes back, cutting toward Alina's legs and possibly right into them, not to injure on purpose, but capable of it at the undead mer's strength. )