There were things that Eleanor couldn't tell from up above. The distance had been just a bit too much when her eyes had first grazed the mermaid cove. Now that she was up close, feet grazing the bottom of the ocean floor, it was an even bigger sight to behold.

It was as if the mermaids had carved out a corner of the ocean and made it their own. Unlike humans, who above the surface carved out every inch. The cove seemed to be up against these cliffs and had built out, but with a limit. Part of what gave her this impression was the shape of the city, which she had been able to see fine from up above. The other indicator was the fact that there was a coral and rock wall that went around every outer foot she could see. They had locked themselves in, back against a wall.

"Or locked something else out?" she murmured to herself, only aware of the sound due to the small bubbles floating around her face.

She felt her face warm, tingling in the cold water surrounding her pink cheeks. With no way of knowing how good the creature's hearing would be, she’d have to be careful about her accidental musings going forward. She calmed her anxiety down at the moment by noting that Isabelle didn't so much as turn her head.

Isabelle did, however, put a clawed hand on one shoulder and push forward.

Her hand let up once they had stopped in front of the gate to the cove, waiting for the soldiers to open it for them. Two manly-looking merfolk stood in front of the gate. They each held a broad trident with both hands, the sharp tips standing above their heads. The gaurds were stationed with a few inches to spare between them. They had not walked away or opened the gate themselves, but they had called behind the gate, setting two others into action. It was unclear to Eleanor if all of their kind were welcome without question or an understanding was made for her escort.

Elle had no idea what the gate would be made of. It would be some type of metal for strength and longevity on land, but eventually, most metals rusted. Even iron would have similar issues with salt, water, and wind spraying at it with any constancy. Below the water, the rust would be worse. It looked like iron, but it didn't make any sense.

Her pondering about the building materials of the gate came to an end as Isabelle's hand pushed with greater force.

With that, Eleanor and her escort swam through the metal-but-probably-not-metal gate and into the cove proper. She startled under Isabelle's clawed hand as the gate closed behind them. It latched must faster than it had opened and much louder as well. She guessed that at least one of those was by design.

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Eleanor had tried not to have many expectations about what lay ahead.

Once she got over her startled, she took a moment to look around at her newest surroundings. There was very little in common with the world she had just been plucked and stolen away from. The first thing she found familiarity in was one large road leading away from the gate.

'No,' she thought to herself as they began to move forward.

They wouldn’t need anything that would use a road. The best word she could find to describe it was a path. It was a path that went in a straight line away from the entrance into the city. It was down this path that the pair walked. The surface they walked on looked similar to all the other ground surfaces that surrounded it. It was, in many ways, not a road. There wasn’t any feet, wheels, or animals trudging along to smooth out the land, nothing to push the dirt in any particular direction, although it did have a clearing-like quality to it. It went on straight through to the horizon, with no buildings or dwellings insight along it; shells and boulders, ranging from small to medium in size. They laid on both sides, somehow dug in and set in position to create the road-like path they were walking on.

Isabelle had not removed her digits from Eleanor's shoulder, keeping her moving at a preferred faster pace. It gave no time to inspecting what was around her, not to mention trying to take time to formulate a plan.

They walked along this path for a while, passing more shells, boulders, and houses. All the structures were built in no discernible order. They appeared round or cubicle, most taller than Eleanor would expect to see on dry land. There was some stranger shapes as well, with fewer corners and flat tops. There wasn't any singular style that she could set words upon. It was possible, a tickle in the back of her mind though, that given time to explore the cove building by building, she would find the style and shapes more similar.

The hand on her shoulder pulled back out of her thoughts, again. Dagger-shaped fingernails dug into her clothes and skin. She figured any tighter would have drawn blood but wasn't in a position to complain.

They had come to a different section of the path away from the front gate, and it looked like the end. The straight line that had led them here curved outward at both sides, creating a semicircle with both points ending in another gate. It looked like the fraternal twin to the gate that had let them into the city.

There was a coral and rock-looking wall that held a metal-looking gate. The slight differences included the style of the rods, sharper and colder looking here, and the manpower assigned to this gate. Instead of two side by side, there seemed to be a station of guards out front. They were not stacked side by side but visible along the wall, and if one looked up, two in towers connected to the wall.

They had gotten well past the dwellings and come onto something much more worthy of protection.