fandomhigh | Swimming With the Fishes, Tuesday, period 1

After her brief, abrupt visit with Rey on Sunday, Octavia had been keeping it together... reasonably well. If reasonable covered all the texts she'd sent - tried to send - as well as the way she'd called every number she had or could find aboard the Rouge for anyone in Haven, yesterday. She hadn't gotten any of them, of course. Not even their voicemails. Not Gloria, not Claire.

Definitely not Duke.

She'd handled it, though. Somewhat.

But showing up here before Duke's class was supposed to start was still nothing but a last-ditch effort to force herself to hope he was about to turn up. He hadn't said anything about planning to miss his class, right? So... Technically there was a chance she might come here and find him giving her a sheepish smile about how his phone had fallen in the ocean on the way home, or something.

But the minutes ticked by, the students gathered, and there was no Duke. So Octavia steeled herself, got up, and took his place. Just to give herself something to do that wasn't screaming or violence.

"Duke's not here." Yeah, they could see that. "But those things are." She pointed towards the open water. There were animals there, yes. Their shape was close to that of a manatee, only they were huge, the biggest among them closer to 30 feet long. They seemed to be pretty content to swim around and eat kelp and snort at each other, though, thankfully.

Especially because Octavia pointed at a pile of inner tubes on the shore, next. "And we have these. So that's what we're doing." Her voice dropped to an even drier rasp. "Ask if you have questions."

Yes, they were tubing amongst an extinct species today. Enjoy.