This deep under the ocean, there was very little sound.

Calista was starting to hate it. She'd never thought of herself as the skittish type-- more the bullheaded sort who marched into any situation blithely unaware of the danger, as Adelaide had always been quick to tell her.

But the deep ocean was something else. Dark shadows moved around in the gloom. Some, she'd learned, were friendly. Others not so much. And while she always had her ketucari form in case she needed to defend herself, a creature as small as her looked like a convenient snack.

And then there were the other shadows, the ones that looked like ketucari run through whatever embiggening filter had been applied to everything else here. She'd seen a few of them, always watching from a distance, but vanishing in a heartbeat if she actually tried to make an approach. She hoped they didn’t think she was lunch, too.

She kicked her feet, spiraling lazily closer to a patch of seagrass. This undersea land was beautiful, in a strange and forbidding way. Winding their way through the slowly waving grass were frilly, colorful slugs. Calista watched them for a moment, fascinated by the way light blinked across their bodies in the gloom of the seafloor. Unlike the rest of the wildlife down here, these seemed… harmless. Almost delicate. She drifted closer…

“Oi! What do you think yer doin’?” a massive paw wrapped around Calista’s torso, dragging her back through the water. “Yeh don’ want to touch those.”

Calista “eeped”, going limp in the water in hopes of throwing off whatever had grabbed her. Carefully, she chanced a glance at the behemoth-- seafoam green and grey, easily lost in the water save for the bioluminescent spots on their sides. Their paw easily wrapped around her chest, holding her steady… but gently. Slowly, she processed that whoever this was clearly didn't want to harm her.

“Who…?” she blinked, staring up at her… captor?

“You landdwellers… yeh can’t go poking everything shiny down here. Those things are toxic enough that they can even kill a raaksavar. I wasn’t thinking this would be’ turnin’ into a babysittin’ mission…”

“...Thank you for the save, then, sir.” Calista bowed her head respectfully, and swam up to be even with their snout in an attempt to actually meet their eyes.

"Yer with the one with a tech arm, ain't yeh? Les get yeh back to 'er before yeh get hurt." the behemoth sighed, companionably.

“I… thank you. If you know the way, then…” well, this isn’t how she’d imagined making contact, but… there were worse ways to make a new friend.