There had been a misunderstanding, Hadama realized too late. He went still, not even his chest moving as his breath ceased to move in his lungs as he realized too late what Sunjata intended.
"Hrm." He felt the water he had already lifted now rising further, and the whip-like tip of his tail sliced into air outside the column before he pulled it back in. It was... unsettling, allowing someone else to manipulate the water around him. It was a trick he had used himself many times to gain height; a technique he had trained and honed with Hotaru in an Academy lesson, but even Hotaru had only attacked his water column with air, not with water of her own.
This was no attack; it was well-meant, but it required trust. Trust that was, as yet, tenuous at best with this man he knew not at all, and at the question that came the mermanta shook his head firmly. "Down. Please. I thought you meant to lift the water of the pool into view. Not the water beneath me."
"Hrm." He felt the water he had already lifted now rising further, and the whip-like tip of his tail sliced into air outside the column before he pulled it back in. It was... unsettling, allowing someone else to manipulate the water around him. It was a trick he had used himself many times to gain height; a technique he had trained and honed with Hotaru in an Academy lesson, but even Hotaru had only attacked his water column with air, not with water of her own.
This was no attack; it was well-meant, but it required trust. Trust that was, as yet, tenuous at best with this man he knew not at all, and at the question that came the mermanta shook his head firmly. "Down. Please. I thought you meant to lift the water of the pool into view. Not the water beneath me."
