Sage sort of froze with a yelp when she reached for him, and could barely stand to let the girl touch him and pull him up and out of the water. But...she did cut the cords, and even though the release of the cords left blood spiraling from his wrists and out of his gills, he could sputter out some coughs before catching his breath. His gills still hurt, but at least it was easier to actually breathe. 'Sage," he finally whispered in response to the girl's question, voice ragged. He sounded just as bad as he felt...hot and tired, vocal cords and neck strained from the cord. Plus, he was still absolutely terrified. She seemed nice...but she was also holding him captive. She couldn't be a friend...then again, other merls weren't exactly his friend either. There was a reason he'd been by himself when he was snagged by those men.

"Sage, can you please tell me what type of fish would you like in your new home. I want it to feel as close to your liking as I can, do you think that you can tell me what type of plants you want as well? Trust me, I'm not going to let anyone hurt you anymore..." She said to the creature. Lydia may be rude to human beings, but this merman reminded her of the condition she had found Duke in.

When Lydia found Duke, he was bruised, beaten, and scared. She had found him with a broken leg, deep open wounds all over him, most of which were infected. He had fleas, heart worms, and most people said that he wouldn't survive. But he did.

Sage sort of just stared at the girl wearily for a few moments before shrugging. "I don't...ocean ones? I usually just eat them," he admitted. Fish were nice snacks....though to actually sustain a mer person it took a lot of fish. And a few fish friends might be nice to talk to. But he didn't really care about fish. As for plants....he didn't know. "I like the kelp beds," he said slowly. "Something to kind of hide in." He shrugged in a sort of shy manner. "Anything else on the floor...some sand." Then he made a face. "And the water has to be cold and salty otherwise my blood will slowly boil and fry me alive or my gills will burn away and I'll slowly suffocate," he added on dully.

"Uh huh," She said texting the stuff that her friend had offered to drive to get. "OK, don't worry, the tank is already cold and salty..."

Lydia noted that there was already sand at the bottom, and she truly wondered if he wanted to go into the tank before the fish and plants arrived. "Do you want to go in the tank before the stuff arrive or would you rather wait until the stuff gets put in?" She asked.

The fish could be a few minutes, and so could the plants. If Lydia was half fish and got caught she would want to go in the giant fish tank before everything was placed inside too. Luckily, inside of the tank there was a control for the temperature, so that Sage could control it himself.

Sage nodded in response to her comment and then grunted as he tried to shift around to look at more stuff around him, but space was pretty tight. It was a big tank, but he was also larger than most fish that go in fish tanks. With his tail, he was nearly ten feet long...so really it was too small to do much as of then. "If it's bigger, I'll go now," he eventually decided. "And I can help set stuff up once it gets here then I guess. Gives me something useful to do." He honestly didn't care what the tank looked like....it was still a tank. But, this water was both hot and not salty, so it would be an improvement from this.

"Oh it's bigger..." She commented before dragging the wheelbarrow all the way up to the top of the tank.

Lydia then brought the tiny tank to a point where he could just jump over if he could, and if he couldn't, she could help him in.

Sage grunted and nodded when she said the other tank was bigger, and he let her wheel him into the house. Not that he was happy with the whole thing, but he did admit that he'd have plenty of space to stretch out and swim around a bit in there.

Once she'd confirmed he could get into the other tank, he twisted around to a better angle ..which admittedly took him quite a bit of time since it was small and he was obviously still rather weak from the heat and everything else. He made it eventually though, and grabbed the edge of the tank to pull himself up. The muscles in his arms and back tensed as he pulled himself up and over the edge of the new tank with his arms, since there was no room to wiggle a tail. Once he was in the bigger tank though, he looked and felt noticibly better immediately. The cold water cooled his system, and the salt water made his scales and fins seem to shimmer as he stretched them out to his full length. Small, looping patterns like tattoos of simple lines appeared on his skin too...they only showed in salt water, but they were markings of identification to the merl people...sort of like a fingerprint.

She watched Sage swim around in the tank for a minute or so, before she went down with the wheelbarrow to pick up all the items Sasha had gotten for the tank. It took 3 loads but it was worth it.

There were giant pink coral, large kelp beds, large beds of seaweed, there was even a whole coral reef.

For fish there were a few clown fish, a few Angel fish, there were some tropical fish, and much more.

Once everything was up she slowly started dropping corals in for Sage to place where he wanted them.

Sage had taken to just...swimming around, exploring his new home. Well, it wouldn't be a home he didn't think...but it was where he'd be living all the same. There was a couple feet of sand at the bottom of the tank, along with some rocks and shells already, and some taller plants which were sort of nice. When he noticed the girl start dropping things into the tank, he grabbed them and sort of decorated it in a way he'd like. There was no where to get out of sight anywhere....which made him uncomfortable. Well, more uncomfortable than he already was. He'd turned the water temperature down to below sixty degrees though, so it was gradually cooling down more and he hoped that would help his headache a bit. He still felt woozy and nauseous...which may just be nervs, or he could actually be messed up from being out of the water for in the heat for or so long.

After dropping the last coral in, she thought to herself that he probably didn't know that this was his area. The area where no one would see him, there was a smaller area down below about a quatre of this one's size that replaced most of the wall in Lydia's room.

"Oh yeah Sage!" She called, "just so you know, this top part is your area no one can see you up here unless we come up here, and there is a spot in where my room wall was supposed to be that is where I can see you." Lydia really wanted him to know that it was ok up here, just like Duke in his house. Duke used to be so scared of people that Lydia had a room attached to hers for him to hide in if he didn't feel safe.

Lydia then started dropping fish in, until there were no more.