Sonoma looked at her while she talked, and after she finished talking he looked back down at his body before eyeing his tail, lightly patting the sand it rested on before looking up at the sky and silently hoping that his parents weren't going to forever be disappointed of him for breaking rule number one of the merfolk. However, the fact that she apparently was the only human for miles around did give him a bit of hope that the existence of merfolk could be kept a secret, however he knew he would have to play nice with her so he didn't get on her bad side.

"The right thing to do would be to help me get better. However..." He tried to stretch his arms but the dull pain flared up once again, limiting his movement and making him regret that. "I'm not sure how you can help me. I feel like by body has been wrecked from being tossed around thanks to the waves and the currents, but in saying that time may be the best way to recover from this." He looked up at her again, before taking a deep breath and spitting it out. "I'm sure that you must be absolutely shocked to see someone like me. Off of the very few occasions your kind has seen mine humans have turned us into myths, and well..." He stretched out his arms half-heartedly. "I'm not exactly swelling with muscles, am I?" He dropped his arms and shook his head. "Sorry if I disappointed you by shattering your expectations."

He had a fair point. How was she going to help him? Time would be the most help, but he'd need some sort of protection from the weather. Pulling herself out of her thoughts, Melfi returned her attention to him and what he was saying. She could not, even with the strongest of self control, help what came out of her mouth next. A loud laugh tumbled out of her mouth and past her lips. Covering her mouth her with hand, she gave herself a few seconds to regain her composure.

"I'm- Oh dear, I'm sorry," Melfi said as a few lingering giggles made their escape. "I really hope you don't think I'm laughing at you. I'm merely laughing at your apology, only because I have no disappointment to even feel. My love of the water and all the stories a little girl loves tied to it was lost many years ago. I had no expectations, nor should I have because your people have been in nothing but stories in my world."

Shaking her head at her ramblings, she stared at her feet before she regained her manners. "I'm sorry, I never gave you my name, did I? Well, I'm Melfi, or Mel for short." Melfi gave him a small smile and debated in her mind whether or not to hold out her hand for him to shake, until she settled on doing so.

Sonoma looked at her outstretched arm with a tinge of confusion, until he realized that she was wanting to shake his hand. He qiuckly stretched his arm out and lightly shook her hand, feeling the pain flare back up in his shoulder. His hand jerked back upon the pain flaring but he looked back up at her. "Well, Mel... my name is Sonoma. And you don't have to worry about taking offense; I've had mermaids give me a worse treatment than you have so far." He sighed and rubbed his eyes for a brief second. This whole situation wasn't good for him, but it would only get worse if other merfolk knew that he was discovered by a human. "So you say that you're the only human around here for 'miles?' Perhaps I can lie in the shallows around this beach until I recooperate, but there is the issue with you." He looked up at her with a serious look and his tone matched his look. "I shouldn't ever be found by a human... it's rule number one of the merfolk that we shouldn't ever be seen and keep our existence a secret. And now that you've seen me... I have to ask for you to keep that secret and not to tell anyone else about it. I don't have much to offer to you in exchange for your secrecy, but this secret is worth my life." Sonoma told her, and he was trying hard to make sure that Mel didn't tell anyone of him, otherwise he was as good as dead.

Melfi winced for him when he quickly pulled back his hand. Right, roughed up by the storm. Boy was she dumb sometimes. Her eyebrows furrowed when he mentioned the treatment of mermaids towards him. Unless he had a horrible personality and attitude he wasn't showing her, she saw nothing wrong with him. His tone changed and it had her paying closer attention than she had. Now sitting with her legs criss-cross, Melfi listened closely and nodded in agreement with what he was saying. "I don't need anything in exchange. It's only the right thing to do. I'm not the type of person to spill a life worthy secret just for something. Not like anyone would believe me anyway." The last sentence was mumbled to herself.

"I promise to you, Sonoman, to not let anyone know of you or your people's existence," Melfi said, looking directly into his eyes as she spoke. Honesty filled her own eyes and tone in hopes to reassure him. "Now, with that out of the way, what do I do next? I'm not exactly sure how I should be trying to help you."

Sonoma smiled at Mel when she said that she wouldn't reveal the secret to anyone else. "Thank you Mel. I'm glad to hear that the one human that found me is willing to keep a secret for someone." As for what she could do next for him, Sonoma wasn't so sure. "Well..." Sonoma shifted his body to look around for a brief second to look around the area, hoping that he could find something to inspire him. She sounded sincere enough, so maybe she really did want to help him recover from his injuries.

Eventually, his eyes led to a shoal not too far from the beach. It was a calm area and was in easy reach of the sea, so perhaps it would be a decent area for him to rest and recover. "There." He pointed with a finger to the shoal. "That area right there should be a good place for me to rest. All you have to do is get me back into the water and I should be abble to reach that. But..." He looked out at the sea for a second before turning back to her. "There is a problem with food if I can't move fast enough to catch my meal. I know you've already been more than kind to me by keeping the secret, but if I am to regain my strength, I have to ask you for some nurishment until I recover." He lowered his head out of shame: years of living on his own made him proud of his independence, but now he wholly relied on someone to take care of him.

"Yes. Let's get there before we figure anything else out." He eyed the shoal he was talking about earlier but it was painful for him to move quickly, and he instantly knew that it was going to be a slow and arduous trip, despite the relative distance between him and his desired destination. The waved ebbed and flowed, calling out to Sonoma before pulling away as if the tide was mocking him for his current situation. "I'm going to need your help in getting over there... Mel." He had to stop for a moment to think about her name. "The pain may be dull when I am idle, however it flares up when I try to move, so I ask for a guiding hand to help me over there." He told her, feeling not only embarrassed but also ashamed. Sonoma never thought in his wildest dreams that he would have to ask for help like this, and especially from a human. This is beyond degrading. If anyone in my group hears about this then I am done. Sonoma gritted his teeth as he moved ever so closer to the water, just wanting to get into deep enough water to use his tail to move himself forward and make the trip easier on his aching body.

Melfi studied the distance between them and the water. Technically, it wasn't that far, but it'd seem way farther than it was to him with her pulling on him. She didn't want to inflict more pain on him than he was already in. Trying to come up with an idea, she finally got one. "I'll be right back," she quickly said before racing into the house. Scrambling, she found a towel and ran back to him. "If I can get this under you, I can pull on this instead of you, which definitely won't hurt as much as me pulling on you."

Unfolding the towel, she laid it on the sand. Now how am I going to get this under him. Thinking it through, she decided the best bet would be to roll him onto it. Moving the towel to his side, she gave him an apologetic smile before explaining it to him. Melfi could tell by the look in his eyes this was killing him. Once he was on the towel, she grabbed the edge and started to pull. Looking down at him, Melfi chuckled to herself. "If someone had told me I'd be helping out a merman on my first day of vacation, I'd smack them upside the head and call them insane."

Sonoma looked up at her as she pulled the towel, and by proxy was pulling him, and he couldn't help but grin awkwardly after what she said about the start of her vacation. "Well if you told me that I would be chewed up and spat out by a storm and a human would help me recover, I also would've said that you were crazy." He replied, gritting his teeth as he inched closer and closer to the water, feeling the cool embrace of the seawater welcome him back after seemingly taunting him a few minutes ago. Eventually his tail was able to move around in the water and he began swimming over to the shoal, however he stretched out his arms to prop himself up since he would sink to the floor because his tail wasn't moving fast enough. How embarrassing is this... I have to crawl my way somewhere just so I can rest. I'm a disgrace for merfolk everywhere, and I'm disrespecting them in front of a human. He made it halfway to the shoal before having to stop and let the pain subside before he could continue. After catching breath, he made his way to the shoal and used the shoal to lie down and rest. "Thank you Mel." Sonoma said in between breaths. "In regards to food, merfolk prefer fish, obviously, but we don't mind some other food to accompany it, like..." He had to stop for a second to remember what the humans called the particular food group that included lettuce, the only human food he had from it. "Vegtables! That's what it's called." Sonoma felt bad about asking her to get him food, but at this point he had to accept it if he were to get better.