Chapter Text
The blazing sun crept higher and higher into the sky, the heat becoming intense on your back as you shielded the little guppy in your lap from the light. You had to keep them from drying out. Despite mers being able to breathe like humans can, it’s not ideal for them to be out of water for long.
Even though you were keeping the mer in your shadow, their scales were still getting dry, the texture going from wet and smooth to rough and hard. You looked down the beach where your parents were, but you couldn’t see them from where you were. You realised that it would still be a while before they came looking for you if they weren’t looking already on other parts of the beach.
Checking on the mer, they were still curled into your chest, snoozing away the many problems that you both were currently faced with. The mer was drying out, they panicked when put in water, and you didn’t want to risk being out in the open carrying a defenceless mer in your arms.
But you needed to get their scales moist; the sooner, the better. “I know you don’t want to be in the water, but you need to dampen your scales…” You sighed, carefully shuffling your way over to the shore. The guppy chirped and moved in their sleep, but ultimately just nuzzled into you and settled again.
You leaned backwards to keep the mer resting against your chest while you slowly turned yourself to face the water. You moved as best you could to try and cup some water into your hands, maybe the mer won’t freak out if you just shower them a little with water.
Unfortunately, the guppy woke up when you lent forward to grab the seawater. They chirped in distress when they saw how close the sea was and buried their face into you, clenching at your wetsuit.
You winced as your wetsuit pinched your skin from being pulled. “It’s okay… I’m just going to wet your scales. They’re very dry.” You held your hands between the mer and the sea, an arm either side of them as they were curled up in your lap.
The mer turned around and stared at your cupped hands, carefully holding the water within them. The frills around their head slowly drooped down as they let out a low whistle before looking up at you with wide eyes, looking unsure.
You gave them a small smile, trying to look as reassuring as possible. “It’s okay, look.” You parted your hands slightly and let a little bit of water slip through the gap, soaking the guppy’s tail. The scales instantly brightened in colour as they were hit with the water. A small gasp escaped your lips, you didn’t even notice the discolouration.
The mer chirped and put their tiny hands on their now damp scales and their frills perked up, squeaking happily at the healthy soaking. You held your hands above them and they followed with their head, accidentally falling back into your chest as they looked up.
“Are you ready?” You asked softly. The mer bobbed its head in anticipation and took a large breath. You noticed that they sealed their gills closed tightly and flattened the frills around their face to cover the gills on their neck. You gently poured the water over them and they flinched a little before deflating with a chirp, looking relieved.
Their whole body was now much brighter and more colourful, even more so then when you first found them. You stared at awe at the sheer beauty of such rich colours, all the books you’ve read about mers could never do this justice. “Wow! So pretty…”
You gently moved to stroke the fin coming from the back of their head, holding the small bulb at the end. You remembered that coral mers had bulbs on the end of their head fin and tendrils with feelers inside of them, they were mostly used for catching prey.
The guppy chirped at you and tried to reach up for your hands, gently grabbing at your fingers. You chuckled and let them grab your hands, you expected them to play with your hands like a baby would, but they started to pull themselves up, but with little success.
You lifted them up, guessing they wanted it for some reason. “What’s the matter?” You tilted your head but they started to reach out to your face. Confusion filled you but you let them go for it, you trusted that they wouldn’t attack you again.
Once the guppy got hold of your face, they moved to one of your cheeks and started to lick it. You squirmed a little and giggled, pulling back from their licks. “Hey, stop that-” You paused as you saw a shimmer of red on their tongue as they dangled in your arms, tongue still stuck out from licking you.
You shifted them to one arm and moved your hand to your cheek. When you pulled back your fingers, there was blood on them. You gasped a little before feeling around your face, you felt remnants of blood on your cheek from where it was dribbling down to your chin.
“What?” You stared at the blood before remembering back to when the guppy grabbed your face in distress when you carried them to the water.
A sharp chirp caught your attention, the mer gave you a guilty look before licking the blood off your hand. They started to climb you again to get to your other cheek, you realised that they were trying to clean your wounds. After a few licks, they leaned back to look at you with worry in their eyes and whining a little.
You softened your eyes and smiled at them. “Thanks. I know you didn’t mean it.” The gentle tone in your voice seemed to ease their worry, nuzzling and nudging your face with their head, purring.
You relaxed and held the guppy close as it cleaned your wounds, the licking was rather ticklish, but you can handle it.
“There you are!” A voice called out from behind you.
The mer squealed and curled ducked down, curling up in your arms. You snapped around to look behind you, hiding the mer from whoever was calling you. It was your grandparents.
Your grandmother knelt down and looked you in the eye. “You had us worried sick! We couldn’t see where you-” She paused when she caught sight of the trembling guppy in your lap.
You turned around so she and your grandad could see. “They were stuck on the beach and getting pecked by seagulls…” You pulled the mer the tiniest bit closer, rubbing their back.
Your grandma tilted her head slightly. “Sweetie, why didn’t you carry them to the sea?”
“They panicked and dug their claws into me when I did!” You retaliated, of course you tried that already!
You dropped your head at the accidental raise of your voice, you didn’t mean to.
Your grandpa pulled out his phone and started to tap away at it. “Okay, let’s take the mer back to our stuff and give them some water…” He turned around and started making his way back. Your grandma soon followed so you picked yourself up and carried the mer back to where your family was set up on the beach.
They whined and nuzzled closer into your chest, nerves starting to get to them again. “Shh, shh… it’s okay.” You supported their tail with one arm and gently put your free hand on their head, petting their head fin. They looked up at you and chirped, the end of the head fin flicking slightly. “We’re gonna help you, okay? There’s no need to worry.”
The guppy leaned into you again as you went back to focusing on where you were going, you were lagging behind a little, but you now see your parents talking to your grandma while your grandpa was on the phone to someone.
“Hey!” A different voice called you this time.
Ugh, what now?
You turned around and saw a kid run up to you, a grin on his face. You didn’t like how sharp it was…
“Wow! Did you catch that yourself?” He beamed.
Okay, now you were confused.
“Catch what?” You questioned.
“That mer! I’ve been trying to catch one for months!” He inched closer to you.
“What? No! I found them on the beach!” You turned away slightly and held them closer, the mer stared at the boy with wide eyes, sensing danger.
The boy groaned. “Oh, man… I wish I was that lucky!”
You stared at him with concern and confusion.
He suddenly perked up again. “Come on, my dad knows some people who would pay big money for one like that!”
He grabbed your arm to try and pull you along, but you yanked back and the guppy squealed loudly.
“Money?!” you exclaimed. It suddenly hit you what the boy was talking about. “You want to sell this poor guppy to poachers?!”
The boy stared at you for a second, all excitement washed from his face and body. He stared at you blankly. “Oh… you’re one of those fish lovers…”
He took at step. “If you’re not gonna take it, then I will.”
He suddenly lunged out his arms and grabbed the mer, causing them to panic and grasp at you, screeching in horror. You clenched onto them as hard as you could. “Hey! Let go!”
“No, you let go!” The boy started to pry your fingers back to loosen your grip.
“OW!” You yelled as the boy bent your fingers back farther that they should, causing a sharp sting of pain to surge through your hand.
You felt the guppy wriggling around in your arms when the boy suddenly yelped and stumbled back, letting go of the mer. You instinctively pulled them to your chest again.
You stared at the boy and saw claw marks in his arm, he was grasping the slices as blood seeped through his fingers and dripped onto the sand. “You piece of crap!”
You turn and ran to your family before he could try and take them again, not daring to turn around to see if he was chasing you. You could hear the slapping of feet behind you, so you knew he was.
“Dave!” A deep voice yelled.
“Wha- But dad!-”
“Come here now!”
The boy let out a massive groan filled with annoyance, his footsteps fading away.
You slowed your sprint and turned around, the boy was now in the distance, pointing at you and yelling at his father.
You didn’t want to know or see what would happen and retreated to your family. They were all watching what happened. You could tell your mother was ready to intervene by her stance and tensed fists.
Your father approached you, looking worried. “Are you alright? You’re not hurt?”
You flexed your hand, the fingers he pulled hurt, but you could move them. “I’m fine…”
He nodded and guided you to sit down at the deck chair before leaving you be and talking with the other adults.
The guppy was still staring in the direction of the boy, squinting their eyes at him. You sighed “Did he hurt you?”
The mer looked up at you and chirped, licking your chin a little. The small action made you smile. “Thanks.”
The mer purred, nuzzling you before looking back at the boy in the distance and snarling. You chuckled as you felt the vibrations of its growling. “Yeah, you showed him.”
You head footsteps close by and snapped your head towards the noise. You didn’t recognise who was approaching you, but you saw that your grandpa was with them.
The guppy scrunched their nose, ready to hiss again, but they soon calmed down. You pulled them closer. “Who are you?”
The person knelt down, they were wearing some sort of uniform with the acronym P.A.M.A. sewn on the sleeves near their shoulders. The words ‘Protection Against Mer Abuse’ was written very small underneath. “Hey, kid. Your grandpa called me to take a look at your mer friend.”
You frowned slightly, leaning away from them. You grandpa moved to stand next to you. “It’s alright. They work for the P.A.M.A. The organization I wrote some of the mer books you read.”
Your eyes widened, you have heard of the P.A.M.A. They were a group that is similar to things like the WWF and the RSPCA, but they specifically worked with merfolk. You relaxed and loosened your hold of the guppy.
The stranger smiled at you. “I heard you’ve been taking good care of him.”
You tilted your head. “You can tell his gender just by looking at him?” You quizzical brain was at it again, wanting every bit of knowledge about mers you could get.
They nodded. “Yep. See how he has no frills by his tail fin and only one set on his waist?”
You looked at the guppy, who was chirping happily as the P.A.M.A worker lightly touched his frills. “Yeah?” You stared back at them, silently asking for an explanation.
They saw your questioning look and continued. “Females have two sets of frills at the waist and some surrounding their tail fin. They also tend to be larger than the males.”
You nodded along, heavily invested in how there was also differences between genders as well as species. Part of you wanted to run back to your grandparents’ house and scour every last mer book you had until you found once mentioning such visual differences.
“Could you tell me what happened kiddo?” They asked, patiently waiting for your story.
You smiled and nodded, explaining how you were exploring when you saw him getting attacked by the seagulls and shooed them away. How he clawed your face when you picked him and as well as his panicked reaction when returned to the sea.
Their face frowned at that last part, clearly sensing something was wrong.
When you were done, they stood and held out a hand to you. “Okay, kid. Let’s get your friend checked out at by our medics?”
You nodded, taking their hand, but the mention of medical attention spooked you. “Is he okay?”
Their eyes widened at your question. “Oh! He’s fine, we should just make sure that there’s nothing wrong with him. I am a little confused as to why he doesn’t want to go back into the water is all.”
You made a small noise of acknowledgement and followed them to a small van. Your parents got in the back while you sat in the front seat next to the worker since they wanted to keep an eye on the guppy. Your grandparents said they were going to follow in their car.
You stared out the window as you all drove towards the other end of the beach. You could see a large dock with multiple boats and a decently sized building next to it. There were a few people walking around, all wearing the same uniform. Some were carrying equipment on and off the boats while others were sat at benches and chatting away over their late lunches.
“This is one of our main bases of operation. We stay close to the sea to easily get to any mers that need our help. Everyone I work with is super friendly.”
You nodded quietly and looked back at the mer in your lap, he looked up at you with a small smile.
You felt relieved that he was finally getting the help he needed.