Chapter Text
Jolyne scraped her spoon along her bowl one last time—filled with a five-minute recipe she had found on a fitness blog. Even if she’d been committed to athleticism since she was in middle school, that didn’t make her any better at coming up with healthy meals.
She let the bowl and spoon clatter into the sink, a problem for her in the future, after she’d taken a cold shower. She practically sighed at the thought, the shower her only respite from the Florida heat coupled with her tortuous jogging sessions. It was all that kept her tying up her shoes some of those early mornings, instead of hopping back into a warm bed with the start of her day still hours away.
Jolyne finally slipped her shoes on before heading out the door.
The storm that had battered the low-set coast had left thick, murky air and roiling seas in its wake. Water still trailed down the streets into storm drains. Palm trees hung heavy with the water weight, dripping onto the path in front of Jolyne and sometimes hitting her with each bound and rolling down her bare shoulders.
Every reasonable person in South Florida was still asleep, windows shut tight in a vain struggle against humidity. The storm had failed to smother the heat, either.
Jolyne had decidedly not been reasonable since she picked up morning jogging. For the past couple of years, she filled out the workout at the end of her day with a run until she could barely feel her legs. She’d had to cut down on the evening workout from the demands of her job. She still attacked the run like anything athletic, worn shoes pounding on the pavement and barely waiting for the sun to rise to move out.
It was this harsh routine—quiet mornings and the sheen of sweat as she rounded familiar corners—that finally sent Jolyne tumbling into something new after years.
Stretching in the comparably refreshing morning heat—still unbearable in anywhere besides Florida—gave Jolyne a few more minutes of respite and time with her thoughts. She enjoyed the familiar stretch in the back of her thighs as she moved down, mind only on what lay in front of her at the moment. Some early-rising birds began to exchange songs between the trees. She adjusted the water bottle dripping with condensation in her hand before starting off at a trot.
She liked to move down towards the water, where the promise of a breeze and thundering waves kept her mind off the pain in her lungs. She kept right on the empty streets, still lit with towering lamps, until the buildings made way for a wide-open expanse of the beach past the road ahead of her. She crossed the street, sand crunching between her soles and the tarmac.
Where the town was located put the sun directly over the water in the morning. Pale pink scattered off the waves onto the glass of the buildings. Only a café showed signs of life within the buildings on the edge of the sea, a couple employees stirring around to get the shop ready.
Jolyne took in the moment where only the sea filled her nose and ears, before loud cars replaced the roar of the waves and sent exhaust burning into the sky. Sweat beaded down her neck and tasted like salt against her lips, sticking to her like the sea air. She rounded a bend where the pavement changed into sand.
She kicked through the shifting ground, feet spinning but going nowhere. The storm had kicked sand up onto the pavement down where it dipped towards the surf. Jolyne paused, placing her hands on her hips and leaning back to catch her breath. She took a greedy gulp from her water bottle, pausing to look out over the sand.
She noticed a streak of green that stood out against the early orange of the morning hitting the sand. Trash was hardly new to the beach, but as she capped the bottle and prepared to trudge through the sand again, Jolyne took a second glance at the unusual pile of trash.
It seemed to be short hair, falling down and bunching against the rocks, leaving a tan neck visible. Jolyne squinted and leaned forward, before speeding across the beach at the figure, kicking up sand as she went.
Even in a smaller town, crime wasn’t new to the area. Women appeared for their final time in newspaper headlines every once in a while. Her friend Hermes had bought her a keyring of alarms and mace when she first started running in the morning, always paranoid about women walking into something they aren’t prepared for.
As Jolyne drew closer, the rocks the figure was leaned against drew back to reveal her chest was bare. Jolyne winced.
She stopped in her tracks after the next few steps, however. The woman’s legs glinted in the early morning light, looking almost green. She stepped closer to see that her thighs were drawn together in one form, leading down to her ankles, where it split into fins.
Jolyne clambered over the boulders and crouched down next to the figure’s legs. She’d seen people buy those mermaid tails, but what was someone doing unconscious and washed up on a beach with one?
She ran her hand over where the emerald tail joined with the woman’s flesh, looking for a seam. The texture was smooth, with smaller scales fading into her tan skin. She dug her nails into the division, trying to pull at the damned thing until she noticed the woman’s skin turn pink and had a scale come up with her nails.
Jolyne sat back on her haunches. As she dragged her eyes up the figure, she noticed slits along her torso and neck and scales speckling her body up to her face. Her face was turned to one side, short green hair obscuring her eyes. Her thin lips were parted to reveal glinting, sharp teeth.
A mermaid that really showed up in the American South Atlantic. She looked to have been kicked up during the storm, with discolored liquid leaking from the slits along her sides—gills, Jolyne realized—and a gash on her back, which Jolyne just noticed from the deep red leaking onto the sand.
She shook the mermaid’s shoulder. Her head lolled to the other side, mouth still agape. It was worth a shot, but the mermaid wasn’t waking up that easily.
Who would she even call for help in this situation? Maybe a hospital that had no idea how to treat a mermaid, or would that be a veterinary clinic? It could be that the police would show up if she called and have her committed.
She took a long look at the woman, whose asleep face was relaxed despite the wounds pulling at her.
Jolyne hoisted the mermaid’s arms up over her shoulders, wrapping them around her neck. She was more substantial than her malnourished frame made her out to be, due to all that extra weight on her tail. She shuddered as that tail slapped against her calves as she moved, solid and cold. The end of that long tail dragged on the ground, but it would have to do.
Jolyne maneuvered her water bottle under her arm and set off. It wasn’t that long back to her apartment, and this could count as her workout for the day, Jolyne thought sourly. She kept to the sloping sand under the sidewalk, where her new companion’s glinting tail would be hidden from any early-rising passerby.
As she approached the long expanse of the street leading back to her apartment, Jolyne paused. She now had a mermaid to drag down the pavement—who was thoroughly topless, in addition.
She let the woman drape back onto the sand. She wasn’t showing any more signs of waking up, but Jolyne had felt her heartbeat as she walked. At least, she thought it was her heartbeat, since it seemed to radiate from her lower right side and was coming much too slowly to be human. It would probably hurt her to move her around too much, but it had to be taken care of.
Jolyne pulled her shirt off over her head. She worked it over the woman’s arms, which she stuck upwards to fit through the holes, sticky with salt water.
She almost laughed at the situation, having a mermaid in an old short-sleeved shirt advertising a faded softball team logo and leaving herself in a bra and tight-fitting shorts.
The tail would be another problem to cover entirely, but Jolyne figured she could take it in stride. She hoisted the mermaid up into her arms, finding her tail bent over her arm so she could carry her bridal-style.
She set off down the street—still empty, but the streetlights were slowly flickering off as the sun rose higher in the sky. The woman presented just as much of a problem as before, dragging Jolyne down with her from her weight. Jolyne struggled with the now t-shirt clad figure, glaring into the pavement as she put each foot in front of the other and sweat dripped onto the other woman’s stomach.
She glanced up to look for her apartment and saw a woman headed her way, small dog in tow. Of course, the other people awake at this hour would be the older women taking their little dogs on walks. She fit the bill entirely—bobbed hair, acrylic nails, dog neatly trimmed, and reasonably astonished to see someone dragging a mermaid along with them in South Florida.
Jolyne picked up her pace, forcing her gaze forward as the woman approached. Jolyne risked a glance to the side as the dog sniffed at her and began barking feverishly at the mermaid in her arms. Jolyne gave a brisk nod and walked ahead, not risking a look back and almost breaking into a trot.
She struggled up the short set of stairs to her apartment building, trying to dig her key out of her pocket. The mermaid’s head knocked against the doorframe as she fumbled with the key, and Jolyne stuttered out an apology. She dragged the woman to her door, silently thanking her landlord for giving her a first-floor apartment.
Jolyne fit the mermaid through her door, holding her chest up with one hand and snaking her tail through the opening with the other. She flopped the mermaid, half in her arms, through the entrance hallway towards a door at the other end of the apartment. She had given up on trying to successfully carry the mermaid through the narrow apartment, her tail knocking against the couch as they passed the central room.
Jolyne fit the mermaid into her bathroom, dragging her tail over the toilet as she situated her into the bathtub. She tried to let her down gently, but the woman’s head gave a sickening thud as it cracked against the rib of the bathtub.
Jolyne stood back, sweat dripping down her brow more than from any run. The mermaid’s tail fell out from the rim of the bathtub, long enough for the tip to drag along the floor. She was still out cold, and wearing her shirt, Jolyne realized.
Jolyne flipped the tap on, turning it to cold water, leaving pulling her shirt back off as a problem for later. For now, she left the rumble of the water echoing into the bathtub to step outside, leaning against the bathroom door.
She tapped at her phone before holding it up to her ear.
“It’s Jolyne… yeah, I just woke up really sick,” started Jolyne, feigning a raspy voice past her panting. “Today off, definitely, but we’ll see for tomorrow. Yeah? Thanks so much.”
Jolyne dropped her hand to her side, just hitting the button to hang up before releasing her head to knock against the door. As she listened to the water fill the bathtub through the door, Jolyne realized she would have to wait for that cold shower.