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The voyage to the warm western Caribbean had gone smoothly – hugging the coastlines as they ventured south, then north, keeping to the shallows as much as possible.
As was the usual practice, of course, given that the mermaid had only welcomed her daughter to the sea a little over a year ago.
Her daughter’s voice was remarkably fluent – what with 13 years of speaking and living on land, the older mermaid knew that a young one’s first months back at home were a time of learning, of adapting, of reconnecting with their parent and the ocean.
The lines between these – learning the language, learning the ways of the water, learning the ways of their kind – were not distinct as a human mind might think. The boundaries of these ways of living and loving – of being – were as watery and fluid as the tides.
A moon’s time after her daughter’s birthday, the older mermaid had, as usual, gifted her her first shell. A necklace, the usual for their lineage, a brilliant conch gathered from the south of Hawai’i.
She had added to it on their journey down and around the southern tip of the continent – eagerly inspecting the insides of bivalves they ate for a pretty sheen, curious about every coral rubble reef and shipwreck: they had had to re-thread the cord to hold her growing chest-mantle after only a few months.
~~~
It was a bright, sunny morning off the shore of a coral atoll.
The young mermaid’s mother had assured her that this stretch of land was untouched by humans; so, in a rare treat (so far), she had permitted them to venture much farther into the shallows, right up to the beach.
Which meant that, since the sunrise, she had been happily exploring the almost-tidepools, swimming through the shallow water as the tides receded, the morning sun warm and pleasant on her scales and back.
Per her mother’s instructions, she didn’t go too far inward – no need to risk beaching herself if she got too invested in her explorations, and having to wait for a higher tide.
They could still breathe air, of course, but one’s scales drying out was itchy and uncomfortable at best. An afternoon’s tides wouldn’t cause permanent damage, but it wasn’t a boundary to push, especially for one so young and new to their life.
So she stayed close enough to the drop-off, where she could easily flop her way back to the low-tide line and disappear underwater if she needed to.
She had found a comfortable, worn-down sort of shelf, right on the edge, so she could sit with her tail drooping into the deeper water, but with her whole top half above the surface to savor the sweet summery air.
And, most interestingly, watch the way the dizzying miniature world of the tidepools come to life in new ways, as the surf and water level wove their ways.
A new cast of characters took over as the water lowered: corals closed up, clams clapped their shells, fish hurried after the receding waves.
But others awoke: busy crabs crawled out to pluck at the exposed algae, devious octopuses slithered through mere inches of water from pool to pool, a morning buffet of creatures who had been too slow to catch the retreating tides.
And – what caught her interest right now – a small cadre of sea urchins came out to graze.
The young mermaid hadn’t really seen many of them before, at least not this kind or this close. The urchins closer to her human home had had longer, or thicker spines, so did not abide the endearing little quirk these ones did:
Each little pincushion clutched a few pieces of sea-detritus: a shred of algae, thick chunks of rubble, a couple small shells.
The purpose was clear: it broke up their shape to a predator from above, helped them blend in with the rocky floor of the tidepools -
- but to a young mermaid, who had enthusiastically been adding her collection of jewelry, it was a delightfully relatable practice to discover.
So, watching them make their slow progress to scrape algae and microbes off the bumpy rocks, she was inspired to a new sort of emulation.
She cast around, finding a candidate before long: a perfectly-intact snail shell, its unfortunate inhabitant sucked out by a passing octopus, leaving behind the delicate spiral.
In her long tresses, the mermaid wore a whalebone-carved sort of headband, a gift from her mother to keep her hair out of her face while she became accustomed to the new ways that one’s hair moved underwater. Eventually, she would outgrow the need for such a thing.
But right now, the chalky surface seemed perfectly ripe canvas for a new facet to her collection.
Still watching the urchins, she picked out a favorite: a neat, round one at the front, only the best of shells in its small tube feet. With a smile, she carefully stuck the point of the snail shell into the bone-front of her headband.
~~~~~
The mermaid jumped slightly in surprise: she had not noticed her mother come up behind her, until the older mermaid’s head popped up over the surface. With a heave, her mother planted both hands on the flat, and hoisted herself up to sit on the rocky ledge as well.
Her mother’s jewelry was different, somewhat less eclectic. Long strands of tiny shells in a dazzling number of coils, held on by wrapping around her neck, but braided together into almost a shirt around her whole upper half. She had been affectionately amused by her daughter’s much more beachcomber approach to growing her own collection.
So she noticed, quite quickly, the new addition to the headband.
With a small pulsed greeting of telepathy, the older mermaid reached out, eyes on the headband with an instructive sort of look.
here / learn / beautiful
Her daughter took it out of her hair and handed it over, curious about what her mother had planned.
The older mermaid scraped the underside of one of the tidepool edges with her nails, and rolled a ball of coraline algae between her fingers. A quick zap of electricity cleared it of the majority of its wetness, leaving a putty-like substance.
She delicately took the point of the snail shell out, and put the algae-glue into the divot, then much-more-stylishly stuck the shell on there. Another zap of electricity, and the putty hardened, leaving the small, elegant spiral safely secured at the crown of the headband.
Grinning huge at this new skill, the mermaid flopped a little closer to her mom, accepting the headband as she eagerly looked around for more shells.
Show me how!
Of course, her mother smiled too, already plucking up another ball of algae for the morning’s lesson.