Chapter Text
The Harbor
She hadn’t intended to involve herself with the humans, but she’s been curious. Too curious according to her older sisters in the pod, but that was the way of all young mer, attracted to the strange and the unknown.
And what was stranger than the humans, tailless as they were and tied to the land above? And how could the elders not expect the young ones to wonder when each mer received the gift of human tongues when they came of age?
It was almost a tradition for the young mer to spy on the humans, just usually they did so a bit farther out from shore. But the pod had been near to a harbor, nearer than they had before in her young life. She’d slipped away from her sisters without a thought, diving down to avoid the ships leaving and entering the bay, trusting the mottled grey of her hair and dorsum to keep her hidden should a sailor glance down into the water below them.
Not that she guessed many could see beneath the surface, filthy as the water was the closer she swam to the wooden docks jutting out from the stone and shore. It was almost hard to breathe with all the muck about her, but she held her breath as best she could and trusted her gills to filter out the worst of the mess.
It would be worth a bit of discomfort if she could get a closer look at the humans. And she’d swim back out to the cleaner depths just as soon as she’d seen what she hoped to.
She made her way closer and closer, threading between keels and nets as she grew closer to her destination. Finally, the young mer reached one of the wooden docks and slipped beneath it, scowling a little as her hair snagged on the small hooks fishermen were dropping from the dock above. She untangled herself, ignoring the excited shouts that she could barely hear through the water around her as those same fishermen convinced themselves they’d caught something impressive. Her hair freed and twined into a plaited knot to keep it from getting caught a second time, she flicked her flukes to shoo away the few fish still lingering beneath the dock.
Ragged little urchins they were too, she noted, wondering idly why the fishermen bothered. Nothing worth eating would be caught in such filthy waters.
She surfaced in the space beneath the wooden docks, peering up the slight distance of barely half a tail-length to see through the crooked slats. Men who clumped about above her, now muttering furiously about “the big one” who’d stolen the bait from their hooks. The mer frowned a bit, reminding herself to comb out her hair later. There was little worse than worms twining about one’s locks. There was no time to deal with it now, especially not if they were recasting their lines again.
She’d nearly given up on the view from where she floated, when a rumble of running footsteps alerted her to the approach of some somewhat smaller humans, young ones she guessed, their voices higher and brighter than the rumble and curses of the fishermen. The children scampered about the dock, their laughter bringing an answering grin to her lips as they ran about above her, jostling each other and ducking the cuffs aimed at them by fishermen sure the commotion would scare their fish away.
At least one “fish” wasn’t going to be startled so easily.
She was eyeing one of the wooden support beams and debating on hauling herself up closer to the humans above when she actually was startled: by a splintering crash of wood, a hoarse shout of alarm, and a splash on the other side of the dock.
One of the rowdy children, a boy who at least looked similar in age to the young mer though it was hard to tell with humans, had slipped amidst their roughhousing, crashing through the rickety dock railing and falling into the sea.
Instinct had the mer ducking down to the waterline, leaving only her eyes above the surface, watching as the boy would surely swim himself to safety.
Only he didn’t. Gamely though he clearly tried to thrash about, the boy clearly knew nothing of how to actually swim. Nor apparently did the other boys or the adults above. There were shouts and calls for help for a “William,” but no other splashes to signal any humans coming to the gangly boy’s rescue.
And he was slipping beneath the surface even as she watched.
Instinct had nothing to do with what the mer chose next. She spared a brief thought for the wrath of her Matriarch and Wise One should they learn of her actions, and another brief moment to decide she’d not be the one to bring it up, and then she dove under. Her tail propelled her forward in two hard strokes to cross the distance between them, and she wrapped her arms about the boy from behind, hoping he might miss her true identity in his panic. Then with another pair of tail kicks, she dragged the boy backwards toward the metal ladder at the land-side end of the dock.
She surfaced to the sound of a great gasp of air from the boy and a resumption of his flailing. This time his hands found the ladder, and she ducked back into the shadows of the doc, hoping the commotion and the dimness would keep her hidden.
As the boy climbed haphazardly, clothes sopping and shoes slipping against the railings, she could not help but hiss at him: “Learn to swim, you fool!”
She resolved not to mention that to her elders, either.