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The beaches in Pandora were beautiful, Thomas realized. He knew about the archipelago's beautiful views, but he had never really taken the time to observe them in detail, not that he had time for such trivial things. As a member of the council of Luminara, a small nation undergoing rapid and constant development, he didn't have much time even for himself.
That was until he fell off the bridge.
It was an accident, a small oversight. Believing there was a block to support him, he leaned into thin air and before he knew it, the ocean was swallowing him up.
It wasn't that he didn't know how to swim, everyone in Luminara knew how to swim, but the suddenness of it took him by surprise and he drowned, perhaps just a little. And when he woke up, it was a completely different day. He was assigned rest, and that's how his unexpected little vacation began.
The doctor prescribed two weeks of rest. The first few days were boring, confined to bed, looking out the window at the immense blue sea and the bustle of people that drowned out the sound of the waves. He had occasional visits from friends who were also busy with the duties of their appointed positions but who made time in their schedules to drop by and check that he was okay.
On the fourth day, his own room became unbearable. On the fifth, he gathered a few things and left before sunrise.
The sun felt warm and comfortable against his skin, and there was a curious sense of relief that faded with each breath carried away by the breeze, and his footprints in the sand disappeared within moments, washed away by the gently rolling waves.
Such calm was unusual, but he didn't dislike it at all. That kind of calmness was strange, but he didn't dislike it at all. Although since leaving his house he had had the feeling of being watched, he dismissed it as a bit of paranoia; after all, he hadn't told anyone what he was going to do.
Walking along the coast of the northern island was strangely therapeutic. He had walked so far that he knew he had reached Tricolor because of the bright flags raised not far away, but his feet had begun to ache and his stomach was demanding food to silence its rumbling.
He sat down on a log on the sand, stretching his legs and taking a simple apple out of his inventory, which he had taken without thinking twice because he didn't think he would walk so far. The original plan was to go around Luminara, but as he was entranced by the beach, he ended up almost at the end of the island. Not that he regretted it.
He bit into the apple, his gaze fixed on the distant horizon, where the difference in shades of blue was almost imperceptible, when suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a white flash in the water. But when he turned his full attention to the spot, there was nothing but calm waves. Perhaps it was a seagull, he thought, but he hadn't heard the squawking of those birds for a while. He pushed that unsettling thought to the back of his mind and went back to chewing his apple.
But I couldn't help thinking about it, the feeling of being watched came back again.
“Hey, who's there?” he asked loudly, but immediately felt stupid, as there was no human sound around him. Surely the salt water he had swallowed was making him delusional.
Breaking the surface of the sea, long white hair swayed in the waves and a pair of eyes peered out staring at him directly.
Ah, so there was someone there after all, and he wasn't crazy. But who was that person? How long had they been underwater? How did they not drown? With a sudden movement as he stood up, the figure disappeared back under the water.
“Wait, come back!” he said, walking slowly toward the shore, not caring that his pants were getting wet up to his knees. The figure reappeared, this time with a little more confidence, allowing Thomas to see their entire face. Beautiful. Thomas ignored how his cheeks flushed at his own thought.
They were a little apart, but they approached each other with mutual curiosity, until the loud beep of the communicator in his jacket pocket scared the other away, disappearing into the sea again with no chance of return.
“Where the hell are you? I stopped by to see how you were doing and there’s no sign of you. What are you doing? Get back here now" Flux's anger was so palpable in a simple text message. Maybe he should have notified him in advance and not left so carelessly. Now he had to listen to Flux's lecture when he returned.
But the distress of thinking about the future consequences quickly faded away when he remembered that mysterious figure. Now he was sure that it was not a human being; it moved with such agility in the water, and that beauty simply could not belong to any human being. A mermaid, he was sure it was a mermaid. Thomas had never been a believer in fantasy stories, supernatural things, mythological beings, but now that he had seen that captivating face, he was sure that everything in the whole world was real.
He waited until sunset on the shore, his feet in the thin waves, hoping that the mermaid would return, but he saw no trace of even a single silky white strand in the water. In the early evening, he finally arrived at Luminara, where his friends were waiting for him with critical looks and concerned questions.
Despite the reprimands, there were no negative consequences. After all, he hadn't done anything wrong or put himself in danger. He came out of the whole discussion with a mere warning that next time he should at least let someone know what he was doing so that they wouldn't send out a whole squadron to search for him.
The next day, very early in the morning, he returned to the coast of Tricolor, and the next day, and the next, and the next...
Saparata, that was his name, Saps. He had written it in the sand with his long, sharp nails. Saps didn't speak, but he didn't need to; his gaze communicated a thousand things with a simple sparkle in his eyes. Their relationship had grown so quickly in such a short time, and it wasn't something Thomas worried about. He and that merman had connected as well as pieces of a puzzle.
Saps was amusing and playful. He would take Thomas by the hand and lead him to the spot in the sea where the sand disappeared beneath his feet, and they would swim together, splashing each other with water. Although Saps always won their little battles thanks to his tail, Thomas didn't mind losing a thousand times just to see that majestic pearly tail.
And even though Saps didn't speak, the most beautiful melodies flowed from his throat. He sat on the shore, where the waves covered his tail like a blanket, and looked intently at Thomas as a soft song came out of his mouth, calming Thomas's mind and lulling in vain his heart, which was close to imploding inside his chest with every second that their gazes were connected.
The two weeks designated had come to an end, and Thomas had been cleared to return to his position on the Council. In the blink of an eye, the mornings on the beach with Saps had slipped away. It wasn’t goodbye, he would still visit, but perhaps not as often or at the usual time, he had assured the merman.
Thomas returned to Luminara, his disappointment slightly faded and a promise engraved on a white seashell held firmly between his fingers.
It had been almost a month since he’d returned to Tricolor Coast, since he’d seen Saps, and he missed him more than he should. On sleepless nights, overwhelmed by the flood of thoughts that invaded him, Thomas could only fall asleep to the melody of Saps’s song playing in his mind; and so his dreams were shrouded in blurry images in which only a white figure stood out, black eyes gazing at him with affection, and a gentle smile that sang to him and to him alone.
Luminara was more busy than ever. A portion of the people who had left The Commonwealth decided to settle there, contributing to the expansion of the small nation. There was so much to do, not even time to breathe. Thomas was rushing around, taking care of some business that had been delayed by his time in recovery. The shell in his pocket always brought him some comfort.
It had been another meeting of the council in which plans were discussed that he barely listened, too busy sighing and looking out the window at the calm beach that invited him to return. 3below and Fluixon discussed minor loose ends as they left the room, while the council members left their their seats, returning to their business.
His friends chatted about matters unrelated to work "We should go to watch some duels in the colosseum, it would be cool" "I have the theory that these two are long lost siblings". And Thomas contributed what was necessary to the conversation, trying to hide the anguish which went by the name of Saparata.
"Did you hear what happened?" Snowbird's voice dropped to an almost whisper, his eyes scanning around to make sure the people walking nearby didn't hear.
“What happened?” Gotoga leaned in, copying the secretive whispers.
“When I was sent to Aperion for a meeting, I overheard some people talking” his voice lowered even further "Apparently two pirates returned to the Pirate Republic badly injured and traumatized, their eyes wide and couldn't stop trembling. Both said they saw and tried to capture a mermaid”
"Thomas! where are you going now?" Thomas ran south along the coast, not turning to explain the fear that had suddenly flared in his chest or the overwhelming need to see Saps again.
What Snowbird had narrated could be a lie, a mere rumor, or perhaps it was real but it was about another merman or mermaid and not Saparata, but even so he ran across the sand as fast as his legs would carry him, his heart about to burst and his lungs barely getting any air. He needed to know that Saps was fine.
The beach at night was a sight he was no stranger to, on a couple of occasions he had fallen asleep to Saps’s soothing song in a boat rocking on the sea, and had woken to the sight of that starry blanket merging with the ocean, Saps beside him with his arms resting on the boat’s edge and the rest of his body on the water, gazing at him gently.
But now it was a completely different situation. He shouted that name, but his call was swallowed up by the waves. Saps never appeared.
He stayed sitting on the beach until the next day, ignoring all the messages he received and never taking his eyes off the sea, hoping to catch even the merest glimpse of that figure. But it never happened.
At some point, his body became so heavy that he collapsed onto the sand, with barely enough strength to keep his eyelids half open and a shred of consciousness for his mind to capture the sun disappearing into the sea before everything went black.
When he woke up, he found himself in his bed, in his room, in his house, not on the beach as he remembered before falling unconscious. Outside it was still dark, but he didn’t care enough to wonder how much time had passed since he’d passed out.
'Saps' he recalled instantly and headed for the door, ready to continue his search, but when he opened it, someone was already waiting for him. Tall, with long hair that looked like silver threads in the moonlight, deep black eyes like the ocean, and a smile that had been etched in his mind from the very first moment.
“Thomas” Saps called him for the first time.