Chapter Text
Your stirred from sleep as your grandparents called your name, as your brain came to, you remembered what was planned for the day. You were going to the beach.
Jumping out of bed, you sprinted down the stairs, tripping over your own feet but catching yourself every time. Nothing could hold back your excitement for a beach day.
The morning sun filtered through the large glass windows of your grandparents' house. Your parents were eating their bowls of cereal as your grandma was sipping some tea while your grandpa read the morning newspaper. He turned to you and smiled. “Hey kiddo, are you excited?”
“Yeah! Beach day!” You squealed and slammed down into the closest chair and grabbed the box of cereal, hastily pouring it into a bowl.
“Woah, slow down there. You gotta eat all of that before we go.” Your mother lightly scolded.
“I will!” You happily chimed, not a care in the world. You drowned the dry cereal in milk and started to scoff down large spoonfuls of breakfast. Your eagerness got a laugh out of everyone else.
Despite the many hours you sat in the car to get to your grandparents’ house, they lived just outside a small town that sat by the ocean. It was always a lively place and everyone you met there was friendly. You loved seeing them every summer and going to the beach was always your favourite thing to do while with them.
Your spoon clattered in the bowl as you finished and leaped from the seat to get changed. Your grandpa followed you as your darted towards the bathroom. “Hold your horses. Don’t forget your wetsuit.” He walked you into the utility room and grabbed your wetsuit from the drying rack.
“Thanks, grandpa!” You eagerly took it from him as he patted your head.
“Hey, if you’re lucky, you might see a mer or two while were out today.” He added.
Your head snapped to him as your eyes widened. You really loved mers and have read many of those animal fact books on them. You found it fascinating that something that was an aquatic creature was so similar to humans, yet so different. The thing that amazed you the most was that mers had both gills and lungs, reading how their lungs could easily deflate when not in use so they could swim really deep.
“Really?!” You exclaimed, practically vibrating with excitement now.
Your grandpa chuckled. “Yes, but you will need to be calm so you don’t spook them. They can be quite skittish.”
You nodded in agreement before ducking into the bathroom to get changed. You tossed off your pyjamas, washed yourself and brushed your teeth before putting on your wetsuit.
You ran out of the bathroom and to the dining room, where everyone else was still finishing their breakfast. “Come on! I wanna go to the beach!”
“Alright, just give us one second.” Your father replied before taking another spoonful of cereal.
You whined in defeat and started pacing around the table as you waited. But your impatience led you to the front door where you put on your shoes, now restlessly waiting for everyone to get ready. Your leg bounced up and down as you sat there for what felt like an eternity, every part of you was itching to run into the seawater and splash around to your heart’s content.
By the time everyone was ready and packing up the car with beach equipment, you were strapped into the back seat and bouncing with excitement. Your grandparents got into the front while your parents joined you in the back. “Alright, we’re going now.” Your grandma turned around in her car seat to see your reaction as she delivered the news. She smiled as your face completely lit up and you kicked your legs.
The beach was quiet as you arrived, it was still relatively early in the morning so most people weren’t out and about. Your parents were setting up some beach chairs and an umbrella to relax on while your grandparents ventured to the nearby ice cream stand to get treats for everyone.
You placed your shoes on the sand next to the umbrella and turned to your parents. “Can I go and play?” You asked, impatience lining your tone.
Your mother sat you down on the chair. “Not without sunscreen.” She stated and immediately started to rub it on your face before you could protest.
You groaned a bit, but held your tongue. The sun was beating down rather heavily and it wasn’t even midday yet. Your mother squirted some of the sunscreen onto your hands for you to cover your arms while she did your legs. “There, all done. Now you can go play. But let it soak in before you get in the water!”
“Okay!” You were on your feet and gone in an instant. The first thing you did was run around as fast as you could on the more compact sand closer to the water so you didn’t trip. Running back and forth from the small waves that lunged from the sea, almost teasing it.
You did this a few more times before you decided that playing chicken with the seawater was no longer entertaining. Now it was time to explore! You walked past other families on the beach, some children were building a sand castle while a group of older kids were throwing around a frisbee.
Seeing the sights of others your age playing with one another was a little saddening. You didn’t know the kids that lived here very well as you only visited during the summer, and you mostly spent that time with your family. Still, it would be nice to have a friend.
Continuing on your journey for adventure, you started climbing on some rock pools that littered the edge of the shore. Watching crabs scuttle in and out while small fish were left stranded in the pools by the low tide. You kneeled down and stared at the fish as they swam in circles, dipping your hand in every now and then to get a reaction from them. You giggled as the fish darted away from your hand, only to turn back around and investigate, nibbling at your fingers with their mouths.
You repeated the motion a few times, laughing as you played with the fish when a loud squawk sounded out from above you. You looked up and saw a flock of seagulls closing in, one landing on the rocks and pecking at the water.
“Hey! I’m playing with them!” You waved your hand at the bird, causing it to flap its wings as it jumped away from you. “Go away, you bully!” You stood up and stomped toward the gull, spooking it back into the sky. Only for another one to take its place on the other side of the rocks and snatch up some of your fishy playmates.
You frowned and puffed your cheeks in annoyance. You were about to take an angry step towards the bird when you heard a distressed chirp.
You paused, flinging your head in all directions to find the source of the noise. You heard it again and turned to the beach behind you. You saw a few seagulls pecking at something, but you couldn't see what.
You made an angry groan and stepped off the rocks, taking a moment to steady yourself before running at the birds. “No bird bullies on my watch!” Your flailing and loudness startled the gulls and caused them all to retreat back into the air.
You huffed as you caught your breath, keeping an eye on the seagulls as they circled overhead before finally looking down. You jaw dropped as you saw a small red and orange mer curled up in on themself, shaking and chirping with fear.
You slowly got down on your stomach to try and be as small as possible as well as eye level with the mer. “Hey… it’s okay. I won’t let those mean seagulls get you.” You inspected them and calculated they were no larger than a human baby. You scavenged your brain for the baby term for a mer as they were clearly quite young. “You’re just a little guppy…”
The guppy flinched and opened its large eyes, staring at you with pinprick pupils. They let out a loud squeak and arched their back, trying to look intimidating to scare you. But you could see the fear overwhelming their nerves as their shaking only got more violent.
“It’s okay, I’m a friend.” You slowly moved a hand towards the mer’s face, keeping your fingers curled to not appear threatening. The guppy shrunk in on itself before flicking its gaze between your face and your hand.
You gave a small smile of encouragement as they slowly stretched their head out to inspect you. You felt the small protrusion on their face where a nose would be as their tiny nostrils brushed against your fingers. You held back your chuckle as best you could to not scare them more, but it eventually slipped out. “That tickles!”
The guppy stopped sniffing you and lowered its back. You took the sign of relaxation and sat up, crossing your legs. The little mer tried to copy you by holding its upper body up with its hands. Only now could you really see the spotty patterns on their arms and how the orange and red shakily striped down the tail accompanied by some more spots of both colours. They had large purple frills that faded to orange circling their face, making a distinct separation of the head and head fin. There was even two little tendrils sprouting from their waist from under the frills there too.
Your brain swirled with the facts you learned from the mer books you read as you took in their features. “You’re a coral mer!” You felt proud of yourself at being to identify the exact subspecies of mer they were. The bright colours and tendrils were a dead giveaway!
The guppy just tilted their head at you before flinching as the seagulls cawed overhead, clearly thinking about going for a round two. They shivered in horror as the seagulls started to circle above you both. You looked back at the mer and noticed small sections where the seagulls had pulled off some of their scales, leaving the soft skin underneath exposed and irritated.
You looked up at the pesky birds and frowned, you were going to have vengeance on those birds if they hurt this guppy anymore. You turned to the mer and carefully scooped them up, holding them under their arms, you needed to get them back into the water where they could be safe from the seagulls.
But the guppy was not pleased by the sudden action and squealed in distress, digging their stubby claws into your face to try and escape.
“Ow! Stop, that hurts!” You whined and hastily made your way to the water, determined to get them there safe.
When they finally let go of the death grip on your cheeks, you felt a sting of pain before lowering the mer to just above the water. The guppy stared at the sea, slowly calming down as you felt their erratic lungs relax to a more even pace between your hands. “See? I was just trying to help.” You slowly lower the mer to the water as they hung limp in your hold.
When their tail touched the sea, you paused as they splashed the water around a little with their fin, chirping in a much more happy manner this time. You chuckled as they played before turning to look up at you, making grabby hands at the ocean.
You chuckled again. “You can go back home now.” You lowered them into the water, making sure it was deep enough for them to swim. All was fine until they suddenly squirmed and dug their claws into your hands, body flailing again.
Alarmed and confused, you lifted the guppy back out of the water. “What?! What’s wrong?” Your brows furrowed with worry as they started to claw at their gills on their neck and waist. You backed away from the water and sat down, holding the mer in your lap. “Don’t do that, you’ll hurt yourself!”
You wondered why the guppy was acting like this, but they eventually calmed down and whined at you with the mer equivalent to puppy eyes. You sighed and shuffled along the sand. “You need to go in the water to get home-”
More distressed warbles erupted from their mouth as you dared to inch closer to the sea. Okay, for whatever reason, they do not want to go into the water.
You wracked your brain for reasons why the seawater would cause such behaviour.
The guppy couldn’t be a freshwater mer, why would it be on the beach? Besides, it was clearly a coral mer. You’ve read enough mer books to know what one looked like! Was there something in the water that was going to attack it? Was that why it was on the shore? But that doesn’t explain them clawing at their own gills…
You held the little mer close to your chest as you started to rock from side to side in attempts to get your brain to think of a solution you clearly didn’t have.
You can’t just leave the guppy here, that’s wrong! But you didn’t exactly feel comfortable about taking the mer back to your parents. That would mean walking past a bunch of people, and you didn’t know how they would react to mers. Your grandparents told you about how some people were mean to mers like they were to other animals, attacking them for their own selfish reasons.
A small warble pulled you from your thoughts as the guppy nuzzled into your chest, cooing softly as their eyes closed. You blinked in confusion before becoming overly aware of your own heartbeat as it gently thumped next to their head.
The realisation hit you that your heartbeat was calming the mer down, enough to lull them to sleep. You smiled softly, the poor thing was probably tired from defending itself against the seagulls.
That mental reminder caused you to stare back up at the sky, but the vast blue of the above was empty, abandoned by the birds as they left to cause havoc elsewhere.
You sighed in relief and settled on just staying put. You didn’t want to disturb the sleeping mer and you knew your parents would start looking for you sooner or later.
So, for now. Your best option was to wait…