Chapter Text
I'm diving with my friends one day, taking my fake mermaid tail with me just for fun while they all mostly have diving gear on. While going into the waves they forget to tell me they're going back into the boat for a break and I keep swimming, coming back up for air on occasion. I'm there for a while admiring the reef and happen to find some cleaner fish. After a second of debate, i just sit there letting them go at it until one happens to make it's way into a loose part of my tail. I freak out and swim a bit away, the fish coming back out as it notices I'm moving.
As I'm about to leave to get air, someone taps my shoulder and they seem to have a claw. Naturally, I freak out and swim about a meter back from them just so I'm not in their personal space. Before I turn around, I notice a merman with a red and black tail and yellow accents on it. I notice he's worryingly close to a boat propeller and rush over, taking him by the arm and pulling him from the propeller just before it starts. I notice he has three horns and realize that this is not just a person in mermaid tail, it's another actual mer.
I blush and swim away, my decorative hair tie of a blue flower coming off as I didn't tie it tight enough to hold at the speed that I swim away. I get to the surface and the odd red merman catches the hair-tie, holding it as his first memory of someone who saved his life. He realizes I'm swimming dangerously close to another boat and panics as he's heard the rumors about what happens when a mer gets too close to the humans without killing them. I call out to my friends and they pull me out of the water, helping me back in so we can head to shore. mini nox was here, don't tell nox
This looks very sinister to the red merman though, and he follows the boat back to the beach and watches as 3 humans get off. no mer. 2 of them are holding what he knows is an ice chest but it looks too small to be holding a fully sized mermaid, even if they were in pieces.
For the next week and a half, he keeps returning to the same reef looking for his savior, his love, the one he intends to make his mate. Today, he comes as usual and he's starting to lose hope that his love is still alive. It's near impossible for a mer to survive on land this long. He's about to start crying but then he see's a shade of blue that he recognizes. MY shade of blue. The type of blue and tail shape that he recognizes from the first time that he saw me.
He swims over near where he thought he saw me and notices me swimming to a boat again. He just stares at me for a while, admiring my tail and how gorgeous his love is while she's swimming upward. He freaks out again, realizing I'm swimming upward, not willing to lose the person he wants as his mate again. He hears my voice, a high pitched, strong note, held when calling out for help with something. He tries to rush but the humans on the boat pull me up again.
I sit up on the boat, taking off my fake tail for the moment so I can walk around the boat. I sit letting my hair hang off the side off the boat without thinking. he gets close enough to the boat to hear us talking. Being a half mermaid and not having told most of my friends about it, I can change from mermaid to human but I like staying human since I grew up on land and know nothing of merfolk culturally. I don't notice that the red merman is planning to pull me back into the water to "save me" from the humans.
I sit on the edge of the boat to mess with my friends and he sees his chance and takes it. Takes me. I gasp as I feel hands wrap around my waist and drag me into the ocean again. I feel my mermaid side activate on instinct when I try to breathe in and my gills open up. I start squirming as my tail forms underwater, long and beautiful but very clearly faded and neglected. The scales form around my skin to protect it and I turn to see who grabbed me.
I look at the red merman as he's facing me and blushing. I never learned how to speak any of the languages that I saw the other merfolk speak so I just stare at him for a second as he takes in my form and I take in that he just dragged me into the ocean. He says something but I really don't understand what it is that he said. I look at him confused and swim a bit away from him. He says something again and I only catch the merfolk word for "Hello" or that's what I assume it is seeing as i've never heard a translation for it. Only seen it being used when a mer approaches another.
I hesitantly repeat it back to him and tilt my head, hoping he catches that I don't understand him. I know that human languages won't work underwater, since none of them can function without the use of the s, h, c, or t sounds at some point. I think for a second and then just wave at him and think about signing that i'm deaf but considering I just mimicked him, that probably wouldn't blow over well.