Chapter Text
There were few certainties in life, but for some people, uncertainty was good. Uncertainty meant opportunity, and for those favored by fate, uncertainty meant, usually, success.
For Samor, one of the wealthiest men in the East Blue, the uncertainty seemed to be on his side. For most of his life, he had known where to step and which risks to take to make most situations develop in his favor. It was how he’d been able to take his father’s fortune and more than double it in less than ten years. It was how he’d navigated through most storms with minimal loss. And it was how he’d been able to secure the hand of a beautiful mermaid. He was the only man in the region to be married to one, as far as he knew.
Pearl, Samor’s wife of a year, was the most beautiful creature he’d ever seen. Her long, luscious hair was light blue, her eyes were purple, and her plump lips were like peaches. He was particularly fond of her tits, which in his mind were larger than average but not large enough to look vulgar. Samor had courted Pearl for years. He’d procured some of the finest and rarest jewels out there, he’d built a giant house by the sea with tall walls of stone and private beach access, and he’d made sure that everyone knew that it was his house that he had built for his gorgeous mermaid wife.
Yes, Samor’s life was good, and he knew that a good life could only be improved by having what nobody else had but everyone else wanted. The big house and large merchant fleet could be attained by anyone who had enough money. Hell, even pirates had that. But a mermaid for a wife? That was something else. Fishfolk were not like humans, of course. Fishmen especially were brutish people, good for service but not much else. However, mermaids and sirens were exceptions. They were exotic beauties that were not easy to woo, much less to keep. It was why Celestial Dragons paid such enormous prices for them.
Samor, however, would not stoop as low as to purchase one. No, he was a man who got what he wanted because he knew how to get it. He knew how to play the game. So he had set out to get his wife like he’d gotten everything else: with his grit and his hands.
The wedding was grand and lasted three days. Pearl looked magnificent, and by the end, every man and woman had congratulated him, the mayor had invited him to a private brunch, and many young men had asked to work for him. Samor’s ego was so big that he doubted it would fit in his house. Lucky for him, his house’s backyard was the ocean.
Six months after getting married, he’d told Pearl it was time for children. He had done the calculations and was willing to wager that his half-mermaid boys would be stronger than human boys (he had seen Prince Fukaboshi at least once) and his daughters would be more beautiful than human girls. Life had always worked out for Samor, and he’d always gotten what he wanted, so when Pearl warned him that fishfolk offspring was unpredictable. He was so certain of his good luck that he dismissed her warnings that children of the sea could take after anyone in the genetic lineage, not just the parents. Samor shrugged and said the same thing he always said: the uncertain was on his side.
They didn’t discuss it again.
Not until the children were born.
Pearl gave birth to twins.
The first one to come out was everything her father hoped for. She had his tan skin and Pearl’s blue hair. Her eyes weren’t open yet, but he was sure they would be the same as her mother’s. She had pink cheeks and a button nose. She was perfect. They named her Shelly after the beautiful seashells.
However, as soon as the second baby came out, Samor went still.
The baby, to his horror, was blue. Or green? A blue-green child.
“She’s blue,” he mumbled.
“Teal,” the nurse corrected.
The hair was black, and it looked like it was going to be curly. The eyes were open alright. They were pitch black and far too aware for a newborn. It looked human enough. Ten fingers, ten toes, no gills. But the skin and the pointy ears were too obvious fishman traits to ignore. It was unnerving. It was disgusting.
Samor frowned. This child didn’t look like him at all. It didn’t look like its mother. If she hadn’t been a twin, Samor would have accused his wife of infidelity.
Pearl, perhaps unsurprisingly, did not seem bothered at all by this development. On the contrary. She held the child in her arms, smiled widely, and, to her husband’s horror, said, “You look like my father.”
Samor went pale. He turned to his wife and asked what the hell she was talking about.
“My father was a fishman with teal skin,” Pearl said softly, still smiling. “He was a wonderful man who died too soon. His name was Koraka. You, little one, shall be Koraru.”
It took Samor a while to get over the shock and the betrayal that he felt upon learning that his wife’s late father was a fishman. He had yelled, he had broken a few plates, and he had locked himself in his study for three days before he even spoke to his wife again.
“Why didn’t you say anything?” He asked one night before going to bed. His anger had only lessened after seeing beautiful, perfect Shelly in her crib.
“You never asked.” Pearl didn’t even glance his way. She was brushing her luscious hair. “But I did tell you that the children of the sea are unpredictable. A fishman and a mermaid can have children, and the children may take after either of them. With our girls being part human, something interesting was bound to happen.”
Samor almost burst a blood vessel.
“She looks like a fishman,” he spat. “If I had known your bloodline was compromised, I would have made a better choice.”
Pearl didn't seem to mind the insult.
“You wanted a mermaid, Samor,” Pearl said evenly. “Most, if not all of us are… compromised, as you put it. I don’t think you’ll find a living mermaid without a fishman in her lineage.” She stood up, kissed her husband on the cheek, and left the room to go check on her small teal daughter instead.
Eventually, Samor decided that the second child was simply the price to pay. The rest of the picture was perfect, after all. Everyone gushed about baby Shelly, about her beautiful purple eyes, her cute cheeks, and her soft mermaid hair. As long as the other one wasn’t too visible, his family would be fine.
It was a Sunday afternoon when the family had been strolling through town when they bumped into the governor and his wife. Samor was walking next to Pearl, who had Shelly in her arms.
“Your daughter looks beautiful,” the governor's wife said. “As was expected of such a beautiful couple.”
Meanwhile, baby Kori was being carried by a nanny a few meters behind, silent and still. She was still much too aware of her surroundings for his taste. Her black eyes seemed to look into his soul every time she glanced at him, so he kept his distance. Whenever people commented on Kori’s blue skin, he simply shrugged and said, “Mermaid genes are unpredictable.” He never disclosed the fish-man part. It was obvious enough, he thought bitterly, but he hoped their town was far enough from the rest of the world that people wouldn’t think too much about it.
As the years went by, the differences between both sisters became more prominent. Shelly was popular everywhere she went. People commented on her good looks and gave her presents. Boys followed her all over town. She was often close to her father, enjoying her position as the clear favorite. She wasn’t a particularly good student, but her grades were passable enough. The teachers liked her, too.
Kori, on the other hand, learned that being part fishman, or fishman in general, meant getting a different treatment. People were less patient with her than they were with her sister, colder too. Everyone was still polite, of course. She was, after all, part of a very respectable family. But the difference was clear. At home, things were not too different. Samor tended to ignore her most of the time, but his short fuse was even shorter with her. He snapped at her often and on one or two occasions felt the need to correct her behavior with physical discipline. Something he never did with Shelly.
She learned to be silent, to move around quietly, to stick to the walls and shadows, and to not draw attention to herself. Not too much anyway, given that she was teal. She was light on her feet and became excellent at entering and exiting rooms without being noticed. None of this shielded her from her father’s wrath whenever he was cross with her. No matter how small she made herself, how light she was on her feet, his eyes seemed to find her immediately. Her response was to try to avoid him as much as she could.
Pearl sometimes found Kori hiding in her room, crying in silence, surrounded by a few books. Pearl would cradle her in her arms and stay with her until she calmed down.
“Why is he like that?” Kori would ask her mother from time to time. “Not just him, but others as well. I’m as much your daughter as my sister is.”
“Some people, Kori, don’t understand how the world works and lash out because they’re afraid. We have to teach them to be better.”
“Do we?”
“Yes, we can show them a better way.”
Kori was too small to fully grasp what her mother meant, but even at her young age, it seemed like there was something unfair about the whole thing. Why would she have to teach other kids not to bully her? Why should she, a seven-year-old, show her adult father “a better way”? It seemed unfair. She sometimes questioned her mother on this.
“You are just like my father,” Pearl would reply with a soft laugh and warm eyes. “He was brave, kind, strong, and smarter than everyone around him.”
“Was he teal?”
“Yes. Teal with dark curls and black eyes, just like you.”
Some days Kori would feel anger at that. She didn’t understand it, but somehow it was her grandfather’s fault that she was different from everyone else.
“You should be proud that you are like him, my beautiful Kori. He was a good man who sailed with other good men. His captain did many great things for our kind, and he freed a lot of people from a terrible place. Your grandfather was an explorer who saw islands full of ancient plants and animals that no longer walk among us, never-ending deserts, mountains covered in snow, and kingdoms made of candy.”
Kori liked to hear stories about her mother’s father and his adventures. She wished in her heart to sail around the world like her grandfather had. It sounded like freedom. She sometimes said it out loud, not too loud, lest the room hear her, but loud enough that only she could hear it. Maybe if she heard it enough, she would make it true.
Her father caught her once and promptly sat her down by pulling her by a braid. This behavior was not worthy of his children. She should strive to be more like Shelly. Be more feminine; play the harp. Do something to be less… like that. He gestured vaguely at all of her. Kori didn’t say anything. She just nodded and waited for him to leave the room.
Being more like Shelly didn’t seem like a good thing if she was being honest. And she was, for some reason and against everyone’s judgment, always honest, even if it got her into trouble. Shelly was pretty, sure, but she was also mean. Shelly provoked her and then cried when she defended herself so that it was Kori who got into trouble. Shelly also broke things when she was upset. Kori wouldn’t say anything, but she had caught Shelly stealing some things from a store on several occasions. Maybe her father didn’t know any of this, but it was not Kori’s place to tell him. She knew better than anyone that, when it came to Shelly, Father was a different person. She also knew that antagonizing Shelly in front of her father would end up with her being slapped.
Life became harder when Kori and Shelly were eight years old. Pearl hadn’t left the bed in more than a month, and nobody knew why. Doctors came to see her, she was taken to the hospital, a specialist was called from a nearby island, people came and went, money changed hands, and calls were made. Pearl’s health deteriorated at an alarming rate, and it didn’t look like it would stop soon.
“We don’t know enough about mermaids to pinpoint the problem,” Kori heard the specialist say from outside the window. “Their biology is too different from ours.”
Samor had huffed and yelled some obscenity before heading back into the house to lock himself in his study.
Kori cried that night. Nobody told her anything, but she was old enough and sharp enough to see the end coming. Her mother was dying. She started going to her mother’s room every night. She would open the door around midnight, after she’d made sure everyone was asleep, and she crawled into bed with her.
Her mother would simply lift her arm and pull her in, and they would sleep.
One night, Kori found her mother sitting up, paler than usual and shivering. She had something in her hands.
“I need to give you something,” Peal said. Her voice was but a hoarse whisper.
Kori sat down next to her and watched her mother pull out a gold chain with a sapphire hanging.
“This is for you, my beautiful Kori,” she whispered. “Wear it around your neck always, hide it from the world. Don’t let your father or your sister see it. This is for you only. If you’re ever in need, use it to get away.”
Kori nodded, let her mother hang the chain around her neck and hide it under her nightgown, and went to sleep.
Three days later, her mother was dead.
The funeral was big and elegant and full of people that Kori didn’t really know. Everyone paid their respects to her mother, offered condolences to Samor and words of comfort to Shelly, and most pretended Kori wasn’t there. She had learned to not expect otherwise.
Pearl was buried in the family lot, which made Kori wonder why, if she was a mermaid. Weren’t mermaids supposed to go back to the sea after they passed?
She knew better than to ask.
Instead, she sat in front of the grave for what felt like hours after everyone had left. She was almost nine years old, but she was very aware that the loneliness that she had known until now would be nothing compared to what would follow.