The Current Between US

First Steps

---

*Chapter 10: First Steps - Beatrice’s POV*

Pain.

That was the first thing. Not grief. Not fear. Pain, sharp and bright, shooting up from where her new weight pressed into the sand.

Beatrice tried to shift Lily’s body closer, but her body didn’t move the way it should. She pushed down with what used to be her tail, but there was no muscle, no sweep, no fin to anchor her. Only two stiff, strange shapes that sank into the grit and buckled.

Legs. The word tasted wrong in her mind.

Her black hair fell forward, wet strands clinging to her cheeks and the curve of her neck. Even tangled with salt and tears, it caught the harsh light above and shimmered like oil on deep water. She was tall — taller than most fledglings in the court — her height stretched out now in a way that felt too much, too exposed. Her face, sharp and fairy-like even while broken with crying, was flushed red. Eyes still glowing faintly at the edges, the last of the moonlight refusing to leave her. Her body, that perfect hourglass shape her mother had always said would draw attention in the reef, now looked fragile on land. Too thin without water to hold her. Too bare without scales to hide her.

She looked down again. Skin. Pale skin where blue-black scales should be. No tail. No fins. Just legs that trembled under her.

“No,” she whispered. “No, this isn’t right.”

Lily’s head rested against her thigh, eyes half-lidded, mouth open in that last silent word. Beatrice pressed her forehead to Lily’s brow and sobbed. “Mom, what do I do? I don’t know how to be like this. I don’t know how to be anything without you.”

The sand shifted behind her. Voices. Low, rough voices that didn’t sound like the singing current of mermen. The monsters with Legs. They were close now.

Panic surged. She tried to surge backward the way she would in water, but her legs only dragged, useless. She flailed, fell sideways, caught herself on one arm. Her palm scraped against something sharp and hot. She hissed. That was new too — pain without water to dull it.

_Stand. Hide. Vanish._ Lily’s last words beat in her skull. But how did one stand? Mermaids didn’t stand. They swam. They drifted. They wrapped their tails around stone and slept.

Beatrice planted both hands in the sand and pushed. Her arms shook. Her legs shook worse. She rose an inch, then collapsed forward onto Lily’s chest. The impact knocked air from her lungs. Air. She was breathing air and it hurt. Every breath felt like swallowing knives.

She tried again. This time she focused on the memory of Lily teaching her to balance in a current. _Find your center. Let the water hold you._ There was no water here. Only this solid, unmoving thing beneath her.

She pushed up. Her legs locked — wrong, stiff, but locked. She wobbled. Arms windmilling. Black hair whipped around her face. For one terrifying second she was upright. A full mermaid height, fairy face tilted up toward the sky, hourglass shape trembling like a reed in wind. Beautiful, even now. Especially now, with moonlight still clinging to her skin and tears cutting clean lines down her cheeks.

Then her knees — no, the joints in her legs — gave out. She dropped hard, landing on all fours beside Lily’s body. Sand filled her mouth.

Footsteps stopped.

A shadow fell over her.

The monsters with Legs had reached her.

Beatrice didn’t look up. She curled around Lily instead, shielding her mother’s head with her own, black hair spilling like a curtain between them and the world. Her glowing eyes lifted just enough to meet the shadow.

But for one more heartbeat Beatrice pretended none of it existed.

It was just her and Lily.

The way it had always been.