Chapter 6: Silver and Gold
1714 Words
“Oh uh… yea, no, I’m totally freaking out, but I don’t want you to leave so I’m not going to say anything…” The human’s shaking hands were curled around the cloth covering its mid-section. “Uh, so, you really aren’t… human…”
“Does it bother you?”
“N-no, I don’t care. I mean, I don’t mind at all, I think it’s cool, really cool… I’m not making a lot of sense, am I?” They brought a hand to their face and sighed, tugging harshly at the dark curls on their head.
“You’re welcome.”
“W-what?”
“Earlier, you said you wanted to thank me, your welcome.”
“O-oh, yea, thanks.” The fluttering energy of the human finally seems to settle, body resting close to the edge of the water. “Can I ask… why?”
“Why?”
“Why save me?
“Why not?” Kaelonne tilted his head, unsure if his words were translating correctly, this was the first time he was testing out the language on an actual human and if the worn-out, puzzled look was anything to go by, he wasn’t doing a good job.
“I… see.” The creature glanced at his eyes, hardly reacting to the clear differences between the two of them. “So, you save me because you could.”
“…Yes?”
“Oh.”
“I’m sorry, I’m not sure what you are trying to ask.”
“N-no, I’m being silly. I have a million questions, but I don’t know how to ask them, if I’ll offend you, if you’ll get bored of me-“
“I can’t understand you.”
“Huh?”
“I mean, your language is not a constant for me, you talk to fast for me to translate.” Kaelonne wants to wince and apologise furiously at the pained look crossing the creature’s face, but he follows the lessons ingrained in him since he was born. Stay calm and keep control of the situation, one panicked person would simply panic another. “You have questions?”
“Yes…”
“Then ask.”
“O-oh, uh, um.” The human fidgeted with the short claws on his fingers, “Who are you exactly?”
“I am Kaelonne.”
“Kellon?” The Mermatian frowned at how strange his name sounded in the human’s language, but he nodded, it made no sense to correct someone he might never meet again. “Kellon, it is an honour to meet you. My name is Hartley.”
“Hartley.” Kaelonne nodded in formal greeting, “May I ask you a question?”
“M-me? Yea, yea, sure.”
“From what I understand, you were aware that there was a storm approaching, yet you felt compelled to go into the sea, why?”
“…I don’t know.” Hartley winced at the questioning look Kaelonne plastered on his face, “It was stupid, I know, but I just needed to get out, get away for a little while, everything was getting pretty clustered at the beach house and I wanted out… so I went surfing.”
“I wouldn’t consider it ‘stupid’, merely dangerous.” Kaelonne thought it over, sympathising with the creature. He knew too well how restless he could get after days of being stuck doing his duties, the main reason he enjoyed searching for things on the open sea floor. “You were injured.”
“Yea, waves got pretty rough. By the time I realized, I’d already been too far out. I got dragged by the waves and fell, hit my head on the rocks, must’ve scratched my hand sometime after that.” Hartley rubs his hand over the white cloth wrapped around his head, eyes gaining a far-away look for a few seconds before focusing on the creature in the water again. “Don’t take any offence… but are you… merfolk?”
“Something like that.” Kaelonne braved swimming closer, neck on a strain from having to keep the human in view. Hartley hardly bats an eye, moving back slightly so that he could place his arms on the rock and rest his head. “Human call us that, I assume it’s because it’s easier to pronounce.”
“Then what do you call yourselves?”
“Mermatians.” Kaelonne lets his tongue roll, looking up curiously to see the human sound the word out for himself, the syllables not fitting quite fitting. He wouldn’t be surprised if they couldn’t replicate it, Mermatian’s language resembled the movement of a gentle wave. Human’s languages were a little rougher around the edges, not that Kaelonne had learned all of them.
“This is going to sound really dumb, or rude, you don’t have to answer, like at all if you don’t want to.” Hartley chuckled awkwardly as the raised eyebrow Kaelonne shot at him, leaning back slightly as the Mermatian shifted his weight to his elbows and raised his head chest slightly above the water to take the strain off his back. Kaelonne was careful to keep the gills on his sides submerged, his neck was going to be sore later but it was a small price to pay to watch the curious movement of a creature that carried the same intelligence as his kind, but a different form. “What… gender are you?”
“Gender?” Kaelonne frowned, trying to remember his lessons, this was another difference among his kind, human seemed to separate their kind into two types or classes of sorts. It was a peculiar, little custom of theirs that Kaelonne couldn’t quite understand, gender wasn’t a matter among the Mermatians, they just noted that some were able to carry, others were not. They did choose forms to call themselves, but that was only to differentiate who one was talking about in a conversation, and it was chosen by the Mermatian in question.
“S-sorry, I didn’t mean to offend, please forget I asked.”
“No, you did not offend, it was just difficult to answer. My kind does not have a gender differentiation.”
“Oh! That’s…actually kind of cool.” Hartley rubbed the back of his neck with a soft smile, “I’m male, by the way, I mean, I wasn’t born male or anything, but I go my male pronouns… I’m probably confusing you a little aren’t I.”
“A little, I apologize, this is a topic I’m not well informed on.” Kaelonne’s ear-fin twitches in irritation as he runs over all the lessons on human etiquette his teacher tried to get him to learn, all of them suddenly missing from his mind, some genius he was.
“No, no, don’t apologize, I was just curious.” Hartley’s eyes dart to the twitching ear-fin, eyebrow raised in silent question. Kaelonne pouted unknowingly as he rubs his fingers over the fin, his ear was one of his tells when he was thinking hard about something, a quirk his siblings focused on to know when he was paying attention to them. “You have claws…”
“You don’t.”
“Fair enough.” He chuckled, Kaelonne was amazed how relaxed he felt by the human being, expecting more nervousness wary looks shot at him, but Hartley continued on as though talking to Mermatians was an everyday thing.
“You… do not seem bothered by me in the slightest.”
“…I guess not, I don’t know why, but I feel like I’ve done this a million times… or the panicky part of my brain went into overload and crashed.”
“I see, we have similar feelings then.”
“Oh, that’s pretty cool.”
“It’s getting dark.” Kaelonne points out, glancing at the light from the setting sun barely gracing the sky.
“Uh, yea, my dad doesn’t expect me for the next few hours. I’ve been doing this for the last week, since… well since you saved me.”
“How did you realise that I was not human?”
“Your eyes, it’s got black scleras and it’s really silver… like your scales, now that I’m paying attention.” Kaelonne replays the memory of pulling the human on the rock, meeting the bright, brown eyes several times before finally leaving. Hartley nods his head to the edge of the rock where Kaelonne was leaning, making him pull back in curiosity, he lets out a small whistle as he notes the week old markings of his claws carving through the rock in his panic to pull the human to land. “My dad showed me my shirt, thinking I’d been attacked by a shark or something. I found it odd, so I came back here and found the claw marks, that’s how I remembered seeing you.”
“Interesting.” Kaelonne hums, tapping his fingers on pendant of the chain in thought. This catches the attention of the human.
“That… chain, where did you find it?”
“In a crab cave.” Kaelonne tilts his head, pointing his fingers vaguely in the direction of the crab, “I found it not long after the storm, figured it might’ve been lost by a human recently. You were the only human I found; you seem to recognise it. I assume that it is yours?”
“Uh, y-yea.” Hartley says hesitantly, falling into a mode of panic as he watches the Mermatian tug the chain off, “No, no, no, I don’t want it!”
“You don’t want it, but it is yours?” Kaelonne had to admit that he was slightly reluctant to return the chain that he’d grown accustomed to, but he refused to keep it from its true owner.
“I mean yea, but you can keep it.” Hartley chuckles nervously, “It looks pretty cool, it complements the whole black and silver scales fashion.”
“I… see.”
“As something to remember me by?”
“You are leaving.” A question in the form of a statement.
“Tomorrow, I came to the beach house for a break from the whole hustle bustle of my job, didn’t expect all this to happen.”
“Job?”
“Yea, I’m a scientist of sorts, I do research.” Hartley beamed, excited to talk about the very thing he claimed to be trying to get away from. Kaelonne just smiled and listened, the human’s enthusiasm was contagious.
They talked into the night, exchanging information about their homes, their families and despite the few catches in the language barrier, they get along as though they’d been friends forever. Kaelonne learned of bustling cities and strange machines, questioning in lengths of Hartley’s ‘profession’, he offered in return the general idea of his home, mentioning his siblings, purposely leaving out his position of royalty.
He watched sadly as the human’s head picked up the sound of his father calling him, nodding at him gently before ducking under the water the moment his back turns. Kaelonne cursed himself for the less than proper farewell, but he couldn’t bring himself to say goodbye.
The young royal watches, however, as the human rubs his fingers over a silver scale whose colour does not fade, a faint smile on his face.
- Writer
