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Chapter Text

If there was one thing Slaine knew, it was that he had fucked up. And that this wasn’t one of his usual fuck ups, oh no. This was major and quite possibly irreversible.

He was stranded alone and injured in unfamiliar waters. He could probably be done in by a passing pufferfish at this point.

Slaine's pod had been migrating with the sperm whales, like they did every year. This year they left the arctic waters with an elderly bull, who didn’t mind the company of their small pod of merfolk. Slaine didn’t understand everything the bull told them as they dove in the deeps, but the stories always got nastier the closer the sounds of passing ships far up on the surface got.

The merfolk could never dive quite as deep or as long as the sperm whale did, but they stayed together nonetheless. Some of the more talented ones could go on hunts to the midnight zone with the whale, coming back up with stories of giant leviathans. Most of the pod stayed in the dim levels between the twilight and midnight zones however, only seeing a short glimpse of sunlight when they rose up with the bull to catch their breath, before descending back into the darkness.

Slaine had been diving near the surface that day, observing the rapidly worsening weather above the surface. The rest of the pod was already almost a hundred meters below him, but Slaine felt curious of the howling sounds of the wind and didn’t hurry back down. He loved feeling the waves rolling above him, sometimes holding his hand up and almost breaking the surface. Though he needed to go up every hour or so to breathe, there were strict rules in the pod to never linger near the surface. When sleeping they could hold their breath for a few hours easily, and that was exactly what they did whenever they came close to ships. It was rare since the pod stayed clear of any coasts, but one could never know. Not much was passed down about the creatures living on land, but none of it was good. So they stayed hidden.

The world above was completely different from the one below. The bright lights, the noises, all the movement had Slaine captivated.

Though his pod spent most of its time in the deeps, and hunted even deeper, Slaine had always had a fascination with the world above. Most of what he had seen in his lifetime was the sky, and now it was darkening rapidly. The blond peered at it through the rising and falling of the waves and wondered what caused the thundering sounds that seemed to vibrate their way to everything around.

The pod was now far off somewhere to his left, Slaine listened carefully. He could hear the elderly bull clicking his stories to anyone who listened. Not that many had a choice, the old bull could be heard from miles and miles away: sperm whales weren’t exactly known to be quiet. Slaine didn’t have a mutual language with the whale, and many of the intricacies of the bull’s language escaped him still, but it was doable by using some common whistles and clicks.

Slaine was just about to pop above the surface for one last gulp of fresh air when he felt something entering his sonar bubble from behind, fast. It was big.

Jerking back barely in time to face the intruder all Slaine saw was a flash of white before his shoulder was caught between giant jaws. He was slammed above the surface on impact, flopping uselessly in the air. Not a second later he had the air painfully forced out of his lungs as he crashed back underwater. Slaine faintly tasted his blood spreading in the water, and only half a second later the pain crashed down on him. His whole left side was engulfed in splitting pain that made his ears ring.

Slaine was staring down at the snout of a shark as he screamed, scrambling with his right arm to rip himself off. He felt his pod stir in the distance, but the sensation was cut short. Through the hot, white pain he remembered he was holding a spear. The shark started to drag him down to drown him, shaking him, trying to make him breathe in water. Slaine couldn’t even shout anymore, all his world focused into the burning pressure pulling him down.

The eyes, Slaine heard a voice in his mind, the eyes and the gills. He had been told it a million times as a calf and yet it took an eternity to remember when actually needed. Blinded by the blood spreading around him the blond was lucky his right hand was already clasped around his spear. Slaine started hitting and stabbing at random, screaming and sending sonars for some hope of stunning the shark. They were twisting and turning deeper, leaving a cloud of diluted red behind them. Finally he hit his target and the shark let go with a jolt. It dragged Slaine along for a few meters before the young merman willed his hand to let go of the spear, now penetrating the shark’s skull through its left eye socket.

For a few seconds Slaine drifted in and out of consciousness before flipping his tail couple times and sliding back towards the surface. The ringing in his ears made everything muffled. He hardly felt anything other than his heart trying to pump its way out of his chest. Slaine broke through the surface, heaving and coughing and suddenly crashing underwater by some invisible force once again. He tried again but was crashed under again.

Thinking was hard. Slaine needed to get away before anything else tasted his blood in the water. He couldn’t escape to the safety of his pod yet though, not while bleeding. He would just attract more predators and one elderly sperm whale, while big, wouldn’t be a deterrent enough. Sharks they could handle as pod, but if there were any orcas nearby, they would surely be decimated.

Somehow his overfocused mind felt immensely confused by the whole scenario. The weather above the surface had turned into something vicious. Slaine tried to fill his empty lungs again to escape the storm to the calm of the deeps, but he simply couldn’t catch a breath. He was tumbling and turning, being ripped this and that way by the waves until he couldn’t tell up from down or left from right anymore. Slaine was pushed back under, rolling under the surface, feeling like his left arm would surely be ripped off this time, the sea finishing what the shark couldn’t. He could barely stay conscious. Slaine was sure he was still around where he had been attacked, but he couldn’t hear the old bull over the rumble in the skies and the downpour hitting the storming sea. He was blinking in and out of darkness again-

-Slaine slowly opened his eyes to the calm sea. There was a feeling of dissonance somewhere in his head. Something was not right, but he couldn’t focus on anything. He could feel that his left side was a painful mess, but he didn’t dare to check it. The water tasted foreign to Slaine and for the life of him, he couldn’t remember when and where he fell asleep. He was floating on the surface with a couple of seagulls circling above him. In a distance there were many more. The water was warmer than he was used to. Everything felt off.

In a haze he turned and dipped under the surface. The warm water was making his head feel like it was filled with seaweed. With his sonar he could feel small fish all around him in the rocky shallows, a few schools of bigger fish and a kelp forest out a bit further. Ripples reflected on a soft sand bed below him. Slaine was too close to the shore for his liking, closer than he had ever been in his life in fact, so he quickly limped towards the deeper and cooler waters to clear his head.

The memory of the shark attack came back so suddenly and vividly it felt like being bit all over again. With trembling hands Slaine checked his wounds to the best of his abilities. Rows of angry toothmarks along his left shoulder and arms, rake marks where the teeth had dragged as the shark had tried to get a better hold of Slaine and failed. Ripped flesh that made him want to gag even though it wasn’t bleeding anymore. There was no knowing in what state his back was. Trying to move his left arm hurt everywhere, but also somewhere deep in his shoulder. The initial bite wound was bad, but nothing Slaine couldn’t survive. He’d seen merfolk with worse scars. The deeper pain had him more worried.

Slaine looked around and sang a pitiful call to his pod. There was no answer. He couldn’t hear any whales either. He was supposed to stay in hearing distance at all times. He had been at hearing distance just a while ago.

However long ago that while ago was.

After a few more calls the full weight of his situation started to dawn on Slaine, and it chilled him to the core. Franticly he started swimming toward the deep, then back again, calling with whistles and sending his sonar as far as he could in hopes of feeling something familiar.

No answer. Nothing.

The water tasted foreign and was much too warm for him. Slaine felt a current around him. Could a current carry him so far away? He swam up and breached the water just enough to take a look of his surroundings above the surface. There was an island in the distance. He didn’t recognise it. From the taste of the water he could gather that he wasn’t close to any longer coastline though. Just how long had he been floating unconscious? How had he not been eaten while asleep?

Slaine stopped. He had been more interested in observing the weather than he had been being aware of his surroundings, in keeping his back safe. And now he had no idea where he was, what do, how to get to his pod or even back to their route if he now had to catch up alone.

He didn’t even know the route of the old bull to begin with, getting back on it would be complete guesswork.

Slaine had fucked up big time.

He was stranded in unfamiliar waters, alone and unarmed. He’d lost his spear to the shark. In his woven bag he had a spare spearhead that didn’t do any good for him without a handle, and a small bundle of rope. It wasn’t much, but Slaine could fish and forage while planning his next move. Brain switching to a more analytical and detached mode, Slaine knew he should keep moving to avoid any further danger especially now that he was hurt and alone. He knew what had to be done.

It was easier said than done though.

Slaine shook himself, trying to rid his head of the looming possibilities. This wasn’t the situation to think long term: if he didn’t make it the next few hours and days there wasn’t going to be any long term. He checked his surroundings, started clicking steadily to get a constant sonar of his surroundings and forced himself to move on.

He was near a reef. Slaine could feel the current feeding it around him, it was weak in the shallows, but would be dangerous in open sea. He couldn’t swim against it injured, so his best bet was to work with it; either swim with it or cross it. The closeness of a reef was evident all around him, there was life everywhere. There were schools of fish passing by, different kinds of seaweed growing from the seafloor, covering the rocks and floating around.

The kelp forest gave Slaine ample hunting grounds, but he wasn’t exactly in the shape for chase with his injury. With a spear he could've easily caught fish, but onehandedly and alone it was nearly impossible even when he tried to hunt by ambush. He simply couldn’t move fast or sharply enough without risking worsening his injuries.

Frustrated and hungry, Slaine surfaced for air. He quickly dove down again, moving in the shadows of bigger rocks close to the bottom. He was constantly clicking, but the lack of any response made him nervous. He tried to whistle a few times but didn’t dare anymore after that. The silence felt oppressive.

Near the surface a shark lazily swam by. Slaine froze. It was a small one, probably feeding on the fish at the reef. It was way too small to harm him, but the fact that there were sharks nearby didn’t help Slaine’s growing anxiety.

After a couple more hours and no progress in fishing, Slaine gave up and opted to collecting seaweed. It wouldn’t satisfy his hunger like fish did, but it had to do. He stuffed his bag, and even found clams. Opening them was a struggle though. Moving his left arm made it painful. Slaine attempted to at least hold the clam with his left hand to open it with the spearhead but couldn’t muster the strength to hold a grip. Desperate, he picked a rock and tried to crack the stubborn shell against the seafloor to no avail. There wasn’t enough force behind his strikes.

It was pathetic, really. Frustrated, Slaine threw the clam away.

Slaine floated close to the surface for a while, watching seagulls through the waves and constantly checking the waters below. It felt like something under his skin itched. He started blowing bubbles out of frustration. Slaine felt restless and unable to act at the same time.

He needed to get back on their migration route. Slaine wasn’t exactly sure where it was compared to his current location but he came to the conclusion that crossing the current would probably be his best option. He was sure he could come up with the next plan once he got back to the open ocean.

Without stalling for any longer Slaine rushed away from the shallows. He just needed to move on, and then he would surely find the right direction somehow. Even if he had to go all the way alone. Slaine had migrated almost 20 times now, he would know when he was close. He just needed to stay calm, take care of himself, move on and get used to the silence echoing around him. For now, he would follow the current and then slowly cross it.

If the shallows felt uncomfortable, the open ocean was almost worse in all its familiarity. Now his sonar only caught an occasional school of fish, when before there was life bustling all around him. The blond was getting more paranoid every fish he sensed. The wounds on his shoulder stung and the whole arm felt wrong and painful, hot and cold flowing down from his shoulder in waves. He had a feeling that something there had been severely misplaced, but Slaine didn’t know how to fix it so he tried his best to not think about it.

The current around Slaine was getting stronger. It was carrying colder water rising from the deeps and had lots of tiny specks and baby fish. Slaine basked briefly in the rich water letting it cool his wounds.

Seemingly out of nowhere a huge creature slowly entered his sonar. Slaine turned and sang a hopeful greeting, but it wasn’t a whale. After a few seconds he could see it swimming below him; a whale shark, mouth wide open collecting plankton. It was followed by many other fish seeking safety in its size and numbers, much like Slaine’s own pod did with whales. A painful pang clenched his chest. Slaine would have probably joined in with the mixed group if the whale shark wasn’t crossing the current in the wrong direction. Instead he watched the giant go towards the reef, swallowed his disappointment and continued on.

Slaine had a feeling something else had heard his greeting, he could almost feel something bustling further ahead. He popped up for a breath and saw a glimpse of birds circling far off in the distance. Something was happening there. He was curious by nature and it would be on his way anyway. It would be dangerous, but open ocean was dangerous by default, Slaine was no stranger to that.

For a second some rational part of Slaine almost regretted not joining the whale shark, that way he could’ve just hitched a lift from it for a while and got some rest. Instead as aching as his body was from the attack, he raced to see what was happening.

The gulls circling ahead could mean there was a ship. That wouldn’t be good. Just in case he dove deeper, almost all the way to the twilight zone, and propelled himself forward with renewed determination, paying no mind to his left arm protesting every movement. As he slowly slid up to the site almost an hour later, all that remained were a few gulls swimming on the surface and a scattered cloud of scales slowly floating around.

The scene was somewhat surreal in its quietness, but not unfamiliar. Slaine collected a few scales for a quick taste test. Mackerel. He looked around at the empty ocean surrounding him. There had been a school of mackerel here, and it had been completely destroyed. He tested the reach of his sonar and caught a big fish, probably a tuna, further ahead. He would not be able to kill and eat a tuna alone, let alone in his current state. Adult tunas were massive and moved in large schools. Most likely they were what ate the mackerels.

There was a beginning of a plan forming in a corner of Slaine’ mind, and for him it was enough to act on. He moved his bag to his left side so that he could rest his left arm on it while swimming. If he was fast enough to catch up and join the school of tuna, he might be able to catch fish with them. Or more likely, scavenge what remained. There was safety in numbers too, and there sure was plenty of numbers in schools of tuna.

Slaine lost count of time, and before he knew it the sun had set and the darkness from the deeps was creeping to the surface levels he now swam in. He couldn’t rely on his eyes as much anymore, so he tightened his sonar around him and then extended it to reach as far as he could. The darkness felt familiar and good. With the darkness however, there were also many creatures rising from their deep dwellings to the richer levels of water to feed. This was a dangerous time, with many hunters roaming about. Slaine was used to being one of them, catching the rising fish and squid with his pod, but now he didn’t have the safety of his pod to safe guard him. Despite feeling tired and achy, he too rose closer to the surface and did his best to hasten his pace.

The sky was already starting to glow with the first rays of morning sun when Slaine reached the tail of the tuna school. He had been hearing and tasting them closer and closer over the past hours, barely struggling to keep the pace to reach them. Now Slaine could finally see them.

They were swimming furiously, yellow fins catching the morning light, and didn’t seem to mind Slaine at all. Then again, why should they; they were a school of adults all right, most about two meters in length, some even bigger. He had only caught juvenile tuna with his pod before, so the fact that the adults dwarfed him like that came as a bit of a surprise.

Slaine joined the school, whistling hellos around and barely getting glances back. He didn’t mind though, he was already feeling ecstatic. It was easier to swim in the school, the blond noted. The tuna ploughed through the water relentlessly, and it almost felt like he was just sliding in their tracks. It was easy to keep up with the school now that he was in their slipstream. Slaine moved deeper into the school revelling in feeling them moving all around him whenever he let out bursts of sonar. It wasn’t quite like swimming with his pod, the lack of chatter was deafening to his ears, but it was a million times better than being alone.

Slaine was just starting to fall in sync with the tuna when he faintly felt someone reaching toward him with a sonar of their own. The tuna slowed down and started to circle around in groups. Slaine felt the sonar again and rushed forward whistling and forgetting all the aches he had accumulated. It wasn’t one of his people, the sonar felt different. He didn’t recognise the whistles he could now hear either. Once he was in range to let out his own sonars, he noticed that it wasn’t just one. It was about twenty.

The yellowfin tunas were following a pod of dolphins.

Slaine swam in happy circles, clicking and whistling hellos once again. The dolphins didn’t understand him, but they didn’t take him as a threat either. He was approached by a couple of curious juveniles, quickly making way for an adult that was scanning him carefully with its sonar. Slaine stayed still, clicking excitedly, scanning the dolphins in turn.

They were a pod of 23 dolphins his size, mostly adults but also a few juveniles and two calves, sticking closely to their mothers. They had a similar colouration to Slaine; blueish grey sides, dark grey back and white bellies. They lacked his greyish blonde mop of hair though. Each examined him in turns, sometimes bumping playfully into his good side.

Slaine didn’t have that much experience with dolphins, his pod usually travelled in deeper levels with the whales and spent less time close to the surface. Unsure of the protocol he pulled a piece of seaweed from his bag as a makeshift gift, and in less than ten minutes after meeting the pod of dolphins he was already playing tag with them. They tossed the seaweed around, catching it with their fins and dropping it for others to catch. They were a playful and noisy bunch, and Slaine felt right at home, laughing and feeling all the tension and fear melt away.

As they started making their way once again, the dolphins stuck close to the surface, sometimes breaching it. Observing from below Slaine learned quickly that they needed to breathe a lot more frequently than he did, so he too made way to swim with them near the surface. The tunas were staying close behind them. Apparently they had some sort of bond with the dolphins.

It wasn’t long until the travelling turned into yet another play. In displays that amazed Slaine, the dolphins jumped above the waves, spinning and twisting before crashing back under, all the while whistling their signatures. He had seen humpbacks feed before, breaching the surface. His pod tended to retreat deeper during those times, and the sperm whales they followed prefered the dark deeps as well anyway. What he hadn’t seen before was jumping just for fun like that. He wondered what the elders would have to say to something risky like that.

“Hello!”

“Hello!”

“Hello!”

Confused, Slaine wondered what the juveniles were up to. After some more jumps and excited coaxing it dawned to him, and he laughed.

The dolphins were whistling their own signatures all the time, so they must’ve thought he was telling them his name when he had first greeted them. The juveniles copied his laughter in mockery and jumped once again. Slaine called them by their signature whistles, and by the time the juveniles joined him again it was clear that they were trying to coax him into jumping as well. Slaine wasn’t sure how to feel about it. It wasn’t allowed in his pod. Anything to do with the surface wasn’t allowed, besides from the necessary evil of having to breathe. He wasn’t in the shape for such feats anyway.

There was noone to see him here though. He wanted to, but his shoulder hurt pretty badly. Maybe if he landed on his right side he could do it.

It didn’t take long for Slaine to muster up his courage and go for the first jump. He dove a bit deeper and accompanied by cheers of “hello”, he breached the surface. The one second his body was weightless and surrounded by air and wind and all the blue of the sky and the ocean combined seemed to stretch forever. In that one brief moment he saw further ahead of him than he ever had, ever could in water. And all that he saw was blue. The moment was gone before it even had started, and Slaine crushed to the water face first, white pain exploding in his shoulder. He stumbled for a few meters before getting his sight back and pushing the pain down. A couple of adults carefully inspected him, lightly touching his throbbing left shoulder with their noses.

When the night fell Slaine dove down to the lower levels with the pod to hunt. He didn’t dare to stay down alone though, so he had to get used to surfacing every ten minutes or so as the dolphins breathed. It was strange at first, he was used to longer dives, but even with shorter dives there definitely was strength in numbers. Slaine didn’t like freeloading but was grateful to be taken into the pod for now. He swallowed his pride and took what was offered, be it an occasional shrimp to go with his diet of seaweed or holding one of the dolphins’ fin and sleep for a little while hitching a ride.

He needed to get better soon so he could properly join the hunts. Slaine was having fun with the pod, but at the same time he was getting thinner and tired faster. He started running out of seaweed after a week of careful rationing. There was no plan B for food. For now, he was lucky he had run across the dolphin pod and gained their friendship.

Cuddling close to them, listening to their chatter and joining in their play was more than Slaine could’ve hoped for, though. He needed this closeness. Even though the dolphins had mostly switched to common whistles and clicks and he could now communicate with them, he missed having actual conversations. He had never been the most sociable or liked person in his pod of merfolk, but at their core they were social creatures. It was in Slaine’s nature to crave that contact.

They had been travelling together for almost two weeks hunting, playing around and teasing the tuna that followed the pod as usual, when the whole atmosphere started changing. There was a distant rumble. At first Slaine thought it was a thunder again, but when he glanced up, all he saw on the other side of the waves was clear sky. It didn’t make sense. The juvenile dolphins still played and goofed around, but the mothers held their calves a bit closer and the adults called the pod closer together. They hastened their pace.

In an hour it was clear the rumble was following them. It was steady behind the school of tuna. It only took a few minutes longer for the source of the disturbance to enter Slaine’ sonar.

Ships. And not just one, at least five of them. Slaine felt a shiver in his spine that radiated into his aching left arm. The answer in his mind was immediate and deeply rooted: he should dive deeper, deep enough that there was no risk for him being detected. But the dolphins needed to stay close to the surface, they couldn’t dive for that long or deep. Diving now would mean leaving the pod.

Slaine needed to face the uncomfortable truth. He couldn’t possibly survive on his own.

Despite his instincts crying otherwise, Slaine decided to stay with the dolphins. Apparently, the tuna had reached a similar conclusion, as they were chased forward by the boats, now reaching the pod and around their sides. The tuna made everything feel more frantic mostly by messing with Slaine’s ability to track the ships; his vision and sonar were getting cluttered by the tuna all around him.

In an attempt to avoid the hustle Slaine dove under the dolphin pod and did his best to keep his sonar on the ships. There were three smaller ones that seemed quite agile and had started to separate from their pod of ships. The dolphins stuck even closer together and even the juveniles seemed to start taking the situation seriously. As one they started swimming even faster, and Slaine was starting to have trouble to keep up with the pace.

The three faster boats, size of a small whale, were gaining on them, two from both sides and one chasing from behind, manoeuvring them and the tuna into an ever-tightening formation. There were two other ships, one a little bigger than the small boats and another bigger than any whale Slaine had ever seen. He couldn’t follow them through the glimpses he got through the tuna, and soon he couldn’t feel even the small ones. He was twisting and turning guided only by some group instinct with the school of fish he was now surrounded by, the dolphins staying above him, trying to navigate their way through the ships and boats all around them.

Through his confusion and anxiety, Slaine suddenly noticed he was swimming on autopilot in tight circles with the school of tuna, not really moving forward anymore. He glanced above and saw the dolphins huddling skin to skin. He whistled questions but didn’t get any answers he understood. Something was pulling the school closer together, he felt the steady rumble of the ships all around him. They were now circling them. He couldn’t understand why the tuna stayed, but then again, he was still there too, caught in the mass hysteria. He should’ve been half way to the bottom of the sea by now, Slaine’s rational side nagged at him.

“Hello!”

“Hello!”

“Hello!”

Through the panicking tuna he could hear the pod calling for him. It was hard to hear or navigate, the tunas were getting more and more packed together, and Slaine was starting to experience first-hand just how much muscle there was in a tuna; a hit from its tail or a push from its side could really hurt and send him tumbling. He was starting to feel claustrophobic. The only way he could escape the chaos at this point was was either up or down and neither was a viable option.

“Hello!”

He got a bit closer to the surface, just close enough to see the ships swaying: three small white ones, a little bigger orange one and a huge dark blue one. When he got high enough to recognise why they weren’t moving his heart froze with dread.

They were surrounded by a net. But it was not like the small weighed ones his people used when hunting schools of fish. This one was big enough to surround a school of thousands of adult tunas. Taking a glance below confirmed a sinking fear that crossed Slaine’s mind. The tuna were being gathered in a net that was closed at the bottom. There was no way to dive deeper.

Slaine felt unbelievably tiny and vulnerable. No wonder his people were scared of the ships and the creatures they carried. No wonder their tales of merfolk too curious of the surface always ended badly. No wonder the old bull told angry tales of the ships.

Slaine hardly had time to process anything around him when a shift in the movement of the panicked tuna threw everything off balance again. They were rising higher and bumping into him and each other once again. The net was being dragged and changing its shape into a tube. He looked above him, to the floaters keeping the net up. He could see glimpses of the dolphins moving towards the blue ship pulling the net at the end of the corridor of floaters.

Slaine’ eyes widened when he scanned the ships. There was a small section of the net being kept open by the blue and the orange ships pushing the floaters down. The dolphin pod was escaping through there. Slaine’ heart skipped. He could get out too, that’s why they had been calling for him. His excitement was short-lived, though. He would have to pass right between the ships and probably breach the surface while getting over the floaters. The land creatures would see him.

Slaine chew at his lip anxiously. His heart was beating way too fast. The dolphins were almost out, and the orange ship was starting to slowly move away, releasing the floaters. He had to get out now, seen or not seen. Jumping over them later would draw even more attention. The tiny opening was his best option.

With a couple of powerful strokes of his tail Slaine rapidly neared the surface, navigating around the frenzied tuna, getting a fair few hits in the process. Just as the last one of the dolphins slipped out, he braced himself, aimed for the opening and speeded towards it as fast as he could. The orange ship was already releasing the floaters as he slipped over the net without breaching the surface. For a brief second he tasted the free waters once again-

-he had suddenly all the air pushed out of him in a stream of bubbles that changed into airy chokes as all the water disappeared. He was yanked back by his bag strap and raised above the surface, coughing from the force of the sudden pull. Disoriented and fighting to breathe, he looked around. There was shouting somewhere above him, but right now all he needed to know was clear pretty much right away; the floaters had been released just as Slaine was crossing them, and they had caught his bag. He was left tangled to the line of floaters, dangling in the air, almost completely out of water. The young merman franticly struggled to free his bag, but in his awkward position it was near impossible. The strap lifted him up from his left armpit and around his chest, and to slip through he would have to worm his way out of it and leave it behind. Which would have been no problem if it was his right arm the strap was stuck under. But it wasn’t, it had to be his left arm, the one that had just barely started to heal.

Panic rising and a weird, high sound overwhelming him, Slaine took a look at the two ships towering over him. On the blue one, there were creatures that had features strikingly similar to him, gaping and shouting. He glanced at the orange ship just in time to see a figure lean to the handrail, looking winded but weirdly separated from the rest of faces ogling down at him. Perhaps it was the fact that the red eyed creature wasn’t shouting, pointing or gesturing wildly like the others; it was just watching, as if having just seen a deep-sea jellyfish with all its colourful lights for the first time.

If Slaine had felt vulnerable in the net, stuck here, halfway out of it, he was absolutely exposed and helpless.

In a panicked frenzy, he struggled to get his arm free. Somewhere in his brain he knew it hurt, but he didn’t feel it until a deafening series of cracks from his shoulder echoed in his skull. Suddenly seeing only white, Slaine blacked out and slipped underwater. On pure instinct he started flapping his tail, heading somewhere, anywhere.

Chapter Text

Everything was jumbled together after that. Swimming, suddenly waking up without actually having fallen asleep, diving deeper, correcting the course (what course?) then waking again, always just swimming.

There was a distant sound of rumbling, though it might not have been real. Slaine saw a dream of swimming in the sky with the seagulls. The dream continued even after he opened his eyes. Somewhere in the pit of his stomach Slaine felt a sense of absolute dread.

Slaine felt dizzy and cold. He had dived too deep. He tried to reverse the spiral he had been swimming in, but it felt impossible.

A splitting headache tore through Slaine’s consciousness. He was rising too rapidly again. The realisation triggered some sort of instinct: on its own, his body steadied its ascend.

The first thing Slaine started to register was a dull pain radiating in pulses from his left shoulder. Now it definitely was broken, he had heard the cracks clearly enough. His whole left side was dragging and making keeping his course straight a struggle. He was constantly spiralling to the left.

It took a little while longer to notice that the water temperature kept fluctuating. He was diving and surfacing, diving deep and then surfacing rapidly again. He needed to steady his dives.

Which brought Slaine to his third observation: he was moving forward. Had been for who knew how long. His whole frame felt weak and shaky from the exertion, but he couldn’t will his body to stop even if he wanted it to. It was going through the movements on its own, and Slaine was pretty certain that if he managed to stop, he would never have the energy to start moving again.

Slaine’s fourth realization was that he was alone. The pod of spinner dolphins was gone.

Intellectually he knew he felt devasted by his renewed loss, but the emotion didn’t quite reach him yet. Somehow nothing of his current situation did.

It took some more time to notice his bag was gone forever. With the bag gone also the seaweed he had collected and so carefully rationed was lost.

After a while he recognised the rumbling following him in the distance. A ship.

Gradually Slaine’s pace got slower and the rumbling got steadily closer. If he had had enough energy left, Slaine would have panicked all over again. Now he just felt drained dry.

The taste of the sea was changing around him. He was getting closer to a coast again. Running on instinct he sluggishly turned towards it.

Slaine wasn’t sure what he was searching for until he found it. The warmer water was bothering him again, but for once in his life he was lucky: what he had tasted was a small island with a coastline of harsh currents and rugged rock-formations. As far as Slaine’s tired mind remembered, the ships he briefly saw and felt with his sonar were like big, heavy, floating rocks. They didn’t fit through the crevices where Slaine could fit, they didn’t bend or twist their bodies like he could his own.

And he did all that and more. With the help of his sonar Slaine fought through the currents that tried to smash him against the rocks, he threaded through the mazes of pillars and arches, he navigated his way closer to the land than he had ever dared to go before. After some contemplation he decided on a calm shallow pool that was deep enough for him to rest upright and still stay hidden under the waves thanks to his colouration. After a hasty inspection, he settled himself by a large rock formation, intent on waiting until the ship would give up. He didn’t like being right next to the land, a sandy beach rising from the sea not 15 meters away from his safe harbour, but the ship couldn’t possibly follow him that far into the rocks.

Satisfied with his hiding place, Slaine filled his lungs with precious air and lowered himself to a crevice by the bottom of a big boulder. He had hardly closed his eyes when he had already fallen asleep.

“-tobesomewherehere!”

“Evenifitis,it’stoodangeroustosenddivers.”

“I’vedivedincurrentsbefore!SohasRayet!”

“NowayinhellI’mdivinghere.”

“Andneitherareyou,Inko.That’sfinal.”

“Aaw,butwe’resoclose!I’vealwayswantedto-“

“Theamountofpictures,videoandrecordingssofararemorethanwecould’veeverhopedfor.”

There were strange sounds originating from across the pool where Slaine laid hidden by the side of the boulder, pulling him from his sleep that had done nothing to soothe his aching body. From the amount of air he still had it must have been barely an hour since he fell asleep. When active, he usually needed to breach the surface once every hour, but he was able to tripple that time when in rest. He would need to breathe sooner now, though. He was too weak to be conservative with his air.

Carefully, Slaine opened his eyes.

“-followingitforsuchalongperioditispossibleithasbarelysoughtarefugeforawhile.Consideringitwaswithapodofspinnerdolphins,wecandeduceit’slifestyleisrathersimiliar,travellingbetweencoastalregions.”

“See,evenInahothinksweshouldsearch!”

“Ididn’tsaythat.Imerelypointedout-“

There were five land creatures on the shore, standing. Despite the too warm water, Slaine felt his veins freeze over. He hadn’t considered this a possibility.

He was still hidden in the rocks, but the creatures had unknowingly came way, way too close to just stumbling into him. Slaine barely stopped himself from trying to retreat further back into the rocks lining his pool, but he held his place only because he knew he was already backed into a corner. Through the ripples Slaine couldn’t tell much more about the creatures, other than that they were apparently arguing.

“-closetotheshipsincaseitdecidestomakeitselfknown.We’wealreadygatheredmoredatathanmorstresearchersdoduringtheirwholecareer.”

“…Fine.”

For his relief, the land creatures started slowly moving on, chattering amongst themselves and none the wiser of his presence. As the sounds started to grow more distant, Slaine allowed himself to relax a fraction. He stretched his good arm carefully, avoiding creating any small currents that could be visible on the surface. Even the small movement was enough to make him feel lightheaded. The pool was too shallow to stretch himself completely, tail and all, but luckily it was protected enough from the currents to cumulate some algae on the rocks, Slaine noted. His belly twitched hopefully.

Starving and anxious, he carefully peeked from his hiding place to make sure it was safe to-

One of the creatures had stayed behind. One of them had stayed, and Slaine had been too busy following the other ones’ chatter to notice. It had seen Slaine stretching too, and now its eyes were boring through the ripples into his own blue orbs, effectively freezing the merman in his tracks.

“Nao!Areyoucoming?”

The creature turned its head towards the distant call, but kept its eyes locked on Slaine. There were two or three seconds of silent deliberation before the creature spoke.

“TellMagbaredgeI’mgoingtorequireachair.”

“What?Whatdoyoumeanyouneedachairofallthings?”

“Icantellfurtherinformationlater,butfornowit’sparamountthatIstaybehind.”

“Thatdoesn’tmakeany-“

“Iwillonlyneedanhour,maybetwo.GotellMagberedgetokeeptheenginerunning,Yuki.”

The feeling of dread that had made a nest in Slaine’s stomach started to creep its way back up through his whole system. Nothing good ever came of land, nor its creatures, he knew it, yet he was face to face with one again. He wanted nothing more than to swim back to the open sea, but he could hear the ship rumbling where he had entered his maze, ready to chase, most likely. Not to mention the creature staring at him just ten meters away, standing still.

Still and silent, like an orca about to hunt whale.

Slaine had no idea what these creatures were capable of. Could it bounce him from that distance? Some fish could. Slaine was injured and starved, he couldn’t fight a sea cucumber and win if he tried, let alone a land creature his size. Keeping the eye contact he slowly backed deeper into his corner, the red eyes of the creature following his every move. Soon more sounds filled the beach again.

“Goingtotan,Inaho?Didn’tthinkyouwerethetype.”

Something was brought to the creature, which Slaine now realized was the same one he had seen on the orange ship. The creature took the contraption, placed it close to the water across from Slaine and sat down, eyes never leaving him. The others tried to see what the creature from the orange ship was seeing, but they apparently couldn’t make out Slaine from the rocks as long as he stayed completely still. Like he should’ve stayed in the first place. Finally, after a short conversation they left, leaving just the one sitting creature, which Slaine decided to name Orange.

From then on, absolutely nothing happened for an hour.

Slaine’s insides were curling with anxiety and uncertainty, but the creature just sat silently without making a move, keeping his eyes on Slaine. The blond didn’t dare to make a move either. To escape the pool, he would have to swim right by where Orange had made himself comfortable. He didn’t have the strength to fight the currents so soon again anyway, so he was stuck in this uncomfortable stalemate.

It was ridiculous. The whole situation was utterly ridiculous. If the old sperm whale bull was there to see this, Slaine would’ve never heard the end of it.

It clearly was a waiting game, but for what, Slaine couldn’t understand. He needed air desperately, but he had managed to keep calm and lower his heart rate enough to hold on for the hour or so Orange sat on the beach.

Suddenly the creature broke its stare, stood up, put something on its ear and started speaking while walking away.

Slaine was dumbfounded. He heard Orange getting further and further away. He looked and listened carefully for any other creatures. All he could hear were distant waves crashing and seagulls calling. Slaine felt hopefull with the possibility. Orange gave up whatever game he had been playing!

There were other sounds coming towards the beach again, but they were far enough to give Slaine ample time to slip away. He breached the surface and drank heavy gulps of air before achingly heading towards the exit of his pool.

Except that the exit wasn’t there anymore.

His heart dropped painfully when Slaine realised that his escape route wasn’t the only thing that was gone. The sea was gone.

Darting from one corner of his small pool to the other he peeked over all the rocks he could. The sea was gone, and his pool was even shallower than he remembered. When did it get so shallow? The sea couldn’t be gone. How could the sea be gone? He had never been this close to land before, but surely it was impossible for the sea to just be gone!

Before he noticed, he was whistling it all out loud, circling and rambling. But even the sounds he made were wrong, they were bouncing back at him from the rocks and boulders and ringing in his own ears instead of travelling far and reaching someone who could answer his questions.

“Whatthehell,youcan’tevenseeanythinginthere.”

“Therereallyissomethingthough,it’smakingaruckus!”

Slaine stopped in his tracks. In his frantic circling he had moved sand everywhere and now he couldn’t see anymore. Not that it mattered to him, he had his sonar. The creatures were on the land though, and not seeing there made him even more nervous. Slaine continued swimming to calm himself. He was truly trapped now.

“It’lltakeawhileforthesandtosettle,butImustadmit,yourplansdowork,unconventionalastheyare,Kaizukajunior.”

“Ihaveanameofmyown,captain.Anditwasmerelythemostreasonableapproachconsideringitsstate.Thoughit’ssomewhatsurprising…”

“Yeah,Ididn’tthinkit’dworkeither,butit’samazingitdid!Igettoseeamermaidthatkstoyou,Inaho!”

“No,itwasexpectablefortheplantowork.Butwhydidittrapitself?Surelyitwouldbefamiliarwithtides.”

Slaine didn’t care to listen to the creature’s gibberish. The sand was settling, and he was tired. He had escaped death at least two or three times already since getting lost anyway, and that alone was a miracle. He was bound to run out of luck eventually.

The water was now so shallow he had to lay on his stomach on the sand bed to stay fully submerged. In his own earlier panic, he had made the water overflow from the pool. There was no comfortable position for his shoulder. One of the creatures stepped into the shallow pool and took a step towards him, disturbing the waters and sending shock waves down Slaine’s spine.

It was amazing, really. How could the nearing creature – Orange, now that he could see it through the ripples and settling sand – support its weight in the air like that? When Slaine got stuck to the floaters he could hardly struggle with his free arm, his torso had been too heavy to move, let alone his tail. Orange knelt a good two meters away from him. Far too close for comfort, but not close enough to hit with his tail. Slaine started hissing and clicking as an empty threat, his last attempt at appearing capable of defending himself.

“Shesoundslikeanangryhedgehog”, one of the smaller creatures on the land commented.

“Ithinkit’sahe.”, another one said.

“Areyousure?”

Slaine didn’t care. He looked carefully at Orange instead, who was now closer than ever. All the creatures were covered with colourful woven seaweed, which was strange, but not as strange their appearances were otherwise. Looking at Orange Slaine saw arms and hands, fingers lacking claws and webbing, but otherwise like his own, shoulders and torso like his. A head with features arranged like his, only with a taller nose compared to his flatter, more streamlined one. The ears were different too, he noted, eyes a little smaller, but then again, the surface had plenty of light. The brunette had a weird, fleshy pink colouring instead of the cool greyish blue shades of Slaine’s own skin.

All in all, fascinating, Slaine noted dully, feeling resigned.

Orange scooted a little closer. Slaine could hit him now. Would hit him if he had the energy.

“Itseemslikeajuvenile,thoughI’veonlyeverseenpicturesbefore,soIcouldbewrong.”

“Noonehasseenmorethanpicturesinover60years,Kaizukajunior.Continue.”

“AsIsaid,Idohaveaname,captainMagberedge”, Orange answered, calmly looking Slaine up and down.

“Iwouldpreferitwasused.It’sinjuredandseemsmalnourished.Probablydehydratedaswell.Icanseescarsfromapossiblesharkattack.Itappearstoberecent.AsIsuspected,thewholeleftside,theleftarmespecially,arebadlyinjured.”

It was a strange language indeed. Slaine busied himself listening to it. There were some sounds that Slaine used too, but mostly it was all foreign to him. No clicks, no whistles. They would never be heard speaking like that underwater. There was a heavy silence on the beach. It made him nervous. The land creatures had successfully hunted him down. Why didn’t they eat him already?

“..Willitsurviveinthewild?”, the tall creature was pinching the bridge of her nose.

“No.”, was the immediate answer from Orange. “Itsincoherrentswimmingpatternsduringthelastfewdayswereprobablyduetoshock,butIdon’tbelieveitwilllastanotherweek.”

Another silence. Slaine was starting to run out of air again. His earlier ruckus has costed him a lot. Eyeing Orange, who seemed to realise something was about to happen, Slaine slowly moved his good arm so that he could lift himself. Orange stood up and took a step back.

“What,whatisitNao?”, a clearly worried voice from the shore.

“Nothing,Yuki,just-“

Slaine breached the surface slowly, exhaled and breathed deeply before lowering his head back underwater.

“-justabreath.Thatconfirmsthemammalpart.”

Orange settled back next to Slaine, a little bit closer this time. Slaine clicked again, but somehow it only caused some giggling in the small creatures on the shore. Orange didn’t seem too bothered by the warning, which was unsettling on its own.

“IsecondInaho.” Slaine flinched and turned his head toward the rocks surrounding his pool. A redhaired creature had sneaked there without him noticing. He felt another one taking a step into the pool. “It’salreadyhalfdead.”

“Idon’tliketheimplications,butIagreewithyoutwo.”, the tall woman spoke once again, but Slaine couldn’t focus on listening anymore. He was busy keeping a better track on all the creatures.

“Thismeansthatthegoalofthisexpeditionhasjustchanged.Kaizukajunior,Rayet,Inko.Stayhere.IneedtocontactHäkkinenonthisone.”, most of the creatures started leaving, but Orange, Red and one of the small ones stayed. Slaine felt anxious, and with no outlet it was just building inside. The land creatures were like orcas, they played with their pray, he thought bitterly. Maybe the two tall ones were adults and these three were calves being taught to hunt. The thought made a chill run down his spine. Orcas could be cruel.

“Poorthing.”

“It’snature,Inko.Youshouldknowbynow.”

“Still.”

It took a long while for the other land creatures to return. Having gotten somewhat used to the presence of the three who stayed behind Slaine felt crowded again. There were new, bigger ones too. If Slaine had had the energy he would have scooted further away. Not that it would’ve done any good. The two big ones brought a new contraption to his pool, way too close for comfort. He flinched away when they tried to approach him. Orange stayed still and calm next to him. Slaine could feel his eyes study him.

There was gibberish all around him. The ones closest to him were talking in hushed tones, cooing, toying with him, Slaine was sure. He hissed back, getting agitated. He had already resigned himself to his fate, but now his panic was rising once again. Why couldn’t they just get it over with?

Before he knew it, there were land creatures on each side of him, manhandling him, pushing, pulling, lifting, and there was nothing Slaine could do about it. His throat was closing as he trashed in blind panic once again. He was going to die, it was going to happen now, he was going to die.

There was more gibberish from all sides, a few distressed high sounds, reassurances, cooing and the monotone voice of Orange. None of it made any sense, nothing had made any sense since the night he was attacked by the shark. Slaine wanted to get away from the too warm water, from the creatures, the tuna, even from the dolphins. He wanted his pod, he wanted the old sperm whale bull with his angry stories from the times that had passed decades ago, he wanted the calm deeps and the darkness that governed there.

Slaine was franticly babbling but the sounds he made felt even weirder and more wrong than in the pool, they didn’t vibrate through the air like they did in the water. He couldn’t hear their echoes, so he tried sonar. It made no difference. He was dangling in the air surrounded by the land creatures. His body felt so heavy he could hardly breathe. He tried holding his breath like when diving, but the air was forced out by the invisible pressure pushing on his chest. He had never felt out of breath like this, and it was terrifying.

“Itcan’tbreathe!”, a distressed sound from the little one.

“Itprobablyhascollapsibleribcage,likeadolphinorawhale.Itshouldn’tbeatoobigaproblemaslongaswe’refastenough.”, one of the bigger ones spoke. Its voice was lower than the other ones. The big ones might be males, Slaine thought, feeling disoriented.

“Mostbeachedwhalesdieofdehydration,drowningorapsphyxiation.”, Slaine recognised Orange speaking from somewhere near his head. The creatures were carrying him along the shore. He could hear the sea in the distance. There were curious gulls circling above him. Circling above their next meal once the land creatures were done with him, Slaine’s mind chimed in. He struggled to silence the thought.

“Sotheysuffocate.”, Red spoke.

“Inaho!You’renothelping!Ishedying?”, the small one shouted somewhere.

“No,itdoesn’thavethebodymassofawhale.It’sboneswon’tcollapseunderit’sownweight.Mostlikely.”

“Mostlikely!?”

“It’sexperiencingdistressthatcontributetotheasphyxiation.Fromthelevelofasphyxiationit’sshowingit’sclearit’sprobablyusedfordeepandlongdives,andinthatcasethebonestructurehasdevelopedwithouttheneedtosupportthebodylikeonground,sincethewaterpressure-“

The calm monotone with which Orange was talking his gibberish was somewhat soothing to Slaine’s lightheaded mind. He didn’t fight the creatures any more, his panic had been pushed aside by the sheer exertion it was to breathe. How were the seagulls able to swim in the air, when it was this heavy?

A few minutes, hours or maybe days passed, it didn’t really matter. Slaine was lowered onto a rocking surface, then after a while lifted higher than he had ever jumped with the dolphins before. There was water underneath him, he could see it from the corner of his eye, but he didn’t have the strength to roll over and fall into it. In a blink the water was gone again, and he was once again being carried and lifted, until suddenly he was sliding down the thing he had been laid on, tumbling, falling and then finally splashing into water.

Slaine stayed limp for a second, then another, but he felt immediately better in the water. His left shoulder hurt, it had hit the water in a bad angle. It didn’t matter though, he was back in the sea! As he breached the surface and gasped a glorious lungful of air, there was collective gasp and murmuring around him.

Looking around he could see he was dropped somewhere enclosed, a weird white cave, surrounded by the humans from before, now gawking at him. Slaine tried to gain some distance, but his back hit a wall where there shouldn’t have been one. Confused, he felt around with sonar. The clicks bounced around him like he had never experienced before, even worse than in the shallow pool he had hid in previously. Those echoes had been distorted by the rocks, but the smooth walls around him didn’t do that. Instead the sonars bounced off of them, reflected back at another wall that sent the sonars bouncing off to yet another wall. It felt like someone was stirring the water in the tank in ten different ways at the same time. Slaine could feel the whole space constantly reflecting back at him while at the same time nothing stayed in focus.

It was disorienting and made him nauseous.

Relying on his sight and touch alone, Slaine carefully inspected around the space. There was an invisible wall in all directions except up.

Anger flaring up at his short-lived hope Slaine threw his tail against the strange walls with all the strength he could muster. He was weakened, but seeing the creatures flinch back at his show of defiance was still rewarding. He hissed just for a good measure and started pacing the tank in small circles to get some release for his built-up tension and hopefully disperse the echoes. Moving hurt and each flip of his flukes was exhausting, but it was better than cowering now that he was already exposed on all sides.

His earlier sonars bounced around him, useless to help explain what was going on and where he was.

There was a hushed conversation, some rustling Slaine felt too overwhelmed to respond to, and people climbing out of the cave leaving him and two others behind. Orange, Slaine noted, and one of the big ones were conversing from across the room from him. They came a bit closer, something Slaine wilfully ignored despite his nerves, each pointing and talking, eyes never leaving him. Finally, at least the big one left, leaving only him and Orange. There seemed to be some sort of agreement reached between the creatures.

It wasn’t exactly reassuring. Slaine swam in tighter circles.

Orange fiddled with a large container on the other side of the cave, not paying Slaine any mind. Save for a couple smaller empty tanks, a few chairs, containers and a table by the wall, the cave was rather bare. After some fumbling Orange turned with something in his hands. Suddenly Slaine was again painfully aware of the empty ache of his stomach. Orange was holding a piece of yellowfin tuna, hardly the size of two mouthfuls, clearly showing it to Slaine. It might’ve been another game, another trap, but Slaine couldn’t help himself from stilling and staring as Orange took a step after careful step towards his tank. Slaine let out a sound he meant as a warning, but it came out more as a whine.

Orange was now closer than ever, just outside of the invisible wall. Movements slow and predictable the brunette climbed up to the top of the tank, just as slowly as Slaine lowered himself to the bottom of it. Holding the eye contact Orange let the tuna drop into the tank, which was filled with its taste almost immediately. Slaine could hardly keep himself from pouncing the fish part on impact. He willed his body to wait, trembling with anticipation until Orange climbed down and backed far enough.

Still holding himself back Slaine carefully inspected the piece of tuna. It wasn’t completely fresh but hadn’t been dead for longer than a few days either. Not that Slaine cared too much even if it was already dead, he wasted no more time in burying his fangs into it and gulping it down in one bite.

There was some rustling around, Orange was moving around the outside of the tank. Slaine hissed in warning, but it didn’t seem like the land creature was interested in getting his fish back.

Instead Orange moved around for a while fumbling with what looked like a large sheet of seaweed. After a bit of trial and error Orange seemed satisfied with his sheet and began setting it up around the tank, little by little covering Slaine in darkness. The blond didn’t care enough to protest Orange being so close to the tank. The darkness felt safer than the white, artificial cave anyway.

He was deceiving himself, of course. Covering under a blanket didn’t change his bizarre situation one bit. But it did make him feel slightly less nervous, and at this point Slaine was ready to grab onto anything that felt the least bit reassuring.

Slaine didn’t remember falling asleep when he jolted awake. For good half a second everything felt alright, like he had been drowsing in the deeps while the rest of the pod kept watch. Then he tasted the staling seawater and felt the faint rumbling vibrating all around him, reflecting on the walls of the tank.

Carefully, Slaine slid up for a breath. There were people in the cave outside of his hiding place, he could hear them chatting. Three, maybe four land creatures. He slowly lowered himself back underwater. He could hear sounds from further above and around the white cave. Slaine pushed the implications out of his mind. Getting lost in his own helplessness would do no good. He just needed to stay aware and above the situation, not be tricked into covering again, and more than anything, not think too much. There was just one goal, the original goal: to return to his pod.

“FormetotreatthewoundsIwouldneedtosedateit.Istillthinkit’soutofquestion.”

“Itneedstohaveatleasttheragularcheckupsdone.” The one speaking was probably the matriarch of the land creature’s pod. Slaine remembered her from the beach. “Weshould’vetakenourtimeonthebeach.”

“Thetidewasalreadycomingbackin,wedidtherightthing.”

“Howaboutthetankonthesterndeck?Wewon’tbeusingitthistrip.”, a little one spoke up.

“It’stoorisky.It'srightbythereiling.”

Slaine heard Orange say something in his monotone. He understood nothing of the conversation, but it didn’t matter. What mattered was getting back to the sea. To get back on his migration route he needed to get his health back up, and to do that he needed to eat and heal. Slaine felt anxiety grip around his heart, but he pushed the feeling away to the best of his abilities. It was getting harder to fool himself, but he might as well try, because the alternative…

“-butwhyitalwayshastobeyou!Nao,youcanletotherstakecareofthingssometimes,youknow!”

There was an argument brewing. Slaine hadn’t been listening before, but now he strained to will his ears to understand the foreign sounds. Just in case he sank to the bottom of the tank. Anger couldn’t be a good sign.

“Ihavestudiedthemostforthis.BesidesI’mnotdoingitalone,InkoanddoctorYagaraiareinamuchmoreimportantrolethanIam.”

“Still!”

Someone was arguing with Orange. Or more likely, at Orange, since it didn’t seem to bother the brunette one bit. The matriarch was quick to dissolve the situation, Slaine blew out a few bubbles and let himself relax. As much as he could with his aching body anyway.

“…notimelikethepresent.It’lltakeaweektoreachtheCenter,sothere’syourdeadline.Now,everyone,enoughchit-chattingforawhile,backtowork!”

The weird meeting seemed to be over. Slaine circled his tank. He had barely enough space to turn, his sides touching the walls at every turn. He opted to spiralling the small space up and down instead.

Light pouring into his small drop of sea pulled Slaine from his thoughts. Alarmed, he clicked and backed away. Some of the sheet covering his tank was pulled away. There were three creatures left in the white cave still. One of the little ones, a big one and Orange. They seemed to have gathered around something the brunette held in his hands.

“Ithoughtthedolphinswereactingweird!Maybethat’swhy.” The little one seemed excited. “ItwasthefirsttimeI’dheardpatternslikethat,too!”

“It’salsothekindofbehaviourwehavealreadywitnessed.Icantestthehypothesisrightaway.”

Slaine paced nervously, keeping his eyes on Orange. The little one he could take (probably), the big one seemed to have a soft disposition (as long as he kept his distance), but Orange was harder to read. Besides the brunette had cornered him once already.

Something was exchanged between the little one and Orange. Slaine glanced at the big one. He was watching Slaine with a hard to read expression that somehow made him feel nostalgic. There was a short silence-

“Hello.”

Slaine whipped his head back to meet Orange’s eyes, staring at him from across the white cave.

“Ohmygod.Doitagain,Inaho!Again!”

Keeping his eye contact, Orange inhaled, placed something shiny on his mouth and-

“Hello.”

Slaine’s mind was racing into thousand different directions, but he couldn’t follow any of them. Nothing made any sense. Feeling out of breath, he did what he had been taught to do as a calf. He answered when called.

“…Hello.”

The cave positively exploded. Or well, the little one did.

“Itwasasignature!Itwasasignature!Ohmygod,Inaho,thespinnerswererepeatingasignature!”

Realising he had just spoken with a land creature and alarmed by the little one’s excitement Slaine leaned further away from the creatures. The little one was babbling and speaking to a small box, the big one seemed taken back but calm, and Orange… There was no knowing what was running in his mind, but he held the shiny thing tightly in his hands as he observed Slaine’s confusion.

“Hello.”, Orange whistled again and sat down, crossing his tails. Slaine briefly wondered how weird it must have been to control not one but two tails.

Things seemed to calm down in the cave after that. The big one and the small one came a bit too close for comfort, talking in their odd sounds, emerged on drawing small symbols all the while Orange sat on the floor whistling “hello” every now and again and making notes of his own. Slaine didn’t bother to answer again. It became clear by the third “hello” that Orange had no idea what he was saying.

It was pathetic.

It wasn’t long until it became infuriating.

The last words spoken to him that Slaine had understood had been the dolphins calling for him, coaxing him out of the tuna net. He hadn’t heard or seen them since. The land creatures truly were like orcas; they played with their food. Orange was playing some game again, taunting him. Slaine liked it less and less by the second.

“Hello.”

He slammed his tail to the side of the tank again, causing the little one to jump in the corner of his vision. Water poured out from the sides of the tank from his sudden movements. Orange’s eyes widened with surprise. There was nothing dignified in what Slaine shouted at the brunette after that, and even the land creatures seemed to understand that much.

Hastily getting up from the floor Orange whistled again. It was a different whistle, a flat monotone. A meaningless sound to everyone in the room.

Slaine blew bubbles in frustration but stopped his tantrum. He started turning in sharp circles instead. Exerting his body so much hurt, but he was too annoyed to care. His shows of power had had some effect so far, at least. The three creatures were conversing and not bothering him anymore.

“Hello.”

Oh, they were just asking for it.

With a sharp hiss Slaine turned back to the creatures only to be met by the monotone whistle again. He scowled at Orange who repeated the whistle, then handed the shiny thing to the small one. The small one whistled too, a different note with a little jump at the end. A cheery tone despite her expression betraying the earlier scare she had had. The object moved on to the big one, who too whistled another tone, a start to a playful melody.

If these were common whistles among their pod, Slaine didn’t recognise one them.

“Hello.”

The land creatures repeated their whistles. Slaine’s tail was twitching as he understood. Those were not common whistles, they were signatures.

They were trying to communicate their names.

Suddenly Slaine felt nervous and angry at the prospect. It felt forbidden. Surely there was a reason his pod always hid deeper when they heard ships passing above. Reason for the hatred the old bull carried with him. Slaine had already gotten his own proof of that. He didn’t want any more.

But still, he was stuck. There was no way around the fact that the land creatures had him exactly where they wanted him, and Slaine could do nothing about it. As much as he wanted to ward the thoughts away for just a little while longer, the realities he was faced with started to sink in. There wasn’t really any choice anymore, no deeps to dive into, no direction to swim to, no rocks to hide in.

What Slaine had was a tank of staling seawater.

“…Hello.”, he whistled back. Apparently that was his name again.

Holding eye contact with each of the creatures Slaine greeted them with the signatures they had given themselves. The little one was positively beaming again, hardly letting Slaine finish before she started talking excitedly. The big one was more reserved, with a troubled look which quickly morphed into a warm smile when he turned to the little one. Orange was harder to read.

Slaine didn’t care enough to try too hard.

“Hello.”, Orange whistled again, gaining Slaine’s attention back to him. The call was followed by a high, sharp whistle and Orange shoving him a piece of tuna. A cut off tail of a small juvenile yellowfin. Slaine scoffed inwardly. He didn’t need to be taught like a calf.

“Orange, tuna, Hello.”, Slaine demanded on a whim, partly just to see how the creatures would react to a full sentence. As full as he could produce in their language yet, anyway. Orange seemed taken back a little at least, Slaine noted proudly. It took a couple of seconds for the others, but they seemed to get it too.

Slaine didn’t care for the other one’s reactions, though. Orange wasted no time in approaching the tank with the tuna tail. Slaine was fairly sure he knew what was going on this time around, but he sank to the bottom of the tank anyway, just in case.

“Hello tuna.”, Orange whistled once again before dropping the tail in.

“I’m not tuna, but okay.”, Slaine couldn’t keep an amused smile from sneaking to his face. Orange stared at him like a curious pufferfish from the top of the tank. “Yeah, yeah, thank you. For the tuna anyway.”

Slaine grabbed the tuna, and in a test of boundaries flipped his tail sharply enough to cause the water on the surface to splash on Orange’s stupid face. It wouldn’t have been half as hilarious if the brunette didn’t just stay put on his ladder staring into a void, dripping wet.

“He’saplayfuloneforsure.”, the big one seemed amused, at least. The little one was laughing. Slaine too blew a burst of bubbles to hide the anxiety he was feeling over the possibility of overstepping some boundary he didn’t know existed. There was no retaliation on Orange’s part, however, only a calm glance that spoke much more than anything else the creature had managed to do or say so far. Not that it was implyinng much on his intellect, considering Orange had just called Slaine a tuna.

Not that Orange knew it himself, but small victories were to be relished, as petty as they were.

They were communicating. Despite his reservations Slaine recognised it as a good thing. It meant that he wasn’t in any imminent danger as long as he kept himself vigilant.

“…Intellectualcreaturessareoftenalsoplayful.Crowsforexample-"

“Inaho, getdownfromthere,youlookridiculous.”, the little one giggled. Slaine had heard her repeat the word Inaho often. Orange responded before Slaine could finish his thought.

“WhatIlooklikedoesn’tmatter.AsIwassaying,crowsandalsodolphinsforexample…”

Maybe it was a signature? Slaine tried to silently mouth the word, but the movements felt foreign. He didn’t know how to make an n -sound without clicking.

The big one and the little one were leaving the white cave as Slaine directed his focus back to his surroundings. Orange stood near the tank drying his hair and observing the young merman thoughtfully. Slaine was pretty sure his name among the creatures was Inaho. The little one might’ve been Inko, and of the big one he couldn’t decide on yet, there were too many variations.

What a weird language the land dwellers had, with sounds that hardly carried even on air and would surely be lost at sea. The sounds were foreign, all on a narrow set of frequencies. Slaine had no idea how to make half of them, but it didn’t seem as complicated as the language the sperm whales spoke. Slaine could sing with most whales, so he would just need to see how far he could get with commons and figure out the rest from there.

Idly playing with the tail fin of the tuna, all that was now left of his meal, Slaine too observed Orange and went over whatever information he had so far. It was clear that the land creatures had pods with matriarchs and some sort of internal structure. They could move freely on land, they breathed air, had a culture and a language. They had tools more complicated than the ones merfolk needed. They preferred being dry over being vet. They had taken him off the sea, put him in a tank of invisible walls in a white artificial cave and then given him a piece of a dead fish. They acted like orcas in many ways but differed greatly in others.

Then again, orcas went for the whale calves, seals and others with more substantial blubber, not for the merfolk. Slaine’s kind was too bony for their taste. He had even heard of some of his kind migrating with pods of transient orca. Maybe it was the same for the land creatures? His pod was once approached in the arctic by a playful juvenile orca, quickly chased off by the sperm whales who didn’t care for it. Maybe the land creatures were just curious too?

Orange was closer to the tank now, holding his hand to the invisible wall. In no other animal had Slaine ever seen a hand like the ones his people had. Yet here was one right in front of him, with fingers and opposable thumbs, just like his. If the land creatures were curious of him, so was Slaine’s own curiosity of them stirring.

“Hello”, Orange greeted him. Slaine met the steady gaze of the brunette’s red eyes.

“Hello, Orange.”, he greeted back, tilting his head to the side. There wasn’t really anything else either of them could say that the other would understand. Orange seemed to mull over something in his head.

“Hello.”, Orange whistled, looking intently at Slaine. There were questions Slaine wanted to ask, but he stayed quiet so as to not complicate the interaction, instead waiting for what was coming up. He felt somewhat sleepy now that he had a full belly again.

“Orange.”, the brunette now pointed at himself, eyes willing Slaine to understand something. The young merman pinched his brow in confusion.

“Tuna.”, Orange pointed at the fin Slaine was holding. So they were going over basic vocabulary now?

Orange pointed past Slaine with a pregnant silence. Slaine checked behind him, but there was nothing. There was a question hanging in the silence though, but he didn’t get it.

“Hello”, Orange called him again, first pointing past the blond and then holding his own shoulder before pointing past Slaine again.

Slaine lifted his hand to his broken shoulder, even the light touch sending shockwaves down his spine. Suddenly he felt incredibly weak in front of the land creature. Orange was pointing at his injured left arm. They had noticed it. Of course they had, despite Slaine’s best efforts to hide his limp and the fact that he could barely move the arm anymore. The bitemark had started to heal but the rest of his shoulder was covered in dark blotches, some from bruising, the more painful ones from internal bleeding caused by the fracture tearing through the surrounding tissues.

“Hello.”, Orange insisted.

Slaine clicked angrily at the brunette, but there was no real force behind it. His arm was busted, Slaine knew that much, and he didn’t need reminders on the matter. In his pod he could have healed it in peace, but with the additional fracture from the net and continual stress on it after, he wasn’t sure if it could heal properly anymore.

So, hurt he hissed and clicked at Orange to leave it alone.

Which Orange of course chose to not understand.

Instead he presented something in front of Slaine, a thin dark rectangle of sorts. In it there was a shark. An image of a great white breaching with most of its body out of water, an unfortunate seal pup in its jaws. Slaine could feel all the colour escaping from his face and his body turning cold. He hadn’t seen the shark that night clearly enough to identify its species, but then again, he was attacked from behind and under just like a great white would do.

He had been thrown out of the sea by the shark much like the terrified pup in the image. How could Orange know? Surely it wasn’t just a guess.

Blue eyes wide, Slaine raised his focus back to Orange, who made no attempt to hide his staring. He wasn’t sure what he was feeling, if anything. The eyes and the gills, a desperate memory echoed in Slaine’s mind, but the feeling didn’t reach him. An old teaching, one of the first ones he had ever been taught and yet it had taken him so long to remember when needed. The eyes and the gills.

There was another picture in the rectangle now, and it took a while for Slaine to recognise himself in it. It was his left side, lying on something white, dotted with drying sand. He had had no way of knowing how much worse the bruising looked like on his back, nor how his shoulder was hanging in an unnatural position. The angry toothmarks of the initial shark attack and the rake marks from when Slaine started fighting back ripped through the dark blotches.

The initial bite was one thing, but his cumulated injuries were a completely different story. Slaine had been limping for weeks now, surviving on seaweed and the dolphins’ charity, barely prolonging the inevitable. Even if he still had his pod for support, injury of this kind would’ve been bad news.

He wouldn’t be able to heal from this.

He was going to die.

“Hello.”

Orange was like a rock in a storm and feeling lightheaded Slaine laid his hand where the land creature had held his against the wall. He was going to die. It might not be by a shark, not by a net, not by being beached or even by the land creatures. It wasn’t going to be that fast or merciful.

“Hello!”

Sharp sounds bouncing around him pulled Slaine from his mind. Orange was knocking on the wall, demanding his attention. Slaine breached up for a gulp of air and sank back down feeling shaky and tired, humouring the creature.

“Hello, big one.”, Orange whistled.

“I’m not the big one. The big one is the big one but he’s not here.”, Slaine dismissed, not understanding what Orange was babbling about. How could the brunette even babble nonsense when all he knew were a handful of signatures and one invented word, none of them particularly useful or important.

“Hello, big one.”, Orange repeated, pointing at Slaine’s shoulder. “Hello, tuna.”

“…So the big one, my shoulder something and I get tuna?”, Slaine interpreted, bewildered. What the hell was going on? He was too tired for this.

“Hello, tuna.”, Orange repeated, satisfied as if they had just reached an agreement over something. He turned to walk away from the tank.

“Oh, no you don’t!”, Slaine whistled after Orange. “What do you mean ‘my shoulder the big one’, or whatever?”

That was the moment the big one himself decided to walk in. He took a look at Slaine and then turned to Orange with a sigh.

“Ithoughtyouweresupposedtokeephimcalm.”, there was some humour mixed in with the concern in the big one’s voice.

“Iexplainedwhat’sgoingtohappen,butIdon’tthinkhetookitverywell.”, Orange seemed puzzled.

“Idon’tthinkhegotitatall,tobehonest.” The big one was covered in white seaweed. Slaine had never seen white seaweed before. There was a bag of shiny tools, and another creature covered in white came in.

“We’veestablishedhimasaconscious,thinkingbeingwithacomplexunderstandingoflanguage.Imadesuretobeclear.”, Orange seemed awfully certain of himself.

There were more creatures coming into the white cave. Slaine recognised Inko and the matriarch of their pod but couldn’t decide for the others. Some of the voices he recognised from the beach. He was getting agitated and disoriented again. What was happening?

“You’reusuallynotexactlyclear, Inaho.” Red was there too, looking as impassive as ever.

“Everyone,settle.”, the matriarch seemed to be giving orders, and the room quieted down, all eyes on her. Slaine too couldn’t help himself from hanging onto her words, as little sense as they made to him. Somehow the sounds felt muffled. Orange scooted back next to his tank, having now covered his hands in something. The lights in the cave were too bright.

“Thisisn’ttheidealsituation,butwe’llhavetodowithwhatwe’vegot. Doctoryagarai willhavethefinalsayonthismatter,we’rehereonlyfortheheavylifting-”

Slaine wasn’t sure what happened, but while listening the rising and falling of the matriarch’s voice he was limply sinking to the bottom of the tank and then suddenly being pulled up again. He gulped in a breath of fresh air on instinct as he breached the surface, his head lulling to the side. There was a sharp pain shooting from his shoulder as the arm was disturbed. From a distance he could hear whimpering. It took a while for Slaine to realise he was the one making the pitiful sounds.

“Carefulwiththeleftside!”

“Iknow.”, Orange’s voice was coming from right by his ear, the brunette’s strained breath tangling itself in his damp hair. The creatures weren’t wearing seaweed, the material felt different, Slaine realised as his head hung against Orange’s shoulder. There were others too, climbing the side of the tank like crabs, but Slaine couldn’t recognise them.

In one moment he was laying beached on dry ground again, half covered with wet clothes and surrounded by hushed talking. He should’ve been terrified, but he wasn’t. He was just tired. Breathing was laborious, but it didn't feel impossible this time.

The next moment he had been turned over, there was some pain, but it was far away. There was a crack, followed by a pop, gibberish muttered under breath from above him. Water pouring over his tail, his arms being moved this and that way, someone fiddling with his flukes, feeling along his dorsal ridge and a faint taste of blood in the air.

A hazy memory of being turned again, his mouth being held open, uncomfortable light in his eyes.

Trying to move his tail to no avail. Someone wiping his face. Blinking in and out of darkness.

Diving into the midnight zone with the bull, Slaine listened to him click away his stories. Slaine’s father had been skilled with mending wounds. The bull told Slaine that his father had once, long ago, pulled a harpoon out of his back.

It had been the first and the last thing he ever had heard about his birth pod.

Slaine could taste the tuna in the air. It was disgusting.

He had barely registered his own nausea when he was already vomiting. The ground underneath him vibrated almost painfully from the steps around him. Someone turned his head to the side so he wouldn’t choke, another one poured water over his drying face, washing away the sick.

Slaine was heaving painfully to get every last piece of the tuna tail he had eaten out. There was something wrong with it. The tuna must've been rotten. A weight was holding him back from doubling over on the ground, and Slaine felt too drained and painful to fight it. His left side and arm felt raw and disturbed. He tried bucking the one straddling him off with his tail, but his movements were too uncoordinated to be effective.

“Hey,hey,shhh,it’sallright,it’sallright-”

There was strained cooing above him, but Slaine didn’t listen to it. He was too busy calling for his pod and the old bull. He even threw in a call for the dolphins, just in case any were nearby.

“Hello.”

The mundane greeting cut violently through Slaine’s wailing and the rising distress of the land creatures all around him.

“Hello.”

Lifting his head was taxing, but even more so was seeing Orange sitting right by his side, whistling. Someone was holding him to the ground as Doctoryagarai, or whatever the hell the big one was called, strapped Slaine’s shoulder in place. Slaine could feel his dry skin cracking where water hadn’t been poured over in a while.

The tuna had been a game after all, Slaine thought dispassionately.

“Hello, tuna.” Orange seemed a bit on edge, like he had just realised a mistake and was trying to patch it up.

Slaine scoffed and turned his head away.

Chapter Text

Slaine’s stomach stayed as empty as ever after that. He either swam in mindless circles, his sides touching the walls at every turn, or stayed completely still, snoozing vertically. Any time there was a piece of tuna dropped in, sometimes followed with cooing of “Hello” and “tuna”, he threw the nasty piece of meat out of his tank.

There must’ve been something wrong with the tail.

Slaine couldn’t otherwise explain how it all had happened. How he had lost the strength to move his own body, how his own mind had failed him in its drowsiness.

And what had followed.

Slaine shook himself. He had gotten lax in his hunger and exhaustion, and he couldn’t let that happen again. For a brief moment he had let himself relax and shown his vulnerability to Orange. Their attempt at conversation had given much needed relief for Slaine. He had felt a connection for a moment.

Now he doubted that.

Whatever had happened Slaine tried to shut out of his mind. There was nothing he could do about it anyway. It was for the best to just forget it ever happened. Just like everything else going on in the cave. Slaine was only faintly aware that there were land creatures coming and going, speaking and sometimes whistling to him.

The woven bag Slaine had left behind tangled on the floater now rested on the table across the cave, it’s insides carefully separated and displayed. The spearhead made out of a stingray’s tail spike, a short bundle of rope and the leftover seaweed were all painfully examined by Orange and a few others. Somehow that corner of the white cave had quickly become a workshop, where two or three creatures had brought different types of seaweed and were apparently fascinated with weaving their own bags, comparing techniques and taking notes. Which was fair enough, Slaine supposed dryly.

Doctoryagarai spent half of his time fussing around the tank and the rest arguing with people who didn’t do much listening. Frustration was seeping off the man and making Slaine think twice about his earlier assessment of him. Orange was the anger’s first target, before Doctoryagarai moved on to the outside of the white cave where Slaine could still follow the sounds of his determined steps. Distancing himself mentally from the white cave, Slaine started to build a map of his surroundings in his mind with the man’s steps as a guide.

There were three layers that he could distinct between, himself being kept in the bottom layer. Doctoryagarai and most of the other steps Slaine could feel were concentrated on the layer above him. Around him was the layer from where most of the constant rumbling vibrating through the tank appeared to originate from. There were occasional sounds, but most of the creatures aside from Orange and a few others stayed on the upper levels.

He didn't know how to feel about the fact that he was surrounded by so many but only ever saw a few of the creatures. Maybe it was just the way their pod worked?

Someone had been knocking on the tank’s wall, probably trying to get Slaine’s attention since he didn’t respond to whistles anymore. The knocks were bouncing around him, a loop of relentless reflections hitting him from all sides as if he was swimming in a tank of mirrors. He didn’t care for what he saw in them.

Slaine felt worse for the wear, but at least his left side wasn’t dragging as much anymore. His shoulder was bound into the correct position, much like a member of his own pod might’ve done. The material was weird, a single grey sleeve wrapped tightly around his upper arm and shoulder, covering also some of his upper back and chest, tying off somewhere on his backside where he couldn’t reach even when he tried. The constraining feeling was uncomfortable, but Slaine begrudgingly recognised it for what it most likely was: help.

Which was exactly what made it all so troubling.

Being lost and alone, chased, trapped, tired, confused, tricked, feeling frantic, terrified and disoriented in the face of what he believed was a certain death…

And all of that resulted with a glorified sling on his arm and a promise of dead fish. And apparently also some sort of merfolk-inspired craft-club on the side.

All because he had been too damn occupied with the sky instead of keeping up with his pod.

To say that the young merman was emotionally drained would’ve been the understatement of the century. He wanted nothing more than to lock his healthy arm around the old sperm whale bull’s pectoral fin and fall asleep being tolled between the deep, cool layers of the ocean. Slaine would’ve happily dived with him to the deepest drenches of the midnight zone to see the leviathans for himself.

Anything to not have Orange right outside of the invisible wall, trying to offer him his spoiled tuna, looking even more stoic than usual.

Slaine had wilfully refused any further contact with the brunette, and the message was finally starting to sink into Orange’s thick skull.

Inko was the first one to do it, Slaine was pretty sure. An intruding object was dropped into his tank. It wasn’t tuna, or anything else edible, that much Slaine could feel on impact. Inborn curiosity guiding him, Slaine caught the palm sized object before it could sink to the bottom. He turned it around and was surprised to see himself looking back. It was a small mirror, size and shape of a shell, but the nacre was the most reflective one he had ever seen.

Fascinated, Slaine turned the object around in his hands. It wasn’t a shell, and the nacre wasn’t really nacre, he realised as he knocked it with his claws and tried its weight. He inspected the object thoroughly and with the help of the mirror checked his strapped shoulder before finding a secure corner to keep it safe.

The next day there was another object, this time from Doctoryagarai. Slaine hissed as the man approached his tank. Despite that he eagerly inspected what was given. He had seen the contraption around the man’s neck often, a long narrow rope with three heads.

After that the bottom of Slaine’s tank started to fill with all different kinds of trinkets visiting creatures decided to throw in. He studied them all in great detail, organised and reorganised them whenever a new one fell in. It wasn’t a behaviour he was used to: he had only ever had what he could carry himself. His species wasn’t one to make permanent nests. It gave Slaine something to busy himself with, nonetheless.

Orange stayed out of the cave for longer and longer periods, until a complete day passed without his silent presence.

Slaine was bored out of his mind. The trinkets he had been given laid organised around the tank’s corners. He ended up picking a few of them and balancing them on his flukes, dropping and catching them again, remembering how he had played with the dolphins. Tossing around alone didn’t hold his interest for long, though. With nothing else to do, Slaine started popping up and down in the tank, breaching every few minutes.

With the curtains down and alone, there was nothing else to occupy his time with. He didn’t miss the creatures per se, but having at least someone around was way better than the utter uselessness Slaine felt alone.

In a week his pod could already be a thousand kilometres away. Slaine felt restless when he let himself face the fact. He was going to have to migrate alone, there was no reaching them anymore, even if he got out of the tank and knew the route the old bull was taking.

Slaine blew out bubbles. There was only so much sleeping he could do, so he ended up just spinning in mindless circles or popping up and down in the tank when nothing else was going on. In his restlessness Slaine bumped into the walls, sometimes accidentally, sometimes on purpose.

Slaine spent most of the next day just floating, his body sore from swimming repeatedly into the walls the previous night. He sank to the bottom of the tank if someone came too close, but that only happened a couple of times, mainly when Doctoryagarai made his rounds. There were people in the cave with him all day, but they didn’t bother him and stayed at a respectable distance.

Which was nice.

It was also lonely.

There was a commotion right outside of the white cave that caught Slaine’s interest. He could hear running steps and cheers followed by stern voices. Moments later, a group of people spilled in, gleaming with anticipation. There was a new creature being paraded, a young blond male with an unrestrained smile. He was holding a bucket of sorts, balancing the water inside, and followed closely by Inko and another little one Slaine rarely saw, all excited. Orange came in last, focusing on Slaine as soon as he entered.

Slaine didn’t hide his disapproval of Orange but was too curious of the new arrivals to completely shut them out either. So instead he fiddled with his trinkets, keeping his ears primed on their gibberish. It might’ve not made sense, but at least he could listen for the emotions.

“I don’tthinkit’sagoodidea.Ifanything,myinvolvementwillonlyendangerthewhole…”

“Aw,shutit, Inaho. Ofcourseit’llbe you! There’snomeaningtoitifit’smeor Inko!”, the young blonde male seemed enthusiastic, as he pushed the bucket into Orange’s arms. Slaine could already see where this was going, and he didn’t appreciate it. Orange looked carefully up from the bucket, turning his gaze to Slaine. Slaine hissed in answer.

“I really-“

“Goon, Inaho! Itwas your ideaanyway,sohebetterappreciateit!”

Apparently, Orange didn’t want anything to do with what was going on. Slaine didn’t know whether he should be glad or anxious about the prospect. The brunette argued some more, but Slaine watched as the other creatures finally pushed him into climbing the side of his tank while they grinned. Glaring at them all Slaine sank to the bottom, anxiously waiting for whatever was coming this time.

Orange tipped the bucket over, and the taste of fresh water filled Slaine’s senses. It didn’t taste the same as the waters surrounding the island he had been beached on or any of the currents he had travelled before. Slaine couldn’t focus on that though, because as the fresh water mingled into the tank’s stale seawater, new life was exploding out of the bucket, shooting in this and that direction, casting shadows in his sonar before he even realized they were there.

Three new lives, to be exact. Some sort of perch, Slaine could feel their shape, were released into the tank and were now exploring its boundaries in a tight formation. Dumbfounded and still as a rock, Slaine followed the perch circling as they established their new grounds.

How long had it been since the last time Slaine had eaten a full meal? He’d puked out the tuna Orange gave him before and refused any more of the rotten meat. He had been given an occasional shrimp or squid by the dolphins, between that he had only had seaweed. His last actual meal must’ve been when Slaine had last hunted with his pod almost a month ago.

Slaine wasn’t a creature evolved to forage food from a shallow seabed or scavenge what others had left behind. It wasn’t in his nature, and moreover, it wasn’t enough to sustain him, which was more than evident in his current malnourished state. He was a deep-diving predator and his life depended on his ability to actively hunt, now more than ever since he was without a pod.

He couldn’t hunt, though. Not with half of his body dragging him down. He couldn’t trust the dead fish Orange tried to give him either.

But the perch in his tank were very much alive and very much trapped just like him. If there ever was an easy target, this was it. Slaine was pretty sure with the volume of the tank he could even just simply stun the fish with a burst of his sonar, much like the sperm whales did to some of their prey.

Slaine didn’t care about the land creatures gawking at him anymore. He didn’t care if it was another game. The fish seemed healthy enough.

A wild smile growing on his face, Slaine bounced and chased the fish in teasing circles, just enjoying feeling their movements in his sonar. Despite the small tank it was the first time in a month he felt fully like himself. The chase felt good and familiar, even though he ran into the walls at every turn. The poor creatures swam for their lives, joining and separating, franticly searching for an escape route that Slaine knew didn’t exist. He could feel sympathy for them, but there was no pity when he snatched one with his healthy arm and wasted no time in sinking his fangs into the still very much alive and kicking fish.

“Well…ugh,thatwentbetterthananticipated.”, Slaine lifted his gaze, mouth full of half dead fish, to the new creature who was blatantly staring with an expression conflicted somewhere between feeling joy or being grossed out. Inko was cheering, and Orange was once again emerged in his rectangle.

“Soprettymuchlikeadolphinhehastroubleadjustingtofeedingondeadfish.”, Inko gleamed at him. Orange shrugged. The two surviving perch circled nervously the tank’s walls, huddled side by side. Slaine clicked softly to follow their movements. He was satisfied with just the one for the time being. “Suchanobviousthing,andnobodyrealizes.”

The land creatures seemed pretty happy with themselves.

“I doubtitwasjustthefish.”, Orange barely lifted his focus from the rectangle as he fetched a chair and sat down next to the tank.

“Backtowatchduty, I see.”, the new human had a teasing tone.

“I wasconcernedofanegativeresponsestomypresense,but I appeartohavemisjudged.” Without a glance to Slaine, Orange settled down like he had never left.

They had spent an hour alone in somewhat comfortable silence, Orange glued to his rectangle and Slaine carefully keeping watch on the land creature, already bored again but too suspicious of Orange to do anything about it. The two perches were snuggling in his hair whenever he stayed still. They were busy cleaning his scalp, their simple fish-brains having already forgotten their more unfortunate friend.

The brunette had dropped into the tank a long black line, with one end attached to a metallic cylinder-thing submerged in the water and the other end stuck to his gadget. Yet another line threaded from the rectangle to Orange’s ears.

At first, Slaine had tried to investigate the new thing but Orange was quick to pull it away. When Slaine had huffed and decided to lay down on the bottom instead, Orange had slowly lowered the cylinder back down again.

That meant war.

With a stroke of his tail Slaine lunged himself almost out of the tank as he grabbed the cylinder with his good hand. Taken aback, Orange nearly fell backwards on the steep ladder he was standing on before being yanked back by the line he was holding. The brunette doubled down, dangling half in the tank for a good second before he managed to push himself up.

His upper half soaking wet, Orange tried to pull the line to retrieve his precious tube. Which wasn’t going to happen, as far as Slaine was considered. He bit down on the thing for a taste test.

“Hello! No!Don’tbreakit!”

As Orange was busy holding onto the line and repeating a new whistle (one that Slaine could easily deduce meant “no”, but decided to not understand), Slaine was prodding the cylinder to find out what was so special about it. That was when a woman holding a long stick burst into the cave.

“Don’t you darehurtasingle-“

“Yuki, plugthemic!”

The woman stopped in her tracks as she saw what had now pretty much become a tug of war. “Nao, I saw you getpulledinfromthecontrolroom-“

“Hewasafterthemic.Plugitintomytablet!”

With a look that screamed “we’re going to have a conversation” the woman – Yuki, if Slaine had heard correctly – put down her stick and picked up the end of the cord, sticking it to the rectangle Orange always had with him. She got it in on her third try.

The cave was instantly filled with a cacophony of turbulent sounds that took everyone by surprise.

“Whatthehell, Nao!?”, Yuki was holding her ears. Slaine too let out a startled whine that for his surprise echoed in the room with the rest of his clicks meant for inspecting the cylinder. He let go of the thing like it was searing hot.

“Theheadphones.They’reonmychair.”, Now that Slaine had let go, Orange too let go of the line and rushed to silent his gadget. “Itwasabitlouderthan I anticipated…”

“Abit? I ‘llhavetinnitusfortherestofmylife.”

“Yes,thereweresomequitehighnotes. I ‘llneedtoconvertthefilelatertoproperlyseethehighertfrequences.”

Yuki huffed at Orange, picked up her stick and pointed its bristly end at Slaine.

“Neverscaremelikethatagain!”

“Whydo you haveabroom?”

“Uh.”, Yuki turned to Orange. The brunette was looking at her dispassionately, half of his focus already on the wavy patterns running on his tablet, wet hair sticking to his face. “…Nevermindthat.Justbecareful, Nao.”

“Ofcourse.”

Slaine had watched the interaction carefully. He tilted his head and the perch followed the movement softly, nestled in his hair again. The more he observed the creatures, the more familiar their dynamics appeared to him. They acted like any other pod.

Once Yuki had left, Slaine gingerly inspected the cylinder again. Orange had left it in the tank, floating half a meter below surface. As he poked it with his claw Slaine could see Orange flinch in his chair, holding his ears. Slaine hit the thing with his flukes just to make sure. That had Orange flying up from his seat.

Not wanting to waste a good game where he, for once, wasn’t on the receiving end, Slaine started doing surprise attacks at the mic. He’d casually swim by only to smack it. After laying still he’d suddenly whistle a random word loudly, preferably with a high note, but not too high for the land creature's ears. For the first three times he was rewarded with Orange flinching. After that the game evolved.

Orange had caught onto his tell, but what it was, Slaine didn’t know himself. Every time he tried to get the brunette off guard, Orange had already taken his headphones off only to put them back on after the attack. After a couple more botched attempts, they spent their time in a tense silence, Orange sitting still as a rock and Slaine swimming around in slow, calculating laps. They were sizing each other up, waiting for the other one to slip up.

There were no slip ups, however, so at some point they both just relaxed. Orange focused back into his studies and for Slaine, boredom descended on him once again.

The cylinder stayed in his tank even when Orange was not in the cave. Slaine suspiciously prodded it from time to time with his sonar, but nothing happened. He half expected for his voice to boom around the cave again, so he gingerly tried a few songs: one a common call, another one the call his pod used. Slaine even tried mimicking a few of the sound he heard the creatures repeat. He couldn’t do the consonants properly and ended up clicking most of them.

Slaine was mumbling to himself in a way that he didn’t usually do. It helped to ease some of the echoing in the tank to fill it with new sounds, though.

It also filled time.

Slaine ate one of the two remaining perches after a two day fast, much to the relief of everyone and even more so to Doctoryagarai.

Inko had been frequenting Slaine’s cave, talking animatedly to Orange. She would point and move around, speak with her body about as much as with her mouth. Sometimes she whistled, but not to Slaine, instead to Orange. She appeared to be teaching him. Slaine followed her intently, trying his best to figure out what was being taught. The whistles made him think it had to have something to do with him, but all of them were simple one note sounds and meant absolutely nothing to him.

Orange spent most of his time close to the tank again, reading and writing almost feverishly. For the most part Slaine just ignored him, but when he had once peeked at Orange’s rectangle he had seen tiny little spinner dolphins, jumping and racing each other. Other times Slaine could hear all different kinds of calls and whistles. At first he was confused about where they were coming from, but he soon realised that Orange’s gadget truly could also speak on command.

A bell echoed through the space, sending Inko away from the white cave with a good bye wave and a smile to Slaine. Slaine too raised his hand to mirror the gesture. Orange’s shuffling in the background to collect his things halted for a second before continuing. With another laugh, Inko was gone.

“Hello, Orange.”

Orange had learned to whistle the sounds on his own. He held his bag tight, pointed to himself, the door and lifted his hand for a wave much like Inko had done. The intention of the gesture was so painfully obvious that it would’ve been pathetic save for the serious look on Orange’s face. So, despite his better judgement, Slaine raised his hand and waved back.

Orange’s response was rather lacklustre. A wave of his hand, a small curl in the corner of his mouth, barely recognisable for a smile, and he was already out the door, leaving Slaine staring like an idiot.

It definitely must’ve been a carefully cultivated skill to be so annoying.

“Hello.”

It was Doctoryagarai who woke Slaine up from his daydream. All day the creatures had been packing their various crafting-projects in the white cave, cataloguing, comparing and constantly cross referencing with Slaine’s own meagre belongings. The cave had been bustling with people and noises, so Slaine was rather thankful when Orange had finally closed the curtains around his tank and let him rest in soothing darkness.

He was in the middle of just that, resting vertically upside down, his flukes almost breaching the surface when the man opened his curtains discreetly. The one remining perch had met its end only an hour earlier, and Slaine had saved its fins. It was rather nostalgic to examine them. As a calf he had liked play with fins.

“Hellothere.How’rewedoing?”, Doctoryagarai set down the bag he was carrying and started conversing in a calm manner. Slaine had noted that he didn’t much care if the blond understood him or not but was very careful to keep his tone pleasant and light around him. Slaine slowly slid upright, keeping his eyes on the man. He was the one who straddled on top of him when they gave him the rotten tuna and dragged him out of the tank. He was also the one who strapped his shoulder back in place after bending and popping it into the correct position, so maybe they were even. Slaine wasn’t sure just yet.

“You ’removingnormally, I see.Theshoulderseemstobesettledtoo.Could you -um-“, Doctoryagarai fumbled a little as he dug his whistle from his chest pocket.

“Hello, tuna.”

Slaine couldn’t help rolling his eyes. “I don’t want tuna.”

Doctoryagarai cocked his head, not understanding and clearly not having expected any answer to begin with.

“Okay.”, Slaine blew some frustrated bubbles, “Tuna. Hello. Doctoryagarai.” The man looked relieved at the familiar words but was careful to keep his demeanour calm and reassuring.

“Hello, shoulder.”

“Shoulder good.”, Slaine pointed his thumb up for emphasis. He had seen the land creatures do so when confirming a positive. A weird expression, but not the weirdest one he had seen so far. Doctoryagarai found it funny every time. Which was good, because that distracted him from the-

“Hello, shoulder.”, the creature repeated sternly, rolling his own shoulders for emphasis. “Shoulder, tuna.”

“I said I don’t want your tuna!”, Slaine snapped, but started moving his left arm from elbow down anyway, so that the man could see it better.

It hurt. It really hurt, all the way deep in his shoulder and skull. Doctoryagarai noticed it too and started fussing in his gibberish.

“Nononono,don’tmovetheelbow,justthattherestofthearmisgood.Fingersmovefine,good-“, the man turned around in a pirouette, “-would you turnforme?Please?No?Well,that’sfairenough I suppose.We’retheonesdoingthingsinthewrongorder.” He tried to peek at Slaine’s back, but that was way out of his comfort zone, so the young merman just kept turning with the man.

“We’regoingtohavetocheckiteventually, you know.”, Doctoryagarai smiled calmly as he wrote down his notes. He lifted his pen and pointed it at Slaine. “You maybestubbornand I maynotunderstandthefish-half,but I doknowathingortwoaboutbrokenshoulders.”

“It’snota’fish-half’.” At some point, Orange had sneaked into the now bare cave. Slaine shot him a glare. The brunette looked right back at him, unbothered. Slaine didn’t like surprises, especially when he couldn’t escape from them. “Accordingtowhatwehavediscoveredsofar,theonlythingheshareswithanyfishisahabitat.”

Doctoryagarai smiled fondly. “Andthat’swhy I ’mahuman-doctorinsteadofanaquaticveterinarian.Luckilourfriendherehasascapula,clavicleandhumerusinthesameplacesas you do.” Orange considered whatever was said for a while.

“We’rearrivinginanhour.Arethereanycomplications?”

Doctoryagarai gestured towards Slaine. “There’sonlysomuch I candobywatching.Everythingappearstobeinorder,thoughhe’sabittooeagertmovinghisarminmyopinion.It’sshovingsignsofstress. I thinkthebiggestproblem you ’regoingtohaveiskeeping him fromoverexertinghimself.”

Orange seemed to be in a thoughtful mood. Slaine tilted his head in confusion. There was something off about the land creature, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. Before Slaine could analyse the situation further, more people started popping in.

“Allreadyonthedeck.”, it was Calm, the young man who had brought Slaine the perches few days ago. “What’re you guyslookingallgloomyabout?All’sgoingwell.”

Inko came in right on Calm’s heel. “Transportwillbeacriticalstep.Aftersuchabadfirstexperiencetheyusuallydon’tusuallytaketookindlytoit.”

Slaine zoned out. Doctoryagarai appeared to be done with checking on his sling, so nothing more of interest was likely to happen. The blond rested his forehead against the tank wall. The perch fins he had felt happy about just half an hour ago now rested on the bottom of the tank with the rest of his collected junk. Slaine closed his eyes for a moment and just listened. He could still hear the ghost of himself being dropped into the tank from a week ago among everything else bouncing around in endless loops. The tank was a damn echo-chamber full of foreign sounds that had become way too familiar to him.

Chapter Text

The rumbling had changed. At first, Slaine didn’t even notice it. He felt carefully around as the vibrations resonating around his tank came in shorter and shorter pulses until finally stopping completely. Slaine shifted with the water. He hadn’t even realised they had been moving until after they had come to a stop. Waves lapped at the edges of the tank, water trying to continue on even though its surroundings didn’t.

Slaine could hear the creatures hurrying around on the other levels, their hasty steps mingled together until a few of them headed towards the white cave. Slaine laid on the bottom watching four new faces enter in. They were carrying a big blue container into the cave. As curious as he was, Slaine was also somewhat nervous. There had been many changes in the cave with all the packing during the last two days. That all had resulted with him circling in the tank unsure of what was happening and unable to find relief for his stress. The men left him alone again soon enough, however. It didn’t take long for Slaine to get bored again and eventually fall asleep.

He had snoozed only for some twenty minutes when people started entering the cave again. Some of them he could recognise as members of the craft-club who had been especially interested in his belongings, others he didn’t remember ever seeing before. They were casually chatting and moving around the space, but like it was with Orange earlier, something was off about them. They didn’t crowd him like they usually did. They neither stared, nor wrote notes. They were taking too long glances at him and giving him too much space while still slowly approaching the tank.

It all sent Slaine’s instincts into a frenzy. This was hunting behaviour.

In the lack of an escape route, after a couple of anxious breaches and circles Slaine lowered himself to the bottom of the tank again where he waited, eyes wide and senses primed to whatever was coming. Two of the twelve or so people climbed the sides, still conversing and trying to radiate their false sense of security. They let down a dense net along the inside of one wall of the tank. After it reached the bottom, they started carefully manoeuvring it so that they could slide it under and around Slaine, people on the other side pulling the net with ropes.

Which Slaine was not going to let happen.

At first, he just pressed himself flush to the bottom, but the men were manoeuvring the net quite skilfully and though soft, the material wasn’t forgiving. So Slaine started pushing it away with his good arm. That tactic wasn’t effective for long when more people came to the net, not losing a single centimetre they gained while Slaine fought to keep the net from getting in between him and the tank floor.

In his final effort Slaine attacked the ropes pulling the net, clawing at them and trying to cut them by biting them. He had hardly launched his attack when with one swoop the net was pulled under him and tightened, leaving him laid on his stomach half out of the water on the top of the tank.

Slaine breathed in heavily, and noticed that while it was laborious, he wasn’t choking. To his surprise he wasn’t that panicked either, mainly just pissed. There was a familiar voice right by his left side, already opening the knot on his grey sleeve.

“Therakemarkshavestartedtohealnicelyontheirown.Nosignsofinfection.Shoulderisstillsetinitsplace.” Doctoryagarai was checking on his back, his palm pressed lightly between his shoulder blades. Slaine tried to scoot away, but his body felt too heavy in the air. Someone was touching his tail.

“You ‘reokay.”, Doctoryagarai had his soothing voice on again. Slaine wasn’t too convinced, especially since he could hear some stress in it. “I ‘mnotcomfortablewithadministeringallthevaccinesinonego.We’vealreadyhadonebadreaction.Tobehonest I ’drathernotadministereventhese.”

“It’sthecenterpolicyandcan’tbehelped,but I canhavesomeoneelsedoit.”

Slaine felt a little huff of air against the back of his neck. Doctoryagarai laughed humourlessly before pinching the blond lightly on his upper arm and tying the sleeve back on. “Noneedforthat. I justwantedtogetmythoughtsonrecord. He ‘sall yours now.”

With a soft pat to Slaine’s back, Doctoryagarai climbed down only to let strangers take his place. With a heave Slaine was lifted completely out of the water, dangling in the net like a log.

Slaine had stayed relatively calm. Until that point.

Seeing the dry floor underneath made him panic. He didn’t like it. He didn’t like it at all. The last time he had been forced on dry land flashed through Slaine’s mind. Hands moving his body around, opening his mouth, prodding and poking, turning and twisting. The sickening feeling of not being able to control any of it.

“No! Put me back!”, Slaine trashed to the best of his abilities, trying to slip back into the tank to no avail. He’d take the stale water to the hard floor any day. He’d even turn when the doctor asks him to or try to communicate with Orange again, if that was what it took.

“Hello, shoulder.”

Speak of the devil. Slaine could recognise the brunette whistling even though he couldn’t see him from where he was. He was being carried to the container that had been brought in earlier, Slaine realised with a sinking feeling.

“Hello, good.”

“Hello no good!”, Slaine screeched, making sure to use the “no” that Orange had used just the day before on him. Despite looking like a damn pufferfish, he knew by now that Orange wasn’t stupid. He’d recognise the word.

“Hello, good.”, Orange whistled, set in his way. “Shoulder.”

“I don’t care about the shoulder, just put me back! No good! No!”

Slaine was slowly lowered into the long container even as he fought it at every turn, flopping his tail to offset his carriers’ balance and trying to grab to the container’s sides. The container was just big enough for him: some two meters long and a little less than a meter wide. The sides weren’t even a meter tall. There was some water inside but not nearly enough to submerge him. As the men tied the net to the sides of the container, Slaine clicked franticly to get a feel of his new surroundings. The walls were some sort of thick plastic and dark blue in colour, but other than that, there wasn’t much to observe. He was just flopping uselessly on the bottom, his body supported mainly by the net instead of the water.

As Slaine strained his neck to see above, he could finally spot Orange by the side of the container.

“No good.”, he protested again, a bit too weak for his own liking. Orange didn’t even blink before answering.

“Hello good.”

At least the water was colder.

That was about the only positive Slaine could think of as the container was surrounded by even more people who all together just barely had the strength to lift it. The container had to be moved and lowered several times before Slaine could taste fresh air and hear the sea gulls again. The creatures were taking shifts in moving him, some blabbering in their gibberish, others in a concentrated silence.

It didn’t help that Slaine kept nervously flipping his tail, a couple of times almost causing everyone to drop him. Not knowing what was going on made him anxious and twitchy, and even though he realised that staying still was what would keep him from falling, it was hard to do with his racing heart rate and instincts screaming at him to act. Slaine couldn’t really see outside of the container even though it didn’t have a lid, he didn’t have the strength to lift his upper body enough in the air. What he was left with were the dark walls and the sounds and movements rippling through the shallow water lapping at his sides.

Slaine had been able to approximate where they were based on the steps he had been listening during the last week, but after they climbed out of the bottom layer the creatures headed towards uncharted territory and Slaine was soon lost again. The sounds were changing too. There was a crunch to the creature’s steps now and another deep rumble that they inched towards. He could hear the matriarch’s voice somewhere near it.

As he was set down again, a stream of water wet his damp hair. When Slaine turned his head to look up he saw Orange above him, pouring water over his back with a ladle. Slaine didn’t protest; it felt nice on his drying skin. Someone else was making sure his tail stayed wet.

There was too much going on around him to keep a track on everything, so before he knew it, Slaine was being moved again. This time it was different though, the container was moving smoothly on its own. None of the creatures that had been by the container’s sides were there anymore, which freaked Slaine out. He tried to lift himself to see if no-one really was there but could only strain his neck enough to see a sliver of the sky before it too was obscured. The whole container had been raised with thick ropes that slacked as he landed with a thud.

He had landed in another cave, this one dark, Slaine noted. Flopping back and forth in the container, trying to get a better understanding of his new surroundings, Slaine caught a glimpse of Orange. More people appeared around him again, most giddy with excitement. The container was pushed further in for a meter or two, but after that everyone seemed to be happy with the outcome and even a couple of cheers erupted in between the high fives they gave each other and the pats on Slaine’s back and tail.

Slaine couldn’t understand what about this outcome was so worthy of a celebration. It was bizarre. If anything, he felt stunned and a bit nauseous.

Orange was quick to appear by the container again.

“Hello good.”, he whistled, as if his point had been proven. Which was absurd, since Slaine didn’t even know what point Orange was proving in the first place. This wasn’t good. This was bad. He couldn’t see or feel what was going on around him, he didn’t even have enough water to properly move himself! His own earlier thrashing had disturbed his shoulder, and it was once again throbbing painfully.

Slaine didn’t care to validate Orange with an answer. Instead he slapped his flukes to the shallow water in a petty attempt at getting back at the creatures. His splash caused the opposite effect; a new cheer erupted in the cave accompanied with a few pats on his tail. Hissing under his breath Slaine pushed his face against the net to get at least it underwater. His skin was crawling and Orange pouring water over his head didn’t help in the least.

“It’sfreakyseeingthehumanhalflyingfacedowninthewater.”

“Yeah,makesmewanttolift him up.”

They were definitely moving now, and it was nowhere near as smooth as it had been before. Slaine could feel every turn, every acceleration and deceleration, even the texture of the ground they were passing over. He had never experienced something like it. At some point Slaine had turned himself on autopilot, just focusing on following the movements so he could remember the way back.

Memorizing the route was mostly instinctual, but he couldn’t help but doubt the information would ever be needed.

There were two or three people by the container’s side at all times, pouring water over him and talking in hushed voices. There was even ice now, Orange had emptied a big bag of small cubes of it into the warming water. The cold soothed Slaine’s nausea for a while, but it didn’t take long until he felt lightheaded and sick again. Because he was supported by the net, Slaine’s shoulder was forced into an awkward position. It was still throbbing from earlier too.

The pressure that had at first been uncomfortable was turning painful. Slaine tried to move to relieve some of it, but with the way the container was set up it was nearly impossible. After a couple minutes of useless twitching, the people around him started to realise something was wrong.

“Are you boredorisitsomethingelse?”, a young woman was talking to herself by his side. She ran her hand down his spine and dorsal ridge, all the way from the back of his neck to the flukes. “Spineisheldstraight. You ‘reholdingoutgreat.Justalittlemore.”

“Mightbejusttiredofbeingstill?”, another one offered. “Ormaybethenetisbotheringtherakemarks.”

“Hello?”, Orange had appeared in the corner of Slaine’s vision.

“Shoulder.”, Slaine squeezed out, feeling miserable. He could feel the unsaid “I told you so” in the air, but Orange just patiently moved to the right side of the container and gingerly placed his hands on the blond’ left side, warm palms flat to his skin.

“I needhelptolift him alittle.Theclavicleandthetopofthehumerusarefractured, He ‘sprobablyinabadposition.”

The others were quick to respond to Orange.

“The shoulder traumawasthatbad? I readinthereportitwasjustananteriordislocation.”

“Thatwaswrittenbeforewecouldexamine him.” Now all three were holding his left side, carefully avoiding the shoulder. “Thatmightnotbeallofthedamage,butitwasthebestdiagnosisourship’sdoctorcouldgiveunderthecircumstancesatthetime.”

“I see.Liftinginthree,two,one-“

As the creatures lifted him on his right side Slaine let out a sigh he hadn’t noticed he had been keeping in. He took a couple of deep breaths while most of the pain seeped away, leaving just a dull throb behind. He opened his eyes to see the creatures above him. Slaine could now better see into the dark cave too. Not that there was much to see, only the unfamiliar ceiling.

“He ‘sgotbigeyes.”, the one who had checked Slaine’s spine marvelled. Slaine stared back at her with his best Orange -imitation. She had dark eyes and her short black hair was a bit ruffled. Another one, that he now recognised as Inko's friend let out a giggle.

“Probablyanadaptationtoadarkerenvironment.”

“I ‘mloosinggrip.”

They carefully let Slaine lay on his stomach again. The black-haired woman walked briskly to Slaine’s tail, carefully lifting his flukes up. Slaine didn’t appreciate it, and let his feelings be known with a hiss. The woman lowered the flukes back down but didn’t let go.

“I wasthinkingaboutthat.Hisflukesarenotchlesslikeonabeakedwhale.”, she felt the straight edge of his flukes. “Andtheydivedeeperthananyothercetaceans.” Thankfully, she then let go of his tail. Slaine flipped it in protest, but nobody seemed to mind. Frustrated, Slaine buried his face in the net again and blew bubbles.

For the rest of the ride they lifted Slaine’s bad side from time to time. The longer he laid in the net, the more his shoulder bothered him. After each lift Orange positioned his left arm again. The amount of touches Slaine was getting from the creatures made his skin crawl, but there wasn’t anything he could do about it, so in his frustration he ended up just splashing the little water he had with his flukes. His nausea wasn’t passing either, so Slaine grew more impatient and irritable each minute that passed by.

In his boredom and nausea, he started chewing on the net. That was when Orange made his presence known again. Slaine didn’t even notice he was right next to him before he felt a light touch of a fingertip on his good shoulder.

“Shoulder.”

Slaine sighed internally but decided to take the bait and humour Orange.

“Yes, that’s a shoulder.”

The finger moved on to his left shoulder. Slaine braced himself but the touch stayed light as a feather. “Shoulder.”

“Yup, still a shoulder.”

Slaine could feel the touch on the back of his head next. He hesitated for a few seconds before answering. He knew what Orange wanted. He didn’t know if he should give it.

“…That’s a head. Head.”, he complied carefully, making sure his articulation was clear. It felt forbidden, but everything else about his situation was already wrong anyway, so why not teach just a few words to Orange? It might benefit him too.

“Hed.”

“No. Head.”

“Head.”

“Yes.” Slaine could feel Orange lightly tugging on a lock of his hair. “Hair. Don’t do that.”

“Hair.”, Orange repeated, still feeling the lock between his fingers. Slaine slapped his hand away. Unbothered, the brunette just moved on to the next body-part, lightly touching Slaine’s dorsal ridge, much like that of a grey whale’.

“Um, ridge?”

“Ridge.”

That went on for some time until they had gone through Slaine body-part per body-part, Orange pointing and Slaine telling him the word. The creature was quick to pick up the new words only after a couple of repeats and misspellings. He had a weird accent, but as far as Slaine had heard, the land creatures didn’t use whistles, so that was to be expected. They had just reached his flukes when Slaine felt the moving coming to a stop. When he strained his neck to see around him, he could see the two women working on the net, having already gathered it while Orange was distracting him.

Light spilled into the cave, and suddenly he was being lifted by the net again, the container left behind. Slaine barely had time to let out a startled whine when he was already gliding smoothly through the air as if the net was carrying itself. The ground beneath him changed in colour and texture, and he tried to feel it with his sonar without a second thought for the fact that his clicks didn’t work in the air. There were more people again, all wearing the same greenish clothes, some touching the net or pushing lightly on his sides to guide the movement. Slaine could hear water not too far away. He tried to stay wary, but ended up still twitching in the net, eager to swim again.

There was no hiding Slaine’s disappointment when he was lowered on the smooth ground instead, the sounds of water only three or four meters away. As the net slacked around him, Slaine too slumped against the ground. Two figures, both wearing blue approached him from both sides. He hissed at them, bitter at his false hope.

“Hello, good.” Orange sounded winded as he appeared behind one of the blue shirts. Slaine couldn’t help hissing at him too and slapping his flukes to the ground with a force that stung. The brunette took a careful step closer.

“Good. Doctoryagarai, good. Shoulder, arm, back.”

Slaine took a shuddering breath in. Was this why Orange suddenly wanted to know more words? Somehow he felt betrayed. Slaine was angry and also growing anxious with all the new people. He took a deep breath in to steady himself. He didn’t want to listen to Orange, but even if the blue shirts weren’t healers like Doctoryagarai, there wasn’t any real option. He needed the creatures to push him into the water, he couldn’t get there by himself. After a couple more frustrated slaps on the smooth pavement he gave in and stayed as still as he could.

“…Good.”, Slaine all but mumbled. Orange watched him closely for a few more seconds before slowly approaching and sitting down by his head. Slaine wasn’t surprised when he felt a light touch on his hair. He huffed and focused his mind on that touch instead of the ones checking on the rest of his body.

It might’ve been because there were two of them, but the blue shirts were thankfully fast. When Orange stood up, the people in green shirts were already holding onto the net. They started inching him forwards towards where he could hear the water. There was a slight slope for the last two meters, so they just let Slaine slowly slide down with the net.

Landing with a splash, Slaine felt a sudden sense of ease. He hadn’t even noticed how the travelling had wound him up. Instead of being weighed down, his body was light and even his mind felt less sluggish. He relished the feeling for a good second before ridding himself of the damn net, getting as far away from it as he could and taking in his new surroundings.

He was in a shallow round pool. The water tasted fresh, which was nice, but there was also something a bit off about it. Circling around he came to the conclusion that it was about five meters in diameter. His sonars bounced around the smooth yellow walls like they had in the tank, but unlike with the tank, not all of the walls were solid, Slaine noticed almost immediately. Looking through the ripples he could see people lining the sides of the pool, so he stashed the knowledge for later.

Even in the shallow pool Slaine couldn’t help but celebrate a little now that he could move again. He did a few breaches, almost jumping, just because he could. If there had been enough room and the pool had been deep enough, he would’ve tried to jump like he had seen the dolphins do, spinning wildly through the air. With the barely meter deep water it would’ve been a disaster however tempting it was to try.

Most of the people were gone in just a few minutes after fetching their net, but some stayed behind. Slaine paid them no mind, as he realised the pool was outside. There were some sort of structures and caves behind the creatures, but mostly the space was open and above him there was only sky. There were some leaves floating on the surface, wherever they had ended up in there from. Slaine curiously caught one of them. He ended up eating it.

He had been left blissfully alone for almost an hour when Slaine felt something enter the pool. He turned to see two tails, covered in rubbery green, hanging in the water. He lifted his head above the surface to see Orange sitting on the side of the pool in green overalls. There were few others standing some way off, but they were fussing around something other than Slaine, so he disregarded them. What interested him more was that Orange was eating something.

Curious, Slaine inched towards him, with just the top of his head poking out of the water. He didn’t dare to get too close. The brunette finished whatever it was he was eating before turning his gaze towards Slaine.

“Hello, tuna.”

Slaine could feel his stomach lurch at the word. He doubted he could ever enjoy tuna again.

“I’m not a tuna.”, he complained, but Orange was already digging in the bucked he had next to him, pulling out a small fish. Slaine tilted his head in confusion when the brunette lowered the silvery thing into the pool.

That wasn’t a tuna. That was a dead herring.

And that was exactly what Slaine said out loud to Orange too.

“Hello good, tuna.”, Orange insisted. Either Orange wasn’t as smart as he had given him credit for, or there was some sort of misunderstanding. Slaine listened Orange repeat the sharp, high pitch whistle again and there was no mistaking it; it meant tuna. Orange wiggled the herring in the water as if that could’ve made it appear any more alive.

It clicked in Slaine’s mind then that what he had thought had meant “tuna” had actually meant “fish” or “food” or maybe something completely different among those lines the whole time. The first food he had been given had just happened to be tuna. He plopped his head quickly underwater in embarrassment. How had he taken that for granted? And who the hell thinks it’s okay to start from abstractions when teaching a new language to someone? Embarrassed and now also pissed, Slaine dashed the last two meters to Orange only to rise up and spurt water all over his stupid face, grabbing the herring and splashing his flukes when turning back to the pool just to make sure the brunette was adequately drenched.

He swallowed the small fish whole out of spite.

Seeing Orange wet was about as hilarious as it had been the first time. Only the green overalls seemed to have survived dry, as Orange sat still for a while, looking into the distance, wet hair sticking to his face and neck. He gathered himself quickly enough and dropped completely into the pool, the water reaching almost to his waist. He grabbed the bucket but didn’t move further in.

“Hello, fish.”, he said patiently, while holding another herring in the water by its tail. Slaine paced a little and Orange gave him the time and space to do that. Besides the misunderstanding there was something else in what the brunette had said that bothered him. Orange said he was “good”, so he got a fish. Was that how this game worked? The herrings were small things, was he supposed to somehow earn every one of them?

Slaine swam in small circles that widened little by little as he gathered his courage. Finally, he swam by Orange and stretched his hand to catch the herring before quickly swimming away again. That continued for five or six herrings until Slaine stilled warily in front of Orange, a good meter away, taking one herring at a time from him. The brunette’s tails stayed still as a rock, and his other movements were slow and intentional. The whole exercise felt pointless especially since the fish were so small, but at the same time Slaine could only guess that Orange had his motives.

The bucket was emptied in no time, and Orange turned to leave. Slaine was left speechless when he saw how the brunette waded through the water to get back to the ledge. The creature was about as useless in water as Slaine was on land. All this time he had been on the edge and wary of Orange. He had been beached because of his uncertainty of the creature! Because he didn’t know what Orange was capable of, because he didn’t know if he had a fighting chance with him.

Orange pulled himself up and turned to give Slaine a wave. With half of his head poking out, Slaine lifted his hand in response, a reflex at this point. His mind was racing. He could’ve escaped on the island. Orange couldn’t possibly have caught him if he had just left.

Suddenly Slaine’s nausea was back tenfold.

Chapter Text

The realisation of how he had completely been his own undoing led to two very different consequences.

Firstly, Slaine threw up the herrings he had just eaten. The nausea he had been feeling all day culminated in one big pukefest that when once started, seemed impossible to stop. Lightheaded, he scrambled between heaves to get to the edge of the pool so he wouldn’t accidentally breathe in water and, of all things, drown. Without thinking Slaine pushed himself on the slope surrounding the pool before painfully retching again, most of the fish already long gone from his system. Someone – Orange, he could imagine, since the response was so fast, and he had been the closest – was holding onto his good arm to keep him from slipping back into the water. Slaine dry-heaved for a while even after there was nothing left in his stomach.

He panicked for a brief moment when he couldn’t stop retching. The bile that he was coughing up burned in his throat and nose, the sour taste overpowering in his mouth. Finally, Slaine managed to control his breathing again, and that seemed to be the key to ease the clenching in his stomach too.

As his heaving slowly eased and his world came back into focus piece by piece, Slaine could see the fuss that had exploded around him. Half a dozen creatures were already busy picking pieces of herring and the rest of the sick from the pool using nets at the end of long sticks. There were a couple people in the pool with green overalls, catching what others couldn’t. Slaine had half-beached himself on the slope, and there was someone covering him with wet clothes while another one did their best to mop the bile from around him.

It was disgusting.

Slaine was exhausted, enough so that when he tried to roll back into the water and wasn’t let to do that, he didn’t fight it and instead just laid still. He let the blue shirt do his checking, even turning his head for him when coaxed. After a few minutes the wet clothes were removed and Slaine was gently pushed back into the pool. To his relief, the water tasted already mostly clean. He could feel a small current that brought fresh water in and took the old water out, a major upgrade from the stale water in the tank. Slaine didn’t bother looking for the source just yet, though. Instead he simply floated face down, distantly listening to the conversation little ways away from the pool.

What Slaine mulled over in his mind was far more important than that though. Because after he dealt with the initial shock, the second consequence of his realisation was what soothed something deep inside of him that hadn’t been soothed in a long time.

Just like he was useless on land, the land creatures were useless and clumsy in water. Maybe that was why he was put first in the tank and now in this pool. Because in the ocean they couldn’t possibly have an advantage over him.

He was safe in the water.

He was safe.

The realisation that the creatures couldn’t get to him or hurt him in the water had lifted a big weight from Slaine’s shoulders. Enough so, that when the black-haired woman came to feed him in the early hours of the next morning, he swam almost straight to her. She seemed like a straightforward kind of a person and had spent most of the night by the pool anyway, so Slaine felt somewhat comfortable in his ability to predict her intentions.

She called him with a simple, single sharp whistle of “fish”, and started handing out the food. She didn’t wait for him to take it from her, instead letting go of the fish whenever Slaine was about to grab it. There was a kind of bluntness to her, something brought about by experience, no doubt.

She was capable, and that made Slaine feel at ease. Even though her eyes shined with excitement when Slaine popped his head above the surface next to her, she just smiled carefully and handed him the next fish, always letting them go before the blond got too close. She was keeping a comfortable and safe distance for them both, something that Slaine hadn’t expected from her. She had been the one who hadn’t let go of his tail flukes even though he had clearly shown her that he didn’t like it, after all. Maybe that was because he had been in the container at the time and she hadn’t felt threatened.

Slaine tilted his head. Was he threatening to the land creatures?

The black-haired woman’s bluntness was completely different from Orange’s, which Slaine found perplexing. Orange was always pushing and intruding. He got close, settled down and stayed there quietly, leaving Slaine to deal with it. There was an urgency to his actions mixed in with a patience to wait for Slaine. No wonder he was confusing to the blond. There was no method to his madness, no consistency that could ground the interactions they had as far as Slaine could decipher. There was no reading what went on in the brunette’s mind. At the same time, Orange was the one who understood Slaine’s wants and needs the best and the least. He was brilliant in his own right, but the leaps he took threw Slaine off every time.

Perhaps it was a time for Slaine to take a leap of his own.

The next time Orange visited him was a day later. Little by little, Slaine was getting braver, swimming right by anyone who stayed near the edge. He was already familiar with every nook and cranny of his new, slightly bigger space. He’d spent the best part of that morning in front of the small opening that let new water in, letting it blow on his face and hair. Slaine would’ve rather investigated the two weak spots on the walls, but so far he hadn’t been left alone for long enough to do so.

When Orange stepped into the pool this time, Slaine didn’t cower or pace. He took a couple of seconds to calm his racing heart before gingerly heading towards the creature. His nerves couldn’t get the better of him now, he needed to regain some control. Even if it was just of the small, shallow pool.

Slaine didn’t go in circles. He headed straight to Orange, who once again carried a bucket with him. He didn’t stop a meter away from him either. Instead, Slaine swam right past Orange and in between him and the ledge, pushing the creature further into the pool. The brunette took a few clumsy steps forward, almost losing his balance from Slaine’s gentle push. He turned around to get back to the ledge but Slaine simply circled him slowly like a shark, blocking his path. The brunette tried to slip past him to the other side, but Slaine turned and pushed him further in with his tail instead. Orange tried again, but he was too slow in the water.

By now the young man who had been watching over him for the morning had called over two more creatures who paced along the sides of the pool. Slaine glanced nervously at them. He could feel the steps of more heading his way. If they saw him as a threat, would they try to overpower him? Slaine swallowed the anxiety trying to climb up his throat. He wasn’t being a threat, and he couldn’t go on speculating on every single movement the creatures made.

He was just simply setting some boundaries.

Orange stood very still near the centre of the pool. He was talking to the people on the side, nonchalant as ever, but Slaine could feel how tense his body was and how fast his heart was beating behind his deadpan exterior. He could almost taste the fight or flight -instinct running in the water surrounding the brunette, as if he was forcing his body to stay put.

In a way it upset Slaine.

After all, Orange was clearly safe and sound, the water was barely a meter deep and he had his green waterproof overalls on, so he wasn’t even going to get that wet. Overdramatic was what the creatures were. Yet the fear that Slaine felt in the water was true. Surely water couldn’t be that scary to him. This wasn’t his first time coming into the pool either. Confused, Slaine observed Orange while circling him slowly. The brunette was breathing quite heavily.

Actually, he was breathing all the time, now that Slaine paid attention to it. It was almost absurd, but as true as the fear in the water. At most, he could count only a few seconds between inhales. And one inhale of water could be all that it takes to drown, even for the merfolk.

A single inhale. Literally the reason Slaine had scrambled out of the pool just a day ago.

Slaine stilled in front of Orange and slowly let his head rise above the surface. The brunette looked back at him. Slaine could somewhat understand the wariness in his eyes now.

“Orange good.”, Slaine reassured. He watched as Orange froze for a moment before sighing deeply, forcing himself to loosen up. He lowered the bucket that he was still carrying so that it floated and pulled a small herring out of it. Orange offered the fish like he had the day before and Slaine got a bit closer to take it. The brunette probably didn’t even realise himself that he was holding his breath. Slaine could feel it though.

“Trywalkingwhilefeeding!”

“I don’tthink He ‘sgoingtolet me.”

Orange offered another herring and started inching towards the edge. Slaine moved to block him. After a few fishes Orange tried again, but Slaine simply slid in his way every time. He could feel the man tensing again, but ignored it in favour of eating slowly, inspecting every fish inside and out. His own nerves were most likely what had caused all the vomiting earlier, but he couldn’t be too careful. He was getting too sick too easily lately.

“Hello?”, came the question finally. Slaine popped above the surface again, but not before he finished gutting another herring. Orange looked at him in silence. He didn’t have the words to ask the questions Slaine could guess he was having. Slaine wasn’t going to baby him either.

After a short stare down Orange raised his hand and waved. Slaine couldn’t help but let a smile creep on his face. He waved gleefully in response. Orange turned slowly, keeping his wary eyes on Slaine, and waded his way to the edge of the pool where he was quickly pulled out by the others. He was winded, red eyes wide as he turned to look back at the pool. Slaine dove with a victorious splash of his flukes.

When Orange came around again a couple days later, he wasn’t allowed into the pool anymore. No one was.

There were people gathering some ways off his pool again. Slaine peeked over the edge to hear happy voices, cooing and splashing. He rested his chin on the edge for a while before the sun started drying his skin and he dived again.

Slaine spent most of his time either circling or floating. Already bored out of his mind again and getting annoyed when the creatures didn’t leave him alone to check the two weak spots, he bombarded the walls with sonars. It turned the pool into an echo-chamber that rivalled the tank, but by doing so he got a lot of information without drawing his minder’s attention. Slaine had to spend more time with his head above the surface to escape the noise, though, something that he would’ve never dared to do in the wild. He was greeted by different people almost every time he breached. There were dark suits accompanied by the green shirts, flashes of light and people sneaking closer to the edge of the pool only to be ushered back by the black-haired woman. Slaine had learned she was called ‘Kaoru’.

He was getting weirdly used to it all.

The two weak spots were gates, he was almost certain now. The hollow echoes indicated two doorways to underwater spaces, both bigger than his own pool. The doors were layered, there was the gate that laid flat to the pool’s wall and another one a little further away, but beyond that it was hard to feel. There were larger bodies of water though, that Slaine was sure of. Maybe even the sea. He was itching to find out more.

Slaine wasn’t so sure about what his objective was anymore, besides from wanting to get back into the deeps. There was no way he could catch up to his pod. Maybe he could find them again the next winter? Somehow in just a short span of time Slaine had gotten way closer to the old sperm whale bull than anyone in his own pod, and now that he wasn’t in imminent danger anymore, he didn’t find himself missing them too much. There had never been the kind of bond between them in the first place that could only be had in a family-group, and the absence of it was probably what had made him seek out the bull. Maybe he could try joining a pod of dolphins again? Or another whale?

Whatever it was, he craved company.

Slaine surfaced again. His ears rang and he was starting to feel lightheaded from all the noise. There was an older, rugged man who was already leaving the poolside, but turned on his heels when he saw Slaine. The man all but ran to the pool leaving the green shirt who was guiding him behind. He got all the way to the edge before the poor young man caught up. Startled by the sudden approach and the flashes from the man’s black box-tube-thing coming from way too close, Slaine pulled his head quickly down again. Without an escape-route to any deeper his mind turned in to defend-mode. With a quick turn of his body Slaine threw his tail above the water only to slam it down right in front of the man, the force of his display sending shockwaves through the pool.

A shriek erupted from the massive splash that was sure to thoroughly wet both the geezer and the green shirt. Slaine scurried to the safety of the other side of the pool just in time to witness two more green shirts escorting the shaken old man away. He was blabbering angrily and fuzzing with his box. Kaoru ran past them to the pool, nearly slipping on the now wet ground. Her tense demeanour eased when she saw Slaine. Somehow, he too felt a little better seeing a familiar face through the ripples. He raised his flukes a couple more times defiantly.

Orange came running not too far behind her. His hair was messy from the wind. With the two of them there, Slaine felt comfortable enough to surface again. He felt safe in the knowledge that they wouldn’t come running at him or do something else equally stupid.

“Noharmdone,but we ‘llhavetobemorecarefull.”, Kaoru sighed to Orange. “They gocrazyforBat, he ‘snoteventhefirstonetodaytorunrighttothepool.”

Orange put down the bucket he was carrying, calm as ever. “His cameraisruined.”, he said with the tiniest bit of satisfaction. Kaoru let out a surprised snigger.

“Wellthere’satleastthat.”, she glanced approvingly at the brunette before gesturing towards Slaine. “Let’sgive him amoment.”

Orange kneeled down with a silent huff. Slaine watched as he dug through his bucket before scooting right by the edge, all the while Kaoru went around the pool, picking up stray leaves from the ground at a leisurely pace. The sudden calmness of it all was a stark contrast to the scare he had just had. Kaoru dropped one of the leaves intentionally in the pool, and Slaine quickly swam over to catch it with his flukes. He dropped it only to swim by again and catch it on his dorsal ridge this time.

The water settled, but even as Slaine started to feel at ease again there was something nagging at him. Orange had sat down right where the old man had scared him, if not closer, yet Slaine didn’t feel threatened by him. Kaoru was wondering around the pool, doing much of the same chores she did every day, but he didn’t feel the need to track her every movement. Just how much had he lowered his guards already to feel safe to have the two land creatures by the pool? It bothered him.

Was he becoming complacent?

Slaine shook himself. Surely he wasn’t. It was just that he had come to know the two. When his arm was healed, he would be busting out of the pool and never looking back.

If his arm healed.

Orange took a couple of minutes to just let the pool calm again with Slaine’s mind. Finally, he pulled out a fish from the bucket and called.

“Hello, fish.”

Slaine wasn’t particularly hungry but approached Orange anyway. If anything, he was secretly glad to have the distraction from his own troubling thoughts. He could do his inner searching later. As he reached for the small fish Orange was holding, he felt a light touch on his head. Slaine flinched back and slapped the intruding hand away.

“What the hell?”, he pouted while putting some distance between him and the brunette.

“Head, fish.” Orange said. He pulled out another small fish, this time a mackerel.

“And what’s that supposed to mean?” Slaine glared at him from the centre of the pool.

He could feel the sigh coming from the other side of the tank.

“Isnowreallythebesttime?Besides you don’t’justdoit’, Kaizuka.You needtoslowlyintroducethemtoit.Didn’t Amifumi tell you howtointroducehusbandry?”

“Withdolphins,but he ‘snotadolphin.Thefaster we moveonfomincidentslikethese,theless he needstodwellonthemeither.” Orange offered the mackerel to Slaine, who got a bit closer. He eyed the silvery thing warily before reaching to take it, only to have another soft pat on his head just as he grabbed the fish.

“Head, fish.”, Orange repeated. Slaine backed off, pacing a bit and ripping the mackerel to pieces before eating it bit by bit. He turned back to Orange.

“…Are you going to touch my head every time now?”

The only answer Slaine got was Orange’s deadpan expression as he offered another fish. Slaine blew a burst of bubbles. He didn’t need the fish, for once he wasn’t that hungry. The creatures kept him well fed, if nothing else. But he was curious, and his flustered annoyance was quickly turning into humour. The pool was cramped and boring anyway.

“Head?”, he pointed at his own head with a claw. Orange nodded. Slaine scoffed. “Why?”, he asked. Orange just blinked at the unfamiliar word. Slaine took a breath before approaching again, eyeing the brunette suspiciously. He stopped near Orange but not quite near enough to reach.

“Head, fish.”, Orange repeated. He lowered his free hand into the water. It was such a harmless hand with its soft, short nails and webless fingers. How did Orange hunt with hands like that?

Slaine looked up only to see the brunette staying absolutely still on the edge of the pool. He was tense again, and his hand was shaking just barely. Slaine huffed. With the tiniest adjustment of his tail the blond slid slowly closer, until his forehead touched softly Orange’s hand. The creature didn’t flinch or move, so Slaine let the touch last for a couple of seconds before lightly pushing on the wall with his good arm to back away.

He looked up, slightly embarrassed. Orange had the same look on his face as he had had the first time Slaine had seem him, leaning on the railing of the orange ship to see him dangling on the floaters. Slaine tilted his head expectantly.

“…Fish.”, Orange remembered and handed him a herring. Slaine ate it in one bite. Orange reached further into the pool with his hand. “Head.”

He really was going to do this every time. Slaine bent a bit, just enough to barely touch the outstretched fingers with the top of his head and played a little with the mackerel he got for it.

He ignored Orange when he called again. There was no real reason to continue when he got the message already, loud and clear. It was simple enough: let Orange touch his head and get a fish in return. So instead of humouring Orange any further, Slaine speeded around the pool in a circle before rising his head above the waves he made, enjoying them rush against him.

“Hello.”, Orange tried to gain focus back to himself. Slaine didn’t respond, already busy making a second set of waves. He could feel with his sonars the soft hand reaching stubbornly into the turbulent water.

“Hel-“

“Wave.”, Slaine said spontaneously as he breached again, cutting Orange off. The creatures didn’t understand him of course, sharing glances, so he speeded a couple times around the pool again before popping up next to the edge. “Wave!”, he tried to gesture at the waves he created.

There was no response for a few seconds.

“Weev?”, Orange tilted his head.

“Wave.”, Slaine corrected.

“Isitanewword?Maybeitmeans’water’?”, Kaoru offered. “…Or’diving’,or’play’?Or…” Orange put the fish he was holding back into the bucket. His eyebrows were pinched.

“There’retoomanypossibilities.” The brunette turned to Slaine, pointing at his own head. “Head.” He was confirming vocabulary again. Slaine raised his thumb in response. He could see Kaoru barely hiding a laugh behind the brunette. He didn’t understand what made the gesture so funny for the creatures when they themselves used it all the time.

“Arm.”, Orange held his own arm out for Slaine to see. Slaine raised his thumb again.

After a short hesitation over how to proceed, Orange whistled a nonsensical sound and patted the ground next to where he was sitting. He got up and walked to another spot, patted the ground again, this time with his foot, and repeated the whistle. Slaine nodded, a bit unsure. Orange probably meant ‘ground or ‘land’, not the action itself.

“Ground.”, Orange repeated for the third time, just to make sure his message was clear. He then kneeled by the pool and reached his hand into the water, splashing it a bit. He pulled his wet hand up and patted the ground again. “Ground.” He reached back into the pool and looked at Slaine expectantly.

“…Water.”, the blond supplied.

“Water.”, Orange repeated with a nod. “It’sdifferentfromthe ‘wave’. Itwouldbelogicaltocontrastlandwithwater,soit’ssafetoassumehejustsaid’water’.”, he turned to Kaoru.

“Sowhatwasthefirstonethen?It’sfascinating,butshouldn’t we leavethisstufftotheanthropologistsafterall,thisisn’t our field.”

Orange pressed his lips into a thin line. “Theone’sstudyingthecetaceanlanguagesaremainlymarinebiologists. He ‘samarinemammal,evenif he hashominidtraits.Thisisn’toutof my field.”

Kaoru looked at Orange thoughtfully for a moment. “…So, they betternotcomeinbetween you and your PhD.Sharingiscaring, you know.”

“I… didn’tmeantodisregardthat,ofcourcetherewillbeinterdisciplinarystudies.What I meantwasthat-“

“Water, wave.”, Slaine interrupted. He swam right to the edge where Orange and Kaoru were standing and cupped his hands. He couldn’t lift his left arm, so he turned to float on his back instead to show the two the water in his hands. “Water.”, he explained. Their eyes were wide, and they didn’t respond but Slaine went on, trying to get them to understand what a ‘wave’ was.

He leaned against the wall and started kicking with his tail. In no time the small pool was overflowing with waves, and Slaine popped his head up exclaiming “Waves!” and gesturing to the pool.

“Maybeit’saswim-thing.”

“Mightbe.Oraresultofswimming.Turbulance,maybe.”

They weren’t getting it, even though he tried to be clear. Slaine vented his frustration by blowing bubbles, and that gave him another idea. He pointed to himself. “Hello, bubbles.”

By now he had completely lost Kaoru, and Orange was about to fall off too. Slaine took a gulp of air, dipped his head underwater and blew a big burst of bubbles. He breached with a whistle of “bubbles”, which was about the most ridiculous thing he had ever done. A light appeared to switch on in at least Orange’s brains. The brunette got quickly up and rushed to the side before returning with something.

“Hey, I ‘mstilldrinkingthat!”, Kaoru protested, but Orange had already gotten what he wanted. After a wary glance to the blond, Orange lowered himself on his stomach, head hanging over the water. He put one end of a long stick in his mouth and lowered the other end underwater. Slaine could feel the stick was hollow and made out of metal the moment it hit the water.

After a short, sharp inhale Orange blew bubbles through the straw. He lifted his head to look at Slaine.

“Bubbles?”, Orange asked. Slaine sunk down and blew bubbles himself as an answer. He rose up with a glee and an explanation.

“Water, Hello, bubbles.”, he tried to get the concept across. Orange didn’t respond but he was listening intently, laying still. Slaine speeded around the pool again, rising more waves.

“Water, Hello, waves.”, he gestured to the pool again.

Finally, there was recognition in the brunette’s eyes at the word. “It’ssomethingthat he makesinwater. He makesbubbles,and he makes…waves.”

“He madewavesandwantedtoshowthemto us?”

“Itappearstobeso.”, Orange marvelled. His eyes were shining. “Oratleast he wanted us tounderstandwhat he wasdoing,andhowtosayit.It’sallonfilm,right?"

“Fromthreedifferentangles. You ‘llhavealottorewiev.”

“Waves.”, Orange confirmed and Slaine nodded enthusiastically.

They were creating a new language word by word, him and Orange. It was stupidly laborious but rewarding. Slaine basked in the sunlight that appeared behind a cloud. The pool was too small and shallow, the echoes were horrible and Slaine missed the deeps of the twilight and midnight zones, but in a weird way he almost liked it here. He got to enjoy the different weathers on the surface without fear of an attack from below. He’d be no match to anything that might lurk in deeper waters with just one working arm anyway.

As much as he wanted to deny it, Slaine was a social animal, and in the absence of other marine life he was starting to gravitate towards the two land creatures.

Chapter Text

The arctic sea was empty besides the distant desperate wail that ripped through it.

In the turbid, dark world where the melting fresh water and the salty seawater mixed together, there was the tiny figure of an exhausted merfolk calf leaning against the side of an iceberg.

Slaine didn’t dare to move let alone make a sound. A single click of sonar could be all that would lead the orcas his way.

They were playing with him, Slaine understood bitterly. While the adults were busy drowning the grey whale cow and her calf the juveniles had set about attacking the merfolk-pod, separating them. It was nothing but sport: practice for hunting seal.

Somehow the fact that he wouldn’t even be eaten, just killed and then tossed around for fun made it that much more terrifying.

Father had warned him from ever going under the ice sheet, and Slaine knew now why even the orcas hadn’t chased him this far in. In the maze of the icebergs he had yet to find an opening to catch his breath. Now it was too late; there was no way he could reach the open waters again anymore, and even if he did the orcas were there, waiting for him.

All that Slaine had left to do was to wait for his air to run out.

He couldn’t help it when desperate sobs rocked through his lithe body. The sticky, oily substance that normally protected his eyes overflowed and floated around him in thick droplets.

Slaine opened his eyes to a red sunset. He had slept floating on the surface, and it didn’t agree with him. Hazed, he reached to touch his chest. His skin felt sore all over. Even though the air was cooling down, the water in the pool was still uncomfortably warm. It had been sunny all day, after all.

If he had been able to dive deeper, he wouldn’t have burned himself in the sun.

Frustrated, Slaine slapped the surface with his flukes. There had been another group of people ogling at him and flashing their lights, and now that they were gone the silence was deafening. Even Kaoru wasn’t spending her nights by the pool anymore. Orange hadn’t visited for a few days either, the traitor. Was that why he was feeling lonely even in his dreams?

There were moments when he didn’t mind it at all. When he was working with a puzzle to get a piece of squid out of it or when Kaoru dropped in leaves for him to play with. Sometimes Orange spent a whole day with him, just sitting by the pool, writing on his tablet-thingy, and in a way that was nice too.

But those moments were always quickly over. He was fast at solving puzzles, Kaoru often wandered off to talk with her friends and sometimes Orange didn’t show up for days. And in those times Slaine felt like the walls of the pool were closing in on him. It was like the sea was disappearing again and he was left struggling on the shore. That was when he started bumping into the walls while circling mindlessly, floating still four hours on end and singing nonsense to fill the silence.

Nights Slaine liked more than days. He felt more at ease in the darkness than he did in the all-revealing daylight. Nights were usually the busiest time for his pod, as their deep-sea dwelling prey migrated to the higher, richer levels. Nights were for hunting.

But not in the pool. In the pool Slaine got fish three times a day, every day at the same time. He didn’t need to hunt for it, but he did have to work for it a bit sometimes. Whenever he did come, Orange would ask him to do the weirdest things: to let him touch his head or his tail, to show him his hand, to turn on his side. The most recent one was to blow bubbles. Out of boredom Slaine kept humouring him. Well, mainly out of boredom. Well, not really, but Slaine wasn’t about to admit to it.

He didn’t have anything better to do anyway.

When after a restless night Slaine heard the chatter of land creatures heading his way, he was expecting more strangers. He sucked in a big gulp of air and dove down, fully intent on lying still facing the bottom corner for the next three hours, being the most boring thing anyone had ever came to see. When the sounds got closer, however, he started to recognise them. There was the sing-song sound of Inko’ talking and Calm’s laughter. He could recognise the steps of Doctoryagarai and the matriarch. When he breached to take a curious look of his visitors, he could see Orange and Kaoru being in the centre of attention, bombarded with questions.

“Sothisiswhere you ‘vebeenholedupforthepastwoweeks?Thisiswhy you don’thaveaboyfriendyet, you know.”, the matriarch was teasing Kaoru. Inko saw Slaine peeking from the edge of the pool and it was like she was suddenly made out of pure nacre, shining so bright with excitement.

“There he is!Lookat you, Bat, you ‘vegainedweight!”, she hurried to the side of the pool, but not too close. Slaine retreated a little just in case anyway. “His faceisallroundnow!Waitasecond…” Inko placed the thin, long whistle that hanged around her neck into her mouth.

“Hello! Inko!” She whistled and laughed, a bit embarrassed. “I ’msorrybutthat’sall I remember.”

Slaine was overwhelmed but whistled the greeting bashfully back, nonetheless.

“Don’tgotooclose, he hasbeenactingterritoriallately.”, Kaoru warned. By her side the matriarch seemed impressed.

“He lookswaybetterwhen he ‘snothalfdead.Thescarsseemtough,though.How’sthehealiggoing?”

Doctoryagarai stepped forward, followed by Orange. The brunette glanced at Slaine. Somehow, he seemed a bit nervous. Slaine tilted his head, trying to drill into Orange’s mind, but the creature avoided further eye-contact.

As if that would stop Slaine from investigating this.

“Generally,abrokenshouldertakesaboutsixweekstoheal. His fracturesweredisplaced,however,andtheshoulderisunderconstantstress,soit’lltakesometimestilluntil he ‘sinworkingorder.”

“Hello, fish.”, Orange called as he kneeled down on the edge. “You cancomehere, doctor. He won’tattack us.” Slaine slid carefully closer to get his breakfast as Doctoryagarai kneeled equally carefully by Orange. “Are you certainaboutthat?”, he laughed nervously.

“Sofar he hasn’tactuallyharmedanyoneyet.”

“Inaho, do you reallyhavetosayitlikeit’sgoingtoeventuallyhappen!?”

“I ‘mbeingrealistic. He ‘sshovingsterreotypicalbehaviourandisclearlystressedbytheenvironment.Ofcourse he ‘llgetmorefrustratedthemore he heals.”, Orange handed a fish for Slaine. He ate it keeping a watchful eye on the doctor.

“Hello, head!”, the brunette called next. Slaine huffed. With one more wary glance to Doctoryagarai he bowed his head to let Orange touch it. Each call the creature inched his hand a little closer to the edge until Slaine was floating right by the two of them. It wasn’t even a fish for a touch anymore, it was just one continuous touch on the top of his head with Orange giving him a piece of fish every so often.

That was probably the whole point of the head-exercise, to target his movements, Slaine suddenly realised.

Doctoryagarai peered over the edge. “It’sdefinetilysettlednow.Looksabitstiff.Isthereanyway I couldtouchit?”

“…Probably.Give us amoment.”

Orange lifted his hand from the water and whistled “right side”. The blond looked up questioningly but turned for them anyway. Orange reached down to lightly touch his right arm, his soft hand warm to touch. It was surprising but Slaine allowed it. When he glanced up to get a read on Orange, he could see that somehow this was important. After his first careful test, the brunette took a light hold of his shoulder, nudging it a bit. Slaine would’ve slapped Orange’s hand away at that point if it wasn’t for his expression.

Orange had the most ridiculously serious expression Slaine had ever seen on anyone’s face. The brunette was damn near blowing steam out of his ears and going cross-eyed from concentration. It took every ounce of Slaine’s self-control to not burst out laughing at him.

Never mind the fact that he had intimidated Orange by trapping him in the pool before, his newfound apprehension of breaking Slaine’s boundaries was refreshing. He kept pushing them all the time still, of course, but Slaine was happy in the knowledge that he had scared some common sense into the creature’s thick head.

The disproportionate seriousness made sense a second later, though, when after giving Slaine another fish Orange whistled “left side”.

Suddenly feeling uncomfortable, Slaine looked first at Orange and then at Doctoryagarai. The healer wanted to take a look at his shoulder, and Orange had just shown him that it was safe, that much was clear to anybody.

That didn’t mean he liked it. With a splash of his flukes Slaine was gone from their grasp.

“Sothat’sa’no’then.”, Doctoryagarai sat down with a sigh.

“It’lltakeaminute.”, Orange said patiently, “He justneedstothinkitover.”

Slaine paced a little before surfacing again. It would be the best to just show them his arm and get it over with, but he couldn’t help being suspicious. If he didn’t do it, were they going to drag him out of the pool? The creatures didn’t seem to be affected by his distress as they continued their chatting.

“Ah,thatreminds me! He showed his bellyto us theotherday!”, Kaoru suddenly said. “Well, he probablydidn’tnoticeithimselfbut he camerightto us andjustturnedtofloaton his back!”

“What,is he adognow?”, Calm laughed. “Maybe you should’vegiven him bellyrubs.”

“Somedolphinsactuallylikeit.”, Inko chimed in, “I havethisoneinthepodwe’repreparingtomoveintoasea-penthat’salwaysbeggingforpetsandrubs. I ‘llmiss her.”

Orange sat cross-legged on the edge of the pool, not taking part in the conversation. After a while he dropped his hand into the water to gain Slaine’s attention again.

“Hello, left side!”

Slaine halted in is nervous pacing and glared at the creatures. “No”, he announced wilfully. That wasn’t the answer Orange wanted, and he could see it in the way he calmly set his jaw, ready to argue his case.

“Hello, left side no good, shoulder no good, arm no good. Hello no good. Doctoryagarai good.”, the brunette reasoned in an impressive litany of whistles that left the other creatures silent and staring.

“I don’t want to.”

“Hello no good. Shoulder-”

“Okay, I know alright!”, Slaine hissed, frustrated. “I know. It’s just that-”

That he was scared? That he was being reminded of the debilitating injury he tried his best to not think about? An injury that should’ve killed him, would’ve killed him if he wasn’t stuck here. That he was already placing so much trust on the brunette, a land creature, that it terrified him? That he actually felt safe enough to do what Orange was asking? Perhaps all of it, but there were no words he could say that would make his conflicting feelings understood.

“Hello, Doctoryagarai good.”, Orange insisted. Slaine scoffed. He already knew the healer was safe. He knew showing them his arm was safe. That even letting them touch his injury was most likely safe. He also knew that he didn’t like that he felt that way.

In the end, Slaine slid back to the creatures, turned on his side and let the healer do his checking. The man felt his arm and shoulder gingerly, carefully moving the elbow for a bit before sitting back.

“It’ssettledquitenicely,if I maysaysomyself.Thereissomecumulatedinjuryfromstressas I suspected,thatmakesaperfectrecoveryunlikely.Therewillbecomplications.”

Orange gave Slaine a fish with an additional ruffle to his hair. Slaine took the fish and pushed the hand away absentmindedly, relieved that Doctoryagarai was fast at his work. Orange seemed relieved at first too but was quick to divert his focus back to the healer.

“Whatkindofcomplicationsdo you mean?”

Doctoryagarai pinched the bridge of his nose. “Mainlyintherangeofmovements.Incaseslikethese,notbeingabletoliftthearmaboveone’sshoulderiscommon.If he wasahumanpatient, I ‘dprobablyadvisetoleavethedreamsofbeingabasketballplayerbehind.”

“Thatseriouslyaffects his mobilityandhuntingthough!”, Inko suddenly said. The worry in her voice alerted Slaine, who surfaced to see what the sudden fuss was about. The healer looked at him with a reassuring smile before turning to Inko.

“We cancombatthatwithphysiotherapyandexercisetoadegree.If he ‘suptoparticipatinginit,thatis.”

“Batwillbeuptoit.”, Orange announced. He was keeping an eye on Slaine as the merman sought out his face to understand what was being said. Orange offered no clues, but he didn’t seem nervous or distressed either, only determined. That made Slaine feel somewhat more confident. “He ‘salreadyimprovedalotinashorttime.Thebigger pool willbegoodfor him too.”

“Thelead-trainer-thingisgonnagoto his head,justsoyouknow,Bat.Remember, Inaho: withgreatpower-”, Calm snickered before getting a smack on his head from Inko.

“Asidefromanupsetstomach, he hasn’tdevelopedanyinfectionsorotherconditionsso we wereplanningonletting him intotheshow- pool alittleaheadofscheadule.Thequarantineandthesmall pool areclearlybadfor his mentalhealth. We havehoursoffootageof him justfloating,thatcan’tbenormal.”, Kaoru explained to the others. “It’salldecided, we ‘rejustwaitingfortheofficialapproval.”

“Isn’tthatgreat,Bat! You ’llgetthebiggest pool we have!”, Inko beamed. “I can’twait! I ’llhavetobring Rayet toonexttime!”

Slaine tilted his head, confused from all the rapidly changing emotions that were being displayed. Just what were they talking about? So far, he had figured out most of the personal pronouns by just listening but beyond that the language was still gibberish to his ears.

Somehow everyone seemed so happy and hopeful. While Slaine did enjoy seeing the familiar faces and interacting with them to a degree, he just couldn’t understand why. What was the purpose of all this? For how long was he going to be stuck here?

As the night fell once again, he waved good byes to the ones who had visited him. Orange stayed behind for a while longer, just sitting by the side of the pool, hanging his hand in the water and his mind travelling somewhere far away.

Slaine wished he could travel again too.

Just what the hell was he doing here.

Slaine circled the pool, feeling agitated. Nights left him with too much time to think. He was being helped, had been helped, but for help this was quite extreme. There had to be something else, some other motive. If it was simply about altruistically fixing his arm and shoulder, surely they could’ve just tied them up with their sleeve-thing and then left him be. He would’ve been fish food in a matter of hours if that had been the case, but it would’ve made more sense. Maybe the land creatures operated completely differently from his kind to begin with, and he shouldn’t make comparisons.

As Slaine pondered over it, a faint set of echoes entered his consciousness. He didn’t notice them at first, but it soon became obvious that he was indeed hearing something.

Inquisitive little chirps, shy and a little scared.

Blood rushing through his body in alert Slaine scanned his surroundings. The chirps weren’t coming from his pool, that much was certain. They did come from underwater though. He focused on the gates. The sounds were definitely coming from behind one of the two. There was no-one watching, so he swam right to one of them.

He wasn’t imagining it. There definitely was someone chirping. Slaine pressed his head against the gate to gather as much information as he could.

The gate was simple enough, a single layer of smooth metal. Behind it there was a short, narrow corridor. Beyond that another gate, this one not smooth like the one in his pool but barred. Beyond that a wider, deeper body of water. The sounds were coming from something a bit smaller than himself. It sounded young.

Slaine swam in anxious circles. Those were the kind of chirps a calf would make. A slightly distressed but nevertheless curious one, the type to become separated from its mother.

The type to rush under ice sheets even when told not to.

He could jump over the gate. He could. But he didn’t have a visual of the other side, he might just hurt himself or accidentally jump on land. There wasn’t enough room to properly jump in the pool in the first place. There wasn’t enough water for him to land safely either. He didn’t need to go to the other side anyway.

But he couldn’t exactly ignore it either. No one was answering the crying calf.

Slaine felt the gate more carefully with his sonar. There were hinges on one side and latches on the other. He couldn’t break the metal, but if he concentrated on the hinges, he might just manage to dislodge them.

A beginning of a plan was enough for Slaine. He could figure out the rest when he got to it. He took a deep breath before slamming his tail against the gate with a force that stung. It didn’t do much, but he could feel and hear the structure creaking. Encouraged, Slaine gathered a bit more strength behind his next strike by speeding around the pool before attacking again.

One of the two hinges gave, and Slaine could taste the water from the outside mingling into his pool. There was a calf on the other side, and it had started calling louder when it had heard him. A beluga whale calf, Slaine could now identify it.

After one more round around the pool he forced the other hinge to come undone as well and squeezed himself through the opening. In front of him was a corridor, about a meter wide and two meters long. On the other side of it there was a barred gate, and on the other side of the gate there was the beluga calf, popping up and down, chirping excitedly and rubbing its squishy melon against the bars.

Slaine hurried to the gate just as light suddenly poured into the water around him. He was momentarily blinded by it, but he could hear the calf loud and clear and continued relying on the sounds. The barred gate worked with the same mechanism as the smooth gate had. He didn’t have enough room to turn in the corridor and hit it with his tail, however. He was going to have to ram it head on.

“Stay back!”, he hastily whistled to the calf with commons. He didn’t have the time to be too careful. The first of many running steps were approaching. Had they heard the first gate break? If so, surely they couldn’t be this fast in response. As far as Slaine knew, the creatures slept during the night and were active only during the day. The calf was quick to retreat, and as it did, Slaine got a good look of it in his sonar. It was too small to be without its mother. Was it brought here too?

Blood suddenly boiling, Slaine rammed the gate, very nearly destroying his good shoulder too. That was when the first of the creatures made their appearance. It was Kaoru.

“Bat!Stopit!Calmdown!”, she shouted at him before ordering the other early arrivals. “MakesureSodstayssafe!”

Slaine rammed the barred gate again. He was going to have a splitting headache after this on top of potentially messing up his neck and shoulders, but he could feel the gate giving in just a little. Two people entered the pool where the calf was. From their echoes Slaine could tell the pool was not that much deeper than his own, but it was larger, maybe some 15 meters in diameter. With the increased volume of water Slaine was pushing it with the plan that he was hatching, but he needed more strength behind him. He had to ram the gate open before there were enough creatures to wrestle him away from it.

“Hello, no. Hello, no. Hello, no.”, Kaoru had finally found her whistle and started repeating the command. Luckily for her, ‘no’ was one of few words she had mastered so far, but unfortunately for her, Slaine had no intention of listening.

“Go behind the corner and put your head above the surface!”, Slaine whistled, hoping the calf was old enough to understand his instructions. He pushed himself back a little, made sure the calf was out of harms way, and started clicking.

As a calf, he had seen one of the adults in his adoptive pod put his hand on a sperm whale’s nose while it was hunting. The sonars had shattered the bones in his arm, and a few days later he was dead from an infection. Slaine wasn’t physically able to do something like that, especially in the sea. But in a pool with a way smaller volume of water to disperse the sounds, he could try to at least weaken the gate. Praying that the calf had his ears above the surface Slaine released his sonars and rammed head first into the bars in the sound’s wake.

For half a second there was nothing, he was simply floating in pure white.

Then, the headache ripped through his skull. Slaine curled in on himself and buried his head in his hands. The lights became unbearable. He distantly felt how the two green shirts who had come into the pool were scrambling to get out. Slaine curled a little tighter. He tasted blood in the water.

There was a soft nose digging its way through Slaine’s hands, insistently peeling him open limb by limb. Relief crashing into him like a wave, Slaine opened his arms for the creature and let it nestle itself against him. The calf was almost as long as he was, but Slaine could tell it was barely a year old, if that. He opened his eyes to see a grey beluga whale calf cooing contently, enjoying the closeness. It had lifted its head in time, Slaine noted with a sigh. He turned to float on his back so that the calf could breathe more easily.

The land creatures were stunned and disorganised. They were looming over the edges of the pool with their lights, unable or unwilling to act. One of the two that had been in the pool was crying. It was weirdly quiet otherwise, with only some murmurs and Kaoru’s disappointed glares.

Slaine couldn’t blame them. He was a mess too. He had a gash running across his hairline that was lazily bleeding into the pool, leaving behind a faint, dissolving trail. His left shoulder was disturbed and his right one bruised, not to mention the headache.

It was all worth it.

He snuggled the calf for a bit before gently sinking down and taking in his new surroundings. The calf followed him, a pectoral fin touching his tail much like a merfolk calf would hold onto their mother’s hair. The pool certainly was bigger and deeper than the previous one and considering the height of the edges it probably wasn’t even half full of water.

With purposefully slow and gentle movements, for both the calf’s and his own sake, Slaine turned to lay still on the centre of the pool.

“I’m Slaine. What’s your name?”, he asked the calf carefully, hopeful that she knew how to answer in commons. She tilted her head and looked unsure.

“…Human call me Sod.” She chirped after some hesitation, clearly imitating a foreign word and piecing unfamiliar sounds together. Her commons were clipped but that was to be expected from someone so young. Sod seemed to mirror Slaine in her confusion over their situation; she was looking at him with wide eyes devoid of fear, but it was clear she wasn’t sure how to act with a stranger. She was just a calf still though, and even in her uncertainty she felt safer huddled by Slaine’s side.

“’Human?’ What are humans?”

“Two-tails.”, she turned to breach quickly before diving back down to Slaine.

“The land creatures are ‘humans’?”

“Mom said. We went see humans.”, her voice was quickly becoming one of excitement as she warmed up to him.

Slaine was bewildered. Why would someone take their calf to see ‘humans’? Sod breached for a breath again and quickly dove past Slaine to pick up something from the bottom. She toothed on it for a few seconds before Slaine realised what it was.

“Sod, no, please don’t eat that.” Slaine took the metallic piece out of the calf’s mouth, and unsure of what to do with it he held onto it. Now that he felt around, he could tell that the floor was littered with pieces from the broken hinges. He carefully looked above the surface to see the creatures. They had mainly calmed down, but some were still pacing. Kaoru was by the ledge, so Slaine swam to her. He surfaced right in front of her, dropped the piece of metal in her feet and dived back down to get the rest before she could get half a word in.

Sod was quick to tail him again when he limped around the bottom, picking up the pieces. She was nuzzling her nose against his tail. Bashfulness soon forgotten she was starting to chatter like the little kid she was.

“Slaine merfolk! Sod never saw. Saw one time whale. Big whale! Mom say bowhead! Slaine fin like two-tail. Where pod? Sod pod big. One time saw bear! Slaine fin like swim bear! I saw! Mom say no close. Mom say molting rock good but Sod rock no-”

Slaine couldn’t help the laugh that escaped through his lips. The calf was probably stringing together just about every common whistle she knew. She mimicked his laugh in a true beluga-fashion before doing happy summersaults around the blond.

When Slaine surfaced to discard of the rest of the pieces he came face to face with Orange. He hadn’t heard the brunette anywhere among the earlier ruckus and flinched back from surprise.

Slaine couldn’t tell what the brunette was thinking, and he doubted Orange knew it himself. He seemed to bee teetering somewhere between bewilderment, relief, anger and concern, and since there was no way of knowing which emotion would come on top, Slaine made a quick escape back to the centre of the pool, Sod not missing a beat in following his every movement. He could feel her heart rate suddenly jump up, no doubt in response to his own reaction. Forcing himself to calm down in his post-adrenaline-rush anxiety, Slaine turned to face the calf again.

“Okay, Sod. We’re a pod now.”, he announced to the calf. Her eyes shined.

“We pod!”, she nodded enthusiastically, smiling like only a beluga can.

Slaine’s own smile was a bit too unsteady for his liking. “Sod, are there any other whales here?”

Sod tilted her head, confused.

“Here?”

“Yes, other whales. Here. Is your mother here?”

There was recognition in the calf’s eyes, but it died out soon. Instead she turned her focus towards the surface.

“Sod! Sod are you okay?Come!”, a young woman was nearly crying on the edge, the ends of her light brown pigtails floating in the water. Without another word to Slaine the calf turned around and rushed to the surface. In a record time she was already playing with the creature’s hair, squealing excitedly when the girl reached into the water to pet her open mouth. “I ‘msosorry! I ‘llnevertakeanotherbathroombreakagain!”

Slaine watched in horrified disbelief as the two played and cuddled, alternating between spraying each other with water and affectionately headbutting.

It didn’t make any sense.

What the hell was going on?

Sod turned around with a cheerful chirp. “Slaine! Nina here, Nina pod!”

“Nina… pod?”, Slaine repeated. The words didn’t feel real. Surely the calf was mixing up her whistles.

Having gathered himself, Orange stood near the girl, Nina, who was repeating what sounded like apologies to anyone who came close enough. His expression didn’t reveal anything as he sat down on the edge by her side, dropping his legs into the water, not paying any attention to Slaine. He wasn’t wearing the rubbery green overalls he usually did, having instead rolled his trousers up. The feet caught Sod’s attention right away and she dived to investigate them, chirping while carefully nosing and nudging around the toes.

Orange was faintly smiling at Sod despite himself and it was absurd.

Suddenly Slaine felt ashamed.

He wasn’t sure from where the feeling was coming from, but for a moment he wanted to just swim back to his small pool, close the gate behind him and stay there forever. His half-assed spur of the moment rescue mission had left him tired and aching and the one he was saving clearly didn’t need his help. Where were they supposed to go anyway? Slaine had somehow assumed the sea would be right outside of the gates because that had made sense in his head. Instead he just found himself in another pool. How was he supposed to know that; he had known nothing but the open ocean until last month!

Slaine was tired.

So, what he did was sink to the bottom of the pool and close his eyes.

When Slaine opened his eyes, the sea was different. Instead of the turbulent, misty waters he was surrounded by a serene calm.

It was like the currents had halted and time had stopped.

Slowly, as if an iceberg himself, the rostrum of a bowhead whale emerged from the darkness. Slaine watched in awe as the giant glided effortlessly by him, their eyes meeting for a brief moment.

In those eyes was the knowledge of a being that had lived the lifetimes of five or six of Slaine’s own kind. In the face of someone so eternal, the young merman felt lost.

His time hadn’t stopped, after all. In the midst of the sudden moment of tranquillity it was running out.

Chapter Text

Slaine stirred to the sensation of water lapping at his face. He was popping up and down on the surface uncomfortably, one side chafing against a wall. Irritated and achy all over, he reached behind himself to make whoever it was bothering him go away and let him get some more sleep.

“Alive? Slaine alive?”, he could hear Sod whining, clearly scared, somewhere below him. A careful set of clicks that tickled his back followed with the calf inspecting his rake marks. As soon as Sod stopped pushing him, the blond started sinking underwater again.

“What?” Slaine was still out of it. Why was Sod in his pool? Where did the bowhead whale go?

“No air!”, Sod started crying, headbutting him towards the surface again.

“Air?”, Slaine held his head. It felt like it was filled with sloshing seaweed. Under him the calf was getting frantic, crying and desperately trying to keep him afloat.

Ah.

Slaine turned carefully to Sod, trying and failing to reassure her. “I’m okay. See? I’m okay.”, he repeated for the both of them.

He was okay. He hurt all over, but he was okay. If he said it enough times, maybe it would become the truth.

He wasn’t sure what was going on anymore, if he ever had been in the first place. All he knew was that he was still alive somehow, stuck in a pool with a lone beluga calf. The land creatures – or humans, as Sod called them – that had them there were somewhere around the pool, no doubt. Slaine didn’t really want to think about them too much now.

“I don’t need air as often as you do, so I’m okay.” Slaine blew a bubble ring to show the calf that he really was not dying. Sod looked as the ring disassembled with disbelief and awe in her eyes, as if Slaine had just grown another tail. “I have another 20 minutes, easily.”, he offered with an unsteady smile before breaching for a breath anyway, the calf following his every movement.

God, his head hurt.

It was still night. Luckily most of the lights were already gone with the creatures, leaving only three looming figures by the darkened pool. Slaine could guess who they were, but he wasn’t ready to face any of them, so he just limped slowly around the pool trying to pull himself together. Sod fell back into following him soon enough, clinging to his side and suddenly interested in blowing bubbles herself.

Even if his sleep hadn’t been cut short, Slaine doubted he could’ve processed what had happened. For a brief moment it had felt like he had been on top of his situation, but then all semblance of common sense was gone again. He had lost his direction the moment Sod swam to Nina.

Which was something he couldn’t wrap his head around.

Sure, he had formed a sort of stalemate himself with one of the creatures, maybe two if he was stretching it, but that didn’t cancel out his mistrust of them. Granted, his prior knowledge wasn’t the most comprehensive one, given that he had seen an actual land creature for the first time only about a month ago. He hadn’t wanted to ever see one in the first place. After all, nothing good ever came of them.

Or that was what he had always been told. Slaine had come to know that the creatures were noisy and disrupting, yes, but also capable of more.

Things like help, care and play.

Slaine had thought about it before, but maybe they truly were like orcas after all. You could get along with them, even like them as long as you weren’t on the menu. Or resemble something on their menu. Or-

The analogy fell quickly apart in Slaine’s mind. There was no way he’d ever trust an orca, after all. Sod was young, she didn’t know any better. Slaine on the other hand had a bit too much experience. He couldn’t help being suspicious and untrusting. There was no way either of them could be unbiased.

He almost envied the calf’s ignorance.

Preparing himself, Slaine turned his gaze to the figures on the pool’s side. They weren’t paying any attention on him, however, too busy sulking among each other.

“Thefirstevermerman-rescue,frontpagenewsworldwide,andnowthis.”, Kaoru sighed. Slaine could still hear the disappointment in her voice, though he couldn’t tell what or who it was directed at anymore. “We werestupidtoletthepressinearly.Thewholeworldknows his facealready.”

“Itcouldn’thavebeenpredicted”, Orange said. His voice was steely. Slaine watched the brunette carefully. “Itwasn’tupto us.”

“I wish I playedwithBatmoreyesterday.Tired him out. I should’vestayedoutafterall.”

“Thishasneverbeendonebefore.”, Orange’s tone was off. “We didn’tknow.”

“I ‘msorrytoo.If I hadtakenmybreakfiveminuteslater I could’ve-“

“Nooneblames you, Nina.”, Kaoru’s eyes softened when she addressed the girl. Nina fiddled with her fingers before turning back towards the pool.

“Itcouldn’thavebeenpredicted”, Orange repeated. His eyes were somewhere far away. He wasn’t talking to Kaoru or Nina, Slaine realised.

Orange was comforting himself.

Slaine tilted his head in confusion. What reason would Orange have to look so serious or need comforting for? There was a painful tang in his chest that said it might have had something to do with him, but the blond silenced the thought as quickly as it had entered his mind. He had done nothing wrong, after all. There was no need to read so far into it.

“…Thebacklashisgoingto-“, Kaoru started, just to be cut off by the brunette.

“I ‘lldealwithit.” There was a sense of finality to Orange’s words. Kaoru didn’t try to argue with him. She mustered out a smile and a wave for Slaine before getting up. The blond meekly returned the gesture, somehow embarrassed having been caught staring. He didn’t like this feeling of shame that lingered around him. There was no reason for it.

He couldn’t have known better.

“I reallyhavetogetgoingnow.Thetransitionisgoingtobeabitmorejarringthan I hopedfor,butitcan’tbehelpedanymore.”, she sighed.

“Haveasafeflight!”, Nina offered. Orange stayed silent as he looked into the pool, following Slaine’s every movement with his eyes. It was unnerving.

Orange ended up staying by the poolside for the rest of the night and bringing him food that morning. He acted normal, but his tone was still off. In the end, Slaine ignored the brunette and the food he brought out of suspicion. He kept his distance when Doctoryagarai came running and stayed on the centre of the pool whenever the blue shirts were making their rounds along the edges. Which was more often than not. Luckily, he now had plenty of room to avoid the land creatures as much as he wanted.

Sod wasn’t doing any of that. She huddled by Slaine most of the time, but whenever someone new came by the pool she was the first one to greet them. When there was no one else to play with, she kept inspecting the blond’ head, blowing bubbles into his hair, bumping into him playfully and demanding him to show her more bubble rings. Which Slaine did, every time.

He hadn’t noticed it before, but Sod had strange scars on her dorsal ridge. Seven deep, clean cuts running side by side, one after another, a pattern way too clean to be regular rake marks or any other kind of scratches or scars that belugas often had. Slaine checked the cuts carefully when he managed to keep the calf silent and still for long enough. They were healed but recent. He tried asking about them, but Sod didn’t know how to answer.

Slaine doubted she even knew about them herself.

During the brief periods that he was left alone with Sod, Slaine spent inspecting the new pool. It wasn’t that different from the small one. It was round, smooth and boring, except in one major way: behind a large, barred gate there was a space that was at least 15 meters deep and almost three times as wide. Slaine couldn’t help it when he found his sonars escaping through the bars to feel the rocky formations that rose from the sandy bottom and lined most of the walls. It was another pool, he was certain from the lack of currents and the same, slightly weird taste of the water. He wasn’t going to let false hopes to get the better him again. It wasn’t comparable to the deeps, not even to the shallows. Still, even though he had just come bursting through two gates from a pool that had a diameter of just five meters, Slaine was already anxious to get out again.

Behind the gate of his small pool had been a bigger pool, and now he was already faced with another, yet bigger pool. Maybe if he just got through enough gates, he could eventually find his way to a space large enough to travel and migrate in, like he used to.

He wasn’t able to, though. Never mind the fact that he had nearly broken himself on the two small gates before, this big gate was way too tough for him, Slaine knew that much when the first echoes of his sonar returned. He briefly contemplated jumping over it, but even if he was in any condition to do so, it would mean leaving Sod behind. Belugas don’t jump, after all.

Not to mention that the last time he had tried to jump over things had ended disastrously.

In the end, what Slaine was left with was the gate mocking him, Sod happily blowing bubbles around him and Orange sulking somewhere in his peripheral vision, insistently trying to call him to eat.

Orange was nothing if not persistent.

While Nina played with Sod and fed her, the brunette tried every trick in his book to lure Slaine to him. It started with simple calls, followed by requests for whatever tricks and random, meaningless whistles. When Slaine ignored all of those, the creature stayed blissfully silent for a while.

Unfortunately, Orange couldn’t be ignored into silence for long.

From somewhere inside the walls a beluga call erupted, one that had Sod perk up and send answers around the pool. Slaine too was startled when the sounds started coming from underwater, looking around disoriented. The following calls were from another dialect, which just made everything that much more confusing. Slaine turned to Sod, lost. She didn’t answer for a while, too busy responding to the calls.

“They sing with me.”, the calf chased around the sounds with a far-away look in her eyes. Somehow it creeped Slaine out. “Every day.”

“Do you recognise them?”

Sod turned to Slaine with an expression that had Slaine sigh in relief. With just one look back to the merman the light returned to her eyes. “No. But they sing and I sing and we sing.”

“…Where are they?”, he asked, looking around. The way the chirps and clicks seemed to be everywhere at the same time was eerie. Sod considered it for a while.

“Not know. Not here.”, she finally said. After a quick inhale at the surface she pushed her melon into Slaine’s side. “But they sing. I sing. Slaine sing!”, she chattered in her sing-song voice while nudging the blond to the surface as well.

“What? No! I’m not singing to an empty pool!”, Slaine protested. Sod pouted in response but didn’t take no for an answer. Before she could say anything, however, a new voice filled the pool.

“Hello.”

The syllables were stretched, but it was an unmistakeable greeting. It didn’t sound like a beluga vocalisation either.

“Hello.”, Slaine answered before he could catch himself. A string of greetings followed the first one. It was a large group greeting an outsider, greeting him.

A whole pod of humpback whale cows and their young. Which didn’t make any sense. There was no way a single humpback would fit anywhere near them, let alone a pod. That didn’t stop Sod from mimicking Slaine and greeting every one of the callers. They weren’t just humpbacks anymore, either. Slaine could recognise at least a grey whale, a right whale, a sperm whale and a pilot whale amongst all the callers.

He turned his focus to Orange. The brunette was sitting by the edge of the pool, emerged in his rectangular tablet-thingy. There was no doubt in Slaine’s mind he was somehow responsible for the continuous string of ‘hellos’ that surrounded him and Sod before escaping through the gate to the bigger, deeper pool. He didn’t know how or why, but then again, there was a lot he didn’t understand about the creature.

Just as Slaine was about to surface to give a piece of his mind to Orange, Nina kneeled by his side. She seemed worried but with two or three words from Orange, her worries were eased. There must’ve been something interesting on the tablet, since Nina kept her eyes on it, an excited smile lighting up her whole face. Slaine tightened his hand into a fist by his chest.

First there had been shame and now there was envy.

Slaine felt abashed in the face of these emotions. He felt abashed regardless of them. He wasn’t sure if breaking through the gates had been the right thing to do. He was certain he wasn’t meant to do it. But if so, what were going to be the consequences? The uncertainty was killing him. If he knew the words, he could ask. But he didn’t know them.

There had been a moment of silent understanding between him and Orange at some point, Slaine thought. Somehow it reminded him of the ancient bowhead he had met in the Arctic so many years ago. There had been sympathy in its eyes.

Slaine didn’t know what to do anymore. So, in the end, he did nothing.

By nightfall Orange had had enough. While Nina was running errands the brunette suddenly got up and took off his shoes.

“Hello!”, he called, raising his voice to make sure he got the merman’s attention. He had it, alright, from the moment he had appeared by the pool the previous night all distraught. Slaine had an uneasy feeling about this all. He’d never seen Orange act like this before.

“Orange water, good?”, Orange asked, though it sounded more like an announcement. Slaine didn’t have enough time to answer anyway before Orange discarded the shoes, took a step forward and crashed into the pool.

Startled, Slaine flinched back as the brunette surfaced, gasping in shallow breaths of air. He seemed to be about as shocked as Slaine was, even though he was the one to jump in. After a few more deep inhales he straightened himself and started walking. If it could’ve even been called walking at that point, since the water reached all the way to his shoulders and he couldn’t take proper steps. He started kicking with his legs instead and using his arms in what was probably the least graceful display of swimming that Slaine had ever witnessed.

If he hadn’t been so shocked, he would’ve been laughing.

Sod certainly was. Unrestrained and laughing her heart out in delight, the calf dived under Orange on her back before bumping into him a few times, trying to make the creature chase her. The brunette wasn’t affected by Sod’s teasing though, so after a couple more passes she lost interest and started blowing bubble rings instead, something that she had obsessed over mastering since the early hours of that morning.

A few meters into the pool Orange lowered his feet so they touched the bottom again. Between shallow huffs he called Slaine. His heartrate was going at a wild pace and for a moment Slaine thought the creature would pass out. The blond hadn’t moved from his spot in the centre of the pool during the whole ordeal. It wasn’t like Orange could suddenly charge him in the water, after all. More than anything, though, he couldn’t bring himself to move away. He was already having a headache so figuring out what the hell Orange was up to this time was even more of a pain than usually. He hadn’t set any boundaries for this pool yet, but even so the creature was being incredibly stupid. He was intentionally making himself an easy target.

“Hello, head.”, Orange tried, his hand outstretched. Slaine narrowed his eyes. After a short stare down between them Sod made an appearance again, sneaking behind Orange. She charged around him with her mouth wide open in an attempt at looking scary. The brunette barely spared her a glance and Slaine stifled in a snicker. The calf turned to headbutt the blond instead. It caught some of his bruises, but Slaine laughed anyway.

“Human boring! Slaine boring!”, she exclaimed, blowing nearly all her air out of her blowhole in a tantrum. Slaine blew bubbles on her face in retaliation.

“Of course you won’t catch Orange off guard like that. He’s probably seen you scare Nina.”, Slaine breached to catch his breath with the calf.

“No way!” Sod clearly hadn’t thought of the possibility.

“Hello, head.”, Orange called again, his voice a bit strained. He had been watching the interaction carefully, still as a rock. Slaine furrowed his brows, finally recognising the weird, barely recognisable undertone that had been plaguing Orange’s voice: urgency. Now that he paid more attention, the brunette was shivering. Was he going to collapse or something?

Slaine slid carefully closer. Not quite close enough to touch, but Orange had his full attention again as he probed the creature with his sonar. His pulse was slowing down at least. His breathing was shallow still. Slaine tilted his head. It was curious, everything seemed to be fine, but something was obviously wrong.

Finally, Slaine came a little bit closer.

Orange wasted no time in reaching both his hands into the merman’s hair, feeling gingerly around his skull. Slaine was taken back by surprise, but he halted any protest he might have had when Orange lightly touched along the edges of the gash that run across his hairline. It was going to leave a scar. With a sigh, the brunette took another clumsy step closer and moved his focus onto Slaine’s right side, littered with bruises and thankfully nothing worse. Slaine felt like a calf again when the creature took a hold of his right wrist and gingerly tested through the joints in his arm: all in working order. Thankfully he didn’t touch the left side.

“Hewo, sh.”, Orange slurred through his teeth before turning and heading back to the pool’s edge. Or at least trying to, since his movements were so stiff that he wasn’t going anywhere. Instinctively Slaine reached out to take a hold of Orange’s elbow before the brunette could fall over. His teeth were chattering and on top of the shivers there were now tremors running up and down his body.

That wasn’t normal.

Orange’s whole body was tense, his breaths even shallower than before, but despite that his heart rate was still low.

Alarmed, Slaine grabbed a hold around the creature’s torso and pulled him the five meters to the edge so that he could get up, since clearly he was having a fit after all. He let go of Orange and swiftly retreated back to gain a little distance between the two of them before Orange could get up.

Except that he wasn’t getting up, Slaine noticed with a sinking feeling.

Orange stayed huddled by the edge where Slaine had left him, holding weakly onto the wall. He couldn’t get up on his own.

Slaine dived back to Orange, surfaced right next to him and peered over the edge. There was no-one there. Orange was shaking violently by now. Unsure of what else to do Slaine dived under Orange, reached his good arm around the land creature’s legs and started to lift him up. Orange almost fell backwards into the pool, but before he did so, Sod pushed him back to the right direction. With some struggle they managed to get Orange out of the pool, his wet clothes clinging to his body and pulling him down in weird angles.

Slaine was pushing the last of the brunette’s limbs onto dry land when he heard Nina running back to the pool.

“Ohmygod, Inaho!? Whathappened?” She was quick to take a hold of Orange’s clothes and drag him a little further from the edge. Slaine pushed himself up so he could see what was happening.

“…swimmedint’pool.”, Orange managed to slur from between his chattering teeth. Nina was already peeling his wet shirt away before replacing it with her own jacket. Orange’s arms refused to go into the sleeves, so she wrapped the jacket around him instead before covering him in a large, fluffy towel she grabbed from nearby.

“Withoutadrysuit?Were you pulledin?”

“…No, I- I wentinmyself.”

“Thewateriswhat,5°celciusatmost!”

“It’sonlybruises.”, Orange mumbled into the towel, “Batwasn’teatingso- Oh! I promised him afish.”

For some reason, Nina laughed. “Howlongwere you inthepool?”

“…Maybetenorfifteenminutes?Tenminutes.”, Orange seemed unsure. Worry returned to Nina’s eyes.

“Do you needadoctor? I reallyshouldcalladoctor,right?”

“No, I wouldn’tgethypothermiafromjusttenminutes.”

“Anormalhumanwould. I ‘mcallingthenurseover.”

During the hasty conversation Slaine had climbed a bit further out of the pool. He knew that land creatures weren’t supposed to dwell in water but was it really that bad? That they would just keel over and die if they weren’t wearing their rubbery clothes to keep the water away? Orange would’ve probably managed to drown himself in a matter of minutes if Slaine hadn’t lifted him out. The brunette turned his eyes to Slaine. They were still unfocused, but he was getting better every minute he spent huddled under the towel.

“Orange water no good.”, Slaine said to him. Somehow that pulled a dry chuckle out of the brunette. Slaine tilted his head, an annoyed pinch growing on his brow. Orange took in a shuddering breath.

“Hello land no good.”, he answered.

“Well, we’re not talking about me this time.”, Slaine said, ignoring the parallel that Orange pointed out and pulling himself a little further out of the pool just to spite the brunette. If he was going to act like a calf, Slaine was going to talk to him like he was one.

“You’re an idiot, you know that right? If you can’t be in the water, don’t come into the water, it's not that hard. You don’t see me rolling around on dry land.” Orange blinked, only understanding a word or two. “What would’ve happened if I wasn’t there? Sod’s not big enough to push you out on her own yet. What if Nina was somewhere further away?” The calf cheered in agreement behind Slaine. “The first rule: this pool is mine. The second rule: no dying in my pool!” Slaine ended his lecture just as two young men in blue shirts came running. He hissed at both of them for a good measure before dropping back down and swimming away, Sod cackling and splashing her flukes in his wake.

"Pool of Slaine! Of Sod pod!", Sod cheered while doing somersaults around the blond and spitting water towards the creatures at every breach. She seemed to be thoroughly entertained by the whole ordeal. Behind his exasperation there was a smile creeping its way to Slaine’s lips too. He couldn’t deny how much better he felt after just a little bit of clearing the air.

Chapter Text

Everything was grey. The sky, the pool and the droplets that travelled between the two before finally meeting the surface. What followed was a soothing pitter-patter that drowned all the other sounds underneath it and cradled Slaine. The merman floated on his back, his good hand lifted towards the sky, feeling the rain. He had never taken the time for truly observing something like it before. Weirdly, despite his still insistent headache, Slaine felt at ease. Like something that had been weighing him down had been resolved. He didn’t know exactly what it was, though.

There were new creatures roaming the big pool beyond the gate. They had been at it for some hours now and enough time had passed so that Slaine barely minded them anymore. The blond still kept his ears on them just in case, but the new creatures were far more interested in eating algae from the rock formations and sand than in him. He too would’ve probably forgotten about them if only it wasn’t for their sounds.

There was something not quite right in the way they sucked in water. No matter how much Slaine focused on the rain, the gasps and releases broke his concentration. Irritated, the blond sighed before sinking underwater again. Sod was by his side before he even reached the shallow bottom. She snuggled by his tail and chirped away as they swam in laps. Slaine still felt a bit stiff but moving seemed to help with his healing bruises.

“Nina held fluke.”, Sod preened. Even as Slaine threw glares toward the gasping creatures, he couldn’t help the upward twitch pulling his lips into a careful smile.

“I saw.”, he confirmed. He had just about attacked Nina for toying with the calf’s flukes too, but had halted before his charge. Both the calf and the “human”, as Sod insisted calling them, had been enjoying themselves. The reality of his situation had come back to Slaine like a jellyfish sting only a second later; to attack a land creature couldn’t possibly end well for him or Sod.

So, he forced himself to stay put and kept watch instead, taut and ready to pounce at any moment as the human gently pulled the light grey fluke out of the pool, did something, and then enthusiastically gave the calf a fish and plenty of kisses.

“Air is fun on fluke.”, Sod giggled. Slaine spiralled himself around Sod as they swam, and the calf followed his lead in no time, the two of them bumping lightly into each other every now and then. Sod knew to be careful with Slaine’s left side, a sliver of surprisingly mature consideration from the calf.

“It tingles, right? But too much air crackles.”

“Ti-guh-ree… What is cra-less?”

Slaine bumped into the calf playfully. He really should start relearning beluga chirps instead of making the calf use commons. “It feels nice for a moment and then it becomes too much. So be careful.”

“Ah.”, the calf answered lamely. Slaine glanced back at her weird tone just in time to get a face full of her squishy melon. The startled laugh Slaine let out surprised him, but he wasn’t one to back down when challenged. He chased the beluga around in erratic circles for three or four laps before he managed to capture the cackling calf in his arms. He could just barely reach around her anymore. Like any child, she was growing fast and for an animal of her size even a week’s difference could be impressive.

“Nina tiguh-, tinhre-“

“Tingles?”, Slaine offered the whistle. They were floating to the surface now, an impromptu game of tag replaced with gently playing with some loose leaves that the green shirts hadn’t picked out yet. Another unnatural gasp from beyond the gate fought for Slaine’s attention, but he wanted to listen to Sod more.

“That. Nina that. Never too much.”, the calf sang with surprising conviction. “Land too much. Nina good.”

Slaine pinched his brows. “But humans are of land.”, he couldn’t help arguing.

“Nina know Sod of water.”, Sod answered without a second thought.

Whatever Slaine was about to say was forgotten. For Sod, it was so simple that Slaine didn’t know whether the stumped frustration that suddenly bubbled somewhere in his chest was because of the calf’s naivety or his own wariness. Slaine supposed there was some worth in the mutual recognition Sod had so easily described, even though he couldn’t trust in it as much as the calf did. Humans knowing that he was a creature of the sea and water hadn’t stopped them from pulling him onto the land and into a shallow pen before, after all.

All the more reason for him to keep his eyes and ears open for the calf too.

“You sure like Nina, huh.”

“Nina then and now and always help. Nina pod.”

Sod was acting surprisingly sombre beneath her cheerfulness. Slaine turned to her again and snuggled close to the calf. He didn’t know what was wrong, but he could tell it was too much for a child. They floated quietly, Slaine laying on Sod’s dorsal ridge, careful to not obstruct her blowhole as she lifted him above surface and inhaled deeply. The air was cool to his wet skin. It did feel nice.

“We’re pod too.”, Slaine whistled to the beluga through the air, not caring that there were two or three green shirts cleaning the poolside that turned to stare. “I don’t like shores, but I’ll find you a good molting beach once we get out of here.”

“Can Nina come too?”

Slaine pet the calf’s back gently. “…Water is not good for Nina. We’ll go to the North and the Ice and meet lots of other belugas instead.”

Sod twitched, upset. “Why water no good?”

“Humans are of land, they break in water. You saw yesterday when Orange-“, Slaine was interrupted by a wild burst of giggles that threw him off Sod.

“Slaine weird!”, Sod managed in between her laughter.

“What?”, Slaine tried to act annoyed, but couldn’t hide his relief at the change in Sod’s mood.

“Humans in water lots! Sod swam with Nina before Slaine came!”

“What?” This time Slaine was getting genuinely confused.

Sod slid closer to the big gate. “Humans in water now.”

“…What?”

Sod pushed his melon against the bars of the gate and chirped a hello to the two gaspers that still roamed the far side of the big pool’s sandy bottom. One of the two-finned creatures started slowly rising to the surface and disappeared behind a rock-pillar. Its wheezing gasps followed by raspy releases of bubbles creeped Slaine out. Its movements were so out of place, its appearance like something out of the tales told about the leviathans of the deeps. The more he looked at them, the less Slaine liked them. Still, when feeling them with sonar Slaine could tell they were indeed human: their bodies felt the same, their heartbeats and breathing were the same, as were their movements and mannerisms.

Slaine didn’t have the time to ask questions before the pool filled with beluga chirps and whistles again, something that happened the same time every day, just as Sod had told him. Sod took off from the gate like always, chatting with the voices and leaving the merman to his thoughts and uncertainties.

Slaine had settled by the big gate, laying on the bottom of the pool, biting at his claws absentmindedly and watching the one still remaining gasper.

He had had a pretty good feel at human tails when he had broken out of his little pool and burst through the gate with the help of his sonar. No doubt the people that had jumped in that night had felt his sonar all the way in their bones. Bones that were so very open for any attack. He had dragged Orange out of the pool just yesterday. It had been a brief moment, but the creature had been nothing like he had ever held in his arms before. His skin had been thin, his bones light and his body without the dense protecting barrier of blubber that even Slaine’s kind had just under their skin, albeit in a lot thinner layer than most other deep-sea dwelling animals. It was no wonder the human had collapsed in the pool when just an accidental bump of Slaine’s tail could’ve been enough to break his bones.

Orange wasn’t of water. If anything, despite his stupid jump into the pool he didn’t even seem to like water that much. Slaine had seen him always covering himself from it.

Every time he pieced something together so that it made sense it all fell apart again.

In a burst of frustration and anger Slaine whacked his tail against the gate and hissed at the lone startled gasper. Stupid Orange and stupid land creatures with their creepy water-skins. He was going to get into the big pool eventually, find the next gate and be rid of them all.

For now, Slaine closed his eyes again and hoped to not dream of the orcas anymore.

Something stirred the water.

Slaine snapped awake and bombarded the pool with sonars. Everything returned back normally, except for the fact that there were two human tails in the pool. Sod, like the busybody she was, was already inspecting them. Careful to not show that he had been startled, Slaine turned slowly around and stretched himself in a show of nonchalance. It was Orange who sat on the edge of the pool wiggling his… whatever the things at the end of his fins were. Tiny fingers? Land creatures were weird. Sun had already set while Slaine slept, but the sky was still almost as orange as the ship Slaine had seen long ago.

“Hey! You ‘renotallowedin!” Slaine couldn’t see who was shouting at Orange, but the voice wasn’t pleasant. Curious, he sneaked a bit closer to it along the pool’s wall.

“I ‘mnotinthe pool.”

“Itdoesn’tmatter, your legsarandit’snotokay.”

“Therulesonlystatethatenteringthe pool isnotadvised. I havenotenteredthe pool ,andevenif I had,itwouldn’tbeforbidden,justdiscouraged.” Orange didn’t even look in the direction of the angry voice. Instead his eyes followed Slaine, attentive but not worried.

“You ‘renoteven- It’slikedealingwithafiveyearoldwith you!” The voice got closer to the edge, clearly agitated. Slaine’s eyes met with Orange’s and in that moment everything was simple and easy. Orange gave Slaine the slightest of nods.

In one swift movement Slaine twisted his body around and threw his flukes up, effectively throwing water on anyone within a five-meter radius. The surprised shriek that followed was more than worth it. Slaine threw himself back into the pool with an impish glee and celebrated with an additional slap of his flukes. Served him right, messing with his pool and his-

Slaine stopped dead in his tracks. Sod speeded around him in excitement, chirping non calf-appropriate whistles at the angry man with unmatched delight. Orange’s face didn’t reveal much, but he looked content. Suddenly too embarrassed to look the human in the eyes, the blond sank back to the bottom of the pool. Sod changed her tune to happy greetings. No doubt Nina had come back from her break.

“Ah, Inaho! Aren’t you supposedtoberestingtoday?”

“I haverestedforthedayalready.Itwasjustamildcaseofhypothermia.”

“Aw,cutthesass.Atleastweartheboots!”, Nina fussed around the brunette.

“It’sallright, I washedmyfeet.”

“You knowwhat I meant.”, the girl pouted under her breath. “You ‘llgetfrostbites.”

Orange didn’t answer, he looked on as the last gasper climbed out of the big pool instead. Slaine too lifted his head above the surface to see the man pulling a big tube-thing out of his mouth. He grimaced at the sight; it was disgusting and scary.

“I needtogetmytoleranceupevenif I useadrysuit.”, Orange said distantly before turning his focus on Nina. “Itwasthesamefor you too,right?”

“Belugasdon’trespectatrainerwho’sweaktothecold.”, she shrugged with a smile, downplaying herself.

Orange hummed thoughtfully. He wiggled his tails again, the movements a bit stiffer. Slaine could almost hear his body struggling to bring blood all the way to the tips of his tiny fins. The blond huffed. To him the water felt warm, but for the human with his thin skin and lack of insulation it clearly was a different story. He stalked to where Orange was sitting and turned to lie on his back with the now still tails above him. Someone clearly had to keep Orange alive since he couldn’t do it himself, and with that thought Slaine settled into monitoring the feet. Both humans stayed very quiet and still for a moment before carefully relaxing.

“He ‘secholocating.”, Orange said suddenly while peeking over the edge. Nina was crouched behind his shoulder, trying to see through the calm ripples as well. “Ittickles.”

“Doesitfeellikeadolphin?”

Orange seemed to be at a loss of words. “I- I ‘veneverhadadolphinfeelmewithsonar,so I ‘mnotsure. I ’llcheckthehydrophoneslater.”

“I ‘dguessit’sabitdifferent.” Nina sat back. “Oneofthegirlsgotastressfracturefromwhen Bat brokethegate. She saiditwasmorelikeaspermwhaleorsomething.Thatithithershinlikeabrick.”

“Spermwhaleshavealargespermacetiorgantoamplifytheirsounds.But Bat doesn’tappeartohaveanysortofmelon.Doesthesoundtravelandamplifythrough his bones?”, Orange was practically hanging over the edge at this point. Slaine stuck his tongue out in response. He’d seen Inko do it before. “We ‘llneedtogetx-raystooatsomepoint.”

“Thelistgetslongereverytime.”, Nina laughed.

Orange hadn’t been moving his tails in a while, Slaine noted. Slowly, he lifted his good arm up and poked the heel of one tail with his claw. Orange held his breath again. Emboldened, Slaine laid his palm flat against the sole and lifted it carefully. Even to his hand the foot felt cold. Orange offered no resistance as Slaine lifted first one and then the other tail out of the pool. He stilled in front of the two humans, his eyes peeking above the surface and his hair sticking to his face. Orange pulled his tails close to himself, absentmindedly rubbing warmth back into them as his focus was on the merman.

“Hello.”, he finally whistled. A bit lacklustre greeting considering, but it was the best the human could say, Slaine supposed.

“Hello.”, he answered back.

“Hello!”, Sod suddenly shouted from right next to Slaine’s ear making him jump. Slaine jumping startled Nina as well, even though she tried to nervously laugh it off right away.

“Feet funny! Lots of little-“, Sod started babbling just to have Slaine close his mouth with one hand and rub his melon with another. The calf squealed in excitement and took off in a fit of zoomies that had the pool overflowing and the humans taking a hasty step back from the edge.

Despite everything, Slaine laughed.

Something was going on. Slaine wasn’t sure what and why, but he could feel the anticipation in the air. The constant cleaning and the new faces that stalked the edges of the big pool were more than enough evidence for that. Nina was by the pool working with Sod more often than not, checking the calf’s mouth and eyes, playing with her and even teaching her new behaviours. Slaine watched with mixed feelings as Sod turned around, let out a whistle or lifted her dorsal fin for a fish. It felt wrong, but Slaine let it happen. He tried to remind himself that it was no different from letting Orange touch his head or shoulders. Slaine didn’t know whether that was a good thing or not.

Finally, what he had been nervously waiting, knowing that it had to happen soon, happened. Orange returned to the pool one day followed by Doctoryagarai. The healer was less apprehensive than he had been previously, this time even freely talking to Slaine in the playful manner he had used to talk when the merman had still been stuck in the tiny tank. Slaine briefly wandered what had changed but didn’t bother with it too much. It wasn’t like he could understand the gibberish that was cooed at him, after all.

What did pick his interest was how involved and busy everyone was. Everyone seemed eager to get Slaine checked up. The newfound calmness from the healer made it easier for Slaine to come to the humans when Orange eventually called him over. It was a standard thing, really. The only time Doctoryagarai let his nerves show was when he lightly felt around the merman’s head and Slaine shook his hands away. The man let out a good-natured “okay” and left his head and face alone. Similarly, he didn’t let them tamper with his flukes. Doctoryagarai likely meant no harm, but Slaine couldn’t risk his tail when he was still healing his shoulder.

Much like Nina did with Sod whenever the blue shirts gave the calf a check-up, Orange rested his hand lightly on the nape of Slaine’s neck. From seeing Sod do it before Slaine somewhat knew what was coming next, but the long thin tape being wrapped around his torso still caught him off guard.

Suddenly Slaine’s heart sank painfully, and he pushed away from the side of the pool with so much force that the other side of the pool overflowed. He gasped in a breath as soon as he could and dove back to the bottom of the pool. Sod was by his side not half a second later, Nina trying to call her back to their practice. Thankfully Doctoryagarai had let go of the tape and it was nowhere to be seen anymore. Slaine struggled to understand the sudden sense of dread that overcame him. He could taste vomit in his mouth.

The tape around his torso felt familiar. It had to have happened before. Orange whistled for him to come back and weirdly enough Slaine really wanted to go back, if only to distract himself from the memory that he couldn’t fully remember. He just couldn't bring himself to move just yet.

“It’sfine, I gotthemeasurements. He ‘sputonweightnicelyandevenbuiltupsomemuscle.”, Doctoryagarai said softly. He got up and dusted off his pants. “Ourresidentsyreniisaroundahealthyweightagain,atleastinhumanterms. I ‘llgogetacoffeeand we cancontinuethen,okay?”

Slaine laid on the floor his mind racing in million different directions. Was it when he passed out and Sod woke him up? Did it happen when he ate the bad tuna? Or even earlier, when he laid defenceless in the shallow pool and the sea disappeared? Slaine couldn’t string the memories together in an order that would’ve made sense.

Had something else he didn’t know about happened when he had been out of it?

There was a hand in the water that Slaine suddenly became aware of. Orange, no doubt, was the one disturbing the water. Seeing that he got the merman’s attention, the brunette whistled again.

“Hello, bubbles.”

Slaine barked out a surprised laugh. He didn’t think Orange had it in him to show emotional intelligence, but here they were, the human’s attempt at easing Slaine’s spiralling thoughts so painfully obvious that he wanted to cry. He had once marvelled about how similar their hands were, but all that had been buried under bad blood and misunderstandings long ago. It was a shame.

The least Slaine could do was to blow bubbles.

Orange made his next requests similarly easy: make a wave, touch the ground, come fetch a fish. When he asked Slaine to come back the next time, the merman didn’t even need to think about it.

“Are we allsettledhere?”

Orange lowered his hand carefully back onto Slaine’s nape. He hadn’t noticed the healer return. “Ready.”

“Noneedtobesotense.”, Doctoryagarai said with his sing-song voice after taking a sip from his cup. “We ’llbedoneinaminute. I ‘mreadyif you are.”

“Left shoulder, Hello.”, Orange whistled. Slaine threw Doctoryagarai a suspicious glare but didn’t bother protesting. Thankfully the taste of vomit was almost gone and the healer’s touch light when he felt around the shoulder.

“Yep,as I thought.” With his body turned towards Doctoryagarai it was easy for Slaine to keep watch on the humans. Though it was hard not to get embarrassed when Doctoryagarai met his eyes and smiled warmly, like he could somehow see through him. The healer gently pushed Slaine’s shoulder to turn him a little before starting to untie the ties of his grey sleeve. “Do I let him goandgiveitaminuteordo we pushonrightaway?”

“I ‘mnotsure.Justgive him somespaceonce you ‘redone.”

“Willdo.” The last of the ties was unfastened, the sleeve carefully pulled away and Dctoryagarai took a step back. Slaine’s whole arm was tingling, and the water against its bare skin felt almost foreign. He reached to touch his shoulder tentatively. It wasn’t sore anymore, but he knew trying to properly roll his shoulders or lift his left arm would still hurt.

“Hello, shoulder.”, Orange whistled. Slaine looked up to see him holding the grey sleeve. Curious, he reached with his good arm to take it, but Orange pulled it back a little, pointing at the cloth inquisitively instead.

“Sleeve.”, Slaine supplied without missing a beat. “At least I think that’s what it is.”

“Sleeve.”, Orange repeated. He lifted another, a bit darker piece of cloth from where it had rested on the ground the whole time the healer had been there. “Doctoryagarai Hello sleeve.”

“Another one?”, the blond pouted.

“Hello shoulder. Sleeve…”, Orange stumbled over his whistles, trying to form a sentence. Slaine rested his chin on the edge of the pool and let the human struggle for a bit. “Shoulder no sleeve no good. Sleeve…”

“Sleeve makes shoulder good?”

“Sleeve makes shoulder good.”, Orange repeated right away. “Good shoulder makes good Hello.”

Slaine giggled a bit and turned for the humans. Rather than fully trusting in Orange’s impenetrable logic of “good shoulder’s making good hellos”, he knew from feeling his shoulder that he still needed the sleeve for support. Orange gave the new sleeve to Doctoryagarai who was busy downing the rest of his drink.

“You ‘redone?It’slikelistengingtotwoconfusedcockatiels.”, the man laughed and set his cup down. Slaine adjusted himself a little so that the sleeve could be easily slipped on and the ties fastened.

“What is ‘sholdie’ and why it say hello?”, Sod asked from the other side of the pool. The calf was busy being distracted by Nina, but apparently had still listened in.

“Orange is just being silly.”, Slaine whistled back, glad to have the distraction himself. Orange’s eyes snapped between Sod and him, no doubt having recognised his nickname being used.

For a few days Orange had a weird fixation of sticking his bare feet into the pool. Usually Slaine let him be for a while before making him take his legs out. But that had been nothing compared to what he was watching transpiring in the big pool now.

Orange was wearing a black and white water-skin with all the noisy tubes and large cylinders attached to his back, ready to jump into the 15-meters deep pool. To say that Slaine was livid was an understatement. He didn’t like the gaspers or the water-skins they wore, and he most certainly didn’t like the idea of a corpse floating in the pool. Because that was what was going to happen if they let the stupid Orange go in. The brunette was weak to water and cold, after all.

Not a second later of Slaine pressing himself against the bars of the gate to see better, Orange jumped in. The brunette gasped in a shallow inhale followed by a burst of bubbles. After the first breath his rhythm steadied, he turned around and started calmly getting familiar with the pool. Slaine looked on in shock before managing to open his mouth.

“Are you stupid? No good, Orange and water, no good!”

Orange turned his attention around and finally towards the gate, as if he wasn’t sure where Slaine was. It was surreal how water could make humans’ movements sluggish while he had the same problem in air. When their eyes met, Orange seemed somewhat relieved.

“Orange, land now! No water!”, Slaine demanded. It didn’t go down as well as he had hoped: if anything, Orange’s expression melted into hidden amusement.

“Orange good.”, the human hummed in good humour and without another word turned a deaf ear to the rest of Slaine’s complaints. Frustrated and anxious, Slaine hissed at him. Had the gate not been in between them, he could’ve scared him again and made sure that he wouldn’t try something so stupid ever again.

Slaine paced by the gate as another gasper joined Orange. The two of them wandered around the pool ignoring Slaine and sometimes gesturing with their hands or waving at something behind the transparent wall on one side of the pool. Slaine’s heart was beating wildly as he followed their movements, but whenever they got closer to the gate to his pool he hid by the wall. He simply couldn’t get used to the water-skins and their creepy sounds.

It didn’t help that Orange’s black and white water-skin had the markings of an orca.

Still, Slaine kept his eyes away from the two divers even when Sod tried to get him to play with her. Orange was calm and clearly experienced, but the merman couldn’t help the pit in his stomach. He didn’t like it when things were out of his control.

He had been carrying a feeling of impending doom for months now.

Eventually, after what felt like hours, they got out of the pool to meet with people who had been waiting by the spot they surfaced. Slaine could make out a lot of thumbs up and excited voices. Thankfully Orange took off the contraction leaving only the orca-skin on and buried himself into a fluffy towel. The happy crowd dispersed after only a few minutes, and the gasper, now clear of his gear too, waved Orange goodbye. Slaine was relieved this particular activity was over and he could get up and breathe again.

That’s why, save for the gate, he would’ve happily drowned the damned human himself when Orange jumped back into the pool.

Slaine didn’t even have the time to feel worried this time when the brunette swam around the pool at a calm pace. Without his gear his dives were shallow and over in a matter of seconds. Slaine’s anger turned to bemusement quickly when there were no creepy sounds to distract him and he noted just how weird humans swam. Instead of fearing for Orange’s life he was quickly becoming curious instead, and the brunette noticed it too when he swam past the gate only to have Slaine follow his every movement, pressed flush against the bars. Orange swam past the gate a couple more times before inhaling deeply and diving to face his audience, still keeping a safe distance.

Slaine tilted his head from side to side as he tried to make sense of this all. By him Sod was mimicking his movements. The human on the other hand seemed confident in himself, as if he had figured something out, even though he looked ridiculous slowly waving his hands, trying to keep himself stable and still underwater. Orange rotated slowly around and surfaced again with a gasp for air. He pulled himself out of the water by the gate instead of the side of the pool where he had left his towel. In what seemed to be a completely impulsive decision, Orange walked the three steps to Slaine’s pool and dropped in without missing a beat.

For a second time in a week and despite his outburst the last time, Slaine scrambled back from the brunette that didn’t appear to have any regard for his own wellbeing. This time was different, however. There was no air knocked out of him, no fumbling steps in the cold water or even attempts at approaching either Slaine or Sod. He just calmly swam his stupid human-swim along one side of the pool before stopping and turning to float on his back.

“Good?”, Orange asked. Whatever the hell he meant with that was beyond Slaine. The merman paced a bit, but Orange wasn’t making any suspicious moves. He really was just floating there, completely defenceless, and it was throwing Slaine off. Sod didn’t need any encouragement to dive over and start harassing the human, but Slaine wasn’t reassured so easily. He had just recently started to feel okay with going to meet the human at the edge of the pool, but having him in the pool like this was still mostly uncharted territory.

“Orange good?”, he asked back. Maybe it was the orca-skin, but Orange didn’t seem so bothered by water anymore. The only one who was feeling bothered was Slaine.

“Good”, Orange confirmed. “Hello good?”

Now there was a question that threw Slaine for another loop. Orange was being very un-Orange-like. Too considerate, too easy to read, too open. It was like he had suddenly decided that Slaine wasn’t a threat at all and that it was a perfectly wise idea to drop into his territory. The merman scowled half-heartedly. With one swing of his tail he could easily shatter the human’s fragile ribcage, and Orange ignoring that was annoying. It was illogical to put oneself in danger.

But Slaine couldn’t deny that trust demanded trust in return.

“…No good, no no good.”, the blond finally answered, unsure. He had stilled in the middle of the pool, just the top of his head and eyes peeking out of the water again. Orange turned to meet his gaze.

“I guessthat’sasgoodasitgetsfornow. We ’llworkonit.”, the human said matter-of-factly before twisting his body around and diving again. Slaine followed him carefully. Once more, Orange was back on the surface in mere seconds and ready to climb out of the pool.

“Hello, head!”, Orange called as he opened the big container by the pool, one that Slaine knew to hold fish. He huffed, but returning back to some semblance of a routine came as a relief. He swam straight to the brunette to get his fish. Orange had his legs in the water again, but with the orca-skin on Slaine could feel no effects from the cold. Sod had already lost her interest. She was busy following a gull that circled around the buildings from where Orange and Nina always came from. No doubt it wanted a fish too.

After a soft pat on Slaine’s head Orange gave him the dead herring and sat back slightly. His face was pale, Slaine noted as he ripped the fish in half and stuffed it into his mouth. Perhaps because it was the one part of Orange that wasn’t protected by his water-skin. The human appeared to be in a thoughtful mood, his eyes slipping to the healing gash along Slaine’s hairline. Getting self-conscious, Slaine covered it with his hand.

“Tomorrow’sabigday.”, Orange sighed to him. Suddenly Slaine couldn’t read his emotions at all again.

Chapter Text

Slaine held onto the edge of the ice for dear life.

He coughed and spluttered, struggling to get the last of the water out of his windpipe. It felt like he was still drowning, even though his skin had long since dried and his eyelashes frozen over, sealing his eyes shut.

Finally, he managed to push the last drops out of his raw trachea and heave in a full, uninterrupted inhale. Too exhausted to try and reach his pod somewhere beyond the ice sheet that had almost been the death of him, Slaine slumped down breathing heavily.

The silence above the surface was deafening and made him feel even smaller than he already was. The treacherous opening in the ice could collapse in on itself and crush him before he could hear it. A white seal-killer that lived in the water and ice could be right by him and he couldn’t feel it coming. The bowhead whale could crush through the ice with its head again, and there would be nothing to warn him.

Even the cries of the grey whale cow and his scattered pod couldn’t be heard in the air.

Slaine needed to gather his strength so he could make the dive back to open waters. His rational side knew this, he could hear his father’s voice saying it in his head over and over. How many times had he been told to not go so far under the ice that he couldn’t make the dive back? How many times had he been warned of his curiosity, of his impulsivity? Slaine couldn’t help pressing his tiny hands into shaking fists, claws digging into his palms. More tears escaped his eyes, sticky against his skin like oil. The orcas had probably given up on trying to catch him already, but Slaine was still scared. This time he needed to be faster and smarter and braver and more agile and-

The ancient bowhead whale’s act of kindness for a lost merfolk calf wasn’t something to be mistaken for mercy.

Slaine and Sod both floated in the centre of the pool, glued to each other and too anxious to do anything about it. For the blond, that was just his everyday life nowadays (he could almost laugh at himself for admitting it), but for the calf to be so uncertain was out of character. Ever since the early hours of the morning everything had been different again, even more so than before. The pool echoed with distant, foreign sounds that had them both covering. Since breakfast both Orange and Nina, along with a few others, had been roaming the big pool’s edges, checking and waving, all dressed up in their water-skins. As the sun rose, more and more land creatures started appearing by the poolside, and even more so behind the big pool’s transparent wall that he could catch a glimpse of through the gate. The people caught Sod’s curiosity and pulled her from the anxious mind-set, but Slaine wasn’t as impressed. A suspiciously friendly female voice sounded over the crowd’s chattering every twenty minutes or so, always repeating the same words. Slaine was pretty sure he could repeat the whole long litany of weird syllables back to her by now.

“WelcometotheCetaceanCentre!Pleasedonotdisturbtheanimalsbyknockingontheglass,usingaflashin your cameraorshouting.Thebelugaenclousureisnowopentothepublic.Tolearnmoreaboutourcurrentinhabitantsandourwork,pleasejoinafreeguidedtourorvisitourwebsite,where you canfindtheprofilesandprogressreportsofallouranimals.If you wantmoredetailedupdatesonourpreviousinhabitantsandtheirlifenow,pleasejoinourmailinglistonanyinfodeskoronline.Haveapleasantday!”

“-aaea saaaah ay!”, Slaine finished in synch with the woman. Perfect. Why Nina was giggling was beyond him. Sod mimicked her laughter, no doubt wanting to join in on Slaine’s ongoing mission of making light of their uncertain situation. At least it worked on the calf.

“Fiveminutestogo.”

“Okay, I ‘llgothen.”, Nina wiped her eyes and headed to Orange, who had remained by the big pool the whole morning, micromanaging every little thing by the looks of the annoyed faces he caused wherever he went. She started laughing out loud again as she chatted to the brunette, showing him something on her small tablet-thingy. Even though seeing Orange’s careful barely-there smile had him interested, Slaine couldn’t pay too much attention to him.

Two green shirts rounded their way around the pool to either sides of the gate. Slaine felt all his focus narrow down to the other side of the structure blocking his way when he realised it was about to be finally opened. Blood rushed through his taut body, but he still had half a mind to reach his hand to lay on Sod’s side, urging silently for her to prepare too. The crowd beyond the transparent wall were all chanting in a rhythm that faded to the background as Slaine readied himself. Anxiety made way for the thrill of a hunt, even though there was no clear prey.

At the first crack of the gate Slaine was already on the other side of it. He speeded down the wall to the bottom of the 15 meters deep pool and skidded along the sand bed, avoiding the boulders scattered around it, leaving behind murky clouds before turning sharply and looping around a stone pillar. 30 meters across lengthwise, a little less than that in width, walls and the three pillars that reached from the bottom all the way to the surface all covered in rocks, save for the one, completely smooth wall that made sounds bounce around much like they had in the tank, Slaine’s sonars supplied. Thankfully with the other structures being uneven and having broken surfaces the reflections didn’t get too messed up. Without stopping the merman made quick laps around the pool and the pillars, enjoying being able dive deeper and faster than in a long time. It was like he could properly stretch himself for the first time in ages, and even the water felt clearer again. In his excitement, Slaine allowed himself a careful breach before diving down and then jumping again, this time properly with his whole body out of the water. It felt almost as good as it had in the open ocean with the spinners. Thankfully he managed to land on his good shoulder this time.

Satisfied with his first inspection, Slaine let himself fall back to the bottom. He landed softly on his back by two big boulders and turned his focus up. He hadn’t smiled in a long time, not really, and now his cheeks were already hurting from his wide grin. Sod was making herself familiar with the pool as well, though at a little less rapid pace than he had. The two of them had completely different approaches: where Slaine wanted to get a full picture first and focus on the details later, the calf was contently just moving from one funny shaped rock to another and testing one by one if she could fit them in her mouth. There must've been some logic in doing so for her, even though Slaine couldn't tell what it was. Far above him Slaine could see the moving silhouettes of the people by the edge of the pool. He couldn’t even make out who was who through the ripples and he was more than fine with that. Slaine already felt calmer than he had in months, now being able to truly put some distance between himself and the humans whenever he wanted.

That bliss didn’t last for long.

While Slaine had been basking in the deeper water, slowly burrowing himself into the sand like a flounder, Sod had almost right away found something new to entertain herself with. Slaine could feel her floating up and down against the one, smooth wall that spanned most of the big pool’s length. His curiosity piqued, the blond peaked from behind the boulder to see with his eyes what the calf was doing.

The last time he had felt his heart drop and all blood escape his face so suddenly had probably been when he had become tangled to the floater of the tuna net.

What Slaine was confronted with was a horde of humans that spanned across the whole 30 meters or so of the big, smooth, transparent wall. There were all shapes, sizes and colours, some little ones climbing on top of the bigger ones, others stretching their necks to see from behind one another. There were flailing and grabbling hands, clicking boxes, thankfully with fewer flashing lights this time, colourful clothes and so many faces that Slaine didn’t think he had ever seen that many of even his own kind. Behind the humans there was the looming figure of a large male orca.

Slaine had distantly been aware that they were there, but he hadn’t truly seen them before. They hadn’t appeared in his sonars even once.

In the midst of all that, Sod was playing with a small pod of human calves huddled close to the transparent wall, opening and closing her mouth suddenly to surprise them and make them squeal and dance.

Slaine froze. Some of the humans signalled to the others, and suddenly all the attention along the wall, besides for the few calves too busy playing, moved onto him. The merman shrunk under their gazes, unable to take his own eyes off of them, feeling too exposed to move even an inch. It was like he was a calf again, desperately wracking his brain to find the gap in the ice, a breathing hole that didn’t exist. Hands pressing against the wall, the land creatures were pushing into one another to get a better look-

“WelcometotheCetaceanCentre!Pleasedonotdisturbtheanimalsbyknockingontheglass,usingaflashin your cameraorshouting.Thebelugaenclousureisnowopentothepublic.Tolearnmoreaboutourcurrentinhabitantsandourwork,pleasejoinafreeguidedtourorvisitourwebsite-“

Slaine darted towards the surface on the backside of the pool with a sudden surge of power through his tail that had him scratch his flukes on the boulder. Heart pounding, he breached with a gasp and pressed his back against a pillar, catching his breath. He could hear distantly Sod asking what was wrong, but he didn’t bother answering when the calf didn’t insist. When he managed to calm down his breathing a little, Slaine lowered his head slowly back underwater and felt gingerly around the pool. His sonars returned peaceful and quiet, with only the beluga calf roaming the waters with him. It was a stark contrast to the bustling crowd that he now knew for certain waited on the other side. Slaine rose up again and took another shuddering deep breath before closing his eyes.

He was safe in the pool. His pool. There was nothing hunting him this time. He didn’t need to cover behind a pillar.

Slaine opened his eyes, still feeling a bit shaky. A few meters away from him beyond a shallow bay that connected to the main pool, he saw Orange and Nina carrying buckets to a big container. Both were wearing their orca-skin and a white and light grey water-skin respectively; Nina chatting and the brunette silently listening. Or maybe just spacing out, Slaine couldn’t really tell. Nevertheless, seeing the familiar, safe humans eased Slaine’s mind a bit. Enough so that he swam to the edge of the pool and stalked the two as they emptied their loads of half frozen fish and squid into the larger container. Nina threw him an amused look and Slaine ducked his head defensively back underwater. Orange turned to return the buckets and Nina started cleaning around the poolside. Slaine clearly wasn’t going to get anything out of the two, so bracing himself the merman slid back behind the pillar.

Carefully peaking from behind his hiding place Slaine started assessing the situation. There were the humans, yes, a lot of them, moving in and out of the window, some only taking a moment to follow Sod with their eyes before moving on, and others firmly planting themselves to the transparent wall in front of her. The only people that actually had access to the pool as far as he could tell were the people in green and blue shirts in addition to Nina and Orange who all worked above. Realistically, the new humans were about as big of a threat to him as the craft club that played with their seaweed in the white cave had been.

Or that's what Slaine tried his best to convince himself of.

They were interested in him and Sod, yes, but not actually able to do anything beyond watching. From his higher vantage point Slaine could also tell that the orca he had seen behind the people wasn’t real. It was painted on the wall along with a fully-grown beluga male and a narwhal next to a silhouette of a human male. He'd never actually seen all four of them at the same time, so the picture didn't make much sense to him.

Slaine tried to dive discreetly behind another pillar. From the get-go it was a futile attempt; as soon as he emerged from his hiding spot all eyes were on him again and heads turned to follow his route. It was unnerving. Having ruled the people behind the transparent wall a nonthreat he tried to not give them his attention, however. What else might be behind them was what interested him more now.

Slaine sneaked carefully around the pool, trying to find a good place to see beyond the crowd that apparently liked to move into the way whenever he found a good spot. He made sure to keep a safe distance from the wall, just in case.

From beyond the corner he could see a glimpse of another transparent wall and beyond it, more water with glimpses of jellyfish. Taken aback, he cocked his head from side to side, squinting his eyes to make sure he saw right since he couldn't rely in any other senses. Though his brain was stuttering to comprehend the magnitude in which a little glimpse of the human world could shake his life, now compressed into a space that barely had the room for a single sperm whale to turn around in, the implications were clear. He and Sod weren’t alone in their predicament.

It was overwhelming. After all, everything that had ever been above was air and sometimes ice, and below, stretching endlessly in every direction, was the ocean and its depths, his home free to travel as he pleased. Everything else was just scary tales sang during the merfolk’s long migrations between the Arctic and the Antarctic, or hearsay told by the various whales they travelled with. The closest anyone Slaine knew had ever come to what dwelled beyond the sea had been hearing the distant rumble of a ship as they dove deeper into the twilight zone for cover. For the sea to disappear and leave him behind to live in the small safe pockets, tended to by land creatures… It was all something Slaine couldn’t have imagined for himself even as a calf.

Yet here he was. Slaine twitched, the ever-present feeling of anxiety still hanging above him. He needed to own it. Like he had learned to own his tank, his small pool and then the bigger pool.

Before he could give himself the chance to overthink it, Slaine rounded his way into full display for anyone to see. Puffing his chest and hiding his nerves he swam slowly by the smooth wall, making sure everyone knew that it wasn’t worth their time to try messing with him. With the added length and power of his tail he was bigger and stronger than any of them, and behind him he had several hundred kilos worth of additional power in the form of the light grey beluga calf that was quickly overgrowing him.

If need ever be, drowning a human would be child’s play.

There were gasps and huffs and excited squeals and grabby hands against the wall, but none of them could touch him even if he was to swim with his skin pressed against the wall. His sonars showed only an empty, calm pool.

Looking at the crowd head on, Slaine noticed a familiar group with their big black boxes and flashes of light. He could swear there was even a familiar face or two. With a burst of vindictiveness, Slaine charged the group, spewing a litany of angry hisses and clicks, barely stopping in time to prevent himself from crashing face first into the wall. It was worth it; the three people who had stood at the front row fell back startled, causing one other behind them to fall too. He didn’t care of the reaction of rest of the human crowd, scoffing as he turned away sharply, beyond pleased with himself. So far, the flashing boxes that had once scared him in the small pool were pretty high in his list of things to destroy if he ever got the chance to.

Thrilled with his success, Slaine darted straight back to the surface, almost jumping straight out of the pool and onto the land. Caught off guard, Orange swung around, a long stick with thick grey kelp tied to one end held tightly in his hands. His eyes landed on Slaine’s, his shoulders relaxed, and he left out a huff before continuing mopping the floor.

Slaine paused. His thrilled smile faltered before a confused pinch made its way into his brows. After all, he didn’t have anything to say to Orange and no reason to come over in the first place. In his excitement he had just wanted to share the moment with one of his own.

The blond flinched when he felt a pat on the top of his head. It was Orange, crouching by the edge of the pool and looking down at him with a familiar unreadable expression. Slaine had left his guard down enough for the human to sneak up on him.

“Welldone.”, Orange said simply with a soft ruffle of Slaine’s hair before straightening himself and picking up the mop again. Something about the action filled Slaine with nostalgia. He didn’t know what the human had said, but it must’ve been something nice.

In the early hours of the morning Slaine woke to new sound. Well, one that he hadn’t heard so close by before anyway. It came from outside of the pool, so he didn’t bother hurrying. Instead Slaine blew out some bubbles in a lazy yawn as he stretched his right arm. He hadn’t dared to do anything with his left side for a long time and now it felt stiff, almost like it was locked in place. At least it wasn’t painful anymore and the new sleeve felt lighter and more comfortable than the previous one. Being able to sleep suspended vertically again instead of uncomfortably floating on the surface, drying blotches of his skin in the air, was a nice change. Such simple things, 30 minutes of sleep in a comfortable position, the ability to dive to safety and the room to move properly around in could make all the difference. His headache was finally subsiding too, and Slaine felt good.

After breaching for a breath Slaine turned to investigate what was going on. There were three people, all green shirts, wiping down the smooth wall with their sticks and rags. Slaine watched for a while the greasy handprints from yesterday being cleaned away before losing interest and roaming the sand bed instead. He picked at the boulders, trying to find loose rocks. He didn’t need them for anything, but it passed time. One of the boulders had a corroded side, and before he knew it, Slaine was fully invested in destroying it. He clawed, pushed and pulled to widen the cracks and loosen the pieces, kicking up sand around himself in his efforts. Sod nosed into his way for a couple of times, but for the most part she played with the cleaners. With more room to roam she was acting less clingy. Or maybe it was because everything was still new in this pool.

A familiar whistle tore through Slaine’s quest of destruction. One swing of his flukes was enough to climb the fifteen meters, and only a blink after the call the blond popped his head above the surface. Orange was wearing his waterproof overalls again, carrying a bucket of food. He settled by the entrance to the small, shallow bay and called Slaine over. By the other side of the bay Nina, dressed in her white water-skin, called Sod over. Slaine rested his head on the edge and watched as Nina gradually moved herself and Sod into the bay until they were completely in the shallow part of it. She jumped into the water that reached her thighs, patted playfully around Sod’s sides and blew another sharp call into her whistle as she climbed out of the water. Then, with exceedingly happy squeals that were clearly meant just to excite Sod, she trotted back to the entrance of the bay and started the process all over again.

Slaine pinched his nose in distaste. He had started to pick up on the way land creatures did things some time ago: Nina was introducing Sod to the bay and trying her best to make it a nice place for the calf, a place where she gets to eat and play. It was somewhat gross to witness but Sod clearly liked it. She was like a sponge, sucking in any and every little chance of interaction and play she could. Even as Slaine huffed disapprovingly there was a tiny painful tang inside him. When the calf entered the bay laughing and chirping again and the seven impossibly clean cuts on her dorsal ridge rose above the surface, Slaine turned away. He snatched a mackerel out of Orange’s hand with his ragged claws a bit more roughly than he had meant to and shoved the whole thing into his mouth.

“You shouldchew,it’sbetterfor your stomach.” Slaine gave Orange a sour glare. The human didn’t mind, instead sitting down and continuing with his gibberish. Slaine reached for the squid he offered next. “Though I supposeit’simpossibletosayforsurewhen we don’tevenknowwhatkindofadaptations your digestivesystemmighthave.”

Sod was putting in a lot of effort for her meal, though Slaine doubted she realised it herself. He, on the other hand, had one of his most easily earned feeds in a while, with only a call to eat and no further requests. Thankfully Orange was smart enough to not try to get him to enter the shallow bay and instead he was just showing him its entrance. Or maybe he wanted for Slaine to see that nothing bad was happening to Sod, so nothing bad would happen to him either. Whatever the reason, Slaine could appreciate Orange for at least having some tact, even if it came with an ulterior motive. The mental image of what could’ve been waiting for him on the surface, the brunette excitedly squealing and splashing like Nina, made him almost choke on his squid though.

“Evenif your stomachcandigestbigchunksofood, your pharynxisalmostidenticaltoahuman’s.Atleasttrychewing.”, Orange sighed.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever you say.”, Slaine dismissed, understanding that Orange was addressing him but getting nothing of what the human actually said. He could pick up a word here and there by now, mostly names and what he thought might be personal pronouns. Slaine gulped down the rest of the squid in one big bite and refused the next fish. With his belly full and his head resting on the edge of the pool as an anchor, he let his body float and mind wander. Orange sat by his head, still as a weathering cliff, for a long time before finally carefully getting up and leaving. There were humans gathering behind the smooth wall again, Slaine could hear their chatter and feel their hands on the wall. Somewhere below him, Sod roamed the sand bed, content from the playing for now.

Despite everything, or maybe because of it, Slaine felt weirdly calm. Maybe it just hadn’t fully registered for him yet. Maybe he was relieved.

The big pool didn’t have a gate.

With nothing but time in his hands, Slaine set his full mind, body and soul into destruction. It started with the one corroded boulder that he had somehow, over a week’s time, managed to tease into a shadow of its former imposing self. He quickly moved on to the three pillars, scouting them for weak spots after he realised that the rocky surface they had was not natural and had been completely constructed. From here and there, he managed to dislodge some rocks, but frustrated with his lack of progress he didn’t waste more than a couple of days working on them. Like he had with all the little things that the humans in the white cave had used to throw into his tank, Slaine started arranging the rocks that he had managed to cumulate so far. He gathered them into the round corners of the pool or balanced them on top of boulders. He started making stacks and landmarks and progressed into making shapes. He started simple with circles but soon he already tried to mimic the shape of the painted orca that loomed beyond the ever-flowing stream of people who came by to see his work.

By the end of the first week new items started appearing in the pool. First a floating ball, as big as Slaine’s head, with thick ropes tied around it. In between of Nina and Sod playing fetch with it, he unravelled the ropes and stashed the strings with his rocks. Other new contraptions were added every couple of days, but they didn’t interest Slaine for more than a few games of tag with the calf.

His first real distraction came when a group of four people in similar dark clothes settled by the smooth wall one afternoon. They caught Slaine’s fleeting attention, since usually humans didn’t give way for others, but this time a spot right by the wall was reserved for the quartet. He didn’t bother with the passing creatures, though he still kept his distance from the smooth wall. In fact, accepting that there were people staring from the other side of a wall had been way easier than accepting that there were people on the surface of the pool who could actually interact with the water.

When the first dark notes were drawn from the big instrument resting in between one of the four humans’ tails, Slaine held no reservations in sneaking closer to see and hear what was happening. The other three humans joined in with their smaller instruments and higher notes, and the song swelled and echoed around the pool in repeated patterns that shifted and changed effortlessly.

Curious, Sod bumped into Slaine’s side before turning towards the music. Holding onto her pectoral fin he too approached the final meters all the way to the smooth wall. He could see the faces around the players light up and the human calves’ eyes shining as most of them ran to the wall, smushing their hands and faces against it. There were small tablet-things pulled out and pointed, excited sounds and some shushing in response. Sod bobbed her head slightly offbeat to the song, her melon jiggling with her movements and her mouth wide open, as if she tried to suck in every little titbit of information and attention through her mouth. Slaine on the other hand was fully immersed in what the odd quartet was doing, trying to catch the patterns and understand the words that were being sung with the instruments. In an effort to hear the whole spectrum of sound better, he pressed his forehead into the wall to feel the vibrations closer, and closed his eyes.

It was something completely foreign, but familiar and soothing at the same time. Like meeting a species of whales whose songs he couldn’t quite understand yet. The soundscape of the instruments felt inviting, and as the chords echoed inside the pool, he could almost imagine the greeting coming from somewhere far below him.

The first song came to its conclusion faster than Slaine would’ve liked for it to, pulling him back into the pool with it. His eyes fluttered open to a small hand smeared across his face.

Slaine backed away with an angry hiss, and the calf that had been leaning against the wall cried out in fright as the adults chuckled. The kid scrambled behind his adult pod mate’s tails and the woman leaned down, reassuring the child. One scared calf made room for five more to pool to the spot where he had been, jumping and laughing, trying to provoke another scare. The adults were making their young join the other kids, pointing and gently pushing the more skittish ones. Slaine blew bubbles out of his nose and furrowed his brows. Was this fun to them? He turned slowly to head back to his rocks and strings, but not before making a pass on the kids and turning suddenly on them with a charge and a hiss that sent them scattering, screaming and laughing.

That was an interesting discovery.

The quartet started on their second song, and too distracted by the people to focus solely on the music anymore, Slaine turned to swim calm laps around the pool. He had a pattern that he had started to follow the previous evening; one calm stroke of his flukes all the way to the bottom of the pool, another one to the surface and an inhale. Two smaller strokes down and two up, another inhale. Slaine counted his strokes eyes closed, already feeling a bit lightheaded from all the air. The music felt soft on his skin.

“Still. Hello, fish, breathe.”

Slaine peeked out of the water but didn’t do what Orange wanted. These last few days the human had been calling for him and then asking for him to just float still on the surface for some minutes at a time. Slaine had been biding his time, waiting to see where this particular exercise would lead, and apparently Orange was finally ready to move on to the next phase of his ten-step program or whatever the hell he did to shape his requests to become more complicated little by little. This time there was a clear dome, wider than what Slaine’s arms could reach around, just a little way behind the brunette. Slaine didn’t trust it one bit, and for once, he could pick and choose his battles.

He dipped unceremoniously back underwater and flipped his flukes at the call that sounded after him. Instead of paying it any mind, he made his way to Sod, snuggled close to her and wrapped his right arm around her dorsal fin, letting her pull him again. Happy at the show affection, the calf sprinted into action, diving in happy somersaults before calming her pace and rubbing her head on Slaine’s. They cuddled for a while, all the while the call stubbornly repeated above them every once in a while. For a land creature, Orange’s control of the little number of whistles he had in his vocabulary was formidable, though they were flat and boring in their frequency. Slaine supposed it was the best Orange could do with his poor intake of air, his inhales so shallow that he could barely hold his breath for a minute.

“Orange calling.”, Sod pointed out the obvious. With Slaine in her tow, she swam right by the smooth wall, her belly almost grazing the sand and side gliding on the glass. There was a group of small kids running on the other side of the wall with them as they passed. Slaine pulled the calf’s fin to his chest and dug himself closer to her.

“I’ve done what he wants so far. He can wait a little.”

“But Orange pod.” Leaving the human hanging clearly bothered Sod. Slaine huffed, a bit irritated. The calf’s willingness to accept and include anybody and everybody irked him a bit.

“Humans aren’t pod, Sod. They’re… humans.”, Slaine sighed.

“They nice!”, the calf retaliated.

“…They can be.”, Slaine said patiently, biting back a more realistic answer. He busied himself tracing his fingers carefully along the dented scars on her back. Sod didn’t have any of the usual scratches or marks on her body. She probably hadn’t had the change to molt on a rocky shallow for even once in her life. “Where is your pod?”, Slaine asked before he caught himself.

Sod paused for a second.

“On beach.”, she answered simply.

Slaine didn’t understand, but he didn’t press her for more either. He laid his head to the crook of Sod’s neck and just stayed close.

“Hello!”, a sharp whistle pierced through their moment, making them both flinch.

Slaine hissed at the sudden sound but separated himself from the calf carefully, nonetheless. Sod seemed to feel a bit better than she did only a minute or two before at least. With a reassuring smile and a pet on her head, Slaine headed to the surface.

He broke through to the air the moment Orange was about to call again.

“You’re so damn persistent! What do you want?”, he snapped, taking the human by surprise. More than anything, Orange seemed surprised that Slaine actually showed up again. He pressed the small shiny stick that allowed his whistles to be clearer and sharper back against his mouth.

“Hello, come. Here, still.”

Slaine eyed him suspiciously. The clear dome had been moved far away from the pool. It was now far enough that he could slip away before it got anywhere near him again. There was just one question that he wished he could ask. One that he didn’t know how to communicate.

“Why?”, Slaine tried anyway. It had plagued him for months, from the very beginning. Why did he need to lie still for Orange? Why did he need to do any of this? What was the reason, what the land creatures wanted to accomplish?

Of course, Orange only squinted his eyes slightly, his gears turning so clearly in his search for the meaning for the whistle that Slaine could almost hear it. It was a frustrating disconnect, one that they both wanted to mend, but neither knew how to.

Slaine sighed. He wasn’t going to get an answer, and he knew it. He swam closer to the edge and turned around to float on his back.

“Hello still. This is what you wanted?”, Slaine said flatly. Orange looked bothered. It seemed like he wanted to talk, but in the end he didn’t even try to. Slaine didn’t know which was a more infuriating part of the human; his persistence to interact with the merman, or his inability to effectively do so whenever Slaine tried to collaborate with him.

“Hello, still.”, the brunette finally confirmed.

As far as Slaine could see, there was just the empty Arctic sea.

He could pick up the playful chattering of the orcas, already kilometres away. It was a good sign. If they had been still hunting, they would’ve all stayed silent. Slaine broke through the surface for a gasp of breath before sinking below again, heading to the comforting darkness of the deeps. The orcas were satisfied, but he didn’t dare to make a sound yet.

The carnage that had happened was clear all around him; the taste of diluted blood, the flecks of skin and blubber that he passed on his way down, the distant wails that repeated in his head.

The mother hadn’t been able to save her calf. The orcas had managed to drown him. Maybe even-

Slaine supressed the distressed whine that almost escaped him. His pod had to be down in the deeps somewhere. His father and the grey whale mother had to still be somewhere he could find. Slaine dived down as fast as his little body could manage.

Chapter Text

Slaine spent most of his time swimming in mindless circles or destroying whatever he got his claws on, be it in the water or close enough to the pool for him to reach. Already three metal buckets laid discarded on the sand bed, their handles twisted and bodies battered in, rendering them useless for the humans and more importantly, boring for him. For now, nothing loose was left near the edge anymore, but Slaine still kept stalking the surface from time to time for new things to pull in.

It had barely been two weeks and it already felt like he had exhausted everything there was to do in the big pool.

Once Slaine had calmed down after his initial rampage of destruction, it soon became painfully clear how repetitive every day was. In the morning the transparent wall was cleaned along with the floors beyond it, same with the poolside above surface. Then came the breakfast with play and reinforcement of whatever behaviour was deemed necessary by Orange that day, be it letting people touch him, blow bubbles, open his mouth, turn around when asked to or just lay still. The clear dome loomed a tiny bit closer to the pool every day, something that didn’t escape Slaine’s eyes despite Orange’s attempts at being discreet. More often than not he started opting out of the whole ordeal altogether, rather going hungry in the mornings instead. The more he gained understanding of how Nina and Orange were shaping his and Sod’s behaviours, the less he wanted anything to do with it.

The humans’ actions tasted bitterly like a betrayal in the back of his mouth.

As the sun rose, the first visitors started trickling in. Laying on the sand bed observing the people Slaine had come to the conclusion that there were distinct types of humans that came to ogle at him and Sod. Slaine avoided eye contact, but he wasn’t shy about the fact that he was watching the humans too. There wasn’t much else to do anyway.

First, there were families with calves. Those ones Sod clearly liked the best, and she ended up spending much of her time toying with squeamish kids every day. Second, there were adults that stayed for a long time in silence, observing and taking everything in. In their stillness they were quite unnerving for Slaine. The third type was the most annoying one; they were the ones with their flashing boxes, an obnoxious bunch that often gave trouble for the green shirts. The fourth type Slaine saw more rarely. They had often similar clothes and focused on the other people instead of the pool, shouting their gibberish in aggressive tones. They were always escorted away after a short while. Every hour or so a fifth type appeared, a mismatched pod led by a woman holding a stick with a blue piece of cloth on it. The matriarch stopped by the clear wall for a while with instructions for her pod, before gathering them together again and continuing on her way.

In the evenings, after all the humans were gone from beyond the wall, the pool was filled to the brim with disembodied beluga-chatter for Sod to chase after. Sometimes there were songs from other whales too, and Slaine had a feeling Orange had something to do with the added variety. After the last staticky call faded and the pool became still again, the silence was deafening. Sometimes Slaine tried to fill it with pointless humming or singing himself, the sounds bouncing around him and reflecting the pool in confusing shapes.

But nothing was as boring as the night. With nothing to do and no one around, both him and Sod spent hours every night simply circling around the pool and napping restlessly. Some nights they just floated, skin crackling as it dried in the air. It made Slaine’s insides crawl with impatience and anxiety that lead his mind into dark places. Sometimes he would purposefully bump into the walls or scrape his tail on the rocks he passed just to have something to do.

Every now and then there were strangers visiting the poolside with Orange. There was a man who seemed to be friends with Doctoryagarai and another, older man with him, who spent a lot of time conversing with the brunette. They had called him over a few times, but Slaine kept his distance even though the new people appeared to be in friendly terms with Orange. By this point he could say he had built a relationship of conditional trust with the brunette human, but his random associates were a different story.

All in all, it was a weird environment, one that reminded Slaine of the reef he had briefly found himself on after being stranded. All the humans had their own routes by the pool, and in some ways, it was fascinating to follow their mannerisms and actions. Slaine briefly wondered where they were coming and going every day, but in the end it didn’t really matter. Their worlds were so distinctly different, he doubted he could ever understand their actions and reasons.

“Therewasanothersetofpicturesthismorning.”

“I sawthemtoo!It’ssofrustrating!”

“What,did I misssomething?”

“It’sjustthetabloidsagain.It’llblowover.”

“I don’tthinkitwill.Notwhenitcomesto him.”

Slaine floated, half-listening to the gossip that the group of green shirts were sharing while cleaning. Most of his focus, however, was on the two gaspers that had carefully slipped into the pool and now moved along the bottom of it, ruffling the sand and washing away algae. He tolerated them for their usefulness, but that didn’t mean he liked them any more than he had before. Their sounds were still as creepy as ever, so Slaine made sure to stay as far away from them as possible. He could’ve retreated back to his previous pool, the gate had never been closed again, but he didn’t want to risk getting stuck in there again. So, floating it was.

The gaspers had never bothered Sod like they did Slaine, and even now the blond cringed whenever Sod snuck closer to the two divers, set on being as much of a little shit as she possibly could. She knocked the gaspers around, pushing and pulling, putting her head in their way and trying to snuggle under them. So far the gaspers just did their best to ignore her and continued on with their cleaning, but Slaine couldn’t help getting scared anytime the calf got a bit more rough with them.

“You need to knock that off! They could be dangerous!”, he hissed, as if the gaspers couldn’t hear him that way. Sod giggled.

“They not of anything. See?” To prove her point, Sod nosed the gasper’s face, pushing him slightly off ground and sending him floating gently backwards. The humans beyond the wall seemed delighted, but Slaine was terrified when the gasper slowly reached around himself to check on his tubes and straighten his goggles.

“Stop it!”, he barked again, a bit louder and angrier. “I’m not coming down to rescue you if you make them angry!” Sod didn’t even answer this time and just laughed Slaine off instead.

“Hello, good?”

“The hell I’m good!”, Slaine spat at Orange, who was standing by the edge of the pool, following the calf’s and merman’s interaction with a keen eye. “She has no instinct for self-preservation! How am I supposed to take care of her when she can’t be trusted for half a second?” Slaine gestured in the general direction of the gaspers as he ranted, blowing off his frustration and fear for the calf on Orange. “You and Nina are no help!”

“...Nina?”, Orange asked, tilting his head barely visibly in question.

“Yes, Nina.”, Slaine continued, annoyed. At this point he was just working himself up, he knew he was, and that knowledge only served to further irritate him. The relentless boredom that ruled his life prickled just under his skin and made him more irritable. “She’s her pod too, right? Nina should say something for once instead of just playing. Calves need boundaries!”

Orange was the epitome of stillness and calm. Slaine didn’t know the brunette could be any more frustrating than he already was, but apparently he never ceased to surprise him. After a short pause Orange pulled a small black box out of his pocket, pressed it lightly and put it back in. Annoyed but now also confused, Slaine turned to follow the human’s gaze towards the faraway door the brunette, Nina and the green and blue shirts used to come to the poolside. After a few seconds it was slammed open with a force that startled him.

“Wha-what’swrong?”, Nina gasped out as soon as she burst through the door, closing her water-skin as she jogged unevenly to reach the poolside. She was breathing heavily, as if she had just breached after a too-long dive.

“Bat wasaskingfor you.”, Orange answered simply.

“Bu-forme?What?”, Nina spluttered, catching her breath and struggling with her sleeves. “Why?”

“Somethingaboutthediversprobably, he ‘sbeenapprehensiveaboutthem. He askedfor you.”

Nina stood still for a few seconds, every breath a bit steadier. “So you pressedthepanicbuttonforthat.”

Slaine watched Orange blink and slightly furrow his brows like he didn’t quite get what the other was saying. “Itwasthefastestandmostefficientwaytocall you over.” The fleeting expression of resigned annoyance on Nina’s face was all that Slaine needed to know about what had just happened between the two of them; Orange had done something very Orange-like and was now wilfully ignoring any possible counterarguments for his actions.

Slaine had seen that expression being thrown around the brunette enough times to recognise it when he saw it. Hell, he probably was wearing that very expression half the time himself.

(It was somewhat endearing once you could notice it, though.)

“I almoscalledthesecurityonmywayup. You knowithasbeenalloverinternetandthenewslately-“

“I know.”, Orange interjected.

“Okaythen.”, Nina gave in easily with a sigh, a warm, albeit a bit unsure smile making its way onto her lips as she turned to Slaine, bowing down a bit to address him. “Whatseemstobetheproblemhere,goodsir?” Slaine’s eyes jumped between Nina and Orange, trying to understand what was said. To his dismay, Orange wasn’t giving anything away, focused on his tablet again instead and letting him figure it out on his own. He could feel the now familiar annoyance tugging at his own expression, and Nina huffed out a short laugh.

“…Sod.”, Slaine finally said, a bit softer than he liked.

“Sooo’u?”, Nina tried to repeat the whistle clumsily, looking puzzled.

“Sod.”, Orange finally supplied. He looked rather pleased with himself. As pleased as Slaine had ever seen him, anyway. “Bat wasmimicingtheintonationof your namejustbefore. He usesthesamekindofcallalsowhenaddressing Sod.” Nina whirled around to face Orange, literal starlight in her eyes. She was about to say something, but Orange didn’t need any more prompting to show her his tablet and start explaining.

“I wentoverthehydrophonerecordingsfromthelasmonthyesterday. I wasabletorecognisepatterns I hadn’tnoticedbefore,andtherewerealsopatternsthathadchangedovertimeorbeenrecentlypickedup.Loanwords, you couldsay.Since you neverintroducedyourselftohimwithamadeupwhistle, your namewasprobablysomething he learnedfrom Sod, whointurnmust’vethereforelearntitfromlisteningto your interactions.” Orange moved a bit closer to Nina to show something specific. “Seethathereandhere?Thewavelengthsaremuchnarrowerthanin Bat ‘snormalvocabulary.Infacttheymatchthehumanhearingrangeperfectly,unlikemostsoundshemakes.It’snotatraditionalsignature,it’sanappropriationofwhatourwordssoundliketothem.Therewerealsoseveralinstancesofboth Sod and Bat repeatingapproprieatedsignatures.”

Nina’s wonder turned into an expression that teetered somewhere between horrified and embarrassed. “They’retalkingaboutusbehindourbacks?”

“We talkaboutthemtoo,allthetime.”, Orange stated matter-of-factly, not even lifting his eyes from his device. “So,somethingabout Sod.”, he said and nodded towards Slaine.

Slaine had already dazed off from the conversation, following the movements of the gaspers again instead. He frowned. They had knocked down one of his rock-towers and the calf was still toying with them. “Sod.”, Slaine repeated after noticing the pregnant silence that had fallen over the humans, trying and failing to take his eyes off the gaspers and get back on track. If this pool had taught him anything, it was that he couldn’t always trust his sonars to see everything. “Sod here. Nina call Sod here.”, he said with a bit more confidence, as clear as he could.

Nina tilted her head and glanced to Inaho.

“He keepsrepeating your and Sod’s name.”, Inaho supplied again, the thin silvery whistle already pressed against his lips when he turned to Slaine. “Heere?”, he asked in a whistle. Slaine rolled his eyes in irritation. Of course Orange didn’t understand the keywords.

“Here.”, he pointed at the surface right in front of him. “There.”, he pointed at Sod.
Orange caught on right away. He must’ve had deduced the meaning of the words already in the first place. What the human was after was confirmation.

“Here.”, Orange pointed at the ground underneath him. “Water there.”, the brunette continued, pointing at the pool, past Slaine.

“Yeah, that’s …already a sentence.”, Slaine noted, somewhat impressed. “Sod there. Nina call Sod here.”, he repeated his request.

“Call?”, Orange asked this time.

“Don’t start with that again, you know full well what it means already!”, Slaine snapped, frustrated at how the brunette was stretching out the conversation unnecessarily. He just wanted Sod to stop bothering the gaspers already, for crying out loud. The short, airy snort that Orange let out in response to his frustrated outburst took Slaine by surprise and was quite effective in cutting his rant off.

“Bat want’s you tocall Sod over.”, the brunette said with a small tug on his lips, just as a crashing sound startled Slaine. He turned quickly only to see one of the divers hauling the pummelled buckets out of the pool, before the both of them climbed out and started taking off their gear. Just how long had Orange been distracting him for the gaspers to be ready and gone already? Slaine turned back towards Orange, whose face betrayed nothing.

“I’ll splash your precious tablet one day, just so you know.”, he threatened half-heartedly. He could barely disguise the relief he felt when the pool was his again and the calf answered to Nina’s call.

“Contrarytothepopularbelief, I dounderstandtones, Bat. It’snotproductivetothreatensomeonewhohasnowayofunderstandingthethreat.”, Orange said conversationally, half to Slaine and half to his damn tablet.

“Whatever you say.”, Slaine answered to the gibberish. He pulled his head below surface, dived over to the edge and with one, smooth movement pulled his torso out of the pool with his good arm. Orange took a step back as Slaine pushed with his tail to get a little further onto the land. Once he was at a good distance, most of his body in the air but close enough to push himself back into the water at a moment’s notice, he laid carefully down onto his stomach on the smooth tiling. Slaine’s body sank into itself slightly, pushing some of his air out in the process. His body wasn’t made to support itself outside of water, but in a weird way the weight he felt on land had become comforting once he had learned to not panic. The effect was similar to how the pressure of the twilight zone used to squeeze him as he descended further into the deeps. As long as he made sure to not let his airways get blocked by the weight, he would be fine. After a short pause, Orange kneeled down by his side and poked a finger softly into his hair. “Head.”, he whistled.

“Are you trying to joke with me or piss me off?”

“Back.”, Orange whistled, tracing his finger on the raised edge of one of the scars the shark had left on him. Slaine huffed in fake irritation and swatted the hand away. He could hear the calm confidence in Orange’s sigh as he sat down, though he wouldn’t admit it somewhat put him at ease too after the earlier stress. Sod and Nina were playing in the bay again, their laughter mingling together until Slaine wasn’t sure who was the whale and who was the human anymore.

A human was singing.

She had bright blue eyes and long golden locks, and her voice vibrated through the water along with the simple, clean melody. Slaine peeked at her from behind a boulder. He had been rebuilding one of his stone piles when her performance had caught his attention. Almost every day there was someone amongst the crowd who started singing or playing instruments near the wall. He had come to know that what they all wanted was a reaction, and Slaine didn’t like that. So, he usually enjoyed the music from a distance.

This one, though, captivated him. She stood out in her white dress, and Slaine couldn’t tear his eyes away. The notes she sang were foreign, but they pulled him in. Carefully stalking a bit closer, he could see another, much younger girl sitting by her side, a handful of the singing girl’s skirt held tightly in her hand. They exchanged looks, the blonde girl smiling warmly through her song, and pushing the weird chair the calf sat in a bit closer to the transparent wall.

The girl had a tail.

Heart skipping, Slaine all but slammed himself against the glass, much to the delight of the humans. He tried to probe the girls with sonar, but the sounds returned only showing a blank wall ahead of him. His brows pinched together in an effort to see all that he could with only his eyes instead. The tail was colourful, like nothing he had ever seen before. It reminded him of a tropical fish, not that he had ever seen many of those in his life. The girl was pink like the humans around her, with the same shine in her eyes as the other human calves that gathered around the wall. Her tail laid limply with an unnatural angle, and Slaine couldn’t help grimacing when he thought of how painful it must’ve been to stay propped up like that, all the weight on her back and pelvis. His confusion grew the more he looked at her in an attempt at putting the pieces together.

When the girls turned to each other again, Slaine noticed just how much closer to the wall they had inched. The blonde girl raised her hand to gently touch the glass. The calf in the chair spoke to her quietly in the humans’ language and Slaine frowned again as the other answered in her warm tone. He was missing something, some vital piece of information that would’ve made it all to make sense.

“Why are you there?”, he tried to ask the girl, but the question drowned beneath the sudden sounds of flashing boxes. The small calf smiled widely at him from her chair, her hands on her lap grabbing at her tail in an effort to contain a feeling of some sort. Happiness? Slaine tilted his head, and the small girl grabbed at her skin again, the lame tail gathering and crinkling in her fists like kelp. Slaine backed away in horror. Skin sagging like that was unnatural. Feeling the urge to throw up for the first time in a while, Slaine made a beeline to the surface.

Him suddenly jumping out of the pool startled Orange. The silver whistle fell from the human’s mouth as he took a hasty step back to balance himself. Slaine pulled his torso out of the water and heaved in heavy gulps of air, just barely holding the sick back, his mind reeling. He would probably have nightmares of the unnatural skin for days to come. When he finally glanced up, he saw Orange simply standing and staring, the whistle in his hand and a bucket by his side. Right. The human had probably been just about to call him over to eat. Slaine pushed up with his good arm to look around. He spotted Nina by the edge of his old pool that was left behind the open gate. So now Sod wasn’t fed in the same pool as him anymore? He turned to give Orange a questioning look, but the brunette only shrugged lightly.

As per usual, none of his questions would be answered, Slaine thought bitterly. He pushed himself back into the pool with a frustrated huff and dived down to sulk behind one of the boulders. He wasn’t sure if he could keep the fish down after what he had seen anyway.

The next morning was the one day of the week there were no humans behind the transparent wall besides the cleaners. In the early hours of the morning Orange walked to the poolside wearing his orca-skin and a pair of what looked like the goggles that the gaspers wore. Curious, Slaine stalked closer to the pool’s edge to see Nina following in suite wearing her white and grey water-skin as well, nervousness falling off of her in waves. That put Slaine on edge, too. Something new was about to happen, he realized, and lowered his head into the water so that his eyes stayed barely above the surface, watching the humans carefully.

Orange didn’t seem the least bit bothered. When did he ever.

“Orange there, water. Good?”, the brunette asked, sitting down on the edge and letting his legs fall into the pool like he had used to do before. He started fitting something onto his feet, and Slaine tried to make sense of them with his sonars. They were like stiff seal fins. Slaine looked behind the brunette to see Nina shifting her weight from one leg to the other, twisting her fingers as she did so. A bit further away there was a group of blue shirts and a gasper on stand-by. The humans were clearly agitated, but if Orange shared the feeling, he didn’t let it show. He simply sat calmly on the edge of the pool, not pushing in but not backing away either.

Besides the annoyance that was about to befall him, Slaine didn’t get what the big deal was, nor why there was such a gap in the humans' reactions. Surely the other humans knew that Orange had jumped into his pool before. There had been people to witness it at least once or twice before. Sure, those times with witnesses had ended up with him first claiming the pool and then Orange almost freezing, but surely they knew of all the other times when the brunette had simply-

Slaine raised his head a bit higher, eyes locking with Orange’s. He was met with a patient calm of the red eyes, not showing any reaction to Slaine’s quite obvious realisation. Slaine hadn’t paid too much attention to what was going on above the surface before just lately, but something was going on with the humans, and had been for a while. He had heard the conversations laced with worried tones. He had noted the increasing amount of times noisy humans had been pulled away from the transparent wall by green shirts. Orange hiding things from the others confirmed it.

Something was brewing.

“…Good.”, Slaine finally answered, and Orange needed no more prompting to push himself into the water. On falling underwater for the first time Slaine heard his heartrate pick up a little before calming down into a steady rhythm. He dove down too to gain a little distance and prodded the human cautiously with his sonar. Besides the initial reaction, everything seemed to be normal. Orange spoke a few words to the humans on land, and his voice vibrated curiously through the water. After one last check the human started to swim on the surface and Slaine deemed them both safe enough and forced himself to relax a little.

After another word to the humans, Orange dived. He was wearing his goggles, but that was the only equipment he had with him besides the fins. His movements were a lot more practiced than before too, Slaine noted, moving around a pillar to keep the distance between them even though the brunette wasn’t even trying to approach him. Orange wasn’t rising up right away, either, taking a few calm strokes with his hands to reach deeper instead. He stayed suspended five meters deep for a few seconds before moving again, this time back to the surface. Once he breached, he gasped for air and breathed in heavily for a few breaths before returning to his normal pattern. Nina asked something, and Orange gave what Slaine assumed was a reassurance before diving again. His curiosity rising, Slaine sneaked a bit closer. He listened closely to the ways Orange’s body reacted in the water, feeling every chill and gasp, noting how his heartrate dropped to a bit calmer state every time he dived for just a few seconds longer. He followed the way Orange’s limbs worked through the water, clumsy compared to any other animal Slaine had ever seen swim before, but quite intriguing, nonetheless.

While Slaine was studying the human, Orange had caught Sod’s attention as well. The calf bumped into him playfully a couple times before returning to her own laps around the pool, coming back to check on the human every few minutes but leaving him mostly alone. A surprising show of maturity, Slaine thought, until Sod laughed and blew some bubbles right on Orange’s face. She had learned to do a bubble ring using both her mouth and blowhole, something that the humans beyond the wall loved almost as much as Sod herself.

“No bubbles, Orange.”, she pouted when she left Orange to himself again after nudging the human with her flukes. Orange appeared to recognise at least his own name, since his head turned carefully towards Slaine and the calf. Slaine tilted his own head in response.

“Bubbles?”, he asked Sod, watching the human rise to the surface again.

“Not making bubbles.”, Sod said, clearly disappointed. “No gasp-skin.”

Orange dived again, this time pushing air out of his mouth and nose as he did so, looking towards Slaine and Sod. Slaine sighed. In that moment it felt like he was taking care of two calves instead of just one.

“You’re doing great.”, he whistled to Orange, voice laced with sarcasm. Orange didn’t seem too impressed with Slaine either, surfacing again to catch his breath.

What Sod had said did make sense, however. Gaspers had air in their noisy skins. Orange didn’t have a gasper-skin, he had just his orca-skin, and that made him harmless and quite frankly fragile in the water, enough so, that even Sod had the sense to not push him around too much.

Tentatively, Slaine slid a little closer too until he was a few meters below Orange. The human seemed nonchalant when he dived again, but his heartrate spiked a bit when he noticed just how much closer the merman had sneaked. Slaine observed everything carefully. He had caught the human off guard. Orange appeared to be aware of his own vulnerability in the water, at least, and somehow that put Slaine at ease, too. He let himself float up a few meters to reach the level to which Orange dived to.

When Orange surfaced again, pulling in big gulps of air, Slaine circled lazily around the brunette much like he had the time when he had claimed the small pool by trapping the human in it. Even though there were some concerned murmurs amongst the people on land and another spike to Orange’s heartbeat when he saw what Slaine was doing, he didn’t distance himself. There was no anger, fear or desperation for control in the action this time. He was simply waiting for Orange to dive again.

After another deep inhale Orange finally dived, and Slaine fell easily into following the human’s movements and mirroring his route. Sod was doing the same below them, he realized, and a warmness that he hadn’t felt in a long time washed over Slaine, taking him by surprise. A feeling of belonging that he had chased after for years flooded the pool.

He was swimming in a pod again.

The realisation seemed to slow down time itself, and suddenly the pool seemed so much brighter and more welcoming. Slaine fisted a hand over his chest and allowed himself a moment to revel in the feeling of a pod in his sonars. His heart felt so tight it might break. Below him Sod almost purred, her vocalisation below any frequency Orange had the slightest of chance of hearing, but the sound vibrated gently through Slaine.

The moment was over in just under two minutes when Orange had to surface again. A few meters below him Slaine stilled, claws now digging painfully into his palms. Nostalgia and right on its heel melancholia mixed their way into the feeling that ripped through his heart. Slaine let out a short bark of a laugh, a harsh sound that hurt on its way up past the lump in his throat. He was lonely, anxious, bored out of his mind and without any real control over any of it. He could avoid the breakfast, the clear dome, the strangers and the blue shirts all he wanted. It didn’t stop any of them from becoming familiar, a routine he could trust. It didn’t stop Orange from becoming something he could trust.

Leave it to him to first make a pod out of strangers, then of a school of tuna and a group of dolphins. Of a lost beluga calf.

And now of a human.

Still clenching his hand at his chest, Slaine numbly approached the surface. He raised his head slowly through the ripples, only a meter or so from the brunette. He could hear gasps and hushed words from the poolside, but Slaine didn’t listen to them. Before him, Orange stayed as still as he could, pedalling with his legs and arms to stay in place. He was on his guard, but there was no fear in his eyes, only contemplation as his mind worked on making sense of what was happening. Either one of them could just reach out their hand and touch the other. So far, it had always been Orange, and somehow that was embarrassing.

"Hand.”, Slaine warned the other, his voice hoarse, before reaching his hand out. Orange furrowed his brows slightly, and Slaine touched the human’s bicep, curling his fingers carefully around it. He leaned back and kicked gingerly with his tail, pulling Orange with him. The human went completely stiff but didn’t resist. Instead he turned his head slowly to the others on land, who were staying very still as well, though Slaine could practically taste the distrust in the air.

“Orange good.”, Slaine offered, feeling a bit awkward about it, and a little by little Orange willed his limbs to relax. Orange kept his eye contact with Slaine steady as Slaine pulled him again, this time reaching to hold the human’s other bicep as well. A memory flashed in his mind then; his mother, guiding Slaine like this along the surface when he had been just a tiny calf and hadn’t had enough strength yet to hold onto her hair during long dives. It had been snowing, and although he couldn’t remember her features, he did remember how the white fluff had stuck onto the light grey skin of her face. Slaine shook his head a little to drive the image away. It couldn’t have been a memory of his mother anyway. It was probably just something he had seen happen in his pod a long time ago, brought up by his conflicted feelings.

Orange looked at him curiously before lifting his own hands slowly to take a hold of Slaine’s elbows. The touch was barely even there. Slaine huffed a bit and kicked up some more speed, letting his body fall fully below the surface as he pulled Orange around the pool in a set of pirouettes. He wasn’t sure when the smile had crept onto his face, but it was impossible to wipe it away now.

Back in the white cave he had marvelled at Orange’s hands, at how similar they had been to his own. He had had no idea just how much he had missed holding someone’s hand.

“Air!”, he whistled loudly on an impulse, already half of the word gone when his face peaked through the surface to look back at Orange. The human got it right away, pulling in a large inhale and sealing his mouth shut. Slaine’s grin widened, and then they were both underwater.

Slaine pulled Orange only some four meters down before letting go with his already aching left hand and adjusting the hold of the other, letting it fall onto Orange’s wrist. He adopted a calmer pace before letting them both slide into a pause completely. The moment stretched like it had before, morning light dancing in the pool, and the hurt in the merman’s heart letting go just a little. Only a second later Slaine felt Orange tug at the arm he was holding and he turned around to see what was wrong. Orange was pulling back up already, using his other hand to try and tear Slaine's hold of his wrist off, almost kicking Slaine with his fake fins in the process. After a small confused pause Slaine let go of the wrist. Orange scrambled back to the surface with a desperate gasp for air and a racing heart rate that swarmed into Slaine’s consciousness like a sudden downpour. The human couldn’t get air into his lungs fast enough, and almost slipped back underwater again while trying.

Before he could realise it himself, Slaine was right by Orange again, holding him up by his arms to make sure the human couldn’t swallow any water. His own heart caught up with him painfully only a second later, just as the taste of fresh fish from the other side of the pool hit his tongue along with Nina’s calls for him. It took another second for his mind to catch up and realise what was going on. He hadn’t thought of time in his hazy happiness, but surely they hadn’t stayed under for that long, Slaine tried to deny the pang of guilt.

“Grabthenet,Kaizuka!”

“Hello, fish!”

“It’s-it’sundercontrol.”, Orange sputtered, his breathing shallow but evening out after each inhale. Slaine felt dizzy with relief. “-Justa-ju-abittoolong. Bat letgo.”

“Outofthepoolif you can,Kaizuka!”

Orange pulled away from him, and Slaine let the human go. Orange wasn’t leaving, however. He floated on his back, just resting and breathing. Slaine on the other hand sank to the bottom of the pool feeling shameful. He knew Orange’s limits; he had made sure to follow the human’s patterns and he had still messed up. It had been so easy to forget for a moment. Slaine pulled at his hair and twitched his tail, anxiously trying to will his ears to understand the conversation that was being had on the surface to distract himself. There was no doubt it was about him.

“-expected.Withstudiesoforcasinocenariumconfinementtheyfocusedonwhalesincommercialentertainmentprograms.Thesituationhereisclearlydifferentsotheargumentisinvalid.” Though the others were quite clearly shaken, Orange’s tone didn’t betray anything. Slaine scratched his scalp nervously. He didn’t know if that was a good sign or not.

“Whatisdifferentis we ‘realreadycuttingitthisclose! We can’taffordacaselikein-“

After blowing out most of the air in his lungs, Slaine glanced carefully above him. Sod was gleefully eating the fish that was probably meant to lure him away. Orange hadn’t moved from his spot, but at least his breathing was normal again and he didn’t seem distressed anymore either. Slaine shook his head and buried it back into his hands. The whole situation was absurd. He hadn’t meant to do any of it.

But it couldn’t be undone either. Not the distrust that had been sowed between him and the humans, nor the fact that one of them had gambled everything on trust.

Orange, Inaho, had gambled and won.

Though the defeat was frustrating, Slaine pushed it aside. He could wallow in it later. With a determined flip of his flukes he neared the surface again, just below Orange. Gingerly he reached with his fingers until they touched the human’s shoulder blades. The human stiffened a bit in surprise but didn’t react otherwise. Mindful of his rugged claws, ruined from tearing at the walls and the boulders, Slaine laid his palms flat against Orange’s back and started to tow him towards the edge of the pool. With one last push, Orange floated into the shallow bay and Slaine couldn’t dive fast enough along the wall down to his sand bed. If only the layer of sand was deeper, he could've buried himself in it.

Slaine held onto Sod’s flukes while she slowly circled around the pool towing the merman behind her. She was napping and running mostly on autopilot. Even though Slaine was awake, he was barely present either.

In a single moment too many barriers had been broken. They had been already crumbling before, and now they had been all but teared down. At some point things had been simple and land creatures easy to hate. Little by little they had gotten under his skin to the point that Slaine was now making himself vulnerable right in front of them like it was normal; climbing onto land out of his own free will and feeling warm and fuzzy when diving with Orange.

It felt good to let go a little. But at the same time there was a pit forming in Slaine’s stomach. While he had gained one thing, he was losing so many others.

Slaine sank ever deeper, the pressure now enough to hurt in his ears. He was descending too fast, even the orcas’ distant play couldn’t be heard over the ringing in his head anymore.

With conscious effort Slaine forced his body to stop and take some time to adjust. He was still far from the seabed, probably further from it than he was from the surface. Even if he survived for long enough to become an adult, he would never be able to reach it without dying of the bends on his way down. He was way past the twilight-zone already, in the domain of the leviathans, and this far down there was not a single ray of sunlight left to illuminate the darkness. If he stayed for too long, he could forget which way was up.

Before knowing it, his body rocked in another sob. Even though he had tried to hope, he had still known. They were all down there, out of his reach.

And now Slaine was truly alone.

Chapter Text

Slaine had spent the night as per usual, an agitated bundle of nerves roaming around the pool aimlessly. The magnitude of what had happened had sunk in slowly and left him feeling even more restless than usually.

A moment longer, and Orange would've breathed in and water would've filled his lungs.

Slaine hadn’t even tried to sleep and the hours passed painfully slowly, floating steadily like giant icebergs. It had been barely past midnight when he had started bumping into the walls to have something to occupy his time with. He’d then spent hours in front of the small openings in the wall that let fresh water into the pool just to escape the stillness. The current was miniscule, something that he would’ve never even noticed in the ocean, but in the pool it was the closest substitute he had to the constant shifting of the sea. The longer he spent in this artificial environment, the more Slaine found himself missing the simplest things. He desperately needed something, anything to do, and the stillness was driving him mad.

It was a bit ridiculous, Slaine realised, but what was a little ridiculousness amongst all the madness? He didn’t exactly have a lot to work with, so he just had to do with what was available. From the pieces of the thick, colourful rope that he had undone before and saved, Slaine wove a good length of narrow tape. It wasn’t nearly as neat as he would normally bound the tape, what with the strings getting stuck in his ruined claws at every turn. With a rock worked to the right shape and tied to one end it could be used in hunting, nonetheless. With just a little more of the rope he could’ve made a small net too, but it wasn’t really in Slaine’s control what he did or didn’t have.

He held the tape in his hands for a moment, lost in thought. There was a sense of disassociation with the familiar tool that he couldn’t quite put his finger on. Slaine had woven thousands of tapes in his lifetime and used them all until they were shredded to pieces, but this one felt like a fake. An echo of a memory more than anything truly tangible.

Slaine shook his head and rubbed his eyes to get rid of the weird feeling. The night was getting to him again, and there was only so much he could sleep. So Slaine tried to keep busy.

A disfigured bucket lying on the sand bed could be easily made useful again by pulling the handle free and giving it some shape. A small sense of dignity returned to Slaine as he worked on the wire, saving the jagged ends for the tip and carefully grinding them against rocks. It could never be as sharp as a stingray spike, but he could at least imitate the shape. The bucket itself he pummelled some more, startling Sod out of her nap when he whacked it with his tail. The bucket could be used in breaking rocks at least.

Slaine’s mission of destroying the boulders and the rocks glued to the pillars didn’t have any rhyme or reason, but at least it gave him some sense of direction and progression in a world that had become full of meaningless repetition.

The green shirt that cleaned the poolside in the early hours of the morning left just as Orange and Nina walked in, carrying their loads for the day to the big box that held all the food. Nina was yawning, and even though Orange seemed as alert as ever, Slaine could see in his jaw that he was fighting a yawn too. They both went back and forth a few times, carrying fish and squid before settling into their other chores. It had become a routine for Orange to sit on a chair that was against the back wall, pull out his tablet, put pebbles (what the hell?) in his ears and type for an hour or two while Nina gave Sod her breakfast and play.

Slaine found it curious how Nina did twice as much work around the pool as Orange did. Nina was the one who interacted with the green shirts, she was the one who made sure that everything was done according to standards and she also did a lot of the heavy lifting, always keeping busy when she wasn’t working with Sod. Nina held the poolside together and was clearly the one ultimately in charge. Thinking back, Slaine could see now how Nina had taken on everything Kaoru had been doing before and more. Orange, on the other hand, appeared to be in charge of Slaine’s daily needs and only them. It was another weird realisation. The brunette had seemingly held authority over Slaine’s life for so long already that the merman hadn’t even noticed that the man didn’t have power over much else around the pool.

Slaine tilted his head and stored the information for later reference. It appeared that in human pods females were the ones in charge.

Morning time with the tablet was a newer development, though. Orange had started to shift Slaine’s feeding time to be separate from Sod’s when the merman had stopped eating his breakfast altogether. Slaine supposed it did make things a bit calmer, and the brunette appeared content with it as well. Whatever Orange’s job or position was, its main focus wasn’t on the poolside.

Finally noticing Slaine’s blatant staring, Orange lifted his eyes from his work and met Slaine’s steadily. He was as blank of a slate to read as ever, but after yesterday there was a new feeling attached to him. Not quite fondness, but a new sense familiarity. The human felt easier to approach, somehow, but there was also a bitter aftertaste of shame that cut through the feeling before it could settle. Slaine quickly dived and surfaced again in front of Orange before he could regret it. Not managing eye contact again, he all but threw the neatly tied bundle of tape to the human’s feet and dived back down as fast as his flukes could propel him. He rounded sharply around a pillar, skin itching and heat rising to his face.

It was utterly ridiculous, and Slaine didn’t know if he could handle it after all.

…Did the human know how to use the tape in the first place? Would it even be useful in the air? Slaine had no idea what the brunette hunted for his own food. He did have a lot of fish, but those had been dead for a long while before they were given out to him and Sod. Slaine groaned. Orange hadn’t even looked that crossed with him, but he was hard to read anyway and after what had happened before Slaine couldn’t help the feeling he had to do something to appease the human. He needed to somehow make up for his mistake.

Besides, there weren’t any indications that Orange wasn’t boiling with anger under his deadpan exterior.

Maybe he should’ve done something decorative, after all. Slaine had seen many humans wear decorations. It wasn’t practical and would be a pain to carry with while migrating, but maybe humans didn’t mind that. Maybe they didn’t even migrate.

You’re just trying to buy forgiveness, Slaine’s mind supplied unhelpfully. He cringed at the thought. It wasn’t wrong. Slaine jumped so easily into extremes; he either trusted someone completely or not at all. He loved and hated deeply, but the vague feelings in between were harder to grasp. Seeing grey in between of black and white had never been one of his strong suites, and now that he was forced to face its existence it brought him only more confusion. Orange stood comfortably right in the middle of the grey, and Slaine had to remind himself of it; he couldn’t completely vilify the other, but he couldn’t wholeheartedly count on the human now either.

Teetering on the hazy lines was nerve-wracking. Slaine could never quite figure out what his place in the pool was, what was appropriate and when he crossed some unknown line that would make the humans abandon their charity and let him starve to death. Or what he could even hope for in the future. The blond made his way to the spot he had buried the wire-spike and combed his fingers through the sand carefully. He hadn’t really consciously thought about what he had been doing, he had just done during the silent hours of the night to quiet his racing mind. His hands had easily found the shapes of items that were familiar, things that were useful. Useful for him, but what of the humans?

Feeling restless, Slaine sneaked bashfully closer to the surface for a peek. He needed to know how the brunette reacted. Orange wasn’t there anymore, however, and neither was Nina nor the tape Slaine had awkwardly gifted. He turned his head this way and that, tasting the air and subconsciously clicking his sonars even though they didn’t work in the air. He couldn’t find anyone. With a frustrated frown, Slaine fell back underwater and darted forward to play-fight with Sod. He needed distractions, and the beluga calf was more than happy to oblige, cackling as she chased after Slaine.

Slaine swam lazily, dragging his right side against the walls as he brooded. He hadn’t done much else the whole day other than ruminate while Nina kept Sod busy in the smaller pool. The girl had given Slaine a wave and a strained smile when she had returned in the noon and then kept her distance ever since. It wasn’t like Slaine had ever sought out her company but getting the cold shoulder from her stung anyway.

It wasn’t until the next morning that Slaine saw Orange again. The human entered the poolside with morning light as always, did his usual chores with Nina, sat down and pulled out his tablet. Not a glance was given to the merman fretting near the pool’s edge. Slaine tried to determine if the humans were angry with him. There was some trepidation hanging in the air still, but beyond that the atmosphere was hard to read. Slaine sunk a little. It was in their rights to be angry or even vengeful. He could understand that. An accident like two days ago was never supposed to happen.

Sod nosed Slaine’s flukes on her way to the smaller pool to play with Nina again. Slaine dived briefly to rub his good side against the calf too before sending Sod on her way and surfacing again. It eased his mind a bit to have her always so near. Loneliness was a terrible thing, and also something that brought back bad memories. Slaine couldn’t help his attention being divided between the land and the water now, however. Orange had no idea what his stunt had stirred up. There was a bond now, and though it was precarious it held true. It could only have a dead end, but at the same time it was probably one of Slaine’s best chances for continued survival. He needed to somehow salvage it.

”Orange.”, Slaine called softly. Too softly to be heard, he thought, but then the human turned his head and met Slaine’s eyes. Slaine deflated a little under his gaze.

“I’m sorry.”, Slaine said after a moment of gathering his courage. There was no reaction on Orange’s face, no recognition of what was said. Right. The human didn’t understand the most important word, and Slaine didn’t have the slightest idea of how to explain its meaning to him.

“I’m sorry.”, he repeated a bit louder, as if Orange could magically understand him the second time. There was no recognition, of course. Orange stayed still for a beat longer before standing up and taking a couple brisk steps towards the pool, half of his attention already back on his tablet even as he walked.

“Sayitagain.”, he said, not even looking at Slaine but gesturing slightly to the blond with his free hand. Now it was Slaine’s turn to pause.

“…I’m sorry, I don’t understand what you’re-“

“Good. Again.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Again.”

“I’m sorry!”

“Again.”

“I don’t understand!” Slaine was starting to get annoyed again. This wasn’t what he had been expecting. “What do you mean ‘again’?” The flustered burst served to silence Orange for a fleeting moment, at least. Then the human tapped his finger on the tablet a couple of times and Slaine froze. He could hear his own disembodied voice recite the apologies he had just said to Orange, repeating them over and over back to him.

Feeling defensive and now also embarrassed, Slaine was at a loss of words. Orange manipulated the sounds, skipping over words and syllables with keen interest as he played the recording back and forth. It made heat rise all the way to Slaine’s ears, and he slowly sunk down inch by inch. Anger he had been prepared to deal with. Not… this. Only his pride kept Slaine from fleeing and burying himself in the sand to never breach for air again.

“Thepitchchangeseverytime you repeatit.”, Orange said conversationally, immersed in the track he was fiddling with, the smallest pinch in his brows the only indication that he was thinking hard. “Itmakesitsometimeshardtorecogniseevenfamiliarpatternsbyear.” His eyes met with Slaine’s again. Orange was the epitome of calm. Slaine still had no idea if he was angry or not. “Thank you forthereference.”

Orange returned to his chair and left Slaine into stunned silence, and that was that. Orange promptly ignored Slaine for the rest of the day. Nothing had been addressed, nothing was resolved, and nothing of Slaine’s attempt to apologise nor Orange’s ramblings was understood.

“What do you even do in there?”, Slaine asked, pouting a little. Nina was calling Sod again to the smaller pool, and it wasn’t like Slaine was envious of the attention she was getting from the humans, but it was making him antsy, nonetheless.

“Play.”, Sod answered easily, bumping into the sulking merman.

“I play with you too.”, Slaine murmured under his breath. What Sod called “play” wasn’t exactly that when it came to the humans. Slaine had been watching Sod and Nina, and it was clear to him that they were training for something. He didn’t like it.

Sod bumped against Slaine again, this time a bit stronger. It jostled his shoulder, but the pain was only briefly there. Slaine laughed out a small choked sound and whacked his tail against the calf in retaliation. This meant war.

Sod rammed Slaine with her head, pushing him against the transparent wall. The people on the other side of the wall let out gasps and surprised cries as they jumped back. Slaine laughed and let Sod feel powerful for a moment, playing at struggling against her hold before slipping out of it and diving under her. He wrapped his arms around her tail and started roughhousing her away from the wall, both of them twisting and trying to pull each other to different directions. Slaine managed to pull Sod only a few meters before the calf broke out of his arms and made her escape, Slaine only half a stroke of his flukes behind her as he gave chase. They swam in tight circles around each other in their game of tag before finally breaching for air, both of them out of breath.

Slaine snuggled close to Sod on the surface, feeling a bit better. Their play had broken the calm of the surface, and water overflowed from the pool in turbulent waves that crashed into one another. Slaine closed his eyes and let the waves lull him far away. There were seagulls swimming through the sky above him again, and their cries reminded him of home and the stolen moments spent on surface when his life had still been in the hazy twilight zone below.

“Hello, here.”

“Sod!”

Two whistles broke through the moment of serenity. With a small nuzzle of her melon to Slaine’s side, Sod dived and headed straight into the smaller pool and to Nina, who had a cheery smile on her face. Slaine looked for the source of the other whistle and found it by the bay.

Orange was wearing his green water-proof overalls and stood like a rock by the bay, the clear dome that had loomed over the poolside for the past weeks right behind him. Slaine glared at him suspiciously. Orange appeared determined.

“Hello, here,”, he called again and crouched down to wave his hand in the shallow water in an inviting manner. He looked like he was trying to dare Slaine into entering the bay.

Slaine scoffed. Silly tricks like those didn’t work on him. Never mind the fact that didn’t like to lose and now he was also getting just a little curious about why Orange wanted him in the shallow. It couldn’t be anything good anyway.

“Here.”, Orange demanded, a new kind of tone in his voice. He didn't sound cross, but he wasn’t going to give up on this either. Overall, Orange held himself differently than usually. He seemed more at ease and less careful. Slaine didn’t know where that trust and confidence was coming from, considering that he had nearly drowned the man only a couple days ago. He could still very well do it, if he ever wanted or needed to. It would be easy, even, given how poorly humans handled being in water.

Orange lifted his brows a little in a silent order. The movement was miniscule, but it made Slaine groan.

“Can’t we just do whatever it is you want to do by the bay, not in it?”, he whined.

“Here.”

Slaine dived and made sure to slap his flukes on the surface on his way down. He circled around the pillars blowing bubbles as he went. Of course it was going to be like this when he finally had Orange’s attention again. They both knew that the merman was going to lose to his curiosity and enter the bay even if it was to his own detriment.

After a few more laps Slaine approached the bay tentatively. He wasn’t sure why shallow water was so much worse than land. He had pulled himself out of the pool plenty of times, but somehow shallows were still what distressed him the most. He peeked from behind the corner to see the still bay. Slaine swallowed, but his throat was dry.

Trust demands trust in return.

Slowly, Slaine slipped into the bay. With stiff movements he scaled the small area, wide enough for an orca to uncomfortably waddle and turn around in, his belly scraping the stone floor in an attempt to at least stay as hidden as possible. He could see Orange reflected in the ripples from where he was standing some ways off, and instinctively Slaine froze in his tracks. It was a strange reflex to have. Slaine found himself trying to stay hidden and hoping his colouring blended into the rocks and the sand. He frowned at the mental dissonance, willing his fingers to move, his hands clenching and unclenching by his sides. There weren’t any rocks or sand in the bay, just a smooth floor. Fighting through the instinct, he turned his body to face Orange and turned his eyes to carefully peek at the brunette.

If there was one time he really didn’t want to see Doctoryagarai it was now, but when had anything ever been easy for Slaine? He cringed as he saw the man walk in and talk with some blue shirts behind Orange. Slaine had known nothing good could come out of this, but he shot an angry glare at Orange anyway. Orange dismissed the look easily and stepped into the water. The brunette was in the habit of always pushing Slaine a bit further than the merman was willing to go, but never quite far enough to warrant any serious hostility from Slaine’s part. It was unnerving, the way Orange kept prodding and poking him on every turn.

“You favour your rightsideandswimonlycounterclockwisearoundthe pool. It’snotgood.”, the human offered his explanation, though Slaine had no way of understanding it. Orange sat down on the edge and lowered his hand into the water, showing his palm to Slaine. “Hello, head.”

The situation felt familiar, and somewhere in the edges of Slaine’s mind lurked claustrophobia, egging him to turn around and flee as deep as he could before he could be grabbed and dragged away again. The thought of being stuck in a tank again was unbearable. Slaine pushed the thought away as soon as it surfaced before he could make himself sick. It was clearly different this time. Orange wasn’t crowding his space, nor did he look like he was going to.

“Shoulder?”, Slaine asked. He didn’t like it, but Doctoryagarai was a healer as far as Slaine knew. And Orange was… Orange. Whatever that even meant now.

“Yes. Shoulder, arm, back.”, the brunette confirmed. Slaine blew bubbles as he pouted. He was acting like a calf, but what he didn’t like, he didn’t like. Orange stayed still, his eyes demanding.

“…It’s your fault if I kick him.”, Slaine whistled and gave in after blowing out the last of his air. The sleeve he was still wearing helped to keep his arm and shoulder in the right position, but he hadn’t been getting any better lately even though he was sure the fractures had healed. His left hand still had no strength and lifting the arm above his elbow was near impossible. Slaine was dependant on the dead fish given to him; he doubted he could hunt anymore even if there were live fish in the pool.

He’d be dead in a week if it wasn’t for the humans.

Slaine slid forward until his forehead bumped lightly against Orange’s palm. “Hello, good.”, the human reassured and stood up, still keeping his hand in the water to target Slaine. With his free hand he took hold of the blond’ good arm and manoeuvred him a bit closer to the edge before letting go.

“We ’reready.”, Orange declared and stepped out of the water only to walk around Slaine and step back in. The hairs in the back of Slaine’s neck raised when he turned his head to see the brunette settle himself by his side, in between the merman and the exit from the bay. Slaine slapped the surface anxiously with his flukes. Yep, he really didn’t like this.

Docoryagarai stood now where Orange had been just a moment before. He had the same overalls on as Orange, though his seemed to be a bit too small for him. The slight frown on the healer’s face concerned Slaine and he tensed.

“I canseewhat you meant.Thewholebodyisovercompensating.”

Doctoryagarai kneeled slowly down and gingerly laid his palm flat in between Slaine’s shoulder blades. Encouraged by Slaine’s careful lack of reaction, he started feeling around the tense muscles of his back and shoulders. It didn’t take long for the healer to grow frustrated of kneeling and reaching uncomfortably and slip into the shallow water as well to have better access to his patient.

“There’sasymmetricalmuscletensionthroughoutthewholeback. He ‘sguardingtheinjuredside.” Doctoryagarai moved to check on his left shoulder, and Slaine flinched away, scooting closer to Orange. “Oops,noworries,see?”, the man cooed, showing his palms in a gesture that was no doubt meant to be calming. It wasn’t. “We canchecksomewhereelsefirst.” Doctoryagarai’s hands moved to the right arm instead, rolling his shoulder and checking his joints as he continued to speak calmly.

“You needasolutionfortheclaws,if he scratcheshimselfwiththese, he coulddevelopenaninfection. You knowhowdirtythese pools get.Howaboutdental?”

“Ithasonlybeencheckedonce,backonSleipnir. Bat canopen his mouthwhenasked,butafullexaminationwithsedation-“

“…isnotagoodidea, I agreewiththat.Whataboutbloodwork?”

“Samething.”

“I thoughttheCenterdidtestingweekly?”

“Theydo,butnoton Bat. It’snnotsafesince he ‘snottrained. I ‘mworkingonit.”

“Well,itiswhatitis.”

Doctoryagarai ran his hand over Slaine’s spine, fingers stopping briefly on every vertebra until he reached the beginning of Slaine’s dorsal ridge on his lower back. The blond was unabashedly leaning against Orange with his side and away from the healer.

“Hello, head.”, Orange whistled and offered his hand in front of the blond’ head again. Slaine didn’t need any more coaxing to reach the few centimetres forward and push the top of his head against Orange’s palm. He was pretty certain the healer wouldn’t avoid his left side for much longer, so he took distractions where he could.

Slaine’s hunch was proved right just a moment later, when Doctoryagarai reached over his back to take a careful grip around his left shoulder. He felt around the arm and rolled the stiff shoulder much like he had with his other side. Slaine gritted his teeth firmly together whenever the shoulder moved over a painful spot. He was just about ready to take things into his own hands and make an escape when the healer let go and rested his hand on Slaine’s back with a sigh. Slaine sighed in relief as well.

“Thefractureshavehealedcleanlyandtherearen’tanyfurthercomplicationswiththebackeither.Honestly,thereisn’tmuchelse I can do. I ‘dsuggestvisitingachiropractorforanadjustmentintheshouldersandthentocontinuewithstandardphysiotorestoretherangeofmovementinthearm. I ‘venoideahowto do thatwithasyreni,however.”

“I ‘llworkonit.”, Orange said. Slaine could practically hear the gears turning in the brunette’s head, and it wasn’t exactly comforting. He knew the human well enough to know that it didn’t bode well for him. Amongst all the humans Slaine had met so far Orange remained the most unpredictable one still. Slaine stayed as motionless as he could, focusing on the hand on top of his head. His tail twitched in anticipation. It sounded like the two were wrapping up their conversation, and that meant his examination was probably over too.

“Anyway,mytoeshavealreadygonenumb,there’saholeintheseshoesandnowmyfeetarewet.Callmeifthere’sanyproblems,orstopbytheclinic.Since you ‘reonthepayrollnowtoo, you shouldcomegetyourselfcheckedsomeday,Kaizuka.It’sfreefortheemployees.”, the man said as he stood up. His voice was warm and airy again, he must’ve been smiling.

Orange only hummed in answer and Slaine lifted his head to take a peek at him. They were done now, weren’t they? Doctoryagarai was on his way out at least. Orange rubbed the hand he had kept in the water to target Slaine, coaxing some warmth to return to his fingers. After a short moment he stood up and climbed briskly out of the bay. As an afterthought, the brunette turned around on his heels, pointed his finger at Slaine and whistled sternly: “Hello, there.” Without another glance back he walked out of the poolside after Doctoryagarai and closed the door behind him.

That was a “stay” if Slaine had ever heard one.

Orange had clearly taken into giving orders, and Slaine wasn’t sure how to feel about it. On one hand, the human was way easier to understand this way, but on the other hand, he was giving him orders and Slaine didn’t appreciate it much. He turned around and left the bay as soon as the door was shut. He wasn’t about to risk any more time in there than was necessary. Even after just a short time of confinement in the shallow the deeper water felt heavenly.

In the smaller pool, Sod and Nina were still training. Sod floated along the edge of the pool while Nina reached over and around the calf. She even knew to raise her flukes herself when Nina hugged her tail in a way that would’ve felt restraining if not done by someone trusted. Slaine cringed at the sight. The sound of a door slamming shut caught his attention before he could let his mind wander further.

Slaine peeked into the bay to see that Orange was on his way back. His heart started beating faster as he entered the bay again, but curiosity outweighed the apprehension quickly. Orange was carrying something small in one hand, and Slaine craned his head out of the water to see it better. He didn’t have much luck though, and soon the human was sat at the bay’s edge again, his feet in the water.

“Hello, here.”, Orange whistled, and Slaine slid a bit closer again. He reached with his good hand for the thing Orange had brought with him, but the human took his hand instead. He turned it around, spreading Slaine’s fingers to see the webbing between them stretch before focusing on the fingers themselves. Slaine froze in place. What was this now?

“…You reallydidruinthem Bat.”, Orange murmured, “Maybesalmon,then?” There was a light pressure on his index finger followed by a snapping sound, and Slaine jerked his hand free.

“Wha-! What was that?”, he spat out, cradling the hand to his chest and backing away slightly. “What did you do?” He eyed the brunette suspiciously while Orange lowered his eyes to his own hands with a slight frown before holding up the small thing he had brought with him for Slaine to see. Slaine had no idea what it was, but that must’ve been the culprit for his scare.

“Hand.”, Orange asked, palm open and waiting. Slaine checked to see his hand. The claw from his index finger was cut clean close to his fingertip. Running his thumb over what was now a smooth edge with pointed sides felt weird. There were some stubborn threads stuck onto his other, jagged and broken claws.

“Hello, hand.”, Orange reminded him. Slaine scooted closer and cautiously gave his hand back to the brunette, this time leaning on the edge next to the human so he could see what was happening. Orange took his hand and went silently back to work, cutting each of Slaine’s claws one after another into rounded tips. The human was grooming him like they would in a real pod and Slaine felt warmness spread inside him. When he craned his neck to get a better look, he could see four reddish lines run across Orange’s palm. Slaine's mood soured immediately.

Orange was cleaning up his claws, and in exchange he had just scratched the human. Slaine deflated, dropping his face underwater in shame. He really was hopeless.

A sharp flick to the top of Slaine’s head brought his attention right back to Orange. He raised his hand to the stinging spot with wide eyes.

“Don’t do that.Give me your otherhand.”, Orange said as he let go of his right hand, all the claws neatly cut. Slaine frowned at the indifferent tone. Don’t do what? Scratch Orange? It wasn’t like he had meant to, but he was a swimming disaster, so it wasn’t really that unexpected for him to manage to mess up the simplest of things. It was a continuous string of fuck ups that had led him to this miserable state he was in in the first place.

With a small sigh, Orange leaned towards Slaine and before the blond could react, he was flicked again, this time right in the middle of his forehead.

“Stop.Hand.”

“What the hell is wrong with you?”, Slaine whined, now rubbing his forehead. The newly blunt claws against his skin were a new sensation: it was almost like he had human fingers, complete with soft pads and harmless short nails.

Orange didn’t mind his whining and opted to just reaching for Slaine’s other hand instead, pulling it to his lap and turning it around to get a better access to his target while Slaine did his best to not snag on the human’s skin again. He turned to float on his back so he could hold out his left hand more comfortably. Slaine played with his new claws, the sting on his forehead long forgotten, raising his right hand high above his head and turning it around. It was weird and a little frustrating to lose one of his weapons, but they weren’t much good broken either and would grow back eventually.

Slaine let his hand fall back into the water but kept his eyes in the sky. For most of his life he had only seen it in brief moments. Now that he really looked at, it was vast and blue like the sea.

There was a faint knock that caught Slaine’s attention. Humans knocked on the transparent wall every now and again despite being told not to, and Slaine had learned to filter the sound mostly out. But this knock was a bit different; instead of the insistent drumming that Slaine had grown familiar with, there were only two soft knocks this time. It felt more like a declaration of “I’m here” rather than the usual attention-seeking ruckus, and that made him curious. Slaine rounded around the pillar he had been napping against to see Orange below him, standing with his back to the transparent wall. There were three people before the brunette, one with a long stick, another one with a big box that reminded Slaine of the flashing ones, and the third was an older man. Lowering himself to almost their level he could see a few more humans with other weird contraptions. None of them appeared to be regular visitors. Growing suspicious, Slaine stilled and looked back to Orange, trying to somehow understand the situation.

Orange turned his head to see Slaine and pressed his hand against the wall. “Head.”, the human whistled, and the word sounded so different through the glass that it gave Slaine a pause. It was different enough for Sod to check the strangers out too, but not enough so to keep her attention. Slaine huffed and got a bit closer despite himself.

“-similiartricksusedinashow?”

“TheCentreisopenforthepublictoseetheanimals,buttherearenoshows.Therearenotricks,justhusbandryandresearch.” The greying man had a surprisingly authoritative voice that carried well into the pool. It made him intimidating, but Orange was quick to repeat his request before Slaine could decide to just turn around and leave. The brunette was barely paying any attention to the conversation or its strange setting. His eyes were busy dissecting every move the merman made instead, and if that was Orange’s idea of reassurance, the humans’ culture was a sad one indeed.

“Whataboutthehumancontact?Likerightnow?Isin’tthatunderminingyourwork?”

“Ofcoursetherearecaseswhichcan’teverbereleased,butit’shardlyamatterofhumancontact.Usuallythewhalewouldn’tbeabletosurviveinthewildonitsownbecauseofaphysicalormentalinjury,orsimplybecauseithadneverlearnedtosurvive,sayitwasborninafacilityorcapturedduringtheformativeyears. We workcasebycasetofindthebestsolutionforeachanimal.”

Slaine crept ever so closer, until he bumped his forehead softly against the wall where Orange was holding his hand. He leaned back to see Orange’s eyes still on him before they flickered to the scar on his hairline and turned unreadable again. Orange turned back to the other humans then, and Slaine distanced himself a bit from the wall, taken aback. Something was happening again, and not being in the loop bothered him. Slaine’s skin crawled in anticipation of something bad.

“-reactionstothepictureshavebeenstrongacrosstheboard.How do you-“

Slaine didn’t bother listening to the humans speaking too carefully since he couldn’t understand it anyway, but whenever Orange opened his mouth, he paid a bit more attention. Humans had their own name for Slaine, and they were using it a lot in their conversation. He was curious to know what they were discussing about, even if all he had to go by were the tones and emotions. He scooted back and settled into glaring at the humans from behind a nearby boulder. He had spent a lot of time decorating it with towers of rocks that now offered him good cover. He perked up when it was Orange’s turn to speak again.

“It’seasytoanthropomorphize Bat since he lookssohuman,butinsteadoftreating him likeahumanitismorebeneficialforallincludedtoapproach Bat ‘scasefromasimiliaranglethanwewould,sayanyothedwhaleorevenagreatape.Thtanksto his injurieswenowhavehadthechancetostudyasyrenicloselyforthefirsttime.”

“Howwould you answertotherecentoutragethen?”

Orange seemed nonchalant. “Puttingananimalthroughasmallbitofdiscomfortis not abuse.People do itto their petsallthetime,whentakingthemtoavet,forexample.”

Behind Orange, the old man hastily bowed down a little to reach the baton to add to the brunette’s statement. “We recognizetheuniquecircumstancesofthiscase,andstrivetoresolveittothebestofourabilities,as we havewithallourotherwhales.ResearchandcooperationwiththeacademiahasalwaysbeenabigpartoftheCentre’swork. We havealsoalreadyopenedtheconversationwithourpartnersinIcelandandNorway.”

The man with the baton answered shortly to it, and they all laughed a bit. The grey man looked like he was covering a mistake with his polite laugh, while Orange barely lifted the sides of his mouth, probably not finding anything worthy of a smile in the joke. There was no need to understand the language to see how uncomfortable it was for everyone included.

The tension didn’t ease even when the man shook both the old man’s and Orange’s hands, or when the rest of the strangers left after a string of small bows and what Slaine could only guess were formal words with very little substance. Finally the old man and Orange were left alone. The grey man held his straight posture for a moment longer before pinching the bridge of his nose with a heavy sigh. He started talking in a hushed voice that was only fully audible for Orange. Slaine saw the brunette plant his feet into a steadier stance before answering the old man, his voice cutting dryly through the very apparent chew out he was receiving.

“Don’t spreadmyfriendshipthin,Kaizuka! You ‘relucky I-“

Slaine slammed against the wall with a snarl that sent Sod skittering to the other side of the pool and cut the grey man’s bellow short. He looked at Slaine, disheveled and bewildered, only a meter’s distance and a glass wall between himself and Slaine’s blunt claws. He then barked out a dry laugh as he came back to himself and straightened his tie, eyes jumping to Orange, his jaw clenching. The brunette stood incredibly still, not meeting either of their eyes fully but not looking away either.

Slaine gave a loud hiss as a warning and moved a bit so that the old man was sure to see how much bigger and stronger the merman was with his tail. His point seemed to go across because the man took a deep breath.

“I ‘mnotrunnignacharityhere.”, he said with a tired voice. He then turned to meet Slaine’s eyes briefly before walking away, his steps echoing and disappearing into the empty hallways.

Orange stood still and silent for a moment longer, even though Slaine could see he was biting down a retort behind his impassive appearance. After a barely audible sigh of his own, Orange turned around to pat the class with his palm and walking away too, leaving Slaine alone into what had become deafening silence.

Sod suddenly pushed her melon under Slaine’s arm, concern oozing from her in waves. Slaine tightened his arms around her and nuzzled his face into her soft forehead. He wasn’t sure why he was shaking, but he was.

Slaine woke with a startled jolt to a sudden crashing sound. It wasn’t loud, but the timing had him instantly alert and on edge. Normally no one moved around the poolside in the middle of the night.

Heart ponding and careful to not cause ripples, Slaine sneaked towards the surface. Sod was napping there, floating still and lax against the wall, exposing herself to potential threats in a way no wild beluga ever would. The sounds hadn’t stirred her at all, which Slaine found disturbing. He had grown careless too but seeing the calf so defenceless made his heart ache. He scanned her carefully; she was fast asleep and far enough from the noise to not be in any immediate danger. It was still dark outside, but if anything, this time it served to soothe Slaine just a little bit. It caused him no trouble to locate the source of the sound and gingerly raise his head above the surface.

The poor human who had tripped over a stray bucket clearly wasn’t as naturally gifted with seeing in dark places as Slaine was, but he was quick to recover and continue his frantic pacing.

“…Orange?”, Slaine lifted his head a little further from the shadow of the pillar. The figure didn’t react, but Slaine dived over anyway, breaching again by the side of the pool. Something was off. There was a sinking feeling in his chest, a gut reaction to something unexpected that made him overly aware of anything else that could be out of place.

The only irregularity in the calm of night however was Orange, pacing by the shallow bay like he didn’t dare to stop, getting dangerously close to the edge of the pool on each turn.

“Do you hear me? What’s wrong?”, Slaine asked leaning on the edge, starting to really get worried. “Are you okay? Orange good?”

Like a fishbone bending and then snapping in two, Orange stopped in his track. After standing completely still for a few seconds, he turned to face the confused merman before turning around again and staggering away, trying and failing to steady his uneven breaths. Slaine stayed frozen in silence only to hear a distant door close, and with that Orange was gone.

With any sense of safety Slaine had built up during his captivity crumbling around him into nothingness, he reached numbly out of the pool pulling most of his weight onto the land, just far enough to reach the bucket Orange had tripped over. Slaine turned it upright before pushing himself back into the water with a soft splash. With him Slaine brought to the pool a metallic taste that spread around him and hit his tongue in a way that brought back memories of the shark attack. In just a few seconds Sod could taste it in her sleep too, and the calf whined in response. Slaine didn’t think Orange had seen his face in the dark at all, but he had seen Orange’s well enough.

The dishevelled hair and ripped shirt, one eye severely bruised and bleeding, the way his hands fidgeted, trying to find some outlet to the disarray swirling just beneath the surface.

******

It was fifteen minutes later when Slaine could hear the door open and footsteps enter the poolside again, but he couldn’t afford a single moment to investigate what was going on above the surface. Sod was wailing and thrashing, throwing herself against the pillars and ramming into the walls. Slaine didn’t know what had taken over the usually jovial calf, but in a span of just a few seconds she had turned unrecognisable right in front of his eyes. He didn’t know for how long he had just floated and watched in shocked disbelief as she had tried to break her own skull against the rocks. It could’ve been only seconds, but it had felt like hours.

When the spell was finally broken, Slaine rushed to Sod and reached his hands around her tail, but she didn’t react to him at all. He swam around her then instead and tried franticly to soothe her by nuzzling her melon, but she was beyond his reach, in her own world of only instincts and panic. His hold proved to be nothing against her strength when she pulled her head back and threw herself against the wall again. Slaine was desperately crying now too, trying to stop the calf from hurting herself further by pulling her away from the walls or pushing himself in between the wall and the calf in a futile effort to at least soften the impact. It was no use, Sod was bigger and stronger than him when she wasn't just play fighting.

In a last-ditch effort Slaine took a hold of her pectoral fin and bit down as hard as he could. That gained him a pained yelp as the calf took off in a frenzied state, trying to shake him off. Slaine felt sick at the feeling of his fangs embedded in her flesh, but at least her focus wasn’t on the walls anymore. Trying his best to hold on, he could only hope to tire the calf out enough to overpower her. Somewhere above the surface he could hear multiple people now.

******

Twenty minutes later a cry erupted from somewhere not too far away. Slaine recognized the voice, but he couldn’t connect it to a face in his distraught mind. It sounded like the cry the grey whale cow had let out as her calf had met its end in the Arctic.

Sod was finally still, her face pressed into a corner and her sobs filled with desperate pleas for a beach in a dialect that Slaine didn’t fully understand. She would need air soon, but Slaine didn’t trust the surface or the sounds of the strangers that walked the poolside. He did his best to block the calf’s blowhole with his hand in case she tried to suddenly inhale, too out of it to understand to breach first. His shaky hand didn’t do much good though. Cursing, he tried to steady its hold with his other hand to no avail.

Thirty minutes later Slaine could hear the steady rising and falling sound of a wail, first faint and then louder and louder until it made a wide circle around them somewhere outside. There were two more wailers, and then everything fell into silence again.

Slaine pushed himself closer to Sod, who was starting to struggle to keep her breath. At least she was responsive again, sniffling out apologies in between of soft trembles.

“Shh, save your breath. Just a little longer.”, Slaine tried to comfort her, though his voice wasn’t any steadier than the calf’s.

Thirty-three minutes later every single light in and outside of the pool was turned on all at once, and there was no more darkness for the rest of the night.

Chapter Text

Slaine stared blankly at the pool wall. In the brightly lit early morning, there was no one and nothing to distract or comfort him. Sod certainly wasn’t feeling up to the task, and for Slaine it already took everything he had left to just be there for the calf, even if the connection was only physical as they floated side by side.

He had been so impossibly calm when he had seen Orange. Slaine supposed it was the shock, his mind bending to fit drastic new information into existing schemas, wrestling them into something he could understand. But the problem was, it couldn’t be understood. He supposed there was some reason, but Slaine also knew that violence couldn’t be reasoned with.

So Slaine hid behind the boulders and in the quiet corners of the pool, trying to find a safe spot where suddenly none existed anymore. His mind refused to settle, because settling meant dealing with it. Slaine was powerless to affect anything outside of the pool anyway. There was absolutely nothing he could do. In his waking nightmares Orange’s bloodied face mixed with Sod’s bruised one, until eventually they became the one and the same, slipping slowly down towards the bottom of the sea with everyone else Slaine had loved and lost to meaningless violence.

The first day wasn’t the hardest.

Only a few days later, when hunger started to truly gnaw at his insides, did the veil slowly lift from Slaine’s eyes, revealing to him his new reality.

There was no one that would have his back anymore. With his family lying on the seabed, there weren’t any true allies left for him anywhere in the oceans. There was only survival and a world void of ambiguity.

No relationship would be selfless ever again.

The sun rose slowly, but no humans travelled by the glass wall. It wasn’t until another bright night and a new morning that people started appearing around the poolside again.

Slaine swam stiffly glued to Sod’s side, hovering near the surface. He wasn’t sure if he was still dreaming, but he hoped he wasn’t. His dreams had been awful.

Neither of them had eaten anything in a little over a day. It wasn’t that unusual for Slaine to sometimes skip the feedings, but Sod never did that. Now Nina couldn’t get Sod to even come to her. The blonde girl tried everything she could think of; she called and sung, she danced and played, but all her efforts were for naught and one after another devolved into desperate travesties that made Slaine sick to his stomach.

Sod was shaken and disturbingly quiet, and she refused to leave Slaine’s side for even a second. Her light grey head and neck were dappled with angry bruises, some dark and swelling, others just forming deeper under her skin but just as tender, no doubt.

Slaine could understand her a little. Sod’s panic attack had taken a lot out of her and she most likely had a concussion to boot. She was exhausted, physically and mentally. Slaine didn’t have the strength to face anything for a while either. He didn’t know what to think of anything anymore, so he clung to Sod’s pectoral fin, absentmindedly caressing the small punctures his fangs had left behind. The wounds barely reached her flesh under the dense layer of blubber, but they would still scar.

Slaine frowned.

Not knowing was the worst part.

He didn’t know what had had happened to Orange before or after the human had limped out of the poolside all bloodied and dazed. He didn’t know who the people were that had come in after that, when he had fought to keep Sod from hurting herself. He didn’t know why Sod had suddenly lost it or when it might happen again. He didn’t know why there was barely anybody around when normally there were humans bustling everywhere. Why they had been abandoned completely for over a day.

Maybe one day the humans would just not return at all.

The one familiar constant that had remained since the early hours of the second morning was Nina in her white and light grey water skin, now passively sitting in the bay or walking the edge of the pool back and forth, her usual tasks forgotten. She looked lost and tired to the bone, although she tried to summon an upbeat tone whenever she attempted to call Slaine and Sod over to eat.

The calf was too tired to listen to her, and Slaine didn’t care enough to do so either.

Another morning dawned upon a group of men setting something up on the other side of the glass wall, just below the murals of the orca, beluga and narwhal. Slaine watched them work from a higher vantagepoint with half-hearted interest. They built their see-through tables and hung plaques and went on their merry way only 20 minutes later, leaving Slaine and Sod alone to the oppressing silence and once again empty poolside save for Nina.

Slaine managed to hold off from checking what had been prepared for almost an hour. Looking at what the men had built was probably going to be his only activity for the rest of the day, after all. Finally, he couldn’t take it anymore and snuck closer until he could press his face and hands against the glass wall to see to the other side of the room. His eyes landed on some confusingly familiar items. It was like they had been spirited there from a previous life, so familiar and nostalgic but foreign at the same time it hurt. Slaine knew their weight and how they fit into his hands, but he couldn’t imagine himself having them anymore.

In a transparent case there was Slaine’s long-lost tattered bag, the one he had had to leave behind when it had become tangled to the buoy. Beside the bag were laid out what little he had been carrying in it: some loose scraps of seaweed that he had stretched out to ward off starvation for another day; a small bundle of light rope, a spare spearhead, and a lone clam he had picked up on the reef and saved for later but had never managed to open one-handed. Next to his bag there was another, newly made bag. It was a perfect copy, but clearly never used. Hanging suspended in yet another case was the tape he had woven for Orange. By it was a large picture replaying a grainy image of Slaine making the tape.

Slaine backed away as if burned and knocked onto Sod’s side. She simply floated apathetically to the opposite direction and didn’t even turn to look at him. Slaine recognised the angle of the moving picture from the boulders in the background, but he couldn’t understand how or when it was made. Thinking back, Orange had shown him once a picture of a shark on his tablet. It had been back in the white cave, when Slaine had still been too overwhelmed with everything to question details like that.

Slaine’s chest tightened painfully. Orange hadn’t accepted even his apology. How could he have, when he’d gotten rid of the tape too, discarded it into a case and left it behind to taunt Slaine. And now he was bleeding somewhere and Slaine didn’t know what was going to happen to any of them; himself, Nina, Sod or Orange.

By the fifth morning everything was uncannily back to normal. The cleaners came and went, feedings happened on schedule and visitors passed by the wall as per usual. The new exhibition of Slaine’s belongings drew a lot of interest. On the first glance nothing was out of ordinary.

But Orange was still nowhere to be found. Nina was tense all the time. In fact, most of the green shirts Slaine saw seemed to be on edge too, couple of them even covering their faces only to get chewed out by others. Slaine avoided them all. Orange had become his conduit to the human world; someone whose judgement Slaine had begrudgingly grown to trust and depend on beyond just simple survival. He could let Doctoryagarai so close, because Orange was there. He didn’t mind Nina, because Orange and Sod were so clearly friends with her. He would even purposefully show himself for the people behind the glass wall if it was Orange who called him out there. Humans had hurt Slaine, but humans had also helped him survive. They were capable of both.

Before Orange limped into the poolside, Slaine hadn’t known they were also capable of such violence against one of their own.

Without Orange’s presence, there was no reason for Slaine to trust any of the other humans. Even with Orange, he didn’t know if he could trust them anymore. So, he didn’t.

There was a heated argument happening somewhere behind the door that lead to the poolside. Some of the voices were familiar, but Slaine couldn’t place them. He stalked the surface, ready to pounce anyone who could prove a threat to him or Sod. In a way it felt good to always be on the lookout again. Wariness came to Slaine like second nature; he could easily let it take over again and wash everything that had started to become tinted with colour into the more comfortable and simpler black and white.

In his peripheral vision Slaine could see a green shirt approach Nina. She sat huddled against the wall, fast asleep. She had spent all her time, day and night, on the poolside. The green shirt touched her shoulder carefully to wake her up. After only half a word from him Nina quickly stumbled onto her feet and flew out the door, not even bothering to close it behind her. Slaine craned his neck to see better, but the door swung back, blocking his line of vision. He could recognise some of the voices now that he saw Nina’s reaction. Inko sounded different somehow, more mature. Kaoru’s calm tone was like a pillar for the two girls.

They were all crying and comforting each other. Slaine didn’t know why they were so upset, but their apparent distress pulled at his heart painfully. He could feel himself get worked up too.

Baffled, Slaine sunk back underwater. He didn’t need to see them to know that they were hugging. Slaine settled against Sod and cradled her fin in his hands. He tried to put out his own growing distress by hiding his face against the calf. It took a moment to calm his heart again and push the constant anxiety down. After a moment longer, Nina stepped out again, her eyes rimmed with red but her posture a bit straighter. There was someone new following her as she showed him around, a man with black hair shaped like a jellyfish cap, but Slaine didn’t care enough to pay attention anymore.

Looking at Sod was painful. The calf reeled over something beyond her years and Slaine wanted nothing more than to help, but in the end, there was nothing he could do in his own disturbed state. Sod barely lifted her eyes as she swam on the surface, not even bothering to dive, blindly following Slaine’s lead. The skin on her back was starting to dry and crack, so every now and then Slaine splashed it with water. He understood her depression was mostly a reaction to her panic attack and the subsequent mental and physical exhaustion, but she wasn’t getting better with time. If anything, she was stagnating, re-living something over and over in her head.

They were both stuck in more ways than just one.

“Sod!”, Nina called. It was time for dinner again, but defeat was written all over the girl’s face even before she blew the first note of the call into her silvery whistle. As expected, it was like the calf hadn’t even heard her. Nina looked more and more devastated and helpless as days passed and Sod faded, and Slaine couldn’t help but feel for her. He was worried for Sod, too. With the calf silently in his tow, Slaine begrudgingly changed their course.

“At least eat.”, he murmured to Sod as he dove under the calf to her other side so he could push her lightly towards Nina. Sod offered no resistance. The human’s tears overflowed, and she reached for the calf on her knees to pull her closer.

“You ‘refine, you ‘refine. I askedforsmeltanditarrivedtoday. You likesmelt,remember?”, Nina fretted over Sod, feeling around her dry skin while reaching for the bucket behind her and offering a handful small fish for her. Sod opened her mouth apathetically but thankfully swallowed the fish.

It was progress. They had drifted in the pool impassively for days already, but in the end Slaine wasn’t the one who could help Sod out of her stupor.

It was progress, but it hurt because Slaine wasn’t able to help.

Slaine’s mind wandered back to Orange. He didn’t know what had happened to Orange, or why. It had to have been done by other humans. The brunette’s eye had been swollen over and badly bleeding. It hadn’t been just one punch, it looked more like someone had tried to bash Orange’s head in, to kill him. He must’ve been hurt somewhere else too, no one would be hit in the face repeatedly and just take it without at least fighting back. He knew Orange wouldn’t, and it bothered Slaine. The brunette had stood so raw and unravelled in front of him that night a week ago that he had been barely recognisable.

“Nina.”

Nina lifted her head, tears still streaming down her face. She looked more relieved than upset.

“…What happened to Orange?”, Slaine asked softly. He could only hope Nina could understand at least a word or two. Orange would.

She clearly didn’t, however, her head tilting and a troubled pinch forming in between her brows as she kept handing out the small fish for Sod. Smelt, Slaine could taste them in the water. With each fish Sod’s appetite grew.

“Orange.”, Slaine repeated the name slowly. Nina didn’t get even that much. Slaine had never tried to communicate with her without Orange’s translations before. He sighed; of course, this was to be expected. Of course, Nina couldn’t understand him when she had never had the chance to learn.

Slaine twisted his hands nervously, running his fingers over the blunt claws. She couldn’t understand him, but he on the other hand had spent half a year’s time listening to the humans’ language. It wasn’t all gibberish to his ears anymore. There were words and sounds that were repeated in certain contexts. There were patterns that had started to make themselves evident in Slaine’s mind over time without him even noticing. He knew what the words should sound like, he had picked up quite a few of them over time even if the connecting structures still escaped him, but he wasn’t sure if he could make them come out of his mouth the right way.

Slaine had never planned on using his limited skills in anything other than listening in, but if it was the only way to be understood, he might as well try.

“Iiiiaa.”, Slaine attempted, but the consonants got stuck in his throat. He coughed dryly and slapped the water’s surface lightly with his flukes, desperate to keep Nina’s attention from returning to the calf just yet. “Iiaao”

To Nina’s credit, she was trying too, hunched over Sod and almost falling into the pool as she reached forward to hear him better. Slaine could see in the intense way she was keeping his eye that she saw what he was trying and really wanted to understand and communicate too. Nina was sincere and so very gentle, if a bit shy. Slaine felt a tang of regret for being suspicious and keeping his distance from her all this time. She was so kind that she had probably seen his apprehension once and had never pushed to get closer to him since.

“Ia’ahoo.”, Slaine finally got out. He couldn’t for the life of him get closer to the right sound of the word. Thankfully it was close enough as he saw Nina’s eyes grow almost impossibly wide and her mouth fall open. It took her a second to regain composure.

“Inaho. Ohmygod,that’s- yes, I gotthat. I- You canspeak?“, she turned to Sod, “I understoodthat.” The calf merely tilted her head, but under all her exhaustion she at least appeared to be listening again. Nina jerked her head back up to address Slaine, her long pigtails bouncing along with her jerky movements.

“Inaho, you see, he ‘s not here. Can’tbe here now.Um.Therewasa-How do I-“, Nina fidgeted with her hair, trying to find some way to relay what she wanted to say to Slaine. The merman stayed still, waiting impatiently. “He ‘s not here.”, she finally decided on, boring her eyes into Slaine’s in an effort to gauge if anything of what she said was understood.

Slaine had understood, all right, but to his frustration it was nothing he didn’t know. Nina mistook his reaction, however, and continued on, mostly repeating “he’s not here” in as many variations as she could think of in an effort to make herself more understandable.

“I…”, Slaine wrecked his brain for the right words, but he couldn’t find one he could possibly not choke on. “Kuwoo, kou, I oo.” He shook his head, droplets flying to all directions from his hair. Since when had talking become physical exercise? Slaine felt out of breath just from a couple of words. It was maddening to get the gist of what the other one was speaking about and know the right words to answer with, but not being able to deliver. Nina fell silent again, listening intently and trying to dissect meaning from the merman’s unintelligible vocalizations.

When Slaine had once asked for Nina, Orange had had a way to call her over. She had run to the poolside once Orange had pressed his tiny box. Nina wasn’t calling for Orange to come, however. The brunette wasn’t somewhere he could be called from. Maybe the distance was too much. Or maybe Orange didn’t want to come over at all. He might’ve been too badly hurt. Or he could be called over, but Nina didn’t want to do that.

Slaine lifted his eyes to look at her. He scrapped the last theory; Nina didn’t strike him as someone who wouldn’t help if she could. Slaine let go of the breath he had been holding and inhaled properly for the first time since he had breached. It was raspier than usually, and he tried to cough the annoying lump in his throat away. He didn’t have the energy to pursue his questions any further. Slaine wanted answers desperately, but he wasn’t going to get them from her. Once Nina saw Slaine give up, she too sat back and sighed.

After a short moment of them both pondering over their situation, Nina broke the silence again.

“You know, intelligence is ascarything.Especiallywhen it ‘sfoundinabeingthat’s not human.”, Nina said almost like she was speaking to herself. If she hadn’t turned to smile carefully at Slaine, he would’ve thought the words weren’t meant for him at all. “It forces us humans tobeaccountablewhere we wouldn’totherwisecareenoughto be."

Sod pushed her head into Nina’s legs. Her human ears couldn’t pick up the high-toned whines the calf was letting out, but Slaine sighed in relief when he felt them vibrate through his body. Sod was finally starting to act her age again and crying her shock and fear to the human. Slaine’s heart ached for the pain Sod so clearly was in but being able to cry it out was a good thing. If anything, he was a little envious of her. She was able to reach a conclusion for her stormy emotions on her own, while Slaine wasn’t able to settle a single thing.

“Atleastthat’swhat Inaho oncesaid.Itkindastuckto me. Thecord you madeisbeautiful.” Nina said unexpectedly with a chuckle and Slaine jerked his eyes up to her again. “I ‘msorry. I just didn’t know howtoactaround you afterthatanymore.”

Nina’s attention was all back on Sod and it didn’t look like she was going to continue talking anymore. She petted Sod’s bruised head carefully with a fond smile. It dawned on Slaine then: Nina and Sod weren’t just pod. They were family.

It looked like Nina had just unloaded something that had been weighing her down, though what it was Slaine couldn’t understand.

Something new had stirred. Nina was exhausted and still upset, but there was a new spring to her steps as she greeted Slaine. Slaine watched her carefully, trying to comprehend her near-excited mood.

“Niina, ookee?”, he asked from some distance. The rounder sounds of shorter words were easier to spell. Nina lifted her head, a smile plastered onto her face. It was a stark contrast to her paleness and dark eye bags, but it didn’t appear fake. If anything, Nina’s recent sleep deprivation was probably one of the causes for her slightly manic smile.

“I’m good!”, Nina chirped as if she hadn’t spent the night near the poolside again. She sounded so genuinely happy that Slaine couldn’t help feeling suspicious. Nina laid onto her stomach so she could rest her head against Sod. “I kindafeelsick,though. I can’tevenimaginethetenhoursonaplane.It’sgoingto be dreadful. You know, Inko promisedto come with me. She’s amazing.”

Slaine could hear the warm smile in Nina’s voice, even though he couldn’t understand what the human was talking about. Nina raised her head enough to meet Slaine’s eyes. The smile died on her lips and was replaced with regret and sympathy.

“I’m sosorry, you knowthat,right, Bat? These are thetheworstkindofdecisions we needto do, you ‘llunderstandthat,right?”

Slaine felt like Nina was trying to convey something very important, but again most of it escaped him. “I don’t understand.”, he whistled to her, feeling a bit discouraged. Nina lifted herself up. Her smile had returned, but it was more careful.

“…Wouldn’t you eat somethingtoo?”, she said reaching for her bucket. “Inaho ordered you salmon.Itcametodayand-”

Slaine dived before Nina could finish her sentence. He wasn’t feeling hungry yet.

Slaine snuggled closer to Sod. The calf was sleeping peacefully for the first time in over a week, and Slaine felt it was his duty as her pod to keep watch so nothing could disturb her rest. At some point it had become normal to nap during the nights to pass time. It didn’t feel safe to do so anymore, but it had become a habit, and Slaine couldn’t help nodding off.

Sod was nowhere to be found. Slaine swam franticly around the pool, but it was empty, and the water was too thick to dive in, making his movements painfully slow even as he exerted himself. In his desperation he went to the smaller pool, and down the stream to the tiny shallow pool, the one in which Slaine had spent the first days when he was brought in. He didn’t know why he had thought Sod could fit into it. Maybe because the calf had been so much smaller when he had first met her.

When Slaine tried to turn back, the gate was gone. His heart clenched painfully, skipping over beats. He couldn’t take it again; he wouldn’t survive another second in such a small and shallow place. Slaine bashed his head against where the gate had been, but he didn’t have any strength. He could split his skull open on the walls, and he would never have enough power to break through them. He was breaking apart, and there was nothing to steady him. The water was too thick, he couldn’t even brace against the floor.

When he tried to ask Nina for help, she was just a corpse, her flesh white and flaky in the water as if all her blood had been drawn out long ago.

Slaine jolted awake, his hands feverishly seeking out Sod to feel that the calf was still there with him. Thankfully she was right by his side. Slaine’s relieved inhale only caused him to cough dryly. He had spent the whole night with his head above the surface, and now his airways were protesting.

Slaine felt around his congested throat as flashes of his dream returned to him. He tried to shake the visions away by pinching himself, but the image of Nina’s corpse persisted. Slaine started to scratch his arms. There was nothing to distract him. He could only turn inwards, and he was starting to realise that it really wasn’t a good thing.

A door opened followed by the sound of brisk footsteps that pulled Slaine out of his scratching. The sound was made by someone new; he couldn’t recognise the pattern of the steps. The panic from his dream still lurking around him, Slaine dived into a corner so nothing could stalk up on him.

The new voice talked with Nina. Their conversation sounded somewhat awkward, but as Slaine already knew, Nina was easy to get along with, and she was quick to accommodate the newcomer’s tone. The sounds then got closer, until finally Slaine could see a figure through the ripples over ten meters above him. It was the man with black hair cut into the shape of a jellyfish cap. His lips curled into a victorious smirk that sent shivers down Slaine’s back.

If Inaho had been an orca, this man was a shark.

A melodic voice travelled through the pool. It was surprising, most of the humans were gone already. Slaine was exhausted. He’d spent most of his time avoiding the surface, as the jellyfish-haired man had taken to staying there. The man was taking on half the chores from Nina as she focused all her attention on Sod. Slaine wasn’t sure what it was, but the new man kicked his instincts into overdrive.

On the other side of the long glass wall most of the lights had been turned off already, but two figures persisted. Slaine peeked at them from behind a pillar. The girl with her long blonde har tied up with braids waved her hand in a greeting. Taken off guard, Slaine returned the gesture and the girl beamed. She turned to the old man by her side, speaking passionately. Even when just talking and not singing, her voice was beautiful. The old man was the same one that had shouted at Orange. He didn’t seem angry this time, but Slaine hissed at him anyway. The cool assessing look the old man gave him in answer felt disconcerting. Slaine fled behind a boulder from under his eyes.

“Thehelpisappreciated,but we do have acodeofconduct we follow.Rehoming is not anoption.”

Slaine’s heart felt like it was about to burst out of his chest. There was no immediate threat but being measured like that was painful. He could still remember each slight twist of eyebrow and barely hidden grimace as Crutheo had weighed the pros and cons in his mind. Slaine dug his hands into the sand, trying to ground himself. His fingers hit the hilt of the wire spike he had made and hidden.

It was always someone else’s judgement Slaine’s life depended on.

Chapter Text

It didn’t take Slaine long to hear someone call the new man by his name. He stalked the surface as Nina played with Sod in the smaller pool again. She was quickly gaining her energy back, but in her eyes Slaine could still see the way her cheerfulness had dulled ever so slightly. There were new small scars all around her head. Slaine was used to seeing scars, belugas in particularly were usually littered with them, but Sod’s scars were different. Small cuts from ramming her head against the walls. Punctures where Slaine’s fangs had latched onto her fin. Seven impossibly clean and straight cuts on her back. Her scars weren’t from molting against a rocky seafloor or scraping on the ice. Her scars were sinister.

Slaine reached his fingers to touch the scar on his hairline, mostly hidden by his hair. He’d rammed against the walls then, too. Orange’s eyes had changed when he’d looked at the scar, into something Slaine couldn’t read. None of his other scars he had from the shark attack ever caused that reaction. Slaine wished he’d understood the human language better back then, when he’d first broken through the gates to Sod. Kaoru had been so full of regret. Orange had stood stoic and still, but even back then, almost a year ago, Slaine had been able to see the change in him. He didn’t know why, but somehow his impulsive action had caused something big. Orange had looked like the whole world had collapsed onto his shoulders.

Trillram was different. He walked around the poolside with purpose and conviction free of feelings of regret or guilt weighing him down, the black jellyfish cap hair bouncing as he did his tasks. His whistles were sharp and short, only the simplest commands. There were no conversations. No attempt at understanding or expectation that Slaine even could understand. Only his way or no way. Trillram didn’t coo or reason; he called once, and if Slaine didn’t come he walked away. The man was all sly smiles and laughs around Nina, but there was a dangerous edge to him that made the hairs on the back of Slaine’s neck stand.

They were swimming in circles around each other, trying to measure each other up, but Slaine was running towards a dead end. He would have to eat eventually, and there was something in the new man that told to Slaine he wanted to delay that for as long as he could. He didn’t like the way Trillram looked at him. It was condescending.

Slaine woke up to a crash. He was awake and alert in a second, feeling whiplash to the night Orange had stumbled by the pool bloodied. There were brisk steps all around the poolside even though it was still embedded in darkness. Slaine tried to swallow the lump in his throat and headed carefully towards the surface.

There was no one there. Slaine strained his eyes to see into every dark corner, but there was no one. He kept watch for the rest of the night.

In the morning green shirts carried away the broken clear dome Orange had spent so much time trying to get Slaine comfortable with. Somehow Slaine now felt guilty he’d never let the brunette show it to him. Most of the day Nina kept finding pieces of glass in the corners she’d forgotten to sweep.

“It’s ashame.”, Trillram said with his arms crossed. “Butthat’swhat you get forrushing.”

Nina laughed awkwardly. “We’re in atime-crunch.But I’m sure Inaho can somehowsciencethenumbersanyway.”

Trillram kicked some of the shards towards Nina’s dustpan but didn’t bother picking up the broom. “Don’t you think it’s awaste?”, he smirked. “It’s not likeitcan be released. It’s not eating.”

Nina stayed silent.

“I think we shouldfocus on thewholepopulation, not individuals.”, Trillram said, leaning in a little before stepping back. “Butthat’sjust me. It’s been done fordecades.Comfylives, no predators,free food andall. There are people who wanttoprovide that.” Trillram smirked a little and started walking away. “I’ll take my tennowif you don’t mind.”

Nina lowered her mop with a sigh as the door closed behind Trillram. She looked conflicted. Slaine sneaked closer.

“Niina?”

“Don’t mind, don’t mind.”, Nina waved Slaine’s worries off even though hers clearly weren’t eased. “He means good.” She put her tools down with a sober smile. “You shouldeat, Bat. I won’t be here forever.”

“Heeree, thhere?”

“Here- ah, you mean where?”, Nina sat down and lowered her feet into the water. Slaine got a little closer. He’d taught Orange whistles, but Orange had never purposefully taught him any of his own language besides his made-up whistles. Sod cuddled close to his side, lifting Slaine slightly above the surface.

“It’s aquestion. Where?”

“Where?”

“Good!”, Nina clapped her hands together and looked around excitedly before reaching for her jacket pocket and pulling something out of it. “This is a good one to know.What is this?” She held the object in front of Slaine. It was black and a little longer than her fingers but thinner.

“This is apen!”, Nina said, spelling each word carefully. “What is this? This is a pen.”, she repeated. “What is this?”, she pointed at the water in front of Slaine.

“…’ool.”, Slaine answered slowly.

“That’s right, Bat, it’s the pool. What is in the pool?”

Slaine needed a bit more time to connect the dots in his mind. Pool wasn’t just where the water always was, it was a container that held it. Pool and water were separate.

“Waeer?”

“Great!”

Slaine’s heart was beating fast. Nina was extending her hand and giving him the keys to understanding her world, and Slaine was parched for any information he could get.

“Whaaais 'is?”, he started to point at various things around the pool, quickly moving on from the words he couldn’t pronounce to learning the ones he could. It took only minutes to exhaust everything around the poolside. Slaine had always been quick to learn languages, even as a calf. He could pick apart almost any pattern of whistles even if he’d never heard them before. The human language was completely alien, but after almost a year of passive listening it had started to make more sense.

“This one’s abittricky…” Nina leaned back with all of her earlier worries forgotten. Slaine listened intently. Question by question he’d creeped closer, and by now he was leaning on the pool’s edge right by her side.

“Okay.” Nina picked up her pen again. She clicked it and drew a small mark on the tile right in front of Slaine. “Line. Why?” She gestured as if confused. Slaine tilted his head. “Because I drew it. I made it.”

“I play with Sod. Why?Because I like her. It’s causeandeffect, er…”, Nina ran out of words.

Slaine thought he somewhat understood what Nina was going for. He petted Sod’s head carefully avoiding the fading bruises.

“Niiinaa whee’e goo?”, Slaine asked when the silence stretched longer. “I’aho whee’e? Why?

Nina was taken aback. A small sober smile Slaine was growing to dislike stretched onto her lips. “I’ll go north.”, a shadow passed her eyes, “Inaho is still in thehospital.Though I heard he’s consciousagain!Thechairman went to see him and-“

“What’re you babblingto yourself there?”

Slaine froze. Trillram was back already and he hadn’t even noticed.

“You should keep your distance.Italmostdrownedaman.”

Nina got up with an embarrassed laugh, as if she’d been caught doing something bad. “Well, yes, but-“

“Here!”, Trillram blowed the sharp command into his whistle and threw a piece of salmon into the water right next to Slaine.

“You know, I could-“

“Now that would be justcruel, wouldn’t it? Isn’t it bettertoeaseintothechangeratherthanthrustituponsomeone?Itneeds to learn to take food from me eventually.”

Nina looked like she wanted to argue but arguing wasn’t in her nature. So she bit her tongue and went to collect her dustpan and broom instead.

Slaine measured the salmon carefully. It didn’t spread any weird taste around it. If anything, it was fresher than the fish he usually got. It must’ve been dead for only two or three days, there were no frozen bits. Slaine’s stomach twisted painfully. He hadn’t eaten in days. The fish was there. Considering it was practically a freebie he might as well take it.

Dealing with Trillram ended up being more straightforward than Slaine had predicted. The man was arrogant and flamboyant but practical. Do as he say, and there was no trouble. There was no room for misunderstandings when the man’s vocabulary of whistles consisted of only five or six sharp made-up sounds.

Maybe Slaine was more easily bribed than he'd thought, but the fatty salmon did him good. He felt better than he had in a long time after eating it. Slaine nuzzled close to Sod as she ate her smelt. Maybe he should keep eating for her sake too.

Slaine felt a bit nauseous all the time. But he also felt calmer than in years, so he didn’t think too much into it. Days passed him by and became intertwined until he wasn’t sure how much time was passing. He came when asked, turned, showed his flukes, and even let the blue shirts take a bit of his blood.

It wasn’t that bad. Sod kept tickling him with her sonars when he was too out of it to play with her. She inspected Slaine over and over again but never found anything physically wrong with him.

Slaine rested his head on the glass wall. Humans passed by below him in an incoherent stream. Slaine felt calm. All the nagging anxieties he usually had felt distant. It was easy to just float.

There was someone familiar below him. Slaine’s eyes focused sluggishly to the blonde braided hair. Behind the girl there was another. The one who’d had a tail, Slaine remembered. But this time she had legs. Maybe he didn’t remember right. Slaine closed his eyes and drifted off.

Colours swam vividly in Slaine's vision whenever he closed his eyes.

Nina’s hand rested on Slaine’s shoulder for a second before she got up with a jittery smile on her lips and took Sod with her to the other pool again, and that was that. Slaine looked blankly at the wall. He was in the shallow bay. He could feel panic tighten its grip around his heart, but the feeling was somewhat distant and separate from his being. Trillram’s arms were wrapped around Slaine’s torso, pushing and pulling him onto the land with the help of a team of people. Slaine knew something was gravely wrong with the situation, but he couldn’t for the life of him pinpoint what.

Slaine felt the gate more than he heard it. It slammed shut between the two pools with enough force for him to yank his head to its direction. Nina reached around Sod just like she’d done so many times before. The calf giggled as a large tarp and ropes were wrapped around her and a dark cave like the one Slaine had come to the pool in backed into his field of vision.

Slaine tried to break free, but it was useless. His body wasn’t responding; his movements lacked coordination and strength. He flopped like a fish out of water, because that’s what he was, each lifted tail and reaching hand a little less successful than the last. The humans were laying on him to keep him from escaping back to the pool, suffocating him with their coos and promises. Someone’s fingers were curled in his hair. There were dark blurs in the corners of Slaine’s vision and a creeping sense of terrifying disassociation that felt familiar. Nina planted a fond kiss on Sod’s snout.

His heartrate was impossibly calm for the state he was in, but from the dull ache in his stomach Slaine could feel it. This had happened before. This was familiar. The thought was fleeting and quickly buried and then forgotten under growing confusion and disorientation.

Slaine’s eyes looked blindly to the direction he knew Sod was at, but all he could see any more were shapes with no features. The beluga calf was lifted high into the air, shining brighter than anything else in his field of vision, and then she entered the cave just as black seeped into everything and Slaine couldn’t see anything anymore.

The old sperm whale bull reminded Slaine of his father. Grumpy and stoic, always hiding his good sides. The merman couldn’t help but gravitate to him more than to his adopted pod.

“You’re not their blood. It’s unusual.”

Surprised, Slaine lifted his head. He knew that whales and dolphins saw the world differently to him, that they could literally see through him with their sonar. You can’t lie to someone who can see each beat of your heart. It was liberating but also a bit unnerving.

“You can see that much?” Slaine wondered what it would be like to see the blood flowing through someone. He could hear most things but seeing through others would be overwhelming.

“It’s obvious.”, the whale laughed dryly. “I’ve travelled with other mer-pods. It’s like they all share only one tail, they can’t be separated. Yet here you are, keeping an old bull company while the rest are playing elsewhere.”

Slaine wanted to argue, but his words fell flat. Klancain had tried to forge a familial bond with him for a long time, but the loss had been too close to Slaine back then. Now there was no point in trying anymore, their roles had been settled years ago.

“I like it this way.”, Slaine decided on. He wondered if the bull saw the way his heart clenched too, but if he did, he didn’t comment on it. The silence stretched for longer than it usually did between the two, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. Slaine thought he could remember quiet moments like these he’d had with his family. Or maybe he just wanted to think that way.

“There’re plenty of pods where blood doesn’t matter. Belugas don’t give a crap; they change pods all the time. It doesn’t make it any less of a family.”

“Well, that’s not how it works for merfolk.”, Slaine defended his pod. The bull grumbled under his breath.

“That’s what I’ve never understood. You’re so passive, all you merfolk, so closed off and narrowminded. You hide and hide and hide and dwell in your anger and now your whole culture is based around it.”

Slaine bumped his tail against the whale’s side. He had listened to his vindictive stories since they left the Arctic and now he was the one complaining about anger issues? Somehow Slaine felt offended.

“I’m not angry. You’re the one always complaining about land creatures anyway!”

The sperm whale laughed heartily, the sound travelling for miles and miles all around them. Slaine’s ears rang and his whole body shook, the impact of the soundwaves enough to stun him even though he purposefully always stayed behind the whale’s large melon. His teeth clattered against each other as he held his head to steady himself. This must’ve been the last thing the sperm whale’s prey felt before being picked up in his jaws, unable to fight or escape.

“We’re all angry! They hunted us too, yet you’re the only ones limiting yourselves to this day because of it, even if the oldest of your kind aren’t even old enough to remember anyone from those times!”, the bull said like he was lecturing a calf. “The whole blue world is yours, yet here you are, always covering and hiding. You could be anywhere, with anybody, doing anything. But you stay here.”

Slaine was at a loss of words. It all felt so farfetched. Things were as they had always been and as they were supposed to be. He could feel the bull watching him as he struggled with the idea of… Whatever he was proposing.

“For starters”, the bull said cutting Slaine’s thoughts short, “we could go to the coastal reefs.”

Slaine blinked, not quite understanding. “But we’re going to the Antarctic.”

“Your pod is, I’m not.”, the bull dismissed easily, “Off this one reef there’s a deep drop, and down there there’s plenty of squid. There’re humpbacks too, if you’d rather stay closer to the surface with them, and a lot of dolphins pass by there too. I think the cows like to gather there to nurse. The calves are fun, even if they look silly with their long fins.”

Slaine felt lost. “But we’re going to the Antarctic. We always go there.”

The bull huffed. “The pod that tolerates you is going there. Where do you want to go?”

“I want to-“, Slaine started, but he couldn’t finish the sentence. He thought he wanted a lot of things, but he couldn’t think of a single one that wasn’t impossible. Over the years one by one each of his curiosities had been twisted into scary monsters.

“I for one want you to come with me.”, the bull finally said when it became apparent Slaine couldn’t make up his own mind. “I think at least one of you syreni should live a little.”

Nausea permeated everything.

Before anything else, Slaine could feel the ache in his fingers as he held onto the edge of the pool. He clawed at it to keep his hold. It was an overkill, but he was desperate to hold onto something before it too could slip away from his hands.

Slaine had barely time to feel the bile in the back of his throat before he was already purging his body of it. The first wave was the easiest. The second one he could manage. It was only after there was nothing left in his stomach and he was left gagging on air, trying to push at least something out, that panic started to rise in Slaine’s chest again. It was the primal kind of fear over the inability to control one’s own body, to be left helpless on the open without the ability to focus on anything else than the cold sweat and his insides working their way up and out of his mouth. Taste of tuna lingered in the back of Slaine’s mouth like an insidious ghost.

Sod was gone.

Trillram approached him, Slaine could feel his steps in the vibrations of the ground. With a thrash of his arms Slaine threw himself off the side of the pool and dived to safety as the man pushed his vomit into the water behind him and cleaned his shoe in the pool afterwards. Slaine grimaced. Given the slow rate water was circulated through the pool, he would be tasting his own sick for at least the rest of the day now.

Just as he was about to reach the sand bed, Slaine’s head popped above the surface instead. Confused, he looked around. He was still feeling disoriented. It was hard to tell directions from one another. Slaine pinched his eyes close for a brief second and shook his head in hopes of snapping himself out of the dizzy spell. There was no such luck. It wouldn’t be safe to dive again until his head had had some time to clear.

Sod was gone.

Despite himself Slaine lowered his head gingerly under the surface and felt around with his sonars, probing every corner he could possibly reach with it. Each burst of clicks became more desperate than the last as they all returned showing only an empty pool.

“Sod?”, Slaine called a few times, hoping that the calf had just managed to sneak behind some corner his sonars couldn’t reach. But that wasn’t the case, and Slaine knew it. He would be able to hear Sod’s heartbeat, the swishing of her flukes or the slight jiggling of her soft melon and blubber as she moved through the water.

The pool was empty, and the only heartbeat Slaine could hear was his own as it jumped painfully over beats.

Sod really was gone.

A pained wail ripped through Slaine’s body.

Snowflakes landed softly onto Slaine’s face. They stuck to his skin for a moment before melting. The sky was grey and white, and time was impossible to tell.

Slaine didn’t mind starving to death anymore. It might be kind of nice, actually. Peaceful and quiet. At least it would’ve been if the trembling of his hands and headache would stop.

They were all gone already.

So why should Slaine stay?

Nina didn’t return.

Slaine tried not to feel bitter. It had never been Nina’s job to care for him, after all.

But still, he’d thought she was his friend.

Anger bubbled under Slaine’s skin like boiling water.

Trillram threw more salmon into the pool. He was busy collecting all the little trinkets Nina and Orange had left to the poolside into a bucket. Slaine was pretty sure there was still leftover fish in that bucket.

He ate the salmon.

One moment Slaine felt completely fine and then just a second later grief struck him like a lightning. It was like something had cracked in him after months of pressure and the pieces didn’t fit together anymore. Slaine wondered the empty pool. The pressure was building like he was descending all the way to the sea floor. It crushed his chest and made his ears rings. Turning a corner too sluggishly Slaine collided with the glass wall. The humans below him gasped and took steps back. There was a child jumping with excitement as she followed him drift across the wall. Slaine locked eyes with her. If she wasn’t so pink, she could’ve easily been mistaken for a merfolk calf. A child was a child, no matter the species.

Slaine turned in a slow summersault and blew bubbles for the kid. She could hardly contain herself. Feeling a sudden surge of disgust, Slaine slammed his tail against the glass and swam away to hide in the sand. The child cried out in fright.

Trillram was different now that he alone was in charge. It scared Slaine.

With no one around and the pool all to himself, Slaine's focus turned inwards again. His whole life became something to be picked apart in his head. All the mistakes and wrong turns he’d taken stared back glaringly. He truly never learnt, did he?

Slaine didn’t know what he wanted. He wanted the thoughts to stop. He wanted to distract himself from himself. He wanted to clear his head. It only took one stroke of his flukes to run into a wall. Pain flashed through his skull before settling into a sting somewhere behind his eyes. Relief flooded his mind, and Slaine pressed his forehead against the glass and just felt the dull pain. It was the single straight line in the jumbled mess of his brain, and Slaine hung onto it until everything else became a little more manageable.

Did Sod feel like this too?

Slaine smashed his head against the wall again. He didn’t need his mind wondering now. He needed to hold onto something to ground him when everything else was falling apart. There was a faint taste of blood floating around him. He’d managed to nick himself.

That night, he’d brought the taste of Orange’s blood back into the pool.

Slaine pulled back and stared at his reflection on the glass. He looked ridiculous and scrawny with his big eyes set so deep and the healthy blueish tint of his grey skin muted and dark, his pale face and chest almost white. He was losing weight rapidly again despite eating regularly. Even the sleeve that was still wrapped around his shoulder felt loose.

He’d brought the taste of blood into the pool and Sod had had a panic attack. If Slaine hadn’t reached out the pool that night to lift up the bucket, Sod wouldn’t have been triggered. She’d said she wanted to go to the beach with her mother. Sod’s pod was on that beach, but she’d been taken to the pool instead. She’d been small and alone, but Nina had nursed her back to health and now they were both gone.

The background noise of Slaine’s mind was becoming too much again, so he smacked his head to the glass again.

Orange had been the one who was supposed to heal Slaine.

From the very beginning there was a forced relationship between the two that had over time thawed into reluctant acceptance until it started to form a bond that for Slaine felt so real even if it was forged with dependency. Inaho had reached, and sometimes Slaine had answered, but there were so many missed opportunities in between the times he let the human closer.

Maybe their bond didn’t amount to much if it had been that easy to discard. The cord he’d made for Orange sat abandoned in its case much like Slaine did.

Slaine let himself float to the surface. He should’ve just taken the sperm whale’s offer. He could’ve been anywhere, doing anything, with anyone.

But everyone left and Slaine stayed, like he always did. He’d gotten used to the still water and its taste. Slaine couldn’t even imagine the feeling of the currents on his skin or the taste of the deeps anymore. Even the echoes of the walls had become easy to ignore. The past felt like a dream.

Slaine opened his eyes. He was laying on dry ground with no idea of how he’d gotten there. Everything felt disjointed. There was something in his mouth.

Slaine gagged and the metal stick was pulled out. Someone’s hands petted his forehead.

“And there you go! It wasn’t so bad, was it?”

Slaine had no idea who the person holding his head was. He tried to move away, but his body didn’t want to obey his orders.

“It’s a miracle,consideringtheway things were runbefore.”, Trillram spoke somewhere behind him. There was an oppressive edge to his voice. “That amateur.”

“Whaaais ‘iis?”, Slaine slurred. It wasn’t normal to feel this calm and that made him panic, but even still the emotion felt distant. More than anything he was confused.

“There’s the syren!”, Trillram’s face entered Slaine’s field of vision. His eyes looked hungry. That man was a shark. “They mimicsounds, you know,and are really good at it too. This one’s been moretight-lippedthan they usually are.”

There was a tarp under Slaine that the men started pulling. It took a moment to get their momentum going; even as skinny as Slaine was his tail still weighed a fair bit. Thought the tiles were smooth, he jostled uncomfortably over them. Keeping track of where they were going was hard with how disoriented he was feeling. Slaine was pulled for only some twenty meters before he was dumped off the tarp.

Slumping back into the water was an instant relief. Slaine felt around carefully. His sonars echoed around him in a familiar pattern that escaped from the gate to the big pool. He didn’t have the strength to even gain any distance from the humans. He’d been dumped into the smaller pool, and the gate was shut again. Slaine could feel his body start to tremble, but thankfully his brain disassociated the claustrophobia before the panic attack could fully take over.

“You’ll believewhen you see it!”

Slaine let himself fall to the floor in the centre of the pool. That was Trillram’s voice. Two sets of footsteps were getting closer.

“See? I’ve seenplentyofcases like these before. They fadeaway.”

The old man came closer. He wasn’t angry or measuring Slaine with his eyes this time. He looked tired more than anything.

“I’m telling you, I’ve got a decadeofexperience.”, Trillram said like he was delivering a final blow. The old man didn’t answer. He looked about as grim as Slaine felt. He’d seen that look before. The old man was carrying the weight of everything crumbling around him.

Chapter Text

Continued survival wasn’t necessary anymore.

The thought dawned on Slaine one morning in a moment of clarity when whatever had been hidden into his food was losing its effect and Trillram hadn’t dumped his breakfast into the pool yet. The thought wasn’t painful in the way he could expect. If anything, it was a relief.

Slaine closed his eyes against the rising sun and took a shallow breath to steady himself. The action hurt somewhere deep within his chest. He supposed it was inevitable. His body was falling apart though the wounds from the shark attack had healed long ago. His dives were shorter, his tail had grown weaker for the lack of use and lungs held less air for the lack of need to hold his breath. He ate and spent every day in a hazy calm because whenever he tried to stop eating, he turned into an anxiety ridden shaky mess. But still he wasn’t gaining any weight, he was losing it at an alarming rate.

There were so many things so fundamentally wrong that Slaine couldn’t even begin to untangle the mess anymore. It was just simply too far gone. He’d never been the type to become completely numb before, to give up so entirely once and for all. Slaine would always boil over with feelings, he was a creature of action. He would find some outlet for the scalding heat. He would work himself to exhaustion and struggle past everything and anything that was thrown his way. There had always been a next step, something to keep him fighting; a pod to follow, determination to reach the ocean again, a human to befriend, a calf to protect.

Slaine opened his eyes. He’d already spent a year in this damn limbo.

There was a gull circling somewhere high above him. Slaine watched it fly without really following its path. He had nowhere left to go: his whole world had boiled down from the vast ocean to a pool that was barely big enough for an orca to turn around in. There wasn’t any possible future waiting for him anywhere anymore, no more gates to break through.

Slaine lifted his flukes for Trillram, who eagerly pulled them closer. He hardly felt the prick of the needle. He’d seen Sod do this so many times with Nina, but whenever Orange had tried to coax Slaine into turning, lifting his flukes out of the pool and making himself completely vulnerable, Slaine had fled to the sand bed and Orange had dropped the matter. There wasn’t enough room to escape in the smaller pool even if he wanted to, and Slaine didn’t care enough to even try. He was still a bit out of it when Trillram pushed his tail back into the pool where Slaine let himself just float for a moment.

Trillram moved the small vial around in his hands, keeping the blood inside from clumping. Slaine looked the frothy red liquid dance in a daze until Trillram closed his fingers around it into a possessive fist.

“You justpaidoff my depts. I almost feellikethanking you.”

Slaine’s head lulled to the side and there were ants crawling under his skin, but he was too hazed to do anything about it.

The bars bumped against Slaine’s head as he floated against the gate. His exposed skin was dry and pulling, but when he stayed completely still for long enough there was a chance the gull circling above him might land close. He’d thought about catching the bird by luring it closer with fish, but he didn’t want to make the creature sick like he was. Slaine just wanted to see it better.

The gull landed only two meters away from Slaine. It scaled the merman up and down, moving along the edge of the pool cautiously, picking at the ground for loose fish scales and measuring if it was safe to approach or not. Slaine’s eyes followed it eagerly, all else forgotten in a moment of childish curiosity. He’d never seen a bird walk before, and the way it did so was so completely different from the humans, with funny half steps and uncoordinated hops that made it almost comical. Its wings were folded against its body too. Slaine hadn’t even known gulls could do that.

The gull looked around before quickly taking off. There were multiple humans approaching the pool and in just a second the world had lost all its colours again. Slaine turned apathetically away to lay at the bottom of the pool and stare at the wall.

“…so that’s where thetruckcan come in from. You needtobeonschedule,if you gatheracrowd it’s goingtobeimpossible.”

“Oh, there it is!”, a familiar bright voice sounded. “You takeitfrom here, Barouhcruz.” Her footsteps left the group and approached the pool eagerly.

“Not tooclose,miss, it’s alreadynearlydrowned a man.”

“Nonsense, it must’vejustbeenscared. Right?” Slaine could hear the smile dripping from her lips. He turned his head a little to confirm that the girl really was the one who’d sung to him. Sunlight tangled itself into her golden hair, and her blue eyes shined like the sea. Slaine couldn’t pry his eyes away. The girl giggled like a child.

“I wouldtakeastepback; Bat can be quitefast when he wants to.” The old man appeared with his mouth strained into a straight line and his face carved from stone. He stood a bit straighter than when Slaine had last seen him. Trillram was on his heels like a suckerfish.

“Not toworry, I’ve had no problemswith it.”, the man was quick to insert himself into the conversation, “Just afewweeks and I’ve had moresuccesswithhusbandrythanthat Kaizuka had in ayear!”

The old man ignored Trillram. “You’ve got everythingready, I hope?”

“Oh, he’ll love it!”, the girl exclaimed. “Grandfathermadesure there’re plentyofplacestosunbathe!”

The old man rubbed the bridge of his brow but didn’t comment. He left for the rest of the group with Trillram trailing his every step. The girl sneaked a little closer and despite himself Slaine pressed himself a little further into the floor.

“We’ll be bestfriends!”, the girl smiled painfully brightly.

Slaine swam in agitated circles around the pool. He hadn’t had his meal yet, and he was already getting antsy. Just as he was passing the gate far below him the display that had the moving picture of him weaving the cord changed, catching the merman’s attention. Slaine leaned against the bars, and a small crowd of people started gathering by the glass wall now that they could see him through the gate. Slaine wasn’t interested in them, however. At first he wasn’t sure what he was seeing, the video was shaky, but then with an eerie delay the sounds crashed into the pool startling both him and the humans beyond the wall.

“-sohowaboutalittlediscomfort?”, a man said, before punching someone’s head into a wall with a deafening crack.

There was a collective gasp from the crowd who had turned to see the disturbance that soon erupted into a cacophony of humans speaking over each other. Even if the sounds from the video couldn’t reach Slaine over the outcry anymore, he stayed watching it with wide eyes, trying to understand what the hell was going on. He tried to push his head through the bars, but that mission had to be aborted soon. There was a real danger of getting stuck and being stuck was one of the worst things that could happen underwater. So he just pushed his face against the bars, his eyes transfixed on the moving pictures.

The brunette was kicked down. He tried to protect his bleeding head, but he was outnumbered. Slaine’s heart pounded painfully fast in his chest.

Orange managed to trip one of the attackers before charging into another, taking the man’s wrist in his hands, turning swiftly around and breaking the arm-

The display turned off. Slaine charged at the gate, trying to will the display to show him the rest, but it stayed black. A group of green shirts descended into the crowd, calming people down and emptying the area. There were crying children and angry parents, shouting couples and disturbed elders, and Slaine’s heart beat so loudly in his ears he couldn’t hear any of them over its pounding.

The night was already falling, all the humans had left and Slaine was about ready to lose his mind. He was shaky and weak, and the fact that Trillram had been too busy licking the visitor’s boots to feed him didn’t improve Slaine’s situation one bit. He could go without food longer, easily, but that wasn’t what Slaine really wanted. What he wanted was the calm that followed each meal, the daze that dulled his running thoughts, quenched his ever-rising anxiety and made the days pass by in a blur. More than anything he wanted to sleep and forget, especially the crack of bone as a fist met the corner of an eye socket and Orange fell back, his arms flailing, caught between bracing for the fall and protecting his head for further assault.

Slaine scratched at his arms to push the image away and focus on the present. Suddenly the door slammed open startling him. Trillram all but skipped in, humming something under his breath, walking briskly right past the fish containers to Slaine’s disappointment. The man tinkered with the two gates that led into the miniscule pool that Slaine had once broken out of. He got them both open and took an unsteady step away from the opened up narrow passageway before gesturing to Slaine.

“In you go.”, Trillram said as if Slaine was feeble-minded. If anything, Slaine was startled the man had even considered the idea the merman would happily just make his way into the puddle of a pool. His heart skipped a beat painfully as a sudden crash of anxiety gripped it. Maybe he would’ve gone in if he had got his food today like he usually did. Slaine peered at Trillram, more shocked at himself than the human. The days spent in a sedated stupor – he had no idea of half the things that had happened in past weeks, or even how long it had been.

Slaine backed away and Trillram was immediately irritated. He grabbed the long net that was used to scoop out leaves from the surface of the pool and started to poke and bully Slaine towards the gate with it.

“I don’t have thefuckingtimetoplayanygames. I know you understood what I said. Get. In.”

Trillram was uncoordinated and had a slight stagger in his steps. The air around him felt dangerous, like he was ready to explode at a moment’s notice. Slaine backed away some more, but there were no corners he could hide in in the pool. Finally Slaine just caught the net into his hands and tried to yank it away from the human. All he managed was to almost pull the man into the pool. Trillram fell onto his hands and knees with a litany of what Slaine could confidently guess were swearwords.

Trillram huffed and pushed his hair back, smearing a small bit of blood onto his forehead. Slaine let go of the net instantly. Trillram was mad, now, and Slaine didn’t like how out of control he appeared. The instinct to freeze in shallow water flickered through Slaine’s body, but he forced himself to keep mobile. Hiding wasn’t an option.

Trillram looked at the scratches in his hands in distaste before lowering his gaze onto the merman. Slaine had every advance against the human; he was stronger and faster as long as he stayed in the water. But under Trillram’s approaching steps he felt incredibly tiny and vulnerable. Even as the man stepped down into the pool, Slaine merely tried to keep his distance from the man approaching him like a thundercloud, angry and inevitable.

After just a few seconds of hopeless evading Trillram managed to grab Slaine by his arm and hair and started to pull the flailing merman towards the edge of the pool. Slaine had half the mind to fight back, but he didn’t dare to do so with his full strength. The situation had already escalated out of his control. Trillram was the one person on whom Slaine’s life depended on, he couldn’t afford to forget that.

What a sad excuse of a life it was.

Trillram tried to get Slaine into the passageway between the pools but the merman blocked his advance at every turn. Finally the angry huffing and puffing of the human fell silent and Slaine could feel the air around the man grow several degrees colder. Trillram was livid.

With surprising strength, the man wrenched himself and most of Slaine onto the land. When Slaine’s shock subsided enough for him to act Trillram was already dragging and kicking the rest of him away from the water. Slaine tried to franticly roll or pull himself back into the pool, but Trillram kept kicking him inch by inch further away from it, not stopping until Slaine was well and truly beached. Panic grabbed at Slaine suddenly as his whole situation started dawn on him. If he’d fought for real before, he might’ve been able to scare Trillram off. Now there was no chance of that at all, and the human had gone mad for all he knew.

The air around Trillram tasted sickly sweet as the man towered over him, breathing heavily from the exertion.

“This is actuallybetter. They’re alreadygettingahalfdead fish, how muchmore could one geezerneed?Halfaglass, if that.” Trillram laughed, but the sound was humourless and a bit deranged from his shortness of breath. Slaine struggled to pull his weight toward the water but it was helpless. Trillram’s foot pushed his torso back to the ground.

“Justabit more and I’m in theclear.” There was a bucket in his hand. Slaine had no idea at what point he’d gotten it. “Mightaswell make aprofittoo.” Trillram sat on top of Slaine with a force that was sure to leave nasty bruises.

“Off! Off!”, Slaine yelped and tried to push the man away, but Trillram simply pushed his head into the floor and pinned his hand under his knee. Slaine’s vision swam with anger and fear. Trillram’s hand was pushing into his mouth to keep him silent, and if the human truly thought he had Slaine so perfectly tamed-

Slaine bit down as hard as he could. There was a sharp crunch as at least one of the metacarpal bones in Trillram’s hand gave out with a snap and the metallic taste of blood exploded in Slaine’s mouth. Trillram yanked his hand free with a shriek that threw his whole body away from Slaine, who was already fighting to pull himself towards the pool and safety. Blood trailing from his hand, Trillram was quick to block his way and started kicking Slaine to get him back further away from the water. Slaine hissed and tried to fight his way through, but he was too slow on land. Trillram’s boot hit his left shoulder and as Slaine recoiled from the sudden sharp pain the man was right on top of him again.

Slaine tried to twist away from under Trillram, but the human was quick to use his own weight against Slaine and press down on his shoulders with his knees. Slaine snapped his fangs at the man now awkwardly sitting on top of him, trying to bite him again, but instead of flesh he got a mouthful of a towel that the human forced into his mouth. It hit the back of Slaine’s throat, and he gagged. He could taste some of Trillram’s blood soaking through the fabric. The human curled his fingers into Slaine’s hair and lifted his head a bit before smashing it back down onto the tiles.

The sudden hit blinded Slaine for a second and he struggled to not gag around the towel again. It was pushing his jaws painfully open. His eyes watered, and mucus was quickly gathering in his nose. Trillram was breathing heavily on top of him, his knees digging painfully into Slaine’s shoulders, effectively rendering the merman’s arms useless as well. Trillram sat back onto Slaine’s chest, pushing harshly the blond’s air out with his weight, a disgusting wet sound as the air pushed the acclimated snot out of Slaine’s nose. Trillram’s hand was bleeding and shaking. Pulling it from Slaine’s jaws had only amounted to tearing, the merman noted, pleased that he’d managed to cause some damage. Trillram was still too high on the adrenaline to really feel the destruction merman had dealt, though. Slaine fought to stay alert. He was pretty certain he had no sedatives in his system at the moment, but disassociating had become so familiar he could already feel the edges of his senses being muffling and his mind escaping again.

“I’m gonnableed you dryfor this.”, Trillram said under his breath. Slaine could see that the man was fuming. There was a deranged look in his eyes that didn’t bode well, and Slaine’s mind was stalling on solutions, too preoccupied with predicting what the man might be up to figure out a way to unpin himself.

Trillram’s fingers curled around Slaine’s throat, and even though the human appeared to realise that actually choking the merman out could take hours, he pressed anyway.

“You’re sodamnluckyto be in here.”, Trillram spat, his voice saturated with venom. “I bet there’re thousandsofoldfartsreadytopayanythingforadrop.” His grip tightened and Slaine tried to reach for the hand but couldn’t lift his arms because of the pressure on his shoulders. He wasn’t afraid of running out of air, but Trillram was getting dangerously close to the big arteries delivering blood to his brain and head. Trillram saw the distress in Slaine’s eyes and leaned in closer with hungry smirk.

“I’ve nevertasted it myself, but I heardsomeonecompare it to ootoro.”, he said, tapping Slaine’s hip with his bloody hand. “Never had enoughmoney.Might have enoughonce I’m donewith you.” Trillram let go of Slaine’s neck and the merman felt dizzy with relief. The human rested his hand on Slaine’s chest for a deceivingly calm moment.

******

Trillram’s hand started wandering down, and suddenly Slaine knew exactly what he was up to. He bucked up with his hips, franticly fighting for space between himself and the human, but Trillram’s knees pressed only firmer into his shoulders and his tail was too heavy in the air. A cold grip seized Slaine’s heart until each beat hurt. After trailing down painfully slowly, Trillram’s hand landed onto the slit below Slaine’s belly, and the merman froze completely. He could feel the man’s warm blood trickle lazily into the slit.

“You spentalongtime being alabratfor that idiot, don’t trytofool me.”, Trillram ridiculed. He pressed against the slit to push two of his fingers inside. “Oh, but this place doesn’t have abreedingprogram! Isn’t that ashame! You could’ve had aweeklyhandjob!”

Slaine gagged against the towel as he tried to yank himself out from under Trillram again, but the man only shoved his head back down. A loud pop sounded in Slaine’s head followed by sharp pain. His jaw had dislocated. Trillram’s fingers dug a little deeper before finding their target.

“There you are!”, he exclaimed in fake joy as he found his target and Slaine shivered, struggling to keep his head as straight as he could so his jaw wouldn’t be jostled. “You know, dolphins can get itup and cumwithinseconds.” The man leaned down, so close to Slaine’s face he could’ve tasted his breath if the towel wasn’t in the way. Trillram was breathing heavily. “My hand reallyfuckinghurts, you know, so be quick.”

Slaine lied frozen in place, feeling cold all over. He didn’t dare to try inhale with his mouth filled with the towel and mucus running down from his nose. The pool was only three or four meters away. Slaine could see it in his peripheral vision. A hand wrapping around his throat forced his focus back to Trillram. The man’s rubbing was becoming painful, and as much as Slaine tried to twitch away from it, he couldn’t.

“Feelingshy?”, Trillram laughed. It was a terribly hollow sound. “Not toworry, I won’t tellif you won’t.”

Mustering all his strength Slaine managed to jerk his shoulders free enough to turn. Trillram grabbed at him again, and Slaine flew into full panic. Throwing his tail to side with enough force he could turn his whole body, knocking the human off of him. Slaine started clawing his way towards the pool, but Trillram was quickly on him again. Slaine pulled the towel out of his mouth, his jaw hanging painfully open when the man tried to push his head to the ground again.

“Shut the fuck up!”

Slaine was clicking and whistling, telling the pod of danger even though there was no pod to hear his warnings. He rolled to the side, crushing one of Trillram’s legs under his tail. That was enough to distract the human again, the man howling at his dislocated ankle.

Slaine fell into the water in blind terror. Trillram was limping right behind him. The human caught Slaine before he could gain enough distance in the water, and started dragging him back in a headlock, wading through the pool. Slaine struggled to pry his hands off, but the hold only tightened, and he started to feel lightheaded. Trillram was trying to knock him out, Slaine realised in horror. White and then black clouded Slaine’s vision just as he kicked with his flukes as hard as he could, ramming them both back first into the wall. Trillram let go and Slaine tried to franticly get his eyes to work again, the insides of his head feeling like seaweed slushing around and gravity working backwards, the whole world tilting to one side. Trillram’s fingers curled into Slaine’s hair with a grip that was sure to pull most of what he’d grappled clean off the merman’s scalp. He pulled again, and Slaine was still too out of it from nearly passing out to fight back.

Full consciousness returned like a sudden downpour when Slaine’s head bumped over the edge of the pool onto the dry land. He twisted and pulled himself free to the sound of his har ripping. In a heartbeat he’d already crossed the pool and slammed himself against the gate. It didn’t budge in the slightest. It could’ve easily held in an orca, and Slaine’s strength even in full health amounted nowhere near to that of an orca.

His heart dropped painfully. Trillram was already in the pool again, wading his way to Slaine, staying disturbingly quiet. The pool wasn’t big enough nor deep enough. Even in water, Slaine was still trapped. He whacked his tail against the gate one last time in panic before fleeing just before Trillram could reach him.

The sudden movements pushed Slaine’s mouth open even wider. He held his jaw for a second before pushing it up and back. The pain lasted only for a second before the jaw locked back into the right position. In his adrenaline-fueled panic Slaine barely avoided Trillram as the man threw himself toward the merman again with murder in his eyes.

The only way out was over the gate. There wasn’t enough room to jump, though. In the best case he would land on the gate. He might wreck himself too badly to defend against Trillram.

Slaine avoided another attack and rounded around the pool. There was no other option left. He had to get over the gate.

Slaine dashed as far away from the gate as he could. He could count the meters between himself and the gate in only one hand. It wasn’t enough and would never be. Trillram was right on him again too, so there was no more time to think it over anymore. Slaine kicked down as hard as he could before he could reconsider. The depth wasn’t nearly enough. He pushed off the floor as much with his hands as he did with his tail. It still wasn’t enough, and he crashed sternum first on top of the gate. He wasn’t even halfway over it. Slaine glamped his mouth and airways shut, pushed the crushing pain in his ribs down and started kicking to push himself over the rest of the way. The big pool was obscenely calm compared to the small pool. Gathering clouds reflected onto its dark surface.

“Get back here, you fucker!”, Trillram screeched. Slaine could hear him climb out of the pool. His jaw ached with the force he was gritting his teeth and an irregular heartbeat pounded inside his head as he struggled to teeter the weight of his tail over the edge, kicking the water, before Trillram could close the distance again. Slaine was just about to fall into safety and humans were so damn fast on land it wasn’t fair-

Slaine had hardly landed into the water over the gate when he got pulled to the side with a force that knocked his head right against the corner of the wall. He almost gasped in air as white pain flashed through his body but came back to just in time to hold his breath. Trillram’s fingers dug into Slaine’s skin and the merman could turn his head just enough to see the human’s disgusting leer.

Something in Slaine snapped after being pulled taut for the last time.

Slaine didn’t consciously realise he moved until after his hands were curled tight around Trillram’s throat. The human had barely registered it either. Slaine watched as his expression turned from shock to anger to terror. Trillram’s back hit the sand bed only a second later, and he almost gasped but held himself back in the last second. Fear and anger contorted his face into ugly shapes. Slaine was sure Trillram’s ears hurt like hell. They had descended over fifteen meters in a blink of an eye, after all.

Trillram started struggling with a fever that only someone fighting for their life could muster. Slaine leaned down, crushing the body under him against the sand bed. A kick to his tail was nulled by the water’s resistance. Thrashing limbs, attempts at scratching at his face or hit Slaine on his left side where it hurt the most were all useless against the merman’s strength underwater. He didn’t even have to exert himself.

It was easy.

Trillram on the other hand was burning through his oxygen fast. Slaine let him feel the terror for a moment longer before letting go, the joints of his fingers slowly uncurling one after another from around the man’s neck. They left behind angry red marks and deep crescent-shapes where Slaine’s nails had dug into the skin. Had his claws not been cut, the human would’ve bled out and be dead already. Trillram’s whole body convulsed as he fumbled to free himself from under Slaine. His body was betraying him; it was trying to force Trillram to cough and suck in water.

Slaine didn’t feel any emotion as he watched Trillram’s uncoordinated efforts to reach the surface. He’d seen it once before. Orange had struggled in much the same way, but he too had been so weak underwater that Slaine had barely even noticed it in time.

But thanks to that one unfortunate experience, Slaine now knew just how long it took. He dug his hand into the sand behind him to grasp around the comforting shape he had buried there.

It was like his body wasn’t his anymore and his emotions had been buried someplace deep and full of hurt. He was a passenger in a world of aggression, but in the moment Slaine didn’t care enough to think what his body was feeling and doing. It didn’t feel like any of it was actually happening, nor that he was the one doing it.

Slaine might’ve grown weak and sick, but he didn’t lack any strength when he dragged Trillram underwater again from where the human was spluttering pitifully on the surface. The wire-spike found its place buried deep into the human’s thigh. Trillram screeched. The sound revibrated through Slaine as it bounced around the pool, reflected by the walls. Even the choking scream was weak. Slaine shrieked right back at the human.

Slaine let the human rise to the surface one last time to suck in a desperate breath of air before pulling him back down by the spike in his thigh. The bloodcurdling scream Trillram let out was cut short by water.

Once underwater again, Slaine kicked Trillram across the pool with his tail like he had once pummelled an already disfigured bucket. He’d cut an artery at some point, and the human left slowly dissipating clouds of blood on his trail and where-ever he sank after each strike. After one last lazy kick Slaine lost his interest in Trillram.

Out of breath, Slaine breached the surface and drank in a sweet gulp of air before succumbing to a coughing fit. Breathing deeply hurt his lungs and made him feel lightheaded. As he wheezed for air, Slaine picked at the pieces of Trillram’s skin that had stuck under his nails. He could barely keep his shaking hands still enough to clean them.

The pool’s surface was impossibly still now that Trillram wasn’t disturbing it anymore. He wasn’t even floating, the air in his lungs had been replaced with water that weighed him down to the bottom of the pool. Slaine could see the human’s still form clearly from above. His jaw was open in an unnatural angle and his lifeless eyes had ruptured into a bloody mess that leaked out of their sockets. The eyes and the gills, Slaine’s mind echoed a desperate memory that almost pulled a disjointed chuckle out of him in its irony.

Slaine didn’t know at what point Trillram had perished. He didn’t really care.

Slaine found that he didn’t care much about anything anymore. His broken body, once carefully pieced back together and healing, had begun to fall apart again. This time it was more insidious, without a clear cause. He felt out of breath and weak as the adrenaline started to fade away. Breathing hurt and his head spun. The lightness he had felt while attacking Trillram was seeped away by the taste of the human’s blood spreading and lingering in every corner of the pool. Slaine felt so heavy, he could’ve easily sunk to the bottom next to the corpse if he didn’t actively keep himself afloat.

The reality of what had happened, of what he had done, sneaked into Slaine’s mind like ink and spread around his body, colouring every inch of him in cold shades, itching just under his skin. He couldn’t remember most of his actions, but he could feel in his shaking hands and tail the ghosts of his attacks. Slaine knew that somewhere in a corner of his mind he was horrified, but the feeling couldn’t quite reach him. Nothing did, as he stayed afloat, staring impassively at his hands and blunt claws.

More than anything else, Slaine was so very tired.

The silence of the night didn’t bother Slaine as much as it had used to. He floated on his back, the slowly drifting snowflakes sticking to his damp skin before melting into the pool. Time had stopped, and the darkness was a peaceful presence that wrapped itself around Slaine. He could almost imagine the vast ice sheets his father had told him to never dive under when he closed his eyes. The old sperm whale bull had once said how he had known Slaine’s father. How his father had helped the bull by pulling a harpoon out of him. Slaine smiled. Father was like that, wasn’t he? He would hide his care behind harsh words and stern orders.

Slaine couldn’t really remember his face, anymore.

For the first time in a year everything was clean cut and simple again. There was no need to thread on hazy lines anymore, not when Slaine had crossed the ultimate one. To think that something so brutal and disturbing would be the thing to bring him peace. The humans could never forgive him after this. They would get rid of him for sure. Slaine had done away with the last thing tethering him to the pool, and he had done it with his own strength.

Slaine had lost and lost and lost all his life. His family, his pod, his freedom and identity had all become sand that slipped through his fingers and spread into the vast ocean. He’d never come to know what had happened to Sod. He’d never let Nina or Kaoru close enough to allow for friendship. Orange had poked and prodded his way into Slaine’s pod. Still, Slaine hadn’t been able to protect what little he had, nor even apologise for his many failures.

It was a relief that it was all over now.

After one last laborious inhale, Slaine left the dark sky and the slowly drifting snow and dived down. It was nice to get to see something so nostalgic at the end. He could taste Trillram’s corpse all around him in the water, but he didn’t look at it again. He wanted to remember the sky, not the bloating features of the man stiff with rigor mortis.

Slaine found his wire-spike not too far from Trillram. At some point it had fallen to the sand bed. Slaine picked it up and found himself a quiet corner of the pool.

For a cetacean, every breath is a conscious effort. It was much the same for Slaine; every inhale he took was a decision. The need for air was the same as in any other mammal, but breathing wasn’t an automatic process like it was in land animals. It would’ve been easy to simply decide to never breathe again or inhale a lungful of water and drown. But in the end, Slaine wanted something more drastic. Just drowning or starving wasn’t enough anymore.

Slaine propped the wire-spike against the wall, holding it as firmly as he could on its hilt, the sharp tip of the spike pressed firmly into the skin above his heart. Adrenaline spiked for half a second making him dizzy, his body reacting to danger before his mind could tell it this was what he wanted.

Slaine closed his eyes. He didn’t see his family, his adoptive pod or even his new pod of Sod, Orange and Nina. What he saw was the blue sky and the sea stretching so impossibly vide around him as he had jumped with the spinners. Gulls had swum in the sky high above him, that day, in that precious blue moment before he had crashed back underwater into the white searing pain of his ruined body.

There was no pain this time.

Chapter Text

“I’ll be good.”, Slaine said nervously, not fully meeting anyone’s eyes. He felt so tiny in the middle of everyone’s attention. “I- I’ll work hard, I’m fast, I can- I already know all the commons and I-“

“Father…”, Klancain said lowly, urging the head of his clan to answer. Slaine snapped his mouth shut and looked bashfully up to the man who held his life in his hands. There was contempt in the man’s eyes, but he was considering. Klancain’s fingers were wrapped tightly around Slaine’s slender wrist. Slaine had spent two weeks wondering the Arctic ocean, never daring to leave too far from the edge of the ice sheet in case the orcas returned. He was lucky the waters were so rich there; he’d had little difficulty catching prey once he had figured out how to do it on his own. There were plenty of other predators taking advantage of the rich cold water too, though. It was a miracle Slaine had ran into another pod of merfolk before becoming prey himself.

“…My brother lost his calf in last year’s migration.” Slaine’s eyes widened and he clasped his hands over his heart in an attempt to calm it down. “There were others lost too. We need more hands.”

“Father! That’s great!”, Klancain exclaimed before Slaine could react himself. The teen turned to Slaine and grasped both his hands firmly. “I’ll introduce you to everyone! We’ll be cousins!”

“Don’t coddle him!”, Crutheo roared suddenly. Klancain let go of Slaine’s hands as if stung by a jellyfish. His eyes were wide, like he’d just heard his father’s anger for the first time. “You, boy, are not our blood, and will never be.”, Crutheo pointed his claw at Slaine, and the calf shrunk under his gaze. It was clear that the man had made his decision out of necessity, not compassion. Slaine was a stranger to the pod, and strangers weren’t to be trusted. That’s what his father had always said as well.

If he had been the one to find Klancain and not the other way around, Slaine wondered if the end result would’ve been the same. If his clan could’ve opened their pod for an outsider. Probably not.

“I’ll be good.”, Slaine repeated softly, his eyes on his hands and hair falling to his face.

“Make sure you are.”, Crutheo sneered before turning away and pulling his son with him.

“I said I wouldhandle it.”

“But it’s not fair!”

“…No, it’s not.”

It wasn’t fair.

Things were like they were supposed to be, but that didn’t make it fair. Slaine loved and hated his new pod. He seethed with anger at everything, but to survive it had to be hidden, buried so deep that it eventually couldn’t be separated from his being at all. They could throw Slaine out at a moment’s notice if they ever thought him a threat. Crutheo was a good man, a great leader for his clan and a loving father to his son. He wouldn’t hesitate to protect his pod from intruders like Slaine.

It was just like the sperm whale bull had said. Slaine had been the one denying himself. He’d denied the countless possibilities as soon as they presented themselves, always shying away from taking something for himself, instead settling for what was given.

The whole blue world could’ve been his.

Slaine drew in a shaky inhale, a thin and wheezy sound that opened his airways enough for a cough. Once he started coughing, it was impossible to stop. He hacked and flinched, each movement of weak exertion burning raw somewhere deep within his chest.

Slaine reached around for something to support himself with, and his hand landed on a wall right by his side. He held onto its edge for dear life. Slaine was pretty certain his head was above the surface, but his ears were locked, and all the sounds muffled. He tried to open his ears, but it was hard to do while he couldn’t stop coughing. Slaine twisted his other hand uselessly and it bumped into another wall.

Even disoriented in the darkness, Slaine put the two and two together. He let out a cry that came out more as a pathetic croak through his raw throat and twisted his body only to have his tail slam into walls in all directions. He was stuck. That was when he realised how close to the surface he was laying. The water barely even covered him.

Confused, Slaine attempted to back up but he didn’t have the strength to do so and his arms gave out under the weight. The water was vibrating with a constant hum and rattle that made him nauseous with its fuzzy reflections, and the air pressure was way off. He couldn’t move properly. It was like something was holding him back. There were warm spots travelling on his tail and torso that he tried to shake off in blind panic but couldn’t.

Was he dead? He was supposed to be, but this couldn’t be death. Slaine crawled backwards with all his might, but he was met with another wall after barely half a meter. He could taste vomit in the back of his mouth, but for a moment he wasn’t sure if it was real or just a really, really bad memory.

Slaine’s heart leaped painfully into his throat, pushing the sick out as he vomited bile, his already empty stomach trying to purge itself. It was too much for his congested airways, and he barely managed to not suck the bile back in as his stomach and chest convulsed in an attempt to empty out and fill in at the same time.

He was stuck.

He was stuck.

He was stuck.

He was stuck.

He was stuck.

He couldn’t breathe.

Choking on his own vomit, Slaine started thrashing like a speared fish. His shaking hands couldn’t keep their hold on the edges anymore and his kicks didn’t pack any strength behind them, but he was desperate for more space because he was suffocating. The warm spots returned, choking him. Slaine tried to claw them off, but his hands were too uncoordinated to find their target and his claws still too blunt to cause any real damage. His head was being held in place, Slaine noted at some point, like was the rest of him. Someone stroked his cheeks, but even the gentle touch burned.

“…”

Slaine couldn’t hear anything over his own racing heart. It was about to burst out of his chest, and he was dying, again. Only this time death wasn’t a relief, it was a painful and panicky process that just went on and on, why couldn’t he just die already? The arm Slaine had propped himself up with gave out under him, but he was caught before he could fall back and hit his head.

“-your eyes.”

The eyes and the gills. But all Slaine could see was Trillram’s face, his eyes a mush of dark red leaking onto his white bloated skin, red trails floating from his ears and stab wounds. Slaine had barely reached the shark in time when it had attacked him but pummelled the eyes out of a land creature without even meaning to.

It was so stupid to spend time on the surface when it was forbidden. Slaine had known the stories, risked it anyway, and now he was paying for it. He deserved this.

For his own stupidity he deserved all of this.

“Open your eyes, Bat. You can do it.”

Eyes? Slaine’s were screwed shut so tightly his whole face hurt. Everything hurt. Every muscle in his body was screaming for mercy. But nothing hurt more than his heart.

“Bat, calmdown.”

Slaine willed all his focus into his eyes. Colours swam vividly in his vision from the force he was pressing them shut. It was so dark, and he couldn’t see. Panic rose in his chest again before he remembered that his eyes were still closed.

Something swept across his cheeks again. A thumb, Slaine realised. The hands holding his tail and arms eased a little as he’d already burnt through most of his energy, but the ones holding his face didn’t let go. Slaine’s chest hurt so much that it burned right through his consciousness, drowning everything else.

He wasn’t dead. Why wasn’t he dead? He wanted to be dead.

Slaine slumped bonelessly into the container that was hardly big enough for him. Water and ice cubes slushed around him, echoing his last travel away from everything that had been familiar and safe. There was barely any water, but it was at least enough to drown in. The hands holding his face didn’t let go, however, nor did they let his head fall underwater.

Unable to do anything else, Slaine wept.

He didn’t know how long it had been. At some point Slaine had been staring at the ceiling of the tiny cave he was in, his mind wondering somewhere too far away for him to reach. Slaine knew time was passing, but everything was so stagnant that it might’ve as well have stopped. His ears were still blocked. He could feel a dull pain radiating from his eardrums and chest, as if he had descended to the deeps just a tad too fast. Most of the time it was the only thing grounding Slaine to his container.

“-tolandatleastonce.”

“I couldcallahead?”

“Butif they leakittothepress we might not be abletotakeoff again.”

“Marito said we ‘llneedtorefuel.”

A bright light blinded Slaine. Someone’s hand was pressed against his face. He tried to shake it off, and the fingers were gone in an instant.

“Bat’s awake.”, a familiar voice called above him, “Normalpupildilation,pulse’sslightlyelevated,butallthingsconsidered he’s doing okay. He’s gettingabitdry,though.”

A brown head of hair appeared and disappeared in the edges of Slaine’s field of vision, but he couldn’t bring himself to focus on it.

Slaine felt empty.

A hand covered his mouth and nose before water was carefully poured over his face. Slaine hadn’t noticed it in his daze, but his skin had become so dry it was pulling uncomfortably, and the water was so nice and cool that he almost wanted to cry again. The hand brushed past his forehead, combing through his hair, before returning to his face.

“He’s stillhot.” The voice was soothing and familiar. Slaine leaned towards the hand. It too was nice and cool.

“We canonly wait and see.”

Time stood still again. Slaine was starting to nod off when a careful whistle pulled him back to the surface.

“Hello, good?”

Slaine pinched his brows. Of course he wasn’t okay. All the reasons why escaped him in the moment, but he was far from okay. The dark brown head of hair was back. Slaine choked on a soft sob. His lungs hurt. Orange looked guarded and that wasn’t right. Orange had never truly been guarded around him before.

“I’m sorry.”, the whistle slipped past Slaine’s lips before he could form even a thought. He didn’t know what he was apologising for anymore. Orange stayed still and quiet for a long time, until the constant hum around him started to become unbearable.

“I’m sorry too.”, Orange finally said in his own language, and Slaine understood every word.

Slaine felt weak and nauseous. He finally managed to open his ears, but hearing wasn’t any better than the muffled veil that had covered him from the brunt of the constant sounds. The hum was replaced by a roar that vibrated mercilessly through Slaine with no relief and made his ears ring painfully. Every time he breathed in his sides protested, and the air didn’t want to travel through his throat. Every hour or so as Slaine inhaled laboriously, a small crowd appeared by his side. He didn’t recognise the faces, even though he had a feeling that he had met them all before and even knew them well. As he became more aware of his surroundings, claustrophobia started to gnaw at Slaine again. As if the container wasn’t enough, the cave’s ceiling was barely tall enough for the humans to stand straight in, and Orange could easily touch both walls if he just extended his arms.

“The good newsarethat his symptomssofar are similiartoa human’s.”, Doctoryagarai breathed out, cramped uncomfortably next to Slaine. “It meanstheinfectionhopefullywon’tgetstuck.”

Orange was making mental notes. His left eye was covered with a piece of dark cloth. Slaine frowned. He’d been too out of it before to notice. Was Orange still hurt?

“Bat has acoughreflex. It’s anadaptationthat land mammals have and cetaceanslack. It’s adefencemechanismaginstinhaledparticles.Maybesyrenisdevelopeddifferently.” Orange turned to look at Slaine with a thoughtful look. ”I wish you’d justlet me takethebreathingtestbackattheCentre.” There was a slight accusation in the human’s tone that stung. Slaine sunk his face below the shallow surface. The thought came to him before he could help it: inhale. Before Slaine could act on it however, his head was pulled above the surface again. Doctoryagarai held his torso as Orange arranged something behind him. Someone held his hand. Slaine strained to turn his head as he laid slumped against the healer’s chest. Kaoru’s hair was longer, her short cut had grown into a bob during her absence. Her mouth was a firm line, but the way she held onto Slaine’s hand was gentle.

He was laid back onto a tilted soft surface. Wet towels had been piled behind his head and shoulders, keeping them above water. It was a relief. As uncomfortable as it was to feel his skin dry again, Slaine was relieved the choice had been taken away from him this time. Orange’s hand pushed his hair back again, lingering a little on his forehead, a dissatisfied pull in the corners of his mouth. Slaine took in an unsteady inhale, trying to calm himself. It felt a little better to have a view over the edges of the container.

The cave was rattling, and Slaine held onto the edges of his container for dear life. The air pressure was changing rapidly, and Slaine kept swallowing nothing in his sore throat to keep his ears open. He felt still dazed enough to not be too distressed despite his absurd situation. Orange sat next to the container, his back leaning to its wall, browsing briskly through his tablet while the others were busy speaking into their smaller devises.

“Thenews broke out in Japanfourhoursago.”, Orange reported. “Threehoursago in theUSA and Europe.”

“But that’s wayfasterthan you thought!”, Inko exclaimed, almost dropping the ladle she’d used to pour water onto Slaine, very nearly missing the merman’s face. Slaine was still too out of it to even flinch. Orange stayed silent for a while; his eyes were transfixed onto his screen.

“It’s within thesafezone.Aslongasthe small domesticairports haven’t had time torespondtheplan still holds.”

Inko shifted her weight from one leg onto the other while playing with the ladle she’d fished back into her hands. “If you say so.”, she said. Orange’s eyes met hers pointedly.

“Bureaucracy takes time even in acrisis.”

“Yeah.”, Inko agreed with a small smile and Orange moved his focus back to his tablet. He knocked on the wall of the container to gain Slaine’s attention.

“Land.”, he whistled. “We’ll land soon.”, he continued in his own language. “It mightgetbumpy. You need to stay quiet.”

Slaine tilted his head. “Kwoiie-“, he tried to repeat the new word Orange had emphasised but his attempt was cut short by the human’s hand landing onto his mouth, muffling the sound.

“Quiet. It means no words.”, Orange said and took his hand off. Slaine frowned.

“Why?”, he complained with a slightly hushed voice. Orange barely lifted one of his fingers to his lips, a gesture that could’ve meant absolutely anything to the merman. Just as Slaine was about to complain again, the cave rattled with newfound gravity that he could feel reflecting all over him in the water. His heart jumped to his throat and suddenly it felt like they were sliding uncontrollably on the ground. Slaine pushed himself against the walls of the container in a futile attempt to brace.

A small sting to his forehead pulled Slaine’s attention back to Orange. The brunette had flicked him.

“Stop that. There’s nothingtopanic over.” Orange was resting his head on his forearms on the container, calm as a millpond, a stark contrast to the shaking cabin and Inko, who was clearly anxious too.

“Whais this?”, Slaine whined. Orange lifted his finger again before answering with a quiet voice, barely audible over the roaring of the engines. “Land.”, he said simply. “Now hush.”

The engines fell silent and soon everything became still. Slaine’s ears were still ringing and his head swimming, but he started tracking the sounds outside. There was a vehicle driven close to their cave. Three people came down from it, one of them jumping over the last step. Slaine turned his head to follow the footsteps move around them in a wide circle below the cave. His eyes met Inaho’s, who seemed interested in something Slaine was doing. Slaine had no idea what it was. Inko wrung her hands together behind him, huddled into a corner and fighting to stay still.

“Yeah,Imightmakeittherebutdon’twanttoriskit.Ihaveatraineeonboard,don’twanttobreakanyrulesinfrontofher,nowwouldI?”, a jovial voice sounded from somewhere inside, two or three thin walls separating its owner from the cave. Slaine frowned slightly. He couldn’t understand a single word of this new language. He’d had no idea humans had multiple languages in the first place. Whoever was speaking was trying to sound nonchalant, but their heartbeat was jumping all over the place. Someone was knocking on the walls outside as they walked around the cave again.

“Sure,we’vegotyou.Theflightplan,please.Weusuallygetonlyhobbyists,you’reluckyanyonewashere.You’renew,right?”

The man laughed sheepishly. “Wasittheaccent?Ichangedfirmsjustlastmonthandendeduphavingtomovehalfwayacrosstheworld.Oh,here’smytrainee.”

“Howdoyoudo.”, Kaoru said curtly. Metal crashed against metal in the wall somewhere startlingly close to Slaine’s head and a loud hum drowned the rest of the conversation for the humans. Slaine kept his ears perked, however.

“Howdoyoudo.YourEnglishisgreat!We’lljustlookaroundwhileyouloadup.”

“Thanks!”

The footsteps moved around the cave again. Slaine could feel Orange watch him intently as he listened. The brunette tapped his finger lightly on Slaine’s hand and mouthed something Slaine couldn’t understand. He nodded towards where the conversation had been and started lifting fingers one by one with a pointed look. Slaine stopped him once he passed four and lifted three fingers himself before gesturing to the direction the three men had moved to. Orange nodded, and the implication was clear; I can take them. Despite himself Slaine felt the urge to chuckle. No way was Orange going to be able to take them when he couldn’t even hear where they were or how many of them there was.

Two of the men stepped inside the room next to where they were, and Slaine perked up. At Slaine’s reaction, Orange’s hand flew to cover the merman’s mouth. Inko’s eyes were large as saucers and her heartbeat fast like a creature’s half her size.

“Postandsomeotherpackages?”, the one who’d conversed before said loudly so he could be heard clearly through the walls.

“Yep,miscellaneouscargomostly.Ithinkthebiggestone is amountainbike.”, the previous voice answered. It hadn’t moved from where it’d been before.

“Hm.Whataboutinthewalledoffcabin?”

Orange and Inko were listening in too now that the conversation was close enough, and their hearts jumped at the same time.

“Personalluggage.I’mstillnotdonemoving.”

“Doyoumindif-“ There was a sound of two bodies colliding followed by rustling of clothes.

“Oh,areyouokay?Mybad,mybad.”, Doctoryagarai fussed. His heart rate was calmer than anyone else’s on board.

“Andyouare?”

“Oh,justastowaway.” Slaine could hear the healer’s smile. “Ibegged Marito foraride.Theplaneticketscostafortune.”

“Truethat.”, the man laughed. “Ithinkthepumpisaboutdonesowe’llstepoutsidesoyouguyscangetonyourway.Safeskies!”

“Thankyou!”, Marito shouted from the front, his voice full of relief that he didn’t bother hiding. Doctoryagarai stepped into the room just as whatever had been attached to the wall of the cave was taken off and the men’s footsteps disappeared into their vehicle. Inko breathed freely again and Orange sat back.

“Tinyairportslikethese don’t evenknowyet.”, Doctoryagarai said lightly, his voice hushed.

“They know. They just haven’t got theordertoenforcestricterprotocolsyet.”, Orange answered.

“Narita and Hanedamust be amess.”, Inko said, “Nina should be flyingrightaboutnowtoo, she’s probablysostressed not knowinganything.”

“Worrying won’t help her.”, Doctoryagarai hummed, offering a hand to Inko. “One thing atatime.”

They were moving again, and everyone settled down. Kaoru had barely stepped back in when they curved to the side with a force that threw Slaine against the wall of his container and made Doctoryagarai and Kaoru both lose their balance and fall over. A stabbing pain dug into Slaine’s chest at the impact. Marito’s heart was beating franticly and Slaine could feel them rapidly gain speed before swerving again.

“What is it?”, Kaoru shouted as she scrambled to her feet and out the door, holding onto the walls as they swerved. Inko screamed as they turned quickly again as if to avoid something. The engines roared unsteadily from the quick turns and Slaine felt dizzy with the speed he could feel them climbing. There were sounds of other engines falling further and further behind them.

“OhmyGod, you’re gonnahit them!”, Kaoru gasped sharply.

“They’ll move!”

“They’re not moving!”

“There’s enough runway!”

“No there’s not!”

As if to prove Kaoru wrong, Slaine could feel them let go of the ground. All the water pooled to one end of his container, but he stayed glued to the floor.

“Whais this?! What?”, Slaine tried asking, his own panic rising as the air pressure was changing rapidly again, way more rapidly than the last time, but there were too many sounds for Orange to hear him over them from where he was crouching against the cave wall with Inko.

“You’re going tostall!”

Doctoryagarai hurried behind Kaoru. “Marito, you got us up. We’re fine.”

“I almostrun them over.” Marito’s heartbeat was calming beat by beat, and Slaine’s water level got more even with each beat too, but the man’s voice betrayed his disturbed state of mind.

“But you didn’t. You were quickonyourfeet and got us in theairagain.”

Inko had tears in her eyes, but they were more from the shock than fear. “You said we’d stillbewithinthesafezone.” There was no accusation in her voice, but it was bubbling barely contained just under the surface.

“We were.”, Orange answered. Then a clarification after a short pause: “We were, barely.”

“They’re going toidentify this plane and senddronesorsomething!”

“No, they won’t.”, Orange dismissed easily as if the whole idea was ridiculous.

“But they sawanallJapanesecrew, isn’t that adeadgiveaway?” Inko was working herself into a panic. She was clearly tired. Inaho sighed under his breath and turned to face the girl.

“They won’t sendanyoneafter us. Atworst, they’re going to informotherdomesticairportsof our planeandtell them to be onthelookoutincase we requesttoland.But they won’t do that.”

“But what about-“

“We were alreadytakingoff,andtryingtocutoffaplane that’s takingoff is nothingshortoftryingtocauseanaccident. They won’t report us because there would be aninvestigation.”

Inko bit her lips uneasily, but she had no counterargument. Slaine slumped in the container, all the excitement tiring him out. Orange’s hand pressed to his forehead for a second before pouring cold water over it. Slaine felt achy and he was quickly falling asleep again now that the adrenaline from earlier was fading. Inko peeked at him from behind Orange.

“Bat’s fever?”

Orange poured more icy water over Slaine’s face. “It’s stillrunninghigh.”

Slaine fought to keep his body from shaking. Thinking straight was getting harder by minute.

Seeing over the edges had eased his mind only for so long. Now even that was quickly becoming unbearable as he regained more and more of his awareness and could truly understand how stuck he was.

Suddenly he felt his stomach drop as the cave rattled. Slaine grabbed the edges of the container, terrified. Inko laughed softly with Kaoru. They shouted something towards the front of the cave and received an apologetic answer from Marito.

That was it. Slaine couldn’t take it anymore. He needed to get out.

Before anyone could stop him, Slaine pulled his torso over the edge with strength that surprised himself too. Holding an upright posture in the air proved impossible however, and he ended up flopping headfirst to the floor.

“Wait,wait,wait!”

Before Slaine could attempt to pull the rest of him free, there were people all around him wrestling him back into the container. Panic grabbing at his insides again, he started trashing against their hold.

“Wait!” Orange raised his voice over the ruckus. “Do we have anymoretarps?”

“Marito will neverlet us flyagain, Kaizuka.”, Kaoru grumbled, trying to pry off Slaine’s grip off of the handle that was on the container’s outer wall. She wasn’t very successful.

“We won’tneedtoflyagain.Justputthetarpdown.” As Slaine’s weight was little by little released to Orange, the brunette turned around until he was kneeling with Slaine’s chest resting on his back. Slaine’s head lulled onto Orange’s shoulder. He supposed it was easier for the human to hold up his weight like this than with his arms. A tarp that covered most of the little floor the space had was laid out in front of them and Slaine relaxed a fraction. It wasn’t any more space than he’d had in the container, but somehow it was better. Orange reached back to wrap Slaine’s arms around his neck and held firmly onto the merman’s wrist across his chest like he was carrying a sack on his back.

“Here we go-“, Orange heaved Slaine forward on his back, the others quickly holding onto his tail to pull him completely out and onto the tarp. They laid him out onto his side and stepped back to catch their breath.

“Now what? We won’t be abletolift him back in.”, Inko worried.

“I guess… We‘ll crossthatbridgewhen we come to it.”, Orange said, out of breath, leaning forward, his hands on his knees. The tarp crinkled under Slaine, water droplets speckling it around him.

“It’s not like you toguessthings.”

Slaine hadn’t thought he could ever feel so happy to be completely on dry land with no body of water in sight, but the relief that washed over him as soon as he was laid on the ground was intoxicating. The move made the ache in his chest hurt deeper, but that didn’t matter as long as he was out of the container. He reached with his hand until he could hold the pant leg right in front of him in his fingers. Slaine tugged at the cloth a little.

“Thaan yuu.” There was a stupid smile plastered onto Slaine’s face, but at least it was mostly hidden by his hair. His emotions were jumping all over the place and he wasn’t sure if he should be concerned about it or not.

Orange knelt down, pried the fingers from his pants and inspected the hand like he had what felt like an eternity ago on the poolside. Slaine’s claws were growing in nicely, though they weren’t too sharp yet.

“Don’t thank me oversomethinglike this.”, Orange said quietly after a short while, still holding his hand, spreading and closing Slaine’s fingers absentmindedly to see the webbing between them stretch. Slaine turned his head to see the human’s face better. He seemed impassive, but there was something else just below it.

Slaine took a hold of the hand playing with his fingers and pulled it closer. He’d held Orange’s hand before briefly, but he’d never really paid it much attention. He turned the hand to touch the small callouses on his palm and moved the fingers around as Orange settled down with a small sigh, accepting his fate.

“Are you okay, Inaho? If it bothers you I can…“, Inko asked carefully, gesturing vaguely to Slaine.

“I don’t mind.”, Orange answered calmly. Inko didn’t seem too convinced but backed away anyway to help Kaoru spread towels all around Slaine. The blond raised his eyes to meet Orange’s again.

“I’aho, ookee?”, he asked, parroting Inko. “Youu eye.”

Orange raised his fingers to his brow over the eyepatch before letting his hand fall back to his lap. “I don’t evennotice it anymore. I’m okay.”

Slaine frowned. The way Orange had looked that night had been etched into his mind. It was hard to separate that bloodied face from the Orange that sat in front of him now, somehow different than he remembered him to be. He’d seen his head bashed to a wall, heard the crack of bone. Slaine reached with his hand for Orange’s face, but the brunette leaned back to avoid the touch and Inko was quick to grab his hand instead.

“I can play with you now!”, she exclaimed, plopping unceremoniously down in between the two, Orange quickly getting up before she could sit on him. “You must be tiredthough,and Yagarai willwanttocheck your chest againsoon.” Orange stood awkwardly for a moment behind her, pulling his sleeves over his hands even though they already reached over his knuckles, before settling down again next to Inko.

“I said I don’t mind it.”, he said plainly to her. It was Inko’s turn to look surprised, but her expression quickly melted into relief.

“That’s great!”, she laughed happily as she got up again, “I’ll justmakesuretokeep Bat’s skinwetthen.”

Orange’s hand reached for Slaine’s again and the blond took it eagerly.

The reality was starting to finally settle in no matter how much Slaine tried to chase his previous confused state. He felt antsy and shaky all over as he lay on the floor surrounded by wet towels. His thoughts kept circling right back to Trillram no matter how much he tried to rid his mind of the dead man.

Slaine was supposed to lay dead on the bottom of that pool too.

Apathy and anxiety washed over him in waves. What he had wanted, what he could never have, what was supposed to happen and what was going to happen instead all fought for his attention as he kept spiralling. Doctoryagarai said something Slaine didn’t pay attention to, and Inaho carefully pulled his hand away from Slaine’s now lax grip. Slaine turned his head impassively to look at Inaho as the brunette backed away, giving him more space. For the first time in a long time Slaine felt awake again, and with his returned faculties Inaho’s guard was up again too. Only this time Slaine could feel the sting deep in his chest, because the human’s reaction was more than reasonable. If they had been the ones to fish Slaine out of the pool, they knew what he’d done. They’d seen the mutilated corpse, what Slaine had been able and willing to do.

Slaine wasn’t sure if he liked being awake anymore. Being awake meant being aware and being aware meant he could think back to the undetermined amount of time he’d been completely out of it. Days, weeks, maybe a month or even two, most of it a blurry jumbled mess stirring his brain. Still, not enough of it was lost to the sedatives. Slaine fought to keep his hands still, but he couldn’t stop them from shaking. Of course his brain would remember the parts he wanted to lose under the fog the most.

God, he didn’t want to cry in front of the humans again, but it was hard to hold the tears back.

There was another turbulence, and Slaine closed his eyes. He tried to push it all away again, but he was so worn out it proved impossible. Breathing hurt, his body ached, and he wasn’t even supposed to be here. He wasn’t even supposed to be alive. A tsunami wave of just everything washed over Slaine until he just had to act, had to break the inevitable wave somehow.

In a sudden mindless outburst he kicked the container, sending ice cubes flying. Inko yelped and Slaine could hear the humans standing up. He dug his fingers into the tarp underneath until he broke through the material with a satisfying rip. Turning onto his side he latched onto one of the handles on the container, pulling himself close enough to bite it. His jaw creaked painfully under the pressure. The jaw Trillram had dislocated. Slaine bit harder, clawing at the metal walls of the container and kicking his tail into the brittle walls of the cave around him. He wanted so desperately to break it all, and if in doing so he broke his own body too, even better.

A pair of hands pulled at his shoulders to get him to let go, and Slaine swatted them away, turning quickly to bite but the healer was fast to retreat, falling backwards into the wall next to Inko, adding a new dent to the many Slaine was kicking into the walls. Orange stood completely still in front of Slaine’s outburst, his hands purposefully visible but not backing away either. They stared each other down in a stalemate for a few seconds before Orange made a point of relaxing his own posture.

“Calm down.”

Slaine didn’t feel like obeying. He was tired, achy and dry, and the blessed haziness was now completely gone leaving behind only scorching clarity of everything that had transpired past year. A whole year. His pod had had enough time to swim to Antarctica and back while he’d spent the time getting sick and floating in a damn puddle.

“Bat, calm down.”

His hands balled into fists that pulled at his hair. Slaine wanted to pull it all off, the hair and skin and claw his way all the way to his bones, pick them clean of every bit of flesh before grinding them too into fine dust. A palm pressed against the top of his head but Slaine slapped it away before he could lose himself to the grounding touch.

“You left me there!”, he shouted coarsely at the brunette, the words scraping his throat. Orange pinched his eyebrows lightly, and though the confusion didn’t bring Slaine much satisfaction it egged him on.

“You fucking left me there!”, his whole body twisted and shook on the floor, unable to hold still with all the rage whirling inside. “…You left me there!” There was nothing more to add. In only four words everything was said. “You left me there.”

All the anger was already exhausted. Slaine wanted to curl up and cry like a calf, but he was out of tears too. “Why?”

Orange didn’t answer. He stayed still, biting his cheeks and Slaine hung onto each slight movement of his jaw work like it was his lifeline. After one more steady breath Orange checked his phone and walked away. Slaine watched in disbelief as Orange closed the door and left him lying on the floor surrounded by wet towels and no answers.

The nerve of that human.

Too busy seething, he didn’t even notice Doctoryagarai until he was kneeling right by his side, tapping him carefully on the shoulder to get his attention. Slaine fell back hissing.

“Don’t touch me!”

The healer held his hands up apologetically. “I reallyneedto see your chest.”

“No t’oouch!”, Slaine repeated in human language.

“No touch.”, the healer agreed easily with a smile. “See? Can I see?”

Slaine’s eyes flickered to the door and back. He was already quickly starting to feel anxious that Orange had just up and left. The healer hadn’t tried anything weird before, but Orange wasn’t in the room this time. Infuriating as he was, the brunette was still the one Slaine could trust the most. A hand pressed to the crown of his head. Slaine looked up to see Kaoru. She was talking with Inko, both of them pointedly ignoring the merman though Inko’s eyes couldn’t help but flicker to Slaine. Slaine hated how much the simple touch eased his mind. He wasn’t stupid. He’d been conditioned to find it grounding, to target his focus. That too was Orange’s doing.

“See.”, Slaine agreed slowly, glaring at the man. He leaned back a little to bare his chest. The skin there felt tight and battered. He looked down to see an angry red line cut through the centre of his chest, black and purple with bruises. There was a thin worm threading in and out of it.

“Wha-!?” Slaine threw himself back, as if that could distance him from the wound. His hands flew to his chest right away to pull the thing away.

“No! Don’t touch it!”, Doctoryagarai’s voice was strict with an anxious edge that startled Slaine enough to stop him in his tracks. The human’s hands hovered over his own but didn’t touch. Slaine looked down again. The wound cut through his chest with thread pulling his skin together. Doctoryagarai sighed in relief but didn’t lower his hands.

“Theskin is tightoverthesternum, so I understand it’s uncomfortable,but if you tearthestitchesanymore you’re going toendupneedingaskincraftandthat you definitelywon’tlike.”

Slaine’s eyes fixated on the hands, both his and Doctoryagarai’s. He wasn’t really listening, and the healer kept talking in calm tones as he looked the wound and the many bruises and cuts from his fight with Trillram over carefully. The sleeve that had covered Slaine’s left shoulder and arm for a year was gone, and in stark contrast to the single shade of grey of the stiff fabric his own skin was… a sight if nothing else. Slaine was left to stare at the limb in shock. It had been out of his sight and out of his mind for a year, and now suddenly the arm didn’t even feel like his own anymore.

It was completely healed, the scarring clean, the shoulder set and the bones mended. But the arm shouldn’t have been there at all. There was a deep ring of scars around the shoulder that rippled into vicious rake marks all the way down to his wrist. The whole upper arm was lumpy, with barely any skin, only scar tissue. Slaine tried to turn his head enough to see the back, but that only earned him a soft reprimand from Doctoryagarai. He had a faint memory that his backside had been worse off.

Slaine turned his left arm around and rolled his shoulder. The scar tissue was less elastic than his skin but there was no pain, even if the range of movement was still limited. He looked at his hand in wonder. With injuries like he’d suffered, he should’ve lost the limb a year ago and his life just moments later.

“Hello.”

Slaine looked up to Doctoryagarai. It took him a moment to realise the man had just whistled. He hadn’t done that since the first day in the white cave.

“No morepullingonthestitchesorattackingtheplane, okay? We’re tryingtohelp.”

“Yeah, we’re tryingtohelp. We always were.”, Inko offered quietly behind him. Kaoru’s smile looked pained. Slaine scoffed weakly and turned away. They were pleading with him, trying to comfort him, and Slaine wanted to kick them and hug them and scream.

Chapter Text

Orange was pacing.

Slaine was sure no one else knew about it, though. He laid on the floor covered by the wet towels Kaoru and Inko had spread over him in an effort to keep his skin from drying and probably hoping it would also help keep him calm. He was exhausted, as were the humans, huddled together against a wall save for one. Orange was alone on the other side of the thin wall that Slaine had filled with dents, slowly pacing back and forth the small space, the merman tracking every careful movement with his ears. It was a distraction, something to focus on in the onslaught of the engine-noise, the ringing in his ears and floaty feeling in his head, but it was far from comforting.

Orange didn’t usually make any unnecessary movements. He stayed in one place, contained and controlled. The only times Slaine had seen the human uncoordinated was whenever he was in water and when he’d been stumbling on the poolside completely out of it, bloodied and limping. To hear him pacing now put Slaine on the edge too.

Suddenly Orange burst through the doorway, startling the other humans who had started to nod off one by one. Slaine hissed, if for nothing else then out of spite; Orange had left him at his most vulnerable again, after all. It was more detrimental to himself though, as it caused him to start coughing. Breathing too deeply still hurt. Orange didn’t seem concerned despite Slaine’s earlier violent outburst. In truth he didn’t need to be, Slaine had already exhausted himself beyond attacking anyone, but he preferred to keep up appearances and kept glaring at the human through his coughs, daring him to come closer.

Orange didn’t even need the baiting, he was on Slaine like a remora looking for a new host, stepping over Slaine’s torso to get by him in the crammed space, holding onto the walls for support, just careful enough to not step on him. Slaine yelped in surprise and Kaoru stood up, alarmed.

“Flukes.”, Orange had half the mind to whistle in warning before pushing the towels out of his way and sitting down unceremoniously, straddling Slaine’s tail just above his flukes before the merman could pull his tail away to protect them. Orange’s hands felt firmly across the ridge of his tail and Slaine could feel in the air how the brunette’s mood soured by the second as his fingers checked the skin. Orange sat still for some time, Slaine frozen under him, before breathing out a barely recognisable sigh and regrouping himself.

“What’s wrong?”, Kaoru asked, her eyes flickering between Orange and Slaine, looking for any sings Slaine was going to lose it. Orange stood up and started carefully covering Slaine’s tail again and the merman breathed out a sigh of his own. His flukes were the one part of his body he absolutely couldn’t afford to damage.

“Bat never let me touch his flukes before.”, the brunette answered, but based on the empty stares it didn’t explain anything to the other humans. “Theonlyrealbloodwork we could get done was back on Sleipnir,ayearago, the first time he had a bad reactiontothesedatives.”

“…It takes time to buildtrust in husbandry.”, Kaoru said in consolation. Orange didn’t appear too comforted. He manoeuvred over Slaine and turned to face the blond again. Slaine looked up in confusion. Orange’s mouth was a firm line and his eye appeared to be looking right through the merman. Without meaning to, Slaine lowered his gaze to the floor.

“I didn’t leave you there because I wanted to.”, Orange said under his breath. Slaine’s eyes shot back up, but the human had already turned around to pick up his tablet to continue working, flipping through pages of digital documents in search of something.

Time dragged by. It was like Slaine had spent forever and no time at all in the rattling cave. There was no way to track time and by now he knew that he wasn’t even lucid all the time. The realization came when he opened his eyes the next time to see Doctoryagarai wearing different clothes and found himself spread out on his back. The healer held his hands up with a small smile, showing he still wasn’t touching. Slaine’s head lulled to the side where he saw Inko, curled into a ball in the corner, sound asleep despite her uncomfortable position. Someone had tried to cover her with a dry towel, but it was much too small. Next to him, leaning against Slaine’s container and snoring obnoxiously was a man Slaine had never seen before. He couldn’t find Kaoru anywhere.

A cool hand pressed against his forehead before moving to feel his cheek and then the back of his neck. Something was lightly tugging on his hair. Slaine reached up to feel the source and found a tiny braid. Feeling around his hair there were at least two more. At what point had that happened?

“It’s coming down again.”, Orange said and took the braid from Slaine’s fingers to unravel it. Slaine blinked.

“Whaais this?”, he croaked, disoriented.

“Abraid. You have afever, just sleep.”

Slaine frowned. He had the feeling he was angry with Orange, but he couldn’t remember why. “What is ‘fever’?”

Orange moved to untangle the other braids. “You’re sick. Probably have been for some timealreadybefore we got to you.”

“What?” The floaty feeling was settling, and the floor felt sturdier again. Ah, Orange had walked out on him without answering anything. That’s why he was angry.

“Why?”, he repeated the unanswered question quietly as it all played out in his mind again; him, losing his mind on the floor, begging for answers, any answers, and Orange just watching silently before turning away.

“It happens quiteoften;tinyparticlesofcontaminated water are inhaledwhich then causesaninfection in thelungs that leadstopneumonia. There isn’t a filtrationsystem good enough to combat that.”

Slaine’s ears rang. He had no idea what Orange was going on about, but it wasn’t what he’d asked about. The last tiny braid was untangled from his hair, and Orange sat back, yawning into his hand.

“Go to sleep. There’s still ways to go.”

“I couldn’t call you earlier. We’re landingsoon.”, Orange said. There was a string of incomprehensible words, probably curses, distorted by static and followed by a heavy silence as the old man on the other end of the call ran out of insults.

“There will be a report on your deskinanhour,atmost.”, the brunette added. Slaine opened his eyes slowly. Kaoru was back conversing quietly with Inko and the strange snoring man was gone. He felt lightheaded, but less drowsy than before.

“…you betterapplyforasylum first thing you land while you’re at it. If theVersfamily doesn’t end you, I will.”, the old man’s voice was tight with stress. “You’re all over tabloids again.”

“I figured as much. I have questions and I want them answeredonce I returntoJapan.Also, I need Bat’s medicalhistory for the pastmonth.”

There was another short silence. Then, a deep sigh. “Honestly, you’re betteroffjuststaying there.”

Orange looked at Slaine, giving the merman a once-over, his eye lingering on the faint scar on his hairline. Slaine pushed his palms onto his ears. It didn’t help the ringing one bit. “I’ll be back in a month. Maybe two.”

“You make it sound so simple.”, the old man sighed.

“Simple doesn’t mean easy.”, Orange countered bluntly, “You’ll have thereport in anhour. I’ll be waiting for therecords.”

The cave shook. They were ‘landing’ again, and though he knew what to expect this time, Slaine couldn’t help gripping the towels with white knuckles and feeling his heart pound in his ears. He hated how uncontrollable it felt, how the cave roared and moved and slid until it touched down. Still, Slaine kept gripping the towels until they finally came to a full stop. There was a moment of silence that the humans shared, watching each other before Inko broke the moment by letting out a little but enthusiastic cheer.

“We did it! We did it!”, she jumped in place and grabbed Orange’s hands in his own, throwing them up and down. “We did it!”

Orange freed his hands. “We landed. Therest is stilluncertain.”

“But we’re here!”, Inko exclaimed, “They can’t turnusaway when we’re already here!”

Kaoru gathered the wet towels from on and around Slaine. “Inko has apoint. And Häkkinen has probablyalerted them too, so he might’ve alreadytakencare of some of thebureaucracy in the littletime he’s had.”, she finished just as the strange man Slaine had seen snoring earlier peeked from the doorway.

“So, we haulingthefishman out or not?”, he asked before his eyes landed on the wet towels Kaoru had collected. “Oh my fuckinggod, what did I say about getting the cabin wet?”, he exclaimed. Kaoru smiled sheepishly.

“Marito.”, Doctoryagarai said lowly. “There’s a tarpunder Bat. We need your help too to get him out.”

Marito straightened his back but that didn’t help his utterly exhausted look one bit and only made the bags under his eyes more obvious. “That’s why I came here insteadoffalling asleep on thedashboardlike I wanted.”

“That’s good then.”, the healer smiled warmly.

“We can move him on the tarp. It should be strongenough for that.”, Kaoru piped in.

Fresh cold air flooded the cave along with some scarce sunlight. Slaine closed his eyes from the breeze but revelled in the coolness after spending so much time in the too warm, too stuffy cave. The humans on the other hand were putting on more layers in a record time.

“It’s cold!”, Inko whined and blew into her fingers.

“I hardlyeven saw the runway.Everything is justwhite. They should shovel it more often. This wholetrip is a nightmare.”, Marito grumbled and grabbed one edge of the tarp, his puffy jacket hanging from his shoulders. “Anyway, I backed us as close as I could.”

Little by little the tarp and Slaine on top of it were shuffled out of the back of the cave. The humans’ breaths turned into small clouds, and Slaine too blew out some air only to have a stabbing pain in his chest and a coughing fit. Through his coughs he could hear unfamiliar voices, two or three of them. Two tall humans changed pleasantries with Kaoru before Slaine was pulled again, the snow under the tarp much more comfortable than the jagged tiles Trillram had dragged him across. Another pain stabbed through Slaine’s chest, but it wasn’t his lungs this time. He tried to reach his hand to touch the snow to ground himself again, but there was no such luck.

Slaine laid on the tarp and watched as the sky was covered by a high ceiling. Their trek continued into a cave just big enough to fit himself and the humans, and when the doors opened again, he could feel a slight breeze in the air but there was a ceiling still above him and walls around him.

“It’s, it’s this one, right?”, Inko huffed, her voice breathy from the exertion.

“Better be, I’m not hauling his fishyassanyfurther.”, Marito grunted and Doctoryagarai’s laugh was soft. “I try to do a good deed and you ruin my plane…”

They came to a stop but Slaine stayed motionless. Sounds of water echoed around the rather empty space. There was a pool probably only meters away from where he was. Slaine felt his body sink into the tarp. Of course it was another pool. And judging by the sounds it wasn’t very big either.

Slaine swallowed around the lump in his throat. It was okay. He was okay. He’d dealt with small pools before.

“It isn’t that bad.”, Kaoru consoled with a pat to the man’s back and Marito grunted something bitter in response. “I’ll check if this really is it. Inko, come with me, Bat hasn’t eaten for atleastthepast24hours.”

“Y-yeah!”, the girl replied nervously, and the two went off. The healer comforted Marito who kept mumbling under his breath, and Orange opened his jacked a bit to cool off while looking around.

“It’s a bit more spacious than in thepictures.”, the brunette said conversationally, looking for a response from the merman. Slaine stayed spaced out until he could feel a sharp flick on his forehead.

“Ow! Why do you keep doing that?”, he whined and rubbed the spot in between his eyebrows. Orange leaned back a little, his fingers primed for another attack. Slaine shielded his face with his arms.

“Oh, so you are awakeafterall.”, the brunette said nonchalantly, and stood back up just as Inko returned with a bucket and Kaoru with a victorious smile.

“It’s all ours!”, she declared, the most enthusiastic Slaine had probably ever seen her. That lightened the humans’ mood somewhat, but Inko was still tense.

“…Should we even put him in?” Inko fidgeted with the edge of her shirt. “It might be safer to keep Bat on land. Atleastfornow. You know, so there won’t be any more accidents.”

“Well, thesituation isn’t going to fixitself on land. Ifanything, Bat’s going to stagnate, and that’s dangerous.”, Orange answered.

Kaoru nodded in agreement, but Inko seemed still hesitant. “Doesn’t the pool poseabiggerrisk for everyoneelse? I mean, Bat has already…”, she trailed off helplessly. They stood in an uncomfortable silence for a moment. Kaoru shifted her weight from one leg to the other restlessly and Orange appeared to be considering.

“He isn’t anybetter on land. Did you see what he did to my plane?”, Marito grumbled earning a small smack to his bicep from Doctoryagarai. “Fucking water damage…”

“And that’s our cue. Marito, you’re going to sleep. I’m surprised we didn’t have a sea-landing with howrundown you are.”, Doctoryagarai said as he started dragging the pouting man away. “I trust you’ve got it from here?”

“Yeah, go sleep, both of you.”, Kaoru assured with a quick smile.

“It is a risk.”, Orange gave, but Inko didn’t look relieved. If anything, her fears had been confirmed. “In studies done with orcas, the ones who’d previouslyestablishedapparentrelationships with humans were the mostaffected by negativechanges and responded to them by exhibitingaggressivebehaviours. It’s oldnews. With an animal as intelligent as Bat is, suchaggression could either be premeditated or a sign that he’d been pushed so far into a corner that he hadn’t seen any other way out.”, Orange sighed. “He understands violence isn’t in his best interest, that much is clear, but in the end, it was the only way to communicate his situation. It was boundtohappensoonerorlater, though the scale at which it did is regrettable.”

“’Regrettable’? There was a body in that pool! A dead human being!”, Inko almost screeched making Slaine flinch, “And it wasn’t justdead! It was slaughtered!” Kaoru hushed Inko and motioned for Orange to shut up too, but the commotion had already caught other people’s attention. There were murmurs in a language Slaine didn’t understand around them, and one of the tall men approached the group carefully, as if he would get Inko’s ire if he made himself too seen. Slaine tracked the man carefully, ready to strike if needed to protect himself and his pod.

“I just sometimes don’t understand you.”, the girl continued, somewhat calmer but still definitely upset. “How could you talkabout it like it was nothing? You saw it too.”

“Simplyput,aggression is one of the mostcommonsocialbehavioursacrossanimalkingdom.”, Orange stated. Inko’s sigh was exasperated and Kaoru looked about ready to throw Orange into the pool instead of Slaine.

“Well, I’m not looking forward to him being aggressive with me, socialbehaviour or not!”, Inko yelled. She cut Orange off barely in time before he could argue back. “I know. I’ve seen it before too. You could see from amileaway that it was inevitable! It’s just-somehowworsebecause we can actuallycommunicate with him! Like, no one needs to be in thedarkaboutanything! It doesn’t need to get to that point!”

“But it did. And thecore of that problem is not in Bat.”, Orange argued back in his frustratingly calm tone that Slaine knew well.

“Shut it, both of you. This is getting ridiculous. We all need sleep.”, Kaoru interjected.

“Theonlyreason it’s worse is because we can’t rationalize it any other way with Bat telling us theanswer himself. We can’t deflect it when we have someone who actually can speak to his experiences. Bat isn’t anormalcase, and this isn’t anormalrescueandrelease.”, Orange said.

“That’s what Inko meant.”, Kaoru sighed.

Orange paused for a bit to look over the pool. “I think it’s necessary to repeat it. So the samemistake won’t be madeover and over again. You’d thinkayear is a long enoughtime to learn, but people are surprisinglysimple.”

“Simple? Are you calling me stupid?”, Inko reared up again and Kaoru gave up with her hands raised up. She walked over to the man who had approached them and motioned vaguely at the two arguing humans with tired exasperation seeping from every pore of her skin. Inko could’ve had a more successful fight with a brick wall any day.

“No.”, Orange turned to Inko. “I’m calling humans aggressive. You, me and everyoneelse here included.”

Inko pouted. “I wouldn’t hurtafly.”

“I’ve seen you killmanyflies.”

“I didn’t meanliterally!”

The tall man cleared his throat and spoke up in his language that only Kaoru appeared to understand. The consonants were even more impossible to spell than in whatever Orange and the rest spoke. Though the new breathier sounds were easier, and Slaine found himself mouthing after the man, trying to find something to latch onto, to at least separate the words from one another and discover some sort of structure between them. He’d always been quick to catch onto those. Inko huffed and puffed and excused herself. Her being so on edge made Slaine nervous, so he was thankful for the distraction.

Orange took the bucket that Inko had brought and kneeled down. He fiddled with a small white container that he pulled out of his jacket pocket for a moment before presenting a small white pebble in front of Slaine’s line of vision.

“This is an antibiotic.Usually it would be hidden into your food, but you absolutelymust take the right amount so I’m showing it to you. I’m going to give you one in the morning and one in the evening fromnowon.”

Slaine eyed the small suspicious pebble. “I need to eat it? Why?”

“You’ve been eating them for a yearalready, but duringthelastmonthforsomereason you weren’t given any. They’re safe. They’ll help your body heal. To get better.”, Orange answered, took Slaine’s hand and placed the pill onto his palm. Slaine poked at it with his claw but didn’t otherwise act one way or another. It didn’t have the weight of a pebble. Slaine’s chest tightened painfully. He’d eaten these before, and he hadn’t even known about it? Was Orange lying? Blood rushed in his ears.

“What do you want with it?”, Orange asked.

Slaine raised his eyes from the pill to the human. He was calmly going through the bucket next to him. “We have mostlymackerel and salmon. I think I saw char too. I heard there’s pollock in the backroom, but I’ll have to cut it. So, what do you want?”

“I… What?”, Slaine’s brain sputtered to a stop.

Orange started to lift the fish out one by one. “This one you know. Mackerel.”, he pronounced the word clearly, “This is called salmon. I ordered you some, but it arrivedafter…”, Orange trailed off. “Anyway, this one’s char. So, which do you want?”

The mackerel was whole, but the salmon and char had been cut into smaller pieces. Slaine stared at the fish, unable to form thoughts. The pill rolled off his slack hands, and Orange caught it before it could become lost in the tiles.

“Pick one. They’re all fresh.”, the human repeated.

“…I don’t need-“

“Pick one.”, Orange insisted.

Slaine felt like his fever was returning. His thoughts were all muddy again. After a moment, Orange picked up the char and put it back into the bucket.

“Mackerel or salmon? You’ve had both before.”, Orange pushed the remaining two a little closer to the merman and sat back. Slaine stayed still for a few more seconds before gingerly reaching for the mackerel. Orange handed him the pill again and gestured to eat it.

“It’s better to swallow it whole.”, Kaoru offered suddenly from behind him before turning to Orange. “We can have thecovetoo.Thenet isn’t ready yet, but it doesn’t really need to be, anyway.”

“Good.”, Orange acknowledged. Slaine gnawed at the pill carefully to get a little taste and find out what it was made out of. It was chalky and bitter, and neither told him much, except that he didn’t like it. He frowned at the brunette.

“Swallow it whole.”, Orange repeated Kaoru’s advice patiently. “It’s not dangerous.” Slaine pinched his nose. He had no idea what Orange and Kaoru were going on about, but he didn’t like the pill, no matter what it was or wasn’t. After a moment of Slaine’s displeased staring Orange took the pill and mackerel out of his hands, jammed the pill carefully inside the fish’s stomach and gave it back.

“There. Eat it.”, he said with a pointed look. He wasn’t going to give up on this and Slaine didn’t have the energy or will to fight Orange. He didn’t exactly feel like eating, but he forced half of the fish down. Orange checked the uneaten tail and let at least that much slide to the merman’s relief. Slaine was going to puke if he’d been forced to eat more, and he felt sick enough without doing so already.

“Alldone?”, Kaoru bowed down to see Slaine’s face. The blond averted his eyes. “Then, why don’t we let you into the pool.”, she smiled warmly.

The humans pulled at the tarp, and as Slaine had thought, they had to move him only a few meters to reach the water’s edge. Slaine didn’t move a muscle to get in. By lifting the other side of the tarp with considerable effort, they managed to roll the uncooperative merman off dry land and drop him into the refreshingly cold water.

Slaine sent out a quick burst of sonars to get his bearings, but beside that he didn’t make any effort to dive deeper to protect himself. The information that returned only a fraction of a second later was confusing to say the least; the water wasn’t still or empty, it was full of life. Startled, Slaine backed away until his back hit a wall.

There were waves. Actual waves.

After a year spent in a sterile pool, the currents were overwhelming. The pool wasn’t any bigger than the one he’d escaped from when fighting Trillram, but there was one major difference. On one of the walls there was a large barred gate, and beyond that gate there was the open sea.

Only a handful of metal bars separated him from the ocean.

Slaine couldn’t escape to the opposite direction fast enough. He dragged his body out of the pool, stitches scraping against the tiles and pulling painfully on his chest. With a couple kicks from his tail, he was completely out of the water, blood rushing in his ears and heart pounding with irrational fear in his head. It was too much.

He inhaled a raspy lungful and felt the familiar weight of air pushing him into the ground. Bit by bit, muscle by muscle Slaine forced his body to relax, already feeling the effects of the exertion and the dizziness from his sudden rush. There were surprised and alarmed murmurs all around him, but none came too close.

He felt like an idiot.

“You don’t like it?”

Slaine turned enough to ease some of the pressure off his chest. There was a stabbing pain somewhere in his side, a bruised rib or two that didn’t appreciate his rashness, most likely from his crash into the gate when he’d tried to flee from Trillram. Orange’s head was slightly tilted, waiting for an answer.

“That’s… a stupid question.”, Slaine whistled back weakly.

“If you wantanother pool, we’ll have to sedate you for the move.”

Slaine’s heartrate was slowing down. The adrenaline spike left him tired, but the humans stayed alert. As if he had the energy or will to drag any of them into the water.

“You’ll get sick again. You should go back in.”

“You’re the ones making me sick.”, Slaine mumbled bitterly, having calmed down enough to retort to Orange’s nonsense.

“That’s exactly why I’d like to avoidusingthesedatives if possible.”, Orange sighed and took a step back. “You’ll need to quarantine for atleastaweek. Can you handle the small pool foraweek?”

For once the pool wasn’t the problem. The problem lied with what was outside of it. And it all swirled inside Slaine’s head into irrational reactions, senseless instincts, baseless fears and the devastating understanding of not belonging anymore.

Slaine deflated. He could feel tears prickling in his eyes as he pushed his face against the cool floor in an attempt to ground himself for the umpteenth time in one day. He didn’t have the energy for any of this anymore. For the first time in his life, he would’ve preferred the tasteless and lifeless water of a pool over the sea. What Slaine wanted was nothingness; to fade and forget. If Orange thought he was saving Slaine, the human was beyond cruel.

“Can you get back in yourself?”, Orange asked. Slaine didn’t answer or even to indicate he’d heard the human. After a few seconds he could feel warm palms press against his shoulders. He didn’t need to look up no know that Orange was trying to push him back in. Slaine’s weight was too much for him alone, though, so after some moments of struggling in vain to move the merman two more humans started moving Slaine as well, pulling him by his tail and pushing at his torso. He fell back into the water like a heavy rock but was quick to get at least his head above the surface to somewhat limit the overload of information in the pool.

“Aw, don’t frown like that. You’ll be ok.”, Kaoru comforted from a safe distance. “I’ll go take care of thepaperwork and talk with Inko, will you be okay by yourself, Kaizuka?”

Inaho shrugged and took the bucket with Slaine’s leftovers.

“Call me if he decides to beach himself again, but don’t stay toolate. We need sleep too.”, Kaoru said and turned around to leave with the strangers.

Slaine stalked Orange’s every step as he moved about the poolside, familiarizing himself with it as he did some organising and tidying. Slaine found himself gravitating to the calmer corners of the pool, where the push and pull of waves wasn’t as obvious, but even there he couldn’t escape the taste of the water. He could tell there were others living in it. The water had an acidic tang to it, telling him they were somewhere near volcanic activity. When listening Slaine could tell there was movement miles offshore, probably a school of fish being driven closer to the surface by a potential threat. Somehow the scale of it all and the distances freaked Slaine out.

The flow of information that bombarded Slaine’s senses felt familiar, but what should’ve been soothing was now disturbing and scary. He had trouble sorting it all out and focus his senses into the here and now. It was weird to think all of this had at some point came naturally to him.

Orange combed a hand through his hair with a sigh and looked over to the pool thoughtfully. Slaine perked up, expecting the brunette to walk over and sit down by the edge of the pool like he always used to, but after a moment of consideration Orange simply knelt down where he was, well out of Slaine’s reach.

The lack of trust as soon as Slaine had been dumped into the water was like slap to the merman’s face. Nonetheless, Slaine sulked to the edge of the pool and rested his chin on it, his eyes travelling everywhere except on Orange.

“Nina told me she taught you somewords.”, Orange broke the silence, his eyes unreadable and staring straight at Slaine. He’d forgotten how unnerving the human’s company could be. “So you should be ableto understand and answer this.” It almost felt like Orange was about to scold him.

“Why?”

Slaine swallowed and shrunk in on himself, immediately understanding what Orange was asking about. He could taste Trillram’s corpse in the water like it was right in front of him again, but more surprisingly Orange’s question made his anger flare up. Was he supposed to give some sort of justification, like he’d been the one to do something so terribly wrong? When his only crime was defending himself? Why was he the one who had to explain, when Orange had never explained anything to him? Adrenaline and panic pumped through his veins like a ghost and for the first time Slaine truly and completely hated the human in front of him. Orange was the one who’d decided to trap Slaine in the first place. He’d been the only one to notice him in his hiding spot, and if he’d just left Slaine to the beach be he could’ve died in peace there and been spared everything that followed. Slaine met Orange’s eyes with a dark scowl. Surprisingly, the human had had some sense of self preservation, keeping his distance. They were fragile creatures, after all.

Orange looked at Slaine like he was dissecting him. His eyes narrowed for a second as he reached his conclusion and stood up, checking his phone before tucking it away.

“Asenseofjustice,thoughabitderanged. Are you going to do it again?”

Slaine hissed but didn’t answer. There was no way to answer such a question.

“Fairenough. Are you going to do it to me?”

Slaine blinked, taken aback. Orange’s rephrased question cut easily through his anger and contempt and deflated them both until Slaine was left just staring. He felt like this had to be one of Orange’s games again, but if it was, he had no idea what the catch was this time. Not like he ever did.

“…No.”, he finally answered, a bit uncertain. Human or not, the reason for Slaine’s captivity or not, Orange was already a part of Slaine’s pod. Orange considered the answer for a beat before walking over to the shallow end of the pool and promptly stepping in.

Slaine backed away in a moment of blind terror before his mind caught up with his body. Orange wasn’t chasing him. As his back hit the bars of the gate he could see the brunette frozen in place, looking about as stunned at the merman’s reaction as Slaine himself felt. For about half a second Slaine felt shame, but it was replaced by anger before the cold lump deep in his stomach could properly take form.

“Wha- what kind of idiot just jumps in!?”, he shouted at Orange, his shaking hands gripping the bars behind for stability, “You’re so damn rash!”

Orange held his hands up, and Slaine fought to calm his heart. His head felt fuzzy, like he was looking at himself from a distance and seeing just how ridiculously he was acting. Of course, Orange wasn’t going to chase him, and even if he was-

Slaine closed his eyes and let out a breath. Orange wasn’t a threat. One finger after another he let his grip of the bars go and hands fall to his sides. His palms were tingling. Orange wasn’t a threat. He wouldn’t need to kill him.

And even if he one day needed to, he already-

The water shifted as Orange climbed out of the pool, for once in his life backing out of Slaine’s space. The brunette didn’t go any further than he deemed absolutely necessary, however, staying standing right at the pool’s edge.

“Are you up for some stretching?”, he asked nonchalant, and the unfamiliar word echoed in Slaine’s skull as his mind stalled. Wait, what? “If we want you to be in workingorder, we need to work on your joints.” Orange rolled his shoulders as he nodded towards Slaine, motioning for the blond to follow his lead. Too confused to do anything else, Slaine mirrored the human’s movements, rolling his shoulders and raising his elbows. Somehow the whole situation was derailing out of control again, but still moving steadily exactly to the direction Orange wanted.

The human’s brows pinched together slightly, and he walked around the pool to get closer to Slaine, who in turn moved a bit further away. “Raise your arms asfar up as you can.”, he instructed and raised his own arms. Slaine scoffed a bit but did it anyway. The right arm worked normally as always, but he still struggled to raise his left elbow above his shoulders. Orange hummed shortly.

“Is that as high as you can get it?”

Normally Slaine avoided using his left side too much, and though it didn’t hurt anymore, just holding the arm up for a few seconds left it numb. He let his hands fall with a strained sigh and felt the pins and needles as blood rushed back into the limb. The scar tissue pulled uncomfortably, and he could finally feel himself calm down as his mind became preoccupied with the sensation. Slaine slumped bonelessly against the gate, barely keeping his head above the surface.

“…Seriously, never do that again.”

Orange tilted his head. “But then your arm will never get better.”

“It wasn’t- I didn’t mean-“, Slaine looked up to meet Orange’s eyes. The look on the brunette’s face was completely unreadable. “Just forget about the arm.”, he sighed under his breath, each word sinking deeper into the cold lump inside him. It was hopeless anyway. “It is what it is.”

“Yes, it is.”, Orange said after a beat. “And that’s why I’m going to fix it.”

Slaine didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry. He just couldn’t with Orange. The human was so ridiculously confident and obdurate that even his goodwill came across as selfishness.

Slaine already knew that Orange was like this. He knew it, but it didn’t lessen the sting one bit.

“You sure like to stomp all over other’s lives with those two tails of yours.”

Orange narrowed his eyes at Slaine’s tone. “I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

“So now is the moment you decide to save the poor merman? Out of all the possible moments this past year you choose this one? Right here? Right now!?”

“Bat, I don’t understand.”

Slaine breathed sharply and bit on the insides of his cheeks. His anger was boiling over again, and his eyes stung. Orange could be so cruel. “You know, sometimes I truly hate you.”

Slaine hadn’t expected for the human to understand a word, but Orange’s expression gave him a startling pause. It wasn’t as much the normal bright flicker of recognition, but more of a brace, like seeing a shark attacking and realizing you won’t be able to dodge it in time. A small upturn of his lips that didn’t reach all the way to his eyes settled onto Orange’s face as he sat down carefully.

“I know. Come here”

The sharp tang of regret was not how Slaine was supposed to feel. And Orange had no business looking like a kicked seal pup, but that was exactly what he looked like to Slaine, and regret was exactly the first thing he felt. Maybe that was why when Orange called him, he didn’t scoff or protest, but made his way slowly to the human. He hesitated to come close enough to touch, but Orange didn’t leave him a choice in the matter and reached out.

Orange’s hands cupped Slaine’s face and turned his head until the merman’s eyes met his. The human’s face was closer than Slaine had anticipated. He tried to shove the hands away with an irritated huff disguising his surprise and embarrassment, but Orange didn’t let go and yanked his head back, fingers curling tightly into blond hair and tugging it until their eyes met again.

“I don’t know what happened, and I didn’t have the timetoinvestigate. But there was blood and signsofstrugglemeters away from the pool.”, Orange said in a lowered voice. “Either he started it or was stupidenough to go back for more. Probably even both.”

Slaine blinked. The serious tone and rough pull on his hair hid it well. Some of the words he didn’t understand, but none of it lessened the fact that Orange was comforting him. Before the human could say anything more, Slaine sunk down from his grasp and surfaced some meters away, flustered and reconsidering just dragging Orange into the pool and holding him under for juuust enough time for the human to do some soul searching. The scare would do Orange some good.

“I don’t want your pity!”, he sputtered weakly. Orange tilted his head slightly.

“If you’re going to cry, just cry.”

“I’m not crying!”

“There’s no point in telling suchobviouslies.”

Slaine sniffed pathetically but refused to wipe his eyes. Orange sat down, dropping his feet into the pool like he’d always used to do, his presence somehow a tad softer than before.

“It’s good to cry.”

Slaine opened his mouth to protest, but the words got tangled in his throat and all that he could muster out was a pitiful hiccup. He took a shaky breath and tried again, but he couldn’t find the words anymore. Sun had finally set, and the darkening sky painted the cove outside the gate with black. Slaine felt like he was dissolving into the dark water.

This really was what his life had come down to. To this single point in time where Slaine had been worn and stretched, pushed and pulled to the point he didn’t know he could ever be himself again, whatever that had even been. There was a gate behind his back, one that lead straight into the ocean and Orange sitting right in front of him, determined to put the pieces back together, but Slaine wasn’t so sure they fit anymore.

He was irremediable.

“I’m tired.”, he whistled, the clipped sounds barely escaping past his lips. He doubted Orange could even hear him. It didn’t matter. “I’m just so, so tired.”

The silence stretched, but neither of them were in a hurry to break it. Slaine didn’t know if he had it in himself to ever say another word again through his snivels. He was going through the motions of crying, but the feeling behind it didn’t quite reach him. It was oddly frustrating; like something was missing, making everything else just slightly unsatisfying. Slaine wished for the emotion to wash over him, to leave him desperate enough so he could just sink and inhale a lungful of water. It didn’t happen, though, and he was too much of a coward to do it by himself again.

The water stirred. Orange was trying to gain Slaine’s attention again by kicking his feet slightly. The blond looked up through his hair. Orange was sitting almost doubled over, elbows on his knees and chin resting on his hands, a surprisingly childish posture for the young man, his uncovered eye observing Slaine carefully. He stayed still for a couple more beats before sitting up properly and lowering his hand into the water, palm facing Slaine. An open invitation.

For the second time Slaine slithered through the water, and before his thoughts could catch his numb body his head was already resting on the offered palm. A sigh came out as burst of bubbles and he let himself sink into the contact, eyes falling shut and head feeling emptier than in a long time. The hand started slowly inching away and up, and Slaine chased its touch until he couldn’t anymore. Two arms wrapped around his shoulders and torso, and as Slaine opened his eyes he could see Orange’s face just inches above his own, something victorious twinkling in his eye.

“Caught you.”, the human breathed out, and Slaine couldn’t even argue with it. The hand returned to his head, and Orange pulled Slaine down with him as he fell softly backwards until they were laying on the floor, Orange on his back and Slaine cradled against his chest, his feet and Slaine’s tail in the water. A shiver ran across Orange’s back, but his hold only tightened.

“You’re cold.”, he stated, as if it was a surprise and a well-known fact all at the same time.

The prickly feeling just under Slaine’s skin gave reluctantly way for something else. Maybe it was because Orange was his pod, or because of the hand in his hair and emotional exhaustion, but the blond breathed heavily through his tears. He curled his fingers around Orange’s biceps to make sure the human didn’t let go and buried his face into Orange’s now wet jacket. How long had it been since Slaine had hugged someone? He had no idea, but in that moment, he thought a lot of things in his life could’ve been different if he’d had someone to hug him more often.

“And you’re really warm.”, he whistled into the fabric, already half asleep.

Chapter Text

“Are you crying?”, Slaine chirped, trying to peek a glimpse of Orange’s face. The brunette had been sniffling into a tissue the whole morning, and the only two times he’d opened his mouth to answer someone’s question his voice had been hoarse and quiet.

“No.”, came the simple answer with a crack in his voice. Orange cleared his throat. “I caught a cold.”

Slaine tilted his head, not sure if he understood. Maybe it was a miscommunication? Orange had told Slaine the merman was cold yesterday, and that he’d caught him, but he didn’t get the connection between that and the brunette’s current state, huddled on a bench a fair distance from the pool with his tablet, covered by no less than three colourful patchwork blankets.

“It’s good to cry.”, Slaine taunted half-heartedly, but Orange ignored him. Go figure. Slaine’s heart sank a little. “…Is it because of me?”

“Yes.”, Orange’s answer cut with no hesitation.

“Oh…” Slaine’s eyes wandered to the other side of the gate. He’d taken careful glances all throughout the morning but hadn’t given himself the permission to really look yet. He snapped his head straight ahead again and trained his eyes to his fingers, curled around the edge of the pool in front of him.

It was impossible to avoid learning about the outside with how his sonars kept escaping through the gate. It opened to a sheltered bay that was surprisingly deep and lined by high rugged stone formations. The bay wasn’t too lively, but it definitely wasn’t uninhabited; there were rock gunnels and sand lances along with various schools of small fish scavenging along the bottom, and further out to the mouth of the bay there were bigger fish, even some occasional haddocks and cods. There was a fair bit of kelp and algae growing in the bay and on the rocks, but the seafloor itself was mostly volcanic pebble or rock. It would’ve been a great safe place for Sod to molt her skin.

Slaine dropped his forehead to the ground with a heavy sigh that hurt somewhere deep in his chest. Where had Sod been taken? She would’ve been beside herself if she had got the chance to see the bay.

“Hello good?”

“Yeah, yeah, never better.”, Slaine mumbled and dove away from Orange. He didn’t know what he had expected. He had felt slightly better in the morning, had eaten his pill with minimal complaints and had even managed to finish a whole mackerel. No one came close to the pool, and even Orange kept his distance again even though just last night they had hugged and Slaine hadn’t done anything except pass out on top of him. It was no wonder though, if Orange was now sick because of him. Slaine couldn’t even be a non-threat successfully.

“What, you’re still here?” Kaoru crossed the hall to Orange with a wave for Slaine. “I’m taking over now, you can go.”

The brunette didn’t move an inch from his spot. “There are multiplerecordsofbloodwork, but they don’t match with theresults.”, Orange said with a hoarse voice and leaned slightly back in his chair. He showed Kaoru whatever he was reading on his tablet and she bit on her cheeks, instantly interested.

“Maybe they messedupthesamples? It happens a lot atfirst. He wasn’t familiar with our facility, was he?”

“No, he wasn’t.”, Orange agreed. “But the failurerate doesn’t get better. It gets worse.”

Kaoru straightened up and rubbed the back of her neck with a troubled frown. “Sounds like plainbadconduct. And he was allowedtocontinue? I have ahardtimebelieving it.”

“Häkkinen had his hands full with handlingthemedia and my courtcase. He was distracted.” Orange let the tablet rest on his lap. “I doubtanyoneelse had timetodoublecheckeither. I should’ve insisted.”

“He wouldn’t have let you eitherway.”, Kaoru sighed with a tap to the brunette’s shoulder. Orange leaned slightly away from the hand.

The two stayed silent for a moment. Snow started falling softly outside, disappearing into the bay. Slaine let himself look to the horizon past the bars and the bay. It was clouded and blurry. Finally, Kaoru opened her mouth again.

“You know, Inko was the firstonethroughthedoor.”

“I know.”

Kaoru sighed. “And you know how she takes things heavily.”

“As she should, she discoveredadeadbody.”, Orange acknowledged.

“Twodeadbodies.”, Kaoru corrected under her breath.

“One. Bat survived.”

“She didn’t know that then.”

They fell quiet again. Slaine peeked at the humans carefully, his eyes barely above the surface. He didn’t fully understand the situation, but he could guess by their sombre tone. His ears were ringing uncomfortably. When he was tired his limbs felt shaky, like he was still in the rattling cave.

“I’ll let you stay, but keep warm, okay?”, Kaoru almost whispered. “You should call Yuki.” She wrung her hands together awkwardly before straightening the blankets carefully on Orange’s shoulders and going to work. The simple action left Slaine with a painful sting in his heart. The gesture was so mundane and sweet.

Slaine kept his head above the surface. It wasn’t anything new, but now it felt like a necessity. Some miles offshore there was a passing pod of orcas that had him on edge. On one hand, he couldn’t shake off the feeling of danger even though his rational side knew how rare it was for orcas to go after his kind. Not to mention that they couldn’t get to him here anyway. On the other hand, he could hear them chatting and playing, teasing and chasing each other. And somehow it was worse than the fear.

So Slaine kept his head above the surface and pretended he couldn’t hear them.

But while that let him run away from one thing, it meant that he couldn’t avoid others. The hall his new pool was in the corner of was a large, empty space with a tall domed ceiling. Wind from the outside blew freely through the space, and every now and then snow had to be shovelled away from the places it liked to gather. The space was large, but in addition to Orange and the rest there were only a few humans who sometimes passed through on their way from one end of the building to the other. It was peaceful and quiet in a way that almost felt loud. He hadn’t been in a place this peaceful in a long time.

When Slaine had found himself still alive for the first time, after the storm and the shark attack, he’d had clear priorities; survive and get back to the pod. The second time he’d woken up still alive in the rattling cave there had been nothing left for him anymore. He had given it all up in his one final effort to gain control, and that had only served to prove that even his life wasn’t his anymore. Slaine thought he had accepted it before, but now there truly was no other choice but to give up anymore.

He slapped the surface idly with his flukes. The sound filled the hall for a few seconds before wind from the outside replaced it again.

“What do you want to eat today?”, Orange croaked from near the pool and Slaine snapped his attention to the brunette. In an echo of the day before, he placed a few types of fish on the floor in front of Slaine. When the silence stretched and Slaine didn’t make a move one way or the other, Orange stood up, dusted his pants lightly and walked back to his blankets. It took some minutes for Slaine to finally reach for the mackerel and retreat into a corner with it. Orange watched him like a hawk but didn’t say anything.

Humans in this place were different. Maybe it was because there wasn’t a wall between Slaine and them, but they were quiet and kept their distance. And it wasn’t for a lack of curiosity either; if anything, the new people who roamed the hall appeared extremely interested in him. It took Slaine a few days to not shy away from their glances as they watched him from a respectable distance and asked questions in their strange language from whoever happened to be watching over the poolside at the moment.

One time Slaine decided to wave a greeting at one of them, a tall human with curly dark blond hair who passed him twice daily, and the middle aged man almost fainted as the other two exchanged rapid hushed conversation. Slaine’s small test had proven it; they were mostly just curious, like a calf would be when it saw something new and exciting, only with the exception that they had the self-control to leave Slaine be. But there was also an unknown edge to their behaviour, something similar to the way Orange and Kaoru worked around him that Slaine couldn’t quite place.

In the middle of Slaine’s idle musings Inko shuffled towards the poolside. She walked around the empty space for a while gathering her courage before she approached, both Orange’s and Slaine’s eyes following her obvious stalling. She appeared cheery as she smiled to the both of them, but her eyes were puffy. She’d been upset before, too. Slaine had an uncomfortable feeling he was the cause of it, and that was quickly followed by the feeling of responsibility. Inko had become of his humans too, after all.

Slaine swallowed nervously and opened his mouth before he could convince himself otherwise.

“Inko, okay?”

The girl whirled around, surprised and not just a tiny bit amazed. Slaine sunk a little to hide in the water, taken aback by the animated reaction.

“Nina told me you spoke to her but-“, Inko fumbled with her words before reaching a conclusion. “Weird. It’s definitelyweird.”

“I speak with Bat allthetime.”, Orange piped in from under his fortress of blankets. Slaine was pretty sure someone had draped a fourth one on top of his usual three at some point. Whatever was in them was working. Orange was looking better every morning he returned to the poolside.

“Yeah, well you twoarefreaks.”, Inko exclaimed, finally getting closer, “You just talk to Bat normally, and Bat chirpsandwhistles and no one else has anycluewhether you’re actually talking to eachother or justbothhighonsomething.”

Orange turned his head to face the merman and shrugged lightly. Or at least that’s what Slaine interpreted the slight movement of the blankets as. He tried to pry from the brunette any information about what was getting Inko worked up this time, but his face didn’t exactly reveal anything. Inko sighed and turned back to Slaine with a tense smile.

“I’m fine. I mean, I’m not, but yeah.”, she kicked at the ground haphazardly. She didn’t look like she had anything else to say to Slaine, nor that she even wanted to, so she turned back to Orange. “Anyway, Kaoru wanted me to tell you she couldn’t accessthetapeseither. I triedtoo, but apparently we’re all blacklistednow. I mean, it’s not really a surprise. I tried calling Nina, but she didn’t answer.”

“There is goingtobeaninvestigation. Well, that much was obvious. Someonedied.”

“Isn’t there anything we can do?”, Inko pleaded.

“Beside give our testimoniesifasked? Not really.”

“But couldn’t Bat somehow-“

“He could. And I could translate. And if it looks like we’re bothdelusional to you, how do you imagine we look like to thegeneralpublic?”

“…maybe like aDisneyprincess and her mermaid-friend?”, Inko laughed awkwardly. Orange didn’t validate her comment with an answer. After an uncomfortable amount of waiting for his two cents Inko gave first, her face burning with embarrassment. “There has to be atleastsomeone who thinks like that! Look at you two!”

“I doubt you can findanyone over theageoffive.”, Inaho deadpanned and Inko looked at him for a moment in silence before she turned around and stormed off, face red and fuming. Slaine watched her cross the hall and smash the door shut behind her with unnecessary force, the sound echoing in the empty space.

“…You tease her a lot.”, he whistled carefully after a moment.

Orange lifted his eye to meet Slaine’s. The blond glared at him from the pool for a moment before he sighed in defeat.

“Tease. It means to make fun of, to provoke. It can be playful, but it can be mean too.”, Slaine explained the word. He ended up having to do it a few more times and also try to mime it before Orange got the meaning.

“She gives interestinganswers.”, Orange said, unbothered, and Slaine came to the conclusion that ultimately Orange was just plain stupid sometimes.

“She’s upset.”, Slaine whistled quietly. “And angry at me.”, he added, feeling not a small bit of shame. Did Inko hate him? They were never that close, the most he’d seen of her was in the white cave, and sometimes she would visit Nina, but whenever he’d seen her before, she’d always been loud and bright and worn her heart on her sleeve. The Inko now was still all that, but she was also tense and resentful, and though she was helping Slaine, she didn’t appear to want to be anywhere near him for too long.

“Give it time.”, the brunette said, not lifting his eyes from his work, “Justfocusonrestingfornow.”

“Do you livealone?”

“…What?”

“Or in family pods? Interspeciesgroups?”

Slaine floated, his head touching the wall lightly with each wave. He had discovered that the water level changed periodically; right now it was a good meter lower leaving the shallow end of the pool completely dry. In a few hours it would rise again, and he’d have more room.

“You were with a pod of spinnerdolphins. Or were you justhunting the tuna?”, Orange pondered. It was late evening, and the pool was dark and quiet. Once the rest of the humans had retired Orange had taken his place right next to the water, much to Slaine’s bewilderment. The human was acting much like he had during Slaine’s first months after capture; keeping his distance when there were witnesses but coming closer when everyone else was gone. But one thing was definitely different. Orange was chatty. He’d talked before, but he’d never been chatty. Orange was also catching onto Slaine’s whistles faster than before.

Slaine eyed the brunette. The fast development was suspicious.

“But if it was normal there’s noway there aren’t anysightings. So, what is it?”

Slaine paused for a bit to process, the question completely derailing his own thought process. He approached Orange warily. “…Was I supposed to answer something? I didn’t understand.”

“I have made my ownconclusionsbut haven’t been abletoconfirm them. You might be theonlycase where askingthesourcedirectly is a viableoption.”, Orange poked at Slaine’s head. “So tell me about yourself.”

Slaine stared at the brunette for a stunned moment before his brain caught up with the baffling situation again. Orange was unbelievable. “This is completely backwards.”, Slaine sighed and swatted his hand away.

“Baackawa-“

“Backwards.”, Slaine repeated a bit louder, “Wrong order. Usually introduction is the first thing you do, not the last.”

“Intr-“

“Introduction. ‘My name is’, ‘I am’.”

Orange paused for a beat. “I did that.”

“Yeah, you repeated “hello” and “Orange” at least ten times in the first five minutes, it was ridiculous.”

“Ri-“

“Ridiculous. And you still are.”

“I was testing.”, Orange said plainly. “There’s not muchempiricaldata on your species, and you responded when I did that.”

“Empiri-what? I didn’t get even half of that!”

Orange leaned a fraction towards the merman. Despite everything Slaine held his ground and stared right back at the human. “I think you live in small,interspeciesgroups with complexsocialstructuresmainly in theArcticorAntarcticregions. Your knowledge and culture are preserved and sharedorallywithinthegroup. You dive to atleastthebathypelagiczone when hunting and scavenging but spendmostof your time in themesopelagiczone. You are anopportunisticfeeder, but prefermeat.”, Orange said. Slaine’s ears rang with all the new unfamiliar words. “And I think I’m right.”

Slaine had absolutely no idea what Orange thought he was right about, but he wanted to argue with it, nonetheless.

“So; by yourself or in a pod?”

“In a pod.”, Slaine found himself answering lamely, though right after he felt a bitter tang of guilt, like he was doing something deeply forbidden. You weren’t supposed to trust outsiders, and here Slaine was, freely releasing information to Orange.

“With family?”

Slaine swallowed. He’d crossed this line months ago, when he’d let himself teach the first whistles to Orange. The point of no return was truly and completely in the past.

“Family.”, Slaine mumbled, “And sometimes whales.”, he continued a bit louder. “…You?”

“Family. I have asister.”, the brunette shared easily.

Orange had a family. Of course he had one, but somehow it was hard to imagine him in a family setting. Were they all like him, or was he the exception? Because from what Slaine had observed, Orange definitely wasn’t always within the human norms and certainly didn’t care enough to follow them if they were in the way of something he wanted to accomplish. Slaine could see the curiosity behind the brunette’s eyes, and the question that he didn’t ask out loud.

“I got separated.”, he finally gave. “That’s why.”

Orange hummed at his defensive tone but didn’t press for more. Slaine doubted he even understood his whistle for ‘separated’ in the first place.

Come to think of it, he’d been adrift for a long time. He’d thought it a miracle before, when he had woken up. After that he had had his hands full with just surviving. Now with distance and time the memory held a new bitterness to it; he’d heard and tracked his pod right until the moment the shark attacked. They had heard him and known where he was too; he’d felt their sonars probe the surroundings even in the distance. And still-

In the end not a single one of them had thought to come to his aid or even check if he had survived.

“You’re doing it again. Stop.”

Slaine looked up. Orange was crouching, one of his arms wrapped loosely around his legs and the other resting on the ground.

“What?”

“Overthinking.”

“…What even is that?”, Slaine leaned back with a sour frown. Orange tilted his head thoughtfully.

“You tendtoretreat into your head. It’s not healthy.”, the human said with a finger tapping on his own temple. “And when confronted, you deflectinsteadoffacingtheproblem. Avoidance is not healthy either.”

“Coonfor- what does that even mean?”, Slaine huffed with an annoyed twitch in his tail, “And it’s not like you’re any better. I never have any idea what’s going on in your head. You just do as you please, don’t you?”

Orange smiled fondly. It wasn’t big, but it was most definitely a smile, like he had known exactly what Slaine was going to say.

“You speak toofast when you get emotional. Repeat.” The smile was gone as fast as it had appeared, replaced by Orange’s normal passive expression.

“You understood well enough the first time.”, Slaine huffed, half annoyed and half amused and not a tiny bit confused by the whole interaction. Orange was infuriating most of the time, but that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. The better they understood each other, the more fun Slaine found himself having bickering with the brunette. And clearly Orange was enjoying it too.

After a moment of comfortable silence the human got up, fetched his tablet from his pile of blankets and returned with it and one of the blankets in his hands.

“We should startgoingovervocabularysystematically,insteadofalwaysdealing with it in the moment.”, he explained as he sat down on the blanket, bombarding Slaine with yet another shower of completely new words. Nonetheless, Slaine felt a nostalgic surge of curiosity brought forth by their good mood and leaned closer to see what Orange was up to this time. It felt like things were normal again, and somehow the thought was terrifying. Slaine pushed the uncomfortable feeling down, bit his cheeks and tried to ground himself back into the present.

“I’ve had plentyoftime to gatherresources, but let’s start with something simple with littleroom for error.”

Orange turned so that Slaine could easily see the screen too. It was filled with white. Slaine looked up to the human, waiting to find out why he’d wanted him to see it.

“For me, this is white. How would you call it?”

Ah. They were going over words. Slaine didn’t see much use for learning colours, if that was what Orange was after, but maybe the humans thought differently. It might be important to them.

“White.”, Slaine supplied, making sure the chirp was clean and well pronounced. Orange repeated it a bit clumsily, tapped the screen, and a new colour replaced the last.

“Black.”, Slaine gave the whistle and Orange repeated it after giving him the word in his language. Slaine settled a bit more comfortably as the screen filled with red.

“Red.” They got to a rhythm as another colour replaced the last.

“Orange.”, Slaine named it. When the next slide didn’t come, he looked up to see if they were already done. No way would Orange be satisfied with just the four colours unless his eyes worked completely differently from Slaine’s. Which Slaine honestly didn’t put beyond the brunette.

“Again.”, Orange asked. Slaine repeated the single-note, monotone whistle before also adding the common variation at the end of it for reference, since the one he used with the humans was the one Orange had made up as a signature for himself. Adding the common at the end would’ve been helpful if Orange knew commons, but he didn’t. Slaine waved at air, urging the human to dismiss the last part. They were only on the fourth word and things were already becoming convoluted.

“Orange?”, Orange asked, repeating what Slaine had whistled first.

“Yes.”, Slaine answered in the human language, not quite sure what the hold up was. Orange narrowed his eyes.

“…Yes, you are.” Slaine chirped and tapped the screen to get to the next colour like he’d seen the human do, but Orange pulled the tablet away and double-tapped it to return to the orange slide.

“I have a name.”

“I have a name too.”, Slaine answered without missing a beat, reached for the tablet and managed to tap it to yellow despite Orange’s attempt to hold it out of his reach. “Yellow.”, he whistled dutifully and rested his chin on his hands, daring Orange to complain.

“The difference is-“, Orange changed the slide to blue and Slaine gave him the whistle, “-that you don’t use it, Bat.”

Slaine let out a sharp huff that could’ve been mistaken for the start of a laugh. “One of us is clearly better at languages and a lot more tactful than the other.”, he whistled back sardonically. Orange showed him another shade of blue. “Blue.”, Slaine supplied.

“Hm. I would call this one “green”.”, Orange acknowledged and wrote the difference down. “Use words I know if you want me to understand you.”

“Point proven.”, Slaine muttered, “What’s the point when blue is always shifting anyway?”

“Bat, you know I didn’t understand that.” Another shade of blue.

“Blue.”

Orange hummed. “For me, that one would be violet.”

“I don’t get it. It’s just blue.”, Slaine pulled on Orange’s arm to bring the tablet closer and tapped to the next slide. It was another shade of blue. “Just how many blues do you even have here? This is pointless.”

Orange pulled the tablet away and set it aside.

“You like to make things unnecessarily complicated.”, Slaine whined. “Why can’t blue just be blue?”

Orange didn’t acknowledge his complaints. When did he ever. In a way it was reassuring how little Slaine’s moods affected the human. Ultimately it made him feel at ease around Orange. Hell, he’d almost drowned the man once, and here he still was, right next to him and the water in a dark empty hall.

“…Hey, Inaho.”, Slaine said after a moment, head resting on his arms. He was laying almost half out of the pool with his tail swishing lazily in the water with no idea at which point of their conversation he’d climbed out. “Why colours?”

“Why what?”

“Colours.”, Slaine repeated the whistle a bit slower.

“Ah. I was curious. I guess I got my answer.”, Inaho answered more to the ceiling than he did to Slaine. It didn’t explain anything, which was right on his brand. Slaine sighed. They were always going in circles around each other, which was exhausting in its own right.

“Something simple…”, Slaine wondered out loud and Inaho turned his head to him. There had been only one simple moment during the past year, and it wasn’t one he wanted to reminisce about. Chills ran down Slaine’s back. If anything, everything was even more muddled now after-

Something simple. Slaine lifted one finger up to Inaho’s face.

“One.”, he whistled. He lifted another finger. “Two.”

Inaho understood right away and started counting with him. They had both used their fingers to communicate in the rattling cave, and numbers would actually be useful to know. It was simple. The act of counting with fingers was something their species had in common.

They got up to a hundred fairly fast, with Slaine understanding the system Inaho used but completely unable to say most of the words, and Inaho in turn messing up and mishearing the whistles constantly. It was becoming clear that Inaho didn’t actually hear all the sounds Slaine made, and without them the words blended together and became flat and indistinguishable like his monotone signature. Slaine had noticed early on that the humans’ language was concentrated on a narrow band of frequencies, but he hadn’t really had to consider it before with their limited interactions and vocabulary.

Inaho’s hearing was a disappointing new hurdle to their evolving ability to communicate. They had already run into the limit of Inaho’s capabilities, and that left Slaine struggling to get his throat and mouth to reproduce the words the human taught him, since Inaho himself had no way to fix what he was doing wrong with the whistles.

“Ó nei.”, Slaine sighed and fell back to float on his back again. Why couldn’t Inaho speak the language the new people spoke? It was way easier to pronounce for Slaine. “This is impossible.”, he whistled to no one in particular. In the darkness what little light there was in the hall was reflected into ripples dancing on the ceiling. It reminded Slaine of looking at the surface from below. It was almost funny how the ceiling was significantly higher than any of his pools had been deep. It wasn’t like the humans swam in the air and used all that space, after all.

“You learnfast.”, Inaho said. Somehow the words were surprisingly heavy. He looked pale in the low light.

“It took you 8 months and 21 days to say your first words in Japanese.”, Inaho continued. Slaine couldn’t understand what was bothering the human. “We’ve been here for only five days.”

Five days. “A weeek, is seben ‘aays?”, Slaine asked clumsily. Inaho nodded slightly. He’d said Slaine would spend a week in this pool. He mentally slapped himself. There was no use in worrying about the future, it got him nothing good.

“A month is around 30 days, and a year is 12 months.”, Inaho added. Slaine untangled the words for the numbers in his head for a moment before they made sense.

Telling apart colours, counting and measuring time. Despite one of them being completely useless in Slaine’s eyes, they’d probably made more progress in finding ways to understand each other in the last hour than they had in a year. The thought was sobering. Thinking back Slaine couldn’t even separate the days from one another in his mind. He supposed he’d been too busy surviving ever since the shark attack, and it hadn’t left much time for anything else.

“Have you seen humans before?”, Inaho asked abruptly. “If you were regularlyfollowing tuna nearthesurface you would.”

Slaine blinked. Orange was probably the first human he’d ever gotten a good look of. Before the unfortunate incident of him trying to escape the tuna net, he hadn’t even known what land creatures looked like outside from the angry stories the sperm whale bull had used to tell him.

“You?”, he asked Inaho without answering, suddenly curious as well.

“You’re the first syreni anyone’s seen in over 100 years.”, Inaho said, his voice not revealing anything underneath. Slaine couldn’t hide his surprised gasp. 100 years? It didn’t sound right. “Though there have been manyfalsesightings,noneconfirmed.”, he continued. “It’s no wonder everyone is all over you. We had to letreporters in at theCentreduring your first quarantine to keep them from tryingtosneakin and causedamage.”

Something about Inaho’s tone didn’t sit right with Slaine. He didn’t understand much of it, but he knew from the slight pinch of the human’s brows that there was something uncomfortable in what he’d said. Slaine leaned his head on his hands and looked at Inaho carefully. His nose was still pink and his voice a bit hoarse, but he was healing from his ‘cold’ quickly, while Slaine could still feel the overpowering exhaustion of weakness in how his lungs protested every inhale. Beyond Inaho’s normal façade it was hard to make out what he was feeling or thinking.

“It’s forbidden to stay on the surface.”, Slaine offered an explanation, surprising them both. Inaho clearly didn’t understand, though. “Uh, forbidden, right? It’s no! Not allowed!”, he started hastily explaining to the human, already regretting his impulsive sharing. “And surface, um, it’s a bit hard to…” After some fumbling he managed to show Inaho the surface of the water in the pool in a way that the brunette understood. Probably.

"Why?”, came the inevitable question, and Slaine paused with a frown. There were stories, horrible stories, and it just wasn’t allowed, like being seen by passing land creatures, trusting outsiders or diving under the ice sheet weren’t.

“It’s dangerous.”, Slaine offered a bit lamely, the guilt of doing something wrong weighing heavily in his stomach again. Inaho leaned back on his hands, perplexed eyes not leaving Slaine’s, like he was trying to decipher a riddle.

“You are full of contradictions.”, he finally said a bit too seriously for Slaine to answer with anything.

Chapter Text

“Which one do you want?”

Slaine tried to take the mackerel, but Inaho pulled it away, leaving the blond hanging with one of his hands in the air. Slaine looked up to the human, irritated.

“No. Which one do you want?”, Inaho insisted. Slaine tried to reach for the mackerel again, but a single step backwards was all Inaho needed to be out of reach. Slaine glared at him, tired of Inaho’s choosing game. Why couldn’t the human just give him whatever and be done with it? Slaine had eaten mackerel for a year already, he couldn’t understand why it was suddenly such a problem.

“You have options now. Which do you want?”

Slaine scowled at the brunette. Inaho was unphased.

“This is the only one I won’t give you.”, he held the mackerel up. “You can pick anything else.”

“I chose already.”, Slaine whistled, each sound slow and low. Inaho merely took another precautionary step back as if angering the resident merman was the most usual thing in the world.

“You didn’t choose. You did the exactopposite of choosing.”

“I chose.”, Slaine repeated. Inaho didn’t answer, but he might as well have. Slaine could see Inaho wasn’t going to give up on this, and he was honestly starting to feel a bit lost in front of the unyielding human. Anger came to Slaine easily, but he could fuel it only for as long as it was stronger than anxiety. And anxiety was overtaking his anger at an alarming rate as Inaho tried to push him further away from what he had learned to be comfortable with.

“Which one you want?”, Inaho asked again, a bit softer. Slaine’s eyes fell to the pieces of fish in front of him. Pollock, char, saithe and herring. Most of them he hadn’t had in at least a year, and char he had never even tasted before. It wasn’t a bad selection. The problem with Inaho’s demand was that Slaine didn’t want any of them. He didn’t even want the mackerel. He just didn’t want, period, and forcing him to choose felt beyond unfair.

Well maybe I want to die, an unhelpful side of his brain chimed in as the rest shut down. Slaine deflated. Inaho took a step forward as the blond withdrew into himself, but he wasn’t fast enough and Slaine sank underwater to escape the whole situation. Inaho let him stew for a few minutes before it became clear that Slaine had no intention to continue the conversation nor to eat. With a sigh Inaho announced his ultimatum: no mackerel until the blond chose something else first.

“What’s up with Bat?”

It was Inko. It was rare for her to come so close to the pool, but that’s where she was, based on where her voice was coming from. Slaine closed his eyes again. He hadn’t felt this heavy in a while, laying on the bottom of the pool. He couldn’t lift a finger if he wanted, his mind blessedly far away.

“-makes you think that’s a good idea!?”

Slaine blinked his eyes open. Inko was angry. Maybe Inaho was teasing her again.

“Bat needs to learntorelyon himself again.”

“You can’t just undo a year in less than a week! My god, Inaho, look at him!”

“It’s hardly because of one macke-“

Inko cut him off with a frustrated screech that managed to startle Slaine. “It’s because of everything else!” When Inaho didn’t counter, Slaine heard Inko turn around and crouch, her hand slightly disturbing the water to try and gain some reaction from the blond. Slaine stayed carefully still, feeling a bit more present than before.

“Oh, Bat...”, she sighed when there was no response. “Inaho just can’t help how stupid he is. It’s okay to tell him when he’s wrong.”

“I wasn’t wrong.”

“Would you just shut it and use your brain? Which one of us has done this before?”

“Neither.”

“Oh for the love of- I have!”, Inko’s hand left the pool as she turned to Inaho again. “And Kaoru has! We releasedapod just four months ago! It’s okay to ask for help sometimes.”, she pleaded.

“Bottlenoses and syreni are two very different-“, Inaho’s answer was cut short with something clattering to the ground. “…Throwing your brush at me hardlysolves anything. I’ve pointed this out before; aggression is one of the mostcommonsocialbehaviours in theanimalkingdom, but rarelyyields the desiredresults in an argument when it turns to violence.”

“Then think before you act! You’re supposed to be good at that!”, Inko huffed. “This isn’t something you can just force by yourself.”

Inaho didn’t answer. If the two humans were keeping scores, Inko was the definitive winner this time.

And it was somehow reassuring to have Inaho lose from time to time.

There was a faint taste of mackerel in the water. Slaine blinked awake to see a small fishtail being dipped into the pool and moved around a bit. He moved slightly, and the fish was quickly pulled out. It might’ve been just because he was hungry, but the action made Slaine want to chase it. He didn’t.

“A-awake, Bat?”, Inko stuttered from a safer distance. Slaine watched her carefully move a bit closer again. “Inaho is reallysmart and cool and- a-anyway!”, she fumbled with the fish and finally put it down, close enough to the water for Slaine to reach. “He’s also stupid sometimes, when he tries to do everything himself. So eat this, okay?”

Slaine surfaced slowly, a good distance away from Inko. He didn’t have to wonder why she was so skittish; she was scared of him. Which made her probably the smartest human he had spent time with in a while. Slaine couldn’t help the small sardonic smile that settled to his mouth.

“But!”, Inko exclaimed suddenly, almost making Slaine jump out of his skin, “Have a little piece of something else, too!”, she said decisively before turning to the bucket she had brought with her. “I don’t think you would want salmon, that’s the last thing you had at the Centre, right? But how about herring? We had a hugeamount of it at the Centre last year, so you must’ve gotten some too in the beginning. Okisukeordered it, but he madeamistake so instead of the fish being in 10 kilosacks we got them in 100 kilosacks.”, she chuckled, “The 100 kilosacks could fit only into thewarehousefreezer, so we had to spend two weeks repackaging the fish so it could be movedintothefreezerscloser to the pools.”

Inko pulled out a piece of herring, hardly even a third of a whole fish, and dropped it unceremoniously next to the mackerel. “There you go!”, she beamed, having relaxed while chattering. Slaine swallowed. Inko was the type of person who could easily lit up a whole room just with her presence.

He slid slowly across the pool and watched her tense again as he got closer. He wanted to reassure the girl he wasn’t going to drag her in, but the words got stuck in his throat. In the end, Slaine wordlessly took the fish and retreated quickly to give her more room. Inko let out a relieved sigh that was way louder to Slaine’s ears than it probably was in reality. It made the cold pit in his stomach ache.

“Thank youu.”, he offered, trying to ease the lump in his throat around the foreign spelling. It was thankfully becoming little easier to pronounce every time he tried. Inko smiled with the same excitement and warmth he remembered Nina showing him when he had started speaking to her.

“Don’t mention it!”, she chuckled. “It’s okay to take things slow.”

Her smile was infectious, and it pulled at Slaine’s lips too.

“I am taking things slow.”

Both Inko and Slaine jerked their heads towards Inaho, approaching with Kaoru, who squarely slapped the brunette’s shoulder.

“Then stop pickingfights.”, she chided. Inaho rubbed his shoulder with a frown.

“I don’t pickfights. I correct people when they-“

“Everything okay?”, Kaoru asked Inko, ignoring Inaho. Slaine snorted, which earned him an unimpressed look from the brunette.

“Yup!”, she beamed, “And I think Bat’s feeling a bit better too.”

“That’s good then.”, Kaoru smiled.

Hurried footsteps ran past them and Doctoryagarai on the other side of the hall and out the same door Slaine had been brought in from. It was two of the three strangers who passed by Slaine’s pool daily.

“What’s up with them?”, Inko asked.

“I don’t know. Maybesomething’s going on with Kristján, he’s usually at thehangar at this time.”, Kaoru wondered. Doctoryagarai hummed in recognition as he too approached the group.

“Isn’t Kristján the one who used to be in thecoastalguard? He has been helping Marito deal with theplane.Maybe they finallydecided to takethecabinwalldown.”, he said, “They would need help for that.”

“Maybe.”, Kaoru said, unconvinced, but she shrugged it off anyway. Slaine snuck up a bit closer to the humans. If he’d had Sod with him, he would’ve snuggled close to the calf, but she wasn’t there. Hugging Inaho hadn’t been too bad either. Slaine almost wished the brunette would offer him his hand again.

“You’re staring.”, Inaho stated with an unimpressed look. Slaine sank a little so that only his eyes peeked over the edge of the pool to scowl at the brunette. He held his mackerel a little more tightly.

“Am not.”

“Are too.”

“Seriously, are you two five?”, Kaoru sighed. Slaine blinked at Inaho. Five what?

“That’s a good question.Unfortunately, there is no non-invasiveway to tell Bat’s age.”

“I know of one!”, Inko piped in before turning to Slaine, “How old are you?”

Slaine’s eyes flew back and forth between Inko and Inaho, the fish still uneaten in his hands.

“Old.”, Inaho repeated the word. “It means age. How many years you have lived."

Oh. Humans counted those? Slaine wrecked his brain for a number, trying to count the times he had migrated, but after a few years the memories blended together, and he couldn’t tell them apart anymore. He had seen many winters, but then again, he had also travelled from pole to pole, from one winter straight into another, so that wasn’t a reliable measure of time either. But it had to have been at least fifteen or maybe even twenty years, and when accounting to early childhood-

“Uh, tweenty-“, Slaine tried to guess and  pronounce the numbers he had learned from Inaho, “-thee? Fouu?” In the end he had to shake his head; he had absolutely no idea.

“What?”, Inko almost forgot about her apprehension and nearly fell into the pool as she leaned forward, “You look a bit younger than that though! I’m 25 and I’m a year older than Inaho!”

“It’s because of the eyes.”, Doctoryagarai said, “Anadaptation, I believe?”

“Bigger eyes generally mean better visibilityinthedark, yes.”, Kaoru confirmed.

“That’s so weird.”, Inko leaned back again, “Aren’t we around the same age then? That’s weird.”

“It doesn’t mean our ages are necessarilycomparable.”, Inaho shrugged.

“In dog years he would be at least 160.”, Doctoryagarai offered with a chuckle.

“Now translate that to syreni years and you mightactuallycontributetotheconversation”, Kaoru jabbed with a well-mannered huff.

Inaho looked at Slaine thoughtfully. “The realproblem isn’t the number of years but the levelofintelligence and mentalcapacity.”, he said. “And based on everything I’ve seen I would say Bat is easilycomparabletoanadult human.”

Inko’s eyes positively sparkled. “That’s amazing.”

“It is.” Inaho agreed easily.

The conversation moved on and Slaine finally ate his fish, taking his time to remove the bones he usually didn’t bother with. Inaho watched him eat the piece of herring. For a moment he looked like he wanted to say something, but in the end he didn’t.

He still felt a bit numb from their morning fight, if it could even be called that, but Slaine gave Inaho a small smile, nonetheless. Having Kaoru around made him feel comfortable. Inko brightened her surroundings wherever she went. He was still undecided on the healer, but the man had never tried to hurt him. Inaho let him be honest and open. Nina wasn’t there, but her shy kindness still warmed his heart. While he had latched onto Sod out of desperation, she had brought him joy and closeness he’d needed. Through the calf it had become possible to see humans as more than just the monsters of the scary stories told during long migrations.

The same longing that had plagued Slaine’s existence since the day he had fled from the orcas under the ice sheet gripped at his heart again. He felt the same sense of impending doom as he had felt that day, when he had realised that he didn’t have enough air to make it back to open waters again. The same desperation for connection when he had looked into the ancient bowhead whale’s eye and been pitied by it.

These people belonged.

More than anything, Slaine wanted that too. Without realising it, one by one he had claimed the humans as his own, his makeshift pod in this unnatural environment. Only it wasn’t makeshift at all anymore; these people were a pod, and in that pod of humans Slaine was once again the outsider.

And outsiders shouldn’t be trusted.

Slaine felt himself grow cold. It wasn’t often he thought of his adoptive pod as anything other than an abstract group that he had somehow been let into. But now he could imagine Crutheo in front of him as if he truly was there, and the way Klancain had flinched and let go of his hand. And he couldn’t blame them; it was dangerous to let strangers in, to let them see or be seen by them. They didn’t share stories for no reason, and all the stories with land creatures in them always ended in disasters.

“Stop that.”

Inaho looked pissed. Slaine had no idea how the brunette managed it with his blank expression and neutral tone. But he was sure he would’ve gotten another flick to his forehead if he had been close enough for Inaho to reach.

“Sorry.”, Slaine mumbled sheepishly, though he wasn’t exactly sure what he was apologising for.

“What’s the matter?”, Doctoryagarai asked, clearly a bit confused by the whole sudden exchange.

“No one knows.”, Inko sighed with a teasing smile, “But I think Inaho can add‘psychic’ to his resume right about now.”

There was a distant crashing sound somewhere above that caught everyone’s attention. After a moment of tense silence Doctoryagarai stood up.

“I better go take a look after all. It’s barelypastnoon, I sweartogod, if he’s drinking again…”

“Please do.” Kaoru rubbed at her temple. With an apologetic smile to the group and a wave for Slaine that the blond was almost too slow to return he turned around and jogged out of the hall to the direction of the sound.

Just as everyone settled again the door on the other side of the hall slammed open and through it ran one of the two men who had hurried past them before. It was the same man Slaine had waved to just a day or two ago, he realised, the one with curly blond hair who walked across the hall every morning and evening with the other two strangers. Einar, Slaine thought he’d heard the man being called. Einar came to a stop and doubled over, wheezing out of breath. Kaoru and Inko both stood up, alarmed.

“Lö- lögregla. Kristján talar við þá en-“

Kaoru sprang into action before any of the others could react. She threw one of the blankets over Inaho’s head and pulled him to his feet before she started to grab all sorts of knickknacks that had started to gather around the poolside. Inko followed in her footsteps like a lost calf, though she clearly had no idea what the man had said, her anxiety growing by the second.

“What did he say?”, Inaho lifted the blanket slightly, alert like he already knew the answer. Einar started to help Kaoru clean up as well while continuing to hastily explain the situation to her.

“They’re searching this place. What do we do with him?”, Kaoru said quickly and gestured haphazardly towards Slaine. The blond was frozen in place in the middle of the pool. He tried to find reassurance amidst the growingly confusing and concerning situation in Inaho, but the brunette’s focus was on Kaoru. There was another crash in the distance that made him flinch, and Slaine could hear Marito’s raised voice, angry and anxious. Inko answered before Inaho could even say his suggestion out loud, like she had had the same thought too.

“The net hasn’t been repairedyet.”

Inaho’s eyes flickered quickly to Slaine before setting resolutely forward. “It doesn’t matter.”, he decided easily and walked briskly to the gate. He fiddled with its mechanism for a few moments before he could push it wide open. Inko gasped when she realised what was going on and grabbed Kaoru’s arm for support.

With a final creak the gate was wide open and Inaho turned to Slaine. “Out you go.”

Slaine backed away, confused and now growing also scared. “You said a week. Seven days. It’s only been six.”, he whistled weakly, though he had no idea what was even supposed to happen after the seven days. He couldn’t peel his eyes away from the open gate, the sight sending waves of dread down his spine.

“Go out.”, Inaho insisted, but Slaine only shook his head.

“We don’t have time!”, Kaoru exclaimed. She grabbed the first two things that she could, a bucket and a brush that Inko had brought with her and forgotten to take back. With those in hand she jumped into the shallow end of the pool and started banging the two together in an effort to drive Slaine out. It did manage to startle him, and Slaine fell back towards the gate with a hiss to her.

“Kaoru!”, Inko yelped desperately, scared for the woman’s safety. She grabbed a broom, but her feet stayed frozen to the floor, her knees just about to buckle from underneath her. “Don’t you dare hurt her!”

“Enough.”, Inaho raised his voice. “Bat. Go out.”

Slaine could hardly hear himself over the sound of his own heart bounding in his ears, skipping painfully over beats. “But-“

“Out! Now!”, Inaho snapped with a step towards the blond and Slaine flinched back, suddenly afraid the brunette would try to get to him, but where his back would’ve normally hit the bars the gate was now open, and nothing stopped him from falling right through it. Inaho wasted no time to let the merman gather his bearings; with a single trigger in the wall the bars crashed down between them and Slaine barely managed to get his tail out of the gate’s way in time. He stared at it, the sounds of Kaoru climbing out of the pool and Inko crying and helping her all muffled in his head, like suddenly his body was distant from his mind and time stood still.

Inaho reached his arm through the bars and Slaine automatically opened his hands to receive what the brunette was giving. Two white pills. Slaine looked back up, confused.

“One this evening and one next morning.”, Inaho said, pointing his finger right between Slaine’s eyes. “Keep them dry if you can.”

Inaho pulled the blanket back over his head and with that the humans ran away.

Slaine stayed frozen in front of the gate in stunned silence for good 30 seconds before the sound of strange footsteps rapidly approaching pulled him out of his head. Before he could see the strangers burst into the hall he dove to the bottom of the bay, the deepest spot he could find, and wedged himself in between a large rock and a boulder. Small fish scattered away from their home as he took their place, their proximity startling him. Slaine freaked out all over again before he remembered that it was normal to feel the small fries push past him as they tried to escape. His claws dug into his palms painfully from the force he pressed his fist shut around the pills.

Slaine turned around, pushed his back against the rocky wall behind him and tried to keep his heart from jumping out of his throat. His whole body shook uncontrollably, trying to find some outlet to the panic when it couldn’t fully reach his mind.

Just five minutes ago he’d been spending time with his pod. Everything had been fine.

Slaine dropped his eyes to a rare sandy spot in between the black pebbles only a few meters away from him. A flounder he must’ve scared was reburying itself into the sand, lifting small clouds of sand above its head.

He was out. There was life all around and the vast depths of the Northern Atlantic just beyond the mouth of the bay. He could go anywhere.

Were Inaho and the rest okay?

It wasn’t exactly the dramatic break through the gate Slaine had imagined a long, long time ago, but for the better or the worst, he was out. His shaking started to settle, with only the occasional tremor running across his body.

Hypervigilant, Slaine felt out the bay with his sonar. It was good 40 meters deep at points, with a narrow mouth after which the seafloor dropped rapidly. From the gate to the mouth of the bay the distance was a few hundred meters, and across the bay was almost a kilometre wide. He had no idea if it was big or small for a bay. He had never been in one before. A long, slightly raised pier stretched some 15 meters from near the gate. It had a boat tied to it. The boat bumped the pier periodically as waves pushed and pulled it, the unfamiliar hollow sound echoing softly throughout the bay, almost making it look alien in its reflections.

Slaine screwed his eyes shut to limit his senses and pushed the back of his head against the rocks. White spots speckled his vision. He could feel little fish scurrying all around him, going in circles to see if he’d left their hiding place yet. It was too much. It was too big.

What was going on?

Slaine tried to think back, but it was hard to keep his thoughts straight. He had the feeling this wasn’t the first time he’d witnessed this scene. In the rattling cave, when they had stopped and then moved and let go of the ground again, it had felt like they were running away, like something had been right about to catch them. It must’ve been something big and terrible, if it had chased them all the way here. He had no idea what would want to hunt humans, they were even less meaty and fatty than merfolk, but then again Slaine had no idea what else lived on land beside humans.

He opened and closed his hands nervously as his mind worked. Inaho had been hurt before, too. Had he been caught back then? Slaine had no way of knowing. Suddenly he remembered the pills, now stuck to his palm. One of them he had already managed to crush, but the other was still mostly intact, both of them starting to dissolve into the water. Panicked that he had managed to ruin them already, Slaine swam quickly towards the shore a good distance away from the pool’s gate. The beach was rocky there, and he hoped surfacing among the rocks would give him enough cover from whoever was rummaging through the hall and poolside.

There was no saving the pills, Slaine realised as soon as he looked at the mush on his palm. He buried his face in his hands to keep from screaming. How the hell was he supposed to know the pills couldn’t keep their shape in water? The white mush was now all over his face, everything was going wrong, and he had no idea what to do.

A loud crash echoed from inside the hall, and Slaine sank quickly underwater. His head was pounding with all the unanswered questions. Inaho had driven him out for a reason. It might’ve been selfish to think it was for his sake, but Slaine took comfort where he could. If he had still been in the pool, he would’ve been completely at the mercy of the people turning the place upside down as he now hid amongst the rocks. There was an argument brewing in the hall, and Slaine could recognise Einar’s voice rise, frantic and not a small bit angry, over those that had invaded their peace. Slaine didn’t dare to go closer to the gate for fear of being spotted, but he couldn’t quite make out what was happening from where he was.

There was nothing he could do about what was happening inside, the reality started to dawn on him. Inaho and the rest had fled as soon as they knew someone was coming, so there most likely wasn’t anything they could do about it either.

He could only helplessly wait.

Slaine turned warily back towards the bay. Though he had already deemed himself the figurative biggest fish in the figurative pond - the second largest being a pair of young cods stalking a patch of kelp, both the length of Slaine’s arm - he couldn’t help but fear being attacked. Slaine slid by the shoreline, avoiding the open space he now had access to as he tentatively took in his new surroundings. He stilled for a moment as the arguing inside the hall reached a new peak before settling again. When it sounded like the invaders had moved on Slaine moved again too, making sure to feel around with his sonars all the while keeping his ears trained in the direction of the hall in the case he could hear any familiar voices.

Slaine knew what he was swimming up to, he had felt it in his sonars, but the sight still left him with a loss for words as the structure bit by bit became visible to his eyes as well. In front of him, like a wall, stretched the largest net Slaine had ever seen, tens of meters in length and almost twenty in hight, enough to cover the whole mouth of the bay from side to side and surface to seafloor, being held up by large buoys. Slaine swam closer to touch the rope it was made out of, as thick as his arm, and the net’s holes the size of his head. He had weaved ropes and cords before, but he couldn’t even begin to imagine the amount kelp and time it would take to make something like this.

Too bad all that time and effort had been wasted by time.

Slaine came to a gaping hole in the net, large enough to easily fit an adult orca through. It was the first of many; the net was growing algae and rotting, some of it having collapsed completely already. Even the parts that were intact had become brittle, and though the rope must’ve been tough at some point, it was now weak enough that Slaine didn’t think he would need any tool beside his claws and teeth to cut it.

At some point the bay had been closed off completely, to either keep something large in or out, but that time had passed at least a decade ago, and in some weird way it almost made Slaine feel nostalgic. Which was a strange thing to feel, considering that had probably been the reason for bringing Slaine into the bay in the first place; to keep him in it.

He couldn’t find it in himself to even get mad at it. If anything, he wished the net was still intact; he had heard orcas in these waters before, and he wouldn’t have minded the barrier.

As sounds from inside the hall died down, so did everything else. Even the sun dipped beyond horizon as stillness and silence settled into the bay. Slaine tried to feel around and listen for any signs of his pod or any other human for that matter, but there were none. Hesitantly, he stalked his way back into the bay, careful to dive almost against the seafloor, scared of any potential ambush. He made his way almost all the way back to the gate before stopping to listen again. The hall was as dark and quiet as the bay.

Slaine lied down on the seafloor, eyes and ears trained on the gate.

In the shaky footage Inaho had been fighting back, bleeding as he was. When the video cut off and the disturbed crowd started reacting, Slaine’s mind flew back to the night he’d seen the aftermath; the brunette limping and pacing by his pool, barely aware of his surroundings. And Slaine had reached out of the pool, lifted the bucket Inaho had tripped over upright again, and with him, he had brought the taste of blood -

A sharp whistle blew through the bay, jolting Slaine immediately awake. He laid still, curled against a boulder, small fish nipping at his tail for dead skin. After some time, the whistle repeated. Carefully Slaine untangled himself, the small fries scattering around him, and started stalking through the shadows, making sure his sonars reached every nook and cranny in the bay. There was nothing new disturbing the water, much to his relief. He closed in on the sound on the rocks by the eastern shore, carefully grazing the seafloor as he advanced. The whistle repeated for a third time and he could finally see its source.

Slaine breached the surface with a little jump, causing Inaho to almost fall back into the rocks. The long silvery whistle fell from his hands, dropped right into the shallow water and sank to the bottom.

“You’re… still here.”, Inaho breathed out.

“Bat!”, Inko yelled her relief from almost a hundred meters away, from on top of a large boulder, “Thank god!” Somewhere behind the boulder he could hear Kaoru chastise her for being so loud.

“The net hasn’t been fixed.”, Inaho stated, and Slaine frowned at him. The brunette sounded both relieved and troubled by his presence. Slaine himself didn’t know whether to feel happy to see his pod again or offended at the implication that he wouldn’t wait at least a day or two to see if they would return. Inaho’s comment also confirmed that the net had been there to keep him in. Or whatever had been in the bay before him in, but Inaho had wished to use it again on him. Slaine’s initial relief soured.

“Anzvíti.”, he muttered under his breath. Inaho raised his brows.

“…I take it you’ve been listening to our hosts.”, he got up and dusted his shirt, “Now, I don’t understand a word they speak, so tryingtoinsult me, as you were doing by your tone, is a waste of-“, Inaho stopped suddenly when he realised Slaine was inching closer to him. Even though on this side of the bay the shore was so steep that Slaine could almost get all the way to the rocks Inaho was standing on, Inaho clearly hadn’t thought he would actually do just so.

“…Are you okay?”, Slaine whistled shakily, his eyes scanning over the brunette in a way he hoped wasn’t too obvious. There were no new injuries he could see, and Inaho didn’t sound like he had ‘a cold’ either. Only his hair was messy and his complexion a bit pale, but otherwise he looked unharmed. Slaine raised his eyes to meet Inaho’s, feeling a bit more desperate than he was comfortable with. “Is everyone okay?”

Inaho stayed still for a beat before taking a step into Slaine’s space and pushing him back towards the deeper water. “Everyone is okay. You’ll beach yourself like that.” Inaho let go and Slaine floated backwards, feeling a bit lighter. “Though I did spend yesterday and a good portion of the night standing in abroomcloset.”, the brunette continued with barely hidden distaste. “I can list 23 potentialhiding places inside thehangar with enoughroom to sit in, but I was still locked into thebroomcloset.”

Slaine chuckled. Inaho was complaining, but whatever it was about wasn’t that big of a deal. If it was, Inaho wouldn’t be making light of it.

“Are you okay?”

The question shook Slaine’s attention back to Inaho. He stared at the brunette, opening and closing his mouth for a few times before he found his voice again. “…I guess I am.”, he answered honestly with a chirp, and Inaho nodded slightly. He could feel Inko’s approaching footsteps reflected in the water, the way they sent black pebbles scattering in their wake, followed by Kaoru’s calmer pace. Everyone was okay. Slaine turned to float on his back and looked at the sky. The tide was decreasing. He still wasn’t used to it, and without Inaho reminding him he actually might’ve beached himself. On this side of the gate, the sky was impossibly wide as it stretched to every corner of his vision, even when covered by grey clouds.

“I ruined the pills.”, Slaine confessed suddenly, but Inaho didn’t understand him. Slaine didn’t know if he was disappointed or relieved. But he did know his heart couldn’t take Inaho being disappointed with him in that moment, so he let it slide.

He was okay. He really, really was okay.

Slaine dove away before the humans could see his eyes watering.

Sleeping huddled into a corner was a habit that suddenly felt weird when there was enough space to rest suspended upright. It was unnatural to curl against the boulders, but Slaine found the habit hard to shake off. Familiarizing himself with the bay highlighted how bizarre and twisted his own behaviour was; keeping to the shores instead of the open space in the middle, fleeing from the fishes instead of chasing them, seeking out the company of the humans instead of exploring the bay, and sleeping through the nights even though that was the best time for hunting.

And the most unnatural of them all; even with no barrier keeping him in, he still stayed.

Slaine laid on the seabed, his back to the boulders in between which he had hid at first, terrified stiff to be left alone in such vast space. The flounder he’d seen before had moved to another sandy spot only a few meters away, hidden from all eyes but not from his sonars.

It was frustrating to know how he was acting all wrong and at the same time feel too disconnected from acting right to change anything.

Slaine got up and headed towards the surface to see if the humans could distract him from his thoughts. There was no such luck; as soon as he breached the surface it became clear there were no one anywhere around the bay. Slaine slapped the water with his flukes. It was still early morning. He’d probably be alone for another hour or so. Without meaning to, his thoughts were already flying past the mouth of the bay again.

Everything familiar felt off, but beyond the bay the open ocean was still untainted of Slaine’s awkwardness. His memories of the deeps were of belonging and home, though they now felt distant. Slaine blew a frustrated burst of bubbles. He didn’t know at what point he had swum to the net, but there he was again, nonetheless, gingerly peeking through the gaping holes but careful enough to not cross the boundary.

He knew there were orcas in these waters, but for now his sonars only showed miles of empty sea in every direction. Just having his sonars escape into an endless space was comforting. They didn’t bounce around him like they did in the pools, nauseating and confusing, but were dispersed into the sea and scattered into the rugged rocks in the bay, all their information clear.

Slaine spent a long time just listening to the sea and feeling out the expanse before him. He didn’t have enough courage to cross the net, the thought to try it didn’t even cross his mind, but just having all that space in front of him left him feeling calm and grounded again.

A hollow clang resonated throughout the bay, pulling Slaine’s attention back to the present. The sound repeated, and he knew its source immediately; it was the boat, but instead of bumping against the pier, this sound was deliberate. Slaine lifted his head above the surface and squinted his eyes to see to the other side of the bay. Though his eyes weren’t as sharp in air as they were in water, he could see a figure standing on the rear end of the boat tied to the pier, their outline a familiar posture. His heart swelled with relief, as it nowadays often did whenever he spotted the brunette human.

Slaine sped through the bay with little zig zags, just because he could, and popped his head above the surface with an eager smile that died out as soon as he saw Inaho’s perplexed expression and remembered himself. Embarrassed, he sank a little to hide his face. Inaho recovered faster than Slaine did, a little huff and a small smile the only indication he had been taken by surprise. The brunette leaned over the boat’s railing and tapped its side.

“This is a boat. Do you think you can follow it?”

Slaine tilted his head, immediately latching onto the new word. “Foo-llow?”

“To swim after it.”

“…Why?”

“Because from now on I’ll give you your food from here.”

Slaine frowned, forgetting his embarrassment and ache to spend time with the human in a heartbeat: leave it to Inaho to come up with another stupid idea. It would’ve been way easier for everyone involved to just keep to the pier or the shore. But it wasn’t like Inaho would listen to anyone else once he had made up his mind.

“Maybe.”, Slaine gave, not particularly looking forward to the needlessly complicated logistics of the humans hauling their dead fish on and off the boat just to feed him. Inaho leaned back with a small smile, and Slaine had the distinct feeling he had just taken the brunette’s bait, hook, line and sinker. He narrowed his eyes at Inaho, and the brunette caught his look with an arched brow.

“I’ll keep you to that then.”, Inaho said, confirming Slaine’s suspicion. This wasn’t about food at all.

“You’re planning something.”, Slaine accused with a scowl. Inaho merely blinked.

“Ofcourse I’m planning something. You don’t take well to directapproach.”

“So it must be something you know I won’t like.”

“It’s just food.”, Inaho dismissed easily. “Let’s practice.”

Slaine fell slightly back. “What’s there to practice?”

“We haven’t done this before, so obviously we need to practice.”, Inaho stated nonchalantly, “You promised to follow the boat. Or are you a liar?”

“A what? I don’t know what that is, and I didn’t promise anything!”, Slaine exclaimed, getting flustered. Inaho smirked.

“Ah, are you going back on your word?”, Inaho shook his head slightly, “I misjudged your character. How disappointing.”

“Oh shut up!”, Slaine cried out in irritation, “I said I’d follow the damn thing, didn’t I!”

“So you did.”, Inaho deadpanned, “Thank you for your cooperation.”

Slaine sank with a sigh. Inaho was getting better at his backhanded way of dealing with him, and Slaine wasn’t sure what to think about it. Even when he saw it coming, the brunette could still most times prod and poke his way to the result he wanted. Inaho met his eyes and rested his weight against the railing again.

“You do know I’m not your only source of food, right?”, he asked. Slaine glared at him. Inaho knew that Slaine knew, so why specifically point it out? Unless-

“Are you trying to get rid of me?”, Slaine spat. Inaho didn’t answer, but he didn’t appear to like his question either. Slaine felt his heart drop.

“You are trying to get rid of me.”, he concluded. The words hurt more than they should have.

“Don’t jump into unfoundedconclusions. All I meant is that you have options.”, Inaho said. “But if that’s uncomfortable, just follow the boat for now.”

“You’re not trying to get rid of me?”, Slaine pleaded suddenly, almost cutting Inaho off. “I’ll follow the boat, I promise!”

For a moment Inaho looked almost as lost as Slaine felt. “That’s not good.”, the brunette blurted out loud, and Slaine recoiled, as if hit. “Don’t dive.”, Inaho added immediately and Slaine froze in place. They both stayed completely still for a second before Inaho climbed out of the boat and back onto the pier.

“We need to address this.”, he stated, his eyes locked onto Slaine’s. “This… behaviour. Right now.” When Slaine made no comment beside his bewildered expression, Inaho continued. “I made the choice to keep you.”

Slaine stared at the brunette. He knew that much already, Inaho had been the only one to spot him in his hiding place, so naturally it had been his call to either let him be or tell the other humans. But hearing it from Inaho’s own mouth made it that much more real; it drove home that the human who had caused Slaine’s captivity and the human who he had built the most trust with were the one and the same.

“It was the best choice at the time with the limitedinformation I had.”, Inaho said before Slaine had time to process his sudden surge of conflicting feelings. “But that’s the problem with limitedinformation. A 100-year gap in knowledge can provedisastrous. And it has.”

The timeframe of 100 years still felt off for Slaine. Maybe it was just that his perception of time differed from Inaho’s; he hardly ever thought in long-term these days.

“…What’s your point?”, Slaine asked quietly, still feeling whiplash from the thought of being abandoned. Inaho sat down on the pier so he wasn’t towering over the blond.

“The point is that even though my choice was undoubtedlycorrect, the consequences are hardlyjustifiable.”, Inaho said resolutely. “And this-“, he gestured vaguely to Slaine, his gaze lingering on the scar on the blond’s hairline for a brief moment before settling onto his eyes, “-is one of the consequences.”

Slaine watched blankly ahead. He had a feeling Inaho was waiting for him to say something, but what it was, he didn’t know. So he didn’t say anything.

“Do you remember what you were like?”

The question gave Slaine a pause. Inaho didn’t specify when, but he didn’t need to, because Slaine understood right away. When they had first met. When Inaho had trapped him into a tidal pool and had had him transferred first into the white cave and then into the pools. The memory still made his heart pick up speed painfully fast and a cold lump rise in his throat.

Slaine had been terrified out of his mind, angry and confused.

“You were vibrant.”, Inaho answered his own question. Slaine didn’t understand the word.

Inaho made sure Slaine didn’t avert his eyes before continuing. “What I want you to do is to follow the boat for now. But I also want you to know that you don’t have to. You can decide not to, and there won’t be any consequences. Do you understand?”

“…Yes.”, Slaine answered, though in all honesty he wasn’t sure he did. Inaho’s mouth was a firm line. The human was making a big deal out of nothing. Slaine knew there was nothing forcing him to cling onto the humans, even the net at the mouth of the bay had big rotted holes in it. But still, even if he knew that this was the chance he had been waiting for, he couldn’t bring himself to let go. He couldn’t imagine himself leaving the bay or diving to the deeps.

Slaine didn’t know how to tell Inaho just how inadequate he felt, or if he even wanted the brunette to know.

“...Am I interrupting something?”

Marito came to a stop a few meters from the boat. Inaho stood up.

“No. Your timing is rather good. We’re ready to go.”

“Before that.”, Marito held out his hand to halt Inaho, who was already about to step back onto the boat. “I have news. So about yesterday…”

“They weren’t police. Nor any other officialauthority.”

“…You knew already?”

Inaho hopped onto the boat and Marito hurried on after him. “I had a good idea. Häkkinen might’ve been able to smoothitouttothepublic, but that doesn’t change the fact that we stole Bat from right under Vers’ nose.”

Marito’s shocked reaction startled Slaine. “Wait, the buyer was Vers?! That Vers?”

“I’m not aware of any other Vers’.”

“Oh my fuckinggod, my life is over.”, Marito breathed out. “It’s all over.”

“I doubt you’ll die any day soon.”

“I just might. But not before they take you out.”, Marito said dryly, his shock morphing into tired annoyance. “Damnrich people. What would he even need with a syreni? Something rare to decorate his mansion with? Ridiculous.”

Inaho shrugged. “Bat was a gift for his granddaughter, on paperatleast.”, he said. Slaine perked up at the mention of his name. “Beyond that I haven’t confirmed much yet.”

“And Häkkinen actually sold him. I should’ve known thegeezer has some loosescrews.”

“It was the only choice he could make. Bat wasn’t getting better.”, Inaho said as if it explained everything. Maybe it did to him, but neither Marito nor Slaine understood what he meant. The older man untied the last rope in disgruntled silence and turned to Slaine.

“We’ll start slow, so just keep up and be careful, kid.”, he said, tapped the side of the boat a couple times and disappeared under the cover at the front. Moments later the engine roared alive, and Slaine flinched back, heartbeat jumping to his throat. He didn’t think he had ever been so close to a boat before, and though this one was smaller than any of the ones he had ever felt in his sonars at sea it was still daunting.

The boat started moving slowly, just as Marito had said it would. Unsure of how closely he should follow it, Slaine let it slide forward a few meters before moving himself. Moving with the boat went against everything he had ever been taught, but swimming with something else, even a boat, was still a nice feeling.

Slaine chided himself mentally before his thoughts could run off on their own. It was laughable to start bonding with a boat of all things just because he was a little starved for connection.

They rounded around the bay at a calm pace, the boat rocking on the waves and Slaine following right behind it, sometimes feeling brave and venturing under and around it. With a tentative hand he reached to touch the hull. It gave of the slightest vibration.

He knew his flesh was being cut before he felt it; the sudden slash ripping across his arm.

Slaine yelped and pulled away from the boat. His arm shook, but it was more from shock than pain. Across his forearm there were five deep cuts couple centimetres apart from one another. Impossibly even and straight.

Sod’s mother had taken her to watch humans. Slaine was pretty sure the calf had told him that a long time ago. The cuts bled lazily. The propeller had only grazed him, these cuts weren’t truly deep like the ones in Sod’s back. She had flown into a panic attack when she’d tasted blood in the water, a beluga calf alone with Slaine in a pool with no knowledge of where her family was-

“Hey! Are you okay?”

The boat floated good twenty meters away, its engine now turned off. Surprisingly the one shouting over the railing was Marito.

Slaine surfaced before raising his voice in a clumsy “Okay!” in response.

Slaine cradled his arm against his chest. It was shaking, but weirdly enough it still didn’t hurt yet. Sod had been run over by a boat, Slaine was now certain, and it might’ve even contributed to her being stuck in the pool in the first place. But though her scars had been deep, they couldn’t have been that bad. Sod hadn’t appeared to even be aware of them herself.

In the end he hadn’t even asked her. And just how fitting was that; even when he had had the chance to understand something, he hadn’t taken it.

“…Is there something funny?”, Inaho asked carefully, the boat floating idly, being pushed back towards Slaine by the waves. Smile he hadn’t realised had spread onto his lips froze.

Slaine wasn’t any closer to understanding what was going on around him, but for the first time he had a feeling it couldn’t be his mistakes alone that had led him there.

His situation was the result of everyone’s mistakes.

Chapter Text

It was painfully obvious that everyone was on edge.

Weirdly enough, Slaine found that he didn’t care. In fact, he was damn near giddy. Even his brain, jumping from one worst case scenario to the next, couldn’t deny that his situation was the best he had had it since he’d been a calf. He had a safe bay full of life all to himself with space and waves and fresh water, a pod of humans who actually appeared to like his company, and a steady supply of food. Slaine didn’t know when his life had felt this secure before, if ever, and the thought made him bristle with excitement that stroked something unpleasant deeper in his gut.

But as soon as the constant cold pit in his core gained a moment of silence to whisper its poison, Slaine felt his old suspicions and fears creep along the bay’s shoreline. Eventually everything would to go to hell again. It always did, one way or another. Slaine shook his head and drove the insistent thought away, back into the deep pit it had crawled from.

The feeling of foreboding was familiar, but it had an edge to it that Slaine hadn’t felt in years, one that reminded him of the ocean depths he couldn’t reach and arctic ice sheets. For the first time in years, he wasn’t anxious for himself – there was no reason to be, what with the open ocean just past the gaping holes in the net marking the mouth of the bay. No, his anxiety was for his humans. While he could now go anywhere, they were stuck on land. If anything was to happen again, there was nothing Slaine could do but wait, and there was hardly anything he had come to despise as much as feeling powerless and out of control.

Slaine busied himself in the early hours of the mornings by methodically repeating the exercises Inaho insisted he do; stretching his arms and back, rolling his shoulders, lifting small rocks with his left hand and trying to keep his left side generally active. Though it was frustrating with how his fingers lacked strength and his arm the reach it used to have, he had to admit the movements helped to restore some of his scarred side’s functionality. For one, his arm didn’t drag as much anymore, and he could even lift it a bit higher above his head than before, making it somewhat useful if he ever was to hunt again.

Inaho wanted Slaine to hunt again, he knew that much even though the human never said it in as many words. Slaine felt the itch too, sometimes, but it was never enough to act on. Sometimes, when he stalked among the kelp, he thought about cutting it and making himself a new bag to fill with new tools. Instead of a new spike, he could weave a net, weigh it with small rocks and hunt that way. Maybe set up traps for the fish. He could adapt.

But he couldn’t see himself doing any of it, not really. A connection somewhere was broken, a piece that didn’t quite fit anymore. What had been once been familiar felt now distant. Any time Slaine thought of overcoming it, of acting like he knew all thought he was supposed to, all the anxiety he had finally rid himself of came pouring back. So he didn’t.

And it wasn’t that bad. He could see himself spending the rest of his life in the bay.

“Farðu í rassgat.”

“Faaarðu-“, Slaine tried to repeat, but couldn’t help extending the vowels. He kept his distance from the tall man, who stayed good two meters clear from the shore himself, standing relaxed with his hands in his pockets. Frost stuck to Einar’s beard and the loose fibres of his thick sweater.

“Næstum því!”, Einar praised eagerly, “Farðu í.”

“Farðu í.”

“Þessi er erfiður. Rassgat. Rassgat.”

”Raashaa?”

”Rassgat.”, Einar repeated a bit slower, “Farðu í rassgat.”

Out of the corner of his eye Slaine saw a figure running towards them, but he wasn’t quite fast enough to catch who it was before they all but screeched.

“What the hell?!” Kaoru almost bounced Einar and yanked him away from the shore by the collar of his shirt, both of them nearly tripping over a piece of washed-up driftwood. Einar laughed heartily all the way through her lecture as Slaine focused on repeating the words in his head, easily shaking of the small scare. He was able to pronounce the first words, but the last one with its harsher consonants was still impossible. Still, every new word he picked up proved this language was far easier for him to spell than Inaho’s, and having Einar repeat the correct spelling numerous times helped.

He should tell Inaho to slow down too, the next time they speak. Inaho was always quick to confirm words for their meanings or just downright assume he had got them right the first time, but he didn’t leave much time for practice. In fact, Slaine got the feeling that the way they acquired languages was fundamentally different. It felt like instead of learning information Inaho was storing it. In the end it might’ve been the difference between theory and practice; where Inaho was content with gathering and analysing all the information for himself, Slaine was driven first and foremost to be able to apply what he had learned.

A brighter, younger voice joined the two on the beach; Inko had heard the commotion and was way too nosy to even feign she hadn’t come to snoop on Kaoru and Einar’s argument, if it could even be called that. Neither of the two were being too serious to begin with, and with the distraction that Inko’s arrival offered Einar sneaked away about as gracefully as a disoriented sunfish, winking his eye mischievously to the merman. Slaine tried to mimic the strange action, but he couldn’t quite manage to wink only one eye. He would have to practice that too.

“-but don’t you think it’s kindacute though?”, Inko snickered.

“It isn’t cute for long if it grows on him.”, Kaoru sighed, but then her lips twitched, and she turned her head to hide their betrayal.

Doctoryagarai turned Slaine’s right forearm around in his hands, slightly stretching the skin around his scabs. The five slashes he’d gotten from the propeller were sure to scar, but for now the man hummed with a warm smile, pleased.

“They’re healing really clean. That’s salt water for you.”, he beamed and let the arm go, much to Slaine’s relief. The slashes weren’t even tender anymore, but he still cradled his arm to his chest. “Just don’t scratch them and you’ll have no problem. Turn around for me, would you? Let’s get your chest sorted out next.”

Slaine really didn’t want to. He hated it when he had to just float and be prodded. But he also hated being dragged out of water for prodding, so with a sigh he rolled around and crossed his arms across his stomach. He had a feeling they would let him just dive away if he so decided, but Slaine preferred not taking chances where he could. Ultimately, the humans were just trying to tend to his wounds.

“Uh… Doo- doocoto-“, he tried the healer’s name, but a snort from the man stopped him before he could get familiar with the word.

“Just Yagarai is enough, but thank you.”, the healer laughed brightly, and Slaine’s heart skipped a beat almost painfully. He had somehow made a mistake.

“Doctor means someone who heals people. Helps them.”, Inaho piped in with an explanation completely unprompted and unhelpful to Slaine’s state of mind. Embarrassment flushed across his face and settled into a steady pulse. In his head he had called him Doctoryagarai, but apparently that had been wrong. Slaine silently pleaded for the brunette to just shut up, but of course Inaho did just the opposite and kept on explaining, his words going in one of Slaine’s ears right out the other. Only when the doctor made a move to gain his attention again, Slaine lifted his eyes, face still burning from embarrassment. Thankfully Yagarai took pity on him and didn’t address it.

“With these-“, the healer lifted up a small metallic contraption, similar to the one with which Inaho had once cut his claws, “-I’ll first cut the thread. Then I will pull the stitches out. We’ll be done in less than a minute, I promise.”

Slaine glanced worriedly up to Inaho.

“It doesn’t hurt.”, the brunette reassured right on cue, and Yagarai chuckled a little. Slaine’s focus was back on the healer immediately, searching for malice in his humour. There was none to be found though, when the man looked down at him with only well-mannered sympathy. There was nothing holding Slaine back, he could just roll over and dive to the bottom of the bay. But he couldn’t bring himself to do it even when Yagarai brought his hands onto his chest, the small scissors trailing across the stitches before carefully snipping the threads one by one. Slaine stayed as still as he could but kept his eyes glaring at the healer, ready bounce any moment.

“Suspicious as ever, I see.”, Yagarai hummed. “It’s common to find removingstitches scary. It’ll just feel a bit weird at first.”, he said warmly, then gently pulled the first stitch out. “See? Bet you didn’t even notice that.”

Slaine craned his neck to see everything that was happening, but Yagarai worked even faster, and before he could even decide if he had felt the first stich or not, all of them were out.

“All done! I would give you a sticker but Kaizuka is a bore, so I bet he hasn’t even bought you a stickerbook to put it in yet.”

“I fail to see why Bat would need a sticker-“

“See? He’s a bore.”, Yagarai grinned. It was infectious, and the way Inaho seemed so genuinely annoyed sealed the deal. It had taken well over a year to learn, but the healer really was trustworthy. Slaine smiled wide at his own idiocy, the two humans blinking owlishly down at him.

“I aapo- apolo-“, Slaine slurred with his broken human language through the tears suddenly pooling in his eyes. He had spent over a year suspicious and on edge every time Yagarai came close. Any time he had to bear with the touches, as well-intentioned as they were. “I’m sorry.”, he finally managed.

When the tears started rolling, they didn’t stop. They built up like tidal waves, unstoppable and unavoidable as they poured over, the final insignificant drop causing everything else to overflow and wash over him, finally unreleased.

“I’m so-“, he tried to repeat but his voice couldn’t carry the rest. Slaine laid a shaking hand over his chest, the healed line across it tight and burning. He could almost feel the tip of his spike against it again, the ghost of complete hopelessness and loss of control so close but now also foreign, like felt through a transparent film. The way he had pushed the spike in, ripped through skin and flesh and scraped bone.

He must’ve looked ridiculous, then and now. Fearing and rejecting everything and everyone, when he had never needed to. It was clear now, too; while the sea and the sky didn’t care about his tears, the two humans in front of him did. Why he had ever wanted to escape was beyond Slaine. Yagarai’s hand gripped his forearm in silent sympathy, the man’s presence and smile warm. Slaine hadn’t even bothered to learn his name properly before. Inaho on the other hand looked uncomfortable, his brows pinched as he studied Slaine with unflinching intensity, his fingers pulling at his sleeves, stretching the already stretched-out fabric. Self-soothing, Slaine recognised. He reached with his free hand and offered it to the brunette who took it eagerly.

“Hello good?”, Inaho whistled. It was becoming rarer and rarer to hear his whistles as Slaine’s understanding of the human language got better and better, and just in a short time of no practice the sounds Inaho could produce sounded clumsier than before. Slaine tightened his grip of Inaho’s hand and half laughed, half sighed wetly.

“Not really.”, he whistled apologetically as he tried to wipe the tears out of his eyes. He didn’t even know why he was crying anymore. There was nothing and everything to cry about. “…It’s hard to put into words.”

Inaho hummed but didn’t press for more.

Inaho untied the last knot, and with that, the boat was free-floating again. Slaine dived anxiously back and forth under it, absentmindedly touching the hull every now and again. The calmly rumbling motor coughed alive, and now suspicious of the propeller, Slaine fell carefully in line behind the boat. After a few laps around the bay, he started to relax into the rhythm and pace they were going at, and the scrambled lines of his thoughts started straightening out, as if hanging loose behind him after being cramped together in nots for too long. The monotonous act of just travelling, even with no destination, made everything feel a bit simpler and easier. It was a funny thing; Slaine hadn’t done much else than swim in circles in a long time, but just having the presence of the boat to swim with made his chest fill with warmth again.

They went around the bay in a wide circle for a while before Marito grew tired of it and started driving the boat in different patterns, zigzagging and making random loops. Slaine peeked at the surface. Inaho rested his head on his hands against the stern railing, his gaze wandering out into the ocean, brows slightly pinched. Slaine wondered briefly what had the brunette concerned, but before he could guess on it, Inaho’s eyes flickered to his own, and reminded by the reason they were driving around the bay, he reached his hand behind the railing and pulled out a whole cod by its gills. He threw the heavy limp fish overboard, and Slaine snatched it before it could even break the surface and dove a little deeper with his price, deep enough to disappear from the humans’ eyes.

At first, Slaine hadn’t noticed it, but ever since coming to the bay Inaho had started giving him his fish whole. In the pool even small fish had been gutted, but now the rather large cod hadn’t even been cut in half. Slaine ripped the fish’s stomach open in a cloud of clotting blood and let a small school of scavenging fish have its intestines, save for the liver, which he ate first. He swam lazily on his back holding the fish against his stomach as he worked on it while still keeping up with the boat.

Inaho and Marito were talking above him, their voices mostly covered by the sound of the engine and the spinning propeller. It sounded serious, so Slaine kept his ears trained to it, but didn’t make much effort into actually listening in. Marito’s grumbling voice was almost impossible to hear, too similar in frequency with the engine, but Inaho’s answers carried further with his clear and even tone. If anything, it sounded like a continuation from an earlier conversation that had been cut short.

“…just biding their time.”

“Tabloids tend to exaggerate. They have vested interest in it anyway.”

“It was Häkkinen. He feels responsible for me, I suppose. There’s not much anyone can do against Vers, though he tried.”

The boat slowed down to a crawl as it returned to the pier and Marito angled it effortlessly back to its place. The engine died down, ropes were tied, and with one last check Marito hopped out of it onto the pier. Slaine let himself rise to the surface again to wave the man a small goodbye as he left, expression steely. There was a short silence as Slaine waited for Inaho to leave him finish the cod in peace, but the brunette appeared content to just stay in his place, leaning against the stern railing, his mind elsewhere. In silent companionship, Slaine busied himself with working on the rest of his fish, cleaning it with ingrained briskness, his claws finding just the right spots to tear, pull and cut on their own.

Inaho eyed Slaine. “Has your arm been bothering you?”

“No.”, Slaine whistled his simple answer while he worked meticulously on cleaning the bones on his lap. Inaho pressed his lips into a tight line.

“You should eat more.”, he commented, and Slaine huffed dismissively. He had already finished the whole cod, hadn’t he? Inaho’s frown deepened a little at Slaine’s tone.

“Are you feeling ok?”, the brunette pushed.

“What are you getting at?”, Slaine snapped at him a bit more harshly than he meant to. He let waves take the fishbones from his hands, and they floated for a while before being snatched away by a small school of fish that had gathered around him, picking up any loose scrap that escaped Slaine. Inaho showed his palms in an uncharacteristic placating gesture that clearly didn’t come to him naturally but had been practiced instead.

“Nothing. Just making sure.”, he said, but his eyes remained sharp. Slaine didn’t believe him for a second, but he didn’t want to argue either; if Inaho didn’t want to outright say something, he wasn’t going to reveal it no matter how big a scene Slaine would cause.

“Bat good.”, Slaine sighed in Inaho’s language, a bit rusty but still better than before. The searching look in Inaho’s eyes didn’t go away, but at least he relaxed again. For a moment they bopped up and down on the waves in a comfortable silence, both lost in their own thoughts. Every now and again the boat bumped against the pier, sending a hollow sound reverberating through the bay. Its reflections brought back vivid still-shots of silence all the way from the rotten net and beyond.

“New people will be coming over starting tomorrow.”, Inaho said suddenly. Slaine felt his heart jump into his throat. “You won’t need to interact with them at all if you don’t want to.”, the brunette was quick to add when Slaine froze. “Their focus is going to be on me.”

“There are many people coming and going.”, Slaine whistled carefully. Dread was already pooling in his stomach. Having had a break from it, he really didn’t want to be a thing for humans to stare at anymore. He looked up at Inaho. Maybe he imagined the apology in his red eye, but having even that much was comforting, nonetheless.

Slaine sneaked barely a metre below the surface, but with the wind and waves it was plenty to hide his presence. The new people Inaho had told him about had arrived. They were pleasant enough; all easy smiles and bright eyes as they were shown around the faculties, the beach and the pier, but Slaine made sure to keep a watchful eye on them. He wasn’t too worried, there were only two of them as far as he knew. His humans had them outnumbered. Still, he kept himself hidden, only surfacing to breath under the pier or among the distant rocks.

It was obvious the two newcomers wanted to see him. Slaine was more familiar than he cared to be with the look they had in their eyes as they turned to the bay every now and then, hopeful of catching even a passing glimpse. Occasionally Kaoru and Inko tried to guide their gaze to the spots Slaine frequented. Inaho on the other hand kept his focus on his tablet as he briefed one of the two.

“As for the footage from the Centre,contact the university. All the tapes are sent there for research and archiving.”

“Oh, that’s cool. Is it open for anyone?”, a man with long hair tied back teared his eyes off the gray horizon and turned to Inaho.

“Most of the footage is on a publicsite.”, Inaho answered without lifting his eyes from his work. The man craned his neck to see what the brunette was doing. It wasn’t a hard thing to do for him, he was almost one full head taller than the brunette.

“How come all of it isn’t public?”

“To protect the employees.”

“So they’re hiding something?”

“No, you just need to ask the university to see the unpublishedtapes. They’re mostly medicalprocedures that might upset the generalpublic. Many of the Centre’s animals come in badly injured, after all.”

The man kept peeking at Inaho’s tablet in an oblivious way that started to irk Slaine. He stalked slowly closer to the pier and the humans, Inaho’s eyes flickering from his tablet to see him approach under the calmly lapping waves, almost invisible if one’s eyes weren’t used to finding him in the shadows. As Slaine got closer, Inaho opened his mouth.

“Don’t splash him.”

Slaine surfaced slowly with a sulk and a dirty look to the stranger. “…I wasn’t going to.”, he whistled. Inaho didn’t call him out on the obvious lie, but he did give Slaine a small smile.

“Orange good.”, Inaho whistled his reassurance to the surprise of Slaine, and more importantly, the man next to him.

What a show-off, Slaine smirked to himself. “If you say so.”, he answered with an unnecessarily long whistle of his own just to keep the stranger staring in disbelief as he dived quickly to hide under the pier again. He didn’t hear anything for a few seconds, but then the stranger positively exploded with childish glee.

“You can talk to the syreni!?”

“More or less.”, Inaho answered. Slaine could hear the self-satisfaction in his monotone. It might’ve been annoying if he didn’t share in it.

“How did you learn that?”

“There are hydrophones in all the pools. I made a simple program that recognises and groupspatterns in the recordings. Then it’s a matter of cross-referencing the found patterns against each other, the context of the vocalisation, and any additionalinformation in the CCTVfootage.”

“That’s…”, the man looked amazed for half a second before he cringed, ”…really creepy.”

“It has provenefficient, and though Bat was deemedintelligent and possibly conscious early on, at first he was thought to be comparable to a three-year-old child, at most.”, Inaho explained. The man shuddered.

“Honestly, that just makes it worse.”

Inaho raised his head, looking genuinely puzzled. “How so? It’s not like he knows-”

“Farðu í rassgat!”, Slaine piped in from almost directly below them, a tad too proud of his correct pronunciation to say the words with any resemblance of an appropriate tone. Inko burst into laughter and Kaoru buried her face in her hands.

Inaho looked from one reaction to the other. “What did he say?”

“…Go fuck yourself.” Kaoru cleared her throat to hide the twitching at the corners of her mouth. “Or if we’re being literal, ‘go into an asshole’.”

“I see.” Inaho looked back to Slaine through the pier’s boards. Slaine was unabashedly enjoying the now carefully blank look on the brunette’s face. “Not right now. Also, I don’t think my body would fit into any-“

“A- anyway!”, Kaoru almost shouted to cut Inaho off. Inko was rolling on the pier, and Slaine had no idea whether she was crying or laughing anymore. Inaho and the man, who was now twitching like he was holding in a really bad cough, turned their attention to Kaoru, who had nothing to follow up with. After a moment she gestured awkwardly for them to just continue their previous conversation, her ears bright red. Slaine grinned and dove again.

This was great. Now he definitely wanted to get Einar to teach him more.

Slaine wasn’t sure what to think about the newcomers yet but having them around proved to be less stressful than he had anticipated. Like Inaho had said, their focus was mostly on him, the lanky long-haired man showering him with questions while the other, a brisk plump woman fiddled with their equipment. They were friendly enough, but Slaine couldn’t bring himself to trust them. They were outsiders, and that made them inherently suspicious.

Some of Slaine’s misgivings of the outsider’s arrival were eased when they hopped on board the boat for Slaine’s feeding the next day. He observed them chatting with each other cheerfully and trying to pull Marito into their conversation as well, the man flustered with all the sudden attention. Something about the two was almost childish in the way they wondered about anything and everything shown to them, that Slaine couldn’t help lowering his defences for just a fraction. Even after the feeding, most of which Slaine spent following the boat deep enough to remain unseen, they didn’t press for more, only gathered their trinkets and reviewed their gathered information with notepads and voice memos before leaving for the night. Slaine broke the surface carefully to not disturb the water. It was confusing to see nice humans outside of his own pod. Maybe they were just biding their time and pretending. It was easier to believe that than to just accept them as nice people.

“Ready for dessert?”, Kaoru asked loudly, stirring Slaine from his thoughts. She held a large basket in her hands, and behind her Yagarai carried a puffy quilt wrapped around himself like a comically large scarf.

Kaoru grinned as she lifted the basket to her shoulder. “I figured it would be nice to make some memories.”

Inko cheered and Inaho pinched his nose in an almost childish way that Slaine couldn’t deny was quite adorable.

“Oh stop that, you’ll be sorry later if you don’t take the time now to take everything in while you still can.”, Kaoru laughed. She handed the basket to Inaho; it was almost heavy enough for the brunette to drop it. Yagarai followed behind her, his sunny disposition a stark contrast to the grey weather and cold sea breeze. He laid down one of the colourful, thick quilts that Slaine had seen around since Inaho’s cold and promptly claimed a corner of it for himself, helping to arrange the contents of the basket onto it while the rest took their spots. Slaine watched them work around the quilt, and when one of its corners almost fell into the water, he quickly caught it and lifted it back onto the pier. It was interesting to see what the humans were up to but knowing they generally didn’t like to get their things wet it was beyond Slaine why they had chosen to have their gathering on the pier.

“You can keep it, it’s your spot.”, Inko mumbled, her mouth already filled with what Slaine supposed was food. Or at least edible. A bit flustered, Slaine pulled the small corner of the quilt back down, almost close enough to touch the waves, and held onto it sheepishly.

“This is a picnic. It means we eat together outside like this.”, Kaoru gestured around her and slapped Inko’s hand away from the next dish. “Though usually it’s done in spring or summer.”, she added, grimacing a bit as she took in the icy weather. It was going to snow again later, Slaine could taste it in the air.

Inko looked around the assorted foods in various shapes and colours for her next victim, all weird to Slaine’s eyes as he peeked at them too. Her brows creased. “Wait a minute. Can we even give any of this to Bat?”

“Salad is safe. Pretty much everything else too should be okay.”, Inaho was quick to answer with a shrug, “Though I wouldn’t take a chance with the chocolate.”

“Ah, so we’re going by dog-logic again.”, Yagarai hummed. “Did you have Bat try samples or something to find it out?”

The corners of Inaho’s mouth pulled slightly in the way Slaine knew meant that the brunette thought Yagarai’s question was inane, if not outright stupid, but he answered it anyway. “I took samples of Bat’s stool as soon as he had his first bowelmovement on Sleipnir.”

“You’ve studied… his poop.”, Inko said, like it was supposed to start as a question but didn’t end up being one. “Who am I kidding, of course you have. You know, the documentary-people were just telling me you were kind of creepy earlier.”

“It’s helpful to measurestresshormones and nutrition in faecalmatter. Obviously, I also want to follow his diet.”, Inaho shrugged as he popped a red pebble into his mouth. Immediately interested, Slaine reached over to get one for himself. When he couldn’t quite reach the plate, Inaho lifted it closer. Slaine took one, nibbled at its corner and almost gagged at its sweetness. It had an interesting tart taste, but he found he liked the little leafy bit on top more than the fruit itself.

In contrast to Inaho’s nonchalance and Yagarai’s understanding nod, Inko dropped her head into her hands and held it as if it was in danger of imploding. “I get it. We do the same with our bottlenoses once a week. It’s the exact same thing.”

Kaoru sipped her drink with tight lips, decidedly not eating yet, but from the way she was breathing Slaine could tell she was holding in a laugh. He took another red fruit, ate the small leaves on top of it and dumped the rest of it onto Inaho’s plate.

“I have no reason to study your stool.”, Inaho reassured as he ate the fruit without question, missing the point completely if Inko’s groan and Kaoru’s snort were anything to go by.

“Well.”, Yagarai said with a reassuring smile, “I’ve seen all of your stool before, so there’s nothing to worry about.”

“That really isn’t as helpful as you think it is.”, Kaoru sighed.

Yagarai leaned back to face Marito, who was quietly walking on the pier towards their picnic. “I’ve seen your stool too!”, he exclaimed to the man. Marito stopped, stood still eyeing the group for a few seconds before he turned around on his heels and walked back the way he had come from.

“Aw, come on Koichiro!”, Yagarai whined after Marito with a wide grin before he turned back to the group. “I think he prefers Kristján these days.”, he whispered like he was sharing a secret.

“Honestly, if that’s how smooth you are, so would I.”, Kaoru huffed seriously, but her façade was broken into giggles when the healer elbowed her side lightly.

The pier was high with the ebb tide but bopping up and down on the waves Slaine got a good idea of everything that was laid out onto the quilt. There were many small plates with assortments of weird things he couldn’t make heads or tails out of, but ever curious, Slaine reached gingerly for each new thing offered, growing bolder every time no one stopped or reprimanded him. Most of the foods ended up floating around him with him having barely nibbled at them, but others he found he liked. The sweeter fruits grew on him slowly, as did anything with any sort of meat. The crunchy fresh greens he liked as well, but with more filling and energy-rich food right under his nose, they were easy to ignore. When Slaine reached eagerly for another slice of ham, Inko yelped and pulled her hand away quickly as if burned.

“What’s wrong?”, Yagarai asked. Everyone’s attention focused onto Inko, with her hand held to her chest and empty chuckles trying to cover for her embarrassment.

“Just. Kinda came at me- I mean, uh, startled me… I guess.”, she stuttered, massaging her hand. Yagarai took it and turned it over in his hands, massaging her palm and checking that everything really was alright. Slaine could swear he didn’t touch her, and sure enough, Inko’s hand was spotless. Still, he sighed a breath of relief at the confirmation.

“Come on!”, Inko pulled her hand back with a wide, wobbly smile, “Just a little scare, that’s all. I’m sorry, I’m just a bit jumpy.”

There was a short moment of silence, broken only by the rising wind. Kaoru offered her hand to Slaine. Puzzled, he took it. She squeezed his hand affectionately before lifting it a bit higher for Inko to see.

“See?”, Kaoru waved their joined hands lightly back and forth. Inko looked still tense. “He can get snarky, but mostly only with Kaizuka. With us, he’s gentle. Bat won’t hurt you.”

Slaine pulled his hand free and Kaoru let him. Instead, he reached for Inaho’s hand, pulled it into his own and played a little with the human’s fingers.

“Inaho doesn’t like touching.”, Inko blurted out. Slaine raised his head and met her eyes for a confused second. Everything from her concerned eyes and expression to the alarmed way she was bent towards their joined hands spoke of sincerity. Slaine whipped his attention to Inaho, but the brunette was already watching him, his mouth a thin line but eyes soft.

“Like I’ve said: I don’t mind.”, Inaho said to the both of them.

Slaine tried to dissect the look in his eyes but couldn’t decide what it meant. Inaho had never had a problem with touching before. Sure, he wasn’t as touchy-feely as some other humans Slaine had seen, and definitely not as eager as merfolk were, but he had never been avoidant, either. In fact, more often than not it was Inaho who reached out to him first, not the other way around. Then again, Inko had stepped in between them more than once, even taking Slaine’s hand right out of Inaho’s once, in the rumbling cave. Was it jealousy? Slaine looked at the girl, her eyes flickering in between Inaho’s face and hands. That might have been a part of it. But it wasn’t all. She was genuinely concerned, even if she was a bit busybody about it. Her fear wasn’t directed to what Slaine might do to Inaho. It was instead about how Inaho might react, her anticipating Inaho’s discomfort and trying to save him from experiencing it.

Feeling a bit guilty for not realising it before, Slaine pulled his hand free. Or he would have, if Inaho had let it go; instead, the human gripped it tighter.

“I don’t mind.”, he repeated firmly. “Give me the eggs. They’re white and round, on the blue plate.”

Dutifully, Slaine reached for the plate too far for Inaho to reach, the brunette’s grip on his hand still tight, unwilling to let go. “One? Two?”, Slaine asked, his pronunciation a bit better than before.

“One is enough.”

Instead of taking the whole plate and risk breaking it, Slaine reached for one of the eggs, surprised by its firm but squishy texture, almost like fresh flesh. He gave it an experimental squeeze, only to have the egg impaled and partially mushed on his claws.

“I didn’t mean to- I-“, he started to babble in chirps and whistles, unsure of what to do with the mess in his hand, but Inaho cut him off, before he could even start contemplating how he had ruined everything. There were pieces of egg falling into every other food in his hand’s proximity.

“It’s okay, just give me another one.”

Face burning, Slaine reached for another egg, careful to not destroy it this time.

“You two get along so well.”, Inko said almost wistfully. “You’ve become so close.”

Inaho waved his hand in the air dismissively and said: “Reciprocalaltruism.”, like it summed up everything. Slaine looked around when no one rebutted, licking the egg off his claws. It was quite good, though he liked the yellow part more than the white goo that surrounded it. Usually, Inko and Kaoru were quick with their counterarguments and watching the human’s banter was almost as fun as Slaine had bantering with Inaho himself. But now Kaoru’s expression was unreadable and Inko’s slightly crumbled.

“Why would you say that?”, Inko breathed out. At the sound of her hurt voice, Inaho lifted his eyes to meet hers, clearly as confused as Slaine was, despite understanding every word unlike the merman.

“…It’s just tit for tat.”, Inaho specified when he didn’t know what else to say, “A reaction to positivereinforcement with the expectance of furthercooperation.”

“Are we that too?”, Kaoru asked with a small smile, like she was coaxing Inaho towards the right answer. This couldn’t be the first time they were having this conversation, Slaine realised. Inaho turned to her, his brows knitted together.

“You’re my friends.”, he said slowly, “Though friendship does often work on the same principles as-“

Inko let out a deep sigh, and Inaho snapped his mouth shut mid-sentence.

“Back when we were in elementaryschool…”, Inko said quietly, “…did you think like that already?”

Inaho’s frown only deepened, and Slaine watched him carefully, trying to read what was going on inside his head. He seemed conflicted, and the others sad.

“You didn’t.”, Inko answered for him like it was clear as day. “Then why do you always insist on trivializing bonds now?”, she raised her voice, “You’re our friend! We like you! Bat likes you!”

“But that’s-“

“It isn’t any different.”, Kaoru cut Inaho gently off before he could finish. “And if anyone else was saying to you what you’re saying to us now, you would be telling them off. You’re being unfair not only to Bat but also yourself.”

Inaho had nothing to say in rebuttal. His fingers in Slaine’s hand were twitching, itching to pull at his sleeves again. Slaine squeezed his hand in answer.

“How come you always forget to speak up when it’s important?”, Inko huffed at Inaho and turned to Slaine. “Just so you know, he’s on my watch, so you can complain to me whenever he’s being an idiot and I’ll kick his sorry butt.”

Slaine didn’t exactly understand what Inko meant, but he smiled at the girl anyway, her sentiment so clear in her determined voice it almost choked his heart. Inaho on the other hand looked at Inko with narrowed eyes. Inko caught his look with a smile that quickly turned sheepish. She mouthed “Nao-watch”, and Inaho sighed in defeat. There was something shared in that look between them, a joke of sorts that Slaine didn’t get and Inaho didn’t care for.

The rest of the picnic went on calmly, but Slaine couldn’t shake off the heavy feeling the argument between the humans had left behind. Inaho seemed to be feeling the same, as he spent even more of his time than usual inside his own head. Kaoru and Inko let him be like it was normal for Inaho to sometimes withdraw like that, but for Slaine it was almost disturbing to suddenly see the brunette so passive.

Slaine kicked with his tail to reach higher and pulled himself to rest his arms and head on the pier. He understood why Inaho had liked the quilts immediately; they were soft and warm. With a sigh he leaned into the fabric, took another red fruit, ate the small leaves on top of it and all but force fed the rest to Inaho. Once he finally got the brunette to eat the damn thing, he pulled Inaho’s hand into his own, and if the smile he could see spread onto Inaho’s face from the corner of his eyes made his heart skip a beat, he would never admit it.

Inaho stayed behind after the picnic had been cleared out, his lags hanging over the edge of the pier, shoes almost touching water but not quite. Slaine felt a little awkward, though the rest of their time together had been spent in comfortable silence, everyone had made it a point to not disturb the evening’s mood further. Inko had apologised to him, but she didn’t need to. Slaine couldn’t blame her for being cautious.

“Give me your tail for a minute.”, Inaho said out of nowhere. Slaine bristled at the idea.

Inaho sighed when he saw Slaine’s expression. “I promise it’s the last time.”

Slaine frowned, his discomfort quickly replaced by confusion. Last time? Inaho pulled a band out of his jacket pocket and reached forward to let Slaine see it better. It was thin and black, about two fingers wide and had a small box stuck to it.

“…I want you to wear this.”

Slaine narrowed his eyes at the brunette. “What is it? Why tail?”, he asked, unimpressed. He knew humans liked to decorate themselves, but the band Inaho was offering him didn’t look like it was for decoration. Inaho wasn’t the type who gave gifts in the first place. Not that he took them either, Slaine thought bitterly back to the cord he had weaved for the human what felt like a lifetime ago. To Slaine’s surprise Inaho looked suddenly uncomfortable, as if he was trying to search for the right words. That was unusual.

“Because tail is more… decent than the other option.”

“Decent?”

“I want you to wear it.”, Inaho said seriously. “For my peace of mind.”

Now it was Slaine’s turn to sigh. He didn’t understand what the actual reason was, but he turned around and offered his tail to the brunette anyway. Inaho had a reason for most things he did, Slaine knew that much. Inaho didn’t waste time in tying the band just above his flukes.

“So, why the sudden need for a peace of mind?”, Slaine probed carefully, turning just in time to see the plain band click in place. Thankfully it was sleek and wouldn’t bother him too much, though he already hated feeling something stuck against his skin.

“A hunch.”, the brunette supplied with a troubled look. Slaine tilted his head at the new word. “A feeling.”, Inaho elaborated.

“A feeling, huh?”, Slaine mumbled. Unlikely story. There had to be more than just a feeling for Inaho to act on it. Inaho met his eyes with a blank expression.

“I do have feelings.”

“I never said you didn’t.”, Slaine whistled. “But you don’t act based on them.”

“Polar opposite from you, then.”, Inaho jabbed and Slaine barely held his tongue, if only to not prove him right. Inaho let out a small chuckle before his eyes turned thoughtful for a moment. “I do act on my feelings sometimes.”

Slaine hummed at the unexpected admission. Must be some feelings then.

“Well, thank you.”, Slaine said awkwardly, not really knowing what else to say. He reached to touch the band. It felt weird to have something around his tail.

“Hold onto it for now, but don’t worry if you lose it.”

Slaine lifted his eyes pointedly to meet Inaho’s. “You think I will lose it?”

Inaho cocked his brow in a challenge. “I know you will. Within the month.”

“You sound awfully sure.”

“That’s because I am.”

“I’ll take it as a challenge, then.” Slaine smirked despite himself. He quite liked these small moments he shared with the human. Never mind Inaho’s blatant manipulation; they both knew what the other was doing and played along with it. Inaho smiled too, but his expression crumbled a little. Slaine tilted his head in question. The human took another moment to contemplate something before opening his mouth.

“There’s one thing I can’t seem to get to the bottom of. I have tried to disregard it and realise now I have been wrong to do so. Wrong as a scholar, and wrong as a person.”, Inaho said quietly, like he was afraid he was going to spook Slaine off.

“The contradiction I keep running into.”, Inaho said, his eyes sharp on the merman. “Of how hard you try to act like you belong to the high seas, when everything-”, his voice dropped just a hint, “-and I mean everything- else tells me otherwise. And what it all means.”

Slaine blinked, and then he blinked again. Inaho’s words found their meanings a bit slower than they usually did as he tried to make sense of them. They did make sense, though, as much as Slaine wanted to leave that particular can of worms unopened.

“You’re well adapted for adapting.”, Inaho said, like he was giving a begrudging compliment. “But even with that, it becomes clear very soon that you are indeed always just adapting.”

“That makes no sense.”, Slaine breathed out, defaulting to a flat-out denial as he finally started to grasp at what Inaho was telling him. Inaho let out a small huff, a mere recognition for the fact that Slaine was processing his words before he continued.

“Biology is all about organismsoptimizing their functions. That’s it. But that’s not you. You’ve adapted to survive in it, but I don’t think syreni’s ecologicalniche is in the pelagiczone.”

Inaho was using difficult words again, words that Slaine couldn’t hope to understand yet. But they didn’t deter from the growing understanding of his own mismatched feelings and experiences. Inaho watched him think it over for a while before he directed his gaze out to the sea again, his previous intensity seeping out of his form with each exhale as he almost pointedly took the evening in and relaxed. It was all a show, but Slaine could appreciate his consideration, nonetheless.

Even as a calf Slaine had known he would never find another pod like the one he had used to have. He had hoped beyond hope, but he had known it all along; there would never be selfless love again. He had belonged to the fringes of Crutheo’s pod, as someone tolerated but never embraced.

And still Slaine had always stayed.

Just like Klancain had always stayed, afraid he would be rejected from any new pod he tried to approach in search of a mate.

Slaine could at least appreciate the irony in that. It wasn’t like the attitudes in Crutheo’s pod were unusually intolerant; if anything, they were exceptionally open-minded for even taking Slaine in, when most others wouldn’t have hesitated to finish what the orcas had started. Still, for all the ostracizing Slaine had endured while an outsider, everyone else was afraid of facing it too.

The mistrust that seeped into most aspects of merfolk life appeared ugly and twisted now that Slaine could observe it from distance. It made him wonder of things that could’ve been, but also things that had always been. And for one, it became clear that the merfolk couldn’t have always been like they were now, afraid and avoidant. Bubbling from somewhere deep within, curiosity was something Slaine knew came naturally to himself and his kind. He had also seen it stomped out of every calf he’d ever met.

Slaine had always been adept at recognising patterns, and this one was so painfully obvious he almost felt bad for not putting it together sooner. It had made itself obvious in the way he had an instinctual need to blend into the rocks in shallow water, or how when given the opportunity he found satisfaction in arranging his surroundings, be it trinkets dropped into a tank or rocks at the bottom of a pool. Not to mention that the materials for the tools his people made and needed would sometimes take weeks of scavenging to find in the open ocean, when in a bay like this he could have them on hand anytime he needed.

A hundred years, Inaho had said. It might even be a long enough time to forget the reason for one’s exile.

Slaine wondered if instead of wandering the deep seas from pole to pole, his great grandparents had once nested with their pod in a bay like this, with the depths of the sea just beyond the mouth of their bay for hunting and playing. Slaine felt around his own bay with sonars that returned back showing only safety and calm. He thought of what terror had happened along the coastlines of the world’s oceans for the fear of strangers to still be passed on to every new calf, for the fear of the surface and mistrust of land to still dictate their lives even when there was no one left to remember the reason for any of it anymore.

He didn’t know how Inaho could be so subdued, when the revelation Slaine was having was so blinding. Instead, Inaho stayed sitting on the pier, looking with absent eyes to the horizon that was painted in hues of soft blue and orange as the sun dipped beyond the distant waves and the grey clouds passed. Somehow the scene choked Slaine’s heart. The human had no idea, and for all their progress in communication Slaine didn’t know if he could ever find the words to describe the painful mixture of feelings he was having as the scattered pieces finally fell into their places. The rightness of the bay, the longing for the deeps and the jumble of hurt, belonging and fun that circled Inaho all condensed together into simple gratitude that swelled in Slaine’s heart.

His feelings, the wonderful or the terrible, even the confusing and out of place -ones weren’t wrong. They had never been wrong.

He hadn’t been wrong to stay near the surface and listen to the storm.

Without conscious thought, Slaine swam to Inaho. The pier was higher than the pool’s edge had been, but it posed no difficulty to the blond to kick with his tail and rise his torso high enough. He climbed the distance carefully and Inaho looked down to him without a word. The human’s body was stiff to touch.

Slaine rested his chest against Inaho’s legs and wrapped his arms around his waist, pushing his face flush against Inaho’s stomach, the fabric of his jacket crinkling loudly in his ears. He clung so close to the brunette he could hear his slightly elevated heartbeat, track the rushing blood in his veins and feel the measured way Inaho breathed. Ugly memories skittered somewhere along the edges of Slaine’s mind. He pushed them away by nuzzling himself further against the human. Inaho’s heartbeat spiked.

“I won’t pull you in.”, Slaine whistled quietly, choking on the words a little, ashamed to know that Inaho would still be wary of that, and with good reason and proof.

“…Hello good?”, Inaho whistled. He clearly didn’t know what to do with his hands. It wasn’t often Slaine had seen Inaho fumble; the brunette always had a way to be on top of everything.

“No hello.”, Slaine mumbled against his clothes. “Slaine.”

“No Hello?”

Slaine inhaled deeply. It felt nice to be so close. “I, mee“, he stumbled in human language. “Slaine.”, he whistled.

“Slaine.”, Inaho repeated, still a bit unsure what the blond was trying to say, and Slaine tightened his embrace before freeing his other hand and turning his face to look up to Inaho. The human was still holding his hands in the air, looking down to Slaine with a perplexed look in his eyes. Slaine chuckled freely. He waved his hand like the humans did in their greetings and whistled “Hello.”

“Hello?”, Inaho repeated, slightly waving both his raised hands. His gears were finally clicking into the right places and Slaine didn’t have to wait longer than two seconds for the sparkle of well-hidden humour in Inaho’s eyes as the human scanned through all their past interactions in his mind. Slaine hid his own laughter against Inaho’s stomach again and reached his arm back around his waist, settling comfortably onto his lap. Inaho stayed still for a second longer before gingerly resting his hands on Slaine. The weight was comforting.

“So I called you fish when we first met.”, Inaho reflected.

“I caught warm.”, Slaine said in Inaho’s language and felt the human let out an amused breath of air.

“Slaine.”, Inaho tried to whistle. He sounded like a calf mimicking a difficult word. “Why ‘hello’?”

“They thi- thought, I hello.”, Slaine reminisced, pushing himself to use Inaho’s language and trying his best to pronounce the words right, “That my name is hello.” He wondered briefly what had become of the spinner dolphins. They were somewhere out there, probably busy playing. Inaho hummed in acknowledgement. Slaine lifted his head a little to see his face. He was curious of how the humans had known to call him by the same name as the spinners, but Inaho seemed content to just look at the sea silently and Slaine didn’t want to disturb that.

“Slaine.”, Inaho repeated again with a smile in his voice, getting more familiar with the whistle. His fingers combed through the blond’s hair. Calm waves lapped against Slaine’s tail and a content sigh escaped his lips. This sunset of blue and orange was even better than the vast expanse of the deeps.

“Thank you.”, Slaine sighed, the human words slipping past his lips with ease. The fingers in his hair stopped for a second before continuing.

Slaine laid on the seafloor of dark pebbles and watched as a flounder buried itself into a sandy spot only to get up and bury itself again. Somehow it just couldn’t settle, never quite satisfied enough with its hiding spot. Slaine rest his head on his hands and let the flood current of the tide slowly mess with his hair. Though he stayed still, he couldn’t say he was any more settled than the flounder was. His attention kept wandering above the surface, to the pier and the people on it; Jón was brushing the deck, and Marito was climbing into the boat and talking in hushed tones with Yagarai. The rest of the crew would show up any minute now, and as soon as the boat was ready, they would spend a good hour circling around the bay again, giving Slaine his dinner piece by piece.

Light steps of someone running on the pier vibrated around the bay. It was Inko, Slaine recognised easily. Behind her, quiet steps despite their brisk rhythm; Kaoru. Slaine waited for a few moments longer for the even and measured pace that stepped onto the pier next, almost drowned out by the others. Slaine blew some idle bubbles. In just few minutes Inaho was going to whistle for him to come. He watched the flounder bury itself again, finally satisfied with its spot. With no rush, Slaine moved carefully to leave for the surface. It would be a shame to startle the skittish fish when it had finally settled.

Slaine breached to a familiar scene; Inko explaining something to Inaho, who seemed to only half listen, Kaoru and Yagarai chatting with Marito as he got the boat ready, and one of their hosts, Jón, doing maintenance in the background. Slaine slid carefully closer to the pier, until he could hang onto its edge awkwardly as waves bopped him up and down against it. In its own way it was domestic and comfortable.

Soon the moment broke, however. Inko’s nervous chatter died on her lips as her eyes fell onto Slaine. She glanced back at Inaho, who shrugged slightly towards the merman. Breathing heavily, she took one step after another until she stood right in front of Slaine, closer than she had ever before, almost close enough to reach out and touch. Inko wrung her hands together and moved her weight back and forth from one leg to the other. Slaine started to back away to give the girl more space, but surprisingly she stepped one more step forward the moment he started to retreat.

“Um!”, she exclaimed as she dropped down to her knees, hands trembling slightly. Inaho raised his eyebrows at her but didn’t comment. Slaine’s eyes flew between the two. The brunette knew more than he was letting on but didn’t appear to see any need to interevent.

“I- I don’t hate you or anything!”, Inko said a bit louder than necessary, “It’s just, it was scary and I’d never thought-“ She swallowed and tried again. “I can’t even watch scary movies and there was blood all over and, and if Kaoru hadn’t been there, I don’t know if you both would’ve… But Inaho said you had been the one who’d- and… and if something happened again…if you…”, she trailed off, unable to put it into words.

“Anyway!”, Inko lifted her head suddenly and reached her hand toward Slaine, palm open. Slaine flickered his eyes to Inaho, but the brunette wasn’t paying attention to them anymore. He turned to look at Inko’s determined face carefully. She was anxious but fighting to hide it.

“Inko okay?”, he asked, lifting his own hand. Inko’s smile was blindingly bright. “Yeah!”, she said, her honesty dispelling Slaine’s fears. Slaine returned her smile gingerly and took her hand in his own, moved it up and down for a few times like he’d seen done when humans offered their hands to one another. A shiver ran through Inko’s arm.

“Your hands are so cold!”, she exclaimed, scrunching her face slightly. Slaine let go of her, horrified that he had pressed too hard, but she didn’t let his hand fall and grabbed his fingers instead. “Of course they are!”, she laughed and squeezed his fingers a bit before letting his hand go.

Slaine stared after her. The whole conversation had been weird, and it only turned weirder when Kaoru crouched down where Inko had been and offered her own hand. Slaine took the hand, but frowned up at Inaho, silently demanding answers. Conveniently for the brunette, Inaho was decidedly facing the other way and not paying Slaine any mind. Kaoru giggled under her breath and squeezed his hand. When Slaine focused on her again, he could already see Yagarai lining up after her. Slaine shot Inaho another glare, a bit more murderous this time.

“You’ll figure it out in a minute.”, Kaoru said warmly, reached to pat him once on top of his head before he could stop her, and got up with a wide smile on her lips.

“…What is this?”, Slaine finally gave and whistled, then took Yagarai’s hand as the healer leaned down as well. The two newcomers appeared on the pier as well, and Slaine glared at them. He gave Yagarai a polite smile before decidedly pulling his hand free and eyeing the two approaching men suspiciously.

“I’m not holding their hands.”, he murmured, earning a small huff from Inaho.

Slaine sank a little but refused to flee from his spot when the two finally reached Inaho. Instead, he focused on glaring at them as they tried and failed to hide their excitement when their eyes landed onto him every time they tried to look away.

“You might want to check the boat beforehand. We’ll be leaving right away.”, Inaho said to the two, thankfully catching their attention.

“Ah, that’s actually a great idea!”, the tall man gushed to the woman, “Do you have the chargers? We need to find a good spot for them.”

They rummaged through their bags for a bit before nodding to Inaho with wide smiles and climbing onto the boat. Slaine craned his neck to see them disappear into the vessel, feeling more at ease with the strangers gone. He heard them start chatting cheerfully with Marito again, who this time offered only one syllable answers in return.

“Slaine.”, Inaho whistled suddenly to gain his attention, and Slaine turned to face the crouching brunette.

Inaho pressed a soft kiss onto his forehead. Slaine watched with wide eyes as the brunette pulled back after a couple seconds. With a distant look in his eye Inaho reached his hand to carefully comb the blond hair framing his face behind his ears and let his hand linger and cup Slaine’s face for a moment, its touch hot against Slaine’s cold skin. They stared at each other for a few seconds that felt way longer than that, Slaine’s brain having ceased its normal functions completely. He was just about to open his mouth to say something, anything, but Inaho was faster.

“Salty.”, the brunette commented as he licked his lips, let his hand drop and stood up. “Let’s go. Remember to watch out for the propeller.”

Slaine watched in stunned silence as Inaho walked away and hopped on board the boat only to disappear into it without another word or even a glance back. After a few moments the engine rumbled alive, and distracted as he was, Slaine moved automatically to follow it, the sounds of the boat only a distant buzz to his mind.

Kisses weren’t a foreign concept to him. He might have not remembered his mother’s face, but he remembered the small blows of air that sent bubbles tickling across his face. He’d heard some adults even shared their air, though with so few couples left and hardly any new ones forming it was rare to see romantic gestures. Slaine’s first instinct was to assume it was a cruel joke, but that line of thought was halted quickly.

Inaho could be cruel, and he also occasionally tried to joke, but downright intentional cruelty was something Slaine couldn’t bring himself to suspect the human of.

As Slaine followed in the boat’s slipstream as per usual, easily gliding through the waves just below surface but never quite breaching, he was only distantly aware that they weren’t even in the bay anymore, nor had he been given any of the food he would’ve usually received. He had noted it to himself when they had crossed the net and kept his sonars tight around him to make sure nothing could surprise him, but his thoughts were elsewhere.

Inaho always had a reason for his actions, yet even as Slaine learned to read him better, the human’s motives remained a mystery to him. Their relationship was as backwards as their introductions had been; they had become pod, then friends, and eventually learned to communicate. There was bitterness and regret in there too, but it didn’t sour the trust they had built. They had both made decisions with limited information and later regretted them. If there was one common thread between them, it was that they had both fucked up.

And somehow that was the most comforting thought of them all.

Slaine’s tail tingled. The feeling was familiar and exhilarating; this was no boat ride around the bay. With each stroke his heart felt a bit calmer and his head a bit clearer again. The humans were driving their boat faster than Slaine had ever thought it could go, and the speed gave space for him to fall into a well-paced rhythm instead of slowing down for the sake of the limits of his environment. Slaine crossed back and forth across the slipstream of the boat, excited to just feel his muscles burning. He had felt like a lost seal pup before, following Inaho around wherever he could. But out in the open ocean he was no seal pup; this was his world, he could do anything, go anywhere, and none of them could stop him.

As Slaine let himself loosen up, he started to drift little by little further and further away from the boat as his sonars picked up new information and his curiosity grew; there was a school of fish in one direction, a piece of driftwood bopping up and down the waves in another, a plastic bag that looked just like a jellyfish, sounds of travellers moving miles away, their own sonars poking at Slaine with curiosity. Something bloomed in his chest, childish and easy and a little sentimental. Slaine drank it all greedily in, breaching every now and then just to feel the waves before his dives one after another grew deeper and deeper and the familiar darkness that he hadn’t felt in ages enveloped him again.

Slaine let himself float suspended in it, pressure tight around his body like a welcoming hug. The fear he had expected wasn’t there, nor was the complete loss of direction or purpose that he had feared whenever his thoughts had wondered outside the sheltered bay. In their place was elated nostalgia, bitter but comforting, and the more tangible realisation of how out of shape he was. The world opened up to every direction around Slaine without boundaries, his sonars crisp and without any confusing reflections. The water was blissfully cool and fresh, a deep-sea current lifting up tiny particles all around him.

For his kind it might’ve started as an exile a hundred years ago, but for Slaine the deeps had always been home.

Somewhere high above him the boat picked up speed suddenly and rapidly. Slaine followed the path it carved with his sonars almost as if he was dazed, not making a single move to do anything about the humans leaving. They could leave the range of his sonars none the wiser, and Slaine could melt into the darkness like he had never left it. He liked this distance; it too was familiar. Nothing could reach him in the deeps. Enveloped in the grand darkness a boat bopping on the surface far above was but a speck, no more significant to the ocean than a single krill.

Salty.

Slaine didn’t know what it meant, but he was certain it wasn’t as witty as Inaho might’ve thought it was. The spot on his forehead burned, and he lifted his hand to rub it, only to touch his hair instead. Inaho had combed it behind his ears. Slaine hid his face into his hands, cheeks hot and tail twitching.

The damn human hadn’t even given him a chance to react. Slaine latched onto the annoying thought and the outrage it arose; it was far more tolerable than thinking about how he would’ve reacted given the chance. He had seen plenty of people kissing across the transparent wall, and though the action appeared to differ in some minor details from the merfolk’s blows of air, Slaine was certain the meaning behind was the same.

Affirmation of attachment. A show of affection. Love, even.

There was no way in hell Slaine was going to let Inaho just ride his stupid boat into the sunset and get away with it, probably grinning in self-satisfaction like the intolerable asshole he was.

Stretching his sonars around the vast emptiness, Slaine darted into the darkness, diving deeper into the twilight, content to keep tracking the boat in the distance far above. It was easy to fall into the old rhythm of listening as far out as possible, silently reaching for the unreachable seabed in hopes of feeling glimpses of it. Slaine dived a little deeper, as deep as he dared, the tight hug of the pressure holding him closer, squeezing him with the weight above. He couldn’t remain like that for long, he remembered the stories of blood boiling and eyes exploding that had kept curious calves in check. It felt very real now, like descending another metre could crinkle him in like an empty can.

Slaine held onto the crushing pressure for another moment longer before he let himself slowly ascend higher again, feeling weightless like a flying seagull when the depths relaxed their hold of him.

He felt a little bit more like himself again as he climbed slowly higher and higher. Another shard had fallen back into its place, fractured but still there. It was a startling thing to realise; he might have shattered, but all the pieces were still there, just waiting to be picked up again.

Inko ran up the pier to meet up with Inaho, and Slaine surfaced to see what had her in such a rush. Kaoru, who had been walking behind her with Yagarai spotted the blond first. She stopped in her tracks with her mouth hanging slightly open. Inko took Inaho’s hands. Her eyes were teary and just as she was about to say something to the brunette, she saw Slaine too, and the words died in her mouth. Inaho freed his hands from hers and took a step back, running them through his hair once before letting his arms fall to his sides. Slaine frowned. He wasn’t sure he had ever seen Inaho show so obvious signs of frustration. Marito cut the engine behind them, and Slaine had no idea why everyone was suddenly staring at him so seriously. His eyes travelled from one human to the next, but he didn’t know what had them acting so weird. Yagarai snorted into his hand and Kaoru slapped his arm, but that only made the man burst out laughing.

“As you can see…”, Inaho addressed everyone, “We have a problem.”

Chapter Text

It was only a few hours later, when they set off out of the bay again. This time Slaine’s focus wasn’t on his surroundings, but firmly on the people onboard the boat. Their behaviour grew only weirder as their distance from the coast grew. It was almost like the humans were slowly panicking, pacing around and peeking at Slaine over the railings. Inaho wasn’t there with the others; he was somewhere inside, talking with Marito in words that got lost under the sounds of the engine and waves.

As if on cue, the boat accelerated, pushing its absolute limits, and Slaine moved to match its speed. When he glanced above to see faces disturbed by waves and ripples, his heart sunk.

They looked disappointed.

They looked heartbroken.

“Let’s look at the positives; our boat being too slow means that most other boats are too.”

“Speed isn’t everything. He needs to breathe and rest, engines don’t. We managed to corner him with Sleipnir. It can happen again as long as there are corners to drive him into.”

“What, you really think they’re going to do that?”, Inko exclaimed, worry painted all over her features.

“If they won’t, someone else will.”, Inaho sighed. “He will be relatively easy to track this close to the coast, and when he gets far enough out, it’s international waters.”

“We’re on wrong side of the planet.”, Kaoru huffed, “In the middle of the busiest sea. There have been no syreni’s in the Atlantic since the 19^th century for a reason”, she said with frustration seeping into each word.

“And none in the Pacific since the very early 20^th.”, Inaho said impassively, “And there Bat was anyway.” The subtle sharp edge in his voice had Kaoru twist the corners of her mouth in a frown and lifted Inko to sit up a bit straighter, her worry eased for just a fraction. “It’s best to put preconceptions to rest. For all we know, there could be perfectly healthy populations in all the oceans. More than eighty percent of them are unmapped,unobserved and unexplored.”

“If you have something to tell me, you can just say it.”, Slaine whistled from where he floated. All the heads turned to him, but Slaine didn’t pay attention to their expressions, opting to instead keep his eyes on the grey sky. He didn’t like this. He didn’t like it when they talked like he couldn’t hear them, especially when they so clearly were talking about him.

“There’s nothing to tell.”, Inaho answered evenly.

“Liar.”, Slaine breathed out.

“We-, we hoped it would happen organically.”, Kaoru was quick to try to patch the brewing conflict.

“Organically?”

“Naturally.”, Inaho supplied, “Without being planned or forced.”

“Well, nothing’s ever going to happen ‘organically’ with you.”, Slaine whistled and waited for Inaho to interpret his snide message to the others. Only he didn’t. The brunette stood still like Slaine had just slapped him.

It was too mean, Slaine knew it right away. But he was frustrated. The humans wanted to end their adventure with a convenient, pretty bow on top and call it done. Everyone knew it, but no one was willing to say it out loud.

They had meant to leave Slaine. Or maybe they had wished for him to leave on his own when given the chance and some encouragement. In every other way than in words, they were showing Slaine the mouth of the bay and telling for him to swim his sorry ass out of it. And Slaine hated it.

Maybe it was an attempt at reconciliation, maybe something else entirely. Slaine didn’t care. When Inaho walked out into the dim morning light wearing a black and blue water skin, carrying fake flippers in his hands Slaine felt like he could spend the rest of the day doing somersaults around the bay. He followed Inaho like a shadow as the human moved on the pier, collecting his equipment. Finally, Inaho put on his backpack, pulled the tight hood of his water skin over his head and covered his eyes with wide goggles.

“Is it safe to drop down here?”, Inaho asked casually as he made his last checks.

Slaine hummed enthusiastically. Inaho gave him one more look to confirm they were on the same page before he held onto his mouthpiece, took a step forward off the pier and crashed into the sea fake flippers first. His heartrate boomed through the water clearer than it ever did through air and Slaine shot his sonars to check on the brunette right away. The water was probably cold on Inaho’s face and hands, and even though Slaine couldn’t see him through all the white foam and bubbles just yet, he could feel the way his nose scrunched at the sensation. Beyond that, startlingly, Slaine could finally reach his sonars beyond the goggles and the eyepatch. Inaho’s left eye socket was empty.

Inaho inhaled, the sound artificial and disturbing, and all Slaine wanted to do for a brief second was rip the equipment off of him. He knew better, though, and even though he had hated the gasping sounds since the first time he had heard them in the pool, he knew that was what allowed humans to dive for longer. Slaine reached forwards, grabbed Inaho’s hand and pulled him out of the foam. There was much to do, much to show, and much to discover.

“You can come in from anywhere on the pier, the water is deep and there are no big rocks near.”, Slaine whistled. Inaho’s head moved around slowly, his hair a brown soft cloud as he looked back and hummed. Slaine loved it immediately; he hadn’t had someone else’s voice reverberating through his skin so closely since Sod was taken away. He was drawn closer by the sensation, and as Inaho started to slowly move around, distracted by random rocks and passing fish, Slaine clung close to him, peeked over his shoulder when he picked up smooth black pebbles and swam around Inaho as the human slowly explored. Even if it was just the two of them, swarming soothed something inside Slaine that he couldn’t quite reach otherwise.

When Inaho’s slow pace started to stress Slaine, he took the human’s hand again and started pulling him along. He took Inaho to every nook and cranny of the bay. Slaine showed Inaho the two large boulders between which he had hidden the first night, the rocky slope on which most of the bay’s algae grew, and the rotting net at the mouth of the bay. When their tour was over, he pulled Inaho along to chase a small school of fish that eventually escaped out of the mouth of the bay. Slaine brought Inaho back closer to the pier and held his hands when the brunette inhaled deeper than his usual, almost mechanical rhythm.

“Was that all?”

Inaho’s question was distorted and echoed unnaturally around Slaine as the brunette pushed it through his mouthpiece in between raspy inhales and bursts of bubbly exhales. Slaine tightened his hold on the human’s hands and stared back at his red eye, the only eye Inaho had left. Inaho’s gesture of coming into water had been one of reconciliation, but it had also been a carefully laid trap, insidious in its kind-heartedness. There was no malice, only one, gentle question, and that was exactly why it hurt so much.

There was so much more Slaine wanted to share with Inaho and compared to it all the bay was infinitesimal.

The bay wasn’t nearly as interesting as the storming seas surrounding the Antarctic, or the receding ice sheets of the Arctic spring, revealing new secrets every day. It didn’t have the colours and shadows of large kelp forests, nor the vast, unhindered blues of open ocean. There were no small lights of the deeps, fluttering and blinking as they scurried by, no great stories told in songs by passing ancient giants. No journeys to take, no distant destinations to reach, nothing new to discover on the way there.

What the bay had was black pebbles, a rotted net and a flounder that moved between two or three sandy spots, never quite happy enough with its hiding place.

Slaine should be happy here. He was safe here. His pod was here.

So why wasn’t he?

Knowing one can gather their own food and actually internalizing that knowledge proved to be two completely different things.

The next morning, while waiting for the quiet hours to pass and the humans to return, Slaine laid on the seabed only inches away from the flounder he kept seeing around. These idle, quiet moments had been his worst enemy since he had been surprised during one by the shark that tore his body and life apart. As much as Slaine had wanted to, it was impossible to bound his thoughts to the confinement of the walls that surrounded him. As much as he didn’t want to admit it, it was the same in the bay as it had been in the small tank and the pool. It was a despicable thing, Slaine thought, to never be satisfied. He was insatiable, nothing was ever enough. Even when everything should’ve been perfect, it still wasn’t.

He was hungry. When Slaine’s mind wandered past the mouth of the bay and the rotted net again, the thought came to him like a flash of light flickering through clouds.

He didn’t need to wait. He didn’t need to follow the boat for food. He didn’t need to have his routine dictated by humans. He didn’t need to rely on them.

He could just reach out a few inches, kill the flounder, and eat it.

Slaine grabbed at his chest with a fist that was sure to leave bruises. And right then and there all the troubled looks from Inaho made more sense. The human had tried to push Slaine to choose his food from a selection instead of just accepting it. He had tried to hint at Slaine to start hunting again. He had tried to let him decide for himself. Though irritation and embarrassment were the first feelings to rise like a heat to Slaine’s face, underneath them fluttered something softer.

He could go anywhere he wanted, do anything he wanted, and no one was going to be able stop him.

But if Inaho asked him to stay, he would. All Slaine needed was for Inaho to ask him to stay.

They headed out of the bay again the first thing in morning. It was becoming a new routine, and as most of the routines humans built around Slaine, it wasn’t long until it became suffocating. Slaine contemplated on just letting them go off to the sea on their own. It wasn’t like he had to follow the boat, after all. But still, that was what he did every time. He followed the boat just like Inaho had taught him to and ate the food Inaho gave to him on their way. And every time he followed the boat all the way back to the bay, the humans shared the same defeated look. In some twisted way it was rewarding to see.

Still, every morning they climbed onto their boat, started the engine and headed out. Every time Inaho gave him a small selection of fish to choose his food from, and every time choosing became a little bit easier, and as Slaine’s decisions came faster, the portions Inaho gave him grew smaller. It wasn’t hard to see why; Inaho wanted Slaine to hunt his own food. And Slaine thought about it in the morning hours when sunrise still seemed an eternity away. He remembered the thrill of it, the confidence that came with being self-sufficient and the simple pleasure of holding and eating his own catch. But still, he couldn’t bring himself to do it. After all, that part of his life had ended long ago, and he should be happy with what he had now.

It was another morning, another trek out to the sea, another tense moment as Marito let the engine die and the boat float. It was a new tactic, Slaine had surmised. Float still for hours to drive him away with boredom. If only the humans knew how much of floating in boredom Slaine had done in the pool. He had done nothing but float for weeks and months on end, stuck inside the walls and his head until he had damn near gone insane. Slaine wasn’t sure which he found more insulting; Inaho underestimating his tolerance for boredom or the fact that he was so stuck on the idea of getting rid of him that he was subjecting Slaine to it again.

Still, even boredom was easier on the open sea.

By the time the humans were ready to start heading back into the bay, Slaine had come to a simple conclusion. Things couldn’t continue like this. They had to talk it out. They finally understood each other, so how come it was so hard to communicate?

Slaine sneaked to the boat and knocked on its side. The only wall he had to overcome here was Inaho, how hard could that be? He hadn’t figured out exactly what he wanted to get across yet when Inaho’s brown head of hair peeked over the railing, his eyes searching for a short moment before landing on Slaine with a pregnant silence.

“Don’t go.”, Slaine asked before he could think his words through. That was the absolute wrong way to start, and Slaine knew it right away from the way Inaho braced himself, only fortifying his stance instead of opening up.

“…We have to go.”, Inaho said slowly, like he was willing Slaine to understand something, “We can’t stay here forever.”

“Then we can go togethe-”

“You can’t.”, Inaho shut him down before Slaine could even finish. Slaine knew he was going to say that, but it still hurt.

“So you’ll… leave me here then?” His whole body was shaking, and he hoped Inaho couldn’t see it. It was a stupid insecurity to double down on, but Slaine couldn’t help it.

Inaho ran his hand through his hair and lowered his voice. “You can’t keep coming back.”

“Why?”

“It’s… not appropriate.”

Slaine narrowed his eyes at Inaho, already seething at his nonsense. “That’s a made-up word.”

“All words are made up.”, Inaho sighed, “Not appropriate. Not correct. Not right.”, he clarified.

“Why?”, Slaine exclaimed, “Nothing is right!” He pulled at his hair, angry and frustrated. One thing, that’s all he wanted. One thing, and he could be happy.

Inaho’s smile in face of Slaine’s storming emotions was tight but unwavering. The long-haired man behind him held his breath, eyes wide as he watched. Slaine was making a spectacle of himself, and he hated it.

“You have to go.”, Inaho said, measured and decisive. “Go.”

Slaine wanted to scream. Before he knew it, his hands had left his hair and were hitting the boat instead.

“Go.”, Inaho repeated, unfazed. Slaine hit the boat again, hard enough to rock it.

”Fokkaðu þér!”, Slaine cried out. Inaho glanced to Inko for translation, but the girl only cringed. ”Farðu til helvítis!” With one last slam of his tail against the boat Slaine sunk down.

He fell like a rock towards darkness, blue light of the surface getting fuzzier the deeper he sank. Above, Inko finally translated, and in Inaho’s own language Slaine’s ugly words sounded even more malicious. Slaine covered his ears, turned around, and darted away, as fast and far away as he could go.

Soon enough the only things that spread around Slaine were the darkness and silence of the deep. He wandered them aimlessly, hands still covering his ears. Inside his heads, there were voices hollering to be heard. Anger, disappointment, resentment and embarrassment all together in a muddled mess, and hiding under them, somewhere deep and ugly where Slaine didn’t want to touch, an annoying little voice saying that Inaho was probably right.

By the time Slaine finally ran out of steam it had been hours. He swam in circles for a moment, trying to remember what way he had come. There was no beautiful sunset to light his way as he reached with his sonars for the seabed, listening for familiar shapes to be his guide. The evening sky was black with thick clouds hanging low, and when Slaine was finally sure of his route, he couldn’t hide from the sky fast enough. He managed to reach the surface again where he had left the boat in just an hour.

There was no one there.

If Slaine was disappointed, he didn’t admit it to himself. Of course, there was no one there anymore, it was already night, wind was rising, and the waves were swelling. Of course, no one was going to wait for hours on end.

The way waves rolled over him, heavy and harsh, was familiar. As was the howling wind and the low rumbles that he didn’t hear as much as he felt.

For a moment, Slaine froze. Dread crawled up his spine, small and spiky. It was a storm, and he was alone at the surface. Instinctively, Slaine let loose a short volley of clicks, an effort to reach his deep diving pod. Only half a second later he realised there wasn’t going to be any reassuring answer, no calls for him to dive down into the safety of darkness and numbers.

The only thing Slaine might call with his distressed clicks was a shark.

He could imagine it now, lurking just beneath. It would notice his lonely figure against the sky and launch itself at Slaine in an instant. The difference was this time was Slaine didn’t have his spear. He didn’t have his spare spike; he didn’t have any of his tools. The eyes and the gills, but there was nothing to strike with.

Slaine spread his sonars as far as they could reach. There was nothing underneath him. There was nothing in his sonars at all, for miles and miles. In the empty ocean there was just the storm, the surface, and Slaine.

The relief was almost violent. It left him gasping for air for a moment, but once Slaine felt in control again, a calm like he hadn’t felt in a long time settled in him. There was nothing in his sonars, no animal, no human. Only miles upon miles of emptiness, limitless space right on his fingertips. No corners, no nets or tidal pools. Just absolute control, a playing field where he had every advantage. Anything beyond that came down to luck and skill. The only things Slaine lacked were his tools, but tools broke and were lost all the time. He could always make new ones.

He had been terrible to Inaho. Even if the brunette had deserved it, it didn’t make it right for Slaine to use him to just let out his frustration.

It was a stupid fight. Slaine pressed his palms against his eyes hard enough that shapes and colours started swimming in his vision. He was stupid and Inaho was stupid and everything and everyone else were stupid too.

This was all so damn stupid, no one talking to one another, no one answering questions, no one ever explaining a single damn thing. Slaine himself had refused to do it for the longest time, too scared and suspicious to open his mouth and be understood. He hadn’t wanted to talk, he hadn’t wanted to share, he hadn’t wanted to reveal anything that could be used against him, anything that could lead land creatures to other merfolk.

So, the humans had learned to work around the merman’s stubbornness. They had learned to push Slaine to get things done. They had learned to be ruthless in order to keep him healthy, to keep him fed and safe. And they had learned to not talk either.

Slaine had forced the humans into that role.

Because if it had been up to Slaine, he would’ve died in that tidal pool Inaho had trapped him into.

And not a single one of the humans, or even Slaine was to blame. They had all simply done their best.

Slaine let himself break the surface. Waves rose and fell around him, but they weren’t strong enough yet to throw him around. Just how afraid had he been to leave the tidal pool? Scared enough to not leave at all and just die. How afraid had he been to leave the manmade pool? Scared enough to try and crawl onto land instead. So, how afraid was he now to leave behind the bay? To trust in himself again, and not cling onto anyone else?

At what point had Slaine stopped making his own decisions? At what point had he freely given it all away to Inaho?

It was past midnight when Slaine slithered back into the bay. He had spent the evening hours ruminating on his thoughts, but in the end, everything was still confusing and too much. When he surfaced for one last gulp of air before settling down to uneasy sleep, Slaine saw that someone else was still awake too, huddled in a bundle on the pier. Slaine couldn’t see as clearly in the air as he saw underwater, but still, the form was familiar. Inaho had stayed behind.

Slaine crossed the bay slowly, until the human came into focus. He was sitting down, tired eyes trailing off into the horizon past the bay’s mouth, one of the thick quilts wrapped tightly around his shoulders. As if pulled by gravity, Slaine swam rest of the way to Inaho. The human must’ve known he was there, but he wasn’t acknowledging Slaine’s presence at all. Carefully, Slaine started to pull himself up too. Inaho’s eyes flickered to him before they returned to the dark bay.

One last chance. Slaine’s heart was already wavering, and he hated it. Even as he gripped the planks to get out of the water, closer to Inaho, all he kept thinking about was everything the bay lacked. That, and the way he had cursed the human earlier.

“I’m sorry.”, Slaine muttered as he climbed closer. Inaho held his breath for a moment before he sighed. Slaine wished he would look at him, but Inaho stubbornly kept his gaze forward.

“Why do you keep coming back?”, Inaho asked, his voice a quiet monotone. It would have sounded like an accusation, if it wasn’t for his sleeves, pulled tout and out of shape, covering all his fingers in nervous fists.

“I don’t know.”, Slaine mumbled his answer. He felt like a stubborn preteen.

“Yes, you do. Why?”, Inaho pressed.

When Slaine refused to answer, Inaho let the silence stew for a little while longer before opening his mouth again.

“I don’t want you to limit yourself or force yourself to adapt to something that doesn’t fulfil you.”, he said seriously. “It’s an unfair compromise when you’re the only one who suffers for it. It’s not healthy.”

“But you brought me here.”, Slaine tried, “Even though you have a sister.”

“We were always going to bring you here.”, Inaho faced Slaine, “Our schedule and circumstances changed, but you were always going to be brought here.”

Slaine felt a small stab in his chest. “But…” He had felt it had been more special than that. That he had been rescued from the brink. That he had been worth fighting for. That even now Inaho had been there, sitting on the pier, just waiting in the darkness for Slaine to come back.

“It’s the way the Cetacean Centre operates. Bring the injured animal in, quarantine it, make sure it heals, educate the public, move it into a sea-pen, release it.”, Inaho said, his eye piercing right through Slaine’s. It made Slaine feel tiny, like his perspective had always been too small, too narrowminded. Still, he felt like the humans had done far more than what Inaho was willing to admit.

“…What about Sod?”, he asked mechanically. He didn’t want to think about himself anymore.

“Sod was found after a mass-beaching. Nina tried to carry her back into the sea, but Sod kept beaching herself. We think something caused her pod to panic.”, Inaho explained slowly, “She was brought in, quarantined, and when she was well enough, she was moved into a sea-pen to join a pod of other belugas. She’ll be released soon too, just like you.”

“So she has another pod already?”, Slaine whispered to himself. Sod was safe and in a new pod. And not in another pool, but in the sea, just like Slaine was. She must’ve been loved. Hell, how could her new pod not love her?

“You will be released.”, Inaho said, voice full of conviction. “And I will go back home to my sister and fix everything.”

“I’ll be alone.”, Slaine whistled, the sound hollow even to his own ears. The world was terrifyingly large, its oceans deep and unforgiving. Slaine missed it, he loved it, but he didn’t know if he could survive it anymore.

“You think too lowly of yourself.”, Inaho sighed. “I’ve seen you integrated into a pod of dolphins, form a close bond with a beluga, and open up to a group of humans. You learn languages like it’s second nature to you. You’re smart and resourceful. There’s no reason to think you can’t make a home for yourself wherever you go.”

“I don’t want that.”, Slaine whined. He sounded pathetic, and he hated how revealing it was.

“Then what do you want?”

“I want you to tell me to stay.”

“…You know I’m not going to do that to you.”

“I want you to!”, Slaine yelled. The sound echoed in the otherwise silent bay.

“I know.”, Inaho said, his own voice clipped and barely heard, “But I won’t.”

And that was it. Inaho wasn’t ever going to tell Slaine to stay, nor was he going to stay himself. He was going to tell Slaine to go every time. They were all going to leave the bay, disperse into their own directions, to their own people, to their own lives. Time wasn’t something Slaine could stop, and this wasn’t something he could prevent. Out of all the little choices Inaho had given Slaine, this one actually important one he was still making himself.

Slaine thought back to the day he had seen Inaho for the first time. He had been desperate; lost, injured and starving, surviving only on the flippant generosity of the spinner dolphins. He had thought he had been at his lowest, but all the low points had still been in front of him, waiting just beyond the horizon.

“…Why?”, Slaine asked the familiar question. His eyes wandered the dark horizon, already regretting asking and having to be disappointed. It wasn’t like he was ever going to get an answer no matter how many times he repeated it.

“Because we thought you were extinct.”, Inaho answered without missing a beat. Slaine whipped his head around to face the human fast enough to almost hurt his neck. Inaho gave him a small glance before looking off to the horizon himself. “Because you are the first live specimen in over 100 years. Because we didn’t know if you would survive without intervention. Because there was an opportunity for scientificdiscovery. Because we could, and thus felt a moralobligation to do it.”, he continued, face lax, as if he had spent the last year and a half repeating the same words over and over again to numerous others. Slaine stared at him, and Inaho stared back, unblinking.

Inaho was telling the truth. Slaine felt like if he averted his eyes to look away again, he would break apart. This wasn’t the answer he had wanted to hear. It didn’t ease his heart one bit. These cold, impersonal statements that Inaho gave him with an indifferent expression weren’t the truth he had wanted.

They weren’t worth his year of hell, not nearly enough to justify one minute of it.

And if Inaho had once thought they were, Slaine didn’t think the human in front of him thought so any longer. Not with the way Inaho was looking at him now.

“Because I was curious. Because I wanted to know. Because all I had ever seen was a black and white picture in an old book. Because I didn’t want anyone else to catch you first. “, Inaho said slowly and carefully, like he was showing Slaine something important, letting him peek at a long-held secret, fragile and a little bit embarrassing. “Because I wanted to save you.”, he finally breathed out. “It was all because I saw you, and when I saw you, I wanted to save you.”

Slaine studied Inaho for a moment. He had pulled his sleeves over his knuckles again. It was a nervous gesture, something the brunette did whenever he tried to soothe himself. Slaine inhaled deeply and took Inaho’s hands. Gently pried the fingers apart from where they were pulling at skin and methodically scratching at nailbeds. He wished that instead of his cold touch he could warm them, but as always, it was Inaho’s touch that warmed his hands, never the other way around. As always, it was Inaho who tried to give Slaine something a bit more meaningful to hold onto. He remembered the way Inaho had looked at him that day, when he had tried to escape the tuna net. All the other humans had been shouting and pointing and waving. But Inaho had looked at Slaine still and quiet, like time didn’t exist.

I wanted to save you.

“Thank you.”, Slaine said more to the hands than to Inaho himself. From the way Inaho tensed he knew he was uncomfortable. Glancing up, there was a familiar unsettled expression pulling at the human’s lips, like he had tasted something sour.

“…There’s nothing to thank for. I made everything worse. I’m not good at… this.”

There it was, in the angle of his jaw and the slight squint of his eyes, like closing them fully would reveal too much.

Shame.

“But you did your best, didn’t you?”, Slaine asked, genuinely curious of what Inaho thought of himself. “You made things better, too.”

“You think too highly of me.”, Inaho murmured.

“Thank you.”, Slaine repeated wilfully, “For telling me.”

Finally, Inaho let out a breath and sagged forward. “I should’ve just said it sooner then.”

“Usually speaking up helps with getting things across.”, Slaine teased, but he didn’t earn the small huff of humour he was expecting. The effect was opposite, with Inaho’s eyes closing off and face falling back into its normal deadpan. To be fair, he didn’t feel like laughing either. Everything that had happened since he had been trapped, had happened because of a choice Inaho had made. Slaine frowned at their sour mood, his eyes skimming Inaho’s eyepatch. He wandered who had hurt Inaho and why. Why he had been shown a short snippet of the beating the human had received. Why they had fled the pool so suddenly. Who or what they were hiding from.

“You really need to go.”, Inaho finally said. He ran his thumbs back and forth over Slaine’s knuckles. Slaine wanted to argue with Inaho, raise hell for the humans for trying to get rid of him, for Inaho abandoning him, but all the sharp words died on his tongue. Inaho looked at him knowingly, almost daring him to refuse.

Finally, Slaine sighed and dropped his head onto their joined hands. “I know.”, he whistled under his breath, defeated.

“It’s not safe for you here.”, Inaho stated what they both already knew.

“I know.”, Slaine sighed. Him being there put the humans in danger, too. They had already been attacked once.

“You’ll be fine.”

“…What about you?”, Slaine lifted his head again. Suddenly Inaho smiled, and Slaine’s eyes travelled to the eyepatch again. He remembered how Inaho had looked that night, his head almost bashed in. Other humans had done that. They might do it again.

Inaho shook his head slightly, a small smile pulling at his lips. He wasn’t convincing anyone, not even himself. It wasn’t something Slaine could help with, and that gnawed at his insides. Whatever happened was out of his control. As long as Inaho stayed on land, he couldn’t protect him.

That almost violent urge to protect the human in front of him startled Slaine. He had felt it for a long time already, but he had never examined those feelings. But now that he did, the facts stared right back at him, with the deadpan expression of Inaho.

Maybe family wasn’t always blood. If that selfless, pure connection was something able to flower in the most unexpected and unfair circumstances, who was Slaine to fight it? It was lopsided to find family in the people who had ripped him away from his home, but Slaine couldn’t fault them for that, either. Their actions hadn’t been without reason; forceful, but never knowingly cruel. Slaine sighed and let the warmth in his chest flow freely, all the way to the crown of his head and the tips of his flukes. It fluttered stubbornly in his chest, unwilling to be ignored.

More than family.

“Ég held að ég elska þig.“, the words flowed out of his mouth, as natural and weightless as spring water, startling but not out of place. Inaho‘s hand rubbed slow circles on his back.

“Are you cursing again?“, the brunette asked. Slaine chuckled, and Inaho sighed. “For a glorified porpoise you have a crude sense of humour.“

“Betri en þinn.“, Slaine hummed, willing himself to not think of future what ifs and instead focus on the warmth enveloping him in the now.

Loving someone more than they loved him wasn’t anything new to Slaine. If anything, it had been the norm throughout his life. Slaine was naturally suspicious, but once someone had his trust, they also had his loyalty, and that was unwavering. It had to be; he couldn’t mess up because he wouldn’t be granted a second chance. The awful stories of land creatures, of outsiders and the terrible things they did if they caught you, the fear that with time and distance had twisted into deep-rooted hatred of anything unknown, and seeped into everything had crushed a young, curious calf under their weight until he had conformed. Little by little, Slaine had begun to think that maybe all the stories weren’t true. That the merfolk’s isolation and anger had failed them.

Because right in front of him there were land creatures, humans, people, who tried their best. And they failed, miserably, many times, but they still got up and tried again.

And Slaine thought that they weren’t that much different from himself.

So, when Inaho looked at him with that curious sparkle in his eye, brown hair tussled by salty breeze, Slaine felt his heart stutter in his chest over something precious and a little painful. He reached his hand up to cup the human’s face, his fingers snaking their way to the back of his head, claws carefully twisting into his hair. Inaho’s hair stood on end and Slaine felt a shiver run across the human’s sun kissed skin.

This man, a wonderfully infuriating human, was trying so hard to set Slaine free.

“You.”, Slaine pointed his finger at Inaho, the tip of his claw almost touching the human’s nose, his own face positively burning, “You really just love to make things complicated, don’t you?”

Inaho merely lifted his eyebrows slightly and smiled.

Loving someone more than they loved him wasn’t anything new to Slaine. But if there was someone who could love him equally, it had to be the one doing his everything to make things right again, trying to build Slaine up again from the pieces he had shattered into. Someone working so hard to fix the things he had unknowingly broken. Slaine pulled Inaho down, his fingers curling into brunette hair in a way that had to hurt. But he couldn’t quite get himself to loosen his grip; not with the wet, viscous tears rolling down his face. Because he loved Inaho and was certain Inaho loved him too. And nothing could’ve made him simultaneously as happy and as devastated as he was.

Something was itching all over, just beneath Slaine’s skin. He was restless as he paced along the seabed, black pebbles flying in his wake. More often than not, he found himself awake during the nights and napping during the days. It was a return to the rhythm he was most comfortable with; after all, nights had always been the best time to hunt, when all life in the sea rose just a little bit closer to the surface to follow the darkness and fading light. But nothing was rising to the bay. It was deep, but not anywhere near deep enough to attract anything new to venture inside.

Slaine had grown used to inaction, to floating and circling and ruining his body and surroundings just to make passing time bearable, but now it didn’t feel enough. The frustration he felt wasn’t foreign, it was just distant. Slaine remembered it from the first weeks and months of his captivity, from the time before his gradual, reluctant acceptance.

Tired of his own spiralling thoughts, Slaine focused on his environment instead. He felt around the bay with his sonars, searching for something to latch onto, something to pass the time with till the morning. That’s when the tiniest little movement from right next to him reverberated in the water.

It was the flounder, blinking its bulging eyes in dyssynchrony. It was in its usual spot, almost invisible to the naked eye but not nearly hidden enough for Slaine’s sonars. It was a foolish fish, Slaine thought, to still be in the bay when it could never truly hide amongst its black pebbles. Without another thought, Slaine attacked. The flounder didn’t stand a chance. It barely managed to react at all.

Chewy thin skin and soft flesh. Bendy, fresh bones that snapped easily in between his teeth, tangy taste of the organs and drips of blood that dissolved into nothing before Slaine’s eyes as he tore the flounder apart and ate. It was all familiar, gruesome and natural. It tasted like home.

How Slaine had spent over a year eating fish that had been killed days or weeks in advance, he didn’t know. Suddenly he remembered how he had turned his nose at the first piece of tuna Inaho had ever given him, disgusted by it but too starved to refuse it. How bland and boring it had been, how all the shapes and textures had been reduced to a uniform mush, all taste and colour stripped until only grey was left. How every part of Slaine’s life could have become so controlled, how every little bite of food could’ve come through human hands?

And how had Slaine forgotten that those had all used to be things he could freely control?

The clear night sky morphed into a cloudy morning peacefully. For once Slaine’s mind wasn’t racing. He floated and watched the north wind move the clouds. Something new was bound to start once the sun reached the sky. Slaine could feel the change in his bones. How the pieces found their places with ease. How the fractures left behind weren’t a hinderance, but a sign of healing. He was going to struggle, but he could also overcome.

Inko was the first one to walk out. She yawned as she pulled the tarp that sheltered the bow of the boat off, rolled it into a haphazard bundle and threw it inside the cockpit. Without doing any of the other chores Slaine knew she was supposed to do, Inko instead curled into a ball on a small bench on the bow of the boat and promptly fell back asleep. If Kaoru wasn’t busy talking shop with the two newcomers on the other side of the pier, she would’ve undoubtedly told her off. Inaho followed behind her, but he let Inko sleep. In his hands was the familiar bucket, full of fish, no doubt. Slaine cringed at the idea. Before Inaho could have a chance to offer any of it to him, Slaine waved his hands around to catch his attention first.

“Do you want to see?”, Slaine asked, and when Inaho just stood there, clearly not understanding Slaine’s question, he lifted his left arm and rolled his shoulder in as wide a circle as he could. The thick scar tissue around his shoulder and arm pulled uncomfortably, like it always did. “I can lift it this high already. Can’t get it straight all the way up yet, though, but maybe it will get better with time.”

Inaho frowned. Slaine knew that look; the brunette was only seeing the things that lacked and finding the fault for them in himself. As if he hadn’t been the one who had made sure Slaine’s arm healed properly. As if he hadn’t half-forced Slaine to work on rehabilitating his left side.

“You know, I could hunt again.”, he offered with a small whistle. That made Inaho perk up, and Slaine smiled. “It’ll be harder than before, but I think I’ll manage it.”

“I’m glad.”, Inaho whispered, his voice barely loud enough to hear under his relief. Then after a pause: “Do you want to have some?”, he gestured to the bucket he was still holding.

It was like ever since eating the flounder Slaine had seen clearer. Colours were brighter, shapes sharper. Maybe it was his imagination, but he felt full, more complete. And the world around him was more complete, too. He saw Inaho’s offer for what it was: an offer. Not an expectation, an order, a lure or a condition for something else, just an offer.

“Nah.”, he said without even glancing at the fish, and just like that, Inaho moved the bucket away, like he couldn’t be rid of it fast enough. Slaine waited for Inaho to turn back again before he opened his mouth. They were going to talk, and Slaine was going to make sure of it.

“Was it supposed to be your goodbye?” Slaine tapped at his forehead, the spot the brunette had kissed. “If so, it was a shitty goodbye. You’re supposed to blow air when you kiss.”

“Humans don’t do it like that.”, Inaho was quick to defend himself. Behind him Marito jumped into the boat along with the two strangers who had been joining them on almost every expedition out the bay since the first one. One of them was holding a dark boxy device, the type that flashed and clicked, Slaine was certain. Inko was startled awake, and she followed grumbling Marito to do the rest of her chores. Slaine considered Inaho’s point for a moment.

“Still, it’s a lot more fun with bubbles.”, he settled on. Inaho hummed and sat down, his legs dangling off the pier. Sun was rising through orange clouds in the horizon, but there was already another spring storm forming, dark northern clouds ready to roll over the sky. Slaine reached up to touch Inaho’s shoes. The brunette looked down, but he didn’t have time to brace himself before Slaine’s fingers were wrapped around his ankles. Without a warning, Slaine pulled, and Inaho fell with an undignified yelp and a crash.

Before Inaho could fully experience the shock of being thrown into the ice-cold sea, Slaine pulled him through the veil of foam and bubbles, gathered his stiff limbs against himself, tied his fingers into his hair, pressed his mouth to the corner of Inaho’s mouth, and blew.

A burst of bubbles escaped through their lips, pushing against the skin of their faces, weaving through their hair and tickling on their way up. When Slaine pulled back, Inaho looked too stunned to even realise his lungs were probably burning. His hair and clothes floated gently in the tide’s current. Slaine wanted to keep that moment going forever, but the unfortunate reality was that Inaho was going to run out of air in a matter of seconds and freeze to death in just minutes.

Slaine pushed Inaho back to the surface and the human gasped pitifully, pulling in air in heavy gulps, half of them down the wrong pipe, Slaine was sure. Legs too heavy from the cold, the only thing keeping him on the surface was Slaine. Inko was already there, and so was Kaoru, ready to pull Inaho back onto the pier like a heavy, wet lump of seaweed, the brunette boneless and already violently shaking. Slaine would’ve felt guilty if it wasn’t for Inaho’s face, flushed bright red. The other humans’ worried exclaims and attempts at getting Inaho to change out of his wet clothes right then and there was just muted background noise.

“See? That’s how it’s done.”, Slaine whistled brightly. For once in his life, he got no arguments from Inaho.

“There’s one more thing I don’t think I’ve said to you before.”, Slaine whistled just as the first droplets of an incoming downpour fell. They dripped down Inaho’s already drenched hair and clothes, reflecting the blue of the sea. Kaoru had managed to rip his outer clothes away, and Inko was busy covering him in every warm piece of fabric she could get her hands on.

“I forgive you.”, Slaine smiled, and the Japanese words found their shapes as if Slaine had spoken Inaho’s language all his life. Thunder rumbled somewhere off in the distance, and Inaho opened his mouth slightly only to close it again. Slaine studied the human for a moment, carving out the shape of his uncovered eye, the angle of his jaw and the softness of his brow. The balanced way Inaho was hunched still inside his pile of towels and quilts, despite Inko trying to pull him up onto his feet, the little twitches of his fingers and his dark, wet mop of hair.

Slaine wanted to laugh, but he didn’t. He breathed out a long exhale to empty his lungs before inhaling deeply. “Let’s go.”, he whispered through his smile, and dived to the bottom of the bay.

Slaine waited another half an hour longer before the engine of the boat finally roared alive. Getting Inaho warm again had taken some time and effort, but Slaine was glad he could join them anyway. He felt almost giddy with anticipation when he crossed the rotted net again. As the boat cleared the coast it gained speed, carefully angling itself against the growing waves to not be swept over by them. Slaine revelled in diving in its slipstream and the storm.

It had taken half an hour for Inaho to warm up enough to join the rest of them. And knowing the brunette, it hadn’t really been enough, just the bare minimum. The boat crashed and fell among the waves. It was going to be a short trip; the boat wasn’t a nearly big or strong enough to handle the swelling waves.

Their needs were completely different. No matter how important the humans had become to Slaine, there was never going to be a future for them all in the bay. It wasn’t fair but trying to deny it was even more unfair. As the weather grew worse, the humans finally turned their boat. Slaine dived a little deeper to follow its path with his sonars. They were probably trying to find a less stormy route by following the shoreline far off in the distance.

Slaine let himself lose all momentum and be rolled around by the waves. In his sonars the only thing he could feel was the boat, rapidly gaining distance as it trekked back towards the general direction of the bay somewhere far beyond the restless waves. The sea below him was deep enough that he could never reach the bottom alive. He had tried it before, tempted the familiar pressure and found his one absolute limit. Sunrays appeared and disappeared in the ever-shifting blue and the racing clouds. Spring was almost here; Slaine could almost taste in the water that somewhere far, far up north the ice sheets were melting.

He laughed and dove. The following jump landed right into an approaching wave, sending him tumbling to get the right way around again. Somewhere, from miles away a whale reached for him. It must’ve kept taps on him as it passed by and had heard his fall. Slaine clicked an elated greeting to it before jumping again. This time his form was cleaner, with a little spin like the spinner dolphins liked. He would have to practice it more to get it right, though. From far away he could hear a faint cheer. It must’ve been the humans. Slaine basked in the spotty sunlight and crashing waves for a few more moments before he turned around and dove almost all the way down to the still coldness of the twilight zone. Tiny specks reflected faintly the little light there was in the darkness. With an underwater somersault Slaine started his own trek towards the direction he had heard the whale, now eagerly inviting him for company with the promise of a story.

Slaine’s heart stung as the sound of the boat’s engine grew more and more distant before it disappeared completely. But it wasn’t all that bad. Inaho still had his land, but the whole storming blue world was Slaine’s.