Seraphina

The night is as black as any other, but I can feel the difference. It is my first ship raid, as I am soon to turn 17 and become old enough for kids, according to the elders. We swim, the rest of the group and I, closer to the trade route many ships use from one piece of land to another. Many of my companions have gone before, most of them actually, so I decide to watch them this time. While they move up toward the Surface I float in place down below, not sure what to expect.

Just as my patience are about gone, my ears pick up on something in the distance. I've never heard it before, it sounds like a rumbling of some sort. From above me, my friend Pearl turns and yells down with a grin on her face.

"This is it, Seraphina!" she says, pointing to our right. While mermaids have fairly decent night vision, thanks to living in the deepest pits of the ocean, it does nothing to help me see what she's pointing at.

"A ship is coming!" adds Melody from beside her. The other mermaids are swimming about excitedly as well; these are not hunting parties, they are meeting parties. Mermaids mate for life; we do not have any men of our own to reproduce with, so twice a year we send out a group to intercept a ship by nights and steal their men. It seems like a heartless, unfailing act, maybe, but the men must be drowned after. Mermaids are but sea lore, told by old sailors to young ones. We must protect our own lives; humans would surely hunt us down for show or sales if they knew we really did exist. After we take them from their ships and have our way with them, no man is to be allowed to return to the surface.

As it is my first time mating, I am nervous. I have no interest in how the man looks, all of our daughters are born beautiful. I feel nothing about killing him after, it is a part of the natural order; he will die so I can help carry on my species. What I am nervous about is not being able to catch one. It is a disgrace if a mermaid cannot manage to mate at least once in a year, and we only get two chances. Shame is brought on those who fail, and in extreme cases the Council of Elders may choose to banish those who fail to reproduce for more than a year.

This is why I choose to watch the strategies of my clan mates before trying for myself. Mermaids are permitted one pass on their first trip, but the cation really some decide to test their luck anyway. I could do that, there doesn't seem to be a big difference in the results of those who wait and those who don't, but I'm much too nervous.

the water is beginning to ripple now, the current's getting strong enough to buffet me around a bit. I swim upwards at a gesture from my mother, Mist, and join others just a few meters from the Surface.

"Watch closely, Sera," she says, "this may be your job next time." I nod as she swims up to break the Surface with her head. I wince a bit, scared for her. From the time we are born, mermaids are told of the dangers that live above the Surface. I have never been this far from the bottom of the ocean in all my life. I don't have much time to worry though, because she is soon singing and it takes all of my concentration to focus on her beautiful song and upcoming events.

The ship must have slow down, because its noise and currents have died almost completely. All I hear is Mist singing out in the air. A minute later, 3 of my friends rise up out of the water too, and Mist's singing halts.

"Get down now, Seraphina," says my sister, Currant, touching my arm lightly. I nod and obey, sinking to the bottom of the group, well below the Surface. A splash, from the direction of the ship, makes me turn my head. With a flash of a red tail, Currant's friend Angel shoots off into the darkness towards the noise. Another splash in the same direction send Pearl after her. Then the rest of my group is gone; they've launched themselves out of the water completely, leaving me alone with the only other first-timer in the group, Crest.

She and I look at each other blankly for a moment. We aren't friends; she's always with the hunters, and I spend the majority of my time with the reproducers. Pearl thinks Crest is jealous of the hunters; by the time a mermaid is 13, her tail grows in a way that decides what her position in the clan will be. Salmon tail means hunter, angelfish means she is destined to spend her life mating. When Crest's tail tip grew in it was hard to tell what kind it was, so she spent most of her time with the hunters.

Unfortunately for her, the humans changed their trade routes around that time and my clan had a difficult time tracking them down. It took two years, two years without most reproducers birthing once. Because the gestation period for mermaids is around five months, this meant there could have been four babies per mater. Banishments like none I've ever seen before occurred - our numbers went from around 50 to a mere 20 in those two years. The Council of Elders refused to bend the traditional law even in that time of crisis. It was because of this that Crest was deemed s reproducer: the elders decided she was needed to reproduce more than she was needed to hunt.

Even as I swim there looking at her, the water is breaking open around me and my clan mates are falling in, their prey grasped tightly in their arms. The men struggle, but not hard enough to break their captors' grips. Pearl winks at me, easily keeping hold of her sailor as she drags him down into the dark water. I see Angel, Melody, and Currant doing the same. I look away, not wanting to intrude. I think I've seen all that I need to, so I signal to Mist that I'm heading back home as she passes. Her arms are wrapped around the neck of a very hairy man, but she nods in understanding.