Disclaimer: I don't own Dragon Ball; I'm making no money off this, so please no suing…
Notes: This is a one-shot inspired by ideas from stupidoomdoodles' tumblr and a particular bit of fanart also based on those ideas (links will be on my author page). Please enjoy the cuteness!
The Little Sea Monkey
Kakarrot grinned as he powered through the sea just under the surface, every now and then bursting through a swell into the open air. Earlier he'd been bored until the distant silhouette of a sea turtle had inspired him. There was always something to do around Turtle Island!
He'd discovered this little playground almost a year ago when he'd been about eleven years old, and he usually found his way there at least a few times a week. It was a fairly remote place, with only a few neighboring dots of land visible on the horizon. And it was small, having only enough room for a single human resident. With only one regular visitor, it was the perfect place for him to sneak around, explore, and play without fear of running afoul of a fisherman.
The human that lived on Turtle Island seemed harmless enough. As far as Kakarrot could tell, he was old with thin bowed legs, a bent posture, and shaggy white fur around his mouth but none on his gleaming bald head. He always wore a large turtle shell on his back, vibrantly-colored baggy clothing, and dark lenses over his eyes.
Kakarrot had found lenses like them once lying on the sandy ocean floor. One of the lenses was missing and the frames were badly bent, but it had been a magnificent toy. He'd swum around for hours peering at things through the remaining dark lens and marveled at how different the underwater world looked. But then his father had caught him with the discarded human thing and taken it way, smashing it between some rocks and lecturing him on how everything that was human was dangerous and to be avoided.
The Turtle Man wasn't dangerous, though. When he wasn't tucked away in his bright pink house, he sat on the sandy beach and would study his odd books, chat one-sidedly with an old sea turtle that frequently visited the island, or take a nap in the warm sunshine. Once in a great while the Turtle Man would do some odd kind of dance, lashing out his fists and feet in a strangely graceful and controlled way. It almost made Kakarrot wish that he could trade his tail and flukes for a set of human legs so that he could try it himself.
Almost.
Drawing close enough to Turtle Island to see it, Kakarrot paused, treading water with his half-webbed hands, and popped his head above the water's surface to look around. The island was close enough that he could see the pink house crouched near the edge of the beach, but not close enough for him to be sure if the Turtle Man was inside of it or not. High above a small flock of seagulls lazily circled and Kakarrot once again wondered if he could learn to swim in the sky like them someday. He spun in place, scanning the horizon just in case—
A fishing junk lumbered through the small ocean swells from the west, angling towards Turtle Island. It had two large ribbed sails, which had been bright red once but had faded to a rusty color. Facing out from the bow was a ferocious green-painted carving that reminded Kakarrot of stories about the legendary Eternal Sea Dragon; it even had what looked like one of the seven Sea Dragon Pearls clenched in its wooden jaws.
Kakarrot grinned widely and changed course, aiming for the junk instead of the island.
Twice before Kakarrot had seen strange boats in the waters around Turtle Island, and both times he'd hidden in nearby coral atolls until they'd gone. But he knew this particular fishing junk. He'd known it far longer than he had Turtle Island. It was the Dragon Boat, the home of the Good Fisherman, and it visited Turtle Island about once a lunar cycle.
When he'd been about five years old he'd gotten into trouble. His mother had died a few months before, his father had become distant as a result, and his older brother saw him as nothing more than an annoying baby and refused to spend any time with him unless forced to. All alone with no other children in their pod close enough in age to be his friend, he'd taken to wandering the sea by himself. He visited all the reefs and seaweed beds, collected sea shells, and made friends with a few of the larger, smarter fish. And so long as he turned up at the sea caves where the pod lived before dark, he wasn't yelled at and sent to sleep with no supper.
But one afternoon, things had taken a turn. He'd been visiting a reef that was so shallow that it sat mostly exposed at low tide and noticed a tangled clump of abandoned human netting caught on some of the coral. Thinking nothing of it, he turned to chasing small brightly colored fish around anemones and waving sea fans. Then he'd startled a camouflaged octopus, which had expelled a cloud on ink in a panic, which he had swum through and become disoriented, which led him into the netting that he'd forgotten about.
At first he hadn't been badly tangled, just his left arm was caught up in a complicated loop of rope. But he'd panicked and thrashed and gotten his whole tail from his flukes to his dorsal fin caught up in the rough material. Only his right arm was left free and it was kept busy trying to keep a coil of rope from strangling him. The ropes and knots cut into his thin child skin, scraping and abrading with every struggling fit, and the waves surging overhead banged him into sharp spires of coral.
When he could no longer move and the panic had receded, he began to cry for help. However, his wailing high-pitched cries that should've drawn rescue from miles around went unanswered. He called for his father, for Uncle Toma, for Aunt Selypa, for his awful brother, even for his wicked older cousin Turles, but there was no reply. He'd gone too far from the sea caves, too far from where the pod was going to be foraging that day.
No one was going to save him.
Still, he cried for help until his voice failed him. Hours passed and no one came to find him. The sun traveled across the blue sky and started to sink, spreading new colors into the air and drawing the tide down with it. The water level dropped lower and lower, exposing the tops of the corals. And then, when the sun started to sink into the sea, the water on the reef was gone and Kakarrot found himself beached.
Before that day he'd never been out of the water. Sure, he'd poked his head out of the water and even done a bit of breaching, but always during nights of the full moon under his mother's watchful eyes. Once, during the twilight hours, he'd tried to follow Raditz up onto a beach to raid a tide pool, but his mother had stopped him, saying that he was too small to do that.
He missed his mother so much at that moment as he half-dangled from a branching tower of coral, tangled in a ruined net. If she were still around, he would never be bored or alone. She had always had time for him, had never tired of his questions, and had always been amazed by his discoveries.
So lost in his exhaustion, misery, and memories, he hadn't seen the boat until the junk had anchored beside the uncovered reef. He had never seen a boat so close before, he'd always watched them from underneath. His dazed eyes took in the crinkled red sails, dark wooden sides, and carved green beast on the bow.
And then the human had appeared.
For a minute, Kakarrot had been mesmerized. He'd only heard descriptions of humans, never seen them. It had wrinkled skin, brightly patterned clothes that he was intensely curious about, and a shaggy patch of white hair on its upper lip that reminded him of stories that he'd heard of the walruses that lived in the far northern seas. Watching how it had carefully picked its way over the dry coral bed on two legs, not the many legs of a crab or lobster, had been pretty fascinating.
But then it was standing before him and he saw the glint of a knife.
The thrashing and screaming started anew. He'd thought of his father's scar. He'd thought of his mother snared by a net and never seen again. He'd thought of the stories of the ancient days when his people would use their magnetic voices to lure sailors into the seas at night and then feast upon their flesh, and he wondered if this was some kind of revenge.
The human hesitated at his hoarse screams, but didn't run and didn't attack. It wrapped him in a bit of spare sailcloth to buffer his body from the sharp bits of coral and spoke to him in calm, even tones. The words meant nothing to him, but the steady sound of its voice and his exhaustion worked to calm him. It stroked his hair and free arm with dry calloused hands and continued speaking nonsense as it slowly, very slowly, cut away the rope and netting, bit by bit.
For hours the human carefully worked until the sun was almost gone. Kakarrot had nearly fallen asleep by that time and put up no protest when the human hefted him into its arms and began to carry him. It was a different feeling than the buoyancy he felt when in the water; he felt so heavy, but it was kind of nice. He daydreamed that it was his mother holding him, and not the creature he had been taught to avoid and fear.
The shock of the cold water woke him from his exhausted daze and he wriggled out of the sailcloth before the human had completely relinquished its grip. Fresh panic spurred him into a mad dash for the sea caves. It was late and if he didn't hurry he wouldn't make it in time for supper.
He hadn't missed dinner that night, but his father had been very upset with how scraped and cut up he was. He'd been endlessly scolded about being careful and possibly attracting sharks with his blood as his father rubbed medicinal pastes into his wounds. Kakarrot knew he was a terrible liar and so, when his father had demanded an explanation, he'd been vague and managed to leave out the human encounter entirely, claiming that he'd freed himself on his own.
He knew how his father felt about humans and so he had never come clean about that event, or ever breathed a word about how he'd seen the same human again and again and again.
Once his wounds had healed, he cautiously began studying fishing boats from closer up—very careful to not be seen—in search of that one boat. It took nearly a year, so long that he'd started to forget about the incident. But he found that Dragon Boat again at last, and started to follow it.
At first he'd been careful to not be seen, and watched as the human sailed and fished. He watched when the fisherman would let loose part or all of his catch to free a dolphin or a shark or a sea turtle that had gotten caught up in his nets. He listened as the fisherman sang human songs to himself and groused at thieving sea gulls. And he wondered…
Then after a few months of shadowing the junk, he'd gotten sloppy and been spotted. The fisherman had been surprised, but he hadn't been angry, or run for a harpoon or net. He'd simply smiled and waved and then gone back to repairing a torn sail.
Over the course of the next few years, Kakarrot had cautiously befriended the fisherman. He would visit the boat when it cruised through the edges of his pod's territory and let the human see him. They would smile and wave and the fisherman would sometimes give him snacks of spare fish. The fisherman, who Kakarrot had decided was a Good Fisherman, would try to talk to him sometimes, but Kakarrot could never make sense of his words. And the Good Fisherman would try to understand Kakarrot's words but had the same trouble. Yet, without words, Kakarrot was quite sure that they were friends.
Within a few minutes, Kakarrot was underneath the Dragon Boat, pondering how he would announce his presence to the Good Fisherman. Should he say hello now, before the junk made Turtle Island? Or should he wait until the Good Fisherman had met up with the Turtle Man and started his monthly delivery of things to the remote bit of land? He hadn't officially met with the Turtle Man yet, but he was sure that the old human had seen him once or twice and he didn't seem so bad. He was a friend of the Good Fisherman after all!
Huh? Kakarrot blinked and turned his head to the side. What's that?
Something small and white was falling into the water from the side of the junk. The little white bits were being picked off by a small school of fish from below and a couple of gulls from above. Kakarrot was very intrigued and moved in to investigate.
Is this bait? he wondered as he cupped a fluffy white bit in his half-webbed little hands. I wonder what it tastes like…
He hesitated for a few seconds before shoving the mysterious thing in his mouth.
It was like nothing he'd ever tasted before. The texture and flavor were strange, but it was definitely good. Kakarrot immediately sought out more, snagging every scrap that he could before a fish or gull gobbled it up first.
Then, through the warped barrier where water and air met, he spotted something white dangling over the rail, trailing the delicious crumbs into the sea. Kakarrot grinned and greedily decided to take it all. He dove down a bit to build up speed and then rocketed towards the surface, bursting out of the water and flying up to the boat rail.
Kakarrot smiled gleefully as his mouth closed over the soft white food thing (and a bit of human fingertips) and gazed into the eyes of—
In the split second that he hung in mid-air, he realized that he wasn't looking at the familiar mustached face of the Good Fisherman, but the face of a different human. This face was smaller and unwrinkled with no white mustache. The eyes were dark and wide with long lashes and the face was framed by long, straight, black hair.
And then he was falling back into the water with the white fluffy stuff still in his mouth. His tail flukes worked frantically the instant he submerged, diving deep and away from the boat. When he reached an outcropping of rock, he paused to take shelter and stared up at the shadowed bottom of the fishing junk, utterly bewildered.
Did I make a mistake? Was that not the Good Fisherman's boat?
Absently he started munching on the delicious white stuff as he watched the boat slowly continue on towards Turtle Island.
Who was that?
Chichi blinked once, twice, and stared dumbly at her hand where she had been holding a piece of bread. Her eyes then dropped to the churning water where the bread thief had disappeared in search of any hint of his presence. Then she checked her fingers to make sure she hadn't lost any part of her person along with the bread slice. And then she freaked out.
"Papa!" she squealed, dashing away from the boat rail. "Papa, Papa, Papa! A boy jumped out of the water and almost bit off my hand!"
"Hm?" Her father paused in his perusal of some papers, leaned back in the small ancient deck chair that could barely contain his massive frame, and blinked at her, adjusting his thick, square-framed glasses. "What was that, Sweetie?"
"A boy!" she repeatedly breathlessly as she scrambled over the wooden deck to his side. "A boy jumped out of the water and almost bit off my hand!"
"A boy?" he echoed and glanced around at the gently rolling sea. "Out here? Are you sure it wasn't a dolphin and some sun glare, Chichi?"
"I'm sure, Papa!" the girl exclaimed. "It wasn't a dolphin, it was a boy! I know the difference."
They came from a thoroughly land-locked country and this was their first trip to the sea, but she'd done her homework as her father had suggested. Before they'd ever left her father's modest castle she had devoured every book in their library that had pictures and illustrations of ocean life. She knew the difference between sharks, dolphins, sea turtles, jellyfish, starfish, squid, octopi, whales, and seals and none of those things looked anything like a boy!
"But…how?" her father wondered, once again taking in the open ocean that surrounded them.
"It might've been Son Goku."
Chichi turned to the side to gaze upon the ship's owner and captain. He was a cheerful old man with a bushy white mustache, deep laugh lines, and strong sinewy hands. Long ago, when her father had been young and was shipped off to the navy by his father to learn discipline, responsibility, and how to command men, this man had been his captain and one of his mentors.
"Son Goku?" she repeated the name curiously. "Who is that, Captain Son?"
"He is one of the people of the sea," the old man answered. "One of the mer-people."
"Mer-people?" the girl blinked and tried to remember if they'd been in any of the books that she'd read.
"I always thought that the mer-people were made up by old salts to fire the wild imaginations of young sailors," her father remarked with a slight frown as he adjusted his ox-horned helmet. "They're…real?"
"They are quiet real," the old captain chuckled and moved to adjust one of the ship's sails. "When I first retired to these parts I would hear the other captains and sailors gossip over their drinks about how their nets would sometimes be cut or their traps be destroyed in ways that no animals could. I thought they were mere fish tales until I saw evidence with my own eyes. And then I met that boy…"
"Wow," Chichi breathed, her dark eyes wide with awe. "How did you meet him?"
"That is a tale that I shall save for after we make landfall, young lady," the old man said with a kind smile. "We've almost reached our destination. If you look over the bow, you'll see how close we are."
Chichi rushed to do as he had suggested and peered over the carved dragon's head, squinting over the shimmering ocean swells. The island was very close and very small, little more than a strip of white sand beach, palm trees, and a little pink house. A corner of her mind wondered what sort of retired old admiral would chose to paint his home such a color, but the main focus of her thoughts was of the mer-boy.
If he was real, what else was? Were there sea monsters and giant squid hiding in the depths of the seven seas? Were there dragons and griffins tucked away in the most remote mountains? Were there unicorns, fairies, and elves secreted in the deepest, oldest forests?
What was his world like under the sea? Could he talk to sea animals? Did he keep fish as pets like humans kept dogs and cats? Did he know where all the treasure-filled sunken ships were? What sorts of things did he eat?
So many questions buzzed through her mind as the fishing junk dropped anchor beside the little tropical island. She barely noticed as a very old man in sunglasses and a turtle shell paddled out to them in a little dingy. It took a very tries for her father to get her attention so that she could get into the tiny paddle boat with him, the junk captain, and the other old man to finish their journey to Turtle Island. And after the short paddle from the junk to the island's beach, a final and very important question wriggled into her thoughts.
My hand was sort of in his mouth for a second, so…did he kind of kiss me?
Being less than thirteen years old, she had never kissed a boy, or been kissed by one outside very formal situations (which didn't really count, it was part of protocol for visiting dignitaries to kiss the back of her hand as part of their respectful greetings). All the books that she'd read about love had made the girl's first kiss sound so magical and wonderful, and she had believed that hers would be the same. She had never imagined in her wildest dreams that her first kiss could possibly be stolen by a boy who was half fish.
No…surely it doesn't count, she decided, pale cheeks rosy. He just wanted the bread. That's all.
"It's a very nice island, Master," her father was saying as the little rowboat was unloaded with their luggage and some supplies. "Thank you for allowing us to vacation here."
"Thank you," the old man with the turtle shell chuckled, revealing how few teeth he still possessed. "There's no better place to retire, let me tell you!" He then leaned towards the junk captain and half-whispered a question. "Did you bring me anything special today, Gohan?"
"Not this time, Master," the fisherman replied, his tone a bit stern. "You have guests this week, after all."
"Oh, I suppose," the elderly man grumbled. "Let's get this luggage into the house and then we'll have some lunch."
Chichi eyed the old man with the turtle shell curiously as they made the short trek to his pink house. Her father had told her many things about this old man long before they'd ever set foot on Captain Son's ship. He was Muten Roshi, a decorated and eccentric former admiral of the navy who was also a master of martial arts. According to her father, he was very wise, but to her he just seemed very strange.
"Master Roshi, sir," she piped up, "why do you wear a turtle shell?"
"It's part of my training, my dear," the old man answered. "A regular workout routine is essential for good health! Carrying around this heavy weight every day helps keep my old muscles strong," he said, flexing a frail-looking arm for emphasis.
"But why a turtle shell?" she wondered.
"Turtles are noble and admirable creatures!" the old master lectured. "Their shells give them the ultimate defense! Few predators dare to try and pry them out of their mobile fortresses. And it might make them slow, but speed isn't everything, my dear. Surely you've heard the old fable of The Tortoise and The Hare?"
He continued spouting the virtues of turtles as lunch was assembled, telling her all about how determined turtles could be, how they had long lives, and how they had lived alongside dinosaurs and outlasted them and would surely outlast mankind as well. Turtles had never seemed particularly interesting to her before, but listening to her father's old mentor and martial arts instructor speak so passionately about them was quite fascinating. It took nearly midway into their hearty meal for the turtle enthusiast to run out of things to say about the hard-shelled reptiles.
"I never knew all that about turtles, Master Roshi," Chichi murmured as she nibbled on a rice ball. Flicking a loose rice grain from her skirt, she voiced a question. "Master Roshi, have you ever seen Goku?"
"Goku?" The old hermit stroked his snowy beard thoughtfully. "I can't say that I know anyone by that name."
"She is speaking of a mer-boy, Master," Captain Son chimed in helpfully. "He surprised her earlier when he visited my ship."
"A mer-boy?" the old man sputtered in shock. "A real live one?" At the boat captain's nod, he lowered his head and stared silently at the sand. He was still for so long that Chichi wondered if she should removed his sunglasses to see if he had fallen asleep. But then he chuckled and leaned back in his rickety folding chair. "Ha! And here I thought that I was starting to see things! I suppose the next time I think I see him I ought to wave hello…"
For the rest of the meal, Captain Son shared stories of the mysterious mer-boy that he called Goku. He told the tale of how they'd first met when he'd rescued the fish child from a discarded fishing net that was tangled in coral. He spoke of how the boy would appear near his fishing junk and follow it for hours, even all day. He did his best to describe the strange, almost musical language of the mer-people; how it sounded like the chatters and whistles of dolphins, and squalls of seabirds, and cries of whales. And he explained where the name 'Goku' had come from.
A few months after he had befriended the mer-boy, he had been enjoying a bottle of sake and thought back to his own boyhood. His favorite story has been the ancient Journey to the West, and early in that tale the monkey that would become king earned his title by boldly diving down a towering waterfall. Underneath that waterfall that monkey had found a magical kingdom hidden from sight where his people would be safe. Thinking of that monkey king and his underwater kingdom, and of the fish boy whose intensely curious eyes and playful nature reminded him of real monkeys, Captain Son had decided to start calling the mer-boy 'Son Goku' after that fictional character.
Once they had all eaten their fill, the adults opened a case of ale and began to reminisce about their younger days. They laughed at how her father's immense size had caused the navy great grief, involving specially ordered uniforms that still barely fit him and a custom-made life jacket. Then came stories of how both her father and Captain Son often had to scour the areas of port towns where apparently there were a lot of red lights in search of their wayward admiral.
Feeling very lost by the adults' conversation, Chichi decided to leave them to their fun and try some beachcombing. She retreated into Master Roshi's home to change from her traveling clothes into her modest blue bikini, sandals, and broad-brimmed sun hat. Gathering up her toy bucket and shovel, struck out over the sand and trekked along the surf.
Master Roshi's island was very small, but there were countless things to find on his beach that she'd never seen before. There were clumps of seaweed dotted along the tide line and one big piece of driftwood that had been polished smooth by long exposure to the churning waves. She watched a little red crab scuttle around on a patch of sun-baked sand before disappearing around the base of a towering palm tree. She even saw a massive brown sea turtle hauled out on the beach, watching her with old sleepy eyes.
After circling the island twice she settled down in the damp sand and began to dig with her little pink shovel. At first she had planned to build her first sand castle, but the discovery of tiny white shells buried in the sand distracted her. She started collecting the little shells, moving from place to place along the beach to dig and see if there were any more.
This is the best vacation ever! Chichi decided as she crouched to excavate another sandy hole. It would be nice if we could come here every year!
She began to daydream about future vacations and how they would visit other beaches. Then she thought about how fun it would be to live in a place like this—maybe not a tiny island like this one, but a home on the coast would be wonderful. Her father, being a king, would never be able to move away from his kingdom to live on a beach, but perhaps when she was older she could find a nice place by the sea and set up a little restaurant…
So focused was she on her little fantasies that she failed to notice the tide creeping in. A sudden surge of chilly seawater over her sandaled feet sent her squealing and scampering up towards drier sand. But when she looked back she saw that the wave had caught hold of her little bucket of shells and was drawing it out into the sea.
"Oh no!" she yelped and dashed back to the water. "Come back!"
The bucket, of course, didn't listen and continued bobbling out into the ocean. Chichi tossed her little shovel aside and clumsily kicked off her sandals to wade into the chilly surf. Once the water was above her knees the resistance of the water slowed down her run to a crawl and the push and pull of the small breaking waves made it very hard to keep her balance. But her bucket wasn't slowed down one bit and continued to float further and further away from her grasp.
"No!" she whimpered as her eyes started to burn. "Please come back!"
The toy bucket (along with the little shovel) had been a gift from her father when he'd announced this trip and the tiny little shells were her little souvenirs that she'd had all kinds of plans for—
The bucket suddenly halted. It bobbed with the rise and fall of the water, but it no longer moved out to sea. And then, as she stood bellybutton-deep in the water and stared at it, the toy bucket moved back towards her.
What's happening? Is it magic? Or…a set of gray horizontal tail fins briefly broke the water's surface behind the bucket, powering it towards her…a dolphin?
But when the bucket came to a halt mere inches from her and she peered through the distorting lens of the water, she didn't see a dolphin, she saw the face of a boy looking right back up at her.
No, it's Son Goku!
Once the white bit of human food was consumed and his heart rate had returned to normal, Kakarrot started to swim. He circled the rock pile a few times before ghosting over the mucky ocean floor. When he entered the shadow of the boat he squinted up at its keel and frowned.
Could there be two Dragon Boats? he mused. 'Cause everything looks the same from this angle. And nothing looked wrong when I was up top…
His frown deepened into a confused scowl and he slowly rose from the ocean floor. He circled the boat, careful to stay deep so that he wasn't seen from above. He scrutinized every bit of the submerged hull to see if there were any differences. But he found none. It had to be the Dragon Boat; he knew the underwater parts of this vessel like the back of his own hand.
So why had here been that strange face on the Good Fisherman's boat?
It made no sense. The Good Fisherman was always alone on his boat. He had no other crew or visitors of any kind. The Good Fisherman even seemed to avoid other fishing boats.
"Maybe…something happened to him?" he wondered aloud.
The Good Fisherman looked old and he managed his boat all by himself. If he'd been hurt or become sick there would be no one to help him. And if that led to him dying, other humans would jump at the chance to take his wonderful ship.
Or maybe strange humans had attacked the Good Fisherman and taken the junk by force. Humans supposedly could swim somehow with their spindly legs, but they were terrible at it and couldn't breathe underwater like his kind could, so they tended to drown and die quickly in the open sea. That made boats very valuable to humans, allowing them to cross vast stretches of water and plunder the sea of fish.
"No, he has to be okay!" Kakarrot fretted, anxiously tugging at the webbing between his fingers.
Even though the Good Fisherman was a human that he was lucky to see once a week, Kakarrot felt as close to him as members of his own pod. Although they couldn't speak, the Good Fisherman always smiled when they met, like he was glad that Kakarrot had come. He felt so welcomed when he visited the Dragon Boat, whereas when he returned to the pod at the sea caves he mostly felt tolerated now that his mother was gone.
Unsure of what to do, he trailed along underneath the Dragon Boat as it lumbered on towards Turtle Island. When the anchor crashed into the water and plummeted to the seafloor, he backed off several dozen yards and broke the surface of the water very, very slowly. With only his spiky black hair (which, from this distance, ought to look like seaweed or a sea bird) and eyes showing, it should be impossible for any humans to see him. And if they did see him, he could duck back under the sea and be gone before they could do anything.
His body was tense as he watched the Turtle Man paddle his little boat out to the fishing junk, like he did every time it came calling to his island. It vanished behind the larger ship for several minutes that seemed like several eternities to the mer-boy. And then it paddled back into view, heavily loaded and riding much lower in the water than before.
The first human he noticed in the boat was a giant—so tall and broad that it looked like he took up most of the dingy, with dark hair all over his face and what looked like horns sprouting out of his head. Then he saw a much smaller figure, tinier than any human he'd ever seen before, with long dark hair that marked it as the one that had startled him at the Dragon Boat's rail. And then he saw the Turtle Man rowing and the Good Fisherman helping him.
"He's okay!" Kakarrot whispered as relief washed over him from his head to his tail flukes. "Yeah!" But… He blinked as the dingy labored on to the shore of Turtle Island. Who are they?
Using all of his stealth, he floated closer and closer, hungry for a better look as the four humans piled out of the dingy and headed for the house. They were carrying a lot of things; different-looking things than he was used to seeing the Good Fisherman deliver to the island. He watched as they stored almost everything inside the pink house, settled in a loose circle in front of the building, and talked and ate together.
Kakarrot thought about getting close enough to hear them over the noise of the surf and the gulls, but why bother? He couldn't understand a single word of human speech; it was all just noise to him. And getting so close risked being seen by them, and while the Good Fisherman and Turtle Man were safe, he had no idea what sort of humans the Horned Giant and the Little One were.
He watched them for a while, but when it became clear that they weren't going to do anything really interesting he grew bored and ducked under the water once more. Maybe they would be doing something intriguing later. But until then, he decided to amuse himself by hunting for starfish.
I wonder who they are, he pondered as he zigzagged over the ocean floor. Why did the Good Fisherman bring them here? Will they be staying long? What did they come here to do?
No answers came to him. He just didn't know enough about humans to make any kind of guesses. They were just so mysterious and strange, living most of their lives on dry land far away from where people like him could see them, and speaking weird languages that no one could figure out. There were so many unanswered questions…
Like, why do humans wear clothes? Was it for decoration? Did it declare their status in their pods? Or was it something that they needed to wear?
His mother had told him that humans wore clothes because they were fragile and unable to keep warm in the dry surface world. Cousin Turles was convinced that they covered their bodies because they were secretly hideous underneath their clothing with blotches and lumps all over. Kakarrot was sure that at least his cousin was wrong for he had seen proof.
Once, when the Turtle Man had left one of his treasured books out on the beach, Kakarrot had been incredibly bold and beached himself to investigate it. The pages had such straight edges and were so thin and light, and there had been odd symbols and amazing images inscribed on them. While the strings of tiny symbols meant nothing to him, the images had been clear and…rather odd.
All the images had been of different humans and, judging by the shapes of their chests, they'd all been female. The human women wore very little clothing, or even none at all, and they were posed strangely. Aside from their legs and lack of fins, they looked very much like the women of his pod, and nowhere on them did he see the ugly deformities that Turles was sure must be there.
It had been an interesting discovery, but it gave him no clue as to why the Turtle Man would stare at the pages of this book over and over again for hours every day.
Humans are weird.
There didn't seem to be any starfish roaming this stretch of the ocean floor and Kakarrot gave up on his little hunt with a pout. He petulantly dragged his tail flukes through the silty bottom and kicked up billowing clouds of muck. A startled flounder darted out of the silt cloud and zipped away to find a new spot to hide and Kakarrot laughed.
"Whoops! Sorry!"
His brief disappointment forgotten, Kakarrot decided to head back and check up on the humans. Popping up beside a rocky spire that was just tall enough to break the surface, he clung to it and squinted his eyes until he could make out the front of the Turtle Man's home. The Good Fisherman, the Turtle Man, and the Horned Giant were still in the same places they'd been before, but the Little One was missing.
Curious, he made a circuit of the tiny island, taking care to stay as low in the water as possible.
Where did it go?
At the back of the island, opposite of the pink house, he spotted the tiny figure. It looked like it had changed its clothing to a large hat and two small, blue, tight-fitting pieces of clothing. The new clothes sort of reminded him of the images he'd peeked at in the Turtle Man's book.
Could it be…a girl?
Kakarrot edged closer to the shore and watched the girl in puzzlement. It looked like she was digging things up and placing them into a bright pink container of some kind. The things were too small to see from where he floated, but he was pretty sure they weren't shellfish or crabs. Whatever she was doing, though, seemed to make her happy as she moved from spot to spot.
But then a bigger wave surged up the sand and sent her squealing and running up the beach towards the trees, as if the salt water had hurt her somehow. The foamy surf caught hold of the pink container thing and dragged it along as the water rushed back into the sea. Kakarrot marveled at how buoyant it was as the thing floated jerkily away from the island atop the gentle swells.
What's it made of? It floats better than driftwood!
A sudden cry drew his eyes away from the pink object. The girl was stumbling awkwardly through the breaking waves, reaching out for the thing that had been stolen from her. The look on her face reminded him of how he felt when his brother would steal pretty shells that he'd found and brought home with him, or when his father had destroyed and discarded the lost human things that he'd found on the seafloor.
Without a second thought he surged forward under the waves, aiming straight for the runaway human thing. He came up right underneath it and snatched at its circular bottom, pulling it a bit lower in the water to improve his grip. It had a curious smooth texture that was unlike anything he'd yet encountered.
Oh wait, now I have to give it back…
He hung there, hesitating. He'd only just seen this girl today. She wasn't familiar and safe like the Good Fisherman. He knew nothing about her.
But it would be mean to take this thing that was clearly very important to her. She'd struggled into the water all the way up to her middle to try and get it back. He wasn't a thief or a meanie.
…He would give it back real quick and that would be that.
Kakarrot skimmed just beneath the waves, pushing the object above and ahead of him. He coasted in the last few feet and came to a stop less than a foot away. His whole body felt tense as he waited for her to reclaim her thing. They were so close that they could reach out and touch each other.
She didn't move.
He poked his face out of the water to get a better look at her. Her dark eyes were bright and wide as she stared down at him and her mouth had dropped open a bit. Her hands were clasped tightly under her chin and he wondered why she was doing that. It looked like she might scream, but she stayed silent.
Curiosity overcoming wariness, Kakarrot braced his tail against the sand and pushed himself up until he was level with her shoulders. It was tricky to hold his balance and not topple over to the side, but it was easier to look at her face this way. The container in his hands shifted and whatever was inside made a rattling sound, which reminded him of his earlier curiosity about her digging. He eagerly peeked down into it only to frown in confusion.
"It's garbage!" he blurted out in shock.
They had probably been very nice shells once upon a time. But years of being tossed around by waves, rubbed against rough sand, and soaked in salt water had ruined them. They were broken, worn down to nubs, pitted by salt, and bleached of all color. It was hard to imagine sadder seashells than what she had collected.
"You want these?" he muttered in disbelief, holding the bucket out to her.
She finally moved, snatching the bucket from him and clutching it to her chest. The girl started talking and distantly he noted how different the sound of her voice was from the deeper, older voices of the Good Fisherman and the Turtle Man. But his mind was mostly focused on how desperate she'd been to reclaim trash.
…Well, the really good shells don't wash up on beaches all that often, he thought. And humans are terrible swimmers so they can't get to where all the good shells are. So…maybe she doesn't know how awful those shells are 'cause she'd never seen good ones?
A brilliant idea flashed through his brain.
I'll just have to show her some awesome ones, then!
Grinning at his own genius, he turned and dove under and incoming little wave and zipped back out into the sea, leaving the girl to chatter to thin air.
He'd taken to leaving all the things that he collected in little caches scattered over his pod's vast territory instead of bringing all his finds back to the sea caves. That way his father couldn't destroy or dispose of the human artifacts that fascinated Kakarrot, but were declared forbidden. And his best shells were kept safe from his brother and the older children of the pod who loved to steal them. It was tricky to find good places that weren't already taken by an eel or an octopus, but he found it well worth the effort.
Almost a mile south of Turtle Island was a sunken atoll covered in a rainbow of corals. Kakarrot's grin grew as he located a particular gap between coral colonies and dove down to dig through it. He removed a few small nets clumsily woven from seaweed and hauled them to a stretch of open sand to examine their contents.
He ignored the bits of colored glass, the metal disks, and the other human odds and ends that were part of this collection in favor of the shells. There was a sizeable pile of scallop, clam, and oyster shells—complete pairs and singletons both—as well as snail shells of all different sizes, and a few sand dollar skeletons, too. Some had minor damage, but all were far superior to what the human girl had found. He sorted through them all, determined to find the best to show her.
Once he had selected a good double-handful, he headed back to Turtle Island with a smile that was trying to split his face. He couldn't wait to see how the human girl would react to seeing some real treasures of the sea. He'd go back and put his collection back in its hiding place later.
This is going to be great!
But when he surfaced, the girl was gone. She wasn't standing in the water where he'd left her. And she hadn't retreated back up to the beach, either.
Kakarrot's excitement cooled and his smile melted into a pout.
"Where'd she go—oh! There she is!"
His excited smile returned as he spotted her walking very slowly along the beach and almost out of sight around the curve of the small island. He took off, swimming parallel to the beach to catch up with her and called for her attention. She kept walking very slowly with her head bowed and wide-brimmed hat hiding her face from his view. Scowling in frustration, he surged ahead of her a couple of yards and cut in to the beach, stranding himself so that he was impossible to miss.
"Hey! Over here! Hey!"
She did a funny little jump and it looked like she almost fell backwards. One of her hands rose to her mouth and she gawked at him for a minute. Then she ran to him, nearly losing her large hat, and collapsed to the sand just in front of him, babbling a mile a minute.
Kakarrot was rather taken aback by her enthusiasm; he hadn't even shown her anything yet!
"Hey! Here, look!" he interrupted her jabbering and carefully spread out the shells that he'd brought. "Look, look, look! These are what good shells look like!"
Her mouth clicked shut and her eyes grew wider and brighter with each seashell that he displayed. She touched the bright orange Lion's Paw half-shell first, and then a pinkish Calico Scallop. The girl marveled at the colors of the inner part of a Sunrise Tellin, the flower-like pattern at the heart of the sand dollar skeleton, and the long ribbed spiral of a white Wentletrap snail shell. Her fingertips gently touched the branching spikes of an orange-white Lace Murex and the tiny bumps of a Beaded Periwinkle. And she looked completely amazed by the largest shell he'd brought—a brown and white striped King's Crown Conch that was a good four inches long.
Kakarrot propped his elbows in the damp sand and rested his chin in the palms of his hands as he watched the human girl admire what he'd brought.
I wonder what her face would look like if I brought up a Horse Conch. I found one that's almost half as long as I am!
When she had looked over all the shells thoroughly, she smiled at him. It was a bright and warm smile that made him smile right back. It felt so nice to meet someone who found his discoveries as amazing as he did.
"You can keep them," he decided and shoved the shells towards her. "I can find plenty more."
The girl looked confused for a moment before she understood his intent. Then her smile returned and she gently grasped the sides of his face with her warm, dry, smooth hands. She said a few words to him slowly and clearly, like she was willing him to understand. But it was all just nice-sounding noise to him.
He was pretty sure that she was telling him 'thank you', though.
"You're welcome!" he chirped and happily splashed his tail fin in the foaming surf.
Daddy's wrong, Kakarrot decided. Not all humans are bad. There are good ones, too! And maybe someday we'll be able to understand each other…
And then we'll all be friends!
~END~