Everyone has known about the reef, and it's mysterious creatures, right? Everyone has also heard of the tales of mermaids, or fish-people, lurking deep in the oceans. You often hear they're not very big, but human-sized, with colorful fish-like tails, and some can be very beautiful and kind.
All those legends are mostly based on misconceptions. Mermaids are the casual creatures, but even deeper down in the ocean, more specifically, the deep sea outside of Japan, there were dangerous creatures living there. Not very tiny either. Well, it depended on what creature you were. If you were a whale-type of sea creature, you could range from that of a mini whale to that of a big blue whale. Most of these creatures lived in harmony with each other. The dolphin types lived peacefully and played with the seal types, and the whales were often seen around the middle of the ocean, resting their fins and getting their fins dried before calmly splashing water on their scaled underparts.
We, however, are not gonna focus on the whales, dolphins, or even the smallest types of fish-people with their tails in the colors of the rainbow. We'll focus deeper down, at the base of the entire reef, at the sand, miles deep, where the sharks lived.
The shark-types were a very dangerous breed, them all having dangerously sharp teeth, and sizes changing to that of a leopard shark to the great Megalodon, which were the rulers of the entire shark family. Some types fought each other, but mostly kept to themselves. The small children were always told to keep to their types, and not even associate with the biggest ones, and the big ones were raised to know they were the rulers-to-be one day.
The greatest shark though, the Megalodon family's oldest shark-man, Toraichi, was swimming nervously around in circles, as good as he could, due to his size. To be such a big shark, he was a very kind-hearted man, and he held great love to his wife, a great white-type female he had wed just a couple of years earlier. She was in a room, the one he currently was slowly circling outside, giving birth to Toraichi's heir, and first-born.
Usually, the birth of a megalodon-type was like the birth of a royal child, even though there were no "kings" in the clans. It was just a great thing, as they were the most dangerous ones, and the biggest ones of the sea. It's just that this birth was extra special, as Toraichi has been the last sighted Megalodon-type in years, due to the Humans on land have been chasing his breed for years. It's told that he is the absolute last, and so everyone hopes for the new child to be of his breed, and wants to see it first to celebrate it.
Toraichi's wife was getting weak in the delivery hall. She was in immense pain, and she barely could swim around, and thus was lying down, not something a lot of shark women did during birth. This seemed to be a good sign that it was indeed a Megalodon being born. But the woman was in a too large pain, and the young Reef shark-type women in thwere were worried the magenta-haired woman would not survive the birth. It happened often that shark women died during birth, but losing the wife of the great Megalodon would be a devastation, as it meant he had to find a new wife if this child was not his breed.
The woman let out a loud shout, which was just seen by a lot of bubbles leaving her mouth, as that was how much in pain she was, she couldn't make a sound, but one of the reef-women noticed something was finally leaving the woman's body. Swimming forward to catch the little one before it hurt itself, she grabbed onto the baby gently, and helped the pained mother push out the last of her little child. a long, grey and white tail came out, and at first, they immediately thought it was a megalodon-type, and immediately swam out of the room to find the father, who was now finally staying still, as he had heard the sound of the coral doors open.
"Torichi, great Megalodon, This is your child, it did become one of yours!" the woman smiled brightly and handed the shark-baby to the proud father. The first thing the giant man saw was that the child had his mother's hair color, magenta and short, but the second he saw was that it was a boy, he smiled even brighter. He looked into the room, where his wife was lying on the ground, panting, and looking like she just had fought to the death, blood pouring out of her, but she still smiled at him.
Swimming to her, Toraichi rested the baby in her arms as she smiled exhausted at him, then the father of her son. The black-haired shark smiled at them both before frowning. "What will you name him?" He asked, petting the small head, seeing the baby open it's eyes, the same red eyes as his mother's looked back at him, and he smiled again.
"Rin." the great white woman said top him, smiling just at her little baby shark as she immediately started nursing him. The father smiled even more then, ignoring that that usually was seen as a feminine name. That's when he saw the similarities of his wife's and his son's tails. Both the same colors and textures. Rin wasn't a megalodon, but a great white, like his mother. Toraichi smiled yet again, and leaned in to kiss the boy on top of the pink head.
"I don't care that you didn't become like me, I'm just happy you and your mother is alright.. Rin."