for musubiki and silverbuttercups on tumblr.
So, the salty waves crash against the sides of his small, humble boat, while little pieces of duct tape attempt to hold broken bits together as the adhesive loosens from the moisture. He really should buy a new boat, after all, money is no object for him. But he prefers this one which he proudly names June, his favorite month. She's good luck, he thinks, he's had her since the first valuable fish he found. A master fisherman, he also thinks, fascinated by all the different fins and tails a fish can have. His mind becomes determined to find every rare one possible, collectibles he keeps for himself no matter the value. To him, its rarity becomes its value, not the monetary weight that may come along with it. Yet, with his collectibles, he becomes a slave to the sea, constantly searching and never-ending his hunt.
As the sun kisses the horizon and begins to paint the waters tangerine, he wipes his hands clean of dirt from the can of worms, admiring the view. And his ears catch a slap against the surface of the ocean. His head whips to the south end of his boat, his own feet tumbling across the small distance to find where the noise came from. Such a noise would definitely be a fish of some kind. Lo and behold, his eyes become full with the image of the most beautiful tail he would ever see. And such a tail of that size would mean an even bigger fish. He could not wait to display such colors on his wall.
But the tail returns to the waters and he frantically breaks out of his stupor in attempt to follow this newfound treasure.
He revs up his engine, pulling the handle with minimal strength. He trails this fish for another mile or so until finally, it disappears. The boat abruptly stops in order to keep to the place, in case the animal returns again, which he hopes it will, or else he will have just lost something he would vow to search for forever. In the meantime, he sits and waits while the moon takes its place in the sea above. He' snacks on crackers when his stomach lurches and sips warm Earl Grey in order to calm his excitement. A small smile cracks the corner of his mouth, he just knows this new fish will be a fantastic find, he can feel it.
While he plans and wonders about his new chase, beneath him swims the wonder mankind has no knowledge of. The tail he so fondly thinks of belonged to not the month of June, but the month of May, so to speak. And this month, well, she was known to have the most beautiful tail of the merpeople. It only made her the most sought after among the mermen, but she would never reciprocate for some reason or other. Perhaps he was too muscular or he tried making his tail too flashy, or maybe he had bad fin maintenance. But she could not commit and her mind always seemed to be elsewhere, seemed to be above the surface, with the sky and the birds and the air.
She also does not fear the air, as the others do. Their tails cannot withstand the air for too long, but she adores the occasional breezes to be felt with the tides and spends more time than she ought to near the land. She combs her floating hair in the water with her hand, waiting for the sun to come back up, that way she may go back to the surface. Her people have only one condition about going to the top: never go at night. For this reason, if they are atop the ocean at this time, their bodies experience tremendous harm, especially if the moon is full. They do not know why this happens to be the case, but for the most part, they avoid the nighttime to avoid any kind of impairment.
In this way, the elegant and curious mermaid she is awaits the sunshine, and after hours peeking from her coral home, finally caught glimpses of the golden rays. And with all her might, she wags her tail so that she may reach the surface as fast as possible. Her eyebrows furrow though as the sunlight begins to go away quickly, the shadow of some larger object covering her sweet golden time. As she nears the top, she cannot slow her tail down in time and she realizes she will hit whatever great device that has floated in her way. She braces herself, closing her eyes and attempting to swim towards the end of it—
Bam!
Just as she began to break into the air, her head hit the far end of the hard, wooden object that she now identifies as a boat, a man-made item, and a loud "Ow!" releases from her whimper in pain. Her impact rocks the boat that also rocks the silver-haired fisherman awake. The young man groggily jots up and wipes his five o'clock shadow with his hand. He turns toward the direction his boat began to tip and sees the one thing he has sought since yesterday. His eyes become full of the image of golden scales and translucent fins at the end of the tail, almost as if the sun has personified itself in the body of a fish.
He wants this tail. More than anything. So, he goes after it. Immediately his body moves as fast as possible towards the large net, which he quickly casts overboard atop the floundering "animal." Beneath the water, the mermaid feels her bottom half tangled in something as she tends to do her throbbing head and suddenly, her entire person has been pulled out of the ocean. Her body drops onto a hard surface and she's no longer water-bound but flapping around on a small, wooden floor. In his hands, he has ready a spear to kill the animal. The fisherman stops extremely bewildered and fascinated. He cannot comprehend what sits in front of him, a half fish, half woman underneath the net which he had just pulled with all his strength from the water.
Sweat still covers his forehead from the effort he put in to acquire this "animal," and he marvels in curiosity and enamor. Once the mermaid has stopped squirming underneath the net, she keeps still and peers through the holes at the man before her, also marveled by his presence. They stare at the other, never having experienced this kind of interaction before. He comes down to his knees and reaches for the net, taking it off of her. She does not lose eye contact.
He attempts to speak to her, but they soon come to realize, their languages are different. She cannot understand him and he cannot understand her. And while half of their bodies are not the same, he knew the other parts are, so he approaches her slowly and gently extends his hand to her to show that he no longer means no harm. How could he harm her? She is utterly beautiful and mysterious. She stares at his hand, realizing it to be the same as hers, and places her fingers atop his. His hand is drier, it feels as though his skin has more lines to it, while hers gives the impression of a more mucous-like texture. No matter, he does not seem to care, he only wishes to know more about her, to know everything. He tries to speak again, but she just turns her head to the side in confusion. So he softly releases her hand and walks away for a moment to his quarters below deck. He returns with a notepad, perhaps she can read but not speak? He writes 'hello' in several different languages, but she knots her eyebrows at the sight of all of them. It seems they shall never find a way to properly communicate with the other.
Then a thought occurs to him, perhaps it's not that she cannot speak, but that she cannot hear? Maybe his words fall upon the deaf, and his assumption becomes true. Above the water, the merpeople cannot hear anything except the ocean and the animals that it inhabits. Not to mention that she cannot read because they do not write beneath the water. The two creatures become stuck in this position, and he tries in every way possible to tell her to come visit him whenever, as he would not leave until he learned more about her. He wants to convey to her that he will stay in this one place so that she may know where he is when she wants to visit if she desires in the first place (which he really hopes she does).
He somehow explains all of this through gestures, which she somehow understands, slightly. Well, very little of the message she understands, but she clearly grasps that he would like her to return, as he places her palm to his chest, above his beating heart, and with his free hand motions a 'come here.' Her cheeks inflame as she observes he has a very pleasant face and upper half body, the bottom half she still cannot wrap her head around. In the meantime, in the notepad he currently has, he writes his thoughts and impressions of the mermaid, along with a few sketches. She just continues to stare but also plays around with all the foreign objects around her. They do enjoy the other's company but it remains painfully obvious to each other they would like a means of communication.
Suddenly, the daylight seems to have passed rather quickly, and the sun begins to set. She becomes frantic and he does not understand why. She flops in strain, trying to bring herself overboard to the water and he displays a great deal of concern that she might be in pain of some kind. He picks her up by her waist and his touch strangely calms her. He helps her overboard and the big splash of her body returning to the water bathes him. His person peers over the ledge as she fixes herself in the water and faces him.
She smiles.
And he knows.
He knows from her gentle gaze that she will be back again. The sun begins to rapidly set pulling under the horizon. She turns around to go back into the ocean and the moon barely starts to glow. And though he knows she will not be able to hear him, he says "goodbye" kindly from the ledge. She stops abruptly from going beneath. She heard him? She turns to him in confusion and he registers that his word may have reached her ears. But why now? Why not hours ago or five minutes ago? The sun is finally gone and the stars have illuminated the night sky. Her eyes pop widely at the observation the moon is out and night has come and she panics.
A gasp releases from her mouth as she plunges herself back underneath the water without warning to the fisherman, but when she is back in the ocean, she quickly realizes that the moon did not cause her any pain at all and she slowly resurfaces to the bewildered man. He speaks to her once more, to see if what happened previously may happen again.
"Where did you go? If I may ask."
She stares once again, surprised she can hear his words so clearly, as well as confused that the night is not hurting her. She opens her mouth to reply.
"Beneath the water, I can't be at the top when it's nighttime, or else I'll be hurt."
He now stares at her in return, bewitched by her lovely voice as he could not imagine what it would sound like until now. He'd like to know more, so he continues to ask.
"But you're not hurting now, are you?"
"Strangely, no. I'm not sure why."
"Would you mind telling me what you are called?"
"May."
May. Like the month. His boat becomes short by one month, and he thinks for a second whether or not he should rename his boat. Or buy a new one and name it after her. He cannot help but gaze upon her, her beautiful eyes and hair and skin, he's no longer infatuated with her tail but her whole being.
"May… My name is Steven, I'm truly lucky to have met you."
His words flatter her and while she does not understand how she's not under any type of pain, she likes hearing him speak.
"Steven, tell me what you do."
So, he tells her. He tells her his position makes him a collector of the sorts… but he explains he'll most likely stop collecting now that he's met her. She does not understand what he means by this but remains focused on him, hanging onto every word that leaves his handsome mouth. They converse for a good while but later say goodbye for the night as he does need his rest. She promises to come back the next day and neither can wait to meet again.
She meets him in the late morning and they find she cannot understand him any longer. They spend the day learning to communicate in other motions, learning the other more. However, when the night falls again, she does not experience pain this time, either. And a connection is made in both their minds when the moon comes out she can hear him once more and speak to him. They talk through the night and she still remains unchanged by the moon.
They continue this endeavor for a couple more nights and days, growing closer… more intimate. For the first time in a long time, he finds himself talking about his mother to her, although she does not understand what a 'mother' is. A few nights in, her skin no longer feels slimy and he's able to hold her hand or sit closer to her when she comes overboard. In other times, he completely forgets her bottom half exists because she seems so human to him in comparison to all other women he's been with. And in a lot of ways, he so dearly wishes for her to be a woman. To walk with him on land, to see the rest of the land that is out there and discover what she had no idea could possibly exist out there.
He wants to show it all to her. But finally their time comes to an end on another night and she returns to the deep blue beneath his boat. Deep anguish washes over him like the tide crashing against the sides of his boat, he cannot fall for a mermaid. She has nothing to offer him, she could not be the mother of his children or the wife he never thought he'd yearn for. Yet, she has become all these things in a matter of weeks, but she remains a mermaid.
Half his, half the sea's.
He spends the rest of the night conflicted, and the rest of the day upset. He comes to the conclusion he must end this little rendezvous and release her back to the ocean. His heart tells him to stay with her but he could never be moved more than by his mind. Intellectual thought outweighs the strong feelings he may believe to be temporary (although he knows inside the memory of her will never fade). He decides, when she comes back to him the following night, he will end things.
That night will be a full moon.
She rises above the water to meet him, noticing the unhappy countenance he displays. She asks him what might be the matter, her voice and face becoming more human and personable by the second. He tells her it is nothing of importance, extending his hand out to her so that she may climb aboard. Her tail flops onto the deck, water trailing along with it. They begin talking. As they begin talking, with the silver-haired fisherman about to reveal his intentions to leave, the mermaid points out that it is a full moon.
"It's strange nothing has happened to me," she says. She turns to him in bliss, having grown fond of his company. "But it also makes me happy because then I can spend time with you."
He swallows. Just as he opens his mouth to break the news, he stops. He observes her skin and that it is… glowing? She sees the confusion on his face and also notices her skin. And by some odd, cosmic force, she feels compelled to stare at the moon. The white light in the night sky seems to be the same iridescence shining off the mermaid's body and tears stream from her eyes. She does not experience pain but rather experiences a change, she feels herself changing. Her large, gorgeous tail begins to shrink and she becomes frantic, unable to move during her transformation. He watches her fins dwindle into nothingness and finally the scales of her tail fall off, almost as if a snake shed its skin. And underneath the skin, a pair of legs.
Her body stops glowing after her tail has become completely nonexistent and legs take its place. She can move once again but no longer as a mermaid. She sits on the deck of his boat, nude, with a body she does not understand. The tears still stream, she has lost her ability to return to the sea. And just like that, it seems as if all his prayers had been answered. She could now be his, but would she be? He gazes upon her, still finding her the most beautiful marvel he has ever found.
She turns to him. "Steven, what will I be without my tail?"
He closes the distance between them, taking off his shirt and wrapping it around her exposed body. "I think, perhaps, starting today, you will be mine and I will be yours."
The once-mermaid looks at him endearingly, but also still a little lost as to understanding how legs function. It would be no matter that she could not live beneath the ocean anymore, she always preferred the surface to begin with. And she is sure, that with this no-more fisherman beside her, he will teach her the ways to be, the ways she thinks she should have always been living.
He places a hand around her waist, pulling her closer to him. Resting his forehead against hers, he cups her jaw in his other hand, explaining to her that the world is a beautiful place to explore but that she is by far and always will be the most beautiful spectacle he's known to exist in mankind. He takes her gentle face in the soft glow of the full moon and brings their lips together.
She no longer belongs to the sea and neither does he.
a/n: my contribution to MerMay. been too far gone on the writing scene as of late. smh