Okay, this one was quite fun, cos I got to write a poem from Faro's POV, I might let you see it later, but I like to think I've done it well, on the presupposition that if he would actually compose a poem, he'd go all out about it - especially for our lovely Saph.
So wish I'd invented them instead of the wonderful HD, but I didn't, so I need to stop whining and get on with the story.
PS: I know my tenses jump about from present to past like... jumpy things, but it's something I suck at, please forgive me!
PPS: While doing a little research for the next chapter, I was looking up colleges, and smack bang in the middle of a list of schools, is Conor Downs School - Lol.
Note to self, must not babble during A/N's, feel free to shut me up.
"Look Faro! That one's the shape of a seahorse!" I pointed to the cloud in question.
Faro tilted his head back to study the fluffy thing critically then grudgingly nodded "And you're the shape of a human who's for some reason excited by white collections of water in the sky."
"You're not a shape at all." I countered with a smile, "You're two shapes, seal and human, stuck together."
"I am not stuck together! I am Mer, and Mer are Mer, not seals and humans put together." he gestured to himself, "If I am two different creatures, find the line between, where human stops and seal starts." his eyes narrowed at me, daring me to try.
I am about to touch the place I believe is the midpoint, when Faro leaps off the rock to refresh his tail. It gives me an idea "Ha! You just proved my point!"
Faro looked at me quizzically.
"It's only your tail that needs to stay moist, from the waist up you can stay out as long as you want." I explain with a proud grin, only to be soaked after Faro smashes a small tidal wave over me with the force of his tail "I never prove anyone's point but mine." he snapped as I spluttered and tried to get the water out of my nose without losing all of my dignity.
"Faro!" I choked out fearfully, as I coughed up more water I hadn't been prepared for and feeling like I'm about to not just vomit, but pass out afterwards.
He pulls himself up onto the rock and makes fluttery motions with his hands, unsure what to do about watching his friend drowning in Air.
…
There have not been many moments worse than that one, when I had to just sit there and watch Sapphire fight for her life due to my own stupidity. I'd only intended to get her wet to show my displeasure, and now she could possibly choke to death – and I could do nothing.
Why did Conor have to do this to me? Put me in this position? If he had simply forced me not to ever see Sapphire again, it might have been easier, less of a temptation. But here we were, she was coughing up huger amounts of water than you would expect could be inside a human, and I could do nothing, not even pound her back as I've seen them do to semi-drowned mariners. I had to just watch, and I hated it, hated the fear that almost broke me, almost let me destroy my home just to save her.
But I should have known better, my Sapphy is strong, and she saved herself.
…
The last of the water came out, and I could see several parts of my body had changed colour from lack of oxygen as I pulled in my first breath in way too long. I sat there, leant forward, hands over my stomach and just breathed, fed my body with the air it needed to survive.
From the corner of my eye I could see Faro sagging with relief and letting out a long breath. He ran fingers through his longish – but nowhere near as long as mine – hair and I watched his chest rise and fall as rapidly as mine.
Wow, Faro had been scared. I'd rarely ever seen fear in him, and any other time I might've laughed, but... to know that fear had been, well, for me. That changed everything, because his fright had been serious, he'd been terrified he might have had to watch me die – I could see all that in his face as he watched me slowly straighten to look at him.
I took a slow breath, letting it ease it's way through my lungs and fill my skin with healthy colour "Faro, just so you know, if there is ever a next time for that – and I hope there isn't – what you do is hit me on the back, between the shoulder blades." I managed to place my palm over the area to show him "Conor taught me that, he's had basic first-aid training."
"I have not seen Conor in nearly two of your years Sapphire." Faro says carefully, watching me in concern.
This fact is new to me, it seems like just yesterday that we were all together saying goodbye to Elvira, and I still wondered what Faro and Conor had talked about. And what Elvira had been trying to say.
…
Goodbye to Elvira... Faro and Conor talked... Elvira had been trying...
Sapphire's thoughts are jumbled and to anyone else would be impossible to understand, but I have watched them for so long, for so many years now, that decipherment is easy. But still, what is she remembering?
"Why are you thinking about Elvira, Sapphire? You could be watching me beat my time instead." I tell her, throwing myself into the water, the splash coats her legs in liquid, but there is no danger as before.
"Stop reading my thoughts!" she squeals, throwing barriers around her mind in embarrassment, and covering her face with her hands as it slowly turns red.
"What are you doing?" I ask, longing to pull her hands away to see how her face has changed, what the colour has changed, if it might have made her any less pretty – not that I think anything can do that.
"Hiding," she answers, her voice slightly muffled by her hands. "You can't see me!" she cries cheerfully.
"I can see you, my eyesight has not deteriorated in the last few moments Sapphire."
She lifts her head, her hair is still dripping as it makes a now almost black wave across her face. She blows the locks from her eyes and smiles in that radiant way she does when I'm ignorant "It's something that children think, science says that babies for some reason think that if they can't see you, you can't see them. It's why young kids like playing peebo."
"Peebo?" What a peculiar word.
"Yeah, that's what my family always called it anyway."
"How do you play it then? This... peebo?"
"It's easy, but it's only fun if you're under two years old really..."
"Ah, okay."
"You should enjoy it then."
I stare at her, astounded, as she bursts into musical laughter which puts even dolphin music to shame. "I am not two! I am older than you!"
She rubs her cheeks as she quiets herself "Don't you know anything? Girls are more mature than boys, so in your head you're probably about two."
I scowl at her, but am still curious, I want to know everything about her, even this game she played as a baby. "Tell me anyway." I say softly, wondering how this conversation had changed from the admiration of my somersaulting abilities that I had intended.
"I'll show you," she covered her eyes for a few moments, and I waited expectantly for something to happen, she then flung her hands away and yelled "Peebo!"
…
His face was absolutely priceless, hysterical. I actually fell off the rock I was guffawing so hard. I had landed in a dent of the next rock down, one that was filled with water, and continued to giggle at his incredulous expression, until a crab walked across my leg and I shrieked, thinking it was a spider.
Then it was his turn to laugh at me, and I didn't feel so good. Faro had no right to laugh at me! And I made sure he could hear the thought, to which he only laughed harder, falling back into the waves with it.
He eventually comes back out and asks me as I stand up "What were we talking about before all this hwarth, this, this... silliness?"
"Um... I can't remember, but you read my thoughts and I didn't want you to."
"You should keep your 'portcullis' up then."
"You actually keep it down to make it useful Faro, it drops down and traps invaders of a castle. And it's too exhausting to do it all the time, why can't you just not try to read my mind?"
…
"I don't try, I can hear you whether I want to or not sometimes." I cannot believe I just said that. It was true, I could almost always sense her mind, even when she was in Air and I deep in Ingo, but it was an utter lie to suggest there was ever a time I might not want to be with her, even if only in that I could sense she was alive and well.
"Oh! I remember! I was telling you about how Conor learnt the Heimlich manoeuvre."
"The what?"
"The Heimlich? It's what I was saying earlier, the method for how to stop someone choking."
"Oh... How is your brother Sapphire? Since I haven't seen him in so long." And is he likely to ever release me from his curse?
"Oh, Conor's fine." she replies, settling down onto the sand and wiggling a little until she is comfortable – how I wish I could lie there beside her and bask in the sun as she so loves to do. "Happy doing his really complicated maths and science and stuff at college, off to Uni next year." she sighs.
"Sapphire? What's wrong?"
"It's just that... I don't know what to do with my life. I need to pick college courses soon or I won't get a place at all, not that I'll be able to get one anyway, my grades are too terrible. And even if I did, what would I do there? What subjects could I possibly take?"
I watch her silently, I have heard of all the things she is saying, but they still do not mean much to me. This saddens me, for I have listened to her worry over them for quite some time. How I wish I could help her, ease the burden on her mind.
…
"I just hate how Conor knows everything about his future, what he wants to be, how to get there, where he wants to go. I just feel so useless with my barely-passing grades and no idea what I want." Except one thing, I protect my thoughts, I know one thing I want, and that's you Faro, how did I ever live without you?
…
Her blockades are up, surrounding her mind in a red, flickery thing a bit like seaweed strands in the way it moves.
Cautiously I venture a topic she is not going to like "Sapphire?"
"Yes, Faro?" she answers miserably, she doesn't even lift her head, just raises a hand weakly to show she is listening.
"Why doesn't Conor come to Ingo with you anymore?"
…
Oh dear... How can I answer without lying, and without revealing the truth? Conor made me swear and promise not to tell anyone that he's hiding from Ingo, hiding from the pain of losing Elvira. I hated him for the few days after he answered the question for me, hated him for telling me he'd loved her, but now, just like with Dad, I accepted it.
Human men cannot resist Mer women, it is a simple fact to me now, and it seemed my family in particular were afflicted grievously with it. But then again, I think it didn't matter the genders, there was a reason behind the myths of sirens and mermaids, the Mer have a beauty and draw that is unique to the oceans' children.
I am ugly by comparison, that is one reason I hated Elvira so much. She made me jealous, and envious, and long to be Mer so I could be so enchanting too.
But no. I must not let Faro know my thoughts. I must invent some other reason, and fast. I cannot break my promise to Conor. Sometimes I love my lying ability, and now is one of those times, because it falls off my tongue effortlessly.
"Ervys." I say, "Even though the guy was, to quote good ol' Bill, 'an inhuman wretch', Conor can't deal with the fact he killed someone. Humans have very important laws about murder, and even in self-defence it's frowned upon, I don't know how much trouble you get into for that... Hell, I'd be scared too, and that's not even thinking about the trauma..."
"Who's 'Good Ol' Bill'?"
"William Shakespeare, he's an old writer."
"Oh, okay."
I lay there, stunned that he accepted such a lie, it probably had some truth to it, but the fact that he still hadn't caught on about Elvira... That was just brilliant.
"You're thinking about my sister again Sapphire. Get up and watch me instead, more fun than just lying on the floor."
So I did. He did that spinning thing where he somersaults so many times that he blurs into an infinity symbol surrounded by the churning of so many bubbles. After nearly five minutes – by my counting the seconds – he slows to a stop, rising from the water.
He smiles at me, a dizzy grin on his face "How long was that?"
"283 seconds, nearly five minutes, still not beaten Morlader's record though."
"Merde!" he shouts, slapping the water crossly as I reach the conclusion that the language was not Mer, but why then was Faro using a human language?
"Faro? There's no need to swear." I don't know if it was, but it surely had the right tone to be a curse word.
He watches me and shakes the dizziness from his eyes "Sorry, it's just that I've been working on that for ages. And I still can't seem to beat five minutes."
"Aww, poor Faro can't improve his party piece." I say with a half-mocking smile.
"Hmph!" Faro replies, folding his arms as he flicks his tail absently "You can't do it at all." he sticks his tongue out at me and I follow suit.
…
That is exactly when the familiar debate changes, because Sapphire, my fascinating Sapphire, instead of admitting the fact, challenges me.
"Maybe not, but I could use ribbons to achieve something similar if I wanted, but I don't because it's dangerous." she gives me one of those I-can-do-something-you-can't smiles and pulls off her ridiculous 'flip-flops'. "I bet you can't pick things up with your tail Faro."
What? "Of course not, we Mer have hands for that sort of thing."
"So do humans," she wriggles her fingers "but sometimes your hands are not an option." her smile broadens so gorgeously I— no, I will not continue that thought. "In those cases, we can use our feet." she stretches out her left leg and scrapes her toes over a collection of small pebbles, rolling one around beneath her foot.
I stare at her, fascinated as she picks the small stone up and throws it toward me – all with her toes. I catch the pebble and study it, trying to spot how she did that with a human's mostly-considered-useless lower appendages.
I believe that is when I finally admitted to myself that being human would not be the end of the world, because there was nothing cleft about them as I had always been taught. They are not mutilated Mer, they are human, and one of them is Sapphire.
The girl I must never, ever touch or my cousin will be pulled apart by scientists and my entire world destroyed.
…
I laughed, I couldn't resist from the look on his face as I slipped my feet back into the sandals. "It's not that miraculous Faro! …Faro?" I ask when he doesn't answer me. My friend has turned away slightly, and is watching the mouth of the cove just as he watched me. "Faro? Oh please don't have to leave yet!" I cry as I realise why he is looking out to the sea, to Ingo.
He regards me over his shoulder with a faint smile. Don't panic Kowethes Moryow, I shall return in but a moment. And before I could even demand it of him, he added: I promise.
People, Mer people, had been calling me that for some time now, it seemed Seiliko and the other dolphins had been spreading the news of my recognition pattern. For that's what it was: Kowethes Moryow, friend of the seas, friend of Ingo.
And he was gone, disappeared with the speed I envied him for, envied the Mer in general for. But, I had to remind myself, if you had that speed, you wouldn't ever see Sadie again, or Mum, or Roger, or Rainbow, or even Granny Carne. You would miss everything human, and it would tear at you even more because you could never come back, be grateful you can move between both worlds, be grateful for human adaptability.
My science teacher had told me that humans are the most adaptable animals on the planet, save for maybe rats. Though I really didn't like the comparison to being a rat, it stung about as much as when Faro first called me cleft.
Sapphire? Faro spoke into my mind, the gesture was the mental equivalent of knocking on a door, asking for permission to enter.
I shake myself, looking at him and answering "Yes, Faro?"
"This... litter," I could hear clearly that he wanted to use a different, less polite word to describe the thing he held. "It has words on it."
"Yeah, so?" I asked, nestling myself onto what I privately thought of as Saphro rock, the one we always sat on together, not that I would ever, ever let anyone know I called it that.
"Can you read it to me?" he enquired, much to my surprise, why did he care about a piece of rubbish enough to want to know what it said?
"If it's in English, I suppose so."
After dragging himself up the stone, and giving me a truly lip-licking-worthy view of his muscles in action, he handed the soggy paper to me.
Oh. Bugger.
It still smelt faintly of honey, and still had visible blemishes from the fact it is recycled, a predictable idea of a gift from Granny Carne. But, almost annoyingly, the words were still there, plain as day, flawless in bluey-green, as if the sea had tried to preserve something I could not allow anyone to know.
…
The look she gave the despicable defilement was unusual, not the hatred and fury I felt, and it was nothing I could exactly name. I touched her thoughts to try and understand her reaction better, only to find nothing, she was not protecting her mind, because there was nothing happening, she had stopped thinking.
The idea that someone would be capable of going even a moment without thought is strange, but I realised that shock could probably do such a thing.
"Sapphire?" I finally spoke, hoping to start her up again, get some movement inside her head, because her silent staring was more than a little disconcerting.
"Um... yeah, I can read it." her voice sounded strange, as if from far away.
Why did Conor have to do this to me? I needed to touch her now, I could feel my hand moving forward to touch her face, wake her from whatever spell she was under.
NO! I forced my arm down, away from her, she was in no danger, just deeply surprised. I could not risk the existence of my world and the safety of my family just to bring her back from a daze over whatever it was the reprehensible rubbish said.
"Well?"
"It's, it's a poem."
"A poem..." that is a very strange thing to find, normally it is wrappers for the human 'sweets' my favourite girl seemed to love so much, or those small plastic see-through things with tiny spears on the ends which Sapphire called 'syringes'.
"Yes, it's a bit like a song."
"I know what a poem is Sapphire." In my worst moments of missing Elvira, I had composed many about her. Not to mention the one I had refused to let into my mind lest she catch it, the poem about Sapphire.
Hair like breccicated jasper,
And eyes into which I fall,
I cannot change my feelings,
My Sapphire is my all.
NO! I will not remember it. Sapphire cannot know how much I like her, how I even let the other l-word enter my mind when I think of her.
"Do you really want me to read it Faro? It feels kinda wrong... Like invading their privacy." she doesn't look happy, but at least she's thinking again, and she sees me when she turns her eyes my way.
"But, why then, if they didn't want anyone to read it, did they throw it into the ocean where it could wash up anywhere?"
…
He had a point, it had been rather stupid of me, I should've just eaten it.
"Okay, okay. Um, its kinda smudged," I say, hoping he cannot use his mind-reading to know that I'm telling hugamongous lies, and completely changing the contents. "But, this is what I think it says:
Eyes that help,
Hair like wood,
How I feel for this fiend,
Is strong indeed.
We raced through cars,
Then rest on the sand,
And all this time,
He's burned my hand.
Now that I'm older,
I finally see,
I don't look at him,
The way he looks at me."
I sincerely hoped the changes were enough to make up for the guilty-face I must have, and to cover up that I'd actually written it about him.
"What in all of Ingo was that about?" Faro asked me, quite clearly bemused – oh thank goodness. "And it still does not explain why they felt the need to poison Ingo with human waste."
I felt the need to defend my action "Maybe the poet had strong feelings for whoever the poem is about, and couldn't bear to destroy it, but didn't want to keep it anymore?"
"Maybe Sapphire, but they did not need to contribute to the growing contamination of Ingo."
"I know Faro..." I replied miserably. What should I do with the thing now? Moryow refused to blur my feelings for Faro, even if they were written with Norvys-scented paper, it was almost an omen, and I didn't like it.
