Sea Water
…I have two ugly, flabby sticks with a deformed patch of skin about halfway down. They have little flappers on the end, with even tinier sticks with weird clear stones on the ends. I think they're called feet. PaulxOC
…
Land or sea,
I've got the power if I just believe
'Cause I'm no ordinary girl,
I'm from the deep blue underworld
Land or sea,
The world's my oyster, I'm the pearl
No ordinary girl
Come along it just gets better
So much to do and just so little time
'Cause it all depends on whether
You want to live and learn of what's behind
'Cause I'm no ordinary girl
I'm from the deep blue underworld
--Theme Song of H2O: Just Add Water
…
Okay, I feel very stupid right now. I just researched mermaid so much more extensively and discovered a lot more words and enemies and a lot information about Tara's race. I'm probably going to keep adding to the glossary as we go on, also.
…
"So, what exactly happened?" Tonya asks, raising her cup of warm liquid called 'hot chocolate'. It's a brown/black liquid, with very small tiny dissolving spongy kind of nutrient, called 'marshmallows'.
I shrug. I'm not exactly sure what to say. "I fell off my bed."
"You fell off your bed. You fell off your bed."
I nod.
"So that's why it was completely soaked, and there were water stains all around the floor in the shape of footprints, not to mention the one in the form of a tail?"
I shrug again. I can't tell her anything. Certainly not about my being a sea maid. Landlubbers are so ignorant.
She glares at me skeptically. Tonya found me on the floor just moments later after the last naiad slipped out the window, brought me to her 'kitchen' and wrapped me in a blanket.
Miriam taught me about kitchens. Apparently, they were the most important accessory a human could obtain, and they could live endlessly if they just lived in the kitchen. She also taught me about hot chocolate, an important form of human culture and 've both been up for hours--since moon high--which was when the river folk Emeree and Takara woke me , it' the beginning of dawn. Sea folk possess an internal connection to the moon, and since we have no way to tell time in the deep blue, we feel the position of the moon as easily as we feel the current. I don't even have to look at the sky to see the time--most likely because in our waters, it's too dark.
"What's up?" Jared yawns, opening his rectangle and trotting over to Tonya and I. Tonya tosses her head in a way that I'm sure is her old haughty adolescent self reappearing slightly.
"Tink here has a secret," Tonya glares. "And I want to know, especially if it's going to soak my daughter's bed regularly."
"They won't visit for awhile," I assure her. "I've promised to stay off their territory."
Jared eyes me in shock. Tonya looks confused. And I briefly reprimand myself for that slipup.
"Territory?" Jared asks at the same time Tonya demands,
"Visits?"
"Territory," Jared repeats.
"Visits! You've had people visiting! In the dead of night! In my house!" Tonya exclaims.
"I wouldn't call them people exactly," I say coldly. Naiads are elementals of sorts. Ondines. Wraiths.
"And they're not people!" Tonya echoes.
She calms down a bit.
"Honestly, Tink, you can't have people doing this. It's just not acceptable. If you do this again-"
"You're going to banish me?" I ask, for truth be told, I'm slightly worried. Where I would go… certainly not with someone else, not the seas, and not to the rivers, Athirat, no.
"What? Ban-I'm not going to banish you, Tink. Really, I don't know how you got that idea. Really. I do-"
"Where are you from?" Jared demands, interrupting his grandmother.
"Jared!" Tonya scolds.
"Grandma, I don't know if the sun's gotten to you or something, but I generally wouldn't allow a complete stranger into my house and I doubt anybody sane would either. Not to mention a strange girl who you found naked on the beach, has no knowledge of clothes, doesn't know what a bed is, brings people into your house and is talking like she's in a gang of some sort. You're not in a gang, are you?" Jared adds to me.
"I don't what that means." I admit.
"And look! She doesn't know what a gang is! What are you, from the Garden of Eden or something?"
"I think they started wearing clothes in the Garden of Eden, Jared," Tonya says.
"What's the Garden of Eden? Is that a food?"
"And she thinks the Bible is a food!"
"The Garden of Eden is not the Bible, Jared. And don't you go using the Lord's name in vain." (I mean no offense to Christianity at this moment. I myself am a Christian.)
"Tonya-" Jared begins.
"Jared, boy, be quiet!"
Jared falls silent, and I watch with growing interest. This reminds me of the my mother and Grandma Sallisct.
"Now, I don't know what kind of person you are, but I will not allow some… foreign girl to rot here in America. Especially on the beach and naked! For all we know, she's got amnesia. She's Samantha."
"I'm Tink."
"Samantha had retrograde amnesia, Grandma." Jared says, ignoring me as I grow evermore confused.
"So?"
"It means she had basic functions but no memories. Samantha knew how to sleep in a bed."
"Actually, they never covered that. And when did you watch Samantha Who?"
"Kim loves it."
I sip my hot chocolate. It's very delicious, I must say. Sweet with an underlying taste similar to the Preffa seaweed found in the Atlantic.
"…Tink."
It takes awhile for it to register that they're talking about me.
"I'm sorry?" I jerk my head up from savoring my drink.
Tonya watched me with curious eyes, while Jared has some hostility in the air around him.
"Jared's friend Sam's wife Emily has an opening at her restaurant. Would you like a job there?" Tonya asks me, quite a bit more calmly then before.
"What's a restaurant?"
Jared snorted.
"A restaurant is where you sell people food. They come and pay you to cook food for them."
"Oh. You mean like McDonalds?"
"You've heard of McDonalds but not a restaurant? Wow, you've been isolated." Jared snorts.
It shouldn't be that much of a surprise. Miriam and I covered McDonalds several times in our lessons. She always told me to be prepared if I ever had to live as a human.
Also, a man with a daughter named Unity started a business called Thessaly--a nod to the legend of Thessalonike--and had the sea folk pay with seashells. It was rather smart, and Unity was very nice. I believe she's in the militia right now.
"Alright, Tink." Jared growls very realistically. "I'll show you to Emily."
Show me to Emily?
He reaches out to put his hand on my shoulder but I swing away.
"Keep away, peasant!" I exclaim. Oops.
"Peasant?" He demands. "You're the one who showed up on my grandmother's porch in a sheet!"
I find this offensive.
"I am royalty," I say haughtily. "I will wear a sheet if I please."
He shakes his head at me, which I believe means 'no'. And also disbelief.
"Come on," he growls, taking me by the arm and dragging me to a large, metal, stinky sort of land-ship.
"What's this?"
"It's-it's a"--Jared looks at me in complete surprise--"it's a car. You don't know what a car is?"
I think back to Miriam.
"Sort of a ship on land, right?"
Jared rolls his eyes.
"Sure. Why not."
Jared pulls open the side of the metal, and I spy a small throne in there. I assume that's where I sit.
Jared walks around to the other side, and pulls open another dent in the metal, using some sort of lever.
He brought out a shiny sort of stick from his 'pocket'. He sticks in a hold and seemed to twist it, after which a horrible creature attacks.
I scream.
Jared jumps in surprise. "What's wrong!"
"We're being attacked!" I cry, proceeding bend over and emit another noise from my throat. I feel an ache in my eyes and a splashing sensation on my cheeks.
I wipe at them, and to my horror, I find that-
"I'm leaking!"
"What?" Jared asks, completely bewildered.
"I'm leaking!" I crouch over and start emitting a sound not too unlike the creature's. "I don't want to die here!"
"What?"
"I don't want to die!" I turn and try to copy Jared's motion of pulling open the metal, but find no success. I intend to run back to the sea and die there, among my kind. I hope Selena feels damn guilty, that stupid mermaid.
I hope Toby misses my cast-away. Brat.
"What? Who's attacking? Why are you dying?" Jared demands.
"I'm leaking!"
"You're crying."
"I'm leaking!"
"You're cr- Oh, for the love of God, that's the car. You're not being attacked, you stupid fairy. You're crying."
"What's the car!"
"That noise, which I assume is why we're being attacked." He cups his hands around his mouth bends down to yell in my ear. "You're not gonna die!"
Oh. Well, then.
I stop leaking, and I sit up. Jared scoffs at me and holds a strange device in front of him. He turns it as the car turns and I assume it's the device called a 'steering wheel'.
I cannot believe I just disgraced my family like that. Daddy will be so ashamed.
I sit in silence, while the land-ship moves around easily on this sort of black stone.
"What's crying?" I ask Jared.
"What you just did. Leaking, I suppose."
I sniff.
Jared pulls up in front of another den of sorts, but there are more land-ships in front then Tonya's. It has singing floating through the glass, with a banging sound accompanying it. It sounds horrible.
"Emily!" Jared calls. He drags me up to the den and opens the rectangle.
"Yes, Jared?"
A pretty, dark woman trotted out behind us. I turn around and look at her in surprise. She has scars covering the right side of her face.
Finally, an experienced human. Scars in sea folk culture express experience and demand respect. I have none, as, as the future queen, I am expected to have knowledge and refrain from damaging myself before I secure an heir. Then I am allowed to do whatever in Thesslonike's name I wish.
"Who are you?" Emily asks, not unkindly.
"This is Tink," Jared says beside me. "She's looking for a job."
"Oh, yeah, that's alright," Emily responds. She smiles at me. "Lania quit after she and Paul broke up again. We'll just have to see what skills you have."
"She's kinda weird," Jared warns her.
"Isn't that kind of hypocritical of you, Jar-head?" A voice issues from behind me, and I turn to see another beautiful woman. She's got even darker skin then Emily, and I see similar features on her face. "You've got to be the weirdest thing out there."
Jared pulls up his middle finger at her. She smirks and Emily looks disapproving. I'm not sure what it's supposed to mean.
"This is Leah," Emily introduces. "Jared, put your finger down," Emily hisses to him."My cousin. She's a waitress here, sometimes a cook."
I nod.
"But Tink here is much, much weirder then anything you will encounter, Leah," Jared warns. He winces, and adds, "even you."
"Tink?" Leah asks skeptically. "What kind of name is that?"
"Yeah. She also doesn't know what a car is, or crying, so if she starts screaming I'm leaking you'll know what to look for."
"I'm leaking?" Leah questions. She turns to Emily. "Should we hire her?"
"Should I hire her." Emily corrects. "And… possibly."
Leah steps up to me. "Well, she's pretty," she offers as she grabs my cheek and shakes my head around a bit, looking at my features. "If we hire her, we're bound to get more men."
"Wow, look at her eyes," Emily steps up too. "Do you wear contacts?"
"I don't think she knows what contacts are, Emily." Jared interjects, but is ignored.
Finally I grow tired of Leah. I don't mind being fawned over, but this is a bit much. Subjects do not touch the queen.
"Hands off, peasant!" I say to Leah, tugging away.
"Peasant?" she exclaims in outrage. "I'm not a peasant!"
"She likes to say that," Jared tells.
"I'm not a peasant! I have a job!" Leah yells, hands on her waist.
I toss my head.
"I don't like her," she says to Emily. "We shouldn't hire her."
"I like her," Emily says. "And I'm hiring her."
"She doesn't even know what contacts are!" Leah yelps.
"Thank you!" Jared says, vindicated.
"Thanks, Tink. You've got a job," Emily informs me, ignoring Leah's outraged face. "Come back tomorrow at eight AM."
…
Glossary:
Sea Folk: Mermaids
Land Folk: Humans
Naiads: A different breed of Sea Folk who inhabit the rivers/streams/freshwaters
Landlubbers: Insulting/degrading term for Humans
Mermaid/Merman: Insulting/degrading term for Sea Folk or Naiads
Sea Maid: Sea Folk female
Athirat: The accepted Water Folk goddess
Thessalonike: A Human female who was the sister of Alexander the Great. At his death, she was so grief-stricken she jumped into the sea after bathing her hair with immortal water. She became half-fish, half-human and passed judgment on the Human sailors of the sea. When encountering one, she would pose the same question at every encounter: Is Alexander the king alive?" To which the answer would be He lives and still rules. Any other answer would result in death. Now a myth of sorts used to scare young Water Folk, similar to the Human myth the Boogeyman. Name means, quite literally, Thessalian Victory
Thessaly: The birthplace of Thessalonike
Siren: A Sea Folk with an enchanting and magical voice which lures sailors and Land Folk to their deaths
Militia: The Sea Folk defense/offense system
Sea Manipulating: The practice of manipulating the currents and tides of the waters. Talent significantly stronger in the Royal line
Water Folk: All evolved life forms that inhabit the waters
Ondines: Classified as Water Spirits in Human mythology. Synonymous with Naiads
Wraiths: Synonymous with Ondines
Cast-Away: A Water Folk term for funeral
Grasping At Eels: A Sea Folk version of the Human saying 'Grasping At Straws'
…
Okay, if you stuck it out with me this long, I thank you. I HATED this chapter. I had some serious writer's block, which is funny because it is one of my longest chapters. But I detested it, and I wasn't able to get a good version of this, so I'm shipping it out to you and start working on the next, easier chapter that my muse likes.
And I wasn't able to fit what Tara looks like in this chapter, but it will come up in the next.
Yeah, and I recently became obsessed with Samantha Who. So I had to put it in. :)
Okay, please, please review.
~CRYSTAL