This chapter: swimming! And the beginning of something stirring inside Herakles's heart.


The next day, the whole town seemed to be in a state of high alert. Kiku had slept in until 8 or 9, by which point his siblings were all already awake. He rose and dressed straight away, choosing a more westernised outfit of blue trousers and a plain white, short sleeved t-shirt for ease of removal, and making sure to wear his swimming shorts on under his regular clothes. Once he was fully dressed he headed out into the rest of the house for breakfast, where he was met by Yao, who looked decidedly worried.

"Kiku…" He started, but then stopped, unsure.

"What is it?" His brother asked, wondering what Yao was worried about.

"There were murders out at sea yesterday… Please be careful today. I know you want to go swimming, but I think you should stay close to the shore," he warned. Kiku thought it over; it certainly made sense, although he had Herakles to protect him… Right? The merman certainly meant Kiku no harm, and he was unsure whether he actually meant harm to any human. Still, he put Yao at rest.

"It is fine Yao… I will make sure to stay within sight of the shore at all times," he decided, not wanting his brother to be concerned about him.

"Alright then, aru… But be back by sunset, I'm not taking any chances!" Yao agreed, letting Kiku go for breakfast.

Kiku climbed over the rocks, trying to get to the meeting place as quickly as possible. In his hand was clutched a white towel, which he was hoping he could keep on the rock and therefore dry (well, relatively), and he wanted to get it to the relative safety of the rock before it could get drenched by the spray which was high enough to completely soak the smaller stones he was forced to walk across. He just about managed this task, sitting on the rock with a damp, but still useable towel, and relaxed a little, settling down to wait for Herakles.

Herakles meanwhile, had a heavy heart. His whole pod, including himself, had feasted on the humans killed yesterday, and he hoped the smell wouldn't linger on his breath and make Kiku afraid. He hoped that Kiku would never notice that it had been he who had killed those men. And he felt guilty about keeping the truth from his friend, about not telling him that yes, he sometimes did have no choice but to kill people. Kiku would understand, right? But part of him felt bad for having fun with Kiku so soon after he had ended another of his kind. And was he putting Kiku in danger? The human was far more breakable than he thought he was after all. Herakles didn't know what to do. There was also another feeling plaguing Herakles: a small but growing desire to protect his friend at all costs. Herakles put it down to guilt and moved on. He was swimming towards the surface: after all, he had a promise to keep.

Kiku had been waiting for half an hour before Herakles arrived. The merman looked hesitant when surfacing, but smiled when he saw Kiku.

"Hello," he greeted, hauling himself up onto the rock, and looking over his friend's appearance, his look becoming quizzical.

"Your water clothes look no different from your ordinary ones," he pondered, completely confused.

"Ah… Well, these are my regular clothes… Hang on a minute," Kiku laughed nervously, and as if to demonstrate, stripped his shirt and trousers, leaving them on the rock and Kiku only in his swimming shorts.

"Oh…" Herakles looked Kiku over, understanding how these clothes were different. They only covered part of his body for a start, leaving Kiku's chest bare (an area which, Herakles noticed, looked little different from his own). Herakles could also get a better view of those curious things called feet that Kiku had, and the ends of his equally mysterious legs.

"It will be easier for me to swim like this," Kiku continued, Herakles nodding.

"Very well…" Herakles agreed. "Shall we swim now?"

"Yes, there's little else left to do," Kiku nodded, watching as Herakles leapt back into the water.

"Come on then," he beckoned. "It's safe at the moment: there's nothing around, I promise."

Kiku slid towards the water, pushing himself off of the rock and landing feet first into the water, surfacing after a few seconds. Herakles watched the human enter the water, wondering how Kiku would manage with the depth. He smiled when he saw Kiku was competent with swimming, eyes moving to his legs kicking furiously under the water.

"Your kind really does have to work hard to swim… But it is nice that you seem good at it. Especially since I want to show you some things," he commented.

"Ah…" Kiku replied. "Well, I suppose my kind is more used to the land than the water… But of course I can swim. I live by the sea after all. And there are things you would like to show me? Then by all means, go ahead."

Herakles smiled, glad that Kiku showed interest in his world. "Okay then… follow me," he beckoned, swimming off away from the rock, but making sure to stay parallel to the shore, so that he didn't risk swimming Kiku out too close to where his kind were likely hunting. He heard splashes behind him that he assumed were Kiku following behind him.

After a few minutes of swimming, the two of them came across a pod of dolphins, chasing fish underneath the waves. Herakles stopped, and turned around to watch Kiku swim up to him, the human clearly going slower and making those weird motions with his arms and legs that Herakles found fascinating.

"Look, Kiku, the dolphins are about." The merman pointed to the creatures once his friend had caught up.

"Ah…" Kiku smiled a little. He liked sea creatures; but dolphins rarely showed up around the areas of the beach he went to to relax.

"I like the dolphins… They are good friends of mine," Herakles stated, smiling down at the mammals eating the fish below the water.

"I also like dolphins… Even though I do not see them all that often. It's rare to see them this close to the shore, and they certainly never go up to the beach where most of the humans spend their time," Kiku agreed, watching the animals hunt.

"I can imagine why they wouldn't… They seem to dislike noise, and while they do not hate humans or openly fear them like my kind do, they do seem to be wary of you," Herakles replied.

"I can understand them being wary of us… We do sometimes hunt similar animals to them… More often than not whales."

"Hmm… whales are a good source of meat… I've heard that merpeople in the colder seas of the world sometimes eat them… I wouldn't have thought that they are eaten around here though." Herakles seemed a little confused.

"Using our boats, we often travel a long way away from our homes… I personally have never hunted any whales, but there are those in the town who have…" Kiku described.

"Hmm… Well, if you'll hunt merpeople, then why wouldn't you hunt whales?"

"I suppose…" Kiku didn't seem completely pleased with the assertion, and Herakles thought that it was time to search for something else for them to look at. His mind considered showing Kiku his home, but he banished the thought instantly. It was far, far too dangerous for Kiku to get that close to where the pod was. He decided on another plan.

"It's too risky for you to see where I live…" He started. "But I would like to take you to see some similar coral nearby. It's a little way away from here… but it's far enough from the pod that nobody should be around to see you. I'll still keep watch though," he added, just to be on the safe side. Kiku thought it over for a moment. He would probably end up disobeying his promise to stay in sight of the shore, but Herakles knew what he was doing, and he was trying to keep him out of harm's way…

"That seems alright…" He finally agreed, understanding the dangers, and knowing that Herakles meant well, even if he did seem… A little extra safe. Were the other merpeople in Herakles's pod really that dangerous?

"Okay then… it's this way," Herakles started to lead Kiku into deeper water, heading a little away from the shore but off on a diagonal tangent, so that he was heading, with Kiku in tow, away from the coral where he usually lived.

Kiku followed behind, going fine at first, but soon beginning to struggle with the increase in current as the pair got away from the safety of the shore. Herakles didn't seem to notice his friend's difficulty to begin with, and Kiku began to feel a little worried, knowing that he would tire out before they could reach their destination if he just carried on the way he was going. And with the water now far too deep to stand in… He didn't like the likely consequences of that one bit. Luckily for Kiku, Herakles turned around after a few minutes of swimming, on the lookout for sharks or other merpeople, and noticed Kiku was several hundred metres behind him. He swam back to his friend to check up on him.

"Are you okay?" He asked, concerned.

"Ah… The current is… A little hard to swim against…" Kiku complained. "Is there another way we can go?"

Herakles scowled. He wasn't used to swimming with humans. They were so slow! And add to that, they seemed unable to deal with such currents… If he were with his brother, Herakles knew that they would find no problem with the flow of water, knowing the riptide at other parts of the shore miles down the beach to be far worse than any current here. And on top of that, he had to be careful to keep Kiku safe from merpeople and other sea creatures, since he couldn't exactly defend himself in the water. The human he had killed the day before was proof enough of how fragile human life really was. As for another route… Herakles couldn't think of one. But he had a different solution.

"I'll help you swim," he smiled, grabbing hold of Kiku's hand and dragging him through the rough bit of the sea with ease.

"Ah… W-wait…" Kiku stuttered, turning red at the sudden contact. Herakles took his protest to mean that he was unused to the speed instead.

"I know it's faster than you're used to swimming… But we just need to get through this area of current… Then we'll almost be there," he smiled, tightening his grip on Kiku reassuringly and causing the human to blush an even deeper red.

It took them a quarter of an hour of Herakles swimming against the current and Kiku feeling uncomfortable with the contact between them before the sea became calm and Herakles let go of his friend. Kiku sighed in relief at the re-establishing of his personal space.

"We're almost at the coral now," Herakles stated, continuing to swim in the right direction, Kiku following. "It should only take a few more minutes before we reach it."

The human nodded, following his merman friend, feeling rejuvenated from the break from swimming he had had. After a little while longer, the two reached the area Herakles had been talking about. The water was crystalline and almost neon blue in this part of the sea, and bright coral in every colour imaginable stretched out below the waterline, for several hundred metres in each direction save for the one the two had come from, where the sea was far clearer. As Kiku had suspected, the shore was essentially out of sight, only just visible as a small smudge on the horizon. Herakles seemed at home here though, speaking with confidence.

"It is in coral like this that my kind most often make their homes. We use caves and the like too, of course, but predators are less likely to come close to the coral, so it protects us far better" the merman narrated, seeing Kiku look down on the reef in deep interest. The human had seen coral before; he had been out to the reef in which Herakles lived after all. But the structures of calcium seemed majestic no matter how many times a person saw them.

"It's nice and warm around here this time of day too… Perfect to relax in…" Herakles continued, rolling to lay on his back, his friend following. It seemed almost a perfect place to float and relax a while…

"Kiku, have you seen any more cats recently?" Herakles asked, breaking the silence that had fallen upon the two. Kiku turned his head sideways to regard the merman.

"Of course… I do have a cat of my own," he explained, amused at Herakles's apparently growing love of cats.

"Your own cat…" Herakles mused. "Cute… What is it called?"

"His name is Tama… He has a strong love of fish which seems to always be getting him into trouble one way or another… For example, when he steals food from the fridge… Yao hates it when he does that…" Kiku smiled and closed his eyes. "And then, there was the time he fell into a pond belonging to the house next door, trying to catch fish… Other than that though, he has always been docile, as far as cats go. He rarely brings in dead animals, or scratches the furniture."

"….Furniture?" Herakles asked, not understanding the unfamiliar word.

"Ah, yes… Things like beds, sofas, and so on… We sit or lie on them when we want to rest."

"And cats scratch them up?" Herakles continued.

"Yes… They need to scratch to keep their claws in good condition… it also helps them to gain exercise. However, we far prefer them to scratch up toys that we make for that purpose, rather than things we would rather use elsewhere," Kiku told him.

"I see… We do not make toys for other animals. We only use toys to help teach our young to hunt and things like that," Herakles compared, before changing the subject entirely. "What does your cat look like?"

"Hmm…. He is mostly black, but has white parts on his legs and also on the front of his body," Kiku described.

"That sounds really cute… I hope I can meet him someday, Kiku."

Kiku smiled. "Ah… Well, hopefully, someday, you can…"

Before long, the sun started to edge lower in the sky, casting deep orange rays across the duo. Herakles looked up for a moment, before his thoughts flew to the rest of the pod. They would be heading for the shore soon, to try to subdue any humans still in the water after dark. They would also likely be wondering where he was. He couldn't let Kiku be put at risk.

"We should head back…" He started. "It was nice to spend time with you today though."

Kiku looked to the position of the sun, and nodded. If he stayed out any longer, his brother would not be happy with him. "It would seem so… Thank you for taking me out here Herakles, I also had a nice time." Kiku smiled a little, and Herakles nodded.

"We should head back now then…" He insisted, a little worried now as he envisioned his people finding Kiku on the shore and slaughtering the man on the spot as he was left helpless to stop them.

"Okay," Kiku agreed, flipping forwards onto his front and following Herakles back the way they had come.

The journey back was a little quicker with the current helping them the whole way, so Herakles was able to get Kiku back before there was any chance of the human being in danger. Kiku hauled himself back up onto the rock, wrapping his towel around himself in an attempt to dry off before picking up his clothes from earlier and looking back to Herakles.

"When should we meet again?" He asked, his clothes in one hand while the other held onto the towel to stop it falling off of his shoulders.

"Well… Maybe at least we should meet back here tomorrow to talk? We can decide any further activities we want to do then," Herakles suggested.

"That sounds good," Kiku agreed, smiling over at his friend.

"Great," Herakles smiled widely. "I'll see you tomorrow then, Kiku."

Kiku nodded. "Okay… See you tomorrow Herakles." He waved a little before skipping back over the rocks, towards the shore and eventually back into the town. Herakles watched for several minutes, waiting until Kiku was gone before relaxing, glad his friend was safe. As he turned around and swam back out to sea to meet up with the rest of the pod, his heart fluttered just a little at the thought of Kiku ever being hurt. The merman didn't notice the unfamiliar feeling.