I'm playing with the idea of giving this story a week or two breather to give people the chance to catch up. I do sort of update a lot. Did you all get your Christmas Present all right?
Chapter 8
The top they gave her was more of a vest and brazier in one. Made of tightly woven tiny shells of varying colors, it had a smooth, scale mail sort of fit and hugged her breasts up and close. It had wide straps that spread from the tip of her shoulders to an inch or too from the curve of her neck, and there was one particularly bright purple shell where the right strap met the body. She fiddled with it as she huddled against the round sponge bed, where she had been told to wait by the silver mermaid.
And, well, even if the woman turned out not to be Mai's grandmother as she said to be, she was still Maitre Chief of this particular tribe of merfolk. Or, in other words, she was a queen, and Mai the lost daughter of her youngest son—and apparently her only granddaughter.
She twisted at the purple shell. It was really no bigger than her fingernail, and it was one of the larger shells in the blouse. She couldn't help but wonder at the craftsmanship. But, then, if you didn't have leather or wool under water, shells made sense. And, while she thought on it, the other matron mermaids who had been with her grandmother at the council had worn similar tops, though theirs varied with shell patterns and how long of sleeves they had. Those that had sleeves past the shoulders were made of a sheer, flowing material that Mai didn't recognize. They had also worn swirling belts of that same flowing material hemmed with glimmering fish scales of varying colors. One had been left for Mai, but she hadn't a clue of how to put it on, or even if she wanted to. She hadn't seen any of the other mermaids in the town wearing them, and her fancy goldfish tailfins already made her stand out enough.
Still twisting the purple shell, almost like a nervous new twitch for comfort, Mai looked about the bedroom she had been left in. It didn't look too much like a normal bedroom on land, but it didn't look too different either. There was something like a mirror, except it took up half the ceiling and Mai could see her pale, nervous looking self whenever she looked up. The walls had bits of that same glowing crystal, combined with globes of jellyfish, and the floor was the same polished obsidian. It had no windows, and she guessed that was appropriate given anything could swim out or in, but she missed the sunlight. However, it had also occurred to her that, for one living in the seas, it was only natural to get use to darkness, especially when humans took up any shallow, bright waters in sight.
Even as she thought that, she shivered. Her fingers looked almost blue with cold. Would that ever change?
Even as she thought that, a rumble, as though some dinosaur had started to snore below the palace, started up. Just as she thought she'd be unable to hold down the complete panic, a little flap of porous, volcanic rock near the floor in the far corner opened up and bubbles shot into the chamber, where they floated to the top and disappeared. Annoyed with her fear, she forced herself forward. She didn't have to go far before she found out that the water that shot out of the flap was heated, and happily stuck herself within its stream. Bubbles tickled past her on their way up.
Naru would love this. He'd probably be completely lost to her and just spend the whole time tapping at the walls and writing notes on the bed without even remembering to enjoy the heat.
Naru…now that she thought about it, did she even know him enough to say he'd do that? The Triple A hadn't provided the most normal of settings for people to get to know each other.
And, right now, she couldn't even say where she was in the vast ocean. How would Naru find her? Would he bother to find her? He had been trying to bring her to this place in the first place.
Before her thoughts could finish their course, the thick seaweed door curtains parted and the graceful silver form of the aged queen slipped in. Nevertheless, the weight of the unthought words weighed down in her chest like lungfulls of sodden cotton. She didn't know if she was happy to see the woman or not, and in a flash of raised gray eyebrows, Mai knew the queen realized that as well.
"I can understand your apprehension, Mai. From what Vovo said, your rescue frightened you possibly more than your captivity—"
"I wasn't a captive."
"As you said, but whatever those men said you have to take with some degree of doubt, no matter how well you may know them. We haven't sacrificed what we have without good reason, and many of mankind who were trusted caused the death of thousands of our own."
Mai looked down to her fins. Already she could see a trend with her new grandmother. The old woman had barely met her, but already she was assuming she knew Naru better than Mai.
The old queen fell quiet for a breath. When Mai saw the billows of silver fin in her vision and felt the warm, silk soft hands raise her face, she prepared herself for the worst and instead saw eyes flanked by lines that neither spoke of laughter or frowns. The grey shone with the pearl-like tears that would never fall.
"I'm sorry," she said through trembling, thin lips. "Already I'm making the same mistakes. Please forgive me for assuming, little Mai." She dropped down, hands and all, to curl her fins beneath her next to Mai in the warm stream of water, as though it were the most natural thing in the world. "You do look so much like my Roan. You even have his colors—brighter, of course."
"Brighter?"
"Because you're a girl," she said, as though the fact was delightful rather than matter of fact. "I'm sure you've noticed by now that males tend to have subtler colorings, while females are much brighter and bolder. Until we grow old, that is." She chuckled dryly, then stopped, eyes still bright, lips still trembling. Then she bowed her head. The movement brought strands of her ever long hair wisping past Mai's arms.
When the silence stretched longer, a part of Mai that had frozen the moment the mermen had snatched her from Naru's grasp warmed a bit. She blinked hard, taking in the woman before her one more time. Silver, goldfish fins, long haired…and small. Smaller than she had first appeared, all arrayed and framed by long fins and hair and counselors.
Mai dug her cold hands beneath her arms and pressed them to her sides. She didn't want it to be awkward. She doubted the queen intended to make it this way. She had told Mai to wait while she saw to some things and promised that all her questions would be answered, but as Mai looked at the aged woman, now much smaller than Mai wanted her to be, she felt sorry for what she had thought before about her being demeaning. Maybe she had assumed too soon.
Without meaning to, the first question she thought came out of her mouth.
"Are you really my grandma?"
The queen lifted her head and gave Mai a gentle smile.
"Only one of my line would have fins such as yours," she said. "And, as all of my remaining three sons have never once left for the shallow waters, nor have any of them born daughters, and since you bear such an incredible resemblance to Roan, how can I suppose otherwise?"
The way the queen had talked about Roan up to this point hinted at a past tense, and Mai was almost afraid to ask, but ever since she had seen the city of mermaids sprawled before her, she had wondered if she would be meeting her father soon, and what might happen after.
"My dad, he's not around here…is he?"
Her smile turned sad. "No."
Mai felt the stuffed-lung feeling constrict. "So he's dead?"
"Nobody knows. He hasn't been seen in eighteen years. Another reason I can only see you as his. My adventurous boy, set on changing the world, vanishes and eighteen years later a poor girl raised by humans appears with his colors, shape, and my own rare tailfins? There can only be one reason, and…I'm sorry for how I may have come off at first. I admit, I didn't know how to treat you. I was, dare I say, nervous."
Mai tried to return the shaky smile back to her grandmother. She once more lifted a cold hand to Mai's cheek. With the barest of touches, like a feather, she traced the curves around her eyes. Then, slowly, as though afraid to spook a fish, the elder mermaid wrapped her arms around her shoulders. Mai couldn't help but notice how thin and fragile they felt. And to think, a moment before this woman had scared her.
Trembling, feeling her own eyes start to burn, Mai slid her arms awkwardly around her too and wished she could have done it with more familiarity. Then, when the warmth of her grandmother's old skin started to sink in, the aching which had lingered with Mai since the nightmare of the night before dug in deep and she clung on tighter, finding it suddenly harder to breathe. When she opened her mouth to explain about Naru—about her mother—or even to ask the million of questions she could have asked, a weak little whimper came out instead. Rather than pull apart, her grandmother held her tighter and stroked her hair, as though she had known her all this time after all.
"I knew God had a daughter waiting for me," she murmured, her voice tight with emotions. "Please forgive me for being so formal and dry, I was too surprised—too scared—they didn't hurt you, did they? The humans?"
Mai was a bit to overwhelmed by relief to say anything besides blubbering about Naru rescuing her and how he had been trying to bring her here, to where the other mermaids were. Whether a word of that was understood, she didn't know, and for once she wasn't too worried about her emotions being a problem or dealt with offhandedly.
She did ache for Naru's clumsy attempts at comforting, though. He always worked so hard, maybe harder than he should.
