Basically, a description of a merman John Tracy that came to mind after several prompts from the existence of Mermay. :D

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Of course, she had heard of the Starmaster, she doubted there was any who hadn't, but when she finally met him, he wasn't what she expected at all.

She expected wealth, she expected princeliness. The tale of the Tracys was a mysterious one, travelling the undersea network with eager song, but their intelligence and athleticism was renowned. The eldest's military career was only the first of many achievements that lit up beside their parents.

What happened to those parents and what took the Tracys from the highest of society was probably what resulted in the man she finally met.

He emerged from his domain in silence. The electronic doorkeeper had flashed a ring of orange lights at her intrusion, but the feminine voice had been polite. Ridley did, after all, have a hard-earned appointment to speak with the man.

The fact her scales were taut with tension almost enough to cripple her posterior fins was something she was attempting to ignore.

His office was so close to the Surface, it made her nervous. Up here the sun was a solid presence, lighting up colours strange and bright. To make things worse, he wasn't tied to a reef or a continental shelf, his domain was afloat under its own power in the middle of the open ocean.

It had taken her forever to get out here.

Of course, rumour had it that the Tracys had found a home in the tropics band on an oceanic ridge, possibly even above the Surface on some mountain top, but personally she considered this myth and rather ridiculous. After all, who would want to live in the airless, poisonous domain of the ancients anyway?

Stupid idea.

But the sight of him set her wondering.

The brightness of the Surface lit up a cloud of red mane as he emerged. It hovered about him so bright, she knew that in the Depths, he would be invisible beneath it. But up here, he glowed. His red locks were dressed in several gold clasps, intricately etched rings of metal that held a good percentage of that mane to his right, the sweep of hair arching over his pale brow like a crashing wave.

And pale was the key because his skin was as alabaster as the moon, despite the strike of sunlight through the shallows. His broad chest reflected the ripples of the Surface as it churned above them. Its only interruption, his golden baldric slashing across his body length to his hip where the first of the emerald and sapphire scales emerged from his skin.

His tail blended with the blue of the depths below, the flicker of reflected sunlight only outlining it in startling light as he moved.

It was his eyes that caught her the most. The colour of the sea around him, you would think they would be simply shadow, but instead they were lit from within, glowing as much as the rest of him with intelligence and query.

But it wasn't until he was fully facing her that she discovered the tracks of gold, not unlike the rings in his hair, that traced lines and points of contact from his left brow down the side of his face, neck and shoulder, down across his ribs.

There was a fine scar at the base of his tail where the scales were disordered. Metallic tracery tracked it to end in an array of nodes splayed out across his anterior surface.

He made a note of query and she realised she had been staring.

Oh, lord of the seas. Her body flushed scarlet and she was horrified to see it reflected in a small smile of amusement curving his lips.

But he was forgiving and those glowing eyes shone kindly. "I'm John Tracy. You asked to see me?"

Oh, lord. Now she had to find words.

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