From this point on, we will be traveling back in time. The first two chapters were almost like a prologue of the present. From here on out for many, many chapters, the story is set before most of the events of Finding Nemo. Enjoy!
Special warning in this chapter for predation and trauma. Also ableism.
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The water was dark under the blanket of night. Predators unseen lurked in every coral crevice, in every sand pile, under every frond. Fish with sharp, serrated teeth ate small fish species they found out after curfew (a great deterrent that kept naughty young fish from sneaking out late with their friends).
A female honeycomb coral crab stood alert with hundreds of tiny eggs held closely to her abdomen. The eggs were due to hatch any day (or night) now. The expectant mother was the larval feeding grounds, a place on the reef abundant in food for newborn crab larvae.
"What should I name you all?" she whispered to herself. "Snapper? No. Too common. Bright Eyes? No, too strange. Morgan? Too plain."
Barbara paused for a moment to scan her surroundings. She was nestled in a cave in a rocky outcrop. But the water seemed pitch black. Dark rain clouds hid the full moon. She was in a risky position. But she had a feeling that her young would be born tonight. She needed to name them quickly.
"Boys, you will all be named Oliver. Girls, you will be named Molly. Boys, you are named Oliver. Girls, you are named Molly. Boys, you are-" A sudden spirring in the water.
Another mother crab or danger?
Barbara sat stock still for what felt like an eternity. When she was sure that no danger lurked nearby, the crab continued repeating her children's names. This was the way of the coral crab. The mother crab guarded her larvae until they hatched and then released them to face the world.
Some species that invested more time in parental care considered her species poor parents. But as she and others of her species saw it, they had no choice. When young, coral crabs couldn't eat the mucus from corals. They would get stuck and die. Or if they stayed clear of the mucus (very difficult to do when they were newborn clumsy free-swimmers), too low of a concentration of phytoplankton existed for them to eat around the corals. Most would starve or attract predators to the coral of their parents. This was the best way to rear offpsinrg as a coral crab. Any sea creature who disagreed didn't understand the ways of her species.
"Boys: Oliver. Girls: Molly." she repeated for the 10th time. Many fish and invertebrates, even those who spent a lot of time and energy on parenting gave all their children of one gender the same name. It was a great tool to call for a lost child in same-species colonies and to prevent inbreeding in species whose siblings separated when young and would not likely recognize one another as adults.
She thought that she felt the stirrings of activity on her abdomen. Are they beginning to hatch? "I wish you the very best children. I hope many of you grow up healthy and strong."
Another disturbance in the water. Barbara pointed one short eye stalk into the open water in front of her. The other she pointed toward a deep crevice, her escape.
"Aaah!" she let screamed as slimy fishy lips grabbed her by rear leg. She struggled as terror seized her. At once, she felt terrible for drawing attention to herself with sound. But it might have been too late.
"Hey! Don't you dare!" she couldn't turn around to see what size fish she was dealing with, but she risked it. "I'll kill you if you don't let me go!" Another fish wordlessly folded back her rear legs with its large fins and began lifting her body to reveal her eggs.
"No wait! Wait. Don't hurt me or my eggs." she thrashed, but the fish clung on easily. "Please! I'll make a deal... A pact." The rational part of Barbara's mind knew this wasn't a good idea. But she needed to do something! To save her babies. To save herself.
The slimy lipped fish unhooked his teeth from her leg. "A pact you say? What's in it for me?" his voice was deep, almost like the deep croak of a frog. The other fish held her down with its fins still, but paused in seeking her eggs.
"Okay. Okay. Umm. I- well if you release me-"
"Just spit it out!" The other fish yelled. "We don't have all night."
"Well... if you eat one third of my eggs, will you-"
"How about we eat all of them? I can-" the deep throated fish suggested.
"No, don't!" she attempted to scurry, but one of the fish flipped her onto her back. She made a muffled cry. She wouldn't be able to overturn herself easily with the extra weight of her eggs.
"I was gonna say, we will eat the eggs and let you live. But if you're going to try to escape..."
"No no. No, you can go ahead. Eat them." Barbara hated the desperation in her voice. At herself for giving her children's lives in exchange. She felt fish lips draw closer and shuddered. But suddenly, an idea popped into her head.
"But if you could wait. uhmm. A couple hours till morning. That way, there will be fewer predators. You both will be safer eating. You can still get the eggs."
"What, so other crabs see and help you come morning?"
"Coral crabs don't really help other crabs often." she blurted, this time speaking from her own experience.
"We aren't falling for that. Besides, she will just escape if we let her go." the higher-voiced fish said. "Let's eat em'!"
"No! No!" Barbara struggled. But slimy fish lips nibbled and nibbled until her abdomen lay bare. As soon as they released her, she scurried to a dark corner.
"No hard feelings." The first fish said. "It's the ecosystem, you know? Maybe next time, you will be able to hatch crab babies." At that, the fish swam off, leaving the traumatized mother to mull over what he said.
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A FEW DAYS LATER
"So you lost your whole clutch, huh?" Vanessa put a claw on Barbara's front legs. "I'm sorry. That sucks. But you were successful on your first time, right?"
"Yeah, I probably still have little Picarell's and Ferni's swimming around from last hatching season. But still-"
"How did they do it? Were the eggs slurped right off you? Did they hold you down?" Her friend's eyes flashed with emotion. Pain. Sympathy.
Barbara blinked. "You speak from experience?" How did Vanessa, a young crab and first time mother this season know this?
"Well, some fish did the same thing to me." The younger crab tilted her body forward for her friend to see. Barbara's gills pumped furiously. She really really didn't want to look. There was a soreness after the whole thing and she really didn't want a visual to confirm it. But against her better judgement and out of sympathy for her friend, she looked anyway.
Large blotches of blue bruising dotted her friend's abdomen. Her exoskeleton looked rough, almost as if it was beginning to peel away in places where the fish had nibbled the hardest. "Does it look bad?"
A moment passed. Barbara didn't know what to say. "No." she lied.
"Really? Hurts like carp though." Vanessa lowered herself. "Well, you are always blunt. So I'll take your word for it." she said with a half-hearted smile.
"Yeah, it probably hurts worse than it looks. We're crabs. We're tough. Don't worry too much about it."
"Well, I guess we both weren't careful enough this reason. There's always next year right?" The other crab's tone was somehow upbeat.
"Right." Barbara echoed. It suddenly felt hard to breathe, but she hid it. "I was lucky to be successful last season on my first try."
"Exactly." her friend said. "Well, I better get back to the Stylophora. Word is a Crown of Thorns was spotted a bit east of here. Got to help the other crabs defend the home and all that. "
"Good luck. Talk soon."
Luck. Barbara mulled over it all as she walked back to her coral. What does luck have to do with any of this? I went to the same place this year as last. I kept watch. I didn't eat or sleep for days straight guarding them. But the full moon was blocked by clouds this time, so I couldn't see as much around me... My mistake killed my children.
Vanessa's words echoed in her head once more. `We both weren't careful enough this season`.
Maybe I care too much.
From that point on, Barbara vowed to do her best every breeding season, but to force herself not to care if she lost her babies. Afterall, that was how non-mammal sea creatures handled parenting. Only a fraction of their children would survive to adulthood and that is what they expected. That is what she should expect too.
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ONE YEAR LATER
Barbara stood in her Stylophora with her female roommates, picking at some goo.
"So, what does your ideal mate look like? Are his spots bright? Are his claws large?" Her bright and nosy acquaintance Frond was asking her about males again.
Barbara sighed. "Whichever male wins the fight."
At Frond's blank expression, she added, "You know, the fights males have every year to see who will partner with the most females."
"Oh yeah! Right."
She honestly wondered sometimes how this roomate of hers was still alive. She wasn't very smart. She didn't bother to ask how the breeding season had gone for the other. She was sure it hadn't ended well.
"But..." Frond continued. "That means you have no preference? Or you like the strong and violent type?"
Barbara took her time to reply, chewing extra slowly on the bit of mucus she had put into her mouth. Not out of uncertainty, but out of annoyance and spite.
"No, I like the fittest. That is what the fights are for. So the best man is the father of the most children."
"I didn't know that."
"I bet not." An awkward silence passed as Barbara slurped the coral's goo.
"So..."
Not again.
"I was wondering. You missed the past breeding season. You told all of us you weren't feeling up to it. Is it because you weren't eating enough to develop eggs?"
Ah yes, the sulking period she had after losing her 2nd clutch of offspring to the fish. She hadn't been eating as much as usual during that period, but she wasn't eating so little as to reduce her body condition, she thought.
"I was attacked by some fish, so I wasn't able to handle much. But I was eating fine. And I am fully recovered now." There, close enough to the truth. Saying something that mader her sound too vulnerable could undermine the trust of her roomates except for Frond (who she didn't think had the brain to handle social complexities anyway) and increase her risk of being kicked out of the group.
"So you will be joining us this year?" The crab sounded too excited for her own good.
"Yes."
"Which larvae feeding ground?"
"As far way from yours as possible."
"What do you mean by-"
Barbara scurried away to another part of the coral. Honestly, she considering starting a vote with her other two more normal roomates to get Frond kicked out.
The other two females were on the opposite side of the coral, looking expectedly. "Lemme guess. She's obsessing over breeding season again?" the smaller crab, Kona asked.
"Yes."
"Not another word!", the second female, also named Frond said. "That's my sister you're talking about!"
"Whatever." Barbara said, walking past them. Maybe they weren't ready for the vote or possibly, she should just leave. But she hoped that today was the day that something finally happened and the dim-witted Frond was ejected from the group.
"Just because she's your sister doesn't give you the right to put all of our survival at stake!" Kona argued.
"But she hasn't done anything that would get us killed."
"Being stupid is one." Barbara muttered.
"Look, I know she is annoying and she isn't the brightest crab. But, she has survived all these years. That has to count for something."
"Maybe because she was tagging along with you all this time." Kona added, rolling her eye stalks. "You aren't supposed to have family here in the first place. Lucy you are the highest ranking..."
Frond opened her claws menacingly toward the lower-ranking crab. "Look, she is the best at gathering food and she shares it with all of us. That's not a crab-like thing to do. But she does it. And if you want to kick her out, I'll kick you out too Kona."
Kona and Barbara exchanged a glance. They were in a favorable high-traffic part of the reef. Two small coral crabs couldn't adequently protect the Stylophora from coral-eating predators or ward off other crabs who wanted to steal their home on their own.
"What if we open up our home to a fifth female crab? Someone on the larger side." Barbara asked, winking at Kona. "That would even things out, so Frond's weirdness are spread among more of us. Less annoying for everyone."
She really hoped that her favorite roomate and that the more intelligent Frond sister would not. If there was five, a vote could be cast and the first Frond sister could be voted out and if they were lucky, overtake the more second Frond in rank. That way, if they tried to vote out the first sister out again, it wouldn't matter because a large coral crab could stand up to the sister. Not to mention, she could do the work of two in terms of safeguarding the coral.
"Larger crabs take up more food. I'm not in favor of this." Kona directed a scowl at Barbara like she had been personally slighted.
"Neither am I." the other Frond said. "Our coral only has enough mucus for four."
Wordlessly, Barbara left the other females. She didn't feel like dealing with more drama right now . If she had it her way, a single crab would be able to defend a Stylophora by herself. She could do what she pleased and everyone else could stuff their opinions in their carapaces.
A couple months later, a mantis shrimp attacked. Only herself and the more intelligent Frond sister survived. Barbara and the remaining Frond sister were left with the unpleasant job of defending the coral and screening female coral crabs to see if they were roomate material. Barbara regreted not voting the Fronds out.
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The three males were fighting. Against Barbara's nature, she found herself wishing that the brightly-colored, weaker male would win as she stood watching with some other females.
"Go, go, go!" A small crowd of gobies cheered.
"I'm going for the big boy." another goby yelled.
The weaker male, was mainly fighting the largest male of the three. The small male grabbed one of the other crab's leg with a claw. But his opponent easily dislodged him. They locked claws.
The third male, paler than the other two climbed on the others and tried to grab the others' legs from the top.
"Ooh, unique move. I like it!"
The top crab held onto the larger crab as the two main fighters disconnected. They performed a sideways crab walk around each other in circles. The large crab smiled and waved to the females as we paced around quickly, obviously trying to impress them with his speed and strength. They wooted and waved. Barbara didn't wave back.
The three males rounded on each other, locking claws, rolling, and tumbling. The crowd commented on their moves. The other females made encouraging sounds. Barbara watched, feeling detached from it all. Why all the fuss? Whoever was fittest would win. However that happened didn't matter.
Suddenly, the bright crab backed off, sporting cuts and abrasions.
"He's dropping out. Shame." a female beside her remarked.
"He's out! I repeat! Dan is out!" a goby yelled, waving a piece of seagrass to signal. The loser scuttled away quickly, obviously embarrassed.
"I bet you my shell that the large guy will win." a hermit crab in the crowd betted another crab.
The gobies cheered as the two remaining males crab walked about, sizing each other up for another round.
"Since when did this become a spectator sport?" Barbara muttered to herself.
"Since long before I was born." an old female beside her said. Her eyes were aglow. The elder was correct. The fighting during breeding season was always like this. For some reason, the gobies were just particularly irritating to her this time for some reason.
Barbara sighed. So many females were here to watch. Even a couple too old to breed who had no business at the fighting site.
"I'm naming male children after him if he wins." another female said. A couple other crabs murmured in agreement.
The two crabs charged at one another, locking and unlocking claws again and again. They tore at each others legs and exoskeletons, inflicting minor injuries. Suddenly, the larger male grabbed the small male's front legs with both claws. Barbara frowned. The small male was too tired and slow.
"Oh yeah! He might body-slam!" a goby whopped, flipping with excitement. The goby crowd and crabs "oohed" and "ahhed".
With a seemingly exaggerated look of determination, the large male flipped the small one up and over him. The small male was planted upside-down firmly into the sand, all 8 legs wriggling.
"Give up?" the large male called.
His opponent didn't answer, continuing hard to try to free himself. Barbara admired his courage even though the fight was pretty much decided.
"If he can't get out of the sand on the count of three. The winner is decided." a goby, a self-declared referee called.
"One." The small male turned himself sideways in the sand.
"Two." He continued to thrash, four of his legs were stuck.
"Three." The small male managed to free two of his legs, his expression panicked.
Barbara blew a breath out from her gills that she didn't realize she was holding.
"And the winner is... Cancero!" the referee announced. The crowd cheered.
"Get a life! These are just two inch crabs." A passing butterfly fish yelled.
Barbara sighed. She was hoping for another winner, but she supposed this was inevitable. The females lined up to meet the father of their young. Barbara distracted herself by thinking of the most generic names possible for the male half of her children.
Needless to say, Barbara's roommates were disappointed when they learned that she had named her children "Claws" and "Sandy", some of the most common names on the reef. But it was better for Barbara this way. This way, she wouldn't have to recognize or remember them.
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EIGHT YEARS LATER
Several breeding seasons and years later, Barbara made her way to what was considered something of a coral crab "retirement community". It was an area that all varieties of coral crabs in the vicinity set aside for the elders who survived to old age. For a crab that reached adulthood to survive to old age was considered a grand feat and the crab community's consensus is that this should be rewarded. As such, they had found a quiet place away from predators and competing crabs for the elders to spent their final years. There was a interspecies pact of sorts that some fish abided by. "Don't eat the elders and we will think a little more favorably of your species."
As the retirement home coral came into view, Barbara was surprised by how pleasant it looked. The other crabs weren't kidding when they called it a "peaceful paradise." Large, flat discs of Acropora hyacinthus encircled a rose up high above the sea floor. Beside that, red and pink corals of all varieties jutted out grew along the edges of a bare patch of sea floor brightened by sunshine. Brain coral, fan, coral, pipe coral, and most importantly, a large patch of Stylophora. In the center of the sunlit area sat a Heteractis magnifica sea anemone.
For the first time in a while, Barbara mild excitement. Not only had she survived longer than most of her peers-an impressive feat-her life might be easier from this point forward.
Cautiously, she approached the Stylophora coral's resident. "Hello. I'm Barbara. I'll be staying here."
An old, stiff male approached. "How old are you?"
"Around 15 or 16. I'm an elder."
The male and another crab eyed her over as if confirming she looked her age.
"My name's Peat. Welcome to retirement." he said in a gruff, though welcoming voice. "I heard that I should be expecting you."
Barbara smiled to herself. Is that it? I'm accepted? There's no way anything in life can be that easy.
"Now." Peat continued. "If you want to stay, there are rules. He motioned with a claw for Barbara to follow him into the Coral. "Now Barbara, 'bout them rules..."
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Now we know a little more of Barbara's backstory and part of why she is the way she is. Also, my apologies that there were only OCs in this chapter. I promise the clownfish will be making an appearance in the next chapter.
How was it? Feel free to tell me what you think in a review!