Day five of MerMay prompt month!

Possible trigger warning for an overbearing and demanding parent. We see very little of her though.

Light and Dark - Ferb

On land, everything seems shrouded in sunlight whether it's sunny or cloudy. It's just brighter, clearer. Smooth colors, fresh air, actual sounds. Ferb missed it a lot.

Under the water, it was the opposite—everything seemed to have a darkness to it. Some colors might be a brighter hue, but without sunlight reflecting off of it, they still felt muted. And the sounds… You could hear some of the aquatic mammals making their songs, or boat motors, but sound in general didn't travel very well in the water.

When Ferb first 'heard' someone's voice in his mind, he choked on the water much like someone would choke on their own spit. His… Meris watched him curiously, as if not understanding why he was so startled. "Are you alright Ferb?" she asked.

Ferb blinked at her. Uh… yes? he tried to think back.

Thankfully Deema was swimming next to him. She giggled. "You have to focus on directing your words to another for them to hear you," she explained.

He nodded at her gratefully, then focused. "Like this?"

Meris, realizing the problem, nodded. "Exactly. Very good Ferb." She kicked her finned feet and pointed down further. "This way, I will lead."

Deema stayed with Ferb as he figured out his fins. "A little more about the thought-speech thing," she started. Ferb looked at her, very curious. "It pretty much follows the same rules as voice speech. Anyone in your immediate vicinity can hear you, but when you get out of 'earshot', your thoughts become softer and harder to hear." She leaned in and 'whispered' into his mind. "Whispering works the same way too, but it is a little harder to keep secrets secret and it's much easier to accidently eavesdrop on someone else's conversation."

Ferb blinked, a little uncomfortable at the thought of not being able to control who could hear your thoughts when you were underwater. "So, if you simply keep your inner voice quiet, the chances of others listening in lessens. Is that correct?"

Deema smiled brightly at him. "Yes, exactly. It may take some getting used to, much like having to learn your 'inside voice', since most being's default is their 'outside voice'. But, if you keep that thought in mind, you should get it down no problem."

"Ferb! Deema! Keep up!" Meris called from further ahead.

As they swam to the village, Deema explained more about the everyday life of a môr; things that a lot of them who were born and raised in the area took for granted or didn't realize wasn't common knowledge to others. He was extremely grateful for his new-found cousin. He leaned in and quietly asked her, "How do you know to tell me these things?"

Deema smiled, a little sadly. "Taron came here when he was around 10, not knowing who either of his parents were. He had actually been 'donated' to a science lab, but a friend's grandfather was one of the heads there. He brought him here."

Ferb stopped in his swim, gaping at her. "Does… does that happen often?" he asked, his head filling with morbid thoughts.

Deema placed a webbed hand on his shoulder. "Not to worry, Ferb. While we are not well known to the world, there are enough of us—and other beings—all over in many different places and positions—"

"DEEMA! Stop distracting him!" Meris interrupted, frowning at them from a rock formation not too far away.

Deema winced. "Sorry Auntie." She winked at Ferb. "I'll explain it more later. Just know that everything is alright." With that, she nudged his arm to get him moving again.

It took a few months to really become used to the changes of his body. After spending thirteen years walking around everywhere—and even having learned how to swim as a human—it was still a process to relearn how to spend all day, every day under the water.

He had once asked Taron, who had come along to help him learn his new body with a few aquatic physical arts, what his timeline might be.

Taron smiled apologetically. "Sorry guppy. Chances are it will be a couple of years before you can walk on the surface again."

Ferb's eyes widened and he felt his heart drop. "Years?"

Taron nodded sadly. "It's likely that this entire year will be spent getting you used to your môr body, which is extremely important. If you don't have that foundation, you will have major setbacks in learning how to landwalk. And if you push yourself into having those setbacks, you might lose your ability to landwalk before you even get it."

After hearing that, Ferb sank to the floor, staring off into the distance.

Taron sat next to him, his finned feet stretched out in front of him. "I know it sounds terrible, guppy. But you're a very smart kid. Instead of focusing on how long it will take you before you—" he paused, glancing around. He leaned in close and whispered into his mind. "—go home." He winked at Ferb, who had turned to give him a sheepish look. "Focus instead on getting each step right before moving on to the next."

Ferb thought it over, ignoring the fact that Taron (and likely Deema as well) knew he had no plans to stay—and it was also apparent that both of them knew Meris wouldn't understand Ferb's desire to return to his family. Finally, he nodded and moved himself upright again.

Taron copied his actions and they stood facing each other again ready to resume their 'duel' (which was closer to a game of fast-paced tag combined with arm wrestling). "I'll tell you one thing, guppy. From what I can see in your emails from your family, they want you to focus on staying safe rather than hurrying home."

Ferb blinked away the want that always formed in his head and heart whenever he thought about his family. He nodded in understanding. A few years… By the end of it, it should seem like a short amount of time… I hope.

About a year into Ferb's stay, not too long after Ferb had become comfortable as a môr, Taron somehow got Meris to agree to let him take Ferb to learn about his human body's changes that would soon pop up. Puberty, Ferb thought to himself with a grimace. Every day early in the morning, Taron would come by for him and take him to a cave off the coast, but not close to the town.

When they arrived there the first time, Taron walked him through the first steps of how to switch to landwalking. Ferb felt excitement that maybe Taron had done this to help him landwalk early, no matter the warning he had given him previously!

He was then disappointed when, embarrassingly, Taron began to explain how his body may—or may not—change.

It didn't help one bit that he was only able to keep his feet for all of ten seconds. Max.

"This will actually work out better for you." Taron told Ferb at the end of their first day as they swam back to the village. "This way you will know how your human body has and will continue to change instead of having it interrupt your learning to landwalk."

The silver lining to the entire mortifying endeavor, Ferb was able to spend more time on learning how to landwalk for longer amounts of time. He still spent most of his time learning the ways of the môr with Meris, and he was also soon enrolled in the local aquatic school (not the fish kind, the learning kind). He was pleased to find out that most of what was taught there were the same things human children learned in high school. He had only missed one year, having spent most of the previous year adjusting, but he was thriving.

At least academically.

It apparently wasn't very tempting to befriend the child of Meris.

(Ferb didn't understand the aversion everyone seemed to have to his… mother. Granted, he didn't like her all that much, but that was more for personal reasons. She seemed just fine otherwise, if a little heavy on the concept of correctness. He had lost count of how many times she would mention something about what he would be doing years down the road, now that he was 'where he belonged'. He never brought up his family again after she looked at him like he was stupid for even mentioning them. "What do they matter now? You are here, this is where you belong. It's where you will stay. I don't know why you are thinking backwards like this.")

That all changed one day when, at the end of school, Taron and Deema swam by as he left his class setting—he couldn't truly call it a room—and practically kidnapped him. They weren't swimming as fast as they usually would, considering they were finishing up their final year at school and were a part of the equivalent of track and field, but it was still faster than he could go. He heard the murmurs from his peers as he laughed, quickly adjusting so he could swim alongside his cousin and her… starfish.

Starfish—a term for a significant other. Basically a gender-neutral form of boyfriend/girlfriend, but also often used instead of the word 'sweetheart'. Not to be confused with an actual starfish.

The new terminology didn't take long to figure out, and some of it made a lot of sense. Such as guppy—which Taron still called him! Guppy meant kid, child, little one, etc. Deema called Taron koi a lot, which had been a little harder to figure out, but he realized she was basically calling him an idiot or a dummy in a teasing way.

There were extremely few truly insulting terms, at least that Ferb knew of. And he was grateful for that.

Anyway! Deema and Taron had kidnapped him from school. Ferb grinned at both of them. "Why did you have to snag me? You could have just waved me over."

Deema was beaming at him so brightly, she might as well have swallowed a school of lanternfish. "Auntie is busy with her planting, so we have a couple of hours."

Ferb tilted his head curiously, feeling his hair swirl. "A couple of hours for what?"

Taron winked at him. "We are going to Zennor," he explained simply. "Marsh is getting the computer set up for you."

Ferb gaped at him for a moment before, as excitement overtook him, he pushed ahead with a burst of speed. The longest so far that he could spend landwalking (without hurting himself) was just over an hour, and he hadn't been able to go back to the town yet. But even if he could spend only twenty minutes up there, it would be worth it!

It had been a full two years since he last saw his family. He wasn't going to wait a second longer than he had to!

Selkie

Selkies come from Norse and Celtic mythology. They are a shapeshifting being, changing from a seal-like form to human form by shedding their skin. Many of the stories revolve around female selkies being forced into relationships with humans after their sealskins are taken and hidden by the human.

The tales of Selkies originate from the Northern Isles of Scotland, however there are also mentions of 'seal-women' in Faroese and Icelandic folklore.

[Noteable Môr Slang: Guppy (child/kid), Koi (idiot/dummy), Pike (dude/bro), Starfish (boyfriend/girlfriend), Drift (chill), Fae (all-in-one swear).]

[If I use any different ones later on, I'll share what they mean. But, because landwalking is a common thing, they still use a lot of the modern human slang too.]