Prompt: stomach aches
When they said that all legends regarding mermaids had been long forgotten, they were not kidding. Phil had heard some of them only because his entire life basically revolved around dealing with long-dead artifacts and similar nonsense. He'd made a living out of collecting information that others presumed couldn't be found.
However, in all his travels the one thing he had never encountered was an easy guide on mermaid care. Go figure.
It'd be a lot easier if the mermaid could have just told him what he should do, but so far it had not uttered a single word. Phil knew that their species possessed intelligence comparable to that of a human, surely they were capable of speech. The problem arose in that he didn't know what language it would grasp. The common tongue was shared among humans and non-humans alike, but mermaids had been presumed extinct and lived in isolation long enough that it wouldn't surprise Phil if linguistics had evolved past mutual comprehension.
He still kept talking to it, even if he wasn't sure it could understand him.
It at least understood danger. When he had returned from upstairs - another fruitless effort to find information on how to make sure it wouldn't die - it had somehow gotten out of the bowl and nearly flung itself off the table. Phil reacted on instinct and paid the price when it bit him. Don't touch the tail, duly noted. When dropping it back into the bowl, Phil realized that in his hurry to get it out of the jar, he had forgotten to check up on the water's temperature. While he was fairly certain this mermaid was not a tropical kind despite its bright coloration, the water he had drawn from the well was definitely too cold for it to be comfortable. And upon closer inspection, it hadn't been trying to fling itself off the table at all.
It had been aiming for the bucket. Intelligence comparable to that of a human, indeed.
He put the bowl in front of the fireplace, hoping the flames combined with the room's comfortable heat would warm it enough in due time. Phil needed to figure out how to get a proper aquarium anyway because this current setup would certainly be too small to serve long-term. It didn't need to last them forever, once the mermaid was healed enough to survive on its own Phil had all intentions of finding some suitable body of water to release it into. But Lady Death herself might only know how long that would be. In its current state, it wouldn't be able to leave for a while yet.
Finally accepting that finding any literature about mermaid care was as hopeless as Phil could expect it to be, he went into the kitchen instead. He hadn't actually had anything to eat since setting out for the market that morning and it was close to dusk already. Wilbur and Tommy would be coming home soon, Phil did not feel like explaining this whole situation to them on an empty stomach. He opened the cupboard until he found bread and some fruit preserve he had brought home from one of his travels. Not caring for manners, he prepared it on the counter and ate it while still standing there, mind wrapped up in thoughts.
A bigger enclosure would be easy, it was in essence a giant box made out of glass. Phil could build that himself. He'd also have to make some contraption for cycling oxygen though, since moving water was preferable to stagnant. From what he knew about fish in general - and despite the unfortunate implications there was no reason for him to suspect mermaids were that different from fish in a general sense - the discoloration of its scales was mostly due to a lack of oxygen, nutrients, and sunlight. Phil would have to provide all three for it to be able to get healthier.
He got up and walked over to the fireplace. The mermaid hadn't left its hiding place under one of the big leaves Phil had thrown into the bowl. It wasn't even an aquatic plant but he thought it'd be better than nothing since the poor thing had been forced to remain out in the open for who knows how long. Even humans needed shelter, it was something most creatures shared as a universal necessity.
"Are you hungry?" he asked. "You should eat something, since I don't know when you were fed last." Phil broke off some pieces of his bread tiny enough for the mermaid to eat and dropped them into the bowl. At first, nothing happened. But as they sank to the bottom a hand tentatively reached out to snatch them and pull them under its leaf cover. Phil smiled to himself.
With how little he could do, the mere fact that it was eating felt like a weight off his shoulders.
The door opened behind him. Phil didn't need to turn around to know it was Wilbur coming home. And going by the lack of bickering or immediate chaos, Tommy wasn't with him.
"Wil, be honest now… Did you dump your brother somewhere?" Phil asked.
"He's sleeping over at Tubbo's," Wilbur answered while taking off his coat and hanging it on a peg next to the door. "And good evening to you too, by the way. It's lovely to see you. It's lovely to be missed by my dear old father. You really hurt my feelings, you know."
Phil ignored the melodramatics. He was used to it. "How was the city?"
"Still very much a city and still very much not keen on having musicians liven up their streets with music. You'd think those guys wanted to have the most boring shopping district within forty miles of the capital, I tell you."
Well, Phil supposed Wilbur's had an equally hard day on the job then. His son walked over, only barely glancing at the bowl.
"How was the market?" he asked.
"Still very much a market and still very much selling fake cursed crap for pennies. I bought a mermaid though."
"That's nice," Wilbur said, already going to sit down. Then he did a double take. "You bought a what now?"
"A mermaid," Phil said with a grin. "Oh don't give me that look," he went on at Wilbur's very skeptical raised eyebrow. "It's a real one, I assure you. It's hiding right now but I got the teeth marks to prove it."
"So you bought a mermaid and you already got bitten by it." Wilbur shook his head. But he did get up again, curious. "Are you keeping it in this bowl? Seems pretty small for a mermaid."
"It's a tiny species," Phil defended. "But I do want to make a proper aquarium for it tomorrow."
Wilbur bent over the bowl, peering into it. "What's that weird shit floating in the water?"
Startled, Phil looked closer too. Something brownish and half-liquid was caught around the bowl's rim. "Hold on." Pulling up his sleeve to his elbow, he only hesitated for a moment. Worst case scenario he'd get those teeth sinking into his flesh again. If the mermaid was venomous he'd be dead already and he seriously doubted the little thing could hit an artery, even with those sharp fangs of its.
With slow movements so he didn't accidentally spook it, Phil reached down and nudged the leaf aside. He heard Wilbur inhale sharply when it revealed the mermaid curled up beneath, pale pink tail wrapped around itself and arms cradling its own stomach. While they watched, its entire body seemed to lurch with twitching heaves and then more of the brownish stuff came from its mouth. It shuddered as if in pain.
It was vomiting up the bread Phil had given it.
"I tried to feed it, fuck did I-" Phil couldn't even finish. Had he killed it by trying to help? Holy fuck, was he that much of an idiot, that he'd immediately poison something put into his care? He'd raised Wilbur and Tommy just fine, hadn't he? Well, perhaps that could be debated-
"What did you feed it?" Wilbur asked.
"I had some bread with the apricot preserve we got in spring. I only gave it a few small pieces." Phil hated how close to desperation he sounded. He really, really wanted this mermaid to live, and it didn't even have anything to do with the money he blew on purchasing it. It would simply make him feel like a terrible person if he'd killed it himself after saving it from something probably only equally as bad.
Wilbur held out his hand. "Show me where it bit you."
Distractedly, Phil offered his fingers up for inspection. His mind was still reeling, trying to figure out where he had gone wrong.
After a moment of consideration, Wilbur hummed. "You need to give it meat."
"Meat?" Phil blinked, successfully pulled out of his thoughts.
"Look at these." Wilbur raised his hand, showing it to Phil as if he wouldn't know what his own fingers looked like. At his son's urging though, Phil inspected the mark closer.
The bite that the mermaid had left was small but stood out because of the red, irritated skin around it. Phil had disinfected the wound immediately because he wouldn't be able to tell the bacteria that lived in a mermaid's mouth. At no point had he noted the dental structure of the creature that had bitten him or the specific long canines and incisors that set it apart from a human's set of teeth.
"It's a carnivore," Phil said softly. "It's a fucking carnivore, it only eats meat."
"You didn't poison it," Wilbur said. "It just can't digest your stupid sandwich."
And that made such perfect sense Phil could hit himself for not coming to this conclusion any sooner. In his defense, panic and urgency can cloud the mind and keep it from proper consideration. Phil had simply not thought of it before.
"I think we still have some dried jerky left," he said, already heading for the kitchen again.
In the wild, this species would most likely survive on freshwater shrimp and insects that live near the water's surface. Perhaps if they had the tools for it, they would even hunt other small fish. But Phil didn't think meat could do it any greater harm than he'd already done with his bread.
"Aren't you glad to have me around?" Wilbur called after him good-naturedly.
"Absolutely," Phil told him. "Even more so if you'll help me build that aquarium in the morning."
It would be a learning experience, but between the two of them (three once Tommy got home, he supposed) Phil knew they'd have this whole mermaid care thing figured out in no time.