There are different versions of the legend Kaia heard during her first half-moon, but they start and end the same; the mermaid left the sea because she wished to be human but turned into seafoam when she was unable to endure a broken heart.

It's something she's kept from Jazlee when she knows she shouldn't and there are moments when she wants to tell her friend everything, but something always stops her and Kaia hates herself for it. Has Jazlee ever felt like this? Have any of the other mermaids? This longing to share something so important but held back by a crippling fear that she just can't escape no matter how much she tries too?

"You've been acting weird lately." Jazlee comments two days before the Blue Moon, "Don't tell me you're getting cold fins on me?"

Kaia looks at her friend, a woman whose smile is two parts bitter and three parts mischievous, and realizes it's a fear of rejection, a fear of being left alone that holds her back. She woke up on the ocean floor alone. She spends her days tending the reef alone. She falls asleep in her cave alone.

The only time she's not alone is when she's with Jazlee.

And if she tells her friend, who may decide it's not worth it, Kaia will be left alone. "I found out who keeps sending the flowers," She says instead. "But the weirdest thing is I feel like I know them, even though I've never met a human before."

"Really?!" Jazlee glides down from her branch, landing so she can sit at the "cliff's" edge and dip her talons into the water. "What did they look like? Maybe I can try to find them?"

"I don't know…"

"Oh come on, Kaia! I won't talk to them, but I can find out if they live near by and maybe we can go see them once we have legs!"

The idea is tempting.

"That does sound like an adventure…"

"Exactly! So what? What did they look like?"

Kaia thinks back and feels heat settle in her cheeks, "Tall. Sad. Dark hair and broad shoulders. He-"

Jazlee's hiss is so vicious and startling that Kaia falls off her bolder and into the sea, filled the overwhelming urge to swim away. But she's known her friend for 30 moons and fights the impulse.

"Male?" Jazlee spits when Kaia breaches the surface, "Disgusting; they're selfish and vile and an abomination of the human species!"

"But-"

"Stay away from him!" Jazlee interrupts, "I'll bet he's just leaving the flowers as some kind of trick!"

Kaia feels a rush of annoyance so powerful she pulls herself out of the water to confront her friend. It's uncommon for a mermaid to be so argumentative, but Kaia is nothing if not unconventional.

"You don't know that! Human males have just as many feelings as females; don't judge others before you know their story!"

"You're so naïve! Males have brought this world to ruin! They do nothing but tick and steal and destroy!"

"How can you say that when your voice ensnares them? When you spend days trying to drown as many as you can!?"

"They need to be put in their place !" Jazlee snarls and for a moment Kaia sees the Siren her friend is. "That's why creatures like me exist; to keep them from hurting people!"

"Females hurt too! They trick and lie too! Even when they know they shouldn't they try to steal because they think their happiness is more important! Because they think they're better and don't even ask if it's what the other person wants-!"

Jazlee's face suddenly falls and the next thing Kaia knows is that she's wrapped up in her friends wings, held close as if she is something fragile to protect.

"I'm sorry, Kaia. I didn't mean to yell at you. Please don't cry."

It's then that she feels water falling down her cheeks and sob is ripped from her chest.

They don't speak of the young man again.