Wild-Caught

Begin

"Oi, Delilah!"

Her name was Delilah.

Wedged between two rocks much too close to the pier, Nilia tucked this knowledge close to her heart-no, she wrapped it all up with it, thrilling in this new nugget of knowledge about the broad, powerful, kind woman who hefted crates down at the docks. She had only ever heard the woman referred to as 'Del' before.

Delilah.

It suited her, Nilia thought. There was something just so humble and warm about all the syllables. Deh-lie-lah. Every sound was like a new friend.

"Got it," the woman-Delilah-called to the other dockhand, the one who had called out to her, dropping her crate on the stack with a thunk, all those muscles in her arms contouring and gleaming with human sweat, sun-burnished and freckly, her dark spots bursting to life in the sun like Nilia's light spots burst to life in the dark.

Her hair was coral-red, all crinkly and pulling free of its tight bun in wisps, and oh, what Nilia wouldn't give to run her fingers through it, stroke it as De-li-lah nudged her warm human nose against hers and smothered her mouth with those full, marble-cut, smiling lips...

Nilia shivered, her fins fluttering and belly tingling-and gills protesting that her extended pining was taking place out of the water.

She heaved one last sigh, feasting her eyes on the sight of De-li-lah's broad back as she walked away (rough linen tunic clinging to her sweat-soaked skin in a most delicious way...) before conceding to necessity. As much as she would like to pine herself away until she lost consciousness from dehydration, that seemed like a fine way to get caught, and nothing good happened to a mer who got caught.

For the past several months, Delilah could have sworn she was being watched.

Only at work, thankfully-she might have gotten herself in a right state if she thought whoever it was came home after her, where her brother and his wife were raising their four lads and lasses-but by the sea and stars did it give a woman the willies.

She asked to be stationed at different parts of the dock from time to time, seeing if that would shake the feeling, but the only times when she truly escaped it was when there wasn't a single body of water in sight.

(Sometimes she was made to wonder if the sea itself was watching her, but nothing good lay down that road for man or beast.)

Unfortunately, her strength in particular was needed for unloading the ships, so she could never avoid the sea for long.

Well, whoever it was could try their luck with her if they fancied it. She wouldn't give them very good odds.

Today, she had picked up some extra work at one of the fishing wharves nearby after dark; it wasn't necessarily a place a woman wanted to be after dark, but the pay was good and her brother's wife was trying to get an apprenticeship for little Pia, so they all needed the money.

And it was a good thing she had, too. When she got there, after checking in with the deputy dockmaster and changing into her work boots, there was a small crowd gathered around one of the lifted nets.

Shoving her way through the throng of gawkers, she found that someone had caught a most peculiar fish.

Among the silvery salmon was something much larger and much darker, flickering blue and gold along its sinewy length-and they also appeared to have trapped a young woman in the net alongside of it.

"Well? What are you halfwits dithering about?" she demanded, horrified, when she caught sight of the latter. "Cut her down!"

That seemed to startle them into action.