The Stranger

Part 3

Galen has never been so glad to see land in his life. The Long Land would have been a short trip for him if he were by himself. If he didn’t have a pair of human arms wrapped around his neck barely holding on, a human body sagging against his back, the raspy sound of a human’s unsteady breathing in his ear. Several times that raspy sound stopped and he’d had to make sure she was still alive. Even now, he doubts she will make it. Even with his thick skin he can feel how cool her body has become. 

And she can’t stop shaking.

The setting sun lights their way to the shallow water. Galen reaches around and carefully pulls the human to the front of him. “I think the water is shallow enough for you to stand.” The powerful muscle in his fin unravels, and his human legs snap and twist into shape beneath him. Instinctively, his feet anchor into the sand, ankle deep. The gentle waves lap at his high waist; if he’s judged her height correctly, her head should reach his shoulder when standing.

She nods, but Galen can tell that her ability to stand has nothing to do with the depth of the water. Instead of releasing her, he pulls her all the way on shore. She lays on her back, her sticky black hair salted with the sand on the beach. Her breaths come in short wheezes.

She digs her feet into the sand. “Th-th-thank you,” she says, her teeth chattering so hard she might shatter them out of her head.

Galen looks at her for a long time. He should go. He should dive back into the surf and swim all the way to the Royal caverns and tell his Father what he’d done. “I’m going to make a fire,” he tells her.

He can’t tell if she nods in reply or if the shaking is just that uncontrollable. He searches the area for acceptable brush and sticks, endlessly thankful that his brother Grom had already taught him how to make a fire. Syrena tradition does not allow for that lesson until a male is old enough to choose a mate. Together the couple would choose an island, and after their mating ceremony, the male would build a fire for his new companion. A symbol of his devotion to her. Then they would…well, they would mate.

Galen grimaces, wondering if humans have the same custom. Does this female human think I want to mate with her? First I save her, then I bring her to land and build her a fire. What must she be thinking right now?

Just in case, he finds some trees with the flat pointy leaves and fashions himself a covering. Dr. Milligan warned him to always wear what the humans call “shorts” before coming ashore. He’d even given him a few pair of them to hide in the sand around the Gulfarium for when he visits. These were no shorts, but they would have to do. Surely she would not mistake his intentions now. A male would not hide himself from his mate.

At least, he didn’t think he would…

The fire licks the early morning sky, a sky still dark enough to cast an exotic dance of light and shadow on the stranger’s face as sleeps fitfully. She has stopped shaking and her clothes are half dry, but she’s oblivious to her improved condition. All through the night she cried out, thrashing and wailing. He’d told himself over and over that her nightmares would subside. That he shouldn’t involve himself any further with this human, that his only purpose for staying was to make sure she lives through the night, nothing more.

When she awoke, they would part ways.

But when she’d started screaming “Help me” he had no choice but to intervene. The commotion could attract other humans. She was in no shape to fend for herself if others of her kind decided to finish the job they’d started at sea. And Galen was in no mood to have all his hard work undone so easily. He’d slid behind her in the sand, wrapped his arms around her. Back and forth he’d rocked her, just like his mother had done to him when his nightmares seemed to jump from his imagination and into his sleeping cave with him.