The Stranger

Part 3

He doubted his nightmares could compare to the dreams tormenting this stranger. He figured it would be selfish not to comfort her when he could do so with hardly any effort. The most impressive part of her was her overwhelming mess of black hair. Knotted in some places, curly in others, falling in no particular order except for everywhere. Other than that, this human was small. It would be so easy to scoop her up and rock her until she stopped whimpering. To whisper words of comfort in her ear until she stopped thrashing. To hold her until her terrors drowned in the security of deep sleep.

So he did.

Looking at her now from across the fire, Galen doesn’t regret his involvement. Sure, his eyes are heavy and his stomach is empty and his legs itch to feel the saltwater stretch and twist them into his powerful fin. But Galen remembers her eyes. How frightened and childish her dark eyes had looked when she’d first seen him. He has to see those eyes again. He’d decided this during the night, during one of her more violent nightmares. He has to know what her eyes looked like when they weren’t brimming with terror.

As unreasonable as it sounds, Galen wants to be sure she’ll be okay. Not just that she wakes up, or breathes, or keep food and water down. Those are all good signs, of course, but they’re not enough. Even the simplest creatures of the sea can do those mindless, effortless things. They do it without joy or feeling or emotion. They do it in order to exist. But Galen wants more from this tiny woman than that. For some reason, he wants to know that she’ll not only exist, but that she’ll actually live, be happy again.

Galen pokes the fire with the long haggardly stick he’d found. What if she never was happy in the first place, idiot? An even better question would be why do you care?

But it’s not enough to make him get up. Instead, he pokes some more until it some of the thick twigs and beach grass collapse, causing some of the fresh brush he’d put on top to sizzle.

It’s the sizzling that wakes her. Her eyes open and find his immediately. Galen feels like an upright icicle, frozen in place, somehow waiting for her permission to move, to thaw. To do anything other than stare back at her. She doesn’t torture him for long, though.

She sits up and stretches, giving him a rueful smile that doesn’t reach the depth of her darks eyes. Still, there’s something more than mere existence pooled in those dark orbs, in that guarded smile. Yes, there’s overwhelming sadness. But Galen figures she has plenty to be sad about. Who would be ecstatic to have been thrown away by your own species? Galen can take the sadness.

Because there’s something else in her eyes—strength. Not only that, but calculation. He can tell her thoughts are piercing the future, sizing up the situation, making plans. 

Oh yes. Even now she studies him, her face tilted to the side as she works to make her hair more manageable. He wonders why she doesn’t just cut the mess off.  But he doesn’t figure he’s qualified to talk about it with her.

“Good morning,” she says.

He nods.

“Did you make this fire?”

Again he nods. The little woman seems to be getting impatient. Galen wonders if females of all species share this particular trait.

“I know you can talk,” she says.

He stands. “I’m going to go get us something to eat. Do you like fish?” Galen is starving, but then, a growing Syrena always is.

She blinks up at him, letting her gaze linger on the gold necklace still draped on his chest. He wonders what she’s thinking. He resists the urge to cover the medallion with his hand. Would she be foolish enough to try to take it? Does she know what it is? He doesn’t know the nature of humans all that well, but he’s well acquainted with greed—he sees it on Rayna’s face all the time. This human does not have greed in her eyes.