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.
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.
She clears her throat and gives him a weak smile. “I happen to love fish.”
Galen can’t decide if her words carry a double meaning. This human might be more than he bargained for. “I’ll be right back.”
He walks down the beach, far enough away that she can’t see him remove his covering in the darkness. When he dives in the water and his fin twists into shape, he sighs in relief. It feels good to stretch, to get the sticky beach sand off of him, to feel lighter. On land, he feels like a rock with legs sometimes. So heavy and slow. Down here, he feels like part of the current, moving without effort, turning with ease.
Drifting with the morning tide, he makes half-hearted attempts to be as fast as his prey. In the distance he hears a pod of dolphins scaring up their morning meal and considers joining them. But dolphins are too fast for him to follow after such a long night. After a time, he decides crab might be the best choice, since he has no net and no bait and no energy. Capturing crabs require stillness and patience. Two things Galen is more than willing to give right now.
As his hand closes around a retreating crab claw, he senses Toraf’s pulse. Worse than that, he senses Rayna’s. And they’re heading straight for him. Just perfect.
Getting out of the water would be pointless now that Toraf has focused in on his pulse. Besides, with Toraf’s Tracking skills, he sensed Galen long before Galen sensed him. Galen doesn’t care that his friend found him—in fact, he could use his input in this especially weird situation—but why did Toraf have to bring Rayna?
Why, why why?
After re-donning his palm branch covering, Galen sits on shore and waits, scraping the rest of the raw flesh from the crab shell in his hands. He’ll have to find more to cook for the human stranger over the fire. It’s not likely she’ll have a taste for anything live.
When Toraf and Rayna surface, Galen waves them over.
Toraf stands over him, close enough to drip salt water on his legs. “You’re still wearing that necklace, minnow? And why are you all covered up with plants?”
Galen runs a hand through his hair. “I didn’t have time to take the necklace off. What I mean is, I didn’t have time to put it anywhere.” It occurs to Galen that the two were following him for just that reason—hoping he’d try to hide the necklace so they could steal it back. This game could last for an entire season if he let it.
Rayna crosses her arms. “Sure you did. You had time to make a net for yourself out of palm branches.”
“It’s not a net, and I only made it because…” Galen stands. “Come see what I’m talking about.”
The sunrise creeps quickly over the surf, but there’s still enough darkness to clearly see the illumination ahead of them. The closer they get to the fire the more antsy Toraf gets. When he sees the stranger nestled in the sand beyond the flames, his eyes nearly bulge out of his face. “You’re mating with a human?”
Rayna gasps. “Mating? You’re only thirteen seasons old, Galen!”
“How stupid can you be, minnow?”
“Did you make the fire or did she?” Rayna asks.
Toraf’s eye get wider. “Did you already…you know…?”
Galen rolles his eyes. “Triton’s trident, will you two shut your blowholes? We. Are not. Mating. I saved her from drowning, squid breath. I stayed with her last night to make sure she was going to live.” Well, mostly.
“Oh, they generally die right away when they’ve drowned,” Toraf explains. “She’ll definitely live.”
Galen snorts. “Is that right? Maybe you could tell me what they eat. Since you’ve decided she’ll live.”
Toraf nods in all seriousness. “Humans eat sand. That’s why they spend so much time on land.”
Before Galen can answer, a flash of light reflects in Toraf’s eyes. “Who’s there?” a voice calls from behind them. The human stranger has lit a stick with the fire and is closing the distance between them. Galen is surprised she had the strength to finally stand. Maybe she’ll live after all. “Is that you…uh, I guess I don’t really know your name,” she says. “Little boy?”
Little boy? Toraf mouths to Galen.
Galen shrugs and pushes past his friend and his sister. “It’s me,” he calls back. “And…some of my friends have come also.”
“Oh nice,” Rayna hisses. “Now we’re all breaking the law.”
“Since when did you care about the law,” Galen says over his shoulder. He meets the stranger halfway.
“Oh. There you are,” she says. “Did you find anything edible? I’d give my big toe for a pizza. And my whole foot for a bottle of water.”
Galen’s not sure what a pizza is, but the fact that she’s asking about food at all makes him feel guilty. Still, the water part has him concerned. “Not yet,” he says, feeling his face contort with the lie. “But if you need water, it’s right there.” He nods toward the waves in what he hopes isn’t a condescending way.
The stranger smiles at him. “Oh sweet pea,” she laughs. “I can’t drink salt water. And after my ordeal today, I don’t think the gulf and I get along, do you?”
Galen blinks. It would seem to him that she and other humans do not get along.
She winks up at him. Her behavior is getting stranger with each breath she takes. “Who knew guardian angels had fins instead of wings?”
She’s gone mad. Except for the part about fins. He’d been hoping he could convince her that she’d hallucinated that part. But she knows what she saw. Before he can protest, she holds up her hand. “No, no, don’t you worry about that. I don’t know who you are, or what you are, and I don’t care. Not one bit. I won’t tell a soul about you, I swear.”
Galen steps back. Dr. Milligan warned him that some humans might say that. To earn his trust. He glances at the waves beside him. It would be so easy for him and Toraf and Rayna to disappear in the surf. To leave this human and the danger she represents, the threat she poses right now, standing here saying that she knows his secret. That she remembers everything.
“My name is Rachel,” she says suddenly, as if to distract him. “What’s yours?”
“His name is Galen,” his sister sings, “And this is Toraf, and I’m Rayna. Why are your fingernails red?”
Galen is torn. Should he run toward the tide, or choke his sister first? He doesn’t have time to make the decision. The human puts her free arm around Rayna—while Toraf’s jaw drops to his toes—and leads her back to the fire. “It’s so nice to meet you, Rayna,” Rachel The Human says pleasantly. “This is called nail polish. On land, we paint our fingernails to make them look pretty. Would you like me to paint yours for you sometime? Of course, I don’t have any with me, but we can pick some out at the store. There are all sorts of colors you can choose from.”
This appears to delight his sister. Not good.
Toraf punches him in the arm. “Idiot! You’ve let that nasty human kidnap Rayna. Do something.”
“Come on,” Galen says through clenched teeth. “You go sit with them. I’m going to go find the hum—er, Rachel—something to eat. Don’t let them leave the fire.”
“You think?”
But Galen is already heading in the opposite direction.