Beauties and Beasts

Chapter 103: brought to you by mermaids

Today on: "Snebies": Dragons don't like the ocean. The author sneezes really hard. Daddy tells his first moral tale to his children. And the prodigal son returns with an offering for peace.

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Strangely enough, Asher didn't like the ocean.

He could swim as well as the other snakes and enjoyed being in the river well enough. But for some odd reason, when he saw the ocean, he'd curl in on himself and would not be moved unless someone forcefully picked him up and carried him away.

The girls, who were the closest to Asher, found this very strange.

"He says it too big," said Sky to Shay over a lunch of boiled crab legs.

"Isn't his mama and dad a col-sal?" said Dawn doubtfully. "Aren't they big?"

Asher hissed something from where he had coiled in the dip of her lap, a crab leg between his claws.

"How was I 'spose to know? I never saw them," Dawn said scathingly to Asher.

"Everyone has something they're afraid of," Shay said. "There's no need to pressure him."

"But the ocean's the best," said Luna. "The prey is best. Taste best. Water is best. Big and blue."

"Like the sky," said Sky.

"Like fly! Fly in the ocean!" cried Luna in a moment of 'Eureka!'

Something struck Shay. "Wait a minute, didn't Asher say his mom and dad could fly? Puff up and float or something?"

All three girls perked up.

"Yeah!"

"They can fly and swim? That's no fair!"

Shay had to agree. That wasn't fair. What kind of cheat codes were that in a world of natural selection? The whole world should be chock full of Ashers.

Dawn gave her characteristic snort, which made Shay wonder if she should start discouraging that habit.

"If he can't swim in the ocean, how can he fly in the sky? Sky is bigger than the ocean."

Sky looked at Asher for a response, while Luna just nodded as though Dawn had spoken some deep philosophical truth.

"Right. How you gonna fly Asher?"

Some hissing later, about how the ocean and sky were nothing alike because one was filled with sharks and you couldn't breathe in and the other just had air and yummy birds ("But don't you say you hold your breath to fly?" *cue puffing up as a demonstration*), and that conversation finished.

However, it started a theme with the ocean.

The babies prattled on about oceans and skies and the sky being ocean enough that, come bedtime, the story Shay picked to tell was of the Little Mermaid. The Hans Christiansen version, not the fluffy dovey Disney fanfic.

The two boys coiled up with their eyes glittering atop their mounds while the three little girls sat on the coils of their father. The boys had seemingly earned their place to stay as long as they liked as long as they contributed in whatever way Curtis saw fit. Parker sat against the now rather tall walls of their home, Muir sat on the wall with his legs dangling, and Ryan served as Shay's backrest in his panther form. Harvey sat at her feet, washing and rubbing her feet as though it were a hobby of his.

Everyone was quite caught up in the tragedy of the little mermaid. She expected to be stopped several times to explain culture differences, like how any female would feel she had to go so far for a single male, but no questions came. She began to wonder if the idea of a female giving up her life just to be with a male was attractive to the men who'd grown up as nigh disposable citizens in the world.