FrostIron Short Stories

Feathers and Fin: You've Got One I've Got The Other

'Time it took us
To where the water was
That's what the water gave me

And time goes quicker
Between the two of us
Oh, my love, don't forsake me
Take what the water gave me

Lay me down
Let the only sound
Be the overflow
Pockets full of stones

Lay me down
Let the only sound
Be the overflow....'

Anthony woke up among his other friends, his tail fins tangled a bit. He sat up, bending his flexible body and working to get the four large, thin, yellow things undone. His scales were a deep red, orange and yellow appearing in between them. Then he looked down at the blue thing that the finless ones put in his chest, he had no name for it because he knew not what to call it, Anthony opened his hands and looked at the golden webs. He wriggled around a second, a small, pin-prick feeling on his tail. He rolled over a bit and saw it was a hook, they'd killed many fishes and Merfolk with those, but still they were rather enticing to play with.

He tossed it up a bit, letting it sink back into his hands. There was a piece of what looked like clear seaweed wrapped to it, when he tugged at it however it did not budge like seaweed would and he put the hook down on the rock he'd slept upon that night. The two fins just above his tail he played with a little then he took off towards the surface.

From below, the gleaming of the large heat circle was beautiful, and he swam towards that. There were plenty of places he enjoyed sitting on, watching the flying creatures above them. Occasionally one would fly down and land on the beach. He saw they had large, weird fins that weren't on their lower bodies, but on their backs, they weren't scaled and they didn't have a tail, but two. Anthony once swam close to the shore and almost tried to talk to one, but a very pretty one saw him and then flew off, so he stayed on his rock.

Sure enough, once he'd breached the surface, there were plenty of them on the beach. They were stretching out their weird fins and warming them. There were several of them off in a school, one however, flew alone. His black back fins matching Natasha's tail scales and part of her fins in color. The one with the black fins circled over him once and then Anthony watched as that one began to spiral lower and lower.

Anthony's eyes opened wide when that same one was almost upon him. The group on the beach did nothing, though one large one looked up and back down at his friends. Anthony paid attention to the other one and he landed heavily into the water, when he didn't surface however, Anthony feared that something bad had happened. He knew he shouldn't do it, but he did. Down he dove into the water.

Sure enough, the black finned one had fallen, not dove, like Anthony had thought. Long black hair swirled around a surprisingly pale face, how was he so light in skin tone if he could be near the heat circle? Didn't matter, he wasn't moving but simply sinking. Limp was the body and the fins, could he not swim well? If he was indeed a finned one couldn't he swim in the water?

Anthony's gills pulled in surrounding oxygen and he wrapped his arms around the middle of the non-tailed one, with those large fins on his back Anthony had expected it to be easier to lift him from the water but in fact it was more difficult. They were weird in feeling and they made it more of a struggle for Anthony, but he managed to bring him onto that rock. There, a large amount of water poured from the lips of the strange one after Anthony pressed down upon his stomach a few times.

Coughing and spluttering was after that, and then what surprised him the most was the opening of the green eyes from the other one. Anthony looked on with his own eager brown eyes at him, they were like pearls but even prettier, that great shade of emerald had him fixed for a few minutes. The black hair clung to the tailless ones chiseled face and a long pale hand swung at it to move it away.