The Sea Princess and The Storyteller

Chapter Four: DERIN

In the kingdom of Reddia, there lived dozens of underprivileged merfolk, like Derin, who were pejoratively called "Cave Urchins". While respectable members of merfolk society resided in homes constructed of coral or driftwood, "Cave Urchins" slept in caverns, for they could not afford permanent housing.

Most "Cave Urchins" became petty thieves, since they thought stealing food was necessary for their survival. Derin always strived to follow the "Forty Commandments of Amphitrite", the rigid moral code which he was taught as a merboy at the Sisters of Amphitrite Home for Orphaned Mer-Children. One of the Commandments was "A mermaid or merman must not steal from a fellow mermaid or merman", so despite his severe poverty, Derin had never stolen anything. He subsisted by foraging for kelp and Wild shellfish.

The few sand shekels he earned from busking as a storyteller in the marketplace were mostly donated to the orphanage, although he had too much of a sweet tooth to resist treating himself to candied kelp or coral nougat once in a great while. The Sisters of Amphitrite Home for Orphaned Mer-Children was both overcrowded and underfunded, on account of the exceedingly deadly outbreak of the Rare Aquatic Virus several years ago. Because the Sea Plague was far more fatal to adults than to mer-children, the number of orphans had grown exponentially in a short period of time. Derin had lost his own parents and maternal grandparents to R.A.V. when he was eight years old.

On the morning of the Feast of Amphitrite, Derin was out riding Darius, his bonded giant sea-stallion, on his way to visit the orphanage, when he was suddenly approached by an unfamiliar merman at the edge of the kingdom. The stranger had a long black beard and wore a crimson SeaSatin turban, which perfectly matched his blood red tail. Perched on one of the merman's burly shoulders was a spotted parrotfish.

"Merry Feast of Amphitrite!" the strange merman greeted Derin.

"Merry Feast of Amphitrite!" echoed the parrotfish.

"Merry Feast of Amphitrite, sir". Derin was unsure what to make of this mysterious merman and his parrotfish sidekick. He remembered the story of "Little Scarlet Scales", which he had just told in the marketplace yesterday. The moral of that sea nymph tale was that one should be careful who you trusted, for if Little Scarlet Scales hadn't spoken to the Great White Shark, her grandmother wouldn't have gotten eaten by him.

"Is it possible you could be...Derin?". The merman stared intently at him.

"You could be Derin...?" repeated the parrotfish.

Derin couldn't tell whether the spotted parrotfish was a Civilized or Wild sea creature. Civilized marine animals spoke the languages of merfolk and lived alongside them in their kingdoms, unlike Wild sea creatures, who did not speak, lived out in the Wilderness, and could even be dangerous to merfolk. This parrotfish seemed to only repeat what the scarlet-tailed merman said, so maybe he was a Wild fish who had been somehow trained to do so...?

"My word, my nephew has grown so much! I am Adir, your long-lost uncle, and this is my pet parrotfish, Deniz...!"

"Long-lost uncle, you say...?". As far as Derin knew, his late mother, Jamilah, had no brothers. She just had two sisters: Adva, who had also passed away from the Rare Aquatic Virus, and Damla, who had moved to Mediterrania when he was a merbaby.

Shan, Derin's father, was originally from the distant merfolk kingdom of Chinania, and immigrated to Reddia to work as a SeaSatin weaver, as many others did back when the Reddian economy was booming. Adir, with his distinctly Reddian features, was definitely not from Chinania.

Derin shook his head. "No, that's not possible. You must be mistaken, sir".

"You WILL come with me, my boy!" demanded Adir, all joviality gone from his voice and demeanor. Adir's piercing eyes glowed for a brief instant.