Once upon a time...
POV- 3rd Person
"One of the eggs, it's moving," Tara gasped.
Uah (yö-ah) swam over to Tara. "But I thought eggs don't move," she wondered aloud.
"They move when they're about to hatch," Tara explained to the young Uah.
Ever since Uah was born, which was not many months previously, Tara had watched over her and taught her many things. Kinda like a mother. Actually, not like mother. There are reasons mermaid mothers abandon their eggs, and it's best left at that.
Before Tara and Uah was a mound of the largest fish eggs in the world. Each egg was as big as a beach ball (a type of human toy). They were orange and somewhat transparent.
"What do we do now, Tara?" Uah asked.
"Well, first, we have to seperate the egg from the rest," Tara explained. She swam around to the other side of the now quivering egg and gave it a shove. The soft egg rolled forward, over the tops of it's neighbors and stopped ten feet away from them.
Uah and Tara swam over to the egg. "Now we must wait," Tara said.
After two hours of waiting, Uah turned to Tara whose hair floated around her head, making her face mossible to see. "Tara, how long do you think it's been in it's egg?" Uah questioned.
"Probably for a few hundred years, though I suppose it could have been waiting to hatch. for as short as a single year," Tara remarked.
"Well if it's been waiting so long why is it still taking it's time? I'm huunnggggrrrryyy," the young mermaid whinned.
As she groaned out the word "hungry," Uah failed to notice that the egg now shook violently in an untamed rythm.
"Look!" Exclaimed Tara, pointing at the egg. Uah watched, scared that something was wrong with it.
Tara saw Uah's worried expression and laughed. "It's alright. The little things just knocking it's way out of the egg."
Uah watched as the egg shook several more times. Then a hole was punched through the egg and two red tail fins stuck out of of the hole. The fins flopped around crazily as the rest of the tail slowly worked its way out.
After about a minute the whole tail was out and Uah had to wonder why the hatchling inside didn't just go front-first. The Tara watched as a belly button emerged after the tail. Not mammal, no umbilical cord, no outies.
The newest born merfolk wiggled the rest of the way out of it's egg and babbled. Tara and Uah could only see it's back side. Tara grabbed Uah's hand and swam to the other side of the hatchling.
"It's a girl," Tara cooed.
"How do you know?" Uah asked. "Both mermaids and mermen have long hair."
"Boobs," is all Tara said. Indeed mermaids are born a quarter of the way through mermaid puberty. That entitles budding breasts, lush hair atop the head and thanks for not being a mammal since sharks would smell PMS blood.
"What's her name going to be, Tara?" Again Uah with the never-ending questions.
"She'll tell us. The first thing merfolk say is their name."
"Twila," Twila, the newborn mermaid, said.
"Well that was quick. Twila it is then. Uah, please go find Twila some sea shells, and do hurry. If you remember, newborn girls murder any merman who sees them topless.
As it happens, Uah had a hard time finding shells. It was too late. Tara had left Twila by the eggs so she could search for food. While Twila was alone, sleeping atop some unhatched great uncle's cousin four times removed, three young mermen passed by and saw her. They swam closer to see who the new arrival was. As the approached, Twila cracked an eye open, looked down at her chest, then at the merman.
Nobody knows what happened to the three mermen, but some say that if you listen closely, you can still hear their screams.
If you're offended by bloodlusting newborn mermaids, then who cares? Mermaid culture is the mermaids' problem.
