A Tail of Love - Book One: Forever Fins

Forever Fins-Two

I woke up at four o'clock after a full five hours of sleep. Those hours were filled with dreams of the beach and images of my home bathed in moonlight. It was a very peaceful sleep. I got out of bed and walked to the kitchen to find something to eat. Merfolk need to eat more than the average human, so I eat as often as I can when I first wake, so I will not run out of energy before lunch. I took out a seaweed salad that Sybil had made for me and Finny to eat that day. As I ate I turned on the television to see what the weather would be like today. It would be warm in the morning with a cold front coming in around noon. Good, that would mean I could go for a chilling swim that afternoon. I love swimming in cold water, it makes my nerves feel full of the electricity and magic that runs through my veins.

I flipped through channels as I waited for the rest of the house to wake up. TV was something completely unheard-of in Nure, we do not possess such technology, but we do have a way of seeing the memories of other merfolk, even humans and animals. It is really cool, but we cannot use it often because it exhausts us to keep our minds open like that and to hold someone else's mind open as well.

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An hour later Finny woke up. She ate the rest of the salad and sat down on the small chair on the other side of the room. We did not speak for a long time. I heard a thump as a messenger bird was sent in through the window. It was a simple gull but it had a letter tied around each leg, one with the red crest of uncle Redfin, the other baring the similar blue crest of my father. We retrieved our letters and handed the gull a scree as payment.

Merfolk use shells for currency, a scree is a butterfly shell and is worth the equivalent of about a dollar in human money. Then there is the criz which is a capiz shell, and is worth about ten human dollars. We have a pert which is a clam shell and worth about 50 human dollars. Finally we have recently deceased sand dollars which are in a wide range of colors, but are all worth about a hundred human dollars. We have a lot of those in the treasury in the basement of the palace.

Finny sat down and started reading her letter. I know she will not admit it but she misses her dad terribly. It really hurt her when he banished her with conditions like that. It is a big deal for a mer to find a mate, it is the equivalent of marriage and to find a human mate that is willing to give up their lives for a mermaid is really rare.

She had tears in her eyes when she was done reading. I am still getting adjusted to tears, underwater a merfolk's tears are absorbed into the water. Our eyes also shine a different color. When a mer feels a very strong emotion, like sadness, anger, jealousy, or pure happiness our eyes change color. I know that my eyes turn pure silver when I get emotional, Finny's eyes turn Bronze, and Daddy's eyes turn dark blue. My best friend Nanami, who has beautiful purple hair and fins, turn white. It is weird to see water running down her face. The first time I felt tears on my face I thought I was bleeding.

I wondered briefly what the letter said as I opened mine.

Dear Aura,

I hope this reaches you in time so that you do not feel rushed to make a decision, but I am afraid that I have to remind you that in a few months' time you will be turning seventeen. As you know that means that you will have to come back home for the moonlight ceremony for your final changing cycle. I will give you as much time as I can before you come home but you know I cannot wait longer than a few hours. I hope you are doing well, I miss you terribly. Take as much time as you need to find out anything you want to know about your mother. Serena was a wonderful woman and you are growing up to be just like her. You will always be my little guppy.

Love,

Dad

King Azuron of Nure

I was now crying as well. Daddy was sad all the time now, he had lost the woman he loves and now that I am on land to, he has no family in the palace, but I will be back as soon as I can. I will see him at the ceremony anyways. The moonlight Ceremony is when a mer reached full maturity and they have their very last transfiguration that is controlled by nature. After the ceremony we can only change if we want to. It also is the day when my mermark will appear. A mermark is a kind of tattoo looking thing that all merfolk get on their seventeenth birthday. It is the only thing that identifies us on land, it usually forms on one's back or right over their heart. It is usually a circle of waves that surround a heart shaped shell that is the color of the merfolk's fins.

My daddy's is a royal blue shell, Finny's is dark red, Nanami's is pale purple, I wonder what color mine will be.

I heard Sybil get out of bed and start coming down stars. Me and Finny got up and went to our rooms and put our letters away.

When we came back out I saw Sybil cooking eggs. "I see you got your letters." I raised my brow in confusion.

"How did you know?" She smiled.

"Your father's sent me a gull saying that you two would be receiving important messages and that if I get them before you do that I shouldn't open them." I sat down and drank a glass of water. Finny did the same. When we were finished we grabbed our stuff and headed out to go to school.