Fragile Skins

Chapter three: mermaid

The next few weeks went past quickly with Sachiel living at Kai's house. He was introduced to Sidy who, frankly, couldn't care less about his existence. Kai's mother was elusive after Kai pulled her off that poor faun during her rant. They spent most of their time talking together or watching tv in the house or on the beach, which Sachiel especially seemed to enjoy. 

It was raining. Kai hated the rain, it overwatered his family's crops and interrupted his daily schedule. Sachiel, on the other hand, loved the rain. He sat outside in the backyard staring at the sky. Kai had a day off from working in his father's old shop, so he sat with Sachiel behind the screen on the back door and out of the rain. Often times they would do this, sit together in silence for hours. While Kai was at work Sachiel would often try and talk with Sidy but he was often ignored. To him the house seems devoid of all life except Kai. Sidy and his mother kept to themselves, sitting in their rooms alone. Despite the sad lifeless feeling Sachiel could tell the house was once a happy place full of life, the walls in the kitchen and living room were a light yellow but had discolored spots all around from years of dirt building up. The floors were sunken in and the carpeted areas felt rough and unwelcoming. It's a large house so it has 5 bedrooms, only three of which are used now.
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"Hey Sach?" they were at the pierre, Kai walking along hitting the wooden boards of the dock with a large stick while Sachiel rolled his chair alongside him.
"Yeah?" Sachiel responded, fond of the new nickname.
"We always seem to talk about me and I wanna know more about you. So... where are you from? Who are your parents?"
"Oh!" Sachiel seemed surprised, "I'm not that interesting."
"Nonsense! You're awesome and I want to know everything about you." Sachiel blushed.
"Well I guess I could tell you about me, but first I have to show you something and you have to promise not to freak out." His voice sounded imperative. 
"Of course man."
"Ok then." Sachiel sighed then pulled the brown blanket off his lap. At first Kai didn't know what he was looking at then Sachiel slid the rest of his long blue and purple fish tail out from under him. His scales shimmered in the sunlight and the translucent fins on either side of the tail and the dorsal fin at the bottom of the tail stretched out after being cramped under the blanket for all this time. 
"Woah, Sach..." Kai didn't know what to say. "it's beautiful." he said after regaining his train of thought. Sachiel also took off his hat and coat which revealed his white hair that fell into his eyes, his long webbed fingers which ended in sharp claws, and more freckles. His ears were the same translucent flesh as his fins, which also spread down his arms, and were long and looked like a flower.
"Ah, thanks, I guess." Sachiel responded shyly, clearly embarrassed.
"But why are you here of all place? Why not live in the ocean?"
"I can't"
"Why not?"
Sachiel sighed "I was the prince of one of the major mermaid kingdoms, my mother and father were raising me to be the next king and of course to do that you need a queen. But I didn't want to marry some random princess there is no love in an arranged marriage, so I ran away. Every one of my father's men were after me and the ocean wasn't a safe place to be. I boarded a boat pretending to be a wheelchair bound human. Eventually the boat unbordered here at Vermilion Bay, and you know the rest." Sachiel looked on the brink of tears.
"Hey." Kai put a hand on his back, "that... it's just... it's..."
"It's ok, don't feel like you need to say something." Kai was usually good at comforting people like Sidy and his mom, but something about Sachiel made it difficult for him to know what to do. "I understand if you don't want me to stay at your house anymore."
"What? You can totally stay, we just can't let mom find out."
"Oh, thank you." Sachiel said sounding sincerely grateful. The boys spent the rest of the day on the beach until Sachiel fell asleep. Kai threw the blanket over Sachiel and pushed his chair back home. Vermilion was quite a peculiar town, the roads were dirt and gravel instead of pavement, houses were crammed together and were an identical light brown color, cars rarely drove down the roads rather a large crowd of people were walking back and forth seemingly 24/7. Kai unlocked the front door to his house he picked up Sachiel and dropped him onto the couch and threw a thick blue blanket over him. Kai laid down and slept on the floor. 3 end
Sachiel rolled off the couch around mid-day startling him awake. His heavy tail thumped against the floor, dust gathered up under his scales causing an itchy feeling on his skin. His body wasn't made to be on land, the various fins only dragged him down even in a wheelchair. Kai jumped awake, he clearly was a very light sleeper.
"Wa? Are you ok?" Kai asked still half asleep.
"Yeah just fell." Sachiel replied also half asleep.
"KAI! What was that sound?" Sidy called from upstairs. Kai gasped and threw a blanket  over Sachiel.
"Nothing Sidy!" Kai yelled back as Sidy entered the room and walked over to the fridge which was in the kitchen conjoined to the living room. She made a bowl of cereal than sat on the couch.
"Yo what's this lumpy blanket?" Sidy pulled the blanket of Sachiel. "Eeeek" Sidy screamed loudly at Sachiel Laying on the floor. "MOOM!"
"SIDY NO!" Kai leaped and slammed Sidy to the ground covering her mouth. Sidy keep screaming and Kai forced his forearm into her mouth. She thrashed out with a fist and grazed Kai's head as he narrowly dodges. Sidy kept trying desperately to scream as drool dripped down her cheek, her teeth ripped into Kai's arm and blood oozed out onto the floor. They wrestled until Sidy broke free and ran to her mom upstairs while Kai chased behind her.
"Mom! Kai has a fey in the house!" Sidy yelled at her mom who had just woken up.
"No! Mom I can expla..."
"What!" She turned her head and stormed past her kids down the hall and into the living room. Sachiel curled up against the wall. "Kai I always knew you were a disgrace to this family." Kai ran in behind her.
"Mom no!" Kai grabbed her around the arms to pull her away from Sachiel. Sidy ran into the room and slammed her foot on Sachiel's caudal fin and he screamed out in pain as she twisted her foot, ripping away fragile tissue. "Stop!" Kai let go of his mom and slapped Sidy in the face, knocking her to the floor. Blood poured out her nose. His mom approached him from the back pulling his ponytail. Sachiel crawled away with only his arms military style. Kai fought away from his mom's grip and helped drag Sachiel out of the house and his mom slams the door behind them. Sachiel curled up and started crying.
"I-i'm so s-sorry." He said weakly while sniffing back snot running out his nose.
"Why? You didn't do anything." Kai asked surprisingly more calm than he probably should be.
"Yes I did. You let me live at your house and I didn't even mention I wasn't human then and now you'll probably never be let back home." Passersby would glance their direction but didn't stop to see what was going on. Sachiel started slowly crawling away.
"What? Where are you going?"
"The pier."
"Here." Kai picked him up bridal style and started walking to the pier. Now some passersby looked on them with disgust, but Kai didn't care he kept walking.
"Kai, put me down. I'll go on my own."
"Nope." Kai placed Sachiel on the pier he scooted over to the edge and dipped his hand in the water then slipped in. "Sach!" Kai cried out remembering Sachiel's story about his arranged marriage and how every ocean was being searched for him. Most of all Kai didn't want to lose Sachiel in the few weeks they knew each other they had become best friends, so Kai jumped in after him. Kai couldn't breath but the water was crystal clear so he could see Sach swimming, quite gracefully, deeper into the ocean. Of course he could breath with his set of gills on either side of his ribs. Kai dove deeper knowing very well he didn't have enough air to make it.
The water pressure began increasing, pressing on each side of Kai painfully, he wondered how Sachiel was able to resist being crushed by it. Kai started feeling lightheaded and with his remaining breath he called out, "Sach!"