Beached

It was a surprisingly calm day after the tropical storm that wrecked havoc over the sea and the small town Jasper resided in. Jasper took a big yawn as she finally stepped out of her home to see if there was any damage to the outside of it. Luckily there was nothing major, just a few dents and a cracked storm window, easily fixable. Seeing this, she grabbed her stitched up backpack and eagerly went to see if anything washed up on the shore, a habit of her's she was getting lately. After the war many years back she had to find ways to keep herself entertained, and to keep her mind off of things she'd rather not think of. 

So, Jasper headed down to the beach, the first things she saw was lots of driftwood, seaweed, and of course seagulls picking at any sea creatures that might have washed up during the storm. She began her search by picking up a few pieces of driftwood to see if anything was underneath them. However all she found was the usual crabs, seashells, rocks, and maybe the occasional starfish. With a light sigh she continued her search, until something caught her eye, a ton of seagulls were flocking over to something much bigger than a crab or a starfish. Maybe a whale or dolphin got beached from the storm? She walked over at a brisk pace, seeing it was actually a person. Or so she thought. 

This 'person' had light pink skin with hot pink hair, likes of which Jasper had never seen before. That's when she noticed the fins and the tail. Her eyes went wide with surprise as she quickended her pace to a jog and kneeled next to the merperson. They were obviously alive, their chest rose and fell, though lightly and slowly. They had several fresh cuts and bruises on their body, presumably from last night's storm. Jasper also noticed they quite small for a merperson but obviously a full grown one. Most can grow taller than a human, some deep sea ones reportedly growing to colossal sizes. 

Jasper darted her eyes around, making sure there was no one else around. After all lot of people had bad attitudes towards merfolk, saying they lure people to their death to feast on them. The last thing she wanted was for someone to hurt this merperson furthur. "Hey, are you ok?" She gently shook their shoulder, trying to awake them, to no avail. She sighed and formulated a plan. She covered most of their body with large palm leaves that had fallen from the storm, not wanting people to see them or anymore seagulls to bother them. "I'll be right back, okay?" She spoke softly to them, although she had no way of knowing if they were at all conscious or if they could even understand human speech. With this she ran back to her house, plan in mind.