Mariana Trench

Four: The Human Way

Two and a half months, two and a half. That's how long it took me to learn how to be a human. That's how long it took for me to go from a mermaid, to a disgusting repulsive human creature. To learn their ways, to learn their languages, their habits, their teachings, their colonies, no I'm sorry, their countries. Who knew there was so much to becoming a creature. Even learning their ways of disposing of waste, more specifically, their excrement, what they'd have called, their shit. The fact I had to learn how they disposed of their waste and had to actually do it, was repulsive. Deep black trenches the first few times it was a dark deep mucking experience. Minerva had stated that it wouldn't take me a long time to learn how to become human, I wish it had.
The only upside, if you could call it that, to becoming human, a human spy, was I needed to learn how to fight like a human. Well, somewhat anyway. Since I was a mermaid spy acting as human, I was allowed, encouraged even, to use one type of weapon. So, amidst all the learning about the wars, and traveling into the ocean, and above it, and what they called outer space, I had to pick a fighting tool.
I learned how to use knives and daggers, how to shoot bows, how to use staffs, nunchakus, fans, even modern weapons like guns, explosives. All of which, I abhorred. If humans thought us merpeople were savages, were monsters, demons of the deep, which almost all of their tales seemed to indicate, they were the real monsters. Yes we fought one another, yes we had our own battles and wars, but we'd never create such mass destruction. Never cause so many of us to die. From what I gathered, humans never truly lived in harmony with each other. So picking a human weapon to defend myself, was not happening. "Oh for water's sake child just pick something." Snapped Minerva as I declined a particularly nasty human gun. I stared around at the weapons laid out in neat rows, on racks, what humans called tables.
"I'm not using a human weapon, not to defend myself, I'm not going to leave behind who I am, or who I was." "That's the point of being a spy child, you aren't you, you are someone else, something else." "Well then I won't be a mucking spy then." I moved to pick up one of the spears, long and with three prongs at it's tip, what the humans called a trident. Ironically they attributed this weapon with mermaids, and yet again, they were wrong. Well, at least with my kind of mermaids, we never used these kinds of weapons. I frowned as I swung the spear around. "You're not using that." Minerva stated. "There would be no way you could carry that." "It's what you humans call the twenty-first century, so there's a way I could." It was one of the only ways I could insult Minerva and Demelza, by referring to them as humans. It showed on Demelza's face, Minerva's stayed frozen like the deep.
I frowned as I stared at the trident, and, "I know what I want to use, teach me how to control my voice." "What?" "Excuse me?" I almost laughed at their reactions. "Teach me how to use my voice as a weapon. You say our voices are extremely powerful, especially compared to the human ear, so show me how to control it." "You cannot be serious." Said Minerva. "I'm an orca." I said. "And there is no way any human, or, merperson, is going to take that from me." I snapped the pendant around my neck. "So show me how I can use my voice as a weapon. Dolphins and whales see with their sounds, so it shouldn't be far from weaponizing it." "That is—"We can do it." Said Demelza. Minerva stared at Demelza, her face almost cracking from it's deep blue blankness to show the shock and irritation, almost.
So, my weapon became my voice, Demelza called it, "The Orca Cry." Another piece of irony, music helped me learn to weaponize my voice. learning the different cultures humans had, the different languages, allowed for flexibility with my voice. I went from shattering glass, to shattering thick turtle shells, to shattering wood tables, to shattering stone walls. I learned how to focus my voice on my target, how to extend it to a far away target like it was a bow and arrow. I also learned how to use it to control my prey. Something humans would've called mind control. As I learned all these things, I let my anger and rage fester and boil in my chest, in my guts. My anger and rage at Zoe for never telling me the truth she knew. My anger and rage at the Queen. The simple life that was stolen from me. I let all that fester and grow deep in me, hidden away from Demelza's eyes and Minerva's frozen features. Two and a half months.
In fact, to hurt her more, I completely ignored Zoe every time she showed up, which was every, what was it, day, every single day she appeared in a pool of water to watch my training. Sometimes she appeared at, was it called night? Yes. But I ignored her sad eyes and her questioning clicks and sounds of longing. That was another thing, because of our ability to communicate with each other through song, through sound, it allowed me to be able to understand creatures above the waves. A feature I took for granted until learning about the animals above the waves. As a merperson, there really isn't a way to know more about say, lions, zebras, dogs, cats, unless they come too far out in the water and are prey to some predator. But now, I had to learn about how we can understand them, and the urge to communicate will be there and we have to ignore it, otherwise we'll get looked at as crazy. Whatever being crazy means.
Since we're talking about humans, it seems a pretty low bar. Whether because of nature, or whatever, I drank it all in. I was able to answer every question flawlessly, able to defend myself perfectly, though Minerva was never satisfied. "I was always a second too slow in fighting, always a little not enough."   "It's just who she is." Said Demelza quietly one evening as we sat down to eat. Minerva had instructed her to keep me on human eating standards, and so I had to use their tools, thankfully though, I could still eat our kind of food. I stabbed a small squid and shoved it into my mouth. "It's mucking burning me up her constant, not enough, not strong enough, not fast enough, not anything enough." Demelza nodded. "I understand." Zoe floated in a nearby pool, and let out a note of apology. I ignored her. "Where are we even going to go? All these steps, all this training, where am I even going to be put?" "I'm happy you asked." Said Minerva from the doorway. Demelza and I didn't react, we knew she was there, we'd sensed her presence. Minerva walked in and said, "Your first assignment, is in Coral City."
I remembered that Coral City was a new development, a newly built city in the state known as California, in the country known as The United States. "What is my assignment." "You are to integrate amongst the humans of your age, and go to the school known as Coral Academy, and that'll be your cover as you learn everything you can about the clandestine organization that is hunting merpeople." I snorted. "Is something amusing?" "Yeah, who isn't hunting merpeople? Didn't we go over how humans have been hunting for us since the beginning of time?" "This organization is a major threat to us because they have the technology to find us, and to kill us." "Uh-huh, what is it humans of my age say? Not." Minerva scowled. Demelza snickered. Even Zoe let out a humorous click.
"Fine, I'll find your clandestine nonexistent mermaid hunting organization." "And to ensure you do, Demelza will be with you." "I don't need a human babysitter." Minerva just stared at me for a moment. "We leave in a few days, so I hope you'll be ready by then." With that, she vanished. I savagely stabbed at another squid and tore it apart as I ate it. "Apologies Majesty." Said Demelza quietly. "I'll be with you too Majesty." Zoe sang from her pool of water. "I don't want you there, besides, you'll be in the ocean, how will you be there?" I snapped. "The house we'll be staying in will have discrete access to the ocean." Said Demelza. "Oh great, so I can perform what's it called? A teenage tantrum and run away from home? Or run to home, swim, it's all very confusing." Demelza let out a nervous laugh.
The next human day, I stood in front of what humans called a mirror, watching Demelza skillfully apply different colors of what humans called makeup, and I called mud, to her face. "It's to make someone look more desirable." She'd said to my frown. Of course I'd learned it, of course, I'd seen her do it, but still, it was something I couldn't get over. Something I could never see myself doing, especially since, with our blood, merpeople were already naturally beautiful, or what humans called inhumanly beautiful. Minerva stepped in and said, "I have your names—"My what?" I snapped, whipping around. "Your human names, you surely cannot expect you'll be going into the lion's den with Mariana do you? That'll be a sure way of giving you away as a mermaid, as a daughter of the Queen as well. No, you will be under an alias."
I had known this. Every human story that involved spying of one sort or another, the spy in question always had an alias. But I hoped this would've been a major oversight of the Queen and Minerva and whoever else was running this thing. Apparently, it wasn't. "Demelza, your's will be Penelope Andromeda Elswood, and your's Mariana," I prepared myself for the worst. "Will be Thalea Annabeth Elswood." I frowned. Ok fine, maybe it wasn't as bad as I thought. It at least reminded me of the two characters from one of the several book series Minerva drilled into me. Thalia Grace, and Annabeth Chase. Which rhymed. Then I noticed that our names were greek, all around. "And my name will be Athena Ophelia Elswood." "Interesting," I thought. "Interesting how all our names were greek." And, there was something else I noticed. If anything, I could at least choose to be called Anna, which was as close to my actual name as I'd probably get.
"When we go, I will show you our discrete entrance into the home we will be staying it, the home has been prepared for us, that, and everything else we will need to meld smoothly within Coral City." Minerva handed us each a stack of human reading material. "You are to study this, this will contain your existence, where you were born, and by whom, everything anyone will ask you." I looked at my alias, "Thalea Annabeth Elswood." The human year I was born was April Ninth, Two Thousand And Four, which made me the human age of eighteen. I was born by a man named Marcus Jones with Minerva, I'm sorry, Athena as my mother. "Disgusting, I have you as a mother." Minerva said nothing. "At least we're sisters." Said Demelza.
I had seen that. A few months after my supposed birth date, Demelza's, or Penelope's, came up. July -Fifteenth. "I guess that's a good thing." I mumbled. Zoe watched us from a pool, a constant sentinel, a constant reminder of my sentence. That night I read through my existence. Thalea Annabeth Elswood, apparently we moved to Coral City just a few human weeks before we were actually going to move. The reason, because Penelope and I were studying to become musicians and Coral City offered one of the best in music choices. "I liked music, obviously, reading, hiking, swimming, watching movies, and dancing. I scowled at the list of my human hobbies. I was described to be tall, with dark blue hair and eyes to match. In my file, itr said I routinely dyed it. I flicked to Penelope's. Other than a few differences, cooking, painting, weaving, her list was similar to mine. She was described as another tall human, with red hair and green eyes. We both were described as having golden almost bronze colored skin. I sensed her appear and snarled, "What, why are you here?" "Because I want to wish you well on your quest Majesty." "Are you not coming?" "As you so cleverly put it, I won't always be there, so, I wish you luck as I am water bound." I shrugged, a human gesture. "Sure, I'll need luck with the human way." I said sarcastically.
Zoe ignored my sarcasm, Demelza beamed, a disgusting human description for a stupid human gesture.