Chapter 3Vera

Chapter 3

Vera

I expected to swallow my first lungful of water when I couldn’t hold my breath anymore, but the external gills did indeed breathe for me, and what I got instead of water was something more reminiscent of very heavy air. I didn’t choke on it, and it didn’t sting like it would have if I’d inhaled water.

I was under the waves! And I wasn’t drowning!

The water was also a lot more comfortable than I’d expected. The surface of the water had looked so tumultuous that I was sure it would be freezing under the waves. It wasn’t. Like Cetius said, it was warmer under the water, like it still retained the heat of the sun from earlier in the day. It was still cool, but it was a welcome sort of cool.

I was plastered against Cetius’s chest, his arms still wrapped tightly around me. Despite the scales, I could still feel every bump and valley of his muscles. In fact, I’d say that the hard scales made them even more noticeable. Despite how fast we were slicing through the water, Cetius barely looked like he was expending any effort. One tiny flick of his powerful tail was more than enough to propel us forward.

He stopped for a moment and held me away from his chest so he could look at me.

“How do you feel?”

I opened my mouth to tell him that it was actually much nicer under the water than I thought, but nothing came out. I had no voice!

Cetius frowned. “That’s strange. I have spoken to females wearing external gills, and they can speak with no issues. Does it hurt?”

I tried again, but without air, my vocal cords refused to work. The water was too heavy for me to vibrate. I shook my head instead, hoping that he understood the gesture.

Great. Not only was I on Aquaria with no job and literally out of my element, but I was also mute—and couldn’t even complain about it!

“We’ll stop by the healer’s before going home,” he said with quiet, comforting confidence.

I wondered what he meant by “home”. I’d read that the Thalassonians lived in gorgeous underwater cities that shimmered and glowed like gems on the ocean floor, illuminated by tiny bioluminescent plants that clung to all the surfaces. These plants not only provided light to see, they also filtered the water.

They sounded fascinating, and I was excited to see them in action. I might not have gotten the job of my dreams, but I was still excited to start exploring “a whole new world,” to quote the old Earth classic. This wasn’t so bad, really. I could make this work.

Just one year, and I’d be able to come back up and join the human village on the surface, right?

I wasn’t sure about this whole spawn thing, though. I’d heard that humans were compatible with a few species across the galaxy, but I also knew that sometimes it took a little extra work for that to happen—hell, sometimes it took a bunch of extra work for it to happen with one of our own men. Fertility was a billion-dollar industry for a reason. Well, we might not even have to worry about it for a while. Or at all.

I looked around me for the first time. I’d been so focused on breathing and the powerful triton—I knew he wasn’t a merman or triton from Earth myths, but it was hard to refer to him as anything else—in front of me that I hadn’t even checked out my surroundings. But below us was a coral reef, teaming with color and life. All the coral on Earth was long gone, and I’d only seen such things in videos.

I pointed to the reef below, trying in vain to convey to Cetius that I wanted to take a closer look. Maybe I’d be able to spot some plant life between the corals, but even if I didn’t, I was dying to see the ecosystem.

Happily, Cetius understood me, taking me by the hand and pulling so we zoomed over the reef. At first glance, the coral had looked so similar to what we had had on Earth that I wondered how the two things could have evolved on different planets separately, but now that we were closer, I saw that they weren’t the same at all. I didn’t recognize them from any of the videos I’d seen in school, nor from the saltwater tank at the entrance to the Agricore Inc. office.

The fish were different, too, and so varied I wouldn’t even know how to start classifying them. Were they even considered fish if they hadn’t evolved on Earth? Whatever they were, they occupied the same ecological niche that fish did on Earth and looked very similar as well. I wouldn’t be surprised if the translation device in my ear simply called them that, for simplicity’s sake.

Something large swam over us. It had already gotten much darker because of the storm, but this thing blocked out every bit of light from above. From my angle, it looked a hell of a lot like a shark. I remembered reading that this planet had large creatures that were very similar, except instead of just big teeth and aerodynamic bodies, they had venom to boot. And some of them could get to the size of a whale. Basically, megasharks on steroids.

I gasped and scrambled closer to Cetius. But my arms and legs were used to pushing off from solid ground, not water, and I only ended up flailing about uselessly.

“A small selach like that would not dare attack you when I am so close.” Still, Cetius pulled me closer so that I was pressed up against him again as tightly as I’d been when he first took us under the waves.

We were moving fast again, and below us, the reef suddenly dropped away like a cliff. No, not a cliff at all. Below, the island just completely disappeared. It was all water underneath. They really were floating islands as I’d been told. I was pretty sure Earth had never had anything like that, even when it had been lush and green.

Beyond the coral edge, the kaleidoscopic display of color faded into a deep, dark indigo that stretched as far as my newly upgraded eyes could see. The vast expanse looked ready to swallow me whole, and my curiosity was replaced with an uneasiness. I had never understood the primal fear of the depths until now. There was just so much complete emptiness.

Suddenly, it felt as if the only lifeline I had in this world was my Ken Doll-Merman. I clung tighter to him as the dark blue engulfed us. The temperature of the water was dropping now, too, and I started to shiver. I sure hoped the rest of my stay wasn’t this cold. These miraculous external gills might save me from drowning, but they wouldn’t stop me from freezing to death.

Closing my eyes, I counted to ten and tried to stop my heart from pounding so hard in my chest. I couldn’t lose it now. There wasn’t anywhere for me to go. Time to pull up my big girl pants…or was that big girl bikini bottoms...and deal with it.

I tried to focus only on what I could sense and touch, which happened to be Cetius.

Married to a merman. I still couldn’t believe it. At least Cetius was easy on my newly upgraded eyes. He was ethereally beautiful, albeit in a lethal sort of way. And his movement through the water, so sleek and fluid, left no doubt he was a powerful predator.

He hadn’t even reacted to that shark-like thing swimming over us, that was how sure he was of himself. I found that incredibly sexy.

I took another peek at his body. He was still perfectly smooth from the hips down. Not a bump in sight. Damn. I wouldn’t have minded having some fun while I was here.

Maybe Thalassonians procreated like some fish, by laying eggs and fertilizing externally? But the females had breasts; I’d done some research on my way here, and I knew that for sure. They were less generous than ours, except when they were pregnant or feeding young, but they still had them. That said mammal to me, unless evolution followed a different path on this planet. And now that I thought about it, the website had mentioned pregnancy, so they definitely didn’t lay eggs.

Did they just…what…rub their parts together? I peered down at Cetius’s midsection again, then looked away before he could catch me staring. Jeez, I couldn’t believe I was even thinking about this.

Cetius slowed, and for a second, I wondered if he had somehow seen into my thoughts. How embarrassing would that be! His kind weren’t telepathic, were they? I’d read somewhere that some aliens communicated that way.

As it turned out, Cetius’s slowing had nothing to do with picking up my inappropriate thoughts about our potential sex life and everything to do with the fact that we were approaching Coral’s Deep.

The underwater city sat like a precious gem in a bed of coal, a glistening monument in the deep, dark depths of the ocean. Unlike the vast emptiness we’d just traversed, it bustled with life, even on the outskirts. And yes, it practically glowed from the minute plant life on every surface.

It wasn’t just the stunning architecture or the natural wonders that caught my eye; I was shocked to see that there was technology everywhere. The plants provided a calming glow, but there were brighter lights as well, signs for stores and advertisements. Not everyone swam around on their own steam, either: some held devices that propelled them along, sort of like scooters, except they didn’t stand on them, they just held on. There were larger vehicles as well that reminded me of Cinderella’s carriage, but without the horses. It made me wonder why Cetius had made the trip to the surface by tail.

The temperature here was warmer, too. Perfect, in fact. Neither hot nor cold. They must have some form of city- wide climate control that operated without needing to slap an unsightly dome around the beautiful city.

It wasn’t some quaint low-tech village at all. It was a bustling, modern underwater metropolis.

I don’t know why I was so surprised. Cetius had shown me his device up on the island. And he’d applied to Starlight for a bride, so of course he had access to technology.

My eyes were wide as saucers, but when I opened my mouth to exclaim, I was rudely reminded that I could no longer speak. Argh! How frustrating.

Cetius resumed pulling me along by the hand. At first, I tried to swim alongside him but soon realized that my silly flutter kicks were absolute jackshit, so I let him do all the work as we entered the city.

The grand boulevards were lined with buildings, their surfaces adorned with what looked like coral decorations. The streets were laid with mother of pearl tiles that glistened and shimmered in the light. Instead of pigeons and rats like in old Earth cities, there were schools of brightly colored fish.

The streets bustled with life. The merfolk were out and about, and at first, I worried they’d gawk at me for having legs, but then I realized that there were many creatures here that weren’t originally from the ocean. Outsiders, like me, with the fine silver or gold filigree of the external lungs covering their chest, throat and lower face.

There were some who reminded me of elves from Earth movies, with pointy ears and delicate features. Others had green skin and tusks like orcs. Crap, was that a centaur ? I rubbed my eyes, but the centaur didn’t disappear. As she passed, I realized her top half wasn’t quite human, and her bottom half wasn’t quite horse either. She just resembled a centaur from afar. There were a few humans too. All of them were women, and most of them were completely naked!

When I really looked, most of the merfolk were men.

Cetius hadn’t been kidding when he said there weren’t many females left. I’d thought he’d been exaggerating.

But there were a few. One, absolutely gorgeous, swam effortlessly down the street. She might not have large breasts like Earthly artists’ renditions of mermaids, but what she did have were pert and perfect. She was slim and sleek and moved with grace. As she passed, the males in the area all turned their heads. She didn’t notice us.

Others did, though, and not because of my legs. They’d look at Cetius, then at me, then back at the triton pulling me along, shock registering on their faces. It felt uncomfortable, but I tried my best to ignore it.

Cetius led us through the streets, clearly with a specific destination in mind. He took us into a building and down the hallways, all of which were illuminated by more of those wonderful plants I couldn’t wait to learn about. The ceilings were much higher than I was used to, probably to make room for their long tails as they swam down the corridors. We stopped at a set of ornate, shell-encrusted doors.

We entered a classy waiting room with a counter. Behind the counter was what my brain insisted was an octopus. I schooled my shocked features to avoid offending anyone.

“I need to see the healer.”

“Do you have an appointment?” the octopus droned in a tone that clearly said she already knew the answer.

“No. But I just have a quick question. It will be fast.”

“Sorry, Lago’s schedule is full today. Next time, please be sure to make an appointment through our booking system.”

I looked around, but the waiting room was completely empty. How full could the healer’s schedule be?

Cetius wasn’t going to let it go. “I know today is his day for research. He has no clients. His schedule is not full. Just let me see him.”

“His schedule is full,” Octopus lady replied with a mild I’m-being-nice-but-fuck-you voice. Four tentacles rested on her hips, like she was dealing with a child. “With research. Please book an appointment through the system.”

A door next to the counter opened, and a triton poked his upper body out. “It’s okay, Killia. Let him in.”

Killia sighed and gestured ungraciously to the door with a tentacle.