Chapter 5Vera

Chapter 5

Vera

Holy hell, could mermen kiss!

I had wondered if they had a similar custom to kissing. Now I knew. Boy, did they ever.

I must have stood there shell-shocked for a good few minutes after Cetius left before I collected my thoughts enough to remember what I was supposed to be doing.

I realized quickly that without my old phone, I didn’t have the contact information for Starlight Lottery/Brides/Sneaky Jerkwads, so I couldn’t give them a piece of my mind. I did, however, figure out how to access the Aquarian version of the internet. Cetius had thoughtfully installed translation software onto the computer, too, for which I was super grateful.

I started to do as much research as I could into Cetius’s people and Coral’s Deep. My research confirmed what Cetius had told me about the war and its catastrophic ending. Since then, the males had been finding females from “beyond the sands,” as they called it, to breed with. Some even found their true mates, which, from what I gathered, meant someone with whom they formed a special, lifelong bond. The few remaining native female Thalassonians were highly sought after, and as a result, some were quite spoiled.

Many of these native females no longer wished to find mates. Instead, they offered the males contracts, and would have “spawn,” their word for children, for several rich males. The sires’ families raised the children, and the females collected allowances from them until the children were grown.

Interesting. Back on the island, Cetius had mentioned not wanting a Thalassonian female. Was that why? Or was it because they were so rare that even he, with this gorgeous home, was out of their league?

After some more digging, I also found a whole forum of females who’d been tricked by Starlight Lottery into coming to Aquaria only to find themselves married off to a merman. More than a few of them were from Earth’s colonies.

At least now I knew I wasn’t the only one. And it seemed most, if not all, of the couples ended up working out…so that was a good sign, right? It wasn’t like I had anything to go back to on Earth. Then again, I still wasn’t sure I was going to stay here after our year was done. There was a human colony topside on one of the planet’s few stationary islands, the one I’d thought I was joining.

A rhythmic knock from behind me had me turning away from the screen. Weird that the sound would travel through the pool of water at the entrance. Wouldn’t the liquid mute the sound? Something else to research.

“Come in,” I yelled.

Moments later, a feminine hand with delicately painted claws reached over the lip of the ramp and up to the dry part of the floor. Unlike my clawless hands, this one had no problem hanging on. A young female Thalassonian pulled herself up onto my shell-tiled floor, leaving a small puddle that quickly drained back down toward the pool by the door.

“I cannot believe my brother left his new bride all alone on her first day here! He didn’t even introduce us or anything. Hi, I’m Cetia. Cetius’s sister.” She whipped her tail around, and it caught my ankles.

I squeaked as I lost my balance and tumbled unceremoniously onto the floor, only managing to slow my descent slightly by throwing my arm over the couch.

Cetia gasped and coasted over, helping me up onto the couch. “Oops! I’m so sorry. I was trying to touch tails with you, but I forgot you don’t have one.”

Touching tails must be their equivalent of shaking hands. Cetius had touched his tail briefly with the healer’s, I remembered.

“It’s okay. No harm done. Hi, I’m Vera.”

Considering what Cetius had said about the remaining females being quite spoiled, I worried a little. What if she didn’t approve of her brother having a human bride?

She flopped onto the other couch, draping her tail elegantly over the side. Like Cetius, the water had beaded off her skin and scales so effectively that she was practically dry the moment she was on land. Her hair, too, seemed to dry immediately. Her glorious mane swirled around her, fluffy and full of body, while my hair was still limp, soggy and sad from my earlier dip.

Upon closer inspection, I realized she didn’t really have hair, not like mine anyway. Her “hair” was actually much thicker, almost like very fine, flexible quills, and it was decorated with strands of beads and little shells. Thalassonians might not wear clothing to cover up, but they did like to accessorize.

She looked younger than her brother, but looks could be deceiving, especially since they both had such slim figures. She did have small but developed breasts, so she must at least be an adult. I was horrible enough at judging ages on Earth, never mind here.

“Did my brother even give you a tour of the home yet?”

“No. We swam through quickly, and he brought me here. Then he said he had to go to work.”

“Ugh! Typical.” She shook her head like she had to deal with this sort of thing daily. “Cetius works too hard. But I guess that’s why our grandsire is leaving the family business to him and not to Algrim. Still… He shouldn’t be working today and leaving you all alone.”

She eyed the box with the external gills. “Put on your gills. I’ll show you around.”

“Thanks, Cetia. I’d love that. Your family’s home is beautiful.”

“This place? Oh, it’s not the family home. This is just Cetius’s place. My other brother lives with our grandsire at the big house. I moved in with Cetius so I could be closer to the city.”

This wasn’t the “big house”? The family home must be huge!

“What about your father? Where does he live?”

A look of sadness passed across her face, and I immediately regretted my question.

“He didn’t live long after our mother died. They were true mates. It’s hard for a surviving mate to keep going once the other leaves the mortal realm.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring up sad memories.”

“It’s okay. It’s been a long time. And you should know, since you’re going to be part of the family now.” Her face brightened and she smiled shyly. “I always wanted a sister.”

Aww, that was sweet. It must get lonely without any other females in her life. Perhaps she had girlfriends, but somehow, I doubted it. According to all the information I’d read so far, most of the remaining females were quite competitive.

“I’m just glad my brother found someone to give his Sweetheart Gills to.”

“Sweetheart Gills?”

“Yeah. That’s what we call them.”

“Why?”

She laughed. “You really aren’t from around here.”

“You don’t say.” I stuck out my foot and wiggled it at her.

She giggled. “Okay, what has my brother told you so far?”

“He told me about that awful war and why there are so few females left. And he told me how scientists devised a way to make the artificial gills out of extra gills on the males so your species can bring in females from above. Oh, and he told me that if I wear this for long enough, it will start to fuse to my body, and I’ll be able to breathe in water all the time. What am I missing?”

“Only the most important and romantic part! Each male has just enough extra gill material to make one—and only one—pair of external gills. It has to be harvested from their body when they are in their prime. Once that pair fuses to a female, that’s it. That’s his one and only chance at happiness. That’s why everyone calls them Sweetheart Gills.”

I gawked at her. “So this”…I picked up the collar-like contraption…“is the only one Cetius can make in his entire life?”

“That’s right.”

“And he gave it to some woman he just met?”

“But you’d been sent from Starlight Brides. They’re really good about making sure it’s a great match before sending females to Aquaria. We’ve been using them for years.”

I decided now wasn’t the best time to tell her that I hadn’t signed up for any of this and had come to Aquaria thinking I was starting a new job. She seemed genuinely happy for her brother, and I couldn’t break her heart, not after everything she’d been through already.

I looked at the gills, I mean really looked at them, for the first time. The frilly bits looked like fine filigree, light pink and delicate. That part must be the gills. Surrounding it was the delicate network of shimmering, iridescent silver that gave the piece structure and made it look almost like a piece of jewelry. The galaxy’s most useful necklace, I thought. When I wore it, Cetius was literally breathing for me.

Pretty romantic, when you put it that way.

He hadn’t told me it was the only one he had. Considering I wasn’t sure I’d be staying for the long term, I decided I’d need to remove it daily so it wouldn’t fuse to me. I wouldn’t want to leave Cetius without another option. It wasn’t his fault Starlight Lottery, or Starlight Brides as they seemed to be known here, hadn’t been truthful to me about what I was signing up for.

I put it over my neck again and grimaced as it latched onto my neck and sent the tendrils up along my jaw to my mouth and down my throat.

“Agh!” I didn’t mean to make the sound out loud, but I couldn’t stop myself.

Cetia giggled. “I’ve heard it feels like having worms crawl down your throat. But once it fuses to your body permanently, you never have to go through all that again. Why don’t you just leave it on? You’ll still be able to breathe air.”

The process of putting it on and taking it off was super uncomfortable, but now that I knew he only had one to give away, I knew I really couldn’t leave it on. Not when I planned to leave in a year’s time.

“Once I’m underwater, I won’t be able to speak,” I warned her. “The healer said I’ll get my voice back eventually, but for now…”

“I’ll try to read your body language. Shake is no. Yes for humans is a nod, right?”

“You got it.”

She giggled. “That is so weird.” She slid off the couch and across the shell-tiled floor before slipping gracefully into the water. I waded in awkwardly behind her before ducking under.

The first breath of water wasn’t nearly as bad as the first breath of air. I kicked my feet, following her out of the room. I paused in the hallway to admire a swirling mosaic design of what looked like frosted glass. It probably was something else, though, because how could they fire glass underwater?

“Did you eat yet?” Cetia asked.

I shook my head. I wasn’t hungry but didn’t know how to let her know that without words. I was still recovering from the shock of just being here and didn’t have an appetite yet.

“Well, if you’re hungry, our dining room here is stocked with the best and freshest seafood available. Just help yourself.”

I grinned. Of course it was. It sure wasn’t stocked with the best landfood .

She opened the door. In the middle of the room was a surface that must be used as a table. There were no chairs, probably because everybody could just float comfortably in front of the table and eat. But what caught my eye the most were the two walls lined with clear cases.

Each case held a selection of live creatures. She hadn’t been kidding about the freshness of the seafood. There were alien fish, crustaceans, mollusks, and other animals I couldn’t begin to guess at categorizing, most likely because I didn’t have a categorization for them. The largest case held a veritable jungle of plants. I could only think of it as a salad bar, except there were clumps of what looked to be eggs on some of the foliage.

Maybe the automatic translator got the name of the room wrong, or perhaps English didn’t have a word for the room I was currently in. It was more like a live pantry crossed with a dining room.

Cetia approached one of the glass cases holding bivalves with scallop-like shells, each with four round orbs that looked like eyes poking out from it. Each pair of shells was as big as my face.

“The lamellis are my favorite. You have to give them a try later. The eyes are fatty but with a crunchy center. Ugh, so good !”

The description wasn’t particularly appetizing—in fact, it might have made me more than a little queasy—but I tried to smile and be polite.

“The beetsa eggs are really good, too. Once I start, it’s hard not to just eat them all.” She opened the case with all the plants and plucked a handful of bright red eggs from one of the leaves. Each egg was about the size of a marble. She handed me two that were stuck together, then popped a few into her mouth, flashing a set of sharp teeth in the process.

I eyed the eggs dubiously.

“They’re good. You should try them.”

Welp, when in Rome. I tossed them into my mouth and bit down. I was pleasantly surprised by the way the eggs popped and by the salty flavor that exploded in my mouth. Hey, these were pretty good! They didn’t taste fishy at all, but rather like if someone created an all-in-one cracker and soup bite. These ones reminded me of cheese and onion soup but with a creamy smokiness. I could totally imagine eating them like chips. I sent her a thumbs-up, hoping she understood what it meant.

She grinned, then reached back into the case and grabbed a few more for us to munch on as we continued the tour.

As Cetia continued taking me to different parts of the home, I noticed that there was no kitchen. A little strange. Maybe they had chefs who cooked for them? They were rich enough for it, that was for sure.

There were a lot of rooms, including one full of tiny fish and other small, live specimens in carefully crafted and labeled enclosures. These were clearly not food, but not quite pets either. More like…a collection? There was another room full of nothing but shells, stacked up in neat piles. And a huge library.

But it seemed like a lot of the rooms weren’t really in use, probably because only Cetia and her brother, a housekeeper that Cetia introduced to me as Seena, and a handful of guards lived here. The housekeeper was another of those tentacled octopus creatures, like the healer’s secretary.

Seena managed to pat down every single part of my body with tentacles and suckers as she cooed about how excited she was for my and Cetius’s union, and how she couldn’t wait to have little ones swimming around the home. Then she waxed poetic about how cute Cetia and Cetius were when they were younger. I just smiled and nodded.

Once we’d covered most of the house, Cetia opened a set of doors with a flourish. “And here’s the courtyard.”

The courtyard was gorgeous . Every available surface was decorated with so many pearls, shells, and other shiny objects that it almost hurt the eyes to look at it. There was a fountain too. The “water” in it shimmered with tiny gold flecks. It moved like water would on land but more slowly, arching lazily up and around, then meandering back down into the pool.

I remembered learning about this in school, how there were pools on the bottom of Earth’s oceans. We couldn’t possibly be far down enough for that, though, could we? Didn’t that only happen in the abyss? I doubted we were that deep, considering our short trip down and the fact that I hadn’t been crushed to death by water pressure.

I gestured to the water, trying to mentally send Cetia my questions.

“Pretty, right? The water’s collected from brine pools in the Northern Oceans, and then we add gold dust from an island that only our family knows the location of. Our grandsire discovered it in his travels. He was quite an explorer back in the day; it’s how the family business came about. He’d always come home with all these amazing things, and everyone wanted them, and thus Ebb Tide Trading was born. We sell rare and luxury products.”

That must be the company Cetius was inheriting. I committed the name to memory.

Now that the shock of the beautiful fountain was fading, I realized I was smack dab in the middle of a gorgeous underwater garden. The botanist in me rejoiced like a kid in a candy store. I swam over to a patch of blue and purple foliage streaked with silver and leaned in closer to take a look. They reminded me of Cetius’s scales.

“Cute, aren’t they.”

I nodded, then gestured to them, hoping she’d tell me about them like she did with the water.

Instead, she plucked one of the long fronds, grabbed a clip from her hair, and then used it to clip the frond into mine. It wasn’t quite what I wanted, but that was ok.

I continued to follow her around as she showed me the elaborately planted estate grounds. Maybe this setup wasn’t so bad after all. A hot merman husband, a gorgeous home, and all the plants I could ever hope to study.

What could possibly go wrong?