Chapter Text
In the woods out in the Trostian wetlands, far from even the nearest human civilisation, the waters of the Black Lake stirred. Birdsong filled the air and a gentle wind whispered through the branches of the trees that surrounded the lake. A ring of long grass and patches of reeds separated the tree line from the waters of the lake and, close to the edge, two creatures frolicked. One, dark-haired and mostly submerged in the murky water, called to the other in a series of barks and clicks while the other, wide-eyed and hesitant, padded about on the shore.
“Careful! We don’t want to spook them.”
A cluster of humans crept through the tall reeds nearing the perimeter of a nameless lake, carting equipment and cameras. The leader, a tall woman with thick-framed glasses and wild hair partially tamed in a ponytail, frequently hushed her team in whispers as they moved; urging them to be quiet so as not to disturb the event taking place by the edge of the dark, rippling water.
Just a few hundred metres away, on the edge of the lake, a merman was attempting to court his younger mate. Hanji crawled, elbows and knees, through the damp reeds until she found a spot over a log where she could watch the scene more clearly. Flattening herself against the sodden wood as much as possible, she peered eagerly through her binoculars, watching the gentle exchange. The mermaid padded about, waiting safely ashore in the sandy dirt and long grass. Its eyes were wide, flickering about to take in every little movement, and its nostrils flared in interest as it watched the merman swimming about near the lakeside.
Hanji took note of the lively male twisting and turning in the lake, cooing and clicking, trying to tempt the younger into the water to play. He flicked water at the mermaid with his hands and even his tail occasionally, surprising the waiting youth with a delightful coolness.
Up on the shore, the fluffy-haired creature leapt to catch some of the droplets sent his way, squeaking and rolling through the grass.
“They’re in the bonding phase.” Hanji whispered, elated that they had caught the ritual this early. She only just remembered to keep her voice in check as she watched the dominant male summersault through the water in the hopes that he could draw his mate in for a game. Hanji’s eyes narrowed in on the mermaid. “Our jovial little friend doesn’t look frightened,” she noticed, whispering to her assistant while her eyes remained locked on the yipping creature by the lakeside, “so I’m going to take a guess and say this is their first real meeting. Or at least one of very few encounters.” She clicked her tongue. “Poor little thing…he hasn’t got a clue what he’s getting himself into.”
“Shush. They’ll hear you.” Hanji’s assistant, Moblit, hushed the woman before she could get too excited and scare off the courting pair.
Biting her tongue to keep herself from squealing, Hanji collected herself and her jovially scattered thoughts.
“They mate for life, you know.” Hanji continued anyway, although she did lower her voice to an airy whisper, pushing her glasses up her nose a little and flipping fringe out of her face. “Once these two bond, that’s it. Neither of them will take another partner, even if one of them dies.”
“If only humans were like that.”
“And now you know why I love these guys so much.” Hanji whispered, rolling her eyes fondly at Moblit. “They’re simple, dedicated creatures that need nothing more out of life than their commitment to each other.”
It did seem sad, thinking that should one of these strange creatures pass away it would leave the other stranded and alone until they, too, passed on. That would be a lonely life. It was already for the mermen who spent their entire lives on their own, only interacting with other mermen while hunting for food, travelling, or fighting one another for territory. They only got to see their submissive kin in passing, watching forlornly from the water while the mermaid migrated from pond to pond, free from the limitations of gills and a tail. Mermaids at least got to live in their pods until they got old enough and curious enough to wander and find a male. After that, they had their mate for company. But the mermen were alone until that point. No wonder they could be such violent creatures, knowing no gentleness until their first interaction with a mermaid. Understandably, humans couldn’t carry on the commitment of waiting for that one, special individual and then remaining with them until departure from this world. Tragic, really. It was part of the fascination behind these creatures and why the bespectacled woman had become obsessed with learning more about them. Mostly, though, Hanji adored the beauty in such monogamous behaviour. Merfolk were odd and aloof, shrouded by theories and mystery that people like Hanji wanted to solidify or disprove, depending on which myths you listened to. That was the whole reason she was out here, it was the reason she had dragged her whole team out here to set up cameras and sit in the cold, miserable weather to get as many records of interactions between these amazing creatures.
Quietening once more, Hanji focused on taking notes at the speed of light, her pen flying across the paper as her eyes flicked between her notepad and the scene before them.
The merman in the lake had pale skin, almost light grey in colour from living most of his life completely submerged beneath the surface of the waters here. His palest flesh on his belly nearly glowed in the harsh light that filtered down through the cloud cover, reflecting off of white mist. The skin of his hands were darker, becoming paler the further along his arms the colour reached, and there was a darker hue of colour that ran the length of his spine. Hanji wondered if the darker skin merged with his tail. Hanji had not yet managed to see what a merman’s tail looked like clearly, but she lived in hope. Her subject’s eyes were almost as dark as his hair, which was inky black and slicked back thanks to the water. His ears were pointed and the same dark shade as his tail, and behind them were a few, raised spines in a few shades of greenish-blue. They wouldn’t always look that way; Hanji surmised that the brighter hues were a part of his mating allure. The mermaid wouldn’t be used to seeing bright colours on its kind so the display would definitely catch its attention.
The raven shook his hair out, sending droplets everywhere and earning himself a delighted squeal from the mermaid when some of the cold drops reached his skin. Looking up through the mess of dripping, dark fringe, the merman tipped his head back to warble for the brunet’s attention. With a few pushes of his powerful tail, he moved higher out of the water, upright and balancing, showing off for his mate.
With the added height, Hanji could see more of the raven-haired merman’s body; his chest and a portion of his torso on display. The dark skin on the ridge of his spine did reach all the way down to where the dark, blue-grey scales of his tail began. He had plenty of scars; they skipped across his skin, silver against the grey of his flesh. There were fins along his body, presumably to assist with tricky, underwater manoeuvres. Hanji squinted through her binoculars to get a better look at the raven’s spines, their colour and length, and estimated the merman’s age to be approximately twenty-eight. Considering this age and the excess scarring, Hanji assumed that this male must have come from deeper ocean waters and then followed the river all the way to this lake.
All to find his mate. Without knowing what they might look like or smell like or even act like. Hanji still had no idea how merfolk knew where to travel, given the vastness of the ocean and the huge number of rivers and lakes, pools and ponds that there were on the Earth. She wondered if it was determination alone? Probably not, but it was a determined effort to seek out their more land-oriented kin.
This male was significantly older than the young mermaid he was attempting to coax into the water; the curious creature had probably barely left its pod before this encounter. Hanji turned her gaze on the figure hovering cautiously in the long grass a few metres away from the trilling male, adjusting her binoculars.
Contrary to popular myth, mermaids were completely humanoid in form. They possessed no gills, not fins or tails, and only had slight webbing between their fingers and toes from living in the shallower ponds and pools inland or around coastal areas. Mermaids could have either masculine or feminine features, although the majority possessed a masculine resemblance in their figures. The number one difference was the common presence of both male and female genitals; a trait that had yet to fade out completely on the species’ evolutionary track since the submissive half of their kind had migrated from the ocean to rock pools and freshwater lakes. Beforehand, when all merfolk lived in the relative safety of the sea, any of their kind could carry pups. Now that the oceans were getting too cold for the submissive merfolk’s liking, they lived on land. The dominants of their kind had adapted, possessing only the male genitalia kept safe from exposure in a protective pouch inside the body. The submissives filled the leftover role as carriers of the young and courting became a whole new ballgame.
“What traits do you think the little one has?” Moblit’s whisper sounded by Hanji’s ear.
“I can’t tell.” She answered back, keeping her voice just as low. “We’d need to get higher, but they’d spot us.”
The mermaid being courted was mostly obscured by the long grass and reeds, so the bespectacled woman could not tell what reproductive traits it had; male, female, or both. They were all equipped to carry young and the mermaid’s mate wouldn’t care what he looked like so long as nothing and no one came between them.
“So is it a he or…a she?” One of the other scientists whispered from a little further back. “Or both?”
“Tricky one.” Hanji turned so that she wouldn’t have to speak up for the man to hear her. “Technically it could still have the characteristics of a he, but all mermaids fulfil the role of the she regardless of physicality.”
The man just blinked at her, squinting after a few seconds. “That’s…just confusing.”
Somewhere beside Hanji, Moblit snickered under his breath.
“To you and I maybe,” Hanji continued with a one-shouldered shrug, pushing her glasses down her nose to fix her unaided gaze on the confused man, “but no one ever told them that they had to make sense.” She raised her eyebrows at him and winked, readjusting her glasses. “Whatever works, works.”
The bespectacled brunette turned back to face the front once more, ignoring her baffled comrade.
“This would be a lot easier to understand with diagrams.” She heard him mutter after a few seconds.
Hanji sighed under her breath, giving a nod of agreement, and adjusted her glasses. There were diagrams, but not here. Those were all based off of recovered skeletal systems of already dead merfolk. What Hanji wouldn’t give to be able to complete a few scans of a living mermaid and merman. She had yet to do any real tests or examination of either submissive or dominant traits among wild merfolk as that would require capture which would be extremely traumatic for the unlucky victims. The marine biologist still needed to get the right equipment together to attempt a safe capture.
For now she was content to gather data. Looking towards the mermaid hovering by the lakeside, Hanji observed the skin so similar to her own. A mermaid’s skin was different from their decidedly male counterparts; the elusive mermen. For one, mermaids did not require near-constant hydration. Mermen lived in much deeper waters, inhabiting a decent sized territory that usually included a cove or an underwater cave of some kind where they would take their mate when the time for bonding came. Because of their submerged lifestyles, mermen’s skin was tough but smoother, requiring moisture to keep it hydrated unlike the mermaids who could survive without a constant need for water. Mermaids did enjoy the relative safety of small pools, however, preferring to live close to water after thousands of years of ingrained instinct.
Until a mermaid was courted and, eventually, taken into the water by their mate, mermaids lived in pods numbering from anywhere between two to thirty depending on location. In a remote area such as this, the bespectacled biologist suspected that the young mermaid under her watch would belong to a sizeable pod.
Hanji aimed her gaze at the mermaid, noting his coy but excited nature as he observed the merman twirling about in the water, calling to him with soft clicks and yips. Catching herself thinking of the mermaid as a male, the brunette shook her head. There was no helping it now, she supposed, but if they did learn that the little one had any specific traits she would remember to switch pronouns accordingly.
The mermaid had a tan to his skin (benefits of living in the sun instead of underwater) and wide eyes that eagerly flickered about, taking everything in. He squirmed about in place, digging his fingers into the soft dirt beneath the grassy layer. Hanji could only see the mermaid’s hands where they crept forward into the shorter grass. His ears were the only real giveaway to his non-human nature; they were pointed and deer-like, but with no fur. Instead, there were a few coloured specks and lines of grey and teal scales. From this and the few splashes of colour along his sides and collar bones, Hanji figured his age to be close to seventeen. Those colours must have been his very first display of readiness to mate, he was so young. Only just old enough to be allowed to wander away from his pod to play, Hanji guessed.
And there was a very good reason for the older pod members to be cautious with their younger members. Mermaids were raised by their pod from the day they were birthed in one of the occupied ponds. A mated mermaid would return to its mate shortly after their offspring was born, usually only one or two pups, and the young were then raised by the unmated mermaids until the day came for them to wander off and find their own partners. It was important to keep the young sheltered.
Mermen were, after all, predominantly aggressive beings. They fought constantly, battling each other for territory, food, and the right to mate. Sometimes they would initiate play fights for the sake of alleviating boredom and even a mock fight could be a frightening display.
The only time a merman was gentle was when he was sleeping or courting his mate. Even the act of mating itself was hardly a tender affair, but no newly matured mermaid could know that until they experienced it. That was why Hanji knew that this happy, inquisitive little mermaid had never been mated before, or witnessed the brutality of mermen fighting. The poor thing was too sweet, blissfully ignorant of the threat his dark-haired playmate could pose. Instead of running as he might have with a little more experience, the mermaid squeaked in response to the merman’s splashing, happily calling out to the older creature in hesitant excitement.
“Do you think they’ll get anywhere today?”
Hanji paused at the sound of Moblit’s whisper, keeping her eyes forward.
“Hard to say.” She murmured back, mulling over her own thoughts for a moment. “Depends on how well lover boy performs.”
The brunette fixed her eyes on the merman she was referring to, watching the raven slow his spinning tricks and surge briefly for the bank. He paused at the edge, not wanting to scare off the cautious but excitable creature waiting in the grass several metres away. Leaning up onto the shore a little, the raven-haired merman reached out with a single, slate grey hand in the mermaid’s direction, a rumbling sound stirring deep in his chest.
He waited.
“Oh…oh!” Hanji had to bite her lip to prevent herself from bursting out with a squeal of her own. “Quick, everybody, something’s happening!” The brunette hissed under her breath. “Make sure that camera is working! Try and get me a half decent shot!”
Up on the shore, the mermaid let out a wary sound and scurried behind a nearby log. His eyes narrowed, peeping over the edge of the sodden tree trunk, and he listened to the low, imploring sounds that came from his new friend. The youth made a conflicted noise, mewling his uncertainty and gazing over his shoulder in what was likely the direction of his pod, of home and safety.
A single, barking noise left the merman’s throat, the higher than normal pitch giving away his distress at the thought of his mate leaving. His extended hand connected with the ground, claws digging into the soil there as if he were preparing to literally haul himself out of the lake to pursue the mermaid. The noise surprised the creature on shore and he gave a slight start as he took in the raven’s slitted eyes and reaching hand upsetting the soil. But his ears flicked forwards in interest regardless, nose twitching as he leaned over the log to scent the air, eyeing the raven’s hand.
It was blindingly clear that the little creature was curious, desperate to find out more about this extraordinary and peculiar thing he had discovered. Sniffing tentatively, the mermaid padded over the log, pausing in the grass to fidget in indecision.
In the water, the merman huffed and gave an unruly whine that ended in an odd, clicking noise.
The mermaid’s ears twitched forward. Took in the sound. Twitched back. For a moment that seemed to stretch on forever, the tanned little creature hesitated, one arm bent as if to move forward, hand hovering in the air. It exhaled on a whine – an anxious sound that betrayed its uncertainty.
The whole lake seemed to still and the forest held its breath as the mermaid took a single, hesitant step closer…