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Dark had been in the aquarium for a couple months and he was still pretty sure he hated it. He hated the people, he hated being stared at. People who would let their dumb, loud monkey pups pound on the glass and gawk at him. Or the adult ones who would do the exact same thing but didn’t have the benefit of being pups.
Wilford just ate it up, the attention, he even was somehow getting to some big display tank to do flips and talk to the humans. He absolutely loved being in the aquarium.
One night, Halloween to be specific, Wilford swam into Dark’s half of the tank flashing his tail before his face appeared in the opening of the cave. Dark still had room to move and he could always slip out through the back of the cove if he really wanted to get away from the other mer.
“Viewing’s over,” Wilford told him.
“I don’t know how you do it,” Dark swished his tail in the wave, churning the pocket in the cove. “They’re awful.”
“Can I come in?” Wilford asked and Dark moved over so Wilford could turn around to lay next to him.
“Hey, I want to show you something,” Wilford told him. “Your fins feeling up for a quick journey?”
“Of course,” Dark huffed at him, mostly as a show of pride.
“Cool, follow me,” Wilford shot off like a thrown spear but turned back to wait for Dark to decide if he wanted to follow him.
Which, after an eye roll, Dark followed at a slower pace. His fins hadn’t been able to grow back but after another sedation the humans had “grafted” some kind of mesh to it that Dark had to concentrate a bit more to move and it was always somewhat a little sore when he used it a bit too much.
But Wilford took him to the little tunnel that connected their tanks and opened a vent that opened into a separate tank that led to a different part of the aquarium. It shot out into the massive show tank that the otters were often in. But Wilford also liked to use it to be an attention whore and get cheers from people.
When Dark came up to the surface, his eyes instinctively looked up to the sky. It was a normal merfolk trait, to situate oneself in the ocean by looking at the stars or for some mer pods to breach and show off for potential mates.
But when Dark looked up he saw an opaque darkness, only a couple “false stars” the humans had shot up there.
As a mer pup, Dark had been warned about them by the pod elders and been taught to differentiate them from the true stars that guided them. Without the stars Dark felt naturally lost and anxious, the band of milky stars in the sky hidden from him.
“Dark,” Wilford brushed up against his side with his fins, helping to ground the mer.
“It’s so empty up there, how can you stand it?” Dark whispered.
“I found new stars,” Wilford commented, the usual humor gone. “Here, let me—”
Wilford pulled away from Dark and swam over to the side of the pool. He shifted into his more human form and pulled himself out of the tank by a ladder to find some panel for him to mess around with something outside of the tank.
With the touch of a few buttons the stands flattened out a little bit to show off the view of the city. It wasn’t a view of the entire city, just a portion of it. Dark just stared at the myriad of lights out in the city. A lesser Milky Way galaxy for him to stare at.
“Oh,” Dark realized.
“Cannonball!” Wilford screamed before jumping back into the large pool, his legs turning back into his tail after he was in the water. Which Dark preferred.
“This used to be an office,” Wilford told him as he swam closer to him. “Used to be some kind of director for the aquarium of some kind, but when they started getting mers in the aquarium they converted this area into a show tank.”
Dark stared quiet.
“Humans aren’t so bad, when you get used to them,” Wilford told him gently. “They’re not all trying to hurt us, they’re clumsy things that trip over themselves with every step and fixate over shiny baubles like a shore bird.”
“I still hate them,” Dark told him.
“That’s fair, they did burn your fins,” Wilford agreed. “You’re not wrong for hating them. In fact I’d be surprised if you suddenly stopped, given the incident.”
Dark didn’t have a response for that. He was quiet for a long time.
“I need to get back to the ocean,” Dark commented.
“I’ll miss you,” Wilford told him. “Will you visit?”
The mer sighed, “I suppose I’ll have to.”
Wilford smiled and leaned in to nuzzle Dark’s arm. “I’d like that, I really would.”
Dark and Wilford stayed in the show tank for a little bit, admiring the city until Dark went back to his cove, he and Wilford sleeping side by side in the cove as the city passed by around them.