Sublime.The word popped into his mind.Nature as beautiful as it was frightening.
Blake recalled a painting that he’d seen during one of the many trips that he’d taken to the museum of art with his foster father Isko: a cluster of dark debris afloat in the foreground, the rest of the painting devoted to the aureate slash of sunset reflected in the sharp waves of a roiling, jade sea.
“Okay, now I want you to feel along the sides of your tail, right here,” Noel was saying to Marin somewhere outside of Blake’s reverie.Noel ran his hands along the outsides of his own hips in demonstration.“You’re gonna feel a slit there.”
Marin mimicked him, squinting ahead as he focused on the sensation.After a moment, he nodded in understanding.“Okay.”
“So in there are the pouches where you store your tentacles.”
Blake almost fell into the pool.
“Sorry?!”he choked.
“Do you have a problem?”Noel frowned up at him, looking more than a little offended.“They’re used for self-defense, like a squid’s tentacular clubs.”
To demonstrate, one of the slits at his side opened up, a dark pink arm unfurling into the water—it was slender and tipped with a thick paw-like tentacle spotted with fat suckers.An identical limb emerged from the other side, jutting out into the water with spear-like speed.
Beside him, Marin was extending his own tentacles, watching in delighted fascination as he lifted them above the surface of the water, coiling them into themselves.Blake tried not to gape when Marin twisted one around his forearm, humming in curiosity.
“Not that you’ll have anything to worry about in a pool, but they’re pretty useful for grabbing stuff on the other side of the room when you’re in the tub,” Noel added to Marin, still glowering at Blake.“Can youpleasestop staring?I can tell you’re weirded out.I already feel enough like a freak as it is.”
“Sorry!”Blake tore his eyes away from Marin, wincing in apology.“I promise I’m not weirded out.I was—I had no idea you could do that, it caught me off guard.”
“It’s fine,” Noel said, looking away.“Sorry.I can get kinda defensive…”
There was a lull in the conversation as Marin experimented with his new limbs before Noel added: “It’s important to make use of those if you feel threatened.If you’re in enough danger and you don’t act fast enough, you might involuntarily transform your fin.”
“Transform?”Marin and Blake asked in unison, looking to Noel.
“Earlier, I said that some merpeople can learn how to transform their fin into other sea life,” Noel explained.“But on rare occasions, it can happen automatically, even if those tentacles are out.Like when you’re feelingreallyscared or uh…”
He trailed off, staring away from them at the wall of the pool and adding in a quick mutter: “Or… if you’re in a situation where your heart is going particularly fast.Let’s leave it at that.”
Even though they weren’t in the dark, his florescent freckles pulsed with light.
For a split second, Blake caught an expression on Marin’s face that looked like he wanted to pry—if only to tease Noel a little.However, he apparently thought better of it and occupied himself with continuing to test the reach of his new limbs.It was clear to Blake thateveryone there understood what Noel was hinting at—and while Blake could take the brunt of Marin’s teasing, Noel was a little too fragile for it.Blake had sincere concerns that poking fun at Noel too much would cause him to combust.
“Anyway!Singing!”Noel said in almost a shout, looking desperate to change the subject.“We should talk about the singing.”
He folded his arms over the lip of the pool next to Blake, Marin joining him.“It’s not something you can turn off.It’ll happen every time you sing.But ear plugs can help make it less effective—it’ll make people drowsy and day-dreamy instead.”
“What if you record it?”Blake asked,
“You know, I haven’t actually tried,” Noel admitted, looking pensive.
“Do you think you could manage to put yourself to sleep with a recording?”Marin laughed.Noel grinned, but shook his head no.
“It works on all other living creatures except for merpeople,” Noel paused, looking a little sheepish.“I may or may not sing to my bunnies on occasion, and they fall right asleep.”
Blake perked up, a thought occurring to him.“So wait, if only merpeople are immune—do you think it would work on Marin?”
Noel cocked his head.“Why would it?”
Marin’s eyes widened in realization.“That makes sense—if I’m only in theformof a merman because of the rules of the pygmalion, then I wouldn’t technically count as one, right?”
Noel frowned.“But it seems like you have all the abilities—like transforming in water and putting people to sleep with your song.”
“Maybe…” Blake squinted down at the water and then over at Marin.“Maybe he was already a mermanbeforehe was a pygmalion?”
