Beasty… you frighten even the great Commander, Nyssa bantered.
I like to keep him on his toes.
Nyssa's smile widened.And the children? I heard you’ve been terrorizing them.
I do not mean to, she promised.I have always liked watching the children play. But there is something more dreadful than myself in these waters. I was only protecting them.
Nyssa nodded with understanding.I will convey the message. Thank you. And thank you for protecting me at the camp.
The serpent's eyes closed slowly, and she bowed her head. Nyssa hesitantly reached out until her hand pressed to the beast's nose, and she felt its scales beneath her hand. Her chest swelled with its core pressing against hers. The comfort and willingness to protect her matching her own. And Nyssa knew then that the great beast would be there if she ever needed her.
Nyssa's lungs began to strain. The pair gave each other a bow upon parting, and then the serpent turned to swim back into the depths. Nyssa watched as she disappeared, staying suspended in that spot for as long as she could.
She turned to Nadir and pointed to the surface, head starting to lighten at the absence of air. Nadir nodded and grabbed her waist. "Hang tight," he told her.
One kick of his feet, and they shot to the surface.
An open-mouthed gasp met her upon her head bursting above the water. She kicked her legs, treading in the water, and pushed her hair back off her forehead.
She couldn’t help the laughter on her lips.
The rush of the water serpent speaking with her. The sight of the glowing reef. The stars over their heads.
“Are you okay?” Nadir asked.
She pressed her hands into her face, wiping away the water. “I am,” she smiled.
The stars above them twinkled down, and Nyssa sighed back into the water, allowing the back of her head to float atop it. She’d nearly forgotten the freedom of it wrapped around her, how she and Dorian once raced in the surf, had swimming competitions, or thought themselves mermaids as small children.
“I don't think I realized how at home you would be in the water,” Nadir noted.
Her head picked back up. The water droplets on his skin shimmered against the glow of the reef from below. She watched his arms move back and forth as hers were doing.
“I practically grew up in the ocean,” she said with a shrug. “Dorian and I used to jump from the cliffside into its depths. He had to push me the first time, I think. We’d seen Drae do it, so we knew we were okay, but… it was terrifying. I've always enjoyed the weightless, yet weighted, wrap of water," she admitted. "And the fish have always liked me."
Nadir was smiling softly at her when she met his eyes again.
“How far out is your birthplace?” she asked.
He pushed beside her and pointed a finger up at the sky. “Do you see that star there—the bright lilac and orange?”
She nodded.
“If you follow that direction a half mile out, there’s a tiny barrier island, the only part of the reef that rises above the sea. It was there Lovi decreed we would be presented. Only he is connected to it, only he and the mers know when a child is born.”
“Mers?” she repeated with a frown.
“You might know them as water shifters,” he informed her.
“What—like the Bygon?”
His head tilted as he thought it out. “Sort of. Though they don’t take a solid form, only made from the water itself.”
“Can you communicate with them?”
Nadir shook his head. “Probably wouldn’t want to either. They can be rather…convincing.”
“They sound like the Bygon.”
