The Tale Of A Tail?

Trayrock, A few days after the storm

Lyric took a shovel and the shotgun with her. Just in case.

The storm had broken branches and blown in rubbish from the town to tangle around the tree trunks. In the morning she would have to come out and salvage wood, leaves, and paper for the fire. Although it was warmer at the mouth than further up the river, the winter still crept in with the dark. Lyric didn’t like the cold.

She walked past the edge of the vegetable garden and through the sort-of orderly lines of the orchard (Arthur had gotten creative with the spacing, the effect of some of the plants growing in the greenhouse, she suspected) to where the water lapped against the grass, the calmness of the ripples belying the rush of the water deeper in.

On a normal day, with a normal river, the water was misleading enough - the surface would often look calm and the waters inviting. However, there was a strong undercurrent that was challenging to a strong swimmer, and dangerous to everyone else, just below the surface, and once you were in its pull, you either conquered or were conquered by it.

With the flood from the storm and broken dam pushing the water up the banks, the center of the river seethed with the current, all manner of debris swept along in its wake, and the calmer waters ripples hid submerged dangers, like the barbwire fence that marked the edge of the property. She was amazed that anyone could survive.

“Holy fucking crap,” she said as she reached the point where the cameras had signaled the intrusion. It hadn’t been an optical illusion of angle or water. The man definitely had a fucking tail, that writhed and flicked through the water.

He gripped a clump of irises as an anchor, his upper torso just on the bank, and the rest of him in the pull of the current. His long, long green-black hair dragged out into the swirling water. The current would claim him soon, Lyric thought, and pull him back to whence he had come… And perhaps that was for the best as he evidently did not belong on land.

However, from the desperate grip of his fingers, the tension of the impressive muscles of his back, the thrash of his silver-shimmering tail… He did not want to re-enter the water but rather sought free of it.

“What are you doing, Lyric?” She scolded herself, and yet, both shovel and shotgun were set aside, and she slid into the water with him, under him, gripping the same patch of irises with her fingers, feeling the leaves and stems pull against her hold as the water dragged on her, but also the reaction of the man who suddenly was above her, a shudder passing through him.

He grunted through his teeth, his other hand shooting out, and clawing into the earth, hauling himself forward and her with him. He released the irises and took purchase in the soil, dragging them further from the water, whilst she used her legs, her heels, her hands, and her body to lift him, to add to his grip, aiding his purchase on the ground.

His long, lithesome tail whipped and swirled, writhing as he fought for freedom and he continued his strong-armed drag along the grass until he was entirely free of the liquid, and lay over her, panting and dripping. It was the strangest thing, she thought, to have what was very definitely a man under her hands and what was very definitely fish between her thighs.

“Umm,” she said. He was bleeding, the red diluted by water streaming down his skin and scales. “Are you sure you should be out of water? Can you breathe, like, air?”

She was pretty sure that having a real-life mermaid lying over her made her responsible for his survival, a bit like finding an injured endangered animal. She wasn’t sure though that any veterinarian would take in a merman, nor that any veterinarian would be open considering the militia in Trayrock. Maybe an after-hours service? There was no phone service, and that was probably a good thing, as it was not a conversation she wanted to have, as she suspected the emergency service that came would be there for her, not her unexpected fishing haul.

He groaned and rolled from her onto his back, and his long, long hair, twined with coral, and pearl beads spreading like seaweed over the grass. Several days’ stubble shadowed his jaw both black and green like his hair. Even the hair on his chest held a greenish tint.

He was truly and unusually beautiful, she thought. A spectacularly good-looking man, all strong broad shoulders, powerfully muscled arms... Until you got to the bottom half. There, the trail of hair over his tightly packed stomach muscles where it should have thickened into pubic hair between his hips instead scattered into scale, and his tail rippled with muscle as it flicked restlessly on the ground.

His eyes were closed, and he gave no sign of having heard her although his ribs sucked in and out as he breathed.

She sat up shivering. The light was almost gone, the horizon an orange glow, and the air caught in her wet clothes. She looked up at the cottage and decided to head back for clothing, blankets, and her first aid kit. If the merman disappeared whilst she was in the house, then that would be good, she decided. She would no longer be responsible for him.

“I’ll be… right back,” she told him. He did not react at all. “Shit,” she whispered shaking her head in disbelief as she turned and began to make her way back towards the house. Her wet jeans stuck unpleasantly to her skin with every step and her socks squelched inside her runners. She would have to start a fire in order to dry them out again. A fire would be welcome anyway. It had been a long, unusual, and disturbing day and the comfort of flame would be soothing.

In the house, she brought her clothing into the room with the monitors. She could just make him out amongst the grasses by the flick of his tail. “Damn it,” she said as she changed. “Maybe it’s just a hallucination. Maybe it’s a vivid dream.” What else could it be, after all? Mermaids were not real.

The radio reports, however… It had been carefully said, talking of people with unnatural and augmented abilities living hidden amongst the human population and government meetings on how to manage this revelation. She had thought people had just found a new way to discriminate against each other… But dragging a half-man half-fish out of the river put a new perspective on things.

She grabbed the first aid kit and an armload of blankets and made her way back out into the newly fallen darkness. With the rush of the river, the crack and crunch of birds and bats roosting in the trees, and the little sounds of movement through the grasses around her, the night was far from silent, bringing to mind the warning of the black-clad man masquerading as a NES officer.

“Strange folks,” she whispered to herself. “I think this one qualifies.”

He had rolled back onto his stomach, his fingers clenched into the earth. Leaves, grass, and dirt stuck to his back. He groaned in pain.

“I’m back,” she told him kneeling beside him gingerly.

He stilled, turning his head her way. His eyes were odd, she saw, seeming to shimmer like the scales of his tail, holding an inner light. He did not seem frightened of her, nor did he seem aggressive. She spread a blanket over him, covering his tail. He did not stop her.

“I don’t know what you need,” she admitted as she opened the first aid kit and began to pull out bandages and antiseptic. “I hope I don’t kill you trying to help you,” she added miserably.

He hissed through his teeth at the sting of the antiseptic, but lay passively, the moonlight catching in his eyes through the tangle of his air.

“I’m sorry about the sting. But this will stop you from getting infected,” she hoped. There were scrapes and bruises all over his back. He had been swimming in water filled with debris washed from upstream, she realized. “No wonder you wanted out of the water,” she said with sympathy. “It’s full of rubbish.”

She applied butterfly stitches to the worst, intently involved in trying to see where it was needed by the moonlight. “I should have brought a torch,” she berated herself as she leaned back. “I think that is the worst of it, however. Roll over and I will see what I can do with the front of you.”

As he did so, she realized two things. He could understand her. And he no longer had a tail.