Mer Tales 01 - Everblue

until they are promised.”
    I ran my hand along the rough-hewn wood and closed my eyes, trying to focus. “My sister comes home every day colored from head to fin. Is that all they do there?”
    “ No.” Lily giggled, a light tinkling melody that warmed me. “The matrons have taken a liking to her ever since she’s arrived. They’ve swarmed on her like a shark in a feeding frenzy. It’s because she doesn’t have a prospect of a merman yet. They’re all trying to get her to pick one of their sons. It’s all about promising up.”
    I turned around, careful to avoid staring at her lips. “Really? How’s that? We aren’t royalty or anything.”
    “ Well, your family is one of the few allowed to live on land.” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her tilt her head down and watch me from behind her red hair. “Most families arrange promisings for their merchildren, but you and your sister get to choose.”
    I gulped. Her presence stirred something in me I’d never felt with another mermaid, beyond simple hormones. Most were content to stay underwater and be pretty playthings, unaware a world lived above them. Her adventurous side made her far more attractive than anything else, connecting us somehow, like the whispers of our souls wanting to be united. “Do you get to choose?”
    Her face remained downward. “They’ll choose, but I get to have the final say.”
    She looked up at me and my breathing increased. At that moment, everything about her called to me to seal the deal. My feet moved on their own accord toward her wonting gaze.
    “ I didn’t know Fin was here,” Sandy said suddenly, slicing through my intentions. I froze mid step.
    “ Aye,” Badger said, eyeing me curiously and giving a wink. “I gave them a moment to be talkin’, right?”
    “ Yes,” I choked out while Lily remained silent.
    “ You shouldn’t leave them alone, Badge,” she whispered, then turned and gave us both a chastising once over. “You know the rules. The temptation is—” She stopped and raised her eyebrows.
    He gave his own eyebrow waggle in return. “They be good kids.” He wrapped his beefy hands around her slender waist. “Nothing of the sort would’ve happened.”
    She stared at us, knowing she stopped us from doing what we wanted. Badger, having set the whole thing up, looked away like he knew nothing.
    “ It’s actually getting late. You ready to go, Lily?”
    She sighed and threw me a sad smile. “Yes, Aunt Sandy.”
    Within minutes they were gone and I caught myself staring senselessly at the empty porthole.
    “ She’s a pretty, wee thing,” Badger said, cutting the silence.
    “ Yeah,” I mumbled, confused at my lack of self-control.
    “ Proud of you, lad. You did right fine today.”
    I snapped around to look at him, questioning. He couldn’t have meant my near accidental promising.
    Badger bobbed his eyebrows. “With the tourney.”
    “ Oh . . . thanks.” I watched him stuff his pipe with tobacco. “Hey, where’d you learn to fight like that anyway?”
    “ Funny you’d ask. I learned from Jack, of course. Surprised me when you showed up to the practice field, green as a June bug.”
    My jaw went slack as my brain bounced out of its infatuated state. My dad was an expert fighter? I assumed back in the day when he’d come home roughed up, he was just messing around, not actually training someone. “My dad taught you everything you know?”
    “ Well, the mer way to fight. The army was much different back in the day when I arrived as a new merman—back when he led things.”
    “ He was part of Azor’s army?”
    “ No, lad,” he guffawed. “He be runnin’ the joint.”
    My jaw fell the rest of the way open, but no words came out. Dad never mentioned he was captain of the army either. Why didn’t he ever offer to train me? Was I that inadequate? Was that why he didn’t take me on the mission? My head reeled.
    “ He didn’t tell ya?” Badge asked, noting my shock. He scrubbed at his beard. “Son, don’t take it too hard. Yer da’ is a humble and peaceful man. I’m sure he wanted you to make your own path in life. I rightly would have done the same for me son, if I had one.”
    The punch to my gut didn’t decrease with his words, though what he said made sense. But the disappointment of finding out secondhand about the truth behind our gate, the mer expectations, and my father’s past didn’t hurt any less.
    “ On a good note, I think Lily fancies you. She’d