Of course, Tao went through the motions. He wondered if he could. He wondered if he even wanted to.

He knew of the legends which circulated the lands about the mythical mers. They were varied and speculative, and he didn’t quite know how he felt about the beings actually existing. It made him wonder what else was out there that could only be discovered if you were destined never to return to society.

He also knew that the people of the sea, according to old fishwives, had two faces. In some stories, the mers were kind and curious beings, protectors of ships and their crew, guides and saviors in times of need. In others, they were sirens, luring men to their peril with their unearthly song in the storm, coaxing the trust of the seafarer only to drag them to the bottom of the ocean, never to be seen again.

At least now as a mer, he knew sirens did not exist. However, he did agree that to see the face of a mer did mean you were at the point of no return, and surely, without, would have died; and in a sense, would be dragged to the bottom of the ocean, nary to be seen by the likes of the land again. They simply lacked the illusion of beauty and also the fangs behind.

He only realised how strained his expression had become when he felt a tight squeeze of his hand. He glanced over at Lay, giving an appreciative yet pursed smile. He wasn’t sure what they were pursuing with this anymore, but it didn’t bother him either. He would go where Lay took him. A fleeting thought passed his mind that Lay had his tragedy too; and had he not become a mer, he would never have met Lay at all.

He wanted to know Lay better. Lay’s story.

They were approaching the surface of the storming waters. Tao’s heart thumped harder and harder, finally jumping into his throat when they finally could hold on to each other no longer, forced to separate. Lay reassured him with a smile and a wave, before swimming off, leaving Tao to fend for himself, not all too sure what to do with himself.

Although the ocean was dark, light obscured by the raging clouds in the sky above, they could see the bellies of ships crashing in the waves, black as black can be.

If you were a hand on deck- and Tao knew this well- it was easy in a storm to simply be washed overboard. Unfortunately, this must have happened to a poor soul, for he struggled in the currents of the water, trying desperately to reach for for air. At first, Tao watched, for another of his friends (whose legs were only visible from below) had a rope thrown to her from the water and was hauled back onto the boat before another wave swayed them all.

Tao struggled against the powerful ocean to get to the man, who was becoming frantic. Wrapping his arms tight around the man’s waist, hoping to help him get to the surface rather than doom him to the waters just yet, he was met with something he hadn’t anticipated.

A blast of bubbles straight to his face startled him, shocking him out of motion for a moment to see unbridled terror grasp the sailor. Tao was convinced he was wearing the same bug-eyed expression as the man before him, bemused by the force with which he was ed away. But with that last release of air, Tao could see he was losing the struggle, and tried once again to haul him up above the water- but all he was met with was vicious resistance. Lacking the strength to overcome the wriggling in such overwhelming currents, Tao could see the only way to save his life now was to give him a kiss- something which again made him so aware of his hectic heart, as he reached down in the water to grasp the man’s gruff face.

Tao felt his heart shatter as, even with the most reassurance he could convey in amidst the raging sea, the man resisted with every fibre of his being. Tao knew that witnessing the light leave that man’s eyes, gazes locked into the final moments as he ultimately went still, would haunt him forever. The fear that shone within them never quite left even after he was gone, imprinted forever.

Tao finally had something to offer. But after all it seemed, his kiss was the kiss of death.

He felt like it wasn’t just that he was thrown from above. He was banished.

When Lay found him next, he was still clutching the nameless sailor, an empty look of stale shock set in his face, one he would wear the entire journey back to the ocean floor. Lay didn’t seem to mind that Tao didn’t glance at him once, or that he had to basically drag him back home. Lay knew there were those who would be afraid, those who would reject help. He didn’t want them to be the first Tao encountered, and regretted taking the fragile mer with him at all. Tao could sense that. They were both thinking it: I knew this would happen.

-----

It wasn’t Lay’s fault. It wasn’t Tao’s fault. But Tao felt angry. Yet who was there to blame?

His shift in attitude surprised even himself, but that inkling of optimism shrank away and hid deep within him, afraid of himself. It was true; his own bitterness did frighten him at times, and he wondered how he could feel that way. But the doubt was always momentary, and the storm within him raged on.

Now his broodiness took on a new dark expression and huffy snarl. He knew others could tell; he managed to ruin any progress he had made with them as he was coming out of his shell last time, going right back to when the other mers were too afraid to talk to him. What made him so snappy all of a sudden completely eluded them, and rightly so, his moments of clarity would tell him.

He was just sick to death of everything.

He sat picking at soft rock with a knife, one of the many which lurked shipwrecks nearby. In this new state of mind, however turbulent, he could get around much easier, and his physicality was building. He wasn’t bound down anymore, he didn’t care to be anchored. Stretching his tail become an outlet for the fire which got out of hand within him. Right now, it burned at his fingertips, where he chipped away, turning the odd shape more into a sphere. No reason- no reason needed to occupy his mind and fidgeting hands. At least now he wasn’t frightfully weak and frightfully pale.

Lay had sat with him for a while, perched a few rocks behind, where Tao was practically strangling an arch with his tail wrapped around it as well as being seated upon the highest point. Lay slowly tapped the tip of his tail against the lower shales, a light and free mode emanating from the mer as he whimsically looked about him, not exactly pressed for time.

“Lay?”

This was one of the rare occasions Tao and Lay spoke. Lay wouldn’t be the last to admit they had a very strange relationship.

He didn’t answer, but Tao could tell he was listening. “Why am I so angry?”

It was a tough question, met with no answer. “I wanted nothing more than to go back there, but now I have no idea what I want because I feel too worked up to even think about it.”

Lay decided Tao wasn’t really asking questions or for advice, so carried on listening instead.

“I feel stuck between a rock and a hard place.”

Tao hadn’t really divulged these feelings verbally before, and it was harder than he expected, even to Lay. The last person he trusted with his inner thoughts was Chen. There was so much more to it, more he wanted to say- and even if he formed words in his mind, they couldn’t come out.

Instead, he asked something which had bothered him for a while since that storm.

“Lay- mers exist, I never expected that. So, I need to ask… do sirens exist too?”

This time there was no avoiding answering for Lay, much to his despair- for the truth was hardly going to please Tao. “As you may well have noticed Tao, sirens are never spoken of here. However, that is not because they do not exist- it is because they are an elephant in the room that everyone wants to forget.”

His soft, calm voice could not mellow the message he had to bring. Tao sat as stone to listen, back hunched and expression dark.

“A handful do exist in the world. Mers who could never accept who they were, and allowed the jealousy and hatred in their hearts to corrupt them. It took over the beautiful thing which was their gift and turned it into a curse- doomed to let their hatred rule them, and spite sailors by misguiding, sinking ships, coaxing them even to jump into their arms in the premise of a dream. It was a strange revenge against men who had never wronged them, but by having lives above, that was enough.”

Tao remained with his back to Lay. His heart sank at the idea, but the thing which kicked and screamed inside seemed to find this revenge sounded a lot more like retribution. But he knew it wasn’t so… was it? That couldn’t possibly be what would lock the box Pandora had opened within him?

“Look, Tao- I don’t know whether you will appreciate me telling you this, but the others have been watching. They think your heart’s changed. But don’t worry, I know what you’re feeling is hard, just like you’ve told me- I have faith in your better person.”

Tao rounded on the mer, breaking the arch he’d wound around into pieces. “What do you know of any other person, Lay? All you’ve seen is a pathetic shrimp too busy snivelling to lift his own chin up.”

He instantly regretted not biting his tongue. Lay looked so taken aback, frowning in confusion. Confusion of all things- as if Tao was incapable of saying spiteful words.

He wanted to tell him- I’m just so ashamed. But the words couldn’t come out. And with a blocked throat, Tao left. He needed some time alone. Time to dwell on the fact the others thought he might turn into a siren. Time to dwell on the fact this anger turned him against the only person he cherished down here, and even then he couldn’t apologise on the spot.

It left him jarred.

He just needed some time to think.

-----

What was originally meant to be a little time alone in the caves turned out to be drifting in such a manner he found himself haunting the bulbous hulls of ships, solemnly contemplating his life cut short and in general far too much ponderance of his existence.

Sometimes he wondered what a stupor he had fallen into, wondering what he was really achieving by swimming beside the human world; to be seen by no man but bystanding their existence, no more than a ghost with a grievance the last thing tying him there- doomed to exist outside of existence, there but not there at all.

Occasionally, as he shadowed human life, he would bob his head above the break of the waves to catch the distant sounds of the crew working. Breaking above into air was an exciting notion at first, however to Tao’s dismay he quickly discovered he can no longer breathe above water. It was a shame because come daylight, he was tempted to catch the chain of the anchor as it was hauled from the water, just to find himself back inside a ship where he felt he belonged. Of course the fancy was clearly suicidal anyway- imagine finding a merman clinging to your anchor.

It was taking a long time to sort out his feelings, but the longer he swam along with these ships, the calmer he felt inside. It was really clearing his head. As days passed, he would catch on to anchors as they descended to haul him to the bottom where he would curl and sleep comfortably upon it, to be dragged back up with no expended effort to carry on swimming along side various voyagers during the day. Why he found it therapeutic he had no idea, but the regular timings seemed to calm his incessantly light sleeping bit by bit.

Sometimes he wondered if the others had given up on him- if they thought he’d left to become the siren they knew he’d turn out to be. He knew who would have faith in him. It was this faith that had kept him from turning a long, long time ago.

In his wanderings he became a spectator of a ship with no windows below the surface, and no distinct markings above. It was smaller than others and isolated, a slim build with tall, graceful sails and sturdy rigging, and a young boy perpetually in the crow’s nest. Such a ship without even a flag, only the name ‘Niseag’ adorning dark wood, intrigued Tao. There was something solemn and stern that fell over the ship along with the night. Something stirred within, and it drew Tao in like a moth to fire.

Tao had always found it strange that such a small ship had such extensive sails, as if reaching into the sky to shake hands with the wind. He’d never seen such a design before. However, all too soon he discovered their use; the ship that had so drawn him in was filled with pirates.

Two moons since he had begun tailing the mysterious Niseag, the sun barely resting on the horizon, it began to direct its line so it sailed alongside a huge gallion. The masts peeped over the side of the galleon and led for easy access and a nasty surprise for the inhabitants. Tao watched the men jump from their mother ship to the deck of their target. They were holding contraptions he wasn’t familiar with.

Tao at first doubted the capability of the small number of men compared to the numbers of an entire galleon, but then an unholy noise rained upon his ears. astonished, Tao dropped back below the water, whizzing around the gallion, wondering where he could get a better view. The next time he tentatively peeped above the waves, he could hear the commotion more clearly again, the awful blasts assaulting his ears.

“Revolvers!” He heard a voice roar.

Tao’s eyes bulged as these thugs threw body after body overboard and lowered the proud flag from its rightful spot. He ducked under, but all the people who idly drifted about the waters were very clearly dead. Tao didn’t have to look hard to see they suffered not a single cut or bruise- no, what served them motionless were the seeping bullet holes. Some of these men still had their swords sheathed at their hips, not a moment spared for them.

The galleon was taken.

-----

Tao hung around for a while, rather unsure what to do, whether he could do anything at all. The whole thing had ruffled him; not much later, a second wave of bodies were swallowed into the depths, clearly those who didn’t want to work under their new masters. He remained uneasy in the otherwise tranquil waters, disturbed by how such a delicate shade of blue could so calmly, so silently guide these people to Davy Jones’ locker.

He drifted down into the water, watching the galleon as a eclipse bobbing in the ocean, the rays of the early morning sun casting its shadow dark below, haloed by shafts of melancholy light. They glittered so beautifully, he wondered if it were the Gods above calling the souls to their next lives.

But then, there was a final burst of bubbles breaking the waves, an anchor quickly taking lead in the rush downwards, chains secure around the figure’s ankles.

It all seemed to happen in slow motion. The man’s eyes were tight shut, his mouth gagged, hands tied tight behind his back, with restrictions binding his arms both at the top across his chest and at the elbows across his bare stomach. Despite being pinned straight like this, he fought against the weight destined for the ocean bed, thrashing side to side- although it were only his shoulders which could make any real movement. He fell in a tunnel of light and trail of bubbles that wisped through his golden hair.

Tao had never felt his heart wrench like this before. It was entirely different to how it ached for himself. This reached out of him rather than in, and in this moment of forever he caught the drowning man with his entire body; for it was his entire being that was so moved. His arms hugged the man gently, his tail catching the anchor firm in the cup of his outstretched fin, tail securing the chain in a single twist. The terrified man’s eyes flew open to meet his, and in that moment the slowed time seemed to stop, leaving the two suspended in their own world.

Fear lingered in the mortal’s body, but somehow, in his eyes, there was a wonderment, a peace, a trust that locked their gazes together. Tao slowly dragged his hands up the sailor’s back, past his shoulders, up his neck, firmly keeping him in grasp as he reached for the knot at the back of his head securing the gag. Undoing the rag and pulling it away, the sailor searched Tao’s face and eyes, but the calmness of the mer gave no answers. Tao grasped him just below the ears with his thumbs gently tilting his jaw; he leaned closer, closing the gap, finally his eyes, and kissed him.

Tao could feel the gentle tickle of bubbles from the sailor’s nose where he was losing the last of his air. His lips were smooth and their kiss was slow. The shaft of light which doused the two in dapples of refraction seemed to get brighter and warmer. With their lips locked, Tao began to undo the man’s binds behind his back knot by knot.

The moment he was free, the light took him, and the two separated. The sailor’s eyes were closed and his body limp, teetering between life and death.

The transformation was beyond any expectations for Tao. He’d never witnessed one himself, and couldn’t remember his own. Most was obscured by light, but he noticed how the fabric of the sailor’s trousers came away along with broken chains as his legs extended and merged, feet blooming into a fantastic fin and scales glimmering up the new expanse of his powerful tail.

When all was said and done, and the light faded away, the newly transformed mer lay drifting in the breeze of the ocean, golden hair waving and shirt drifting loosely around his body. His earrings winked gold and necklace silver. His chest was marked from battles past.

Tao took the man’s arms and pulled his chest to his back, golden locks tickling his ear with arms over his shoulders. Securing the stranger so, he cleared his mind and decided to take him the only place he knew- back down below.