A humble fisherman would be how Wally's friends and family described him. Going out on the water almost every day to provide for the people of his small village - it was something he enjoyed doing, something that he found great pride in.

As far as Wally was concerned, the water was a safe place despite everything about it. He knew the lake like the back of his hand, and he knew to stay away from the north end, right where it connected with the ocean currents. For the most part, it was too shallow for anything really dangerous to come swimming up into the basin by the village.

Or so he thought. That was until fish started vanishing from his nets. Weeks of his nets coming up short had turned into fish being stolen directly off of the small vessel he manned. It was confusing - whatever it was, it was strong enough to snap the ropes of his nets and smart enough to go undetected for so long.

If you asked him, he simply thought that he was going a little nuts. Miscounting fish here and there, accidentally putting out old nets. That was until he turned around to see a creature pulling itself up onto the back of his boat, advancing toward a bucket full of freshly caught fish that he was about to store away below deck.

"Hey - I'm not gonna hurt you." His voice was soft, almost soothing as he watched whatever it was tense up when he was noticed. Clearly it had thought that he was below deck already, that the fish were ripe for the taking.

Upon looking over the creature from where he stood, it clicked. Merfolk. The brightly colored tail and the matching fins on the creatures arms told him enough. As did the gills alongside its ribcage. But it was strange, usually there were no merfolk in the lake. It was too shallow, so how had this one managed to get all the way out here?

"How did you get in the lake huh? You shouldn't be here." The words remained soothing as he crouched down to the creatures level. It looked so tense - he wasn't sure if it was dangerous or not.