"The surface isn't safe. Humans aren't safe. Stay away from the shore."

All infamous sayings from your father, meant to keep your fellow merkind from facing a face worse than a hex from the local sea witch. No, humans were the scourge of the earth, with their fishing nets and insatiable need to build and pillage and steal.

And the humans that lived off the shores of New Rochelle? They were just as bad.

But you can't help it. Neither can Tashi, judging by your shared grotto of human treasures gathered from shipwrecks and other trinkets that get swept in from the shore.

"You cannot be serious," Tashi scoffs, looking up from the sea floor as the two of you rifle through a new wreck. Far from your underwater cove and further from home, it's only a matter of time before someone from the colony notices you're both missing. It doesn't help that you're next in line for the throne; you'd just barely evaded your guards this morning to get here.

"You saw humans?" she repeats, as if hearing the words from your lips earlier wasn't believable enough. Her tail— long, azure-blue, iridescent like an abalone shell— swishes quickly to propel her to your side. The hunt for human treasure is quickly forgotten in exchange for any news of humans above the surface. "Where? How close did you get to the shore— and without me?"

Her brows only raise when you laugh in response, and she shoves at you. Between the two of you, Tashi's always been the more courageous one, insistent on learning everything she could about humans. You, on the other hand… you're just lucky if you can make it to your adventures most days. The life of mermaid royalty was not for the faint of heart.

"How did you even get—"

The both of you freeze as something foreign strikes the side of the shipwreck. The last thing either of you needs is to be caught—

"SHARK!" Tashi's warning barely registers before she tugs you in the opposite direction, but you're quick to follow and swim as fast as you can.

It's better to be in trouble with your father and remain in one piece than to become shark bait. At least his bark is worse than his bite.