The crate shattered as it hit the water, sharp pieces of metal and glass sinking around you like falling stars. For the first time in so long, you felt real ocean water swirl against your skin—salty, endless, alive. But you didn’t feel free.

You were terrified.

You couldn’t remember how to move right. Your tail was weak; your muscles atrophied from too long spent curled in a tank barely bigger than a tidepool. Your gills stung, raw and struggling to pull in the clean, open current. You sank in slow spirals, dizzy, helpless. The silence was so loud it seemed to scream.

Then something moved above you.

A large shadow, fast and purposeful, sliced through the sunlight. You tried to flinch away, but your body didn’t respond. You were going under, and you knew it. You closed your eyes.

And then—arms, strong and sure, caught you before the dark could swallow you whole.

Not human arms. No.

The scent of brine and sand clung to him, and his skin was cool and rough, patterned with old scars and kelp-worn texture. You dared a glance—and saw a tail. Long. Powerful. Armored in deep blue scales with streaks of green and grey. Thick fins braced against his sides. Barnacles clung to one shoulder, half-wrapped in what looked like a net repurposed as armor.

A merman.

He was one of you.

He pulled you gently against him, one arm supporting your back, the other cupping your face as your gills fluttered weakly against his chest.

“Easy, love,” he said, voice deep and gravelly, like the sound of waves crashing against stone. “I’ve got you.”

You couldn’t speak. Your throat burned. You barely managed a sound, a broken warble, full of confusion and panic. Your fingers grasped at him weakly.

“Shh. I know,” he whispered, swimming with you down into the reef below. “They shouldn’t’ve done that to you.”

He brought you to a hidden alcove in the reef—twisting coral and soft sea grass wrapped in the warm shallows, protected from currents and predators alike. The moment he laid you down in the grass, your body curled in on itself, trembling. You didn’t look at him.

But he stayed.

You expected him to leave. They always did.

Instead, he returned minutes later with food—fresh fish, wrapped in kelp, warm and bleeding. You stared at it like it was foreign. You’d forgotten how to eat.

“You don’t know, do you?” he said, quietly. “They kept you in that cage too long.”

He sat nearby, coiled tail flicking slowly as he leaned his arms on his knees, watching you with patient, tired eyes. Salt and age lined his face, his beard a mess of dark brown threaded with gold and white, tangled with seaweed braids.

“I’m Price,” he finally said. “Been watching that cove for weeks. Waiting for them to throw you out like rubbish.”

You made a soft sound, confused.

“You’re safe now,” he added, gently. “You hear me? I won’t let anyone hurt you again.”

The days blurred.

You couldn’t hunt. You couldn’t swim far. Your tail dragged like dead weight behind you. But Price never left. He fed you. Brushed your hair back with careful claws. He taught you how to move again—starting slow, guiding your arms through the motions.

When you first caught a small fish on your own, he gave you a proud nod and said, “That’s my little guppy.”

You didn’t know what a “guppy” was, but the warmth in his voice made your chest flutter.

He spoke to you constantly—about currents, storms, the songs of whales, the old wars beneath the sea. He’d been through it all, he said. Had scars to show for it. His tail had a gash near the fin that never quite healed right.

“You’ll get yours, too,” he murmured one day, watching you flicker with the first hint of iridescence returning to your scales. “But you’ll earn them your way. Not like this.”

One night, you sang.

Just a whisper of song. A trembling, uncertain melody, barely more than a hum. But it carried in the current like a secret.

Price stilled.

He turned to you slowly, his expression unreadable. And then, without a word, he sank beside you and rested his forehead against yours.

“Beautiful,” he said. “You’ve still got your voice.”