A Dish Best Served Salted

The man in the water is dying, or he will be soon. Hopefully. Ryelle tilts her head and looks through the glass at him.

Maybe she's remembering the first time she'd seen those loose black curls, framing those cheekbones and waving in that ghostly way hair does when it's underwater. Her own makes a red cloud, like blood. Now, it hangs limp and snarled around her shoulders.

His eyes had been shut, then. He'd been drowning, just like now.

Except last time he had looked so pretty and peaceful in his dying. Being unconscious suited some very well, it seemed.

This time, he is fighting it. Really fighting it! His face is going all bulgey, especially his eyes. He looks more and more like a fish every moment.

Last time, they hadn't been surrounded by white walls, lights, gleaming monitors and cabinets filled with needles and knives. Last time, they'd both been free.

Another difference: last time, she hadn't wanted him to die.

Oh, no. Quite the opposite. A wave, yes a wave, of salty compassion had engulfed her. Pierced her silly young heart. Aunty always said she was too soft for her own good, but she'd said it with pride in that gravelly voice.

Maybe, back then, she'd remembered the small boy, pale and floppy, who had fallen from a boat and sank deep enough for her to find him.

It was too late, Aunty had said. The little one was beyond her help. Aunty had touched the unresponsive little face with the tip of one claw, which was faintly purple and surprisingly tender. He looked like he was sleeping, except his chest was still, and his skin too white.

"Poor unfortunate soul," Aunty had said.

Ryelle had buried the boy under a cairn of stones in her Garden, and decorated it with shells.

Now she blinks slowly. There's something cold and dispassionate about her eyes, like a reptile, or a fish. She might as well have been watching seaweed float.

Maybe she'd saved this man for the memory of the little boy. That age old trope, I couldn't save that one, but I can save this one... This, then, is how the world balances.

Or maybe he just had, like, really good cheekbones.

Whatever the case, she'd taken him in her arms and carried him up to the Surface. He was big, but she was strong, and the Salt made her stronger still. Her muscled tail powered them both towards the sunlight, her cool lips pressed to his, sharing her breath.

He'd sprawled where she shoved him, under that scorching sun.

She'd waited close by, right at the water's edge, ready to slip away in a moment. Why? Why linger? Anxious for his wellbeing, curious about his weird shape? (No wonder he couldn't swim well, being so heavy, and ungainly, and lacking a tail.)

Knowing she'd get into trouble, but also knowing it wasn't safe up here for her kind, she Sang so that her sisters would know where she was. The sun burned. Her salty skin crackled, but she was loathe to leave until (so she told herself) his eyelids flickered and she knew he'd be alright.

None of them ventured to the Surface anymore. Aunty would have ranted at her, and called her stupid for it. It took courage, though, and compassion.

She's still watching him. It can't be long now. His struggles increase, fists banging on the tank wall. His mouth shapes words: "You bi-!" This makes his face look even more apopleptic.

She tilts her head to the other side, for all the world as if the seaweed were twisting in a slightly interesting way.

She doesn't look hurt, or angry. She doesn't look like she was dwelling on the other memory. What he did when he woke up. How he'd hurt her. She'd barely escaped, wounded. Aunty had patched her up and tutted over her soft heart and her curiosity about the Surface. Ryelle had hidden herself away, scales dimming, ill and in pain, and ashamed and frightened...

The next time Aunty had seen her, she'd been just as grave as she had been for that little boy. "This is beyond what I can help with, honey," she'd said.

"Aunty," Ryelle had said, "I don't want to die."

A patch of red has bloomed on his white coat where she hooked him with her claws, pulling him into her arms, into her tank. Her prison. Stupid, stupid man.

They had all fretted over the size of her belly. The little beast was killing her already, and would surely do her no favours on the way out either.

There was only one way that they had a hope of surviving.

"You can't," Aunty said, her voice flat. "You know what he is. He doesn't care. He'll hurt you again."

"Sing to him, then," Ryella urged. "Make him help me. He owes me. This is the only way."

Aunty had nodded, face grim.

It was Ryelle's song that had brought him, in the end. He'd hardly needed convincing. They should have known it was all too easy...

Her glass prison had been ready for her, and Aunty had been right. He did hurt her again. They all did. Snipping and poking and staring and taking... all in a cave-like bunker where Aunty's song barely penetrated.

How surreal it felt, to be on the outside of that glass prison looking in. She'd hit the button they'd pressed so many times, to seal her inside after they were done with her. This time, he was the one trapped inside, and she was free.

That watery gaol had confined her, but the ocean salt inside it had also restored her. The wounds they inflicted in their cruel curiosity faded quickly to pale tracks. They told of a trail of secrets that the men had chased between her scales and her pain. Healing, longevity, transformation. Knowledge that fascinated them, that they sought with greedy fingers and poking scalpels.

Even the scar low on her abdomen, where the pup had been dragged from her... Even that had sealed uncommonly fast.

The man had no such luxury. The Salt gave him no strength at all. His life bled generously from his wounds. The little that was left choked from him by water.

Out of the cage now, out of the salt, she was weakened. If they found her like this...

She dried the last droplets from her scales and skin, gritting her teeth as her gills closed. Willed her clumsy legs to obey, so separate, support her weight. Not try to behave like a tail.

Claws and webbing still retracting, she switched on the computers. She'd watched them do it countless times. They thought her an animal, and never troubled to keep anything hidden. Ryelle deleted the research they'd been compiling and then turned her attention to the cabinets. Drawers opened, slides and petri dishes broken. Temperature turned up on the chilled samples. Every last bit destroyed. At last a smile glinted in her eyes like a shard of ice.

Shrugging into an oversized lab coat, she picked up piece of broken glass and left the lab.

The alarms, when they sounded, competed with yells and screams of the injured and dying. They were accompanied by lights that flashed over the sea of red in every room.

Ryelle went in search of her son. Who knew what they might have done to him already, what they might still be doing. If he was even still alive.

Poor unfortunate souls.