“Ima, look at the waves,” a young Yura cried out in excitement while they were on their family boat.
His mother smiled gently, “Yes, Yura, the waves are big today. Stay away from the edge,” she held out a hand so he could take it.
The excited child walked over to his mother, grasping her extended hand right as a wave smacked the side of the boat sending a fine mist onto both of them. Yura giggled and wiped the salt water off of his face. “Feels good,” he said referring to the cool mist upon his skin.
“I bet it does, with all of this sun,” agreed his mother, “but remember, the water here is cold. So I don’t want to hear about you trying to swim in the ocean.”
“How cold is it, Ima?” Yura asked. He couldn’t see how something that felt so good and smelled so good could be bad. The ocean wouldn't hurt him.
His mother looked down at his inquisitive face trying to think of how to explain this in a way that impressed upon how important it was that he stay out of the frigid ocean. “Do you remember when Lucy decided that she wanted her goldfish to experience winter so she put him in the freezer?”
“Yeah. He died,” Yura recalled somberly.
“Yup,” she nodded and gestured to the ocean.
“I’ll die if I go in the ocean?” Yura asked.
She didn’t answer that question outright, “It’s too cold for people.”
They both went below deck to get warm.
~AT~
I blinked my eyes and found an old lady staring at me. Looking around, I realized I wasn't in the open anymore. I was in a house on a couch. With absolutely no idea how I got here. Last I remembered, I was stuck on an island without a boat.
I felt weak. It had been days that I was stuck there. I didn't pack enough food or water for that.
“Fucking idiot,” the old woman groused.
I blinked at her in shock, “Excuse me?”
“You're a fucking idiot,” she repeated.
I opened my mouth to object but she plowed over any words that I was going to string together. “Why the hell were you on that island? I found you there delirious from heat. What were you thinking staying out of the ocean that long?”
With surprising strength, like really surprising, she manhandled me off of her couch and carried me up a flight of stairs. “Put me down before you hurt yourself,” I ordered but my pleas fell on deaf ears.
She tightened her hold and continued her trek through the second floor of her house. Entering her bathroom, she threw me into her bathtub, clothes and all. I quickly tried to scramble out of it and received a death glare that had me halting in my tracks.
“Stay there,” she snapped.
Putting the stopper in the drain, she turned the water on making it a lukewarm temperature. It started to fill the tub while she rummaged through her medicine cabinet.
She pulled out a container of sea salt and promptly dumped half of the large jar into the water muttering under her breath about what an idiot I was the whole way.
“Any weaker mer would have died long ago,” she growled.
She continued to watch me as the water level rose. “Nothing’s happening,” she stated with a touch of confusion.
“I'm getting wet,” I disagreed unhelpfully. But apparently, that's not what was supposed to be happening.
“What's wrong with you? Why isn't it working,” she said with so much concern that I was worried for my well-being. Whatever she was trying to fix with me wasn't fixing.
She crouched down next to the tub and pulled out a conch shell.
“Who the hell keeps a conch shell in their bathroom?” I asked rudely
She made her way over to the window, opened it up and blew into the shell. It made a fairly loud noise. Maybe she was trying to get someone's attention?
Leaning out the window she yelled down to someone outside, “Get up here now! Something’s wrong with this mer.”
“What’s a mer?” I voiced. If she was gonna call me one, I might as well know what it was.
She turned her attention to me with wide disbelieving eyes. “You don’t know what a mer is?”
“No, should I?”
Taking in a shaky breath, she went to answer me, but was distracted by the person in the doorway.
“How can I help?” Fionn asked from the doorway.
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