The shallows were so much brighter and warmer than the dark depths that the mer called home. Vinndalli had always disliked being so deep, where the water was chilly and the only brightness came from the glow within the caverns. She much preferred the colour and beauty of these sunkissed seas. Many of her podmates would scold her or think her gone mad if they knew she was up here, frolicking on the reefs as though she had nothing to fear.

The truth was, Vinndalli did not feel that she did have anything to fear. Unlike many of the others, Vindalli remembered when humans and mer used to be friends. She had been very young in the time before, but she retained memories of lounging in the surf off the coast of the mainland, and playing with a young boy who often accompanied his father fishing. When the blight had driven them away for centuries, Vinndalli had mourned the loss of her home, with the shallow reefs and warm water. It was in their time away that her pod had learned to live in darkness and depth, and the blight had sickened and killed so many that there were not many of them left who remembered the time before personally. And of those that did, many had chosen to stay out in the further seas.

It had been devastating to return and learn that humans no longer remembered them, but instead feared them, cursed them as monsters, and hunted them. The bloody wars were still fresh in many minds after tensions had overflowed. But for Vinn…she could not let go of what had once been and what she wished could be again. She had lived over three hundred years now. The only thing left for Vinn to fear was death, she had seen and faced most other fears, but the concept of dying did not frighten her. She did not actively seek it, but if it came for her, it would just be one final adventure.

This was not the first venture into the shallows that she had made. She enjoyed the way the sun and the silt felt on her soft pink skin, and the way it made the mottled gray-pinks of her hair gleam. Her dark coal eyes sparkled with mischievous delight as she lashed her fluke and took off through the water. Her stubby dorsal fin often looked more like a ridged hump to her back, but it was strong and cut through the water to help put a little more speed into her sleek, slender form. Vindalli was shorter than most of her pod and often teased for being the littlest, despite being the second oldest member of their pod. It was all in good fun, though, so she took the jests gracefully and often returned them mercilessly too.

As she swam, Vinn found herself drawn to an angry, frantic voice. There was the shadow of a rowboat on the surface of the water. The wooden boat was spinning slowly, caught in a powerful undertow while the human owner frantically pulled at the oars. He was quite far from the shore, certainly too far to swim back even if he could outpace the current he could not pull his boat free of.

A powerful kick of her tail brought Vinn under the boat, where she braced her palm against it to keep with it. The current tugged at her hair, but it was not strong enough to trap a mer the same way it could pull a boat in.

She wanted to help, but was not keen on earning a spear or oar to the face for her efforts, so she pondered the best way to go about it. The boat had an anchor, she could see the rope for it tied to the hull. Her next choice was incredibly reckless, but she still took a little caution when surfacing in front of the boat to ensure that the human man was not already armed and prepared for her.

He was not. Instead, his eyes were wide and he fell backwards from his seat as he scrambled as far back from her as he could. “Siren,” he muttered, his eyes wide and mouth hanging open. He fumbled for the rather feeble-looking spear in the bottom of his boat. His hands were shaking as he picked it up and tried to jab it at her.

Vinn caught the spear with one hand and held it firmly, refusing to relinquish it when he pulled. She stared at him calmly, waiting to see if his fear would abate once he realized that she did not wish him harm. The struggle continued on for a few moments before Vinndalli forcibly lowered the weapon back into the boat and released her grip. The man was still watching her as if he were staring down a predator, and did not move as Vinndalli reached for the anchor’s rope instead. The anchor itself was still in the belly of the boat, but its rope would give Vinn something to pull. She heaved on it, ignoring the way the coarse fibres bit into her sensitive skin, and lashed her tail.

She made certain to keep her attention on the frightened human as she pulled him out of the clutches of the undertow and into calmer waters. He continued to stare at her in return. He had not spoken since his initial reaction, and he maintained a death grasp on his spear, but he did not raise it toward her again. The man had brown hair that was lightly peppered with the silver strands humans gained with age. His eyes were brown and set deep in his skull, and the soft beginnings of wrinkles rolled the flesh of his face, but his heart beat with the life and strength of a young shark. Approaching middle age, if Vinndalli had to guess.

Once the boat was free of the currents yanking it in circles, Vinn released the rope and offered the man a small smile. She had not spoken to him, and would not. Humans no longer knew to decipher tone and meaning from mer vocals, and instead now feared the sounds as deadly, magical songs that could bewitch their minds and pull them to a watery doom. It was silly, in Vinn’s opinion, but she did not want to instill further panic in him.

However, her smile seemed to have the opposite of its intended effect because he lurched and pulled the spear up again. So Vinn ducked out of the way, circled under the boat, and slapped her fin against the surface to shower him in salty drops before resurfacing with a huff. Some thank-you. She stared him down, just out of reach, until he seemed to realize that his boat was free.

His expression softened with realization and he shakily lowered the spear and seemed to regard her with a new interest. “You pulled the boat free,” he realized.

When Vinndalli inclined her head in agreement, the man’s eyes widened further and Vinn grinned. She supposed he had not been expecting her to understand him. To his credit, he recovered more quickly from this than he had from her initial appearance.

“You helped me, and you haven’t used your song on me yet…why, I wonder?”

Vinn pursed her lips. It was bothersome that is sounded like he was talking to himself more than her, but she supposed that they both knew she could not answer. Not with words that he would comprehend, nor with sounds that would not send him right back to trying to kill her, if only to silence her. So she kept her lips pressed and began languidly swimming. She kept a careful eye on the man and his boat, but she had come to the shallows to enjoy the warm water and he was not going to keep her from that.

“Is this a game, perhaps? A little fun before you feed? Do sirens play with their food?”

Vinn sat up and folded her arms over her chest. Humans could be so stubborn and set-minded. Once they got an idea, no matter how ludicrous, they would cling to it as best they could for as long as they could, even if the truth were to slap them in the face.

The man frowned and peered at her. “Do you mean to harm me?” This time, the question was genuine and cautious.

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Vinndalli shook her head.

“Not at all?”

Another shake of her head.

The man slumped back in the boat and wiped some of his hair from his eyes. “Well, that’s a relief,” he admitted. “My Annie would be quite distraught if I did not come home this evening, and I would loathe to leave my love alone and with a deeper fear of the sea than she already possesses.”

He had a mate. Vinndalli smiled brightly at him and flipped backwards into the water. Though she would never have left him to struggle in the current, she was now more glad she had been around to help. Mer lived a long time and mated very seldomly, but they loved deeply, even if they could go long periods of time without seeing those of their hearts when necessary. Humans lived much shorter lives and clung to one another in such a heartwarming way that Vinn detested the idea of this one’s mate waiting at the shoreline for a partner that would never return. She decided that she would hang around, to ensure he made it back to the coast safely when the time came.

“You must be an anomaly among your brethren. A siren with no song or no will to use it. I wonder what you eat then. You must consume something, if not people. Fish, perhaps?”

There was no easy way to address all the inaccuracies in his statement, so Vinn merely dipped her head at him in response to the last suggestion.

It surprised her, however, when he tossed a fish in her direction. He had a bucket of them in the boat with him, and a line for baiting them to his hook, but he had no need to share.

“I suppose I owe you a thank you, for rescuing me from the undertow. You should not linger here, though, siren anomaly. If the other fishers were to find you around here, they would run you through with spears and arrows far stronger than mine. You are better off in deeper waters, where you belong.”

Vinndalli chose to ignore that comment as she stared at the fish he had thrown her. It was not large enough to bring back to her pod, but it would make a nice, small snack. She lifted it up and grinned. She had helped him and he had given her something in repayment. The notion of a trade always thrilled Vinn. She did not need the expectation of a reward for assisting others, but the basis of mer-human friendships had been built on trade, and she knew that it could be again, if humans would release the idea that mer were bloodthirsty sirens.

She did not wish to appear rude, so she lifted the fish to her lips and gulped it down her throat as quickly as possible. Once it was gone, she swam up and leaned her elbows on the boat. She did not miss how the man still kept a healthy distance from her, but she did not push further proximity, and instead simply stirred her tail for balance.

After a moment, the man seemed to relax further and study her back. “You have no fear, huh? I suppose you would not need to, being the apex predator of the ocean.”

Vinndalli tensed at the mention. She shuddered as the term brought the memories of horrid screeching and the twisting, foul serpentine monster that stalked her people like tasty little treats.

The man must have noticed her expression, because his own expression dropped. “You do have a predator…,” he murmured with a shudder. “I hate to consider what sort of creature would hunt a siren. I pray I never meet one.”

Vinndalli nodded solemnly in his direction. The apex preferred deeper, darker waters and rarely ventured to the shallows or near the surface, even in the furthest, most open parts of the ocean. Human ships had little to fear. Truthfully, mer were too small to be a primary prey, but the species had developed a taste for them all the same.

There was a lapse of silence before the man cleared his throat. “You do not seem concerned about being found around here, so humanity does not frighten you. But it makes me wonder, strange siren, what drew you here. Was my boat what caught your interest or the reef itself?”

Vinn smiled and gestured with a wide arm out around the shallows.

“The reef. Then I was just a coincidental encounter. Do you swim here often?”

Vinndalli shrugged and nodded. Often enough. More than she should.

“Then I suppose there’s a chance I’ll run into you again. I hope that you won’t be interested in a human snack next time, either.”

Vinndalli’s nose scrunched and she stuck her tongue out while shaking her head. If only she could tell him how sick human flesh and blood could make a mer. It took all their strength to turn a human-born into a mer, which was only done to save a life, never out of malice or force. It was the only time they chose to bite, and any more interaction with human blood could poison a mer easily. Humans were not in their diet and never would be. But her voice would agitate the man and he would not understand her either.

“Well then, I suppose I shall need something to call you, if we are going to run into each other often enough,” the man yielded. “I do not know if sirens name their offspring, but I doubt you care for being addressed as ‘siren’.”

Vinn shook her head, though she was thrilled that he was not so wary of her that he was unwilling to run into her again. It was a start.

“I don’t suppose you got a name that is easy to guess, huh? Something you can point out or based on a physical feature?”

Vinn pursed her lips and shook her head with a regretful shrug of her shoulders. Her name was not bizzarre for her kind, but she doubted the man would guess it either.

She watched his brows furrow as he pondered it. “Well, I suppose I will have to think of something, so long as you are not opposed to it, of course,” he checked hastily.

Vinn gestured for him to go ahead. She did not care much what he called her, just that he was willing to interact with her. It was silly for humans to fear mer or mer humans, and even more ridiculous that mer had to restrict themselves from an environment they should be comfortably and healthily thriving in. If he had to call her ‘siren’ to continue building a friendship, that was fine, though she would prefer to steer away from the use of the term, as it would only be a reminder of what humans thought she was.

The man was silent for a few more minutes before he grinned. “I think I’ll call you ‘Anomaly’,” he decided. “For the strange siren who does not hunt people, something I remain grateful for.”

Vinn clucked her tongue, then ducked her head in apology when the man flinched. Anomaly. It amused her. If only he knew. She was a bit of an anomaly, she supposed, in many ways, though not in the way he thought.

Finally, she lifted a hand and gestured out to him. She did not know his name either.

“Oh, I suppose I have been rude, huh?” he laughed. “My name is Tom.”

Tom. Simple, easy to remember. Vinndalli grinned widely at him and tried to ignore the way that he flinched at the sight of her fangs. He was going to have to learn eventually that she meant no harm.

After another moment of silence, Tom sighed. “Well, Anomaly, it has been…a strange, but not unpleasant encounter, meeting you. But I should be getting back to shore now. My Annie worries when I’m out on the water too long. She does not favour the water. I will not tell anyone that you are out here, no need to put you in unnecessary danger if you are not trying to hurt anyone. You should avoid the larger ships though. They will not care or stop to wonder if you are different from your brethren, they will shoot you, and many of them are more trained than I am. I just have my weapon for spearing fish. I am not trained for hunting sirens, but the crews that go out deeper definitely are.”

Vinn inclined her head. This was not information she did not already know, but she appreciated the warning. She released his boat and slipped under the water. But before she swam away, she burst through the surface of the water, clearing her entire body from the spray and up into the sunlight. She twisted into a spin and then splashed back down with a wave strong enough to rock his boat. She heard Tom’s shout of amazement, but she sped away further down the reef without resurfacing.

It was a strange meeting, but feuds ended with random anomalies, and this was a good first step. No one had been injured or chased away, so she would take that as a win. It made her wonder if other humans could be persuaded to change their minds, but she would have to be cautious about who she approached and never in groups. She could overpower one human with a weapon if necessary, but she doubted more than that. At the very least, she hoped she would run into Tom again in the future.