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Mid-mornings seemed to be low tide on the isle of Byss. Which was very good news for Charles - daylight and low-water meant no major predators, waterside food-foraging would be best during these hours.

The box the blanket and letter had been hidden in was the only clean container he had and it was now a quarter way filled with decent-looking grain clams. The beach near camp was littered with cockles, belon oysters, crabs, and grain clams. Charles didn't want to risk eating them raw - the water was filled with bigger creatures, after all, who knew where those things had been - and without clean water and something to boil them in, the easiest of the shellfish to cook would be the clams, which he could bake by a campfire.

Charles was already hungry when he'd started foraging, but the thought of fire-baked clams was making him feel starved. He glanced into his box: it was barely a quarter-full of the palm-sized shellfish. It wouldn't be enough to catch up with missing half a day's worth of meals nor keep him going the rest of the day. With groan, he wandered down the beach, keeping his eyes alert for the tell-tale bubbling in the sand that gave away the hiding spot of a clam.

It wasn't until he approached a part of the beach near a few old wake-breaker boulders that a different sort of movement caught his eye. A brown, furry form scurried over the top of one of the more broken rocks - it was split down the middle, with a sizable nook between its two halves - and, upon spotting Charles, splashed down into the shallow water.

"Aw, are you the same little guy from the other day?" Charles wondered aloud. In response, the otter only padded up to him and began trying to climb his pant leg, at which point he gently kicked his leg out in an attempt to shake it off. Charles held the box of grain clams over his head. "Hey, no-! This is for me!"

The otter would not be deterred. In favor of saving as much of his catch as possible, Charles quickly dumped a single clam out. The otter released him, grabbing its prize in its little hands, and scurried back into the water.

"You're welcome!" Charles shouted at the demanding little thing. He hissed lightly, tenderly patting the new holes in his pants and shining scratches underneath. Both times it had seen Charles it had approached him without fear, it was as if the otter was tame and used to people.

Charles watched as the otter wiggle-swimmed around the broken rock and out of sight just as several small squeaks sounded. Then the hard-won clam flew back over the rock, landing with a wet splitch in the sand... which it quickly dug itself back under cover of.

Charles looked from the spot where the clam landed back to the rock, then back to the spot, then back to the rock. Already regretting his curiosity, his mouth pressed into an uneven, wide frown as he untied and removed his boots, bending down to roll up his pant legs. Holding his box of clams above his head, Charles waded knee-deep into the water. Every joint in his body stiffened as he caught sight of a splash of soft gold, half-buried in the sand between the broken wake-breakers. The gold fins fed into a sleek black tail, splattered by white splotches and spots.

The mermaid! The same one he'd saved the otter from before, if he had to guess from the tail pattern. Except... the otter seemed to belong to the mermaid; at the very least it was familiar with her. It let out three punctuated squeaks as Charles poked his head around the boulders, trying to get a better view.

Only half a foot of water remained above the mermaid's head, which was pressed into the crook of her right elbow. Fine sand swirled in huffs near the gills on her neck. Charles was glad to have the big rock between them as he spotted the glint of a short blade in her other hand.

Why is she still here when the tide is so low? Charles wondered.

The mermaid turned her head towards Charles, opening amber eyes that seemed to exhaustedly dare him to take another step. Charles found himself lost in the alien way she regarded him.

The shallow water, the weapon, the dark circles underlining those eyes - Charles was getting the feeling that the mermaid wasn't wedged between the rocks by choice.

His jaw tightened, trying to keep himself from asking if she needed help. One of the unwritten rules of East Banks was that if you saw someone that looked like they needed help, you offered it. But that rule wasn't for merpeople... was it? If she was stuck, it wasn't his problem. He had his own life-or-death situation to deal with. He had a time limit, once the sun started going down the sea crocs would come back out. It's not my problem-

"Are you stuck?" came out of his mouth like a sweet he shouldn't have eaten.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

At first he wasn't sure the fishgirl understood him; did they even speak the same language? The look Charles got from her was softer than the original glare, she obviously knew that he was speaking to her. Finally, she shook her head: no.

He thought on it some more. "Are you... hiding?" When he only received a confused look, he pantomimed a crocodile's mouth opening and closing with his free hand. "From the sea crocs?" Nope, the mermaid still didn't understand. With a resigned sigh, Charles gave up on that topic and pointed to the otter that had sat itself on the mermaid's back. "Is that," he then pointed to the mermaid, "Your little mermaid pet?"

The mermaid appeared to be annoyed with that last question, her face scrunching into a narrow-eyed look of insult. She wiggled part-way out of the boulders, pushing herself up on her palms so that her head breached the water's surface, though her mouth and gills remained just below it.

"Okay, so, like, first things first: I'm a guy," the merboy leaned both his arms on the debris. Even muted by the water, his voice was crisp and light, yet way more masculine than Charles had been expecting given the fishboy's delicate appearance. His tail curled up so that his golden fins splashed gently down into the water. "And, second, what's with all the questions? I gave your clam back."

Still stunned by the revelation that he'd misgendered a fishperson for almost two whole days, all Charles could manage was: "What?"

"The clam," the fishboy tilted his head accusingly, his black pupils pinning. "The one the otter just took from you not even ten minutes ago."

Charles shook his head, now fully processing the strange conversation. "How is hitting me in the head with a clam in hopes that I'd leave at all a clear transaction?"

"You wouldn't be talking to me if I hit your head," he pointed out, his long tail kneading almost haughtily.

"I wouldn't be talking to you if you didn't throw the clam!" Charles threw his free hand out to the side in a wide gesture. He then pinched the bridge of his nose. "And all I did was ask if you were okay and if the otter was your pet."

The annoying merboy paused, considering Charles's words. "No, not my pet," he said. "Not exactly." He slumped forward, bringing his head fully under the water, giving his arms a rest from leaning his weight on them, before popping back up. "Sorry. About the clam... It made more sense in my head, I guess. I didn't sleep very well last night."

"Yeah," Charles breathed knowingly, "I know that feeling."

Alien amber eyes flicked to the otter scratches on Charles's leg. "It's not my pet, but its romp has lived close to my home since I was little. This troublemaker is only a few months old, so it makes sense that I'm viewed as a part of its family." Cautiously, he reached out a hand towards Charles's ankle, then flinched as Charles slid his foot back. "You're bleeding."

"Not a lot," Charles dismissed.

"It might smell blood," the merboy said, tilting his chin up to look Charles in the eye. "The creature's not an ocean crocodile. It's the same shape but crocodiles are bumpy and hard, they've got fat legs. Whatever is here, it doesn't have scales. It's smooth like an eel."

"So you did know what I was saying!" Charles huffed. The merboy only smirked, mimicking the crocodile motion Charles had done before in an exaggerated fashion. Charles rolled his eyes, ignoring the fishboy's mocking, before the other's words sunk in. "But if you don't know what it is, then that means you're not from here either."

"Nope," the merboy chirped. Again, he reached out to Charles, tugging on his pant leg curiously. Charles jerked his leg back again. "Lean on the rock, get your weight off this limb so I can look at it."

"So you can stab me with that rusty knife of yours or sink your teeth into my leg?" Charles shook his head. "Yeah, gonna pass on that. And now that I know you're not stuck in the rocks, I'm gonna go back to looking for my breakfast."

The merboy quickly lifted his tail, flicking water at Charles. "So I can heal your gross limb-leg, you freak. Leaving a trail of blood everywhere you go isn't a smart idea with that thing lurking around, as we've just established."

Charles eyed him. "I can tend to my own wounds, thank you." It was only half a lie. Without medical supplies, he'd have to use his drinking water to wash out the shallow scratches someplace far away from the Porte Store. He rubbed at his right temple with his free hand. "I have no proof that you're not secretly in league with that terrible sea croc-monster, and all you're proving right now is that you're a terrible headache."

"Imagine what happens when I shut up," the merboy coyly mused. "And, to be fair, I have no proof that you're not some touchy pearl farmer." Charles wrinkled his nose in disgust at the comparison to those slavers. It was with a sigh that he dunked back under the water and slinked backwards ever so slightly, fishing up the dagger he'd had before and stowing it away in a bag that was snugly nestled underneath him. Big eyes locked with Charles's as he resurfaced. "I'm a healer, not a lunatic. As tempting as stabbing or biting the first thing in these waters that hasn't tried to eat me is, I don't think it'll do either of us any good."

The merboy's logic was hard to fault. Charles conceded: "You're not gonna rub fish-slime all over my leg, are you?"

"When you haven't even told me your name? Kinda fast, don't you think," the merboy chuckled, highlighting the bags under his eyes. "I'm not a cecaelia, I'm not slimy."

With one hand Charles carefully pulled back his pantleg further, exposing his scratched skin as he stuck his leg out, wincing as the salt water came into contact with more scratches. The merboy blinked curiously at the display, then crawled closer. To Charles's surprise, the merboy wasn't lying when he said that he wasn't slimy; because when those long fingers touched him, he could have sworn they felt fleshy and warm. Ghosting his touch over the minor wounds, the healer's fingertips gently lit up with a pale light as the scratches responded by closing, leaving behind a short-lived hot feeling in their places. After a second or two had passed, (and Charles's skin felt thoroughly-massaged), the merboy released Charles and sunk tiredly to rest on the sand beneath him.

"You were right," Charles offered him. "No slime." His shoulders sank as he let out a breath he didn't realize he had been holding. "I'm Charles, by the way."

The only response for a moment was a slight turn of his head, before the merboy shakily pushed himself back up. "Naoto," he introduced himself.