Mermaids did not have boobs.

Mermaids did not have an ass.

Mermaids did not give birth to babies.

One of them was a lie. And no, it wasn’t the first two.

So apparently, although mermaids did have an ass and boobs, those bits were hidden by a second layer of skin and our friend here in this bathtub was a late bloomer.

“They have an extra layer of skin, sure, but why not just wear clothes regardless?” I asked.

Just us in the room. Me, Shia, and the mermaid who was more or less lying on the bathtub somewhat submerged, playing with bubbles she made with her breath.

“Harder to swim and replacing soggy, decaying dresses is a chore,” Shia said.

Apparently, she knew a good few things about Mermaids. That sulky attitude was alarming though.

“I still don’t how he’s a girl,” I said.

First of all, the guy, or rather girl, was about the size of Nisa, maybe a tad taller since half of her body was that of a fish’s. Her hair was somewhat maroon, her tail glistened like pearl. Although it wasn’t apparent before, she did have scales, really small, all over her body. They were skin colored and on a normal glance, you couldn’t tell. But perhaps they helped underwater?

She didn’t have gills either… at least that’s what I thought but nope, she had gills on her neck which just weren’t visible while she was breathing air.

Her skin was somewhat thick and hardly smooth. She didn’t have any bumps whatever on her chest and frankly, her face didn’t look feminine even a little.

“Stop touching her, you idiot!” Shia jerked my hand away. “She’s a girl. Have some manners!” She glared at the girl this time. “And you, have some shame!”

The girl in question just stared at our faces without really understanding anything. I guess she didn’t understand Western. She did seem to understand the Sea tongue though, at least somewhat.

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But I never heard her speak a single word. “Maybe she’s mute,” I mumbled.

“Then she’d have signed or something,” Shia said. “Anyway, mermaids eat green stuff, so let’s go fishing.”

There were a lot of wild seaweed floating around. Shia was suggesting we go fish them out with our fishing gear.

“Yeah, I think I’ll just scoop up stuff. No hooks.”

Shia used me as a fishing rod… no, I was not fucking around; she was!

With a rope tied to my waist, she kicked me off the rails and threw me in the fucking water with a basket with holes.

“Are you trying to kill me!”

“You’re the one who wanted to keep a pet mermaid,” she glared at me as though she was looking at a bug. “So make yourself useful.”

“What if there’s some big fish or something here?”

“Then too bad.”

“Don’t just stare at your fingers like it’s not your problem!”

“I’d hurry up, if I were you,” she didn’t even glance at me and just stared at her nails.

The fuck was wrong with this woman?

Anyway… large seaweed~!

You’re not in the sea. This is a river. A river!

Yeah, there definitely wasn’t anything scary around here. Definitely not!

The sea weeds were big, and that meant I didn’t need to get more than two. Just two alone was enough to tax out my max strength. This stuff weighs a freaking ton~! “You can pull me up now.”

The hell she go?

I didn’t see her. The rope was still on the ship so she was probably holding it but-

“Don’t feel like it.” The voice came.

Did that woman… did she literally just lie down, staring at the fucking sky again?

“Don’t make me come up there!”

“Oh I’d love to see you try.”

Argh!

Bubbles? Fuck…

Screaming, I grabbed the rope firm with one hand, tied the seaweed filled basket to my waist with a bit of leftover rope and climbed the fucking rope like my life depended on it! Probably did too!

Panting, somewhat wheezing, I made it to the top. Shia was just lying there, staring at the sky. Kind of bored?

“The hell is wrong with you?”

Hey, I even lost half of the fucking seaweed!

“Right back at you,” she yelled.

“What?”

“How can you be so carefree? We caught a mermaid. It’s one of the greatest taboos. Ordinarily, someone would try their best to just hide the evidence and enjoy a good meal and be done with it. But you want to keep that thing. Are you really that great of a guy, or do you like pretending to be good? Or maybe you just want us all dead!”

“Huh…” Where was that coming from. Granted, I did have a moral compass. But… pretending to be good? Wanting them dead? Me? Was it this shitty body or was it something else, I didn’t know but my eyes watered a bit. The saltwater might have gotten in my eyes or something. “I didn’t know you felt that way.” I unhooked the rope, grabbed the seaweed (whatever the hell was left of it) and slowly made way to the third floor, where the mermaid was.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to-”

I’d already climbed down the stairs before she could even finish.

Was I… hurt? I didn’t know I could even be hurt with words anymore. Guess, I wasn’t as strong as I thought I was.

Yeah, you were right Cid. Words do hurt a lot sometimes.