A week of being kind to the mermaid seemed to be paid off some. She was at least relaxed around him, and not as guarded. After long soaks under his watchful eye, to Mrs. Dursely's horror, Fletcher would walk with Tululluah through the gardens.

The mermaid loved the outdoors. The sounds of the birds gayly chirping in the trees, butterflies gracefully dancing across vibrant flowers, but her favorite part was the summer breeze carrying the scent of the ocean on it back to her. She missed home. She missed the feel of the water. Not just it's hydrating healing ability, but just the way it moved. Dryland felt odd beneath her feet.

"Can you tell me about your world," Fletch asked as Tulullah bent over a wild pink rose and watched a fat little bumblebee wiggle it's chubby butt in merriment as it sucked up the nectar from the sweet-smelling plant. "Do you live in underwater houses? Do you have a mother and a father? Do keep fish as pets?" He smirked at his last question as he tried to envision mermaids swimming around with fish tied to ropes.

"We typically stay in a pod, at night, like the whales." She raises her arm up vertically trying to show how they sleep. "And yes, I have a mother."

"But no father?"

Tallulah rose back up to her feet and shakes her head, "I do not know that word. But I am assuming you mean a seeder, yes. There was a seeder, or I would not be here."

Fletcher rose a brow in surprise. The term seeder seemed so cold, so callous. "Do mermen not stay with the pod then?" Information like that would actually be quite valuable. If the assumably masculine parts of the species fended for themselves and left the weak open.

Tallulah's brows crease together as she tilts her head in confusion, "There is no such thing as a merman." The word sounded foreign on her lips.

Fletcher's jaw goes slack in surprise, "Then what is the masculine counterpart? What is a seeder?"

Tullulah gestured to him, "You, human."

His eyes grew wide, as his jaw falls fully open. Taking a step back as his eyes fall over her. "You keep the males?!"

She slowly nodded, "Yes, the strong young ones, until they produce a child, then he has served his purpose and is killed."

"And if he never produces?" His stomach turned sour at the thought.

"He has twelve moons." Tullulah made a large circle with her arms showing she meant a full moon.

Fletcher shook his head in disbelief. "You, you have a seeder then? A Seth?"

"No," Tullulah shakes her head, "Seth is not a seeder. He is my soul-share, um," she frowned looking for the word, "child?"

"But I thought?" More thoroughly confused than he was before, Fletcher took a seat on the stone bench. Tallulah sat beside him, folding her hand into her lap. "You said there are no mermen?" The idea of her being 'seeded' irritated him slightly. Think about her being with someone, felt like a pebble in his shoe.

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"It is complicated. Mermaids can have boys, who are born with feet. They are slain at birth, and they have daughters, born with tails. We keep the girls. But Seth is not of me. I found him on a ship when he was very little. The others didn't find him as the raided the boat. He was so scared." Her face fell as the painful memory flooded her mind. "It would have been forbidden to keep him, but I couldn't leave him to the others. He was so small." I took him from the ship and slipped away with him. There was a cave on the island that has an underwater entrance. I would hide away there and I knew it well. I kept Seth there and raised him as my own soul-share."

Fletcher could see the pain in her eyes as she spoke of the child. Genuine sympathy for her filled him, and he found himself slipping a comforting hand into her's. "What happened to him?"

"He was a curious boy. As he grew he would start to explore the cave while I was gone. He found a exit that lead to the shore." Tullulah's face saddened, "On day a guardian caught sight of him. He fled quickly enough she couldn't follow, but I knew it was only a matter of time before they discovered the cave."

With a heavy sigh her stormy eyes shifted to Fletcher. "I took a boat late one night. Put him in it, and dragged him away from my home. Days before you found me I had left him on human soil."

Realization passed over Fletcher, as he put it together why the Mermaid was so far from her waters. She was trying to save a humans life.

"When we caught you, were you returning home?"

Tullulah shook her head, "I can never go home. Freeing Seth is against our laws. And I should have killed myself after I watched my princess be killed."

Fletcher's brow furrowed as his gaze turns to her, not understanding what she means. "Your princess?"

Tullulah's eyes dropped to the lush green grass before she nodded, and made a rounded gesture over her abdomen. The pregnant Mermaid. The one she claimed to be her sister.

In shock, Fletcher jumped up from the bench staring down at her, "You are the sea queen's daughter?"

Slowly nodding, Tullulah's eyes turned up to him. "Her youngest."

Fletcher knew that this was all the opportunity he'd been looking for. Bot only did he have someone that knew the sea witch intamently but he also had leverage.

Instead of feeling excited like he expected, the thought of using Tullulah turned his stomach.

Fletcher stated pacing in front of the Mermaid fighting an inner battle with himself. He had the key to the mermaids' cove right at his finger tips, but yet he couldn't bring himself to grasp it.

Pushing himself, Fletcher turned on the Mermaid, "Take to the cove."

Tullulah's eyes grew wide in terror as she vigorously shook her head, "I can't. I can never go back there. I will be executed."

The thought made Fletcher's blood run cold. I can lose my Mermaid. The betrayal of his own mind caused him to shake his head.

"You said you were the youngest daughter of the sea queen. She wouldn't kill her own daughter. " He was trying to reassure himself more than trying to confront Tullulah.

"She can have more daughters. Many, many, many more. She doesn't need the incompetent one ruling her people." Tullulah rose from the bench as a bright yellow bird caught her eye.

There was nothing in the ocean that could compare to the beauty and majesty of a bird.

She started wandering after it, in hopes to catch it,only to have Fletcher grab her arm, and gently turn her to face him.

"Tulla," he asked using the nickname Mrs. Dursely gave her. "What would happen if let you go?"

He could tell by the look on her face that her thoughts were growing distant. She seemed saddened, and an overwhelming need to comfort her washed over him.

"I would be hunted down, and killed. I have broken several laws and given to many chance." Her eyes had turned and ice blue color, as the shifted to him. "Being a surviving captive aboard the boat my sister was killed on will not bode well with my mother."