To The Light

The Dastardly Trans-Continental Prose Society (DTCPS)

for Thimbles on her birthday.

A man of science, Dr. [Edward] Masen has devoted his career to studying bioluminescent marine creatures. But a moonlit dive and one bad judgement call put him at terrible risk. What will he learn from his mistake? And more importantly, will he finally understand that sometimes you can believe your eyes? "Your kind are dreamers like mine. But at present, we are both awake."

Stephenie Meyer owns Twilight

By: BelieveItOrNot, DreaminginNorweigen, IReen H, & moirae.

Beta'd by Dragonfly336

Shell - you are incredible. We all hope your birthday is as wonderful as you are.

"There are a number of advantages to living in a tidal ecosystem like this. Who can think of some?"

A bored grumble ripples through the group, but no one is quick to answer. She looks around her and sees the animals he's talking about: tiny, shining fish, darting to-and-fro; slow-movers with their homes on their backs; spiny urchins and stars that don't move at all. She can feel the sun warm on her back, her skin greedily soaking it up.

"Algae and other intertidal plants grow in the abundant sunlight and support an entire food chain of animals."

Even from above the surface of the water, his words shine like abalone in her ears. She could easily hear him from much further away and probably should not have risked coming as close as she has, but the color of his voice is something she can never resist.

"... constant wave action supplies a tidal pool with nutrients and oxygen, so food is abundant ..."

The pod of young ones follow him over the pools. They skitter clumsily and more than once he has to grab an arm and pull one of them upright.

"... a varied substrate provides lots of hiding places and surfaces to cling to."

This makes her giggle, because she is doing just that: hiding and clinging like an anemone.

His monologue pauses and the school of young ones does too. She stops her giggles short and grabs at the water, pressing the laughter back into her chest. It dissipates, but too late. He is looking exactly in her direction when the last of the sound breaks the surface.

"Whoa! What was that?" one of the young ones asks.

"I'm not sure."

"It sounded like ..."

"Like water glass music."

"Like what?"

"Like … oh, never mind. It could have been any number of things. Let's continue, everyone."

He herds the pod along, but his gaze continues to return to the edge of the pools. She pushes herself deeper under the surface, watching him retreat down the beach, until the group is one dark shape to her eyes.

"Maybe it was a mermaid," she hears one of the young ones whisper.

"There is no such thing as a mermaid." His answer is like a seagull's—mocking—and it burns hot in her chest. There is no abalone in those words.

No such thing? Come close again and you will see.

It is another moon cycle before he returns. This time at night to look at the animals that shine under the bright disc in the sky. Bio-luminescent, she has heard him say to young ones before. He studies how they glow.

Her anger has cooled. Some.

Not in one hundred years have words burned like that. There was a time when people believed so easily. The Elders had told her. The way she had seen him stare into the pools, into the depths, she had thought he felt everything he needed to know. She knows now she assumed too much.

Or had she? Are the young of the deep that different from the Sun Dwellers? They are small, half the size they should become, half the wisdom they should seek or less.

She remembers the stories told to her when she herself was new to the swim. Some stories are told to educate, to guide. Like the ancient tale of the wayward Dreamer who strayed too far before she had mastered her inherent defense mechanisms. Her feeble attempts to charm the Dark-Shadow Tooth, how he toyed with her.

The fable had scared her, but it also kept her from wandering when she was small, kept her safe before she learned her voice, learned the Deceivers Song.

Until she'd grown long enough to swim to the surface herself, she had often thought the stories of the Sun Dwellers were folklore too. Then she went to the shore, to the light, to find that some of those old tales must have some truth to them. Because there they were, floating upon the water like birds, exposing themselves continuously to the brittle air—happy to dip themselves into the comfort of the waters, then return to the chapped and blistering realm that spawned them.

When he had told the young one she didn't exist, was he just protecting them? As it was the responsibility of the grown to do for those untested and not strong. Her adventures near the sands had revealed to her what happened to Sun Dwellers who stayed overlong submerged. They lacked the ability to take breaths from the water, they had to take their air with them when they explored her world. If they didn't, if they tried to take breath from the water, it strangled them. Her home could be a murderer, she had learned. Maybe that was why they couldn't believe in her kind. Because to seek them, to inflame a child's bright imagination toward that end, was a danger.

The way he looked at the waves sometimes, she could tell he fathomed the majesty of the darkest waters. Sun Dwellers could travel far into the deep. But they had limits. There were places they only sent their emissaries. Probes, he the man had called them.

Machines.

A word she didn't understand.

But some of those machines themselves glowed, shining the light of the sun into the darkest caverns of the deepest ocean deserts. Poisonous places she didn't go. No one went. Unbreathable ocean. Toxins surrounding certain fissures in the remotest rock. There were fables about the forbidden places too. Places that burned the iridescence from the scale, closed the eyes of the healthiest dreamer.

From her perch upon the incoming tide, peeking from behind a bit of flotsam, she watches him don his dark-skin, his air-maker, and fall backwards from his boat into the water, tethered to his craft. She dives, feeling the heat of his body seep warmth into the waves around him, and she follows it in looping, careful patterns. He has the portable light machine with him and is shining it ahead of him—turning it off, turning it on—tugging at his harness, venturing into reef.

He may not believe in mermaids. But he does believe that there are things about her home he doesn't understand. She has watched him long enough to know that.

"Space isn't the only unknown frontier," he had said one day. She thought she knew what he meant by that: The lights that twinkle in the night sky. Were they the bio-luminescents of hisworld? Could they climb to them on their funny pink feet?

She had seen him at the shore many times, shoes and glasses set aside. Staying exactly still, next to his book or his machines. More glowing contraptions, all his belongings peaceful. What would that be like? To be surrounded by motionlessness? To leave a thing to its own will and have its will be not to move one inch. Not flowing to and fro or drifting with the shells and the rocks. Not creeping from its nightly storage to find a new home where the waters brought it.

Maybe it would be nice.

For a moment of stillness, maybe she could endure the dry sand's sting, the sun's scorching bite. Her body heavy on the unmoving earth, the warmth of his frame—untempered by cool ocean water—burning next to her. Maybe she would listen to the rush of the tide, undulating into infinity, while she remained motionless in the company of this strange man so enthralled with her world.

Or maybe, it would drive her mad.

She flicks her tail, sliding through the water, drifting away from fanciful thoughts. These things are not to be. She can no easier leave her watery universe than the Sun Dweller can remove his second skin and join hers.

She watches him swim toward the light-creatures—red in the daylight, now glowing pearly-blue. His movement is surprisingly graceful for one of his kind, as though the stiff fins he dons are an extension of his legs, not false appendages. As he reaches the rippling swarm, they shine in welcome, radiating around him and singing twinkling verses beyond the scope of his hearing. They shimmy as they sing, tumbling one over another to brush up against him. Strange for her friends to be so welcoming of an outsider. Are they fooled? Do they believe him a Water Dweller? Or do they sense something kindred in him—are they drawn to him the same way she is?

Without thinking, she coos softly in greeting to her tiny friends. He turns toward her voice, a sharp twist that sends blue scattering. He searches, motionless, while she retreats carefully into the deep, into the dark.

Such stupidity.

What would the others say? What would they think of her interest in this man? The connection she feels? What would they think of her recklessness?

She knows what they would say—what they would do. An icy chill slips down her spine as she imagines the Elders assembling to pronounce their verdict.

We do not mingle with the Children of the Sun. For our safety, for our sanctity. Tempt them not with the Deceivers Song. Let them not look upon the Water Dreamer's form.

She sees him pulled down and down, arms and legs thrashing against his captors, mask pulled from his face. She sees his terror and surprise, horrified eyes bulging as he surrenders to the deep and takes air no more.

Her heart-light dims, dread passing over her like an inky black cloud. This cannot pass. She must remember her place—she is of the water, and he will never be.

From the safety of the depths, she sees him give up the search at last, returning to the shining patch of bioluminescence with renewed interest. He moves slowly, careful not to disturb the swarm with rough treatment. Respectful of the sea, respectful of her home.

He pulls a small cylinder from his dark skin and collects a few of her tiny friends. They whisper confusion and curiosity, but not fear. She wonders what he will do with them, what fate awaits the little ones in his palm.

Tucking the cylinder away, he covers the light with his hand and grows still. Around him, the sea is swirling in activity. Minute animals and fish skim over his second skin, tumbling in the stream of bubbles rising toward the surface. She can see it all clearly, no need for a light, but she is made to see what he cannot.

He waits in the dark until his eyes adjust and more light-creatures draw his attention. Lightly flicking the fins on his feet he moves slowly from one glow to the next. Again, his grace surprises her. He is not like most of his kind. They often struggle against the water, using their hands to balance themselves, which makes no sense. You cannot force balance. There is either harmony or there is not. It comes from inside. He seems to innately access this and it draws her to him even more.

At a wide open mouth in the rock he ducks down to look in. There is a brighter glow emanating from within. He looks at the machine on his wrist and at another hanging from the tubes of the air-maker. Hesitating, he looks up toward the surface and back again to the glowing creatures that beckon him. Is the air-maker failing him? The bubbles still rise from it, but she knows it is made only to hold so many. She can see he is pulled in both directions; his curiosity and better judgement battle within.

Foolish Sun Dweller. Go up to the air. These friends will be here another night.

With a hand on the overhang he pushes himself down and reaches inside. He sweeps an arm from side to side and up and down, then looks again at the machines and toward the surface. Is he looking to see if he will fit? No, no, no. This is unwise.She knows this tunnel. It is the length of three large sand sharks, but it is narrow in the middle. He will not fit with his air-maker, and he certainly won't be able to turn around. She dares to moves closer. Maybe if she could call his attention, in some way that won't violate the rules. But, before she can think, he has switched off his light and pushed himself into the opening. His fins disappear into the rock and the throng of luminous bodies is left to tumble in his wake. All that is left are his bubbles dribbling out in a slow but steady stream.

Around her the water is alive with concern. Concern for the Sun Dweller and the tiny creatures he has taken with him.

What should I do?

She looks to those around her, hoping for an answer.

Should I wait?

The water around her brightens to a faint blue.

I will wait.

She hovers at the entrance, her tail setting an unconscious sentry's pace.

He will return. He will.

In answer, the water intensifies to a blue blaze.

A large clutch of bubbles burst from the opening, halting her nervous swim. Then nothing. For a moment the whole ocean seems to cease to move.

She propels herself toward the tunnel.

Protect those of the water, the Elders say. They would say the same for any Water Dweller. Even if the Dark-Shadow Tooth were in danger she would be compelled to help. This man, this Sun Dweller, is no more dangerous than that—not even close. And he is of the water. She has seen that. The care he takes, the harmony he hosts within. Even the light-creatures do not fear him. Even they are drawn to him.

It is small inside—smaller than she remembered.

How could he think he would fit?

Ahead she can see him struggling. His fins scrape against the rock and his hands grapple for the kind of hold that will gain him leverage, that will help him free himself. The tubes are twisted and the air-holders are wedged between rock. He is stretching and reaching for them, but his fingers cannot find a release. There is blood in the water.

Moving farther in, she places a gentle hand on the bare flesh at his ankle. He pulls away sharply and she remembers that he cannot see. He must be so frightened. She is frightened. Frightened for him. There are no more bubbles, and she has none to give.

The first bars of her song come to her unbidden. Kindled, her heart-light brightens until the dim shape of the tunnel is visible. She stops herself. She is already over the drop, just being this close to him, but her song... that is too far.

Her second-guessing comes to a quick end when she realizes that he no longer moves. For a moment, she fears she is too late, that his eyes have closed for good. But she can still hear the pulse of his blood, though it is slower than before. Tiny red puffs leak into the water from the tips of his scraped fingers.

My song has calmed him?

She wriggles into the tight space, wedging her body between him and the ragged walls. The sharp rock pulls at her scales and digs into her back and hip. Twisting and slipping underneath him she reaches for the fastenings of the air-maker. Behind the mask his eyelids flutter like a nudibranch. As she rests a hand on his chest and reaches to release him from the bindings, his eyes—green like kelp—snap open wide and lock on hers. What she sees, before they close again and he goes slack, is not fear but confusion and curiosity.

She pulls deep calming breaths from the water and continues to loosen him from the air-maker and the tether. Pulling him free, she swims him as fast as her fin can carry her through the length of the tunnel and into the openness of the cave beyond. Resting him on a rock at the water's edge, she waits for him to take his air.

He doesn't.

Take your air. Take your air. What are you doing?

He lies still. Too still, even for a Sun Dweller. She's seen this before on the sand. Years ago. What did the Sun Dwellers do? It was the chest. She leans up onto his rock, just the tip of her fin in the ocean, and pumps his chest, slow and rough. She waits. She does it again. She's like a machine, she understands. This is what machines do. It takes four times before he's spitting the sea out and making loud noises that resemble the language of sea lions.

...

Charcoal-dark rock surrounds him, sharp edges dripping saltwater onto his face. Pin-pricks of light shine from above like stars. He blinks.

Pain shoots through his back. He props himself up on his forearm, sweeps his mask off with his other hand, and wipes his drenched face. Grains of rock on his palm scratch against his skin.

There was a woman.

He looks around for her in this ... cave? Is that where he is? In a cave?

Do you have air?

"Where are you?" He coughs. "Who are you?"

The color of your voice is darker than usual. Are you unwell?

He looks for the voice. It's familiar, reminiscent of the sound he heard with his students weeks ago.

Water glass music, he recalls.

Behind the largest rock where the tide flows up along his calves and then ebbs, he senses movement. A woman lifts herself only halfway out of the water. Brown hair soaked through falls over her bare shoulders down past her waist, the ends dipping under the water's surface. Her skin almost shimmers. Eyes like amber stare back at him. If he sits all the way up, he'd be able to reach out and touch her arm. He wonders what she feels like.

"You're real? You saved my life."

She stares but doesn't say a word.

"Did I hit my head?"

No.

"Down below..." He points out the opening of the cave to the sea. "I saw what would be considered an impossibility. I think I'm still seeing it. You."

This makes her laugh. If I'm impossible, how are you seeing me?

"Maybe the same way I'm hearing you even though your mouth doesn't move."

They're my thoughts.

"I can read your mind?"

Of course not. I'm presenting them to you, thought by thought. You can't hear anything I don't want you to hear. Nobody can.

In this moment something seems to invade his mind. He sees an image of others like her. They all have shimmery skin and faint glowing fins where legs should be. And they're all communicating, but none speak.

Sun Dwellers use their mouths. We project.

"You did that?" He touches his head and falls back against the rock, letting it dig into his sore back once again. He closes his eyes. Maybe when he reopens them he'll be on the beach or on his boat or in his bed. "This is a dream."

Your kind are dreamers like mine. But at present, we are both awake.

"If you're real," he says, opening his eyes to the rocky roof of the cave, "come closer."

With a massive splash of her tail—water crashing back into the ocean like a waterfall—she lifts herself up and over him. When her hair moves aside on her approach, he can see the roundness of her inner breasts. His empirical mind battles against his more base desires, but he forces it away from cataloging her like a marine specimen. She doesn't seem embarrassed, doesn't attempt to cover up with her hair again, but he tries not to look, nonetheless. This close, the shimmer of her skin is sharper, reminding him of opalescent marble. Compelled to touch it, he moves a finger to her throat and drags it down the center of her chest, down her stomach, which contracts as any woman's might upon being caressed. Her skin feels smooth and wet, but just like any human's skin. He stops his finger just before it meets her scales. Without removing his finger from the base of her stomach, his eyes meet hers. They seem to glow, not simply amber as he first thought, but like amber lit on fire. Or like melting gold.

Her lips part. He lets his finger fall to the first scale at her hip. She takes in a breath.

"It's like satin," he whispers.

She projects that she doesn't know what satin is, and he wishes he had the ability of projection so he could show her. He shows her the only way he can, by taking her finger and moving it over her own scales. "That's what satin feels like," he says.

Like finding oneself in a warm patch of reef water, skimming the urchins with flesh and fin.

He laughs. The sound hurts to make it, the passage of air through his raw throat, his abused lungs complaining. But her responding smile erases the pain.

"Yes. Exactly like that."

Is satin like air? Do you breathe it?

He shakes his head, his hand still on her, his thumb sliding, lifting, stroking. Feeling her.

"It's cloth..." He pauses, his mind drawn again to her lack of covering, her likely ignorance of weaving or stitching. "It's like... hmmm. Like what I imagine your hair must feel like, underwater. You wrap yourself up in it to sleep, or..."

We don't cover like you do. I've seen you. The body hides in the satin.

He gets a corresponding image of himself bent over the stern of his boat winding rope, the shirt on his back following the tug and tautening of muscles beneath it.

"Do you watch me often?" He gets the feeling she does. And while he would never ask a human girl such a question, would never be so bold, but with this... yes. Mermaid.

Mermaid.

His heart hitches in his chest a little.

There can be nothing between them but honest communication and understanding.

Do you come here often?

Again he laughs. At the irony. At her tone. At her playful question.

"All the time."

Images play into his mind. All of him. On the shore, the boat, with school children and colleagues. Eating lunch, napping. Looking into the water and saying that mermaids don't exist.

"I'm sorry. I was wrong about that."

Feelings come now. Gentle little murmurs of hurt, reasoned thought, understanding, admiration, caring. All of her feelings flow through him, making him feel what she feels. Her emotions ebb and rush like the ocean, with great power, and the surges within him bring his skin alive to the chill, bring his pulse higher, presses at him everywhere.

He exhales, pulling his hand away. The touch of her body is too much, the connection is too strong.

Are you okay, Ed Ward?

His name brings moisture to his eyes. Contained with it, wrapped around it, holding tight to it, intertwined with each syllable, is a feeling so immense it could only be called love.

"Can you … a little less … can't breathe."

She leans back, away from him.

"No. I mean … what am I feeling?"

Apology floods into him.

Me. I was sharing with you, myself.

"Don't be sorry. Just … you have a powerful …"

The word came to him in the form of what it was.

Song.

"Beautiful."

Her head tilted ever so gently on its stem.

I wish you could sing. I would like to feel your meanings.

"Can you sing me your name?"

It hit him then, like a bubble of oxygen finding the surface. A burbling burst of color and warmth. Giving and growing. Dancing and symmetry and crystaline sparkle. Lovemaking, moon shimmer, flowers that bloom in fragrant water. All things beautiful.

"If I could sing you 'beautiful' - it would look just like that."

That is my song, my story, my name. It tells of me.

"Your song is beautiful."

It is. It is my favorite of all the songs I know. But you cannot sing it.

"I have no song. Just words. But I give them to you. In explanations, in the same spirit. As best I can."

Looking down at their intertwined hands, she nods. Her thoughts grow quiet, but he can feel something building between them. For the first time in his life he means that in its most literal sense. He can feel it. She braids her fingers in and out of his. It's almost shy but seems … wantingis the only word that comes to mind. He watches in amazement as what can only be a blush rises on her skin—a golden, shimmering blush.

He closes his eyes for a moment, shaking his head. This is real. He is talking to a mermaid—sort of. The wash of feeling that follows over him does not steal his breath, but it does warm his blood. She is here and she's feeling like that. He can't help but clasp her hand tighter, slide his hand over the swell of her hip and pull her closer.

She looks up at his slight intake of breath. His fingers have slipped over something unexpected—something cool and separate from the satin of her scales. His first thought is, dish soap, and bringing his fingers close to examine them, the consistency of the substance only reinforces that thought.

"What is this?" It's golden, like honey; not sticky, but viscous. He opens and closes his fingers, marveling at the ropey strands stretching, suspended between them.

A wounding. From the tunnel.

"You've cut yourself?" Dropping his hand to her waist, he rolls her toward him, looking over the curve of her back. Small cuts and scrapes cover her skin.

The way is to move carefully in the tunnel. I was hasty. I've never had to …

Heaviness. He feels it spreading. His back, his bones, his ribs, his limbs. Not painful, but a thickness that shouldn't be there. It's his own weight he's feeling. The weight that had been a hindrance to her in the water, making her clumsy in her urgency, her movements careless, frantic.

The pressure seeps from his bones into his organs, his beleaguered chest, his lungs. Sucking air in–again, the power of her emotions makes him breathless. Lightheaded. Like the air is too thin, empty even. He longs for humidity–like as a boy when he read comics by flashlight under the blankets late into the night, the soggy dampness of inhaling his own heat. But clean, crisp air invades his every breath, suffocating him.

Darkness creeps at the periphery of his vision, skittering inward in black clusters as he tries to keep his gaze on her. Her image loosens, starts to disintegrate.

I'm going to pass out, is the last thing he thinks before pitching forward into the water.

…

Unconsciousness lasts forever, an undeterminable, insurmountable fog as he claws his way back to his senses. It grips him, wants to keep him—the darkness—but he's breathing and in a moment he knows he will be able to get his eyes open.

He does. And all he knows is burn. Stabbing in the eyes, clinging to his brow, forcing his lids closed again. He sucks air.

Water.

Floats.

Please, do not have fear.

He doesn't. As awareness returns to the estranged parts of his body, he finds his hands, feels her fingers, basks in her radiant calm.

You're in full health, but you are underwater. Outside the cave, near where you went dark.

Confusion. Hers, mixed with his. He opens his mouth to speak and can't. Hums fill the water and her smile lights up his mind.

Can you open your eyes. See me? Don't speak.

The burn fades as his eyes adjust. Shock grips him as he surveys the underwater majesty with new vision. He carries no light, but all the watery terrain is perfectly clear around them. He can see the moon sketching its vibrancy against the surface over his head, undulating waves sending broken light against the ceiling of the waters edge, like a laser light show.

Shapes in the water speak of where they are. Their images are vague ideas, as if they call out their location, a bleep on a radar—not visible because of light, but because of sound.

Images flood his mind again. Her projections, he understands now. He sees her attempt to haul his limp body from the water and back onto a shallow stretch of sand near the rock, the feel of her tail pressing into the sand, leaving divots and displacements that get wiped clean by each receding wave. He watches himself, his face purpling in his oblivion. Her sliding her fingers into his mouth, pressing his tongue to the side, seeing nothing. Her panic. Her idea to drag him into the water and try to breathe for him, how that proved unnecessary, as he relaxed as soon as he was fully submerged.

She clasps his fingers, bringing his hand up between them.

Your flesh is opened here—see the tear?

He doesn't need her telepathy to see himself as he was, on the sand, his fingers stretching a strand of her blood long betwixt his thumb and wounded index finger. In a burst he understands. Blood. Her blood flowing through him, golden and rich. Winding through his veins like a charmed elixir. Giving him breath. Giving him life.

But this is the stuff of storybooks—magic. His scientist's mind rebels, searches for some plausible explanation. Virus? Chemical reaction? Hallucination? Is he trapped in that tunnel still, rushing toward death while his mind hides the truth in fairytales?

He feels her concern, sees the worry set deep in her eyes, and he knows it doesn't matter. Maybe there's an explanation, maybe not. Maybe this is only a delusion. But he wants it to be real. Fantasy or no, she feelsmore solid to him than anything ever has. She is truth, bone-deep and steady as his pulse.

Her fingers curl around his palm, squeezing reassurance, as her body drifts closer. Life teams all around them, but he sees only her. The girl—mermaid. The one whose name means beauty.

Truth? I am truth?

What? How did she—?

Her thoughts come to him as before, but his mind feels … full, more expansive. He reaches out, nudging her with his thoughts, projecting.

You can hear me?

Her smile is warm.

As you can hear me.

He looks down the length of his wetsuit clad body, wiggling his toes, considering.

You still have feet.

The feeling of her thought within him is light, full of wondrous laughter. It's a feeling both inside and outside, a tingly joy. She floats before him, her hair dancing and drifting around her face. He tries to keep his eyes from her bare torso; her breasts, buoyant, seem to point at him. Her navel, soft, the gradation from flesh to scales, the shimmer of which glistens over her skin like moonlight.

What would it be like to run his hands over such skin?

Before he can hold back, the thought of kissing her—her neck, her mouth—comes to him. Heat fills him, not just his own, and he knows he shared his thoughts with her. His apology starts in the stammer of his heart, withers there, evaporating as she sends him her desire, wakened by him, belonging to him.

He witnesses, brief and fleeting, their imagined passion against the floor of the ocean. Her breasts rubbing his chest, her hair curling about his ribcage as she explores his skin. Their desires, their thoughts, already tangled between them, belonging to both of them, feeding each other, stoking flame under the water.

His hand still gripping hers, he pulls her into his arms as they sink beneath the weight of lust.

…

His embrace is like nothing she's ever known. Strong arms, solid body, the man of her waking fascination is here, in this moon-pool, his mind mixing with hers, full of her, full of the Offering.

Your outer skin must come off.

She runs her hands over the dark suit he wears as his hands abandon her to pull at the connecting seam-stitcher and yank it down. Kicking off his fins, he peels it back from his arms, the bulky material gathering around his waist as he asks a question. Many questions, actually. Some of which she thinks it possible he didn't mean to ask, but the infancy of his mental control makes him blurt his brain to her like those new to the swim.

Are you sure? I don't know why but I've never felt this kind of rightness... like I've always... but. I don't know if … are we able to? I'm not your kind.

She ponders her answer for the briefest moment before giving him the reassurance of her thoughts. Letting her hands find the parts of him she most wants to touch, his shoulders, his chest, the muscles where his legs begin. His mouth, she touches with her own. It's soft and warm and hungry.

You are. My kind. If you were not, then I would not be ready. But I am.

He wraps his big hands about her hips and pushes her gently, moving her so that he can place his lips against her neck, finding her breasts and pulling them into his mouth. His emotions are so raw, untempered by experience and practice of privacy's song. He sings everything he feels. Uncontrolled, unabashed. The fervor of his song, the reflexive reaction to her offering and the demand of his body overwhelms her. He can't retain his desire, and the power of it, the urgency, feels too radiant to fit inside her body.

She feels it like a heartbalm, explosive from her chest to her center, a hot emptiness. A writhing need. She separates the feelings of her own mind from his—his rigid demand, tightening his lower belly and clawing up his limbs. Desire in his greedy fingers and mouth, trying to unwind the coil that draws tight inside of him. She pushes her lust to him, sends thoughts of undulating clench of her escalation, feels the heave of his endurance as her thoughts percolate into his.

He's pawing at his suit. She can feel his fear that inadequacies in his stamina will keep him from the Offering.

We have as long as we need, we have no pressures upon us, we have each other.

…

All the time we need.

Her flavor is oceanic and fecund. Fresh on his tongue as his mouth fills with her skin. She arches away from him, ducking to let her fingers deftly peel his wetsuit down his legs, until he's kicking it free. He looks down to find a massive swirl of her dark hair, twisting and flowing about his hips as she presses her face against the bulge in his swimshorts.

I love this, I want this. This fits to me, is to me, an expression of me. Your song to me. Sing it. Sing to me, this song. This is one I know you know.

Yes.

Yes.

She folds his shorts over, freeing him, exposing him to the trail and tickle of her long hair. To the slide and suck of her lips. He leans back against the water, sharing his thoughts. Thoughts of wonder and serenity and desire.

His song comes now, the one he didn't know he knew. It hovers around them, less lyrical than hers, flowing between something like jazz and a chant. His refrain and her hands, her mouth, the water rocking him in the minute ebb and flow of the tide: the sensations are consuming, so overwhelming that he feels himself beginning to crest. Not wanting it to end too soon, he stills her with a gentle hand and pulls long drags of water into his lungs.

Toes skimming the sand, he pulls her up the length of his body and meets her in a kiss. His hands idle at her underarms, her ribs, her navel, her nipples, caressing and stroking. He tilts her face upwards, fingers exploring iridescent skin, feeling the heavy thrum of her pulse.

It was not a pleasure to you, Ed Ward?

No. No. Very much. But I want to plea— I want to make you feel that good, too.

Her song rises to a crescendo around them.

You may Ed Ward. Please.

Dropping his hand to her waist, he lingers over the scales under his fingertips. She is smooth and rough at once; pearly in some places, like fine grain sandpaper in others.

Returning to the fervor building between them, his mind races, still trying to wrap itself around the mechanics of what he hopes is coming. As he has with women before, he brushes his fingers over her abdomen and dips them down, where her legs—if she were human—would have come together.

Her taste is sharp and sweet as he joins her in another kiss. One hand cradles her neck, holding her close, while the other explores low, gently searches for her sex. He can find no ingress, but her breath trips and stutters as she presses into his touch. Arms wrapped around him, she pulls herself closer. She nibbles at his lips and chin, undulating against his hand. Realization dawns. It is clear that she has physiology similar to other women—human ones. Pressing more firmly, he moves his fingers against her in small, circular strokes until she vibrates in his arms.

She relaxes against him, head lolling back. He peppers light kisses over her eyelids and cheeks, tasting her with the very tip of his tongue. He grazes a thumb over her cheek. Her lazy smile is brilliant, even in the dark water.

You know the way, Ed Ward. This is unexpected.

The way? No... I... I was … experimenting.

Her eyebrows pinch, considering.

You study the sea. Perhaps it is not so surprising.

I've expended my best guesses, though. She looks at him in confusion again. Can we? I mean, is it possible for us to ...

Ohh... Yes, Ed Ward. Yes.

She speaks to him of herself, her pleasure. He groans into her mouth, filling her with his humming and his words.

Taking his hand from between them she entwines her fingers with his. Bringing their hands behind her back, sliding low. What he finds is familiar—soft warmth.

You see? I am ready for you.

Weightless, she twirls in the water in front of him—once, twice, three times. When she stops she is facing away. Half a turn more and she squeezes his arm, kissing his bicep.

Do not be afraid, Ed Ward.

...

She recalls stories of sailors being taken by her kind. Some did not drown. Regardless of their physical strength, though, for the weak-minded among them, coupling with Water Dweller stole their minds.

Remove your coverings, Ed Ward.

He kicks off his shorts and she moves back toward him. Grasping his arm, she slides her other hand behind his neck and pulls them flush together.

Forging through the chaotic jumble of his thoughts, she guides him. To her. Into her. Wonder conquers fear, confusion fades into exaltation. Their shared song is of sweet urgency, swirling between them like an octopus against the ocean floor.

His breath, caught in his throat, in her throat. Blood bolts through both their veins into one heart, beating wildly in two chests, giving rhythm to longing's song. Shared between them, sung with one soul, gasped into each other without words. Her being is multi-dimensional. His reflects hers.

He bucks, the motion languid and ineffectual. She can feel his hesitancy, his human shyness reasserting itself. With lustful coos she gives him her calm, with a flick of her tail she pulls back from him, then waves herself closer, going still as his hands find her, curving to her breasts, her waist.

He learns her tempo, sings it back to her. Sliding his hand below her navel, he caresses her to a tidal surge. He worships as she writhes, with his hands, his lips, every part of him devoted, every part of him finding her. His chest to her back, his nose at her neck, his hand at her waist, his mouth kissing, his mind feeling what excites her most. His response to her pleasure is its own form of touch. She heats, he hardens, she quakes, he trembles. She moans, he swallows. The honesty of their bodies leave no room for anything but the action of pleasure, the dedication of pleasing.

This is truth's song.

She grasps at his arms, finding leverage against the water, feeling his body quicken right along with hers. Their arms tangle, their thoughts intertwine, nonsensical thoughts of agreement, fullfillment—overwhelming, overlapping songs of touch and give, take and breathe. Be of me.

Same.

…

She shudders in his arms, her head cradled by his shoulder and neck. The suck of her body, tight to him, an undulating vice that ripples with her orgasm. The sight of her, the dance of her dark hair around them. Her ripe neck leading down to breasts that slowly rise and fall. But more than that. The shatter of her mind. The crescendo of her song. Her exquisite mental oblivion doesn't simply beckon to him. It commands him to accompany her.

Together into the deep blue blackness of breathless victory. Together, dissolving away from flesh and frailty, their minds, encumbered, sing of elation.

I sing of you. You of me.

…

Their connection wavers as cool moonlight gives way to the warm glow of morning. His thoughts, once crystalline, grow muddied and dim. Her face is clouded in confusion as his song drifts and fades. The water in his lungs feels heavy, oppressive, and he knows the end is near.

He wants to tell her all the things his heart holds. He wants to tell her of fate and eternity, and how they're encompassed in the simple act of holding her hand. He wants to tell her how he can see the future in the pearly shine of her tail. How the gift of her song is greater than any he's ever received. He wants to tell her … he wants to say …

There's so much—it's too big.

If he can't tell her, then all of this—the supernova bursting inside of him—is his alone to contain. How can he be expected to hold all of this on his own? In a panic, he projects his hope, his fear. But she hears nothing. She can only watch in dismay as his body rediscovers its buoyancy and slowly drifts toward the surface.

She follows him in looping circles, cutting through the water and clearing a path. He suddenly feels so out of place. He doesn't belong here—how could he ever think he did?

By the time the sun crests violent orange on the horizon, he's breaking the surface and gasping for breath. Her eyes are liquid with emotion, surging like melted gold, but she hides her thoughts. His boat is gone—drifted away. Seeing no alternative, they make their way toward the shore, swimming in silence.

He could tell her now. He could say what felt so urgent just moments before, but the words are tinny and hollow in his mind. What he could say so easily with his heart would be wrong coming from his mouth. Like elevator music to a symphony. His words hold no music.

His feet skim sand, and he takes his first steps, water lapping at his waist. She slides through the waves, circling. Soon, the water will be too shallow for her to continue.

Ed Ward?

He opens his mouth to speak, to offer some reassurance, but the words die in his throat—it hurts too much. Instead, he draws her up to him, bearing her weight with an arm around her waist. His fingers skim her silken flesh, her textured scales. Is this real? Did this really happen? She's here now, but somehow she already feels like a dream. What will happen once he leaves the ocean's embrace? Will he forget? Will his memories be no more lasting than a sand castle swept into the sea?

She strokes his face, calming the panic in his eyes, loosening the clench of his jaw. Her fingers explore stubbled cheeks, smooth lips. He remembers the way he felt inside of her, the way she trembled against him. He remembers her kiss.

Her skin sparkles, sunlight dancing on her shoulders and arms. But it's more than that. She glows from within. He'll hold onto this, he swears. He'll remember. With a shaking hand he draws her palm to his lips, kissing once, twice, before pressing her hand to his chest. She holds his heart. How could he forget something as basic as that?

I do not want to say goodbye.

His voices cracks, throat raw from lack of use.

"I don't want that either."

But how can we stay? We are from different worlds. You are a Sun Dweller—you belong on land.

"And you belong here."

She nods, her eyes rounder than before, a slight crease in her brow. He waits for her answer, her voice, her song, but nothing comes. He wonders if mermaids cry. She nods. And though there are no tears, he spots a tremble in her closed lips, a shudder in her chest.

His hand cups her jaw and he stares into her eyes. He trails his fingers down her neck, down her chest, flattening his palm against her. In the water, deep in the ocean, he was one with this heart. He still is.

He clutches her fast to him, holding tight, kissing down her neck to her shoulder. And then lets go.

He trudges through mellow waves to the shore, his feet sinking into sand with each step. He can't look back. He won't. Though he can feel her there, watching, and he finds himself listening for her.

Even with the wind whipping against his head and the gulls calling from above, he can't stand the quiet of the absence of her. His heart quickens. He swallows down a lump in his throat that knots itself in his stomach. Looking down into the soft sand he spies broken shells. The sight means something different to him now, something new. All the studying he's done, all the research, has never prepared him for this, for feeling a part of the broken shells on the sand.

He picks one up, turning it in his fingers, examining it in a way that would make one think he's never seen its likeness before. And then he does what he knows he shouldn't do.

He turns around.

She's there, like he knew she would be, staring after him. He tilts his head. She shakes hers, No. He hears it. That one word, broken.

Without taking his eyes off hers, he feels for the sharpest edge of the shell and slices his hand between his thumb and index finger. It bleeds easy, warm and thick, dripping. He barely feels the sting he knows should accompany the cut.

He walks into the ocean, tunneling straight for her, seeking her blood, her breath, her life.

His heart mends.

...