Chapter Text
A young girl of roughly 9 years old went running down the beach barefoot. She was dressed in a daisy patterned dress and carrying a sandcastle bucket with a shovel. The sun was just beginning to set, and her belly was full from the supper she had just enjoyed alongside her grandmother and older brother.
“Don't forget to be back before the sun fully sets!” Her grandmother, a woman named Josephine, called after her.
The girl giggled and waved in response before running off.
She ran down the beach for several minutes before reaching the curve of it and a large rock. It was a beautiful rock that was probably either washed in by the sea or some sort of glacier deposit based on its enormous size. In the summer all sorts of kids would climb all over it as if it were a jungle gym. However it was currently a whole week before summer vacation started for most schools. That meant that the local town's beach was currently empty and unoccupied at this late at night.
The girl crested the other side of the rock and skidded to a halt.
Laying in the surf with something she had never seen before. At first she thought it was a young boy. He had violet hair and beautiful multicolored eyes. He was lying down and tangled up in a fishing net.
However, as she got closer she realized that this was no regular boy at all. He seemed to possess a giant fish's tail instead. It was completely wrapped in the fishing net and currently lying limply in the surf.
“Are you okay?” She asked him.
The boy glanced up at her and frowned. “Obviously not! I'm trapped.”
The girl flinched at his sharp tone.
“I'm sorry,” she said, “I didn't mean to upset you. Is there something I can do to help?”
After a moment's hesitation the boy nodded to her. “Yeah actually, you wouldn't happen to have a knife or some sharp object, would you?”
“oh,” the girl exclaimed cheerfully. “I actually do have a little pair of scissors in my sock. I borrowed them from my grandma and forgot to put them back, so I put them in my sock so I would remember.”
She pulled out the tiny scissors and began to carefully slice away at the fishing net surrounding the boy. He watched her with a wary gaze, but was willing to grab and pull on things when she requested. The scissors, although quite small, were very sharp. They cut through the small net quite easily. Within a couple of minutes she had already successfully gotten a large chunk of it cut off.
Because she got so much of it cut off the young girl could now see that the little mermaid boy had a blue and pink tail.
“You have the prettiest scales I've ever seen.” The young girl told him. She'd mostly seen dead fish at the local market, who weren't the prettiest.. Caleb, her big brother, had told her that there were tropical fish that were very colorful in other parts of the world. She had yet to see one. She couldn't help but wonder if this boy was a tropical merboy.
The merboy blinked at her and blushed. “You know,” he said. “Where I come from it's considered really romantic to compliment somebody's tail. You shouldn't be saying that all willy-nilly!”
“Oh no!” She dropped the scissors and covered her mouth with both her hands. “I didn't mean to be rude, did I upset you?” she asked.
The boy laughed and shook his head. “No, it's fine. I think we count as friends anyways since you're helping me out, so I guess it's all right.”
She scooped back up the scissors and kept working her way down the remainder of the net. All together it took a good hour or so for her to untangle the boy from its remains. Once it was untangled she took the smaller bits and stuffed them into her bucket.
“What are you planning to do with that?” The merboy asked.
She carefully rolled up the larger pieces and set them above the surf line. “My grandma says that you shouldn't litter in the ocean because it might kill the fish.” she explained. “So I'm going to bring it home and throw it out properly.”
He smiled at that. “Yeah, fishing nets are a real danger. It's sweet of you to take care of it like that.” He told her eagerly.
“I have to go back now since the sun is setting.” She told him.
He looked up at the setting sun and then back at her. “Yeah, I was supposed to be at home a while ago too!”
“I can meet you here around the same time tomorrow if you would like?” She told him.
He thought about it then nodded. “Sure, you are a real fun to talk to, so I guess I want to talk to you tomorrow too! We'll meet here and then I'll show you a better place to hang out just a little swim away. This way if people come to the beach we won't get seen!”
“Okay, it's a promise.” She said, holding out her finger to him.
The boy blinked at her finger and then carefully hooked his own around hers. “This is how humans make promises? Is there no fish?”
“I don't know what a fish has to do with promises, but we always do our promises with our pinkies. It's called a pinky promise, and if you break it you will suffer bad luck according to my big brother.” She warned him.
Eventually he swam away. She bundled up all of the fishing net and took it back towards the house where her concerned grandmother was waiting for her on the front porch.
“Thank heavens.” Josephine said. “I was going to send Caleb out looking for you. What have you got there?”
The girl held up her bucket full of fishing nets. “I found this all tangled up against The Rock. I remember we weren't supposed to litter so I cut it away and cleaned it up. Can we throw it out?”
“I suppose so. It can just go in the kitchen garbage.” Josephine said with a sigh, gesturing the girl back inside the house. As the door closed neither of them noticed pink and blue eyes staring at them from the darkness.
The summer continued in much the same vein for the young girl and the merboy she had met. Eventually they introduced themselves to each other properly, which is how she found out that the boy’s name was Rafayel.
The special place Rafayel had wanted to show her was a small sandbar about 20 minutes of swimming outside of the cove. It was a bit difficult for a young girl like her to reach by herself, but Rafayel was always willing to assist her with the swim. There were three trees on the sandbar, which provided cover and shade. Also there were two large rocks. Since it was so hard to fight the current and swim out to it people typically did not go to the sandbar, so she and Rafayel had it to themselves pretty much all of the time.
The two of them spent their summer chatting about everything and anything, as well as making sandcastles. One time the girl brought a friendship bracelet making kit to the young boy and showed him how to make them. He handed her a collection of shells and together they made bracelets for each other.
Perhaps they would have continued on like this indefinitely had summer not come to an end.
“What do you mean you're leaving?” Rafayel asked her, clearly upset.
The girl winced. “I don't want to, but I have to go back home. We only live with Grandma Josephine in the summer. I have to go back home for the rest of the year with my parents.”
“Ooooh! So, you're a migrating pod.” The boy said after a moment. He was pouting but no longer looked enraged. “If you had told me I would have prepared a goodbye gift.” he told her.
She hugged him. “I'm sorry Raf, I didn't know that you'd want to know that. I promise I'll bring a gift with me next summer as an apology!”
“I suppose that means you’ll show up at the same time the tourists do, right?” He asked.
She nodded. “Yeah! I promise I'll see you then.”
She did in fact keep her promise for seven more years.