Tale

Geale anxiously watched Marnthe as he rummaged through a shelf for something. He wasn't sure if he was willing to hear a story about Marnthe's first love, but the older man appeared so happy to talk about it that he could only wait in the pool for his return.

Marnthe walked toward him with a book in his hand. "I got these laminated before storing them down here. Apparently, humans on the island burn the belongings of the dead after their burial, but I couldn't let all their things go.

I burned some of them, gave others to charity, and stored the rest here." Marnthe turned the book to a page with a big black and white photo.

It was of a lanky, stiff, man clad in an oversized black suit as he stood next to a tall, young woman in a white puffy dress. He appeared nervous with his blank, wide-eyed expression while the woman appeared ecstatic with her smiling almond eyes and toothy grin.

"This was the first photo they took together," Marnthe explained. "Pierre borrowed the suit from Calista's husband. The dress was the result of combining clothes that neighbors gave Lapiz as her wedding gown."

"Wedding gown?"

"This was taken during their wedding. You know how merfolk companions make a vow to commit to each other for the entirety of their existence?

Humans have one too. It varies from one group to another. Here, they wear clothes like this and pledge their love in front of family."

"How absurd," Geale muttered. Merfolk didn't need to wrap themselves with clothes to make their commitment vows. They just had to sing a song together - one song that was theirs for eternity.

Marnthe chuckled. "Yes, the preparations seem too much but they were really happy."

"Both of them? Wasn't she a mermaid?" Was she actually in a relationship with the human? She wasn't just forced to be with him?

Marnthe sighed. "I guess we should start with how they met."

He looked at Geale and found the younger man looking curious and expectant at him. Marnthe wondered if he looked just as curious when he asked Pierre and Lapiz about their story.

"Lapiz was a willful, stubborn and adventurous soul like many participants of the Crescent Moon Festival. She felt explosions in the sea while she was swimming back after the event.

Worried and curious, she swam toward it against the insistence of her friends."

Geale shyly looked away, remembering how he ignored Schell's invitation to swim back home with him after the festival.

"She swam to the surface just as the portal home closed and found a boat of fishermen throwing explosives into the sea. She dove back to shoo the fish away, but she was too late.

She was caught in one of the explosions and lost consciousness. When she woke up, she was in a cave where a young fisherman apparently hid her away after finding her on the shore."

"Was the fisherman Pierre?"

"That's right."

"And he threw explosives into the sea?!" Geale snapped. He had heard how cruel humans could be to marine life, but making fish explode?!

"Calista said he and her husband were against it, but they were too young to fight the adults of the community at the time. They tried to steal and destroy the explosives.

They were caught and punished by their parents with a good beating. Pierre said he was picking up dead fish on the shore when he found Lapiz unconscious there.

Afraid of what the fisherfolk would do to her, he hid her in a cave."

"He didn't sell her, kill her, or eat her?"

"He said he was more worried and scared at the time. Worried, because she was hurt.

Scared because it was the first time he saw a mermaid. Merfolk didn't exactly have a good reputation on the island at the time.

People told stories about how merfolk ate all the fish in the sea, leaving their nets empty and their families hungry. They said merfolk in general brought ill omen to wherever they were spotted, and mermaids in particular were monsters that seduced men so they could eat them.

Lapiz didn't seem like a monster so he just hid her away where no other human might see her."

"Stupid humans."

"They didn't know much about merfolk to begin with."

"Then they shouldn't just make false assumptions like that! They want a human-eating merfolk? Ha! I'll show them what that looks like myself!"

Marnthe chuckled. "This was a long time ago, Geale."

Geale pouted. "So Pierre and Lapiz fell in love while they were in the cave?"

"They said they didn't get along well in the beginning. After all, they were supposed to be creatures who were a threat to each other's existence.

Since Pierre continued to visit Lapiz and offer her food and medicine despite her defensive demeanor, they both eventually gave each other a chance.

They began to talk to each other and know more about one another. They became friends."

"And then lovers?"

"Not yet, but they said they did form an attachment of sorts toward each other."

"They fell in love."

"You're a romantic, aren't you."

"You're not?"

"I guess…I am. Anyway, a fisherman stumbled upon her in the cave. He reported it to the rest of the people.

They thought she was the reason why they hadn't been catching enough fish lately, so they made a plan to capture and kill her. Pierre sneaked away and took her to the shore but the people caught him at the beach while he was shooing Lapiz away.

Lapiz hid herself behind a boulder and watched the people punish Pierre for his betrayal."

"They beat him up?"

"They stoned him to death, thinking that he was a warlock who summoned a mermaid to curse them all."

Geale stared wide-eyed at Marnthe. "But he was human!"

"Pierre said he didn't have a good reputation in the village at the time. He was more passionate about reading books than getting out at sea to fish like other men his age were.

Many of the people on the island didn't know how to read. They saw Pierre's ability as an oddity, and his passion for proper education a threat to maintaining their community.

Some of the people spread stories to make sure their children wouldn't prefer to read books over continuing their family's trade. And after learning he was involved with a mermaid, the stories took a turn for the worse."

Geale frowned at the wedding photo.

Humans…could be that cruel to their own kind?

Well, he shouldn't be surprised. There had been stories about it in chronicles, but to hear that it really happened to someone Marnthe actually knew.

…To Pierre, an awkward-looking, seemingly harmless man who looked like the black suit he wore was swallowing him whole, was stoned to death for helping an innocent creature.

"But they got married."

Marnthe nodded. "Lapiz prayed to the goddess. She begged her to bring him back to life."