Her tail flicked slowly through the water, stirring up micro-currents that caused nearby seaweed to stir and wave in the clear water. Sunlight, broken into shafts of light by the coral reef above, filtered down into the depths of the ocean in which she lived, glinting off her pale grey-green skin.
She trailed a series of bubbles behind her, blowing them through pursed lips as she expelled air from her over-water lungs. In response, her gill slits, previously hidden against her neck and upper torso, opened to let water flow through them.
Quite frankly, she preferred breathing through her gills than through her nose or mouth. She always felt so helpless on the surface, floundering and gasping for breath until her body remembered it knew how to take in air.
The humans who visited her little community had been shocked and disgusted at first, watching her go from gills to lungs. Now they tried to talk to her through things they called underwater radios. Human speech was funny, but easy enough to learn and understand, once she got the hang of it. They spoke a lovely, almost musical language. They had given her what they called a map, coated in some strange, clear film that kept it from dissolving in the water.
She, ever curious, taught them what her clicks and songs meant, explaining that dolphins spoke a similar language, though it wasn't exactly the same.
The mer-woman, as the humans had called her, had just reentered the water after a rare over-water visit with the little research ship. She was excited, because today a human woman would be joining her in the water. She'd watched the woman put on a second skin; it was black, and felt almost right, though it had an unnatural texture to it.
The tiny fins the woman had put on her feet had sent the mer-woman into fits of silent laughter, her throat not quite knowing how to form the sound for human ears. They all figured it out fairly quickly, though, and she heard their laughter ringing out across the water around them.
She felt more than heard the splash as the human woman entered the water. Turning, she made her way back through the reef, her powerful tail propelling her through the water at speeds the human could never hope to accomplish naturally. The mer-woman showed her excitement by swimming broad loops around her human companion, clicking rapidly with chatter even their machines had trouble following.
There was a brief moment where she was able to register sadness and guilt on the woman's face, before a heavy net snared her and dragged her from her home.
A tiny prick of pain, like a jellyfish sting, and the world around her drifted away into great, black nothingness.
