was obsessed with people.
“I saw one swimming,” her eldest sister had once told her. “It looked so odd, those skinny appendages flapping both ways as it tried to ride Mother Water. It made me laugh to see all those dangling bits just flopping around. Who ever heard of Kin with two flukes? It was odd, I tell you Yillen. And it had the plainest colored skin. There were no scales. And instead of fins, it had the wiggliest little things at the end of its two flukes. There were like fingers, you see, but only smaller. And it splashed around making the most unholy splashing noises I had ever heard. Even injured Great-Fish don’t make such noisy splashes when our hunters bring them down.” Then her sister got a crafty look in her black eyes. “I can see why Kin say they are good eating, Yillin. There is hardly anything protecting them, no scale, no fin, no fang…and easy catch. If they didn’t look so much like Kin, I may have been tempted to snatch a bite and see for myself I the legends are true.”
“Legends,” Yillan snorted, making a few small bubbles ruse up from her nostril-blow holes. “They seem to drive Kin crazy. As if we don’t have enough craziness with the people dropping things on our heads. What is the purpose to tossing heavy boulders into the waters near the rock outcroppings that they loved to create? Are they attempting to very slowly take over the sea by increasing the landmass? It would make more sense to build along the shoreline,”
Just as she spoke her frustrations out loud to herself, a shadow loomed overhead.
She looked up just in time to get smacked in the face by a large boulder, no doubt tossed by the stupid people. Then as she almost recovered her bearings, she had to dodge again as something vaguely kin-shaped object but one with many more appendages and really soft skin.
Delicious SMB
“People.” she gasped, before shrieking and swatting the thing off of her. “Ewwww. I touched people.”
Her active swatting caused the thing, the people to grunt as he went spiraling away form her and closer towards the deeper-deep, the place where Kin resided.
She should have turned away and swam to a different part of Mother-Water to observe the people in their natural habitat–but something made her turn back.
Maybe it was the thought of that vulnerable creature dying, for people could not breathe underwater, or maybe it was curiosity about a being that was so different from Kin. People seemed to have an intelligence of sorts, but no one had ever really studied them before in any real depth.
Maybe it was the dark red tail it left in the waters, somehow proving that it bled like Kin, which instilled some spike within her heart.
Or it could have been the declaration of several of the hunters, who wanted to capture a human, clean and carve it up, and try a few bites to see if the legends were true. For it had been said that the flesh of people was sweet and tangy and could grant one the abilities to walk on land.
Now, not too many Kin would willingly leave Mother-Water to tread upon the dark solid mass known as land, but there were a few, scientists and adventures, who would give a left fluke fin to try it out.
Also, the governing body would want some human flesh to send out raiding parties, just to blend in with humans, to know of their plans, to see if they were going to invade Mother-Water like some conspiracy theorists had put out.
There had always been rumors of a secret government cave where humans were harvested and ingested so that the scientist could gain knowledge of humans and use it in active warfare with other tribes of Kin from the far-far waters.
Ether way, the poor pitiful creature that nearly landed on her head would be discovered by Kin and would simply disappear as if it never existed.
Was that fair?
Delicious SMB
People were not thought to be worth the effort, but they did appear have societies and they reproduced, and they hunted the sea like Kin hunters…so that made them kind of sentient, right?
“Bother,” she sighed before turning and streaking towards the people, intent on getting it to a place where it could breathe.
How long did it take to kill a people by lack of air?
Her people could only go on land or even rise above Mother-Water for short periods before they drowned in the air, so maybe the same was true for people…except it was Mother-Water that drowned them.
And she was one known for rescuing the small cute creatures from people-nets, so how could she refuse to aid a possibly thinking sentient people. If the stupid fish were good enough to save, then some bigger stupid people were good enough as well, all things being fair under Mother-Water and all.
As she came to this conclusion, she realized that the people was in her arms and she was already swimming for some distant caves, caves where the air was trapped beneath the Mother and the human could comfortably breathe without drowning.
“I am a fool for big fish-eyes,” she sighed, but moved rapidly thought the water. The odd warmth that seemed to come from the people was fading and it appeared to not be moving as much as before.
She had better hurry. Maybe the loss of the read stuff was going to kill it. Besides, any hunters in the area would track the red blood-type stuff right to this area, and that would mean dissection for this stupid people.
“Well, I wanted to see people in their own environment,” she muttered. “But seeing them people out of air, will have to suffice.”
And nothing else was said as she made her way towards the cave, stupid people in tow.