Chapter Text
You spend more time at the cabin that spring than you ever have before. You help trim the apple trees, chop wood, tidy the woodshed, lower the dock; you bathe in the lakeshore sauna, you swim, you rip up perchgrass from the eutrophying shoreline while cursing the nearby truck stop and its road salt runoff.
You meet Sun on the dock ladder during the first month of summer. A blank-eyed face gazes up at you from the underwater ladder steps.
You stare.
The mer pops to the surface and his nostrils widen slightly before he waves a webbed hand at you.
"Hello!" he exclaims in a voice like a tropical bird and surges right at you.
"Ah!" You stumble back. Too sudden, too close.
The mer just keeps going.
"New neighbour! I wanted to welcome you! We should—we should have good relations if we will be neighbours! I have a gift for you!"
He slaps a fat silver-black fish onto the deck, holding the wriggling fish with a clawed hand and baring a crescent of teeth at you.
"Uh... That's..."
It's the biggest fish you've personally seen come out of this damn lake. Not the mer—the actual fish. Although the mer is big, too, but that's normal for waterfolk.
"I-I didn't know there were waterfolk here", you stammer. "Isn't it awfully polluted?"
"Yes!" He agrees with too much gusto and heaves himself fully onto the deck.
You take another step back.
The mer is all shades of gold with deep red fins and a rosy, striped fade to his tail. His face is haloed by fins like sunflower petals.
"But other lakes are worse!" He continues, seemingly unphased. "And this one has much fish! Here!" He pushes the fish closer along the deck boards.
The fish flops listlessly under the mer's hand. It's not hump-backed like a crucian, green and slimy like a tench or bill-snouted like a pike.
"What fish is it?" you ask.
The mer tilts his head. "A whitefish?"
"Oh. Oh!" Those are good! "You're giving it to me? Really? Why?"
The corners of the mer's grin go lax. "I'm welcoming you to our lake, good friend!"
He did say that.
He thinks you're an idiot.
"Uh, right, of course. That's really nice of you."
What are you going to do about the fish? Turning down the gift could be rude. A bucket? No, wait, there's the fish corf.
"Give me a second?" You back to the shore and pick up the washing machine drum leashed to a tree by the shore, and bring it over to the mer. "I can store the fish here until I need to eat", you explain as you offer it towards the mer with the lid open. You need to look up how to prepare whitefish.
The mer studies the contraption for a moment, his grin frozen on his face. He picks up the fish and plops it in the darkness of the drum.
You close the lid and drop the drum in the water next to the dock. The mer turns his head to follow your movements.
"Thank you for the fish, um...? What should I call you?" you venture.
The mer's grin widens and he sticks his long-fingered, webbed, clawed hand out at you. "Welcome! I'm Sun! And you, friend?"
"It's nice to meet you", you say politely and introduce yourself. His hand is cool when you grasp it, close to ambient temperature.
"It's nice to meet you, too!" he agrees. He shakes your hand too much.
Nobody else has mentioned being greeted by a mer. Asking him about it would be rude. You glance at the glimmering surface of the lake when he releases your hand. It looks inviting, but the beatifically smiling mer's manner is jarring.
Then again, this is your damn dock and you have a right to swim in this damn lake.
You take a moment to stretch. "Well, I came here for a swim, so I'll take my dunk and get out of your hair", you say with purposeful lightness.
"Oh! Yes! Of course!" Sun presses his hands together, then slips over the dock's edge into the water.
You take the ladder, then spend the next fifteen minutes trying to coax yourself off the last step.
Sun remains nearby, swimming back and forth. The longer you take, the more agitated he becomes. "Why are you taking so looong?" he demands.
"It feels cold!" you respond.
"It's not!"
"It feels like it is! Don't rush me!" You could tell him he doesn't need to wait for you; really, it's strange that he is waiting. He might find it insulting, though, and, well. He had said it'd be best to have a good relationship as neighbours.
You finally manage to let go of the ladder, and squeak as the cool water engulfs you.
"Cold! Cold!" You huff and start swimming away from the dock. The perchgrass strokes your legs as you swim, and you reach down and grab some, tugging it loose.
Sun swims past you to your left. He doesn't camouflage well, even underwater, but there's enough humus in the water that he needn't worry about being easily spotted at distance.
"Why do you rip up the pondweed?" He asks after surfacing.
"Well, it's—It's a sign of euthrophication. I guess removing plants slows it." Though removing it at these amounts doesn't really help that much. "It's also just unpleasant to swim through and stuff. Uh... Is that okay? You don't, like, eat it or something?"
"No!" He swims around you again. "You can pull it up. The pondweed bothers us, too!"
You rotate to try and keep your eyes on him. "There's other waterfolk here?" You ask.
He stops swimming circles around you. "Oh, no! Just me!" He giggles and dives, swimming around you again once he resurfaces.
You huff and swim back towards the dock. You won't push the issue if he doesn't want to share. He's probably at least as wary of you as you are of him. There hasn't been anything on national news about killings between your peoples for as long as you can remember, but hunting waterfolk wasn't outlawed until seventy years ago or so. Members of your parents' generation might still feel tempted to handle their apprehension with buckshot, and only be held back from it by the law.
You slap the perchgrass on the deck and climb up, taking a seat between the handles of the ladder.
"Well, it's probably good you're here. For the lake, I mean. I hear it's overflowing with crucians and tenches."
Sun swims closer until he can hold onto the dock ladder and giggles. "It is!" he agrees. "We will not go hungry!"
You don't call him on it.
"I'll bring you something in return. For the whitefish." You could bring him some of the lemonade you'd made from dandelion blossoms. "Can you eat plants?"
"Yes?"
"I could bring you something."
"Ooh! Yes, please!" He giggles again. It's kind of cute.
"Okay." You're getting chilly. You stand, then lean over the edge of the dock and wave awkwardly. "I'll see you later, then."
"Bye, friend!"