“If Adat goes to the land, they will die.”

That’s what the Wise One said, when my parents brought me before her. My parents were a little frantic about it. I wasn’t allowed to know there even was a land until I was twelve, and only then because I saw it. I liked to explore the Nothing, the stretches of empty sea between our colony and the next, where there was very little life. One day I explored in what I thought was a different direction of the Nothing, and instead I saw the land.

My parents were furious, mostly with themselves for letting me wander so far away from home. They told me then and there about the Wise One’s prophecy. I vowed that night never to go to the land. I wanted to live. I was curious, sure, but I wasn’t stupid.

Time passed, as it always does. I grew up. I wasn’t expecting it, and neither was she, but I fell in love. The Sea Witch can cast many powerful spells, but I always say the most powerful one she ever cast was the one she cast over my heart. She hates it when I say that, but it’s true, at least to me. I told her about the Wise One’s prophecy, and she gave me a potion to carry with me in case I was ever forced to go to the land. It would keep me alive, for a price. I would have to marry a landwalker by sunrise at the end of thirteen years.

For that reason, the Sea Witch and I never married. I had never chosen a gender (merchildren are born genderless. They may choose or not choose a gender as they grow.). I wondered what that would mean for me on the land. In the sea, it meant only that I would not have children of my own. The Sea Witch is forbidden from having her own children anyway. We always thought we would adopt when the time was right.

I was a soldier. Our colony was at peace with the surrounding colonies, thanks in small part to the Sea Witch living among us. Most of my days (and occasional nights) were spent patrolling for bandits and killer sharks. The former were dealt with swiftly and ruthlessly. The latter were discouraged from the area, and killed only if necessary. They weren’t smart creatures, after all, and they are needed for the health of the sea.

It was on one of the rare nights I was on patrol when it happened. There was a storm above. I was surfacing for a better look when a small landwalker child, no more than five years old, literally fell into my arms. She must have been in a boat that capsized in the storm. Her hair was dark, her skin dusky. Her green eyes were wide with fear. She opened her mouth and immediately began to choke on the sea brine.

I did not hesitate. I popped open the potion that would allow me to live on the land, and pressed it to the child’s mouth. If it would allow me to live on land, perhaps it would allow her to live in the sea?

She was only a child. The sea can be cruel and cold, but I am neither of these things.