“And I said, what about, breakfast at Tiffany’s,” I sang in a quiet voice as I dug through my large duffle of clothing. I was sitting on an empty stretch of rocky shore on a tiny island on the Pacific side of Cabo and the sun was just rising over the horizon. There was an abandoned house with a well on the island and I’d washed my scavenged findings there during the last rain storm. They smelled like the sea but so did I, nothing to be done there.

As I hummed the chorus, I found a sleeveless black shirt with lace across the upper back. The top edges of my gills might show but my backpack would hide that. It also matched the thigh holsters with dive knives I strapped on but hopefully no one would see those.

Wait- could you wear a backpack or knives to breakfast? Oh dear. What did I tell her my name was? I didn’t have one and you cannot say “#42” was a normal self title. Maybe if I was a video game character, there was that “7 of 9” chick I saw in a meme on my tumblr.

I shoved that away, pulled on a bikini and told myself to get a grip. I had to learn to socialize with humans if only because I was one, well half. I WANTED to socialize with Veronica. And I’d figure out the damn name thing.

Language I hissed at myself, knowing that some people found it offensive. If I thought it, I’d say it. And I didn’t want to offend Veronica. I wanted her to like me.

Why? Maybe the gods had the answer, but I sure didn’t. Something about her made me feel interested in a human for the first time since I’d learned most of them saw me as an experiment or a monster, a prisoner to be kept secure.

I shoved most of the clothing back in the duffle and stored it in the house. Into my dry bag went the shirt, a flowing silver blue skirt and sandals, a small purse with a Spiderwoman wallet, my backpack and my tablet.

When I walked into the restaurant at 08:30, I felt like there insects in my stomach. My hair was held back by braided sections, backpack hiding my tendrils and I was still agonizing over what to call myself when the waitress came up to me and asked what I’d like to have.

I opened the menu and scanned over it, many of the items things I’d only heard of and the prices well within the cash I’d brought with me. “Orange juice,” I answered, still looking at the food items. There were so many choices! “And the steak and eggs and a blueberry muffin and um… oh, is the French toast good? I’ll take a side of that too.”

“All for you?”

The look on her face told me I’d said something wrong but I didn’t know what. “I don’t eat in restaurants much, is that wrong? It all looks so good.”

“Don’t worry. You’re fine, sweetie, I’ll get this in. Be out in a bit,” she said and walked back through the mostly empty dining room while I pulled out my tablet.

Google search, “what do I name myself”

Oh, there’s a wiki, I’d heard those were helpful. Hmm a fictional character? But I only knew movies and those comics I’d picked up. I’d already called myself a water spider…

That was still on my mind some time later when Veronica came up to me and plopped down into the seat across from me. She seemed to explode in a burst of speech upon her butt hitting the chair.

“I’m so sorry I’m late,” she said, her brown eyes glowing like backlit amber. It wasn’t powers or anything, just the force of her personality. “And then I wasn’t sure what to wear or if you’d even show up or anything. We didn’t exactly have a long conversation last night. And then Mauricio woke me up at 830, thank God, to remind me we’d gotten the Critter Cam and ask could I pick it up on my way back in a few days. They’ll only send it so far, but I’m so excited, we’re going to see behaviors no one’s documented in reef sharks in the Sea before.”

“You really love sharks, don’t you?” I asked when she paused for a breath.

A blush stained her cheeks and she looked away as if embarrassed. I wasn’t sure why she should be though, sharks are wonderful. Her voice stammered a bit when she answered. “Sorry, I-um-that is, I have always loved them. Sorry, we can talk about something else?”

I shook my head. “We’re kindred souls- wait its spirits, kindred spirits, in this. I love sharks too, great whites are some of my dearest loves.”

“Really? You’re not saying that to be nice?”

I couldn’t help but laugh. Like I knew what to say to be nice versus mean. “No, I am being honest. I love the ocean, its more home than land is to me.” Another half-truth. “Though I guess most people aren’t shark fans. How did you become one?”

This opened the floodgates to her talking about her life over the course of breakfast. Yes, she raised her eye brows over the amount of food I’d ordered and eaten every bite of. But she didn’t say anything about it as she ate her omelet and toast.

Veronica had been raised in a variety of foster homes after losing her parents as a small child. She’d busted her butt in high school to land a scholarship to UCSD for marine biology and specialized further into ichthyology and was currently working on her doctorate. She lived with her boss and his wife who were part of the research team she worked for.

It was so far beyond my realm of experience that I hung on every word, coaxing her onward when she talked about helping rehabilitate a lemon shark on an internship in San Diego and how she’d cried to see it swim off back into the bay to rejoin its kind. She talked with her hands, using them to describe sizes, motions or just emotions. I hadn’t seen that before, but I loved it. It was as if she had so much information inside of her that it took more than words to share.

I’d just paid for my food and she for hers when she caught herself. “I’ve been doing all the talking, what about you? Other than a rough childhood, what’s your story? Oh my god, what’s your name? I keep forgetting to ask.”

“I’m Gwen Elder,” I said, going with the “pick a favorite fictional character’s name” idea. I thought the Spider Woman was amazing and even if my tendrils weren’t quite like webs, I could use them to climb. “And I’m pretty simple, I guess. Rough childhood then left a few months ago and have been living on my own since. I look after a friend’s kids most of the time, but they’re old enough to be left on their own for periods of time now.”

Okay, great white shark pups were self sufficient from moment one but no need to elaborate on that. I knew humans didn’t hang out with sharks like I did.

“Gwen,” she sounded as if she was tasting the word. “That’s pretty. And I get not wanting to talk about your childhood. It’s okay, really.”

The waitress brought back our change and I left it on the table as a tip. From the look Veronica gave me it might have been a bit much but the waitress had been really nice.

I shifted my shoulders under the backpack, hoping the motion hid my tendrils shifting slightly. They were rather cramped. Maybe a cloak would hide them better?

“What are your plans for the day,” I asked. “I don’t have anything time sensitive in mind and I like your company.”

There was that blush again. “You’re so straight forward, almost blunt.”

“Is that bad?”

“Not at all,” she waved her hands at me as if negating it being bad with her whole being. “It’s refreshing, to be honest. God, so many women just want to play games even just being friends. I like straight forward. And I doubt you’d ever tell me something I wore was cute when it made me look fat.”

“How the hell are you fat?” I ran my eyes down to her toes and back to those amber eyes. “You’re a free-diver and a scientist, that’s a lot of physical work. How can anyone say you’re fat?”

And cue the lecture on how most females were made to feel as they were thin never enough from day one and how lucky I was to not have that issue. (Nah, I only worried about my tendrils, not getting fat.) This took us out to the lobby where I waited while Veronica ran upstairs to grab her own bag so we could go for a walk through town.

I ended up with three new skirts and a pair of shorts to add to my clothing stash, and Veronica bought a couple for herself as well. She’d said there wasn’t much to shop at near her research site and getting away was difficult. Then she asked about Facebook, which I didn’t have an account for. I didn’t tell her about my tumblr though, it would have given away what I was. Who I was. Why I couldn’t invite her back to my place for dinner. Or invite my young charges out to dinner with her. It felt like there were a great deal of, if not lies, then half truths on my side and I hated it. We ended up trading email addresses and she gave me her phone number to text her with once I got mine set up here in Mexico. I could get a prepaid one that was waterproof in town or something.

We spent the entire day together and were walking along the beach after dinner, hands entwined when I heard a sound that shredded my peaceful evening. I looked out toward the water and could see what looked like a living mass of nets before a wailing cry split the air.

Dropping her hand, I flew to the surf line at a dead run, my bags dropped on the shore. Veronica followed suit as she saw what was in the water and we both kicked our shoes off. There was a distressed screaming on the air, the wails echoing in my head. I spared her a glance as I shimmied out of the skirt then threw it, my backpack, and shirt to join my other things, tendrils fanning out around me. I was busy pulling off a dive knife to hand to her she looked at me. At my back.

“Madre de Dios, what are those?!?”

“Tendrils,” I said. “Later, we have to help her. She’s endangered and pregnant.”

A hand closed on my arm before I could dive. “Promise? Cause I knew you were hiding something but that’s kinda really fucking weird, Gwen. We can’t have whatever we have if I don’t know what those are.”

“I have gills too,” I added, laying a hand on hers and removing it to wrap around the dive knife in its holster. “Let’s get her free and then we’ll talk.”

Another scream added urgency and I trusted Veronica to manage herself as I dove under the surf. Tendrils helped launch me along the swiftly dropping sea floor as my lungs deflated and my gills filled with water. I could taste blood again.

In the water I could hear her better, concern over her young forefront in her mind as I got to her. I told her we’d save them both, if only she could hold still at the surface. Veronica would need her to if she was going to help. I dove beneath to see a mass of nets, rope and soda bottles tangled about her fins and tail, the mass and weight dragging on the exhausted young female.

She was about ten meters long and trailing another ten of ropes. The bottles and floaters would keep her at the surface making it harder for her to dive for food. She’d heard through the oceanic gossips that the child of a god was here and maybe I could help.

I didn’t shout at her that she’d just blown my cover. I did remind her to stay at the surface and be careful of the human who was helping me. She shuddered, fear and loneliness her primary emotions as I started sawing at a snarl of nets on her left fin. A second set of hands appeared and I looked up to see Veronica there.

Something in my heart swelled to see her there, I realized as I bent back to my work, chest rising as if I was breathing heavily to get enough water across my gills. With the slack that Veronica earned me, I was able to get two tendrils around the fin and lift the net with another two. She seemed startled but went to work with her own knife to help cut away layers of entangled nets.

Between her bursts on a breath of air and my own actions, we slowly freed the sperm whale of the entangling nets. I’d had to make her float at the surface upside down with Veronica straddling her tail for us to get the nets free from her flukes.

I held the nets with my tendrils and rose to tread water beside Veronica with a smile. After pushing the water from my lungs, I took a couple of deep breaths before speaking. “Are you okay?”

The starlight made it difficult to see her but she let me take her hand in mine. “I’m tired but unhurt. How did you know? How did you get her to hold still like that? I’ve never seen a whale that entangled be that calm.”

“I told her if she didn’t stay calm, we couldn’t save her and she would lose her calf,” I said honestly. My tendrils were coiling the ropes into a ball I’d drag up the beach for humans to clean up as I answered her. “But as long as she was calm, we’d get her free.”

The whale in question swam alongside us, her joy apparent even to Veronica as we conversed for a moment in the language of the sea and I spoke out loud to Veronica next. “She wants to know if you need a ride back to shore? We drifted pretty far out and you said earlier that repeated breath holds can tax you. She can take us pretty close to the beach if you want. I’d take you to where I have most of my stuff stashed but its too far for you to swim back from in the morning.”

“Beach is good,” she said wearily. “You should come back to my room so we can talk.”

“As long as my backpack is there, yes,” I agreed. I had made a promise and I didn’t want to lie to her. It seemed okay to lie to others about my background, about who I was, am. But Veronica? No, I wanted her to know me. Know the truth of me. But practicality meant I didn’t want the rest of the human world to know who and where I was. The company wouldn’t be my only worry if everyone found out about me.

I helped Veronica up onto the whale’s broad back and kept pace alongside with the trailing ball of nets. I heard her mutter, “So that’s why she never took off her backpack,” as I used tendrils and more mundane limbs to propel myself in the water. I kept to the surface to keep an eye on my human in the inky night sea.

Free of the dragging weight, the whale actually had to slow to my encumbered speed but we made decent time getting into shore and thankfully our bags were easy to spot on the edge of the surf. The whale gave her clicking thanks as Veronica slid off into the water.

Veronica was audibly shivering as we pulled the net onto the beach up past our bags. It was heavy, dirty work but I made sure we got all of it out of the water so it couldn’t be pulled back. It wouldn’t be the first or the last net I would leave on shore for humans to collect. It was their mess in the first place anyway.

I pulled on my backpack and picked up my clothes, bags and Veronica’s bags. “You’re worn out from helping me. I can manage a few bags. We still on for that talk?”

“Yes,” she said, voice shuddering a bit. “Soon as I’m defrosted and clean. C’mon, you can use my shower, right? Fresh water won’t hurt you?”

“Never has before,” I assured her. I wasn’t afraid of water. But the look of distrust in her eyes, that I did fear. What if she didn’t want to know me because of what I was?

Because of who my genetic material donors were?