Lace smiled back. "You know, you have a point. Maybe we should talk to even more sailors. I mean, they are the ones with most of the glass, right? If we convince them it's in their best interests to, I dunno, lose a few bottles over the side now and then... In places WE can find it, not the Parliament...”

David shrugged. “Is this a good spot? I'll be coming back from Floberg in just a few days, tides willing. I could probably pick up some broken glass pretty cheap.”

“Oh man, that would be great! But no, too close to the rocks would be all Parliament territory. Swing a bit south of the Floberg route on your way home, then come call me. I'll hook you up.”

She turned and dove, her tail fin splashing at the water a bit before David could reply that 'hooking' wasn't usual terminology for someone who was half fish.

***

“Laaaaaace…. Lace the Mermaid….” David called out over the empty sea.

“I feel silly, Captain.” The ships’ cabin boy sat in the dingy with David, holding the crate of glass. “And I ain’t never seen a mermaid before. I thought they ate young men’s hearts?”

“Well, you aren’t really a man yet so I think you are safe.” That didn’t seem to do much to alleviate Aaron’s fears.

A laugh echoed over the still water. “We don’t eat hearts anyway. Young or old. Yuck.” Lace peered over the rails of the rowboat. "Oh my goodness, you did bring me glass! Thank so much! I wasn’t sure you were serious!”

“Hey, anyone who makes the sea safer for sailors is a friend of mine,” David replied. “And not just because I am one.” In the daylight, he could see that her skin was the palest green and her hair a mix of greens and blues.

“Well, to be honest, there will still be storms and things. We can’t really get rid of all of them. Just we won’t be stirring them up on purpose, to sink people. That’s just rude.”

“Well of course. Some storms need to happen, to keep the sea healthy,” The captain agreed.

Lace raised a green eyebrow. “I’m impressed you know that. You’ve been a sailor a long time, I bet.”

David shrugged. “Long enough.”

Lace turned to Aaron. “And you? Have you been a sailor for a long time?”

Aaron stared at her and finally managed to squeak out, “Four months, ma’am.”

Lace nodded like that impressed her. “You seem to have found a good teacher. Good luck to you. You might want to get rid of some of those old fashioned notions about mermaids eating hearts, though.”

“Yes ma’am,” the cabin boy squeaked again.

Lace peered into the crate the sailors had brought. It was originally intended for fruit, so held quite a bit of broken and unbroken glass. “Ooh, there is a pretty green here. Excellent! The dolphins really like the green. One of our people is going out to try to get them back on our side, and green glass will really help.”

David was genuinely curious, and having no pressing work up in the ship, was happy to keep Lace chatting. “Why do you need dolphins? Do they get to vote in your election?”

“Oh yes! All the sea creatures get a vote. Wouldn’t be fair otherwise.”

“So not just merfolk, and not just mammals? So, all the fish? I would think that would be hard to count.”

“Well, it is a bit, but we don’t actually have to count unless it is really close.” She shifted herself to take some of the weight off her arms. “We vote by pebbles.”

“How does that work?”

“Everyone gets one pebble. They drop it into the pile of the party they want to win. Biggest pile wins. It’s usually pretty obvious who’s won by the end. And it works for the species without hands and stuff. Hard to ask them to write something, or raise a fin, or anything like that, isn’t it?”

“I suppose. As long as the pebbles are all similar size, otherwise whales could sway the vote more than plankton.”

“Oh, plankton don’t vote. They refuse. If they did, they would have to recognize the authority of the government, and they don’t want to - anarchic little jerks. Of course, that makes eating them easier.”

“Do you eat plankton?” Aaron asked.

“Nope. I eat fish, mostly. And plants. And crustaceans. And mollusks. And some other things,” Lace replied

“What’s a crustacean?” The ship's boy stumbled a bit over the big word.

“Like, crabs and stuff," the mermaid replied, making a pinching motion with her fingers.

“And what’s a mollusk?”

“You know, clams? Oysters? Scallops? Mmm, scallops.” Lace smiled.

Aaron  looked shy. “So no people?”

She wrinkled her nose. “You mean humans? No. Never.”

“What about birds?” Aaron relaxed and jumped back to more comfortable questions.

“Nope," Lace said shaking her head. "One, they are too hard to catch, and two, once you catch them they are too much work to get to the food.”

David joined the conversation. “Are birds considered sea creatures for your vote?”

“Some. I know, it’s complicated." Lace settled into her lecture. "There was an amendment about birds. They argued they should be included because the sea affects them so much. But there are rules, like, they have to spend a certain percentage on the sea, or over it, or get a certain amount of their food from it, that sort of thing. So albatrosses, for example, are in no prob. A lot of gull tribes aren’t, because they are on land as much as at sea, and they get a lot of their food from the beaches and harbors. Get it?”

“So any species that is on the sea a lot could technically vote?” the prince asked. 

“Sure. We even have otters and things that come in. They just have to prove eligibility. But it makes campaigning to all the groups HARD! Which is why this glass will help so much. We can’t go talk to the birds, but we could hire someone who safely can.”

David was truly fascinated by the topic.  “The birds would vote with pebbles too?”

“Yup, they can drop them from above, and they’d fall onto the piles. We can mark out the zones from the surface for them. High voter turnout is very important in a race like ours, where we are trying to upset the establishment.”  Lace made a grumpy face.