TW: Mention of bullying and physical violence against a child.

I rested my arm on his back, offering a semi-hug.  “I’m not usually friends with surface people,” I admitted, “but if you want to be, I can make an exception.  And, um, I know the rest of the merfolk community, so I can help you get set up with whatever you need.  Uh, housing and food and stuff?”  That wasn’t helpful at all, was it?  He’d left wherever he came from because of everything he’d gone through, and practical stuff like food and housing was probably his least concern.  He was grieving and needed someone who understood, and the only one who really did – his wife – had left him.

I tried to think of something that could help.  Honestly, I wasn’t an expert on losing people and oceanids were extra bad at that anyway – our emotions were more closely tied to our existence and we could literally die of a broken heart.  If I’d been in his position, I might have died.  But…that wouldn’t help.

“Sometimes when oceanid kids die, we make memorials.”  I tried to remember the ones I’d seen.  “We take a favorite toy or something, coat it in stone,” via magic, “and basically set up a reef around it.  We could, um, do something like that if you want?  On land if you’d prefer, with plants, I guess.”  Maybe like humans did in graveyards?  I had no idea, I hadn’t been to one before.

Theo had stopped crying by now, but he didn’t answer, just kept sitting there, his head bowed.

Charlotte and I exchanged another look, neither of us certain what to do.

Apparently, Charlotte decided that the way to fix this was to get me involved further.  “So you know I’m struggling with muffling my sadistic side and not getting killed by a centaur herd, and Teddy’s dealing with grief, but what about you, Sage?  You want to open up and share why you don’t like coming to the surface?”

I honestly didn’t see how that would help him, but maybe it would distract him and that could help.  Just the idea of sharing this with someone other than my family was weird, but…Theo had just admitted something really personal, and maybe it would be nice to tell people?  People who were strangers and whose opinions I didn’t need to care about?

“I used to go to the surface, back when I was a kid.  I went to school in town and did all the normal stuff.  I made some friends, but, well, I didn’t know if they were human or supernatural, I never knew that kind of stuff.”  I sighed a little.  “So my parents are both dolphin shifters and I – I’m oceanid.  I don’t know why I’m oceanid, and no one’s ever really asked my parents, but somehow during elementary school a rumor started going around the school that I was adopted or an illegitimate child.  I mean, there’s a strong possibility of the second, but my dad never treated me like that, so…it shouldn’t matter?  Anyway, the only people who could have known were either merfolk or my friends, and merfolk – they wouldn’t have said anything.  Not when it would potentially draw attention that would make people question why that was a thought, since I do look like my siblings, and the only way to tell that something is different is because I’m an oceanid.  Merfolk wouldn’t risk people questioning that, so I was fairly certain it was my friends.  I hadn’t told my friends I was oceanid versus dolphin shifter because I didn’t know if they were human or not, I just said I was different from my siblings and wondered.  Because of the rumors, I started getting bullied, but that wasn’t the worst part of it.”

It hadn’t been fun, though.  My siblings were all several years older than me and not in school with me, and I’d been afraid to say anything to my parents because of what the rumors were and the implied agreement that we should all not talk about it.  And then to top that all off, I’d realized that one of my so-called friends probably had started all of this, and I’d been confused about why any of them would be that mean.  I’d started being scared of going to school every day because I knew what I’d face, but then it got worse.

“So I was being bullied, but it was all just words, you know?  Then – then about halfway through 4^th grade there was this kid who transferred in.  I don’t know what his deal was, all I know is that some of the older bullies targeted him.  Badly.”  I wrapped my arms around myself, trying not to shudder at the memories.  “Unlike me, they beat him up physically all the time and I figured out at some point that he was supernatural and some of the kids who were beating him up were supernatural, too, but others were human.  He would, uh, say stuff to them, call them names and call out their behavior, and it always just riled them up further.”  Sometimes I wondered why he bothered, but apparently he had a temper and couldn’t shut up when annoyed by the bullies.  Even though he knew what they’d do in response.  Sometimes I thought he was brave for standing up for them, other days I was terrified of what he was doing.  “Then there was this one day when – when the teachers were busy with some training thing and we spent half the day on our own, basically, and they got really bad.  I’d been trying to talk to the kid, asking him if he wanted me to talk to my parents or something about the bullying because I figured maybe they could go to the police?  But then the older bullies showed up and they just started – they started beating him up.”

I’d known something was different that day.  There was something different in their demeanors, in the kid’s, even – they knew.  I hadn’t realized it at first, but I’d been terrified, crying and begging them to stop as they hit and kick him, but when I started to get splattered by blood, I started screaming at them to stop.  One of the bigger girls had then grabbed me and held me still, her hand clamped over my mouth as she refused to let me leave and forced me to watch.  Why, I don’t know – maybe just because I was there.  Maybe because she just enjoyed making someone else suffer by watching.

“They beat him to death in front of me,” I finished quietly, hating reliving those memories.  “It was – awful.  I still don’t know if the exact kids who killed him were humans or supernaturals, but either way, it was just – awful.  I hate violence, it was bad enough before that, but seeing that poor kid killed like that, I just can’t – can’t – can’t deal with it anymore.”  Any time I saw people start to hit anyone else, it brought me flashbacks to that time in the hallway, crying and trying to fight free to go get help before they killed the kid – and being unable to.

“I didn’t go back to school after that,” I added.  “I’ve barely been on land since then.  Mom and Dad officially homeschooled me until graduation, but I just stay as part of the merfolk community.  It’s safer down there, people don’t fight each other.  I help people out, I’m friends with people, and no one – no one gets killed.  No one fights.”  I hugged my knees to my chest.  “No violence.”

“Damn,” Charlotte murmured, “that’s not an easy story, either.  Here I’m upset because I’m having issues with the centaur herd while both of you have really been through it.  I guess,” she added slowly, “that kind of triggers you, huh?  My talk about the centaur herd and fighting?  I didn’t mean to.”

“I know,” I admitted.  She really hadn’t meant to make me unhappy by telling me what was going on with her.  She actually seemed like a pretty nice person, but, well, that didn’t change what her life involved, and that I wanted nothing to do with.  “It’s okay,” I told her, even though it really wasn’t.  I just couldn’t blame her for accidentally traumatizing me.

Theo turned his head slightly to look at Charlotte.  “So…they’ll kill you if you don’t find a way to stop them?”

She sighed, glancing at me hesitantly.  “Probably, but I’ll figure out something.  Don’t worry about me.  I can’t take on an entire herd on my own, but I have a friend in the demon pandemonium, so that might help.”  She grimaced a little, as if suddenly aware of what she was implying.  “Sorry, Sage, maybe I shouldn’t talk about this for now.”

She was trying to be nice, trying to be thoughtful – that, I could appreciate.  “Isn’t there any way to stop them without violence?”  I asked without much hope.  If the pandemonium came to help, I knew what that would mean.  It would mean a fight between the centaurs and demons and someone – or more than someone – would likely get hurt.  Maybe even killed.

Charlotte huffed out a long sigh.  “Not unless you know how to scare off an entire freaking centaur herd.  We’re not scared of much, unfortunately.  We’re not stupid, like we’re not going to face down something clearly out of our league, but we’re strong enough to hold our own against your average supernatural.  I mean, maybe a dragon?  I still think the herd’s large enough they’d probably try to risk it, though,” she mused.

“Sage and I have elemental magic,” Theo said slowly.  “And centaurs rely heavily on being quick on their feet.  I wonder if we could turn the ground into mud or something and bog them down.”

Charlotte considered, then shook her head.  “That’d be a temporary fix, at best.  They’d just be more pissed off at getting trapped, and once we trap them, then what?  It’s not like it’s illegal for them to try to claim territory, and I can’t prove they attempted to murder me with that boat – they’ll probably try to get me arrested once I get back to town for stealing the boat, and I’m not actually going to have proof to the contrary.”  She seemed annoyed.

I was still thinking, feeling a little hesitant about the idea – like I was skirting around a very, very dangerous thing but I was still trying to do so in order to help – and one possibility came to me.

“You think…you think they’d agree to meet you on an island if you asked?”

They both turned to look at me.

“I mean, yeah maybe,” Charlotte’s light brown eyes were piercing, like she was trying to understand my reason for asking that question.  “Why, though?  I don’t want you to get involved, Sage – I can’t see this not involving violence and if it’s something that makes you have bad memories, you’re too nice of a person for me to do that to you.”

I felt kind of hit with a wave of warmth at her words.  She might be a centaur and a land supernatural, but she really was a nice person.  Maybe…maybe not all surface people were so bad, after all.

Which I was thinking while she was actually telling me she was going to get into a fight with other centaurs.  That made sense.

“We can’t face centaurs on our own,” Theo added gently as he also looked at me.  “Centaurs have magic, too, and while ours can be useful to slow them down, I don’t really have that much – no shifter does – so there’s only so helpful we can be.  I doubt even with our help that Charlotte can beat them all.  Although,” he considered, “I suppose if we were able to trap them in mud and then the pandemonium showed up, maybe that would be enough of a threat?  You think they’d give in?”

Charlotte was about to answer when I interrupted with the idea slowly forming in my head.

“But what if something bigger and scarier than the pandemonium showed up?  They might feel like they could fight the pandemonium, but what if it was something they wouldn’t want to fight?  Something bigger and more dangerous than a dragon, even?”

They both looked confused, Theo’s brow furrowing as he glanced at Charlotte, then at me.

“Like what?”  He asked.

A slight smile played on my lips.  “Like a kraken.”