Speaking of hypothermia, I released Vance and pointed at his jacket.  “Wet clothes,” I ordered, “off.”

By this time they’d both started to shiver pretty violently, so they didn’t protest and just began peeling off layers.  I was thankful they kept their boxers on – I wasn’t exactly keen on this conversation being more awkward than three guys in underwear and a sarong was already going be.

“All right,” Hayden had scooted as close to the fire as he dared and was trying to get his hands even closer.  “Start explaining.  You’re…what, exactly?”

“Short version?”  I rubbed my chin, thinking about how to best explain it.  I could try the simple version, but knowing them, their minds were too inquisitive to accept anything less than the full truth.  They’d probably ask me more than even I knew.  “Mermaid, I guess.  Long version?  Supernatural.  There’s a lot of supernaturals in this world, ones you never see because humans are the vast majority and we try to stay hidden for, well, our own safety.  Fairies, vampires, demons, angels, shifters – and merfolk.  I fall into that category.  I’m a particular variety of merfolk that can change our gender at will,” I added, “which comes with the physical changes you noted.”

“Wait, wait.”  Vance held up his hand.  “So…that really was you the whole time?  Not just…someone who looked a lot like you?”

“Yeah, I’d show you, but this is weird enough for you as it is, and this cloth wouldn’t cover everything if I switched.”  Weird though it might be, I did have different feelings on privacy in my male and female forms.  Plus, let’s be honest – not even all supernaturals were okay with watching someone shift genders like that, some of them found it weird or gross, which annoyed me but I’d learned to mostly ignore it.  This whole thing was enough of a shock to them without adding watching me shift genders on top of that.

“Merfolk like me,” I switched back to the main topic, “we generally live near large bodies of water, preferably the ocean, but there are times in our lives where we basically,” how to describe this in terms humans could understand?  “We basically have to actually live in the ocean for a while.  It’s our home, we have to return to it, not just for visits, but for longer periods.  It’s built into us like breathing air is for everyone else, I guess.”  I’d particularly needed to when I left them because at that time, I had spent more than 10 years mostly living on land.  I had occasionally snuck out in the middle of the night to get in the ocean, terrified of being caught each time, but for the most part I had tried to stay out of the water as much as possible since the people around me didn’t know what I was.  Eventually, the lack of getting in the ocean regularly started to build and became an overwhelming need which resulted in me needing to live in the ocean.  I’d put it off for as long as I could, but I couldn’t reject my biology forever.

I tossed another piece of driftwood on the fire.  “When I was growing up, I lived with my uncle.  We weren’t on good terms, you know that.”  Our relationship mostly involved a lot of yelling at each other.  “He wasn’t biologically related to me – my aunt’s husband – and he was human.  He didn’t know anything about all this.  I couldn’t really get in the water there because there were too many people who might see me transform, and by the time I was 16, I was getting really antsy to return to the ocean.”  I shrugged a bit.  “I waited until I was 17 so the police wouldn’t pursue me and then I just left.”

We were all quiet for a minute, and then Hayden finally broke the silence.  “Okay, that explains why you left but does not explain why you didn’t say anything to us!  Not just about that, but any of this?  Why didn’t you ever tell us?”

I sighed, still not really looking at them.  Telling them about this world was exactly what I’d been planning to avoid.  “It’s dangerous for humans to know about the supernatural world,” I answered slowly.  “Most supernaturals leave humans alone and try not to bother them.  Once humans get pulled in, they – they can easily end up injured or dead unless they’re protected, and I – I didn’t know the magic for that.”

“What?”  Vance was fidgeting with a piece of driftwood on his side of the fire.  “The magic for it?”

“Protection marks,” I explained, “are a kind of magic supernaturals place on humans to basically indicate that the human is protected.  It indicates that the human knows about the supernatural world but is safe.  Some marks include magic themselves that can protect the human, but it depends on who made them.  Supernaturals generally don’t try to hurt humans with the marks – it’s actually illegal in our world – but if a human is essentially part of this world without a protection mark, they’ll – they’ll likely end up dead.  My parents died when I was too young to teach me that magic and it’s not intuitive.  It’s fairly advanced magic, actually.  Obviously my uncle couldn’t teach me.

“Unprotected humans who know about our world – they’re usually Hunters, those trying to kill supernaturals, so they’re usually viewed very harshly by anyone who comes across them.  To put it simply, most supernaturals will kill a Hunter if they encounter one, or at least try to, because otherwise the Hunter will kill them.  For most supernaturals, if they come across a human who knows about supernaturals but isn’t protected, they’d see it as self-preservation to kill them because the most likely scenario is that they’d be a Hunter.  Without the protection magic, there was no way I could tell you anything about what was going on, not without putting you both in serious danger that I couldn’t protect you from.  Even if I could, though, introducing you to this world is not what I ever wanted.”

I leaned back on my hands, resting them slightly behind me, as I stared at the fire.  “The supernatural world comes with its own rules.  Harsh ones, at times.  It’s a lot darker of a place than the human world.  People die in random fights with other supernaturals and that’s just how the world works.  There’s some things about it which seem cool, but a lot of our lives are spent hiding what we are, being afraid of being found out, running if we are found out, and if we’re lucky enough to be a species that lives hundreds of years?  Then we spend our lifetime constantly moving every so often so as not to draw suspicion.  I haven’t been drawn into conflict, but that’s not to say I couldn’t, plus I spend half my life underwater.  It’s not exactly something I wanted to bring either of you into.  So I didn’t tell you about what I was and I didn’t tell you when I left.  It was safer for you that way.  I knew I couldn’t explain everything in a way you’d be satisfied with,” and wouldn’t insist on coming with me, “without explaining what I was, and it was safest for both of you if I just disappeared.  Sure, in theory I could have learned the magic for the marks and come back at some point, but coming back there would have been risky and honestly – it just seemed best to make a clean break of it and let you live your normal human lives.  Without all,” I gestured around me vaguely, “this.”

They were both quiet for a bit.

“But you chose to save us,” Hayden said, “even if that meant telling us.”

I groaned and then reached over to grab a pinecone and throw it at him.  “Of course I did, you idiot – I still care about you, I wasn’t going to just let you die.  The whole point in leaving the way I did was to protect you, not so you’d try to drown yourselves in a storm when I swam off again.”

Vance suddenly got up, marching around to me.  I kind of backed off warily, but he sat down right next to me, staring me in the eyes.

“We really missed you, Morgan.  So much.”  His eyes were so full of emotions it was hard to look back at him.  “Even when the police told us we couldn’t do anything, we kept looking.  We’ve tried, we never gave up.  It’s part of the reason we travel so much, just in case we came across you.  We knew most likely you’d just drowned and we’d never find out for sure, but as long as we didn’t know, we could still try.”

I felt my throat close up a bit.  They weren’t supposed to have kept looking for me, not that much.  Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised, they’d been so important to me, I should have realized how they’d feel about losing me.  If it had been one of them that disappeared without a trace?  Sure, I’d have done the exact same thing.  Never give up.  Honestly, that was what I’d tried, in a way.  I’d spent the first few years of my life after leaving them hoping I could come up with a way to make it possible to go back to them.

I hadn’t been successful.

Hayden scooted over closer to my other side.  “I like the dreads,” he offered, reaching out to finger one.  “They look good on you.”

I shrugged a bit, suddenly feeling almost claustrophobic with them so close on either side, wearing nothing but their boxers.

Yeah, so…yes, I was in love with them and had been since I was a teenager.  I hadn’t really expected to be quite in this situation, trying to remember the other reason why I’d run away – so I wouldn’t have to face my feelings or admit that I liked both of them and could never choose between them.

I mean, it wasn’t like that was an option now anyway.  Not now that they knew.  As far as I knew, they were both straight, but I – I wasn’t exactly male or female, more some of both, and some of neither.  Even other supernaturals were iffy about relationships with oceanids or just wanted them to keep one or the other gender.  We could, but…it felt like denying a part of ourselves to just stick with one permanently.  Even if we preferred one or the other, we were both, and without someone who was okay with both sides, it was harder to be fully comfortable.  Not to mention, we’d sometimes disappear in the ocean for months on end, so, yeah, earth-bound partners were kind of rough.

“Most merfolk keep their hair long,” I tried to remember how to focus on a more neutral topic, “more of a tradition thing, but for my species – mermaids, if you will – part of the reason we wear it long is because we can switch between genders and it’s just simpler that way.”

“Mermaids?”  Vance murmured.  “You don’t seem to want to call yourself that.  What do you call yourself?”

I glanced back at him, instantly haunted by those eyes of his.  They looked intense, hungry almost.  “Oceanid,” I responded, turning back towards the fire.  “I’m an oceanid.”

“And you can…breathe underwater, swim quickly, push an entire boat, and start fires, I take it?”  Vance inched a bit closer to me.

“Merfolk have elemental magic, but we mostly use water magic.  I can use fire magic, but not very good – thankfully we didn’t need much.  I’m stronger in male form, which is why I switched, but yeah, of course we breathe underwater and swim fast.  We can also see and hear underwater, even deep in the ocean.”

Hayden reached out for one of my dreads again, and when I pulled my head away automatically, he just waited until I stopped moving before reaching for it again.  “So, were there other supernaturals back at home?  People we knew?”

I gave up on pulling my hair out of his reach since he seemed determined and just resigned myself to letting him do whatever he wanted.  “Yeah, the PE teacher was a centaur – one of the reasons I really couldn’t risk letting you know about me and not protect you.  Centaurs…tend to be pretty mean.”

“Eh, he was just mean already.  He enjoyed watching people pass out from exhaustion.”  Vance made a face.

“Yeah, but add to that actually, you know, injuring people.  Centaurs are pretty sadistic, and even if he could hold it in some to keep his pretense of being human, if he felt in danger or could even just claim he did, he’d actually have killed you without hesitating and probably wouldn’t have gotten in trouble for it because he could have claimed it was self-defense.”

“Any others?”  Hayden pulled on another dread, seeming surprisingly unbothered by the idea that our old PE teacher might have wanted to kill him.

I tried not to get too distracted by what he was doing.  It actually felt pretty good, but at least I was also distracted by Vance’s attempts to slowly get closer and closer to me, so, you know, distraction on both sides.

“One of the students was a fairy.  Fairies tend to be pretty nice, they have a lot of nature-type magic.  Plants and healing and stuff.  You would more likely have freaked him out and he’d have taken off running, but the adult fairy he lived with might have come after you.  Fairies…well, they do tend to be nice, but you still really don’t want to face one in combat, all the same.  Fairies have a lot of magic and generally know how to handle themselves in a fight.”

I paused, trying to decide if I should say something about how they were both now within inches of me, before opting for pretend ignorance and forging ahead instead.  “There were a couple of shifters – a wolf and a boar – as students, too.  The police chief and one of his officers – they knew exactly why I left, by the way, which was part of the reason they didn’t investigate or try to encourage you to.  Several townsfolk were supernaturals as well, some more dangerous than others.  It wasn’t like I was the only supernatural in town.”