A Land Of Sea

Like Coral from the Seafloor

George had become used to this routine for the past several weeks.

Eat, sleep, wake up, repeat. Oh, and the occasional 'give the silent treatment to the pirates'.

It sounded cliché, like a book or play. All of it did, truthfully. He'd just never imagined he'd actually be there...taken prisoner on a human ship. It was just too...bizarre.

The dark ages had ended a long time ago; well, a long time ago to George. His mother had lived through them though. The dark ages when mer were stolen from their homes, plucked from the ocean like coral from the seafloor, usually taken to be killed. Sometimes slaved.

Of course mer adapted to this, and overtime grew better at hiding- but it still did little to help. That is, until mer law was decreed that it was forbidden to visit the surface.

The problem with mer law, is that it was more a standard set of regulations, rather than enforceable rules. While in theory, pods would be the ones to enforce them, and as such, hold their own accountable, it didn't always work that way.

George's pod wasn't too strict, from what he'd seen while traveling with others, but they also weren't the most lenient.

Now he wondered if his mother had been less worrisome, if he would have ever dared to visit the surface. It seemed unlikely, George wasn't the most rebellious out there. Maybe he would have though- maybe Karl would've dragged him along. Maybe it would have been a common occurrence, to test their luck in the world.

But his pod preferred to follow mer law.

Quackity, on the other hand, had told George that his pod was two things: small, and relaxed. Relaxed, meaning they had little regard for the safety of their kind.

That was why for hours on end, George would sit and listen to the purple-scaled mer go on about how he wanted to study mer law, and help fix the system. It made George smile from time to time, and he often wondered if someone like Quackity had done so years before, would he be on this ship right now?

He suspected not, but then again he hadn't either suspected to be tangled in a net and thrown aboard the ship like an object to be used.

Regarding objects, George had learned of an assortment of odd human ones he'd never seen before. Of course, Minx and Quackity often warning him of speaking to them, but every now and then he couldn't quite help but stare for a bit too long.

"What're you lookin at?" A blonde haired boy, on the younger side, questioned him. George snapped out of his trance, realizing just what he'd been doing. He said nothing, only peering into the other's blue eyes curiously.

"What, too much of a pussy to answer?" He scoffed, and George debated with himself for a quick moment before quipping up. "That is what?"

Speaking in English, he realized just how much his accent sounded like the blonde boy's, which he found intriguing.

"A compass?" He held a grin to the words, and George wasn't sure if it was tied to the question, or the phrasing of the question, which George himself knew to be incorrect grammatically but didn't give enough of a care to the foreign language to fix it.

"Oh." George replied, as if the answer had satisfied him. So..what was a compass?

As if reading his mind, the blonde boy continued on. "It points north, all the time. Like.." He paused to think for a moment. "Like how you guys have that ability of direction inside you or some shit, this helps us do that."

George only nodded, unsure if it was the satisfaction of knowing what a compass now was, or that the boy knew of that part of mer culture that had grown a smile on his face.

Soon enough, the boy left, and George was seen to turn around by the other 3 mer in the room. They weren't used to much noise beside the crashing of waves against wood and footsteps overhead, so the small chatter had woken Quackity, while the other 2 had listened to the conversation tentatively in silence.

"So what was that about?" Foolish pressed, and George laughed a bit. "I was wondering what the thing he had was."

"Yeah, and you shouldn't've asked 'bout it in the first place!" Minx pitched in, and George only scowled in return.

"I still don't know how you guys do it, I've always wanted to know English. Could you teach me!?" Foolish asked excitedly, as the revelation of that possibility dawned on him.

Now it was Quackity's turn to speak, still groggy from his sleep. "Minx is right. You shouldn't be talking to those..those land-walkers. So no, we aren't going to teach you Foolish."

He looked a bit sad at that, so in an attempt to lessen the blow, he added on, "Plus, only warriors are supposed to know it. It's tradition, you can't go against the gods."

It seemed to work, if only a little, and the usually ever-cheerful mer perked up. "Well what was the item anyway?"

"A compass. He said it's like...directions to north?"

"Huh, that's kinda weird. North is that way, why do they need directions?" He added an appropriate gesture to compliment the inquiry, pointing in a general direction to explain his confusion. George chuckled, leaving the question unanswered as he decided to take a small nap.

Sometimes the human that fed them would look down at the mer in pity, but moments like this, moments that showed mer were clearly superior to humans, made him feel pity for them.

Maybe they were just misguided.

What was he thinking? They were nothing but greedy walkers who believed they were gods among mer. George scoffed at the thought, drifting off to sleep once again for the day.

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Word Count: 991
Date: 23/05/21

HFKAGSJS HOLY FUCKING SHIT THIS HIT 1K READS, Y'ALL THIS JUMPED UP 600 VIEWS IN 3 DAYS. WTF HAPPENED. Y'ALL WENT BATSHIT CRAZY

ANYWAY THANKS ERM- If ya have any questions don't hesitate to let me know please just tell me if there's anything confusing or if you have any ideas, I made an announcement on my profile with a bit of info if y'all are wondering but whatever anyway, thank you so much

Byeee