Leviathantale Mermay 2022 - Pearl Edition

Day 22: Goldfish

"Please Balance! I really want to show you something!”

Dream, the sun-colored goldfish, holds Balance's hand in both hands and with his friendly beaming smile asks Balance to show the dark goldfish a spot in the sun in the shallows.

Balance doesn't feel safe in the shallows since there are often strange Mers on the move who stare at him and whisper about his injuries. But their little sunfish, even though Bal is smaller, couldn't really reject anything. So he follows Dream to a sunny spot surrounded by a colorful coral reef. The sun's rays breaking through the water, throws dancing patches of light onto the sandy bottom.

Dream leads Balance by his hands to the middle of the sandy area and puts his fins up. The light of the sun's rays make his scales glitter in warm golden tones. Balance is mesmerized by the light show but not sure if that's what Dream wanted to show him and looks around the reef. And immediately Dream swam back into his view, his scales glittering and shimmering and the light dancing across his scales. Unsure if what Dream was showing him was somewhere else on the reef, Balance turns to another spot and Dream follows him again, swimming into Bal's line of sight. Again, the spots of light make Dream's scales shimmer and sparkle. Only Dream's facial expression is a bit sad now and that's not acceptable! But Balance has no idea what he did wrong!

"Dream, I don't understand what you're doing. Or what you want to show me.” Balance shrinks into a smaller size than he is, having apparently not reacted in the way Dream had hoped for, fearing that he had upset his datemate.

Dream immediately swims to Bal's side and wipes away the tears that threatened to form at the corners of Bal's eyes. “I keep forgetting that you weren't born a mer. Sorry Balance.” He hugs the smaller goldfish and kisses it on the forehead before pulling Balance back up once again "I want to ask you to a dance. It's a bonding activity among goldfish mers that's only done in shallow sunny waters.” He swims away from Balance a little bit and puts his fins back up, which immediately reflect the light. “In doing so, we copy each other's movements.” Balance absorbs the information like a sponge and hesitantly puts up his fins. He is ashamed that his head fins are partially severely torn.

"Do you think so?"

"Yes! I agree! Balance, look how pretty your scales sparkle! One could think you have rainbow colors!” Dream exclaims enthusiastically.

Balance looks down at himself and spins in the light. The rays of light make his gray scales glitter silvery and the pink, violet and blue ones shimmer and glow.

He spins around a few more times and can't believe his scales can look so pretty! "Dream, oh by the stars, look! I almost glitter like you!”

Dream swims to Balance's side and circles him in the opposite direction. Golden light meets silver, blue, violet and pink, drawing pretty patterns on each other's scales.

"You have beautiful scales!" Dream grabs Balance's hand and swims with him toward the light, to the surface of the water. Just before they break through, he lets go of Bal's hand. "And dive again..." Balance follows Dream's instructions and turns back towards the sea floor. Dream comes to him and takes his hand again. Circling around themselves, the two Goldfischmers come closer and closer to the ground. But shortly before that, Dream pulls Balance horizontally and leads him, spinning in circles, over the warm, sun-drenched sand.

Balance feels so lighthearted and laughs happily, he enjoys dancing with Dream and Dream smiles too, glad to be able to teach his datemate something new that he seemed to enjoy so much.

The reef around the two dancing goldfish was bathed in changing colors by the glittering reflections of the scales and made the underwater world appear even more beautiful and colorful.

Dream and Balance danced until the sun passed its highest point and then enjoyed the warmth of the sand before swimming back down to their other datemates.