It was several moons before Shiro could build up the courage to make his way back to the cove. He spent the suns circling the bay in wide, swooping patterns, flinching and cautious of everything that moved around him. He could sense the agitation in the fish that swam by him, as they left him alone and darted around him.

The sea had a magical sense of healing. Especially the warmer and shallower waters. The salt and water wrapped around his wounds like a serum and he wrapped young weeds around the gashes to keep smaller, more brave fish from nipping at them as they healed.

Shiro’s restlessness wasn’t helping them and his jolts and nervous nature was making them heal jaggedly, not neatly like others had done. He just couldn’t bring himself to lie still. He had searched for another section of the bay to rest in but everywhere smelled like land men. Nothing compared to the smell of the one he had encountered but it was everywhere.

All of his instincts flared up and screamed at him when he thought of the land man. His sense of flight heightened dramatically and he knew that he should have left the bay. But it was his space and had been for so long that he just couldn’t bring himself to give it up. That and his curiosity was preventing him from leaving. The land man had been so strange, yet so familiar. Like Shiro, his skin had been pale and soft, not dark and hard like Zarkon’s minions. His skin reminded Shiro of his people, his home. His eyes had burned themselves into the back of his head. He hadn’t seen eyes so dark, yet so full of hurt and emotion in a long time. Something was holding onto the land man and causing him a deep-rooted pain that Shiro couldn’t decipher from his memories anymore. It made him want to go back, like seeing a wounded animal and passing it by.

As the suns rose he found himself returning closer to the bay and if he slipped above the water now he could see the wooden structure settled above the beach, where the land man retreated to like a crab returning home.

Three suns and he finally made it back to the dock. He went under the cover of night, when not even the fish disturbed the water and he circled the protrusion of wooden slats. It was then that he saw the shells and glass, laid out neatly on the wood. He was unsure at first. Unsure what the meaning behind it was - was it a trap? His flight instinct flared for a moment before he calmed and recognised the gesture as one of good intentions. Merfolk left trinkets for one and other as a sign of friendship and sometimes courtship. He found it strange that this land man did the same but his curiosity built up again. He frowned, then searched for a trinket to return to him. In the end he chose a broken abelone shell. In the moonlight it looked silvery but in the sunlight it would shine with a rainbow of colour. He placed it on the edge of the wood before scarpering back to his cave again, watching and waiting.