The moon was high and bright when Shiro was startled awake by lights and a slam. He looked across to the shore, frowning at the sight of two bright lights twinkling by the house. They were brighter than the moon, brilliant like stars but this time Shiro did know better. The lights were man made and he had seen their kind before. The vessels that travelled on the water’s surface carrying the land folk had similar invasive lights that dazzled and danced along the surface as much as they did beneath it.

His heart began to race at the thought that perhaps the land man was going to find him using this vessel and he quickly began plotting his escape before the lights turned and faced the other direction and left the cove dark once again. Shiro let himself settle, safe in the understanding that he was alone now and he let his eyes drift, sleep pulling him in ebbs and waves like the ocean. That was until he saw the faintest movement. He narrowed his eyes to focus on it and leans forward again. It was the same land man, he was sure of it.

He watched the man find his trinket and saw the shell glint in the moonlight. The man slumped and Shiro couldn’t make out what else he was doing. Was he rejecting the trinket? Merfolk rejected such offers rarely. When they did it was a heartbreaking feat that left both parties at odds and in an awkward situation within the school. He wasn’t sure what it meant for a land man to reject a trinket.

Shiro hadn’t meant to leave the shell as an offer of courtship; that he had done only once and the memory of that final rejection still stung. He and Adam had been courting for so many moon cycles that they had lost count together. They had explored reefs and brought communities of merfolk together, relishing in each other’s accomplishments and finding new ways to admire one and other everywhere they went. Shiro had never wanted it to end. But for Adam, there had been limits. Shiro’s final mission before being taken by Zarkon for his fighting pits had signified the last of those limits.

It was tradition, that before long periods of separation between merfolk, friends, family and lovers, trinkets were exchanged as a promise of return and as a prayer for good health throughout the period of absence. Shiro had found the perfect trinket, so beautifully simple, yet unique. He had taken it to Adam and offered it to him one evening.

“I won’t accept this, Shiro. I want you to stay here - the trenches are dangerous for merfolk, you know this!” Adam had gripped Shiro’s wrists, every part of him begging Shiro to leave this mission.

“I have to go, the research is so important for our community, I can’t reject an opportunity like this!” Shiro had argued back, hurt that Adam would deny him such a valuable opportunity and failing to see how anything could go wrong. But of course it did. 

Adam refused the trinket Shiro offered and wouldn’t see him the day they left. When Shiro returned, the community had been torn apart by a family of killer whales and Shiro never saw Adam again.

Perhaps it was the menories of the scarred community burned into the back of his mind or the guilt that tore apart his heart, but Shiro couldn’t let this land creature reject his trinket. The ill fortune that had fallen upon Adam because of Shiro couldn’t happen to the land man, not when he was so broken already.

Shiro slipped into the water and slowly made his way towards the dock. He hesitated when he got there, but he pushed his head through the surface and laid eyes on the creature before him.