Dea swam after Anuk and perched at the edge of the platform. Water licked her peduncle. She rotated to the side and watched him hoist himself up and bound up to the worktable. His lean form was fitted with a full-body, black suit that was different from his land ensemble. It brought to mind a supervillain outfit with its edgy detail and steel grey lines. Bare human feet stuck out from the leg sleeves.

"How are you feeling?" he asked quietly as he reached for a cylindrical device no bigger than her fist.

She aimed her stare at the water. Dim lights reflected on the surface, warping in the slow circulation currents.

Anuk walked over and sat down just behind her, straddling his long legs—one foot planted on the floor to her left, while the other dangled into the water on her right. She stiffened.

"Relax," he whispered, leaning slightly back—as if he expected her to turn around and swipe at him. "I'm just going to look at the implant, okay?"

She nodded.

"Did you treat this?"

His quiet exhale brushed her ear and spread a cooling sensation on her wet hair. Dea couldn't help dwelling on how close he was, yet so far.

"Just antiseptic," she said under her breath.

"Did you take antibiotics too?"

She nodded again.

"Good. I was worried you might've overlooked it."

Gentle fingers parted her short locks, tickling her scalp. She tuned in to his rhythmic breathing—he did it involuntarily every few seconds. A pleasant tingle blossomed on her skin—an electric current that trickled from her head to the neck. Baby hairs stood up at her nape, and her eyes closed.

"Cherries again," he whispered.

"You knew last time too...You weren't even anywhere near me."

He chuckled, the resonant sound coursing through her. "Mer-products are strongly scented. It makes sense."

Despite the laugh, she couldn't dismiss the unease in his manner. She wasn't the only one grappling with the miasma of impending war. A muted click flitted to her ear, which she thought emanated from his device.

"Merpeople have amazing hearing," he went on. "But...not smell."

"Oh..."

"Smell is useful on land, but not in the ocean. It's hard to describe smells in Mermish. It doesn't have many words for that. Sinhalese has more, even though roughly eighty percent of our sensory impressions are by means of sight."

As fingertips brushed her hair again, a low whirring noise registered in her brain, as well as the notion that something awoke from slumber. She made to turn.

"Hold still," he whispered. "I'm only charging the chip. It's dead, so I can't check if it's working okay."

A portable, wireless charging pad. She wondered if the brain chip needed a specialized charging pad or what she had at home would do the job.

"Where was I?" Anuk said, his euphonic rumble tinged with light-heartedness. "If I were to describe how I perceive your scent, I'd say...a fresh ocean breeze fused with zesty fruit. Heady, warm and...beautiful."

He might as well have fired a flechette into her mental shield. Her heart made a painful throb like a sputtering flame pumping out a fleeting rush of heat. Her head turned of its own accord, blinking rapidly as she homed in on the abyssal depths of his eyes. They gazed into her very soul, just inches away from her.

"I wish things were different...less complicated." A ghost of a smile hovered on his lips. "And I could just ask you out...get to know you."

She swallowed the lump in her throat with difficulty and tore her eyes away from him. "You're a human."

The words came out in a flat tone—a swipe of a blade that severed the moment. She glimpsed the spasm in his hand, before he lifted the charging pad back to her head. It was strange how that word, which once kindled wonder and possibility, now came across as an abomination. Tied to it were horror, pain and death.

"Do you hate me now?" he asked.

Her tail flukes thumped against the edge of the platform, the turbulence radiating out tiny waves. "I can't trust you."

"But you're here right now," he murmured. "Just inches away from me."

Minutes ticked by.

Try as she might, Dea couldn't push aside the part of her that wished she could just sit there and forget about everything that had happened.

A clink broke the silence, and his hand lowered the charging pad.

"It's working fine," he said. "We can remove it, but you'd have to go through a quick surgery again."

She threw a glance over her shoulder to see him tapping on his ogi. "Maybe I won't need to."

He stilled. "What do you mean?"

"You're right about what you said before. I haven't sneaked down here. They know."

A frown darkened his face, but he waited for her to elaborate.

"I'm here because Calliathron needs your help." Dea paused, gauging his reaction. "We need your Cypods, and the state is willing to pay. I'm thinking it would mean a lot for the people living here."

His words rolled out in a low voice, "They're not weapons. I didn't create them to wage war."

"Didn't you tell me that weapons don't always destroy—they can be used to defend?"

"Is that what you're trying to do? Or rather, what Hal Moray Massa is trying to do?"

She turned around to face him. "This is what we're all trying to do."

"You trust the state now?" He shook his head. "Dea, you're hurt. I wish there's some way to—"

"Why do you care?"

"I'm not allowed to care?"

"No, you humans don't care." Dea's eyes flashed as scorching heat coalesced inside, making it hard to focus. "Do you justify the atrocities your kind is committing on this planet? We should all watch while you kill, maim and destroy everything? Until there's nothing left?"

"I don't—"

"And you don't know me. I'm the queen now. I have to do what's right for my people."

Anuk straightened up and got to his feet. Frown lodged in place, he walked to the worktable and stowed away the charging pad.

"You want me to help you destroy my own country?" he finally asked.

"Well, I'm just defending my people and the oceans from you terrorizers."

"And war will solve the problem? Become a terrorizer yourself?"

"I don't think there's another choice at this point."

"There's always a choice."

How dare you make us out to be the villains here? She balled her fists. In a fit of anger, she jerked the Cypod out of its stasis and sent it on a collision course with his legs, even though bumping him would achieve absolutely nothing.

"Prohibere."

A split second after the alien word issued from his mouth, the Cypod stopped dead. She blinked. A verbal kill switch.

Dea recovered, and her voice rose an octave. "Oh, there's a choice? Tell that to the merpeople imprisoned in Kadol Doova."

His muscles tensed, and a startled expression darted over his face.

"Yeah, that's right. Serendiva is vile." Tremors shot down her petite form. "I'm barely clinging onto my sanity. It's easy for you to sit here and criticize my decisions—because you're not the victim. Bring my parents back to me! Bring my cow back!"

He said nothing.

That instant, she was transported to a fantasy where events played out the way she once envisioned—humans were merely misunderstood and problems stemmed from a lack of communication. In that world, Gramma wouldn't have lost her son and she wouldn't have experienced the searing slash of death and loss. Dea's vision swam, and she rubbed away the moisture.

In the weighted silence, anger and hate clouded her mind. She struggled to compose herself back into her icy calm.

"We will fight this war," she said, watching him defiantly. "And we need to mass produce enough Cypods for the land units."

"Are we even given a choice?" Anuk whispered.

"No. This is urgent, and the state will do whatever it takes to ensure victory." Dea straightened up, her pose as rigid and hard as her eyes. "The people here would be compensated, and there are more terms that can be negotiated. But the Callians don't know that you're human. I have put thought into it, and it's best that they don't know."

Anuk let out a heavy sigh and raked a hand through his hair.

"I will let them know that the 'Sea Witch' is merely a title reserved for the leader of this abyssopelagic colony and that I have met with the current holder of this title," Dea continued. "Muda fits the image. Let her work in liaison with Calliathron as the 'Sea Witch'."

Water lapped against the platform, minute plops filling the sonic void. Dea stopped the repetitive thumping of her tail.

"And why would you bother to do that?" he asked, his keen gaze fixed on her.

She was taken aback by the question. "I just don't want unnecessary complications."

Why do I want to keep him a secret? She hadn't given it conscious thought—her brain had automatically settled on the idea that it should be so. Now that she paused to think, images popped up—of Anuk imprisoned and interrogated for his knowledge on Serendiva. So what? She fought the ache that started to stir, mingled with a leaden pressure that almost felt like dread. I don't care. I. don't. care. She stoppered her mind again.

"Dea?"

"Well, it's settled then." She slid into the water in one decisive motion. "I'll take my leave."

When he made no response, Dea turned to look at him. He stood by the worktable, fingers drumming a discordant beat on its surface. His unwavering focus concentrated on her, the intensity enhanced under the shade of his frown.

"You're not the girl I met," he said softly, voice steeped in what could only be described as melancholia.

The simple words packed a punch to the gut.

Without a word, Dea turned on her flukes and made for the door.

That night, her weary head rested in her pod—the only familiar thing in the queen's chamber. She waited a long hour for sleep that wouldn't come.

Upon return to Calliathron, Dea had found her money stashed back in the Little Angler's cargo compartment, the bioplastic bags exactly as they were when she took them down on her first trip to the deep.

She twisted and turned the other way. In the gloom of the night lamp, items gained definition on the bedside table. All of her things had been brought to her new abode. Gramma had sorted them out for her, though the merwoman had refused to leave the mobile home.

A small object gleamed silver in the lamplight, attracting her attention like an amphipod to bioluminescence. Dea straightened up and reached towards it.

It was the insect hairpin.

She stared at it for a long minute. Clambering out of the pod, Dea fumbled with the drawer with shaky hands. Then she dropped the hairpin into the darkness within.

A second later, she slowly withdrew to her pod, glad that it was out of sight.

Animal: Fanfin Anglerfish

https://youtu.be/anDIlMVgNwk