"Wait, so this is your first time being on land?"
Seibal nodded. In the setting sun, their eyes glowed feral-cat amber and the scales of their tail were iridescent and shimmering. Like an angel, a dream, a goddamn fantasy come to life, all warm and golden and red. Faith had been ignoring Seibal's beauty all day long but the stupid sun making them look even more amazing was going to have Faith staring like an idiot and drooling soon.
She shook away the distracting thoughts as best she could and bumped her shoulder into Seibal's. "You should have told me!" she reprimanded. "Not like I could have thrown you a party or anything, but this is still a pretty big occasion! Right? Mermaids don't come on land very often?"
"They don't," Seibal confirmed, and rather than moving away from Faith they swayed their weight into her, so that they were leaning against each other. "Actually, we really aren't supposed to come on land at all. It's pretty taboo and you're considered a traitor if you do it."
Faith winced a little. "Uh, not exactly a party occasion then," she said, desperately trying not to focus on how good Seibal felt against her shoulder and side. Serious, it was a serious conversation. "So why'd you do it, if it's so terrible?"
The weight against her shuddered and increased a little, Seibal leaning closer incrementally, their gaze fixed downward. "I couldn't stay."
After a brief moment of hesitation, Faith followed her instinct and wrapped an arm around Seibal's broad but delicate shoulders. That seemed to describe them perfectly, really. Broad but delicate. They were big, taller than Faith when sitting, and their tail had to be at least six feet on its own, thick and powerful looking even when out of place in the sand. Sharp, predator teeth filled their mouth, each of their fingers tipped with a deadly claw, and they shook hands like they didn't want to hurt the other party. And while they were a bit pudgy around the middle, the strength in their core, their arms, those broad shoulders, was obvious.
And yet.
There was so much about them that was delicate. Their tentative smile, the way they laughed, even the soft, warm quality of their voice seemed strangely fragile. And apparently they were on the run, with the strength necessary to do something completely forbidden to them, but with enough weakness they would lean against a stranger in search of comfort.
Faith breathed out shakily and sank her fingers into that thick hair, petting it back from Seibal's face gently. "You don't have to tell me but… what happened?"
It took a moment of quiet contemplation and reluctance, the ocean a steady, droning presence. But eventually Seibal did tell her: they spun a sordid tale of a people too proud to change their ways, but dying out because they refused to do anything about it. And caught in the middle of it all, a young royal, not particularly important in the grand hierarchy but with enough title to garner occasional attention, sentenced to the life of a brood mother in a last ditch effort to save the species.
"If only we could talk to the humans, to tell them to stop poisoning the water and taking our food," Seibal said, just enough dejection in their voice for Faith to know this was an old argument, one they'd never won, "but no. Nobody wanted to listen to me. Humans aren't evil, they said, just conceited. As soon as they know we exist they'll just want to take advantage. That, or hunt us down." They laughed a little, voice sticky with tears barely shed.
"You know," they went on, turning to look up at Faith from where they'd put their head on her shoulder. Looking down at them she realized it really was too close, her stomach quivering, heart thumping as Seibal confessed quietly, "I thought I was done for when you snuck up on me. Here we go, I thought. I wanted to tell the humans and now I'm going to be killed by one. The old coots will never change their minds now."
Faith rubbed reassuringly at Seibal's bare shoulder. Tried to ignore the way the word human really distracted her. "No killing here," she said just as quietly as Seibal had. "You got lucky, I guess."
The smile Seibal flashed her was weak and shaky but beautiful nonetheless. "I really did."
There was a moment of stillness and expectancy where Faith was absolutely sure she was going to get to kiss the mermaid the way she'd wanted to all afternoon. She'd even started to lean in, and Seibal's eyes were fluttering closed, but then all of a sudden Seibal jerked away from her like she'd burned them
It was so sudden that Faith nearly face planted into the sand and she was forced to catch herself on her hands. "What the hell?" she said, mostly out of surprise and not anger. When she glanced up Seibal's attention was completely on the water.
Trying not to feel rejected and failing just a little bit, Faith glanced out at the ocean too. "Is there something out there?" she asked when nothing met her gaze but dark waves and the moon's wavering reflection. Shit, when had it gotten so late? She hadn't even noticed the sun setting completely.
Seibal just shook their head, offering up a rather sheepish smile. It was hard to tell in the dim light, but it looked like there was a flush to their dark skin. "No, sorry, I just suddenly realized how late it had gotten," they said, then bit their lower lip. "Can you, um… I know it's going to sound really rude, but can you leave now? You can come back tomorrow! But I just…"
Despite her limited experience, Faith could tell when she was being let down gently. She smiled as best she could through the ache spreading through her chest to the rest of her body. "Yeah, sure thing."
The plain relief on Seibal's face was the finishing blow. "Great, yeah, thanks. Um, see you tomorrow?"
Faith stood, trying and failing to brush the worst of the sand from her jeans. "See you tomorrow," she confirmed, and it was so, so difficult not to look back as she walked away. But she didn't. Seeing Seibal all laid out in the moonlight would have been too much, really.
When she got back to her car, she seriously considered driving straight home. She'd be exhausted by the time she got there, but at least she'd be back, and her parents would know she was safe. They'd be overjoyed, and she'd probably wake up to an apology breakfast of epic proportions, though really she was the one who should be apologizing.
But as much as the rejection hurt, and as surprising as that hurt was, she'd promised Seibal that she'd see them tomorrow.
Sighing, Faith dropped her head none too gently against the steering wheel, and then cursed because freaking ow. God, she was an idiot. She didn't even know Seibal, had barely learned their name earlier that day. But, as she pulled out of the parking lot and away from the beach, she knew she was going to keep her promise.
She didn't really have the funds for it, but she found another motel for the night. And she didn't even bother with the laundry room this time; the maids would have a lot of sand to vacuum up from where she'd beaten her clothes out like a rug, but it was better than nothing. She hung them up, hoping gravity would help pull some of the remaining sand out, and collapsed into the bed in just her underwear.
It was strange really. She wasn't someone who opened up easily. Even when it came to friendships, it took a long time for her to get comfortable with someone. It wasn't about being distrustful, she was just slow moving when it came to all her relationships, and nobody had ever called her unfriendly or cold. Romantic endeavors were even worse. She never accepted dates from people she barely knew (much to the chagrin of friends and family, who were always telling her she needed to put herself out there) and usually anyone she was attracted to mistook her gradual interest as reluctance, and left before anything could happen. As a result she'd only ever dated two people, and neither of those relationships had lasted very long in the end.
All that history, all those personal preferences for slow-and-steady, and here she was feeling heartsick over someone she'd met yesterday.
Maybe it had something to do with Seibal being a mermaid. It made them especially alluring, unique or something, and that's what was drawing Faith in.
But even as she thought it, Faith dismissed the idea. If Seibal had been some human surfer, a beach bum, or even some weird person hanging out in a laundry room in the middle of the night, she still would have been head over heels for them.
Faith pressed the heels of her palms against her eyes. The first time she'd ever connected to someone so quickly, so strongly, and they didn't want anything to do with her. Well, they wanted to be friends. They wanted to see her again. But they didn't want to kiss her, didn't want to be close in the way that Faith desperately did. She should be happy with what she could get, right?
Moaning like she was dying, Faith rolled over in the bed, buried her face into a pillow, and screamed until she was breathless. It didn't really make her feel better in the end, but it did forcefully remind her of her exhaustion.
Tomorrow. Tomorrow she would go see Seibal, and then she would finally go home.