Author: theopoling

Leo woke up on the shore of the pond, naked, human, and soaking wet, gasping for breath.

“Leo!” Someone exclaimed, but his ears were too full of water for him to tell who.

He shook off, roughly, like a dog. His ears popped.

“Give him some privacy,” a sharp voice hissed. That was Yasmin.

He saw her teal skirt move toward him. She pulled off her oversized hoodie and held it out as a privacy screen.

“Thanks,” Leo mumbled, thoughts swimming around in his head. He stood up on shaky legs, wiggling his human toes. He changed into his clothes, shivering in the October night. The bonfire was just embers now, illuminating everyone’s faces in deep oranges and reds.

When he was finished, he stepped out from behind Yasmin’s privacy barrier.

Ash stepped forward. “What happened?” they asked. “We thought you were dead.”

Leo’s heart pulled at the emotions in their voice. “No, I’m okay,” he said, offering a wobbly smile. “I was supposed to be down there. Turns out, I’m uh, a Mer person. And I’m going to help them.”

His words were met with silence, only the last crickets of the fall chirping to fill the void.

“Dude. Seriously?” Tinashe eventually said.

Leo nodded. “Like, full tail and everything. But only during certain moons.”

“So you’re a were Mer person,” Juan said, raising an eyebrow.

“That’s awesome!” Ruby said. “I know we just met, but I am so proud of you.”

Ash checked their watch. “Just as midnight hit. Fitting.”

Leo nodded, smiling.

Wait. “Midnight?” he gasped. “It’s already midnight? My parents are gonna kill me. I gotta go.”

One at a time, Leo got a firm hug from each of his new friends. They traded numbers, promising to text him when they met next.

With that, Leo ran through the night, his feet carrying him out of the woods and back onto the neighborhood streets.

Heart pumping, Leo whooped as he ran.

He was ready to meet his new life head on.

Maybe he would like it here.

The End

When Leo awoke, he was no longer in the air bubble at the bottom of the pond.

He was lying on the pond floor, sand and silt settling into the crooks of his elbows and his collarbone. He felt it more than saw it. It was dark.

His head hurt, and the darkness and confusion set his heart to racing. He was breathing underwater–not using his nose or his mouth or his lungs, but something else on his neck, gills, they must be gills–and it was effortless, but he was afraid he’d forget how to do it, he’d let water into his lungs by breathing the wrong way, and then what? Then it was really the end.

His breathing turned to gasps.

“Leo, please calm down,” a voice said from the darkness.

Aristea. It was Aristea’s voice.

Leo’s memory of recent events flooded back to him. It didn’t slow his heart rate down. “Aristea?” he tried. He spoke from somewhere deep below his sternum, in that muted, bubbly way Mer people did.

“Put on a light,” Aristea said.

“How? Can you do it?”

“Hold your palm open,” Aristea said patiently, ignoring his request. “You’ll feel it in your veins. Let it bleed.”

Aristea’s instructions were just as vague as any elderly wizard on a magical quest, but Leo didn’t complain. He tried to calm the tremors in his hands, tried to breathe in and out slowly, and opened his palm toward the sky. Just like Aristea said, his veins started to itch, like something wanted to come out. So he let it, letting out a breath as little beads of light splintered out from under his skin and coalesced together in his hands like a party full of fireflies.

It was nowhere near as bright as the light Aristea had cast when he first fell down here, but Leo supposed there was a learning curve. It was bright enough to illuminate Aristea, and himself.

Himself.

Leo looked down at his body.

He was naked. His torso was angular and shimmery like the other Mer people’s, covered in scales and gills. His hands were webbed, his nails indigo blue. And, from the waist down, he was a fish. A big ole fish. From the looks of it, his tail was a deep, opalescent, seaweed green, with many small cilia at the fishtail base.

His chest was masculine, with small pecs. His arms seemed a little broader, too. He felt his face, realizing the bone structure had changed. He picked up an old, littered potato chip bag from the pond floor, squinting at his reflection in the aluminum packaging.

“Oh my god,” Leo breathed.

He looked like himself. His real self, the one in dreams and the one he doodled. The one he knew deep within his spirit.

“Your time is up,” Aristea said. “Mer people, when turned, experience their Mer forms, but unless it’s under one of the right moons, it won’t stay. You better swim up so you’re prepared when you turn human again. Oh, and here’s this.” Aristea handed him a plastic shopping bag tied tightly closed. He could tell by the shape of it that it held his clothes and his costume, which felt like something that had happened a lifetime ago. In a way, it had.

Just as Aristea said, Leo began to feel off. Vibratey, discordant with himself, in a way that suggested it would only build from here. Kind of pukey, too.

There was so much left to say, so much left to learn, so much he needed to do. For now, though, his lips were burning, his hands aching, so he gave Aristea a quick wave before power-swimming toward the surface faster than he’d thought possible.

Just as he broke the surface, light exploded from his hands, enveloping him in a swath of white, and warming him from the inside out.

“Oh, uh, wow,” Leo said, mind racing  as he processed Alfia’s words. He could be a pond Mer. A mer-person. But not just any mer-person. A were mer-person. A were mer-person witch.

Who could shapeshift, look like anything.

Look like himself.

Leo understood, on a practical level, that this was a big decision. That this would change his life. That there would be problems–big problems. That it wouldn’t magically make his life any better or any cooler. That he would have responsibilities.

Leo had read his fair share of fantasy novels. He knew it was not a unicycle ride through a spring park.

Knowing all this, he still knew his answer, immediately, enthusiastically, and without reservations.

The answer was yes.

He’d always loved the water, he’d always been a dreamer, he’d always been queer. He’d always wanted to help people, stopped by a powerful loneliness and shyness. A powerful fear.

This was, in one sense, a purpose for Leo. A commitment.

He was crying, but it was underwater, so no one could tell. Still, his throat was tight, his chest burning. He didn’t deserve this gift.

“Yes,” he said. “You can do it. I want to help.”

Alfia grinned. They made some sharp, loud noise, like a dolphin at a rave, clicks echoing through the murky water. A half dozen mer-people showed up, forming a circle around Leo, including Aristea, who looked pumped, shaking and dancing in place.

“Are you ready?” Alfia asked.

Leo squared his shoulders, lifted his head, and nodded.

Alfia swam forward, coming close enough that Leo could see the glittering chips of green and blue in their eyes. “This may hurt.”

Using their webbed hands, Alfia tilted Leo’s neck, exposing the tan skin to the glowing light.

“I’m doing it in 3, 2, 1,” Alfia said.

Then they bit down, their sharp teeth piercing the skin of Leo’s neck.

Leo bit his lip, cutting off a pained groan. He’d had his blood drawn before, but this was way worse. The pain was sharp and unending, beating out a rhythm that felt like he was bleeding out, he was dying. Had he made a mistake trusting these people? Was this actually the end?

His eyelids fluttered, his fingers and toes going fuzzy. Just before he could pass out, he felt his body growing warm all over, vibrating and tingling through him like he was in a jet-fueled hot tub.

The whole world went bright, stadium-light white, then disappeared in a slurry of bubbles.

Okay, Leo could get down with this. The knowledge that gender mattered here, too, that they looked at it differently, inspired Leo. This was no Harry Potter. “So what did you mean you’ve been expecting me?”

“Oh, there’s a kind of prophecy or something,” Aristea said. “Let me get my egg-parent.”

Aristea disappeared into the tealy gloom, out of reach of the orb of light they had summoned. A beat later, they came back with an older-looking mer-person who had a darker-colored tail and some scars across their shoulders.

“Greetings, Leo,” the new person said. “I am Alfia, keeper of the prophecy.”

“N-nice to meet you,” Leo said. “I’m Leo.”

“Yes,” Alfia said, “I know who you are. The prophecy speaks of a young human boy, misunderstood and unseen by his birth community, who will act as a bridge between worlds, connecting the mer-people to the witches on land.”

Leo swallowed, his ears going hot. “I’m really sorry,” he said. “You might have the wrong Leo. I’m just some kid. I have no idea how to do all that.”

Alfia’s green lips wobbled up into a slightly comical but no less genuine smile. “Oh, child,” they said. “You do not need to know anything. You just need to be exactly who you are.”

“Easier said than done,” Leo said weakly.

“We can help, possibly,” Alfia said. “I have an offer for you.”

Leo waited for the mer-person to continue.

“We are pond Mer. There are Mer in the oceans, in rivers and streams. We are all different from each other, but connected by our love for the water and what it gives us. Us pond Mer have a special ability. We can change our forms. 

“For this reason, we welcome our young ones, our tad-Mers, to experience and change forms as much as they like. It takes some energy, and can be tiring, but it has led to a community of people who deeply understand each other and value themselves. 

With one bite, I can transform you into a Mer person. However, it will not be as though you were born one of us. You will still maintain a part of your human heritage. This means that, under a full moon, a new moon, and a half moon, you will be Mer, but under other moons, you will be human. If you desire to spend your days in the water, with us, we can find a way to do that. So how does that sound?”

Leo had just enough consciousness left to nod in affirmation.

His mouth popped open, desperate for oxygen.

Instead of filling with cold rushing water, Leo took in a ragged, gasping, but completely oxygenated, breath.

He opened his eyes.

He was at the bottom of the pond.

A glowing light about the size of a lightbulb illuminated the water around him. Beneath his feet were sand and stones and shells.

He was in an air bubble as big as those human hamster balls Leo had been hearing so much about.

Just outside the air bubble, small, brown fish swam past.

And there was a person floating there looking at him.

Except they weren’t a person, not exactly, at least. They had a tail, like an actual fish tail. It was brown-gold and scary and lined with fins, and looked way different from Ariel in the Little Mermaid. It was a lot more… fishy.

They had a human torso, but their skin was toned grey-blue, and was just as scaly-shiny as their tail, with gills lining their sides like ribs. Their fingers were webbed, their lips plush, their nose slitted and smooth against their face. Their ears were pointed like Spock’s and had small cilia fluttering off of them in the water current. Their hair moved in one big piece, oily and slick.

And their eyes.

Their eyes glowed orange, with dark pupils like a cat’s eye.

Leo was frozen. He stared at the other person in shock.

It was a lot to take in.

The fish person lifted a webbed, blue hand and waved it. Their bubble lips pursed in an awkward smile. They hugged their other arm around their sparkly torso. “Um, hi?” the fish person said. It was bubbly and strange, but somehow Leo still heard it, still understood. “Are you Leo?”

“Um…” Leo wasn’t sure how to respond. You didn’t really get taught the protocol for this kind of thing in school. “Yes?”

“Oh, good, cool,” the mer-person said. “I’m Aristea. We’ve been expecting you.”

“Oh… wow,” Leo said, feeling like an idiot. “What pronouns do you use?”

Aristea blinked and cocked their head. “What?”

“Like how should I refer to you? She spoke, he spoke, they spoke…”

Aristea shrugged. “Any of that is cool,” they said. “We don’t really use the same uselessly exclusive social constructs down here.”

Leo disappeared underwater.

He closed his mouth to stop the questionable water from getting in. He wasn’t prepared to taste that earthy latte. It was pitch black, blacker than black, with no sign of light. The water got deep enough that his feet couldn’t touch the ground.

He came up for air, gasping for breath and treading water.

“Leo–” someone called out.

And then he dove.

Eyes closed, mouth closed, wishing he could close every orifice, Leo swam toward the bottom of the pond. His hands and feet were so cold now that they hurt in little sharp points, like pieces of glass were sticking into him from all sides.

More than anything, he wanted to give up, to leave, to swim back to the surface and give his friends an embarrassed and rueful grin.

But he didn’t.

How many times in his life had other people pulled him back from stepping into water? How many times had he been rescued from zoo enclosures and mall fountains full of wish pennies? Too many times to count. His parents loved bringing it up at family reunions, though he knew that in private they were concerned about him.

This was the first time he’d actually done it. He’d actually succeeded in bending to the will of the water, to the urge to bury himself in it.

Leo expected to hit the bottom of the pond after six or seven good paddles. He’d been on the swim team in middle school for a hot minute and could really pick up speed.

But it didn’t happen. The water seemed to be endless. Leo’s chest grew tight, burning, his hands numb, his paddling weak.

Was he going to die here?

Was he literally going to die here, in some random pond in the middle of inhabited suburbia in the midwest?

The water around him grew warm. A weak, teal-white light started to glow beneath him. He was too tired to move. His eyelids fluttered open, his throat begging to open up.

Yep. This must be what dying felt like.

He closed his eyes. At the very moment he decided to give up, to breathe in the water, a warm and slippery hand clutched his.

“Let us help you,” a wavering, underwater-y voice said, somehow in his head and not. “Will you let us?”