Submerged

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Stella was amazed. " One hundred and fifty? Amazing! Some human's only live half that! " She said, with a chuckle. " The oldest human alive lived for... One hundred and twenty two years old. " She said, with some slight jealousy. " On land, we call you guys lots of names. Mermaids, Water-Nymphs, Sirens, Undines... Plenty more! I wouldn't be surprised if there was a book about you in one of the buildings. " She said, looking out the window and over at the other tower. She would have to go and check later.
 
Antheona was perplexed. "That sounds like humans know about us. And yet you were so surprised when you saw me. Why?" She could only think of one thing. "Do humans usually assume that the books about us are made-up tales? ...I won't live for one hundred and fifty though... Only the rememberers do. I will be killed eventually, maybe tomorrow." There was no sadness in her voice as she said that. Death was too real and too well-known to induce fear, and at the same time too alien to warrant it; she couldn't imagine what it would be like, so she had no reason to assume it would be particularly bad. The injury part, yes. But death... who knows? "I am about thirty now. I don't know for sure, I would have to think back and count. I wanted to be a rememberer for a while, and I still like them, but not because they live long."
 
Stella nodded. " My mom always said that Mermaids were fake, and that they were just tales that seamen told each other, just to have a story. " Stella frowned about the part- the part about her possibly being killed. Stella placed a hand on her shoulder, and smiled for her. " You might not be a rememberer now- whatever that is, but mark my words, I'll never forget you. " She said, with a chuckle.

" Who could ever forget someone like you? You're the most conversation I've had in all of my time here. Maybe more! My peers only gave me orders, they never had a real conversation with me. "
 
This time, Antheona wasn't as surprised by Stella's touch. "Your hand is very warm," she remarked. "It's nice." She put a hand of her own on it, as if to keep it there. She made a note to herself to explain the rememberers, but for now she had something more important to say. "I won't forget you either. You are helping very much, and you are a good human. Maybe the other humans don't like you, but I do. We are friends now, aren't we?"
 
Stella smiled. She had very few friends in her lifetime, but now, she had one. That was a good thing. " The best of friends. " She said, with a chuckle. Stella used her free hand, and made a fist, but let her pinky stick out and curve. " Here, friends on land have this saying, it's called a pinky promise. It's suppose to mean that as long as you have your smallest finger, you have to promise something to that person. " Stella was such the child. She chuckled happily.

" Do you promise to be my friend? "
 
Antheona imitated Stella, sticking out her little finger herself. She wasn't sure what to do with it afterwards, so she just held it there in the air. "I'm not sure how valid that is, since something might bite it off. But then we can just promise with another finger, if there are some left." She tried to stay serious, but some of Stella's excitement rubbed off on her, and she found that she could not help but smile. "I pinky-promise to be your friend." She shook her head in the direction of the keys tied in her hair, both hands now being occupied. "I think we won't need these things now. Since we are friends, we know we won't hurt each other." By now that smile was a wide grin that revealed all of her pointy, bright white carnivore teeth, teeth like a shark would have. "You can look to see if I have my little finger instead."
 
Stella laughed happily. " You can keep them. They're yours. I don't think I need them anymore. " She said. " They were for something I had back on land. I don't have it now, but if I did, I would probably ask for them back. They're yours, my friend. " She said, as she then connected the pinkies and wrapped hers around Antheona's.

She then took it away, and smiled. Her hand was wet now, but that was alright. " If you didn't have your little finger anymore, I might be worried. "
 
"Oh, I don't have plans to lose it," Antheona said earnestly. "It's not good to bleed in water anyway. If we do, we try to put the wound in our mouth. Blood attracts sharks."
She shook her head again, so that she could look at the metallic objects. It worried her somewhat that Stella spoke this way. "What you say sounds like you don't think you are going back after all. Aren't your people coming for you? You said they would. And, well... what do these do, then?"
 
Stella shrugged. " I don't think they would be any use. I always have a spare with me on land. " She said. " I had this thing, it was something humans made to travel long distances. It was called a car, and lots of people used it. I wouldn't be surprised if there was one down there. " She motioned to the hole over near the corner. " But, if you want, tomorrow we can go and look for one of those at the bottom. I don't doubt that there is one down there. "
 
Antheona nodded. "Those would be the things that are like rolling boxes, right? We have seen them on beaches sometimes. Or are these the loud flying ones? I hate those. But I'd like to see one from up close." In fact the more she hated it the more she wanted to see one. They had to have a weakness too, though it was difficult if they weren't approachable. Not that she would want to destroy Stella's, of course not. "But now," she said turning back to the book, "you haven't told me yet how to tell which of those symbols is which."
 
Flying boxes? She probably meant a plane. But, no time for that, she had to tell her about letters. Stella took the book, and opened it. " Oh, yes, by bad. I'm sorry. " She said, she flipped to a page, and looked it over. This was the glossary, so it had the definitions of words, along with how to say them. Stella pointed to the first letter in Amphibious. " This shape, it's called an A. It makes an Ah sound. It's in this word, Amphibious, which is when an animal breathes both in and out of water. A is also in... Aqua, and aquamarine, and even Antheona! The next shape- well, humans called them a letter, is called an M. It sounds like Mmh, and it's in moon, and marine. The next one is P..."

She continued to explain about the letters, and about the words that held the letters and how you pronounce them all. She was almost halfway done with the glossary, and she knew for a fact that she had covered all of the letters and more, but she wanted to see if Antheona got the idea.
 
Antheona decided that she was amphibious, at least to an extent, as long as her skin was wet. The very good memory that she had came in handy this time. It was slightly confusing that letters weren't always pronounced the same, but she thought she would manage. Soon she was following along, and when Stella stopped, she took over, carefully keeping her head to the side of the book, so as not to drip onto it.
"L-a-r-v-a. Larva, that's the next one. What's that?"
 
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Stella smiled greatly as she saw the progress that Antheona was making. " Yes! Absolutely! " She said, happily. " A larva is a baby animal- a distinct juvenile form many animals undergo before metamorphosis into adults. " She explained, taking the book and turning to a page she saw about butterflies. " Animals with indirect development such as insects, amphibians, or cnidarians typically have a larval phase of their life cycle. " After she got to the page, she pointed to a caterpillar. " This is one, but, at the end of their metamorphosis, " She said with a flip of the page.

" They turn into something beautiful, " Stella pointed to the butterfly, with beautiful wings.
 
"I see." And that was true, Antheona did see; even though there were a lot of unknown words in the sentence, she could mostly make out the meaning. "And metamorphosis means changing, then."
She looked at the butterfly; it looked nothing like the caterpillar on the other page. It looked like quite another animal. According to Stella this was real though, so it must have been. She had seen very few butterflies and no caterpillars before. She looked over the rest of the pictures on the page: the caterpillar making itself a chrysalis, then the chrysalis opening. It made more sense that way, and wasn't quite as jarring as the difference between the two states, but still an unlikely progression. "I'm glad you told me which is which. This looks almost as weird as a human turning into a bug."
But then things sometimes did change into other things they didn't look like. That's what felt so unsettling about finding out they may have changed the outcome of a war they didn't know about. That was also, now that she looked back, what was so singular about suddenly being friends with Stella, as opposed to, well... killing each other, which had been the original plan. She furrowed her brow a little, then announced: "The strange thing about metamorphosis is that it makes sense when looking back."
 
Stella nodded. " Yes! It is the same with plenty of animals and insects. " It was also the same with humans, but that might freak out Antheona a little. Or a lot, considering how she might take it. Stella looked out the window, and noticed that the air was getting cooler and that the sun was setting. " Hey, are you hungry? " She asked, as she closed the book and stood up. " We've been reading all day. Let me make you some food. " She said with a smile, as she reached down and took the two cans of soup and then the bucket of fish she caught yesterday.

" If you want some, though, you need to collect some things that look like.... " Stella looked around, and saw a small bowl, that was old and frankly, a little gross to use for soup. " Something like this! Do you think you can? "
 
Antheona looked at Stella and the bucket, a little puzzled. She had to admit she was hungry. And those fish smelled perfectly edible already. But from what she learnt earlier, Stella liked to put the fish into fire before eating it. Well... she had to admit she was curious.
"Very well," she said, "I will find some of those. But tomorrow I fish for you, because you caught these. It's fair that way."
Not even waiting for an answer, she sank into the hole again. Water surrounded her immediately. Now where to get those objects? They looked a little like shells, but bigger and deeper; would shells do instead?
She might look in the lower sections. All the sections, she had noticed, were rather similar; if the topmost one had one, others might have one too.
But then she remembered something, and changed her direction to one of the other buildings. It was lower and far wider than the one Stella lived in, and not really a tower. She entered on the bottom level, through one of the holes in the wall. She was now in a hall filled with a lot of identical tables and chairs. But behind this hall, through another, larger hole, she knew she would find a room with a lot of these objects, more than she could carry.
There were several kinds, some made from some white material, some of metal, some transparent, and different sizes and shapes. Most of the metal ones were so big that they were unwieldy, so she chose a small metal one - still much bigger than the one Stella had showed her - and put a few different even smaller ones inside, just to make sure that at least some were the ones Stella wanted; then with her quarry she took her way in the direction of Stella's tower again.
 
As Antheona went down into the hole, Stella put the cans in the bucket and she used her free arm to get the firewood. It took a little bit to get the fire started, but as soon as she got it going, it was large and roaring. Stella looked over to the other building, with the big tub that she had placed on there that morning. It HAD to be hot by now. She just wanted to dive in and take a nice hot bath right then. Maybe later.

Stella took the pot she had, and poured both of the soup cans in there. She only used half of the fire for that. After that, she let it sit on the flame, and then she poked the stick through the fish, and began to roast two large ones. One for herself, and one for Antheona.

In reality, she never expected to be cooking supper with a mermaid out in the middle of the ocean, but really, she wouldn't have it any other way.
 
Antheona surfaced with her plunder outside of the building, and she could immediately smell the fire as soon as her head left the water. A few flicks with her tail, and she was in the correct angle to see it, along with Stella's orange-outlined silhouette.
"I'm back," she shouted towards her form. "I have these. But I can't go up there. I'll take them inside, to where the books are. Come down for them." Again, she didn't wait for an answer; she was anxious to have the use of her arms back already, and when out from under the sea, these proved to be really heavy. She swam inside and kept the biggest one underwater while she took out the smaller ones, placing them near the edge of the opening. Finally she upended the big one, so as to lift it but not the water in it. It was a lot lighter this way.
From in here the fire was not visible, but she could still smell it; it had a good scent, although part of it may have been the food Stella was making. She wondered if there was a way for her to get up on top, to see the flames from up close.
 
Stella instantly came down, and looked at all of the bowls. All she needed was one! This was WAY too many, " Oh my, thank you! " She said, as she took a few of the bowls for the soup. " Do you want to get up there? I could try to carry you, but might I forewarn you, I'm not the strongest. " Stella laughed, and flexed the muscles she didn't have.
 
Antheona peered out the window. Now that there was a way to go up she wasn't sure she wanted to. "I would like to see the fire, but I don't want to be away from the water. I have to go into the water often, so that I'll stay wet. I could jump back down, but you would have to take me up again, and that's a lot of work." Also, everything was harder to carry above the water. And she was bigger than Stella, especially on account of her tail. Stella might be able to carry her once - she wasn't sure about the lifting powers of humans -, but probably not several times, and not without significant discomfort on both parts. She didn't want to point that out - especially since Stella herself already admitted to her own lack of strength, it was just unnecessary rudeness to repeat it, which even she recognized this time. "It's probably not a good idea. I'll wait for you down here."
 
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