Free Son of a Mermaid by Katie O'Sullivan

didn’t know such a thing was even possible. How can a mermaid and a human have a child together?”
    “Just because a thing is possible, doesn’t mean it should be allowed.” Lybio’s deep voice startled both mermaids. They turned to find him standing at the edge of the garden. His muscled arms were folded across his torso, his dark grey hair and beard waving in the slight current. “Kira, what tales are you telling our daughter?”
    “This may be her…her last Nantucket summer with us,” Kira said, holding her head high even as Lybio glared at her. “Whether she travels to University or stays to serve the Princess, she deserves to know her own history before she hears it from others who would use it against her. Especially if she is to travel south,” she added, raising her eyebrows. Kira was quick to read between the lines. If she were indeed even part human, she would be an outcast among the Adluos. Wasn’t it said their own Queen was murdered for having traces of drylander blood?
    Lybio pressed his lips together, his mouth a barely visible line. Finally, he nodded in agreement. “So be it. But this part is my tale to tell.” Kira turned and with a few quick flicks of the tail was gone from the gardens, leaving father and daughter alone.
    “Is it true?” Kae asked. Her eyes traveled the length of his body, looking for some outward sign of his drylander birth and finding none. “Your father was truly human?” Lybio gave a sharp nod of assent. “So I’m…part drylander?” she asked, glancing down at her own hands. They suddenly looked different to her, like they belonged to a stranger.
    “This is no one’s business but ours,” Lybio warned. “There are those even among the Aequorean clan who despise anything tainted by the touch of drylanders.”
    “I don’t understand,” said Kae, her voice small.
    “Times were different under the kings of old,” Lybio said, his deep voice taking on the rhythmic pulse of a storyteller. “The oceans cleaner, the food more plentiful. For hundreds of years, the clans were at peace with the humans and with each other.”
    Kira nodded, listening intently while he talked of the past. She wasn’t quite sure how old her father actually was but knew he was ancient even for a merman. Merfolk could live for a century without ever appearing older than a twenty-year-old human, unless they spent a lot of time above the surface. Everyone knew air was bad for the skin, causing wrinkles and ugly brown spots.
    “Legends exist in every clan, and in every dryland culture, of mermaids falling in love with humans, foregoing their lives in the ocean to become land creatures,” he said, looking away from his daughter toward the edges of the garden.
    “Surely, those are make-believe stories,” Kae said with a smile. “Who would give up eternal youth and life in our beautiful oceans?”
    “All legends are based on some truth,” her father said, swishing his tail. The sand rose in a cloud below him. “Else how would the drylanders tell the same sorts of tales about mermaids to their young ones that we do?” Kae hadn’t considered it from that angle. “Unfortunately,” he continued, “many such unions ended in sorrow for the mermaid, rather than for the humans.”
    “Tell me,” Kae urged, putting down her trowel.
    “Long ago, when there was peace in all the worlds, the tradition of the Grand Journey began. When a mermaid or merman turned fifteen, they would leave their home to travel alone, visiting each of the world’s five oceans. They would spend a year in each, living with host families and learning the knowledge of that clan.”
    Kae nodded. Over the years, she’d heard many bedtime stories based on her mother’s own Journey, of the wonders Kira had seen in other parts of the globe. With the current War and the climate of distrust between the clans, Kae’s own Journey would be limited to the University housed in the undersea city of Atlantis, neutral territory