[[ I'm sorry for my late response. Really. I just got back from a vacation. Hopefully I can catch up. Also, I didn't bother reading over three pages of other posts - I'm too lazy. So if there's something I'm missing/should know, let me know and I'll edit this. =) ]]
. Bianca .
The beach was quiet that day. Refined, it was quiet where Bianca was. The eighteen-year-old human was visiting her usual spot to say hello to Mitchell. Naturally, people wondered why a girl that could easily blend in with the rest of the crowd (also known as there was nothing physically different about her when compared to anyone else) would spend hours hidden among the rough rocks that waves crashed on furiously, located on one side of the beach, when there was plenty more space in the pleasant, sandy area. But Bianca didn't care what anyone else thought about her - she would much rather sit and chat with her Mer friend, Mitchell, and it was a good place to keep him hidden.
The two people met when they were much younger. She was eight and he was seven. On one of her weekly trips to the beach with her parents, she'd run off to chase a few seagulls among the rocks that things like clams frequently got stuck between - it was a good feeding ground for the bird. Once there, she'd noticed a pair of blue eyes peering fearfully at her from behind a rock. Back then, Mitch's hair had been a very light, sandy blonde. Over time, it had darkened, but his eyes remained the same light shade and she could easily look at him and see the small boy that she once knew. Despite his fear, he seemed curious, and she managed to lure him out so that she could properly meet him and she stayed there and played with him until her parents called her back. Upon meeting him, her weekly visits promptly became daily.
Since then, Bianca and Mitch had grown to be the best of friends. He would visit every day unless he told her he couldn't or, on the rare occasion, he couldn't sneak away. He'd informed her from the start that it was seriously frowned upon for Mers to communicate with humans and she was always worried that he'd get in trouble, but he seemed fairly unconcerned about it, so she tried to keep her mind from getting occupied by thoughts like that.
Today, Bianca was carrying the bag she normally had with her on her trips to the beach. It was a simple tote, made out of bleached white paper straw that had been crocheted together. The strap was thick and there was no zipper; it simply hung open. She would pick up shells of various sorts and place them in that bag, along with whatever she decided to bring to Mitch that day - she would oftentimes give him some sort of human food for him to try. Today's was a simple hot dog, grilled, covered with every possible ingredient to put on a hot dog, and placed into a ziploc bag. Naturally, that had been one of the first things she'd given him, so it wasn't anything new. Mitch just really liked them.
Stepping to new rocks and hopping over a few, Bianca made her way to a pool that several large rocks made. Because of the small opening between the rocks facing the ocean, the water sloshed into it instead of splashing violently over them. She looked for shells along the way, but most had been dashed on the rocks and were now broken. However, she would get a few beautiful shells in perfect shape sometimes because no other person thought it was worth it to go here and all the shells were left untouched by human hands. Bianca liked to thing of those shells as survivors - the ones that made it through everything the sea could throw at them to get there.
. Mitch .
Mitch, like usual, was waiting in his special pool when Bianca arrived. He and the girl had named it 'The Mer Pool' back when they were much younger, close to when they'd first met, but lately they'd started referring to it as 'our pool'. That was exactly what it was like, actually. As far as he knew, no person ventured that far out into the slippery, treacherous rocks besides Bianca. Over the years, he'd watched her approaching, and he'd been unaware that she was getting better and better at following the same trail without falling until bam, he realized that she was jumping around perfectly and not even looking at her feet. It calmed his nerves that she could do that because he was afraid that one day she might seriously hurt herself and he wouldn't be able to help. Getting to that pool was difficult in itself and he couldn't imagine having to pull himself along those rocks that had cut him more than once to get to her. And once he did, what would he do?
But there never once had been a major incident and he was confident that there never would be. As soon as Bianca came into sight, he sat up a little straight and studied her person, making sure that she hadn't forgotten his hot dog. Of course, he couldn't tell if it was there in her bag, but he could safely assume that as long as she hadn't forgotten that bag that she carried with her to the beach every day, she'd have it. He remembered the day that she got that bag and he grinned to himself. She'd practically run to him, excited to tell him that her father had given it to her. She was ten at the time and hadn't grown to hate him just yet. He'd asked her before why she still had it if she despised him so much and she insisted, perhaps a bit too harshly than was necessary, that it was simply useful, but Mitch had his doubts.
Like Bianca, he had his family issues. They were too strict. He knew tons of people his age, both humans and Mers, that said that just because they were teenagers and wanted to get away, but he was being perfectly reasonable. Everyone agreed with him that his parents were awful, especially Bianca. But then again, that was probably because she didn't see or hear anything good about them, like a few others did - she just heard the rants that he gave her. And he had to admit that there were a few good things about his parents. For one, they hadn't killed him so far. He never told anyone he left Ingo almost every day to visit a human girl, but his parents still didn't like that he was gone so often. They'd punished him before, but had soon given up when they realized that it wasn't doing anything.
Leaning back against one of the rocks, Mitch watched his tail make ripples in the water as it moved up and down involuntarily. It was a very bright green and got lighter as you went down from his hips to the tip of his tail until it was almost transparent at the very end. He'd only seen a few things that were that color green. A few types of fish, certain kinds of artifical colors that humans made, a couple of vegetables, and Bianca's eyes. He found it ironic that his tail and her eyes were almost the exact same color and they'd turned out to be best friends.
Mitch looked up when Bianca approached with a sigh, sitting down on one of the rocks and scooting closer so that she could put her feet in the water like she always did, even when the water was absolutely freezing. He grinned at her, asking, "Did you bring my hot dog?" She rolled her eyes at him, reaching into her bag.
"Naturally, the first thing you think about is food. Typical guy. What if there was something I really wanted to talk about? Like what if I broke up with my boyfriend?" she questioned, unwrapping the falling-apart hot dog and handing it to him. He looked at her blankly.
"You don't have a boyfriend," he told her, his voice sounding firm as if he was prohibiting her from ever having one. And, in a way, that was sort of what he was doing. He loved her like a brother would and he didn't want her getting hurt. She laughed a little, shaking her head at him. "You don't," he informed her, completely straight-faced despite his urge to smile. Bianca reached over and gently punched his shoulder, earning a grin from him.
"Okay, whatever. But seriously, what's up?"