July 4-Original-"The Man-Fish"

[ginnekomiko.livejournal.com]

Title: The Man-Fish
Prompt: July 4th I'm coming up for air
Series: Original
Words: 143
Rating: G
Summary: In which a young man gets used to a new way of breathing. My own take on Merfolk lore.

I never needed to think about breathing before; it always came so naturally, but now, with this new body, I need to remember when I last took a breath of air and when I need to rise to the surface.

I thought she would change for me. That’s how the stories often go. You know, the ones with the seal skins, fish tails or the robe of feathers. 

But she would not change for me. No, she changed me into one of her kind and now I live under the waters of the ocean as part man, part fish.

I see her before me, her green hair flowing with the pull of the waves. She smiles and beckons me over in her strange mangle of sea foam and songs.

She loved me enough not to kill me. That’s kind of romantic, isn’t it?