Cormac could scarcely believe it. A stingray of that size was perfectly impossible! Even the giant freshwater stingray did not get so large! Were he to have seen footage of such a thing swimming on the surface with a ship to it, Cormac would have thought it a hoax, just a giant freshwater with a toy boat next to it, but there it was! A stingray with a width of fifty feet!
Eyes wide, Cormac stared only for Melusine to excitedly swim up to the substantial stingray. Immediately, the Young Egan swam after the Surface-Born Merrow-Maiden. This thing could have been dangerous!
As soon as he was close enough, Cormac heard Melusine as the ray: "Good evening, how are you?" Cormac did not hear an answer, yet Melusine it seemed did and so she answered: "Very good, thank you. My name is Melusine, what is your name?" Cormac was curious as to what manner of appellation a stingray could possibly have. "Tuspehstah? My, what an interesting name." Cormac admitted the name was a bit interesting, if a bit odd. "Where are you going?" What manner of thought had entered Melusine's head? Wherefore on earth would she ask that to Tuspehstah? "West? My friend Cormac and I are going west ourselves, going to the Pacific by way of the Arctic, might we accompany you?" Well, Cormac certainly understood now. That was certainly a good idea Melusine had. "May we accompany you until you follow the coast south to your breeding ground then?" Follow the coast south? Cormac took a moment to look at the map. Where on the Atlantic seaboard of the Americas were the breeding grounds of a species so colossal as this and why on earth had no one ever seen them before? "Oh, thank you! Thank you so much!" Feeling Melusine's hand upon his left wrist, Cormac looked up at Melusine's smiling countenance as she pulled him onto the back of the substantial stingray, now a living flying carpet.
Upon the back of Tuspehstah, Cormac uttered: "I had no idea stingrays this big existed… Where did he come from?"
"She." Melusine corrected as she lay down on her side, propping her head up with a hand.
She? How was Cormac suppose to know? How did one even tell a male stingray from a female? A pelvic fin? He thought it was a pelvic fin, males had one while females didn't. He should have checked.
"Sorry, sorry." Cormac apologized, giving Tuspehstah a pat on the back. "Where did she come from?"
An uncertain expression forming upon her countenance, Melusine answered: "She says an egg."
Cormac could only wonder how big Tuspehstah had been when she emerged from her mermaid's purse. If she was fifty-feet wide now, then what she been when newly hatched? Five feet wide? Alas, he knew not and he could only wonder if Tuspehstah herself even knew.
Laying next to Melusine, Cormac stared into her reddish-brown eyes and commented: "Well, here we are… We are on the back of a giant stingray, heading west, you a merrow-maiden and I unable to be outside of the water for more than five minutes. It seems so strange."
"Strange and wonderful." Melusine uttered, staring back into Cormac's mixed-matched eyes.
Cormac could not help but nod. Yes, he supposed it was wonderful in some way.
Looking at her tail, glistering, golden yet chiefly scarlet and with a translucent end, he asked: "Might I feel your tail?" He hoped she didn't find it forward.
To Cormac's relief, Melusine merely said: "Go ahead."
Thus, did Cormac sit up and place a hand upon Melusine's tail. It felt durable, smooth, soft and stalwart. When he removed his hand and looked her once more in the eye, the Young Egan saw the Helena of the Deep to be blushing.