The human woke up much sooner than Talori thought it would, gasping for air. She belatedly realized that there might not have been enough air in the bubble to last very long. Oops.
The human's eyes widened when it spotted her. It had probably never seen a mermaid before.
She supposed she must look as unusual to it as it did to her. Merfolk looked like fish native to where they lived. She had yellow skin and eyes, flowing purple hair, and fins where the human had ears and on her elbows. The scales on her chest and down her tail went from purple to yellow and she had webbing between her fingers to help her swim where the human did not.
It gaped at her for a moment before scrambling to release itself from the bubble. She cried out, trying to stop it, before it was her turn to stare. The human had climbed out of the bubble and created one out of water surrounding its head before sighing in relief.
"Great, now I can talk. Do you speak English?" it asked.
Talori blinked at it. She did speak English but only because the liaison between the merfolk and witches had taught all members of the royal family in case of an emergency.
"Yes. How are you able to talk right now?"
"Oh, I'm a water fairy! Making bubbles is my magic. Sorry, I got things kind of out of order. I'm Brennan Trent. I'm guessing you're the one who saved me from the storm so thank you. My wings got caught up in the wind."
Talori squinted at the human—no, fairy—curiously. "You have magic? I have never heard of fairies before. Are they like witches?"
"Right…you guys are kind of cut off from the rest of the world," Brennan muttered. "I have a friend who's a witch but fairies are pretty different. We have wings and fly and our magic is restricted to subsets within a specific element. There are water, earth, wind, and fire fairies."
"What are wings? And fly?"
"You really don't know what flying is? Haven't you ever seen a bird? I guess it's like swimming through the sky for lack of a better term."
Talori clapped her hands together in delight. Swimming through the sky was something she could understand. How did that work? And why did fairies look human? Were they similar even though they could use magic?
She had so many questions she didn't know where to start. She didn't get the chance to voice any of them before Brennan spoke again. "What's your name?"
Oh. She supposed she had forgotten to introduce herself in her excitement. "I am Talori. It is nice to meet you."
"Talori, huh? That's a pretty name."
She flushed at the compliment. No one had ever told her that before. She liked this fairy already.
"How do you swim through the sky? Why do you look human? Are you male or female? How old are you? Where did you come from? Are there others like you? Tell me more about your friend the witch!"
Brennan laughed and held his hands up to stop her questions. "You're a curious one, aren't you? I use my wings to fly. They're hidden under my glamour right now; that's why I look human. I normally look like this."
In an instant, his skin, hair, and ears changed. Were his ears what he referred to as wings? She didn't see any extra features.
Talori pointed at them. "Are these your wings?"
Brennan laughed again and shook his head. "No. My wings are still hidden. Fairies don't show them to other races of fae. It's a safety thing."
She wasn't entirely sure she understood but she did know that her brother was obsessed with keeping her safe so she wasn't about to keep pressing the issue. She supposed there were some mysteries that weren't meant to be solved.
"And my other questions?"
"Oh, right. I'm a guy. I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess you're a girl?" Talori nodded and he continued. "Fairies are one of the more common types of fae. There are a lot out there like me scattered across the globe. I've met all types of fairies with how often I move around.
"My witch friend's name is Harmony. She's only a hundred seventy-two so she's still pretty young but she's a genius at magic. Loves to experiment. I'm four hundred seventeen and have been around a lot so she likes listening to me tell her stories from my life while I like listening to her talk about magic.
"Truthfully, I've long wanted to meet a mermaid. Harmony has met one a few times to trade protective spells for mermaid tears but says he isn't exactly friendly so she doesn't know much about you guys."
Talori thought this over. "Do you happen to know that mermaid's name?"
"Uh…I think it was Gar," Brennan said. "Why, do you know him?"
Indeed she did. Gar was the liaison between her kingdom and the witches. Brennan must have come from somewhere relatively close by. She knew the witches lived on the nearest landmass.
"Yes, he is one of the king's advisors."
Curiously glimmered in Brennan's eyes. "So you guys have royalty, huh? It kind of died out where I'm from over time but I suppose things are different down here because you guys do your own thing. We kind of have to roll with whatever the humans do because they took over everything."
Talori frowned. The way he said it made humans sound bad.
"Do you not like humans?"
"No. Most fae don't. They've caused us a lot of trouble. Stolen our lands, murdered us, ruined the planet. Don't tell me you guys haven't noticed all the trash in the sea," Brennan asked with a raised eyebrow.
She had noticed there were more objects from the surface making it into the ocean over the past century or so. "Trash?"
"Waste."
Ah. Talori knew that word. Brennan would likely think her entire collection was trash, wouldn't he? She supposed it was all a matter of perspective. What is treasure to a mermaid holds no value to a surface-dweller.