"Oh. Then yes!" says the mermaid, smiling. She has large bright green eyes and long black hair and a slight teal cast to her pale skin, and she's dressed in the usual mermaid ensemble of 'scaly legs and lots of heavy gold necklaces'. (The scales are also teal. So is her hair, if you look closely, but it's dark enough to pass for black at a glance.)

"Thanks," says Bella. "I don't think we've met; I'm Bella."

"I'm Jala," says the mermaid. "It's nice to meet you!"

Bella smiles. "You about ready to get out of here or are you going to grab something else first?"

"No, I'm good," says Jala. She smiles again. She has a very sweet smile.

"So why do you not walk around outside by yourself?" asks Jala.

"There are some mad elves who've already cornered me wanting to kidnap me once," Bella says.

"Oh," says Jala, wide-eyed. "Wow. That's a pretty good reason."

"Yep. They think I can break a faerie curse on their friend. I can't, and even if I could it would not be okay for them to kidnap me to try to make me."

"Well, yeah," says Jala. "I mean - I don't know - maybe if you were the only person fated to break it, or something, and it was something really horrible. Are you? Is it?"

"No. It requires true love's kiss, and I'm not in love with the relevant elf - and if she's the sort to send her friends to kidnap people I don't see it happening, especially on top of my being straight. One of her friends misunderstood something I said in class."

"That bites," Jala says sympathetically.

"Yeah. And the administrators won't do anything about it, either."

"Of course not," says Jala. "The administrators don't do anything about anything."

"I suspect they occasionally do things, just not things like 'enforce harassment policy against elves'."

"Or against anybody," says Jala.

"I bet if a - a gorgon or someone was bothering me, I could find a sympathetic staffperson if I asked around enough, even if they'd only be taking the excuse to push around the gorgon."

"Probably," Jala says glumly.

"Yeah, it's pretty messed up."

"You're human, though, aren't you?"

"At least mostly. I suppose I might not know it if I had a little something somewhere; lots of people do."

"A little something somewhere isn't the same," says Jala, shaking her head.

Bella nods.

Apparently Jala doesn't have anything more to say about that.

Walk-walk-walk. At least the weather's nice today.

After a few more seconds, Jala says abruptly, "Can I ask you a - strange question?"

"...Yeah."

"Is it true humans eat dolphins and whales?"

"I think some do. They're not a major part of Pax cuisine. I never have. Why?"

"I heard it was but I wasn't sure," she says. "Some of the things the shorebirds say... anyway. Just curious, I guess."

"Shorebirds?"

"Shallow-water merfolk. I'm from the depths," she says. "We don't see a lot of humans there."

"I guess you wouldn't, no."

Jala giggles. She has a sweet laugh, too.

"Is there a reason you're curious about dolphins and whales in particular?"

"...What do you mean?" she asks, confused.

"Why are you asking about dolphins and whales and not - seals, octopuses, penguins, sharks, jellyfish?"

"I don't know, do humans eat those too?"

"I don't know about penguins. Everything else on the list I think is eaten by some humans."

"Oh. Well, it was whales and dolphins I heard about," says Jala. She seems slightly uncomfortable, for some reason.

"Is something wrong?"

"No. I said I hadn't," Bella reminds her.

"It's just weird because humans make such a big deal about how they don't eat people," says Jala, twisting her hands together nervously.

"Are you saying dolphins and whales are people?" Bella asks. "That's not common knowledge among humans, if true; I certainly didn't know it."

"Well, maybe you don't know it," she says. "Are you sure everybody doesn't?"

"I would expect to know it if lots of humans knew it. I suppose a handful of humans could know it and not be publicizing the information and then I wouldn't have found out. I really doubt that the humans who eat the whales and dolphins know they're eating people, although I could be mistaken."

"I don't know how they could not," she says. "But maybe humans are just dumb."

"Inattentive, perhaps," suggests Bella. "If I go near enough a dolphin or a whale should I expect to sense its mind with subtle arts? Do they speak a regular language of some kind? Do they do magic, tell stories, have names?"

"...Yes," says Jala, looking at Bella like she's talking complete nonsense, "because they're people."

"Then the problem probably has to do with humans not being around them enough to notice," says Bella, shrugging. "They don't come up and walk around and introduce themselves like you do. I wonder what the best way to distribute this information would be."

"Not through me, that's for sure," says Jala.

"Why not?"

"Because I wouldn't even know where to start, and I don't want to be famous or anything?"

"Okay. Maybe I'll find some way to get within subtle-arts distance of a cetacean and then pretend like I discovered it. I don't really want to be famous either, but this seems pretty important."

"Yeah," says Jala. She smiles a little. "You're okay, for a human."

"I do my best. Are most of us awful?"

"Most of you are... what's that great word... meh," says Jala.

"Meh is a pretty great word."

Jala giggles.

"Is it just you guys, dolphins, and whales, or are there other marine species who are people?"

"I don't know, I don't have a list somewhere," says Jala. "I'd hate to have you go around thinking there weren't any more just because I spaced out."

"Okay, but if you think of any besides those three you can let me know, I will make a list and I will think about ways to publicize."

"Okay," says Jala. "It's Bella, right? Bella something?"

"Yes. Bella Swan."

"Bella Swan, in Thatcher. I'll look you up if I think of more," she promises.

"Uh, full first name is Isabella, if you go looking for me in any official record."

"You humans and your names," says Jala, shaking her head and smiling.

"Why, how do yours work?"

"Not that different, I guess. It's mostly the 'last names' thing that tangles my fins."

"You don't have them, or you have something different?"

"Don't have them."

"That is simpler. Especially if you live in smaller groups or have more names to choose from than we do. There's at least one other Isabella at this school; I've heard somebody shouting for her and I didn't know them."

"Yeah, I've never met another Jala," she says, shaking her head.

"No name collisions, sounds convenient."

"I guess! I've never thought about it. Is that why humans do those complicated things, did you just run out of names?"

"That's not the only reason we have last names and nicknames, but we do use both for that purpose," Bella says. "Last names are also a family thing, and they're more formal - that's why teachers use them - and nicknames allow for personalization and informality, like how I prefer 'Bella'."

"What do you mean, a family thing?" she asks interestedly.

"My last name is Swan because my father's last name is Swan," Bella explains. "When my parents got married, my mother changed her last name to Swan for the same reason. Modern families sometimes do different things with them, but that's the basic idea, around here."

"Oh," says Jala. "I didn't know that! I thought everyone just made them up like you do with normal names."

"Nope! If you meet two people with the same last name there's a good chance they're related. Although it can also be a coincidence, it makes it likely enough that you can ask if you want to know."

"But related through their fathers? Or through... some kind of... marrying... thing?" she hazards.

"They could be siblings, or first cousins whose fathers are brothers, or second cousins whose paternal grandfathers were brothers, and so on - or one could be the niece or nephew of the other, assuming the right genders and/or pattern of marriages," says Bella. "It's not going to help you figure out anyone else - it's not really designed to be completely informative about that to people who don't know the family, just to connect wives and children to their husbands and fathers."

"I'm getting dizzy just thinking about it," she says, shaking her head.

"I think you can get along without knowing all this," says Bella. "It's not a big deal, especially here where people aren't generally present with close family."

Jala grins. "Oh, good."

And here's Thatcher. "Thanks for the escort!"

"Anytime!" says Jala, waving.

In goes Bella.

Guess who's baking a pie!

Is it Celo? Bella bets it's Celo.

It is totally Celo.

"Hi," [name]. "Met a mermaid today."

"Hi yourself," says Celo merrily. "Did she eat you?"

"Yes. Of course she did. Did you not notice the gaping, bleeding wounds?"

Celo cracks up.

"She seemed really nice, actually. She says whales and dolphins are people, so now I'm trying to figure out how to publicize that."

"Huh," says Celo. "Still wouldn't go swimming with her, if I were you. I might go swimming with her. What's she look like, what's her name?"

"Jala," says Bella. "Very - teal."

"I think I have gone swimming with her," he laughs. "She's a sweetheart."

"Was she one of the conscientious ones who asked first?"

"I don't even know who brought it up first, we were hanging out and having sex and I told her how nymphs are a renewable resource and it just... went from there," he says with a reminiscent smile.

"Ah-huh."

"She's fun, I like her. Maybe I'll look her up again."

"Have fun," says Bella. "What kinda pie is that?"

"Tasty pie," he deadpans, and then laughs. "No, it's strawberry rhubarb."

"No? It's not tasty pie, you are making mediocre strawberry rhubarb pie?"

"It is fucking delicious pie," he says loftily. "I never make any other kind."

"Fantastic. I want some when it's done."

"Sure!" says Celo.

Celo continues watching over his pie.

"What've you been up to today besides pie?"

"Um... class?" he says, as though he's guessing.

"Nothing out of the ordinary, huh?"

He laughs. "Yeah, no."

"I beat my head against trying to teek in lab and I think I got something to move. That or it was an air current. I am not at all sure."

"'Teek' is a cute word," says Celo.

Bella laughs. "Abbreviation is fun."

He giggles.

Homework homework occasional glances at oven homework homework.

Waiting waiting waiting waiting waiting waiting pie!

Pie! Ooooh!

"Mmmmmmmmmmf," Bella says around some pie, closing her eyes happily.

"I don't think feeding people is traditionally entangled with love."

"But that pie is clearly a good experience."

"Yes. Yes it is."

"See?" he says, grinning.

"Sure. I didn't think you were about arbitrary good experiences, though."

"I think it's all part of the same thing," he says. "Not that pie is sex - well, I mean, not usually - but that pie and sex are both nice things to do with your body, and people can give them to each other."

"I've also never heard of nymphs giving massages."

"That, I bet some of us do," he laughs. "But maybe mostly in a sex way. Why, did you want one?"

"Not in a sex way," says Bella distinctly.

"Well, yeah," he shrugs.

"I'm not clear on the extent to which you can separate anything plausibly sexlike from sex."

"...I dunno," he says. "If I give you a massage, and nobody gets off on it, then that's not sex. Does it need to be more separate than that?"

"Mmm - I think motives come into it, too, but maybe that's just me."

"Motives like what? If I give you a massage and you decide my hands are pretty great and you'd like to try them out in another context, the massage still wasn't sex, at least to start out with."

"I was thinking more about your motives. I know what mine are."

"Okay... what about my motives do you want to know? They're the same motives if I'm giving you pie or cookies or thinking about your smile at you. I like doing nice things for you. It'd be just about the same if it was sex, but - a little different."

"That's remarkably undifferentiated."

Celo shrugs expansively.

"But, I suppose I have already taken pie," says Bella, lifting her plate with one bite left on it, "so I may as well take a neckrub offered for the same reasons, presuming you're offering." She consumes her last bite of pie.

"I am definitely offering!" says Celo. "And I mean, if you care about consistency and really don't want to take stuff I give you for nice-things reasons, you could also stop taking the pie. But that would be sad."

"It would be sad, I do like consistency, and I do not object to you wanting to do nice things for me."

"Then I can give you a neckrub!" he says happily.

"Yes," says Bella. "Indeed your arithmetic is correct."

"...Stuff like what?"

"Like - nymphs can tell what people's bodies like, what feels good to them and what doesn't, just because sex is what we usually use that for doesn't mean it goes away the rest of the time."

"...Yeah, okay. Can I read back to see what you're getting?"

"Sure," he say cheerfully.

"Okay then."

So, neckrub!

Huzzah! Bella has had a day. There is some tension in her neck.

Mmmmm. He is good at neckrubs.

It's true, he is! The nymph thing definitely helps.

"Huh? Oh," he says, letting his hands fall away.

"Thanks," Bella adds, rearranging her hair to fall over her neck again.

"Anytime," he says, grinning.

Bella smiles at him, and goes back to her essay.

Celo decides to eat some pie.

The next day, Bella goes to lunch after Intro Perception - accompanied by a small group of classmates, who disperse when they get to the dining hall - and collects her food and sits at an empty table.

Bella pulls out her notebook and writes this down. "All of them or just some species?"

"All of them that I've heard of. I haven't personally met every single octopus in the oceans," she laughs.

"Okay." Write write write. "I'm probably going to have to get in touch with some sort of marine explorer type about this."

Jala shrugs.

"And it might make the most sense to save the entire thing until I've done enough subtle arts classes to be able to mindtalk without having to share a language, so I can have actual conversations with the people I'm 'discovering' instead of just noting that they exist."

"That might help!" she agrees, giggling.

Bella puts her notebook away. "So what're you majoring in?"

"Elementalism! With a minor in thaumatology," she says cheerily.

"Cool, do you know what you want to do with it?"

"...Magic?" she suggests.

Bella laughs. "Yeah. That's what you do with a degree in a magic discipline. I mean that a lot of people get their degrees planning to make careers out of them - like, I'm majoring in subtle arts because I'd like to be a mental healer."

"Oh. I don't think there's a career for what I want to do with it," she says. "We do magic in the depths, but it's not like what you get up here. So I'm going to go down and... see if I've learned anything useful, you know?"

"Just be on the lookout for applications for what you pick up?" Bella hazards.

"Yeah!"

"Cool."

"Uh, I'm not unusually well-informed about things specific to human boys, but you can try me, I guess," says Bella.

"Well, okay," she says. "I met this nymph over the summer, and he said it's all pretty much the same, but I'm not sure what's covered by 'pretty much'. I mean, their - whatever you call it - is it really just out there flopping around all the time?"

"...On humans there are clothes involved, so not so much out there, but human beings do not have any outright retractable parts."

"Weird," says Jala, blinking at her. "And when they do their thing, does it always come out like honey?"

"...Like honey in what way? I've never heard the comparison made."

"I mean, you know, honey. The goopy sweet see-through stuff. Honey is nice! I just wasn't expecting it right then," giggles Jala.

"I don't know the typical opacity, I'm not personally familiar with the taste but I don't think it's supposed to be sweet, and 'goopy' is probably a fair description," says Bella.

"Oh. I guess I always thought it would be more... misty?" she says. "Because you breathe air up here, and all."

"...Nope. It is a liquid. It would be a bad idea for a human to inhale it."

"You're welcome. You know, you could just talk to Celo himself about this kind of thing, he knows human anatomy, better than I do. He lives on my hall."

"Oh! Wow," says Jala. "Have you—? I guess not. I'll look for him! He was... very sweet," she says with a smile.

"I have not partaken," says Bella delicately.

"Why not?" she wonders.

"Some people behave differently around nymphs than they do other people, but I don't see a good reason to do that, so I'd only want to have sex with him if we were dating, since that's also when I'd have sex with a member of any other species."

"I don't really get dating," says Jala.

"Merfolk don't?"

She shakes her head. "That whole pairing-off thing you humans do is a complete mystery to me," she says.

"Huh. Well, it's a pretty big deal to us," Bella shrugs.

"Why?"

"I don't know all the history behind the cultural reasons, or behind the native - drives - but today, humans have romantic impulses that are pretty strongly correlated with sexual impulses, and our culture reinforces it. I don't know if you've read a lot of human fiction, but it tends to revolve around the subject more often than not. We grow up with parents who are usually romantically involved with each other, though not always, mine are divorced now. And being 'successful' at that kind of thing is also a source of status, in many social circles."

"Huh," says Jala. "It's different under the sea."

"What's it like there?"

"Well... I grew up with a pretty small pod, maybe it's different for other people," she says. "But I know my mother is one of three girls who was laying the year before I hatched, and a couple of other pods came by that year so I'm not sure which one my father was from or who he is."

"Do you mind if I ask you questions about that? I don't know whether anything I might be curious about is going to be rude to ask."

"Go for it," shrugs Jala.

"So, in human cultures, we're almost invariably certain who our mothers are and usually have a very good guess about our fathers. We use this information for all kinds of things, but the practical one that springs to mind is avoiding inbreeding - we steer clear of reproducing with close relatives, and if we do anyway the kids often turn out badly. Is that not a problem with you? Is it a problem you solve a different way?"

"Oh! No, you can kind of tell - if a pod's guys swam by our eggs and they smelled too familiar, we'd turn them away, and if our guys were swimming by another pod's eggs and they smelled like home, they wouldn't - you know - on them," Jala explains.

"Sounds workable. Humans also get raised by our parents; what about you?"

"The whole pod does that. Well, some more than others. You know how it is. Not everybody wants to do all the same things."

"Do you just always stay in the pod you're born in?"

"Mostly, yeah. Sometimes people shift around."

"Under what circumstances?"

"...If they feel like it, I guess? Maybe if they don't get along with their home pod," she shrugs.

"Makes sense."

Jala nods.