Calling this 2.0 Canon, but since it was only ever scratch (ie draft), it doesn't technically matter?
This is a story I definitely want to get back around to, as I've got a really cool lore idea I want to play with, but it's so deep on the backburner that I'm happy to release this now, then in a decade or two if I do get back around to it, this will be fun to look back on.
Human watching was fun.
Salt reached out, and let her fingertips touch the edge of the barrier - the flexible shield of magic and technology that separated “here” from “there” - Faerie from Earth.
In other places, the barrier wasn’t visible - the walking fae-folk tended to rely on staircases or ramps - hidden places where there was no discernable difference between the human world and the real world.
For reasons that were as obvious as the scales on her tail, staircases weren’t a viable option for the fae families in the ocean.
Here - where the barrier was close to a place of human habitation - the sea gate was a small thing, allowing passage for no more than one or two merfolk at a time - and whilst hardly anyone used it for transit into the human world, it was perfect for watching humans.
If you stared through the sea gate - which was a carefully disguised ring of sea garbage and kelp - you could see the legs of human swimmers and surfers, and the occasional human that dove below the surface, staring out into an ocean they could never explore.
Salt smiled as a small child - clad only in an offensively orange pair of shorts - dove down to the bottom of the shallows, his shorts billowed and attempting to drag him skyward, and found a shell in the sand, before returning to the land of air.
Beside her, Sea Lace giggled and Salt saw the bright rectangle of Lace’s phone being aimed in her general direction. She accepted the phone and looked at the post - one of their mutual friends reporting on her grandmother despairing about not being able to use her own great-grandmother’s book of recipes...recipes that just happen to call for lost human sailors as the main ingredient.
Famous Fry’s - a burger chain that had started on land - had made several attempts at producing a “Fisherman’s Burger”, using their vat-meat techniques to replicate the taste of the lost sailors from eons ago, but the taste - however moderately popular - never seemed to satisfy the old sea witches who clutched at memories of old meals and tales of feasts of sailor and fishermen.
Comments popped up as Salt watched - commiserating with Poppin about her grandmother - eating people - even if they were just humans - was just one of those things that some old people seemed to think was okay. The idea, in all actuality - had been outdated even before Poppin’s grandmother had been born, but it was one of those ideas that persisted.
Lace pointed through the sea gate at a surfer - one who had crashed into the ocean no less than seven times in the span they’d been observing. ‘If they drown,’ she said, ‘Poppin’s mimi can eat ‘em.’
Salt handed back Lace’s phone. ‘I’m glad my mimi isn’t like that.’
‘Your mimi is dead.’
Salt grinned. ‘Exactly.’
The sun - the same sun for the real world and the human world - filtered down through the clear ocean water - that was another advantage they had over the humans, their oceans were so much better. Every time she slipped through to the human world - which was far more than recommended, and a lot more than she ever told her parents about - it always felt like breathing in dirt.
There were guards and grills and purifiers you could buy to go over your gills, but they always felt so stifling - breathing in a little dirty water was a small price to pay to breathe freely. And the surface air of the human world was always so interesting to taste - even just the smells of their takeout restaurants were so different to what she was used to that it was like going on a holiday for free.
Lace took her phone back, and began tapping away on it - either giving her own condolences to Poppin, or scrolling through more posts on The Mount. Lace was so much better at keeping up with people on The Mount - and somehow managed to comment on a far larger percentage of posts than any normal person should be able to do - especially when holding down a nearly-full-time job.
Salt felt the faint vibration of her own phone - likely Lacey marking a post for her attention - she had her own Mount account - it was nearly impossible not to, given how ubiquitous the platform was, but she’d never seemed able to keep up with it the way that Lacey did. She would check it...once a week, maybe - and otherwise would just use its utilitarian and integration features - it forestalled the need to sign up for an account on every single site on the entire Collect; as most had a plugin that allowed people to comment with their Mount account.
And remembering one password was a lot easier than remembering fifty - even if she tended to use the same three passwords everywhere.
