Text in teal is Skystar's internal thoughts

“Are you sure you want to do this on the surface?” I said, slightly confused as I carried around a bucket and tackle box for my crush, who ran a fish cart on the boardwalk and needed to restock his inventory.

“What? Are you worried that I’m gonna fillet your friend or something?” Spada said to me smirking. He was carrying his fishing pole in one hand and a folding beach chair in the other. He, as usual, was gorgeous on this day, the sun reflecting beautifully off his silvery skin and dark hair. He was wearing a grey t-shirt with the words “Apollo City” printed on it in bright yellow, black shorts, and yellow flip-flops.

“Oh, hush!” I said, sticking out my tongue, half-annoyed. I’d already heard all the possible jokes about my kind from Pinkie. “What I meant was that it might be easier to get fish when you’re under the surface, closer to them?”

He folded out the chair and sat down as I set down his things. the fishing spot Spada was using was a small wooden dock a few feet from the shore and a safe enough distance from the Arissian transport currents to keep the line from getting caught in them.

“This is the way my mom taught me to fish. My dad tried to teach me how to catch fish underwater using harpoons and spears. Honestly, it wasn’t really my style,” he explained as he opened the tackle box and pulled out a jar of some bright, sticky, sparkly fluorescent bait that fish apparently love, l put it on the hook and then he cast out his line. (Now I may be part-fish but I’m repulsed by that stuff, but hey, what do I know?)

“Well, you do what you're comfortable with doing, I guess,” I said, shrugging my shoulders as I sat down at the edge of the dock. I let my legs dangle off the edge, the water running back and forth through my bare feet. “Sooo...” I droned “How is your father?’’

Spada looked dejectedly out into the ocean. “Me and my father aren’t really close, so I don’t…”

“Hey, it’s ok, I was just curious, I never had a father growing up, at least I don't think so. Did you think I went too personal?” Spada gave me a blank and somewhat confused look. “Do you want me to get a drink or something?”

(Man, casual conversation is so much easier with Shelly and Sheldon.)

“Sure…” he handed me a couple of colourful cloth/paper slips, something Pinkie says are called ‘Dollars’. “How about you go get us a couple of Guppees,” he suggested as he pointed to a booth containing a couple of machines a few yards away from us “I like the bubblegum flavor, I think they call it ‘Unicorn Barf’ for some reason. You can get whatever you want.”

“Okay.” I walked down from the fishing spot and headed over to the drink booth, containing a large soda fountain. Right next to it was what I assumed to be the Guppee machine. It contained five flavors, each in a different color inside of a rotating barrel with a spout and a cheese plastic label above them telling what the flavor was called. there was a red one called ‘Red Sun’, a purple one called ‘Bad Hair Day Berry’, a yellow one called ‘Banana Cavana’, a brown ‘Poni-Cola’ flavor and a pink one, the aforementioned ‘Unicorn Barf’. I grabbed a couple of small fluorescent cups and placed the cup under the spout, pulling the lever on to the side to dispense the pink slush...only for it to overflow everywhere.

“Ugh, Naga and Ray, why do I have to…” I placed the messy cup on the counter and hastily shook my hands to et the melting slush off them when a familiar-looking man came behind me and handed me a few napkins to wipe myself up.

I thanked him as I took the napkins and wiped myself and Spada’s cup as best I could. When I looked back at him, I had the strangest feeling that I knew the man, or at least SHOULD know him. He had a light-yellow skin tone, royal blue hair cut short and flat, a blue shirt with various flower designs all over it (Pinkie says it’s called a Hawaiian shirt) and black shorts and sandals. He had a thin and lean build to him, almost like that of the striker guards down in Arissia (when they have legs). “Do I know you?”

He chuckled. “You’d be surprised.” he then walked over to the side of the machine and pulled out a couple plastic lids that look like a bubble cut in half with a hole at the top “I think the idea is to use these.” he dumped out the half-melted slush from the cup and put the lid on it and put the bottom of the spout in the lid’s hole and pulled the lever sideways again, cleanly filling the cup all the way to the bubble lid before putting a straw in the drink. “Thanks.”

“No problem.” he smiled at me as I filled my own cup with the Poni-cola flavor like he showed me. “So...who’s the second cup for?”

“It’s for this boy I like, Spada, he likes fishing and...stuff.” I awkwardly replied and as I put a straw in my drink

I turned around to face him only to find him gone, leaving behind a package of cookies with a sticky note on them saying ‘enjoy’ with a drawing of a smiley face and a cartoon clam.

After I paid for the Guppees I ran back to Spada at the fishing spot, trying to keep the drinks from melting.

“Hey, what took you?” Spada asked, turning to me.

“I made a bit of a mess the first time, so a man came over to help me out.” I handed Spada the change and sat back down on the dock with my feet dangling and touching the water like before. “There was just something about him, Spada. It was like I should know him. I know he was just a stranger but…” I sipped my slushie and opened up the package of cookies he left for me, looking at the note. “...I don’t know, forget it. I’m probably just seeing something that isn’t there.”

Being in the egg is an… odd experience. From what Pinkie told me, humans don’t have memories of their time in their mother’s womb. Merfolk, on the other hand, have full memories of what they did and what happened as they developed in the egg, which is apparently a weird quirk about our race.

What was I talking about...oh right. As I was saying, when you’re in the egg, you can see and hear what’s going on outside of the egg wall as soon as your ears and eyes develop, but everything sounds a bit muffled and looks fuzzy and tinted by the egg wall. You also don't fully understand any language, so you can’t understand what anyone says to you, only able to read their expression and tone. The egg wall is also spherical and tight around you, leaving you floating in egg fluids, curled up around the wall completely unable to move around as you look out into a world you vaguely understand as your body changes in rapid and unexplainable ways. On one hand, it’s weirdly and uniquely relaxing, on the other hand, it often gets boring and you’re just waiting for those cracks to form in your glassy prison.

For the record, nothing compares to the look on your mother's face as you leave the egg and enter the world around you, swimming through her hair and fins, full of pent-up energy.

After being forced out of the mother’s egg sac, most eggs stay in the place they were laid until they hatch (usually it’s inside a cavern or something like that). The thing is, I have memories of...not being in the place I eventually hatched. Memories of being passed around before winding up in the hands of my mother. I never dwelled on it too much, and when I asked mom, she said it was because my egg was briefly stolen by castle raiders. (Which would actually explain a lot.)

But after meeting the helpful cookie man, for lack of words, earlier today, it was a bit hard not to think about those memories, particularly one of the first things I saw in the egg. A tall, lean merman with short hair and fins and wearing what I eventually learned was traditional Arissian striker guard armor, handing me off to someone I didn’t recognize, looking a little sad and dejected for reasons I could never make out. His skin tone was a little hard to discern, the shell of my egg, in particular, making everything my immobile, still developing body could see look reddish-orange, but I could tell his skin tone was light, his tail was a considerably darker color, and his hair and fins were a shade in between. However, what really drew my attention was his face, my vision was a little fuzzy, but I could have sworn the Helpful Cookie Man I met earlier today had the EXACT same face as the merman that handed me off and had the exact same hairstyle.

It’s probably nothing, just my developing eyes playing tricks on me or deja vu or something. I thought to myself, despite the nagging part of my mind telling me otherwise.I’ll ask mom if the guy is stationed on the surface now or something. Still, that doesn’t explain why he gave me cookies, but hey, I make shell art, so maybe he’s just eccentric like that.

When Pinkie first met my mother, the first thing she said to me was “So...are you adopted or something?”

I actually get that reaction a lot, and I understand why. Mom has a paler complexion than me, her tail a dark indigo compared to my lighter red-orange tail. While my hair and fins are light blue in color, hers was a darker reddish-purple, while my hair is very loose, thin and wavy, hers is thicker and tighter. Her voice had this surprisingly deep and husky tone to it, while my voice was higher and more chipper. (Pinkie says it almost sounds as if we came from two different parts of the world.) Mom’s face always had this wise and more experienced (yet still cold) look to it, while my face and expressions had a peppy, youthful and perpetually naive look. (though the perpetually naive thing is more in my mannerisms.) Our bodies were even built a little differently, with me being thinner and taller for my age compared to my mother.

It never bothered me too much though, and Pinkie herself said she looks more like her aunts and uncles than her immediate family.

So anyway, I was sitting down at the dinner table that evening with mom on the other end. Because of my mother’s cold isolationism and my social naivete, dinner was always awkwardly quiet between us, so we usually ate in silence.

I sighed through my gills as I poked at my shrimp and seaweed rice. (Don’t ask how we cook this stuff underwater, it’s complicated.)

Mom took the initiative to break the silence “So...your cousin, Silverstream tells me you have your ‘eye on someone’.” her tone was her tone was curious yet slightly adversarial (as usual).

“Yeah…” I stabbed a couple of pieces of shrimp with my fork and popped them in my mouth, swallowing them before I resumed talking “It’s a boy named Spada. He's a fish salesman. Don’t worry, he’s a nice boy and lives down here in Arissia.”

“Hmmm, that’s nice.” she ate some of her own shrimp, unsure of how to respond. I wouldn’t blame her, she hadn’t been in a relationship in ages.

“Sooo....” I scooped up some of the seaweed rice and looked at it before putting it in my mouth. “You know how my egg was stolen?”

Mom gave me a bit of a blank look “Yes, honey?”

“You know that striker guard who retrieved it?”

“I...know...of him.” Mom gave me this nervous and unsure look as if there was something she wasn’t telling me.

“Do you know his name, or where the guy is now?”

There was a brief pause as she twisted the cap of her bottle of Kimmet (A traditional non-alcoholic Arissian drink) and sucked a bit of it out before twisting it closed and setting it back down (if you wonder how we drink things underwater now you know). “Look, if you really want to know, the guard's name is Sea-Snail, and he left the guard five years after you hatched.”

“Did you know him personally?”

“No!” mom briefly snapped at me before briefly calming back down. “Look, no, I don’t know him, I just know of him, his name and his retirement is all I know, so please stop asking.” The dining room fell quiet as we finished dinner in silence. The nagging feeling she was hiding something still lingering.
__________________________________________________________________________

“So, any particular reason you invited us here, Princess?” Spada said coming into my room, with my cousin, Silverstream. She’s a few years younger than me, with very pale pink skin similar to my mother’s, a light purple tail, and flat light-blue hair and fins, her hair combed to one side of her head. (like a lot of Arissians, when I think about it.)

“Well, there’s this man I’m wondering about. Thin guy, yellow skin, blue hair, Hawaiian shirt. He looks exactly like Sea-Snail, the guard who retrieved my egg when it was stolen. I tried asking my mom about it, but the way she answered me, I just couldn’t shake the feeling that she was hiding something about him.”

Silverstream snorted with laughter. “You mean to tell me his name is ‘Sea-Snail’.”

I rolled my eyes at my cousin. “Just go with it, that’s what my mom told me.”

Silverstream continued to hold back snickers as Spada took the turn to speak. “So, what do you want us to do about it?”

“I just want to you guys keep your eyes peeled for the guy. When I think about him, I get this feeling that I should know him. I know it’s probably nothing, but…”

“...you can’t shake the feeling.” Spada and Silverstream swam over to me, the former putting his hand on me. “Look, neither of us can pretend to know what you’re going through, but as your friends, we’ll look out for him if it concerns you that much. Right, Silver?”

Silverstream cleared her throat still stifling a chuckle. “Of course, Sky.”

I smiled at the two. So this is what it’s like for Pinkie. I thought.

“Look, Princess, it’s getting late. We should be going to bed. Promise to meet up at my cart tomorrow?”

Note to self: stop inviting my friends to my room this late at night. “Ok, see you then, Spada.”

Before leaving to her place, Silverstream turned to me. “Hey, speaking of friends, where’s Pinkie?”

“Oh, she’s in a hospital all the way in Canterlot right now, she hurt herself during a party. Not sure she’s ever going to see him, but I’ll leave her an iris message just in case.”

“Ok, see you later.” Silver waved at me and darted out of my room.

I laid on my bed and turned towards the bedside table where Shelly and Sheldon were laid. “What?”

Sheldon gave me a glare, his black googly eyes piercing through my skull.

“Of course I want you to look out for the guy, too.”

Sheldon’s look still persisted.

“Hey, you don’t know if they are the same person, yellow and blue is a very common color scheme, besides vision fuzzy in the egg, they could look completely different for all I know.”

Sheldon rolled his eyes.

“Yeah, I know there’s still a possibility, but I don’t want to make too many assumptions.”

Sheldon now looked annoyed.

“I said too many assumptions, I’m already making enough assumptions as it is.”

Now it was Shelly’s turn to speak, or at least as close to speaking as a clamshell with googly eyes can.
“Ok, Shelly, first of all, I know I haven’t been taking you up to the surface, and for that I’m sorry. Second of all, don’t be ridiculous, if this guy was my father, why did she wait until yesterday to talk with me?”

Shelly gave me the ‘I think you just answered your own question’ face.

“Fair point, Shelly, but I’ve been going up to the surface for a little over a month, why wait until now?”

Shelly didn’t have an answer and just gave the clam equivalent of a shrug

“Look, I’ll consider it, but I doubt he’s my father of all things. At my age, mom would have told me about my father by now.”

It was Shelly’s turn to roll her eyes.

“And they say mom worries too much. Anyway, I’m going to bed, we can talk more later.”

Shelly and Sheldon nodded in agreement as I turned off the lights and wrapped myself up in my blanket. As much as I tried to deny it, I couldn’t help but think that Shelly might be right about Helpful Cookie Man.

Author's Note

I'd like to congratulate myself as (somehow) the first author to tackle the issue of Sky's father.