Yssandra's tank had two enclosures Twyner cycled through: a tent, as she was when Simon first became acquainted, and a set of four clapboard walls fastened to one another around the perimeter of a smooth slab floor. The walls were used when the Ringmaster didn't want to deal with the hassle of keeping prying eyes away from the flimsy folds of the tent walls. The clapboard held up a lot better and offered more security... but the decorations fastened to the walls and rafters often soured in the first few hours of the day.
By the time Simon entered with a mop rag and a bucket of fresh creek water, the whole building reeked of salty, fetid seaweed and old fish. He carefully peeled away the facades of seaweed, and sorted the clusters of coral and massive shells, piling up the broken pieces that didn't survive the crowds traipsing through, wanting to get a glimpse of the REAL LIVE MERMAID.
Yssandra surfaced to greet him as he dusted the surface of her water with a special cleaning solution, which absorbed all the detritus and algae that gradually obscured her from view. It was harmless to the mermaid herself, so long as she covered her mouth and gills with the secretions of the uandino plant, a mysterious aquatic vine whose leaves were coated in a sticky, jelly-like substance that could filter air through it, but also serve as a water barrier. Simon would use it sometimes when swimming, as it allowed him to breathe even when completely submerged, while Yssandra used it to keep the water inside her lungs, so she could continue to filter her breath through her gills.
The mermaid folded her arms on the edge of the tank and watched Simon rub the dirty smudges from the glass. "I can't believe I'm saying this," she mused, "but I'm glad Rolin came in when he did! Those last two were positively wretched beings--I should have known they weren't at all interested in seeing me!"
Simon wrung the rag and refreshed the water it held. He held his tongue. Yssandra was always very chatty in the evenings, after spending her entire day underwater, swimming back and forth while carnival goers gawked and pounded the glass, and even tried to reach in and touch her. He'd had a long day of constant music from the organ, and before that, fielding angry villagers and screaming adults and children as he accepted the admission fare (and not a single cent more in bribe money) for the early crowd. After all that, he wasn't much in the mood for talking.
Yssandra didn't seem to notice. "It's days like this that I miss my home the most," she said.
[...]
"It's how I ended up in Twyner's possession, after all," Yssandra said mournfully.
Simon sat up. "Really? He didn't go out to catch you himself?"
Yssandra shook her head. "No, not at all! I was with a small group--not a Great Hunt, which would involve my mate and all his soldiers, but a small group of hunters, wanting to train and hone their skills as trackers and chasers. I thought they were after a couple seals that had been coasting through the Channel, but we swam out to the open ocean, and by the time I realized we were hunting a narwhal, of all things [...] I kept pace with it better than the others, and I had just entered striking range... When a fishing net came down between us, wrapping around the narwhal so it couldn't swim away." She open and shut her gills rapidly, giving a little pop sound that Simon had learned was the mermaid version of a sigh or a huff of air. [...] Yssandra twisted in the tank. "My struggle with the narwhal left me badly wounded and exhausted. I passed out, and when I awoke, I would have died had not a peasant farmer found me and brought me to a small cove near his property."
Simon let out a whistle. "That's lucky!"
Yssandra let out a pop of her gills again. "I thought so too, at first. I felt sure that he would release me as soon as I got strong enough--but shortly after I had recovered from all my injuries, Twyner's Carnival happened through, and one of his people saw me in my little pool, and offered the farmer a large sum of money to allow them to take me away... and I've been here ever since." She flapped the fluke of her purple tail on the surface of the water in frustration.
Yssandra's story weighed heavily on Simon's mind. He happened to be a farmer as well--would he be willing to give up a friend he rescued in exchange for money, however large a sum?
He grabbed the mop bucket and clambered to his feet. "Well, I should be moving on," he said. "Thank you for the story. Good night!"
"Good night, Simon." Yssandra slipped back into the water and stretched out to sleep.
The young carnival hand made sure to prop open the small window in the roof of the enclosure. It was included in the design to allow harmful and stale vapors to escape, and keep the air fresh inside while the doors and walls were locked tight, but this particular field also gave it a second purpose. Simon and Yssandra discovered that opening the skylight at night gave Yssandra a direct view of the moon, a comforting sight to her, harkening back to her days sleeping under the light of the moon in the open water.
The mental images of being chased by a narwhal wrapped in a fishing net haunted Simon as he walked between the tents of the carnival. He did not even notice the cloaked figure loitering outside the tent of bowling games until it reached out and grabbed him.
"Yikes!"
"The cries of the innocent echo over the cliffs," croaked the raspy voice. "They pine for justice, but the puppet cannot pull his own strings."
Simon staggered sideways, distancing himself from the bright-eyed clairvoyant. "Leave off, Nyk! I'm not in the mood tonight."
"Wait!" Nykkola trotted after him. "I can see your farm, Simon! I can see your mother and sisters--they are well, and the harvest is plenty this year."
Simon's face hardened when he saw the hopeful expression with which she watched him. Nykkola meant well--but she had no idea how much it hurt to hear her attempts at "scrying" into his home life, when the only memory he had of them was the fateful day he left his mother in the field to join the Prince in what would be an ill-fated boating trip. He'd only just finished the plowing--there was no way to actually know how the harvest had fared without him. "Yeah, I don't think so," he grumbled, stalking away from her.
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