All New Fishy Things

Trixy plopped down a tray of unrecognizable food in front of me. "Eat up, it will make you feel better." Trixy said enthusiastically. "What is it?" I asked. she gave me a devilish grin and spoke "It is better you don't know until after you eat it." I picked up something that slightly resembled a combination of cottage cheese and sushi. It was a light yellow cluster of small oval shapes, covered in different spices, and wrapped in seaweed. I took a bite of it. I closed my eyes as the bite burst in my mouth. I opened my eyes and raised my brow in surprise. "Not bad. Let me finish it before you tell me what it is." It tasted like fried chicken, but in a completely different texture. After I finished it I looked at Trixy and gave her a nod.

"That was spiced sardine roe, with a seaweed wrap." I kept my composure. and breathed out. "That might sound a lot worse if I knew what sardine roe was." I tried to hint that I didn't want to know, but Trixy didn't seem to notice. "Oh it is like caviar, but it is gutted out of the fish instead of waiting until they are laid." Trixy said. My tail turned green. "I tried to gag dramatically, but Trixy just laughed at me. "You can't barf underwater everyone knows that." I raised one brow and glared at her, "Well I am kind of new here." I said. She turned a bit red and gave me an embarrassed grin, "Right...Ooh you haven't tried the second dish." she said. "I am not sure if I am quite ready to try anything else yet." I said. She caught sight of my tail. "Hey look it's green now. What do you think it means?" Trixy asked enthusiastically. I was looking at someone at another table eating a dish that was still moving. Trixy looked at my face. "Yeah I think green is disgust." she deducted. "Don't worry most people don't eat moving things. It feels weird going down. Your other dish is only a kelp and coral salad." She said. I ate the salad quickly. It wasn't as tasty as the other dish, but I new that there was nothing gross in it. "Now that I gave you food, I should give you some general information. So here comes some serious health class info be ready." Let's swim and talk.

"I will let you figure how babies are made on your own." She gave me a dirty smile. At that statement all I could think of was my dream of Zephyr and our almost kiss. My tail flashed purple, pink, then yellow. "Ooh that is new. Let's see purple is normal, yellow is nervous...what is Pink?" she wondered. I could tell just by my instant thought of Zephyr pink had to be the color of whatever a crush is made of. I didn't need Trixy to know that though. I shrugged my shoulders, "I guess that was literally a flash of emotion. Maybe pink is some kind of transition color." I suggested. Trixy seemed skeptical but didn't argue. A year and a half of telling my brother we weren't poor, that I was interested marine biology, and that I didn't do that much work to support us; gave me an excellent pokerface. However magically turning into a fish person and having half of my body be a mood ring, was giving me away a bit.

Trixy continued "Okay we are fish people not people fish, so we are born typically one baby at a time, and have live birth; none of that laying eggs zero sex thing. That is for regular fish. If a fish person gives birth on land, then the child is born human. A human cannot turn into a fish person until they are at least ten. So the fish person mother will have to leave her baby on land to be raised by humans. Those of us born under water, are born with all white scales, because at birth our souls are pure. Once we turn four or five; our tails show their true colors, and the elder can see what kind of soul we have. Our infants are also born with the ability to support their own head unlike those wobbly human babies." Trixy mumbled to herself and counted her fingers. "I think that covers all of the baby stuff.

"Oh there are five different kind of fish people, and we are divided by what kind of tail we have. You, me, and the Slades are all common tails. This means our tails go up and down to move... you know opposed to side to side." She motioned her hands to mimic our tails. "We also have colored scales, and gills, and retractable membranes between our fingers. We are the best because we are prettier with all of our colors, our elders can read our souls because of our scale color, we can breath in salt water and fresh water." she swam in an upward twirl with her hands outstretched as to show of her tail type's superiority. "There is also the cephalopods, they have tentacles. There are shark tails...self explanatory, their tails look like sharks. The porpoise tails, are the ones that are half whale or dolphin, they are still small like us, but are taller than average, they also don't have gills. Oh and the betta tails, try and avoid them, they might be pretty, but they are mean as Hell, but they are only in fresh water, so you don't have to worry about them here." She mumbled and counted her fingers again, making sure she didn't forget anything.

"This part will be important to you dear student, so listen up." She wagged her finger. "Fish people need to be by water, cause if you are away too long you die, by drying up." I raised my hand "ooh ooh I know this part. Milo made sure to tell me yesterday." I said happily. "Did he tell you swimming in a swimming pool or water less than five feet won't work?" she asked "Maybe?" I said, not remembering most of what he said. "Maybe?..." she repeated. I raised both of my hands up. "I had a lot going on that day I wasn't exactly focused. Also he wouldn't repeat himself or explain anything in detail." I said defensively. "Okay I'll give you that, Milo can be scary. Moving on...

Clothes! She swam into a boutique. You will need clothes. When you turn into a human your fish person clothes are too small, and the opposite when you turn into a fish person. It is best to have fish person clothes handy." She held up two tops pushing one against my torso and squinting, trying to see if it would fit and look good. She looked at an attached tag made of a sand dollar. "Uhh for 30 metal scraps no way." I had no idea how fish currency worked so I had to ask.

"What are scraps?" I asked. "Oh right that is definitely something you should know." she said. She snapped her fingers and we swam out of the boutique and away from the reef until we reached a place with a lot of human litter. This is how we make some things, and pay for other things, some of it is simply garbage though. Since humans don't really give a flying rats *** about the ocean, we make the most of it. For instance this thingy. What do you see?" I looked at it "Umm it's a tooth brush." I answered "Nonsense." she said. "It is for brushing, but not teeth. Here is something else important. Personal hygiene. I hear humans use a million different things to be considered clean. Here we brush our bodies and hair regularly to prevent algae build up. So all we really need are things like these, and things you can tie your hair with. Unkempt hair is annoying, it flows all over the place. So usually hair is kept either: short, braided, or put into a tight bun."

We both swam around on the bay floor grabbing scraps of things that may be useful. "Okay Etty what did you find?" asked Trixy. "Etty?" I questioned. Trixy rolled her eyes "everyone needs a nickname. Now show me the goods." she demanded. I pulled out a plastic ziplock bag I had used to carry my things. "I grabbed a few fly fishing hooks because I think the materials on them could be used to style clothes or hair, a few small rubber hair ties, a pair of glasses, and a shoelace." She nodded. "And what do you think we will do with these items?" she asked. Her question felt like a test. "Well like I said before, the fly fishing hooks could be decorative, the hair ties for hair, the lenses for the glasses could be used as a window a barrier, or something to reflect light, and the shoelace could be rope." Trixy smiled and patted me on the back. "It is good that you can see the practicality of these things, but you also have to think of how much you could sell these for." She said. I looked at her slightly confused. "Yes those lenses may be useful for some things, but notice they are prescription, so it actually hurts your head to look through them, the metal frame on these glasses can be sold for a high price though. Metal wiring is used to build all sorts of things. Even if these decorated fishing hooks appear pretty; they are very common in the ocean, and no longer in style, they also attract large fish that could potentially eat you. The shoelace is smart, but unless it is something you need for yourself, it isn't worth hauling back to sell. Rope isn't very expensive, so you get little profit in actually selling them. We don't use paper money like humans do, we simply barter scraps in exchange for items we want." Trixy explained.

"Let's go back, this is enough homework for today Etty. I don't want to be the boring friend. Also Zeph is probably freaking out." Trixy said. My tail turned yellow again "I thought you said it was fine and he wouldn't care!" I yelled louder than I meant to. She rolled her eyes "I did most of your teaching, he should be grateful I let those girls continue flirting with him." My tail turned blue. "Ooo you like him. You sure fell fast, unfortunately you aren't the first one." she joked. She noticed my tail was still blue, and began to panic. She started ranting so quickly I could hardly understand her, "Don't worry, the constant flirting drives him nuts! Not that you flirting with him would bug him, though no guarantees. I mean you are definitely the coolest girl he has seen, plus his dad is the one that changed you." She covered her mouth, and looked around. Fortunately we were still away from the reef and no one was around. "That was too close. Don't make me panic like that, I say stupid things when I rant. Her face was bright red from blushing. I giggled, my tail turning back to purple. "Don't worry, I won't tell anyone about your tail it's connections to your emotions, well maybe the elder if she asks." Trixy said calmly. After that I knew she was going to be a true friend. "You don't have to worry about me falling for anyone right now. For the next six months I am still raising my brother. On land unfortunately. I wish there was a way I could make real money down here, instead of getting a job." I said. "Then I could stay here all day instead of getting another job." I posted after saying this. "Hey pearls make for a lot of human money right?" Trixy said. "Yeah why you got about fifty of them for me to sell to pay rent?" I said sarcastically. "No" Trixy said "We have hundreds!"

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