“Come, let’s go. We’ve delayed enough time.” 

“We need the High Priest to see to your injury.” Dawn guided Noe to the back room from the door hidden behind the intricate wall.

“Don’t we need to make an appointment to see someone who has such a high status?” Noe had to ask. This was too easy to meet someone that of such a high status. As if they were not meeting an important person but a friend.

Dawn chuckled. “No, we’re not that serious in high etiquette. Mermaids are always eligible to meet any Priest or the High Priest for any injuries, health or complication. If it wasn’t because today is the off day, you would’ve seen the front room flooded with mermaids. Big and small.”

“But since your situation is a bit more complicated than usual, you can meet the High Priest. And I asked the guard. He’s just sleeping in his room doing nothing. So it’s okay to see him.”

Noe: … is it okay to disturb someone sleeping?

As they went deeper and deeper into the temple, there were more guards and mermaids in white veil clothes with jeweled crowns in uniformed color which seems to be the uniform crown for the mermaids of their different department. And no matter what crown they wear, they all greeted Dawn without missing a beat and looked curiously at Noe.

Turning around each and every corridor and went up the stairs two to three floors, they finally stopped at the front of a big double door with intricate design. Dawn pushed a flower blooming and they could hear the sound of doorbell ringing inside.

…

…

…

Dawn pushed the flower bell again but this time, he didn’t stop pushing for a long time until a hoarse voice sounded from the flower next to the doorbell flower button.

“What.”

Noe could hear practically hear the sound of bloodthirst from that one word. But Dawn didn’t pay any mind and called out to the mermaid who probably wanted to stab them for disturbing his sleep. "Good afternoon, High Priest. It’s Dawn! I have an important matter here that needs you to see to.”

“… haa. Come in.” the voice sighed and the door automatically opened.

Noe: (￣.￣)b

Dawn:ヾ(〃^∇^)ﾉ

Entering the room, Noe almost couldn’t hold back on whistling at how high end the room was. It could definitely rival the high end penthouse suite from his previous world. The open living room was big and tidy with luxurious looking furniture and there was even something that looked like a TV screen mounted on the wall, albeit as thin as 1 inch, the dining room with an eight seat dining table and an open kitchen.  Do mermaids cook? Can they cook underwater?? Although his face looked expressionless, Noe was full of curiosity about how that space is used. 

There were four rooms with only one door that was ajar and Dawn lead him to the master bedroom without knocking on the door. Before Noe could see anything, his attention was captured by the soft looking 5 meter bed taking up space in the middle of the room and there was a mermaid with long white hair and glittering white tail lying down like a salted fish. But the salted fish posture didn’t detract his beauty, if anything, it makes him more like a fairy prince mermaid that just woke up from his sleep.

“High Priest. It’s already afternoon.” Dawn nagged, as if he was used to taking care of the mermaid. 

The snowy eyelashes slowly fluttered up and down and finally revealed his deep violet eyes with a sharp glint hidden inside as he scans Noe who was trailing behind Dawn.

“I don’t see what’s the problem. Isn’t he moving well.” The high priest muttered, tears welling up in his eyes as he yawns. Just as he was about to close his eyes, Dawn took off the makeshift protection warped around Noe and showed the wound to the high priest. He quickly sat up and swam over. The sleepiness in his eyes was replaced with a rare somber look.

Inspecting the wound with the beating heart that was exposed, a soothing light emerged from his palm flowed to Noe.

“Boy, you’re not from here are you.”

The sentence sounded like a question but the voice was more like stating a fact. Noe blinked and didn’t answer. Quietly looking at the white mermaid humming a song of old, the song washes over him like a wave of warm water inside and outside. Not too soon, the feeling was gone with the last hum. Noe opened his eyes and met the dark violet eyes and suddenly realized that the mermaid was taller and bigger than him. Even Dawn didn’t make him feel small and he’s also bigger than Noe. This was not just a feeling of physical but the air around the high priest. The high priest is older than Dawn, a voice whispers in his heart.

“How long have you had this kind of wound?” the mermaid asked.

“Since I woke up.” There was no use of making an excuse. Those eyes had already seen everything.

“Approximately.”

“4-5 hours.”

The high priest hummed for a while, pondering with his hand stroking his none existing beard. “You haven’t eaten yet. Dawn, go get the cold fish from Santo planet in my kitchen and give it to this boy.”

Noe: ∑(￣□￣;) “No-I-!!”

“No need to lie. If I can’t even see that you’re hungry, I can immediately put down my position as a High Priest this instant.” The high priest rolled his eyes, making Noe shut his mouth and looked away in embarrassment. Dawn quickly went to the kitchen to pick the fish, avoiding the heavy air in the bedroom.

“What’s your name, boy.” The high priest softened his voice that was a bit harsh before. It really wasn’t on purpose to scare the small mermaid that looked like a child who made trouble in front of him. He also didn’t mean to scare him away.

“Noe.”

The high priest tilted his head. “No last name? I thought humans like to have a last name.”

Noe lifted his head and looked at the mermaid in front of him. As expected. He really can see it, Noe murmured. “I don’t have a family, so I didn’t take one.” Even though he can take his own name after the age of 18 but he didn’t see any reason to do so, Noe thought silently with his head down.

Suddenly, he felt a warm palm stroking his head softly. Slowly lifting his head, he watches the indifferent face of the high priest taking back his hand.

“My name is Quinoa, the High Priest for the mermaid. You can call me Inoa.” The high priest introduced himself. “Us the mermaids don’t use the last name but when we introduce ourselves to any being than the mermaid, we use the name of Fallun as our last name which is an old word for the child of the sea.”

“Now that you are one of our own, you are also a member of Fallun, Noe Fallun.”

“Noe… Fallun.” Noe whispered.

“High Priest~ Is this the fish that you’re talking about? By the way, you really need to stop ordering snacks all the time or you’ll get a stomachache like last time, you know.” Dawn came back into the room with a plate of two white fish meat that was already cleaned and some green vegetables beside it.

“Shut up, kid.” Quinoa swatted the nagging boy with a swipe of his tail and Dawn perfectly avoided with a ‘whoops’.

Dawn put down the plate on the small table with two seats on the balcony and pulled the blue faced Noe to sit down on the empty seat. Quinoa took a seat across Noe while Dawn stood behind.

“Noe, why did you say you’ve ate before?” Dawn asked with a confused look on his face. He couldn’t understand why the mermaid would lie about this. He just didn’t see any reason why.

Looking at the white meat in the plate, Noe held down his nausea and slowly took the pinched meat in his hand. Maybe, it’ll be different. Maybe, I can have a sense of taste in this new body, he tried to encourage himself but the lack of any smell, only serves to make him lose hope. Even in underwater and so close to the meat can make you smell, right?

But he didn’t.

“Because I don’t like eating.” Noe said, taking a cautious bite. As soon as the meat landed on his tongue, Noe knew nothing has changed. The taste was the same as eating sand in previous life. “It doesn’t taste anything.” He put down the unfinished meat into the plate.

Both Dawn and Quinoa glanced at each other for a while before looking at the silent Noe who’s head was down.

“Let’s talk about your wound.” Quinoa tapped on the table, having both Dawn and Noe attention on him. “Your wound was not manmade and this body, is also yours, so you have no need to worry about any past soul haunting you like the humans.”

Noe: That sounds like a ghost. There are ghost in this world too??

“You’ve also passed the second acknowledgement. Your body in and of itself is magic. The being who turned you into a mermaid helped passed that point and they did it well.”

“But.” Quinoa paused, looking at the beating heart exposed for everyone’s eyes. “They seem to have purposely left this wound open and no normal way of healing will helped the flesh close over the heart.”

“Not even my power can do anything on it.” The high priest clicked his tongue in annoyance, leaning back on the seat with a hint of laziness. “There is a blue protective cover protecting your heart and the open wound, so you need not worry about it getting any worse. But it is also true that any dangerous force could deal a blow directly to your heart where the flesh of the mermaid could handle any blow.”

"Does that means he has to live like this, forever? Always have to be wary that something could poke his heart without meaning to?"

Noe was silent. He turned to look at the bustling road downstairs and it felt like... Nothing has changed.

“Isn’t there any other way?” Dawn asked with a worried look, clasping his hand on Noe’s shoulder to comfort the mermaid who didn’t look any surprised.

“There is one way, which is the humans.”

Both Dawn and Noe couldn’t help but be shocked. Especially Dawn, since he’s more confidant with magic. After all, if magic can’t heal this wound, how can the human technology do more?

“Don’t look down on those humans." Quinoa said, his fingers tapping rhythmically with his thoughts. "Although they’re troublesome after they’ve fallen, the technology they built is still something to be taken note of. Especially when their technology have a lot of focus that has everything to do with health. Us, magical creatures, don’t fall ill easily and even if we do fall gravely ill or get hurt, we use magic to deal with it. If mermaid magic can’t, the elves can.”

“Because we can solve our health issue with magic, the dwarves doesn’t focus much on this point like the humans does. And your injury,” he pointed at the floating wound, “Cannot be healed by magic of any kind. This is what I got from your situation. That’s why it’s more doable for you to go to the human’s side.”

“They can monitor your situation more thoroughly than we can and maybe, they can discover a way for you to heal with the help of those technology. This is the only answer I got.”

“Now that’s decided, finish off the fish and those green leafs.”

“It’s vegetables.”

Quinoa glared at Dawn and continued. “Head to the south sea area. If you’re fast enough, you can meet a group of humans making trouble over there.”

Noe glanced down at the meal with his lips clamped shut. Suddenly, he felt his head tightened from the grip of the high priest’s hand who looked at him in the eye and said, “Eat.” In a low threatening voice.

Quinoa: (▼へ▼メ)

Noe: (つ﹏⊂)

Dawn: (^▽^;)

Noe clamped his tail and reluctantly ate while the high priest went to his bedside table to call for an attendant and spoke a few words before he returned to his bed and lay back on it with the previous lazy posture.

“I sent an attendant to give you a communicator. It’ll have my and a few other important mermaid’s number along with Dawn. He’ll be waiting for you at the gate.”

“Now, shoo. I’m going back to my nap.” Quinoa shooed them out with a lazy wave of his hand.

They both bid farewell to the high priest after cleaning up the plate and left. The high priest stayed still for a while as he waited for the sound of the two mermaid’s left and called up the top number in the list with the communicator that serves as a crown from the bedside table that was also a sign of his identity.

As the line was picked up, he didn’t wait for the other party to talk and went straight to the point.

“The little mermaid isn’t a danger for us. He’s just a babe that is full of wounds and are curious about the world and magic.” Quinoa paused. He remembered the soft light in the mermaid’s eyes as he used his healing magic.

“The babe needs a guardian and a teacher. You can see if there’s any mermaid that is willing to adopt that boy. His situation isn’t good and it feels like he can turn into bubbles if something harms him. He needs more touch of our kind to keep him from being getting adrift.”

The other mermaid waited patiently for Quinoa to finish before he spoke his thoughts. “I’ve seen the boy from the monitoring video.” The mermaid on the other line said, making Quinoa pause. Well, that’s to be expected. There is no way a wild mermaid that is not in any database and not end up being monitored. Every mermaid, dead or alive, will be included in the database since they were born and there has never been any wild mermaid since the last 20 000 years ago when they just started using these technology.

Once the little mermaid swam into the City of Mermaid, his data was already collected and sent to every important member of the mermaids in the city to be alerted of his presence.

It's just that, they never knew that there was such a shocking wound on him that defies their knowledge.

“I’ll adopt him as my son.”

Chocked on his own saliva, Quinoa's whole body trembled from his cough. He sat up. “You aren’t kidding?”

“No. I had planned to adopt him since the first time I saw him. It seemed as if the sea called out to me that they left this boy to me. If it weren't for you to send him off to the humans, I would've have called for the mermaids to acknowledge him as a part of the royal family in a few days.”

“Well, hell.” Quinoa cursed. So, it really wasn’t his own delusion. The feeling of closeness to the boy had tugged on him since he laid his eyes on Noe and that was enough for him to give his favor.

Now he was told that a mermaid of  a higher position like the King of Mermaid, who was closer to the sea than the High Priest, felt an even bigger impulse than him. It seems, the sea really brought the boy from another world and have high favor for him.

And for a mermaid to be favored by a high being to the point they gave him a body with the abundance of power that suits his soul is really intriguing.

What was it about the boy that interest the sea to such a degree?

“Were you planning on giving him the apprentice priest crown?”

“Well, yes. Considering that he’s just a babe, I did give him an apprentice crown which is already a higher status than a civilian. Why?”

The King of Mermaids: …

Quinoa: Don’t tell me you…

The King of Mermaids: “I did say I will adopt him.”

Sighing, he laid back down on his bed. He’s thankful enough that the boy didn’t seem to be the dangerous type or else, the fate of mermaid would be in a precarious state. Mermaids are just way too laid-back when it’s with their own kind but ferocious when dealing with the enemy.

“Let’s just hope Dawn won’t be too surprised.”

“He probably felt it deeply than we do since they’ve stayed together the longest.”

Quinoa: ⑉ႣỏႣ⑉ Ah. Now that you mention it, that kid did seem weirdly protective of the little mermaid.

“Besides, he may not look like it but he is the youngest mermaid to have hold the position of a general.” The King reminded the High Priest.

Quinoa: (¬_¬) “I’m just used to that boy’s nagging. He’s always been a noisy kid since he was a child that I can’t imagine he’d do well with fighting.” I’ve always imagined he’d be a good priest. Pity a certain someone poached the child he brought up into his army, Quinoa muttered in indignation.

The King deftly closed his communicator lest he gets nagged about it, again. Now, he needs to quickly finish the procedure to adopt the little mermaid. Once he travels outside of the mermaid territory, the boy will need his and the mermaid's protection against the humans who've lost their mind.