20 The Mer-person and Taxes

The kelp was tossed to one side by an arm that was white like mutton fat jade, decorated over the shoulder and outer arms to the wrist with pearlescent scales. Translucent fins flapped back and forth upon the upper arms as well as decorated above two round eyes. Those eyes, momentarily filled with black that shrank to pinprick sized pupils and a sea-green iris with flecks of blue, blinked rapidly as they adjusted to the light. The youth also had short, black hair that was pushed back from the round face with a crown of tendrils and as he grinned he revealed a mouth filled with white, pointed teeth. Not to mention one massively long, finned tail of pearlescent scales that formed from the just below the youth's pale belly and was somewhat greater in length than what his legs would have been, had he been human.

"Mermaid," Russell blurted out his analysis after seeing this.

The youth tilted his head before puffing his cheeks and replying; "That's a bit gender specific, don't you think?"

Russell glanced at the flat chest, lacking any extraneous flesh and covered over the ribs and pectorals with those pretty, shimmering scales. "Right, no sea shells," Russell muttered to himself before altering the label of the creature before him. "Mer-person."

The boy nodded and waved his hand in an accepting gesture. "I can live with that."

"How did you get here?" Russell questioned him, placing down his burden of tunic-wrapped shellfish on the ground and sitting close by the mer-person.

"Oh well, I was collecting kelp for dinner," he explained, "but I managed to get myself all tangled up and then I was swept up in a current, only to wake up here."

"Oh, so kelp can be eaten," Russell sounded pleased, reaching for the green seaweed.

"Yeah, but it tastes super gross," the mer-person complained. "But big sis insists that we have to eat vegetables, can't just eat fish and oysters!" His small nose sniffed the air as he noticed something and his stomach rumbled on cue. "Speaking of which, do you have shellfish in there?"

"I do," Russell replied, tossing the kelp to one side having lost interest.

"Can I have some?" His stomach rumbled again. "I haven't eaten since breakfast!" Russell hesitated, but heard a familiar 'beep' coming from his watch. He didn't need to glance at it to realise he'd unlocked a request mission.

"Let me just go and get some wood first," Russell sighed, about to rise and head towards the woodland area.

"What do you need wood for?"

"To cook the shellfish with," Russell mentioned, "you can't want to eat them raw."

The youth snorted; "Can you imagine lighting a fire under the ocean?"

"You have a point," Russell conceded and pushed the tunic filled with goodies towards the mer-person. The youth chuckled gleefully before using a rock to crack open the clam and popping the flesh of the shellfish into his mouth whole. His eyes fluttered shut as he chewed happily.

After he ate four or five clams, he glanced back up at Russell, who was still sitting beside him. He swallowed the mouthful of salty flesh before questioning; "Why is it when I look at you, I want to prostrate and say 'your Majesty'?"

Russell's eyes widened in surprise, unsure how to explain that, when the System decided to pop out from where he was snoozing (on Russell's head, using his blond hair as a nest), and speak; "That is because this man is His Majesty, Russell the First, King of... Er..."

"Er?" Russell queried with a frown, looking upward, even though he couldn't exactly see the System from this angle.

"Well, we've not got around to naming the world so..."

"What was its name before the reset?"

"How would I know?"

"Weren't you the one in charge of it? Before you reset it?"

"Well, yes, but that information was removed with the rest of the original world's settings..."

"Excuse me?" The two parties involved in the exchange glanced towards the men-person still lying on the rock, clam in hand. "Are you talking to a mouse? I mean, is that mouse really talking? That's nuts!"

"You are half-fish and you find a talking mouse weird?" Russell pointed out.

"Touché," the mer-person chuckled after a moment's hesitation.

"But the kid did have a point," Russell muttered to himself, before reaching to grab the mouse from his head. The small furry System gripped his hair acting instinctively due to the nature of its form, causing Russell to shriek as he ripped out a bit of hair. "Was that necessary?"

"Sorry, Your Majesty," the mouse tried offering back the lock of hair in its paws, solemnly. Russell rubbed his aching head, but didn't take the hair. It's not as if he could stick it back on his head after all.

"So why does the mer-person recognise this whole king thing?" Russell questioned the mouse. "The Pirates don't!" Otherwise, would they use him as a slave? Actually, they probably would.

"Ah, well, that's because the boy is a part of this world, while the pirates still belong to their old world..."

"Pirates? There are Pirates on the island?" The mer-person asked excitedly.

"Yeah," Russell responded reluctantly. "Why do you ask?"

"See, it's like this..."

The mer-person, whose name was actually Oscar, wasn't born a mer-person and he'd not been born with scales and a fish like tail. He'd been human. He'd also happened to be the second son of a poor fisherman, that was lost at sea. He'd followed his big brother, after their mother had died not long afterwards onto a ship to turn around their fortunes, which happened to have been a pirate vessel. His big brother had already climbed his way to being the Captain's First Mate and he'd become the ship's cabin boy. Only, on that first voyage of his, their Captain had made a mistake and fallen for a decoy to rob and despite taking hostages to recoup losses, their ship had gotten caught in a storm and struck by lightning... Wait, why did this sound familiar...?

"You're Lego... I mean Square Jaw's kid brother???"

"That would be me!" The kid replied, proudly.

"Can't say he mentioned you," Russell was brutally honest.

"Yeah, that makes sense," Oscar admitted. "We weren't that close and pirates don't really mourn the dead too much. If they did, they'd never get any pirating done and would all retire to honest work."

"So why did you follow your brother into becoming a pirate?"

"Don't you think it's really cool?! Ruling the seas, stealing from the rich, no one telling you where to go and what to do... apart from the Captain... and the First Mate... Second Mate... Cook... ah... well, I was only a Cabin Boy. But better than fishing all the time, selling fish for a pittance then having to hand over most of the money in mooring fees, bribes for officials and taxes to the king! I mean the king of that place, I mean, you've never imposed taxes on us mer-people, right?"

T^T 'I didn't even know I had people I could impose taxes upon!'