Chapter 10: A New Life on Land

Naida’s transformation has achieved more than convert her tail into a pair of human legs. She has adapted so that breathing air, and the absence of water around her, has been easier on her than her experience at the fish market.

Naida wakes in a soft bed for the first time in her life. The sheets are warm. The air is cool. The room smells faintly of salt and laundry soap. She blinks up at the ceiling, confused by the stillness. She misses the drifting currents, the swaying kelp, and the shimmering light from the surface above.

Brian sits in a chair beside the bed, half‑asleep, chin resting on his hand. When Naida shifts, he startles awake.

“Oh! Hey,” he says softly. “You’re okay.”

Naida doesn’t understand the words, but she recognizes the calming, reassuring tone of his voice. She smiles.

Brian helps her sit up. Her legs wobble uselessly beneath her, and she clings to his arm for balance. Walking is strange, a bit like trying to swim through sand. Every step feels heavy, clumsy, wrong.

But Brian is patient. He guides her slowly across the room, letting her lean on him. When she stumbles, he catches her. When she laughs nervously, he laughs with her.

He teaches her how to stand. How to walk. How to wrap a towel around herself.

How to drink water from a cup instead of the ocean. Naida absorbs everything with wide‑eyed wonder.

‘Humans are so strange,’ she tells Nerissa through their bond when she visits the aquarium later that morning.