Being an outcast from his own family hurt. Technically, they weren’t all related to him and those that were only shared his father, the king. He was the bastard, the mistake, the cursed. All in all, he wasn’t wanted. So he rarely ever stayed with the colony. It’s not like he fit in anyway when he wasn’t allowed to ever do the thing that he instinctively wanted to do: sing.
It’s not like anyone ever missed him when he was gone anyway.He could probably just leave completely and they wouldn’t even notice. So he would regularly go up to the surface and watch the humans from the large grouping of sharp rocks at the bottom of the cliff that humans never went to. Apparently, it was too dangerous to get to and nothing good was over there or something. Either way, he liked it.
He knew it was a risk to get anywhere close to a shore, especially one as busy as his one. But it also helped him learn things from the humans, pick up on their language. He was hoping that maybe one day, he could talk to a human. As long as he didn’t sing to them, talking couldn’t hurt, could it? Despite all the dangers his ancestors had said humans were to them, he just wanted someone to talk to that didn’t know of his birth or his curse. Maybe then he could feel wanted.
It was early one morning that he swam toward his rocks when he noticed an unusual disturbance that occasionally broke the surface of the water. Upon closer observation, someone was throwing rocks near his own. He barely surfaced, staying hidden behind one of the bigger boulders to investigate. His back fin flared when he spotted a human on the gravel shore of the rock outcrop. He’d never seen one this close before.
Suddenly, the cautions came into his mind and he got nervous, his tail flicking out of habit, reflecting the morning rays off of its orange and gold surface. He heard a noise and froze, flattening his back to the rock and slipping down into the water so only his head was above. His heart hammered in his chest, blood roared in his ears and he didn’t dare breathe.
