“Oof.” Her breath was driven from her as Riley was forced into the sand with a shoulder wedged into her gut. Half wheezing, half laughing, Riley shoved her opponent off of her and wiggled away. A wide grin had split her lips and she stuck her tongue put at her friends. The twins, Corey and Coden, hovered side by side. They looked identical with their messy red-brown hair that drifted around their ears, with stormy eyes and faces full of freckles. Their skin was pale and mottled with brown and grey spots, and tails of red clay glistened dully in the morning light. Each of them had a short, rounded fin, entirely translucent save for the bright red veins that webbed through them in a fanning pattern. The only difference between the two was a short, wide scar down Corey's cheek from splitting his face open on a particularly jagged piece of coral.

It was Coden that had fallen on her, and she pouted at him. “That was not very kind,” she mocked as she propped closed fists in her hips and stuck her tongue out further. At eleven cycles, they were two years older, but she held her own well enough when they wrestled. They always claimed to let her win, but she felt it was more they did not like that a younger had tied with them in a one on one. In a group tangle, she tended to lose, but she was determined to one day come out victorious in that too.

Corey tilted his head and pursed his lips. “Aww, what is the matter, Rae? Can you not handle a hit today?”

Riley’s nose crinkled at the nickname and she shook her head. “Do not call me that, Corey,” she protested.

But it was the wrong thing to say because a wide grin flowed across his features and his brows dipped in mischievously. “Sorry, Raelyana,” he corrected.

Riley growled and bared her fangs. She hissed and launched herself at him, barrelling into him and knocking him over down into the rocky sand. He grunted in surprise, but she grabbed hold of a rocky outcropping for balance so he could not throw her off. She pressed her other hand down against his throat and stared at him with hardened eyes and a firm frown. “My name is Riley,” she warned him.

He thrashed for a moment before sighing in exasperation. “Fine, fine, Riley. Let me up,” he huffed. She relinquished her grip and rose off of him. “I do not know why you are so sensitive about it though.”

Riley shrugged and brushed it off. She hated her birth name, and had decided she wanted to change it last cycle, but she was having a hard time convincing others to indulge her. Her mother was against the change and more members of her family were inclined to respect her mother's wishes than to acknowledge Riley's own. But it was different with her friends – her cousins and peers – and it meant a lot to her to be who she wanted around them. It was sometimes the only opportunity she got, when she was with them.

“I just do not like it, okay?” she pressed. Both boys nodded their understanding. They were punks – she was too – but there was a difference between pranking and bullying. She did not imagine they would harass her about it again.

“Where is Akailen?” Coden asked as he gazed around them. He cupped his hands around his mouth and hollered her name.

“I am here!” Akailen called back. A heartbeat later she came darting up over the swell of the shelf. Her mother of pearl tail dazzled with a near blinding sheen as it caught the light. Her split fins of bone white flapped wildly through the water. The were oversized, but Akailen was always assured by the adult Mer that she would grow into them. They made her swimming a little clumsy and she always had a hard time stopping if she got going a bit too fast. It made Riley grateful that her own dual fins seemed to grow with her rather than giving her problems.

Akailen pulled to a stop beside them, but not without bumping into Riley's back so her chin jutted put over Riley's shoulder. “Sorry,” she mumbled.

“It is alright,” Riley assured her with a smile. Akailen returned the smile and her eyes sparkled. The were a soft green, like shiny pieces of sea glass. Her russet hair was pulled off her face with a tie of twisted kelp roots so that it hung down her spine to her hips. Akailen's hair grew incredibly quickly and her mother was constantly taking a jagged shell to keep it under control. Less than half a moon ago, it has been chopped just below her shoulders.

Riley’s own blonde hair was at her shoulders, just slightly longer than the brightly colored bangs that framed her cheeks and chin. Her mother had recently forced her to sit and have it cut, even though it had only been down to her chest. Riley still had a sour taste in her mouth about it. It was only hair – it grew back – and she did appreciate that it did not catch or get in her face as much when shorter, but she hated never being given the choice. Her mother had never seemed to understand her, and Riley often felt like a disappointment.

“What should we play?” Akailen's lilting voice broke Riley of her brooding. She gave herself a shake and refocused on the conversation.

Corey shrugged. “Track and tag?” he suggested.

His brother shoved him and shook his head. “Not if Riley's tracking.”

Riley puffed up her chest. She did not quite understand how the others were not just as good. She only had to taste the water and their trails lingered in her gills, and she could feel the pulses of their heartbeats when she got close enough. The water always buzzed with it, but she could tune it out whenever she wanted. She did not know why they did not tap into it too, but it still made her feel good to excel at the game despite being the youngest in the group.

“We could race,” Akailen proposed. “To the far side of the reef. I want to try my luck; I have been practicing.”

Riley grinned. “I would take that challenge.”

Corey and Coden both nodded, but it was Coden that spoke. “We could test the gorge current after. It is on the far side; our race will take us right there.”

Akailen seemed to deflate a little. “I thought we were supposed to stay away from there; it is not safe.”

Corey shook his head and waved away her concerns. “It is fine. The adults only say that because they want the smaller merlings to keep away. We are fine.”

“It does sound like fun,” Akailen admitted.

“Then let us go,” Riley agreed eagerly.

They had all just twisted into racing formation when Riley paused at the sound of her name. When she heard it again, she turned to see who was calling her. “Riley!” the excited squeal belonged to her younger cousin, Kera, who was hurrying towards them and waving her arm in the air. Riley glanced around for her aunt – who rarely left the four-year-old along for long – but she was nowhere in sight. Kera must have slipped away on her own.

Behind her, all her friends groaned at Kera's approach.

“Riley, where are you all going? Can I come?” Kera’s stumpy tail was working hard behind her and when she finally got close enough, her wide eyes were full of pleading excitement. “Please?”

Before she could answer, Riley felt a twinge in her side that made her wince. She glanced away from Kera to find Corey tugging on one of the tiny fins that grew from her hips. They were no bigger than her closed fist and were half expected to fall off as she got older – though Riley desperately hoped not – and very sensitive. She tugged from Corey's grip and frowned at him.

“Get rid of the baby, Riley. She cannot come with us.”

“I am not a baby,” Kera protested softly. “I can keep up, I promise. Please, Riley?”

Riley sighed. She loved Kera, but her friends did not, and she did want to play with them. She glanced back down at Kera's hopeful face. “Kera…you should go back to Aunt Becca before she worries about you. You are too young for this game, but we will play tomorrow okay? I promise.”

Guilt squeezed at her as she watched Kera's face fall. “You said that yesterday,” Kera muttered softly as her shoulders slumped.

Riley paused for a moment and thought back. Kera was right and she had made that promise previously. Nodding her head, she made her decision. “You are right,” she agreed. She turned back to her friends and shrugged. “Go on without me; I can catch up later.”

“Seriously?” Coden rolled his eyes. “Fine, whatever. See you later then.”

Riley shrugged off their annoyance; they would forgive her. She always kept her promises. When she turned back to Kera, she found the little Mer droopy eyed and slumped in on herself. She was staring at the sand. “Sorry,” she whispered. “I did not mean to make your friends leave. Riley, why do they never want to play?”

Riley sighed and draped an arm across Kera's shoulders. She pulled her close and rubbed a fist over her head until Kera squealed with laughter and wiggled in her grip. “They just do not know how great you are. One day, you will show them.”

Kera wrapped her arms snuggly around Riley's waist and nuzzle her. “You are my most very favorite.”

“Oh? Even better than Nero?” Riley teased. Kera shrugged guiltily, but her smile was wide as she shook her head. Riley laughed. There was no one – save her mother – that Kera loved more than her older brother.

And Kera was perhaps the only person that Nero genuinely engaged with and spoke to. Not that he was unfriendly or unkind, he was simply shy and quiet and reserved. He preferred to keep to himself and simply watch life rather than engage with it. At least, that was how it seemed to like to Riley; she did not understand how he could prefer that, but she respected it. Most of the time. Not really at all; it was fun to harass him. Riley grinned and gently prodded Kera’s sides, tickling her until she was giggling again. “Where is your brother?” Riley inquired with her tongue poking between her teeth cheekily. “Perhaps we should go find him?”

Kera’s face lit up and she nodded eagerly. “Yes! Then we can all play!” Kera tugged on Riley’s arm. Riley giggled but followed along as Kera attempted to tow her. In reality, her grip was not very strong and Riley was following under her own power. She loved her little cousin, but Kera was very small and weak. Her Aunt Becca said it was because Kera was born too early and that’s why she was so tiny, but that she would grow in time. Riley had heard her mother whispering about the fact that Kera should have died when she was a baby – not because anyone wanted her to, but because she had been too sickly for anyone to believe she could survive. It was why Aunt Becca always kept Kera close, and the other children would often get in lots of trouble of they were anything but gentle with her. Riley imagined that was where some of their resentment festered from, but she enjoyed Kera's sweet smile and happiness too much to mind playing simpler games she had long outgrown. It made Kera too happy for Riley to refuse.

They swam over the reef together and it was Kera who veered off first. Riley grinned. Keera could always find her brother, and Riley thought she would make an excellent tracker in the future.

They found Nero off by himself, coiled loosely around a fat red coral tube. This thick gray tail swishes occasionally through the water and he lifted a hand to bat some of his shaggy ashen hair out of his face, but beyond that, he sat stoic with obsidian eyes that stared off over the reef to gaze at nothing in particular. His browned skin had a tone to it that reminded Riley of smoke. She had seen the great plumes of it that belched from flames only once in her life, when a particularly dry season had lit one of the nearby islands ablaze. It had been fascinating.

Nero was one of the only Mer Riley knew who had a rough, calloused skin of stretched sfascinlike a shark rather than the smooth plated rows many others tended to have. He was not unique in his tail, but it was a less common sight. Thick red stripes curled over his hips and part of his muscular tail, and two small fins jutted from the front side of the limb, down near the tip. He truly did remind her of a shark.

“Nero!” Kera called in delight as she scurried across the expanse between them and flopped on his back. Her fingers curled around the dorsal that stretched from his spine and she pressed her cheek against his shoulder.

The tiny fins at Riley's hips flitted open and closed as she dropped down into the sand beside her cousin and she grinned widely.

Nero raised one eyebrow as he regarded her. “what do you want, Riley?” he inquired with a sigh. Riley's grin only widened at the sixteen cycle Mer and poked her tongue out between her teeth.

Kera beat her to an answer, however, as she pushed up to land on Nero's head instead. She rested her chin on the crown of his skull and her fingers slid in his hair until she was half covering his eyes while her tail trailed down his back. “Nero, willy you play with us? Please?” she begged while tugging on his ear.

Riley nodded. “Yes, Nero, play a game with us,” she taunted as she slumped bodily against him. A flick of his arm shoved her off. He was silent for a moment as he reached up and dragged Kera off his back and over his head. She squeaked in surprise as he effortlessly pinned her to the sand and began to tickle her sides.

Kera's laughter became shrill as she twisted and squirmed to get away from him. “Nero, no! No tickles! Noooo,” she howled as her tiny gill slits flared and flapped frantically. She pushed at his hands until he let her go and she shot put from the reach of his grasp. A second later she was back and hanging off him again. “Please, big brother? One game?”

Nero rolled his eyes, but the faintest hint of a smirk – the closest thing to a smile one could get from him – twitched at the corners of his mouth. “Alright,” he caved. “One game of seek out.”

Kera cheered and threw herself down into the sand while watching him expectantly.

“Seek out a curly shell,” he instructed. Kera twisted around, stirring up particles as she dashed off with a wide smile. Riley sat back a moment. Seek out was hardly ever and advanced game and there were hundreds of curly shells scattered within eyesight along the reef. She would rather give Kera a head start and allow her to win.

Then she found her face pressed into the sand as Nero's tail connected with her back and bowled her over. “Why are you still sitting there?” he crouched.

Riley did not respond and instead hastily swam off in pursuit of her younger cousin and a shell.