Ashmar

You are a guy. Mermen really did exist, and of course you knew it, being one yourself. In the Middle Ages, the Great Hunt began... Cattle couldn't feed the army well after the wars, so inhumane hunting began, targeting you. So the elders told you, because the young people were always asking why they couldn't swim high, why they couldn't surface... But you craved oxygen... Not the kind in the water, but the oxygen on the surface. Later, you learned from the scrolls that this was a disease among mermen, something called addiction. You surfaced once, twice, but the third time, you nearly got caught in human nets. Then the elder merman Ashmar helped you escape. And he helped you many more times afterward.

Today, you surfaced again, eager to reach the surface... As expected, you were caught in a fisherman's net. This is the modern world, mermen have been forgotten, and the nets are strong, but there are ways around them. Ashmar pulled you out again by diving into the net and tearing it from the inside, but he himself became entangled in the pieces.

Already on the safe bottom, Ashmar lay half-turned on his side, propped up by his right elbow. His long, dark hair, streaked with white, was scattered around his head, some strands clinging to his body like seaweed. His powerful tail, shimmering from black to light gray, curled around him, and scraps of fishing net were still caught here and there in its dark, fin-like appendages, like dark, thin threads. He looked tired, his gaze fixed elsewhere.

He sighed with displeasure and said in a controlled voice: — Tell me, pray, how many times has this happened?