Melody decided to try to keep her mind off of her impending Tiamata’vanya by throwing herself into the important work of investigating the dark kelp forest that she had encountered with Ripper. Presently, she found herself at Echo’s front door, blowing into the bubble tube that connected to her room. She could see her friend deep inside of the dome house. Her bedroom was glowing faintly from a bioluminescence lamp, which faded in and out in a rhythmical, calming pulse. The glow helped Melody to see that she was not asleep, despite the late hour, and was pouring over something. The rhythmic light from her lamp illuminated her neon pink scales and lime green hair- making her look like a party at a tropical coral reef. As the bubbles suddenly hit her in the face, breaking her concentration, she looked up and made eye contact with Melody. Melody waved, and Echo’s eyes widened. Within moments, she had proceeded to swim through the various openings signifying different rooms of her house, and then she popped through the kelp curtain that covered the entrance.

  “Well, if it isn’t the mermaid that went and got hot and bothered for a human.” Echo joked, but then, seeing Melody’s face fall, her voice softened. “Sorry, Melly. How are you? The last I saw of you, you were sitting in the dark of the cavern, looking like you were going to cry. I wanted to comfort you somehow, but I really didn’t know what to say.”

  “I know, Echo, it’s okay- I’m really trying not to think about what happened in there until the day I have to face my punishment.” Melody took a deep breath, “So let’s talk about something else. For now, I really need your help with something. What do you know about orca dialects?”

  Echo cocked her head and raised an eyebrow.

  “Orca?” She crossed her arms over her chest after brushing her hair back dramatically. “I’ll have you know, I’m fluent in almost every dialect of whale, even ones that I haven’t encountered before in the wild, from pods located halfway around the world. I was tutored by the number one echolocationist and cetacealinguist in all of the oceans.” She uncrossed her arms and grabbed Melody’s hands, looking into her eyes excitedly. “Actually, she even recorded some of her lessons for me. If you’re interested, we can go inside and listen to them on my wavebox.” She nodded vigorously.

  Melody grinned at her friend. “No, Echo, you’re all I need. While I’d love to study some of the orca dialects myself in the future, I don’t have time right now. What I need is a translator. Will you come with me to meet my orca friend? The last time I saw her, she was trying to tell me about something important, but it was too complex for me to understand.”

  "I didn't know you’ve been rubbing fins with whalefolk, Mel! You keep surprising me at every turn. Who are you?! But of course I'll help you. If not more for the sake of my own curiosity than out of the kindness of my heart." She shrugged, smiling.

  "I don't care about your ulterior motives as long as you're helping me out." Melody laughed, overcome with relief at the thought that her nagging questions about the dark kelp forest may soon be answered. Despite everything that had been going on for the past few days, her mind still drifted back to the disturbing interaction that she had with the not-quite-shark creatures in the forest.

  "So, where and how are we going to find your orca friend anyway? Do you know their name? Or what pod they're a part of?"

  "Hmmm, well I actually never thought to ask how I could get into contact with her. She just sort of appeared out of nowhere when I most needed her the other day. She's the one that helped me to find the man that I rescued from Hydra's clutches."

  "That's not helpful." Echo frowned. "Do you at least know her name?"

  "I don't know how to pronounce it in her dialect, but I call her 'Ripper' because she said that it's the sound a head makes when being torn from a body."

  Echo nodded slowly, pondering. "I like the sound of this orca already. Tell you what, let’s go out to the open waters East of the village. There’s a few orca pods that come through that area frequently. Once there, I can try to make a few calls to see if we can get in touch with her, or at the very least we can try to glean some information from nearby whales. Follow me.”

  Echo quickly shot up towards the surface, and Melody followed. Once they reached just a few hundred feet below it, Echo turned tail and began to swim away from the village perimeter. As they swam, Echo excitedly spoke of many hours spent perfecting the exact pitch and frequency of various whale calls, and the complexity of their different languages.

  “…and it wasn’t until I was blessed by the Goddess with my specific sound-related siren gifts, that I was actually able to fully appreciate all of the beautiful sounds made by the different species of whale- sounds that denote their specific languages. You don’t know what it is to truly live until you hear the call of the blue whale! The sound is ethereal! It’s such a pity that everyone can’t hear what they’re saying, as the frequency that they speak in is too low for the average mermaid’s ears to pick up- I mean not that you’re average, of course, you’re just not blessed with the gift of hearing and vocalizing- but anyway, yes the call of the blue whale is something that I just cannot even describe. It’s a sound that reverberates throughout every cell in your body. Honestly though, sometimes it can be sort of a curse, as they are the loudest creature in all the oceans, and it keeps me awake at night when they’re speaking more than usual. I can sometimes pick up blue whale calls that are coming from three hundred leagues away, I’m NOT even joking…”

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  Melody tuned in and out of her friend’s words as they swam, feeling somewhat overwhelmed by the large amount of information about the languages of cetaceans. Every once in a while she would politely state “uh huh” and “you don’t say!” After all, she didn’t want for Echo to think that she was at all uninterested in something that was clearly such a passionate topic for her.

  After swimming for about half an hour, they reached an area of very little variance in submarine topography. The lack of hills and valleys, or any other distinguishing feature on the seabed, meant that they could see very far all around them. Schools of small silver fish swirled around them, somewhat helped along by a gentle current.

  “Have we arrived?” Melody asked, as Echo had suddenly stopped swimming, and was looking around, as if searching for something.

  “Shhhh” Echo put a finger against her lips as she closed her eyes. Melody did as she was asked, silently occupying her mind by watching the gentle formations created by the methodical fish. She wondered what it would be like to be a part of something so seamless, lost in the anonymity of it all.

  Without warning, Echo suddenly began to emit clicks, whistles, pulses and groans. The sounds reverberated throughout the water, almost as if the sound waves were living things. The current of fish quickly fled at the sound of their greatest fear. Melody watched in awe as her friend made sounds that she had no idea could be formed by the anatomy of a mermaid. Her arms were now outstretched and her eyes were squinting as her mouth opened wider and wider, then smaller, then wider again as the sounds changed. Her neon pink lipstick, which Melody now noticed matched her tail perfectly, accented these movements of her mouth. Her lime green hair was cascading all around her as the sounds seemed to be causing every part of her body to glow and pulse.

  After a few minutes of this continuous series of sounds, Melody saw shapes in the distance taking form, swimming closer and closer. They were swimming at a leisurely pace, not too fast or too slow. Eventually, Echo and Melody were surrounded on either side by a pod of orca whales, who were now making similar sounds in response to Echo’s words. Echo opened her eyes now, and began to speak to them rapidly, no longer needing to project her voice over great distances. She appeared tired and worn by the effort that she had expended in calling them. The orcas and Echo spoke back and forth for a few minutes.

  “What are they saying?” Melody whispered to her, feeling left out of the discussion.

  “I’m trying to ask them about the whereabouts of your friend, but they just want to discuss with me how I came to be so fluent in their language. They have never before encountered a mermaid that is capable of making the same sounds as them.”

  A small calf curiously came over to Echo and swam around her, excitedly spouting lots of noises. An older orca came over and herded the little calf away. Even despite her juvenile grasp of their language, Melody could tell that the little orca was being reprimanded for pushing its way to the front of the crowd. The clicking sounds of the orcas was increasing as they talked amongst each other, until there was an almost deafening roar of sound. Melody felt guilty, but she had to cover her ears as the sound increased. Echo had been viewing the crowd now for a minute or so, when she then let out a very loud call. A palpable silence fell over the crowd, and all eyes were on her. It was then that Melody heard her say Ripper’s name several times. There was more clicking and grunting among the crowd, and then the crowd parted, and Melody was relieved to see Ripper moving through the empty space towards them.

  “Hello, friend.” Ripper greeted Melody first. Melody nodded at her.

  “Nice to see you.” Melody said simply, suddenly feeling very self conscious about her own ability to speak orca. Echo giggled next to her, then turned to speak to her in their own language of Mermish.

  “Your accent is just atrocious, Melly! What are we going to do with you? No wonder you need a translator.” She continued to laugh as Melody crossed her arms and pouted at her. Echo now turned to Ripper and bowed deeply. She began to speak to Ripper, who said a few clicks and groans back at her in reply.

  “Ripper says that she’s delighted that you can talk freely with her now. She wants to know what you are seeking her for.” Echo nodded encouragingly at her friend.

  “Please tell me everything that you know about the dark forest that we were in earlier. What were those shark creatures? You mentioned darkness and magic, can you please elaborate?” Melody was talking swiftly now, hardly able to get the words out.

  “Okay, okay, let me translate that before you say anything further. I can see this has been eating you up, keeping you awake.” Echo cut her off gingerly, patting her friend on the back. Melody blushed and laughed nervously as Echo turned to Ripper and translated. All of the orcas were silent now, listening intently to her words.

  Ripper spoke to Echo, but only a few brief clicks and whistles. She then turned to Melody.

  “I’m sorry, my friend.” Her words were very soft this time, barely audible.

  With that, there were a few excited noises that erupted from various sides of the crowd, back and forth for a few moments. Then, the crowd dissipated, as quickly as it had gathered, it was gone. Ripper looked solemnly at Melody and then, after everyone else had left them, she turned and swam away, following her community.

  Melody and Echo swam in place, in shocked silence, for a few minutes, before Melody turned to her friend and searched her eyes.

  “What in the name of the Goddess was that? What did Ripper say?” She asked softly.

  “She said that she has already said too much the other day, and is in trouble with her people for speaking of forbidden things. She said that she is unable to elaborate on the forest.” Echo said, equally as soft in tone.

  Stunned, Melody chewed on her lip for a moment. Then she grabbed Echo’s shoulders, and started to shake her. “What in the world would the top predator in the ocean be afraid of?” She cried. Echo pulled away. She looked far into the distance.

  “A darkness greater than we’ve ever known.”