Challenge #01844-E020: Considering Coconuts

http://otherwindow.tumblr.com/post/168918610430/ -- Anon Guest

Merfolk didn't want to have much to do with the surface. There was plenty more to eat under the water and they knew it. But the two-legs-like-us[1] were getting deeper and deeper nets, and something had to be done. Let's just say mistakes were made on both sides. Most notable of these is coconuts.

For eons of Merfolk civilisation, they understood coconuts as ill omens. Something that is made to float, sinking slowly to the bottom of the sea? That was just as much a herald of disaster as -say- something going amiss in the stars is to us. And since they were found with their husks rotted off, the merfolk spun the legend that they were human eggs, rejected by their mothers. Much in the same way that humans call shark eggs a "mermaid's purse".

By comparison, the truth was boring, as Iiriita found out when a human caught her in their deep net, and injured her fin. She had to stay in a tide pool while she healed and the human who caught her brought her food by way of an apology. They were a shipwrecked human, Iiriita found out as their words and understanding came together. Only able to build a small boat that would not survive the first reef, and knowing that building a bigger boat would only come to ruin, as demonstrated by the decaying wreck on the sharp rocks at low tide.

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