Follow the tail
Unable to help her own growing curiosity, Daniel swam toward the coral patch - peeking behind it, only to find nothing there. How strange. Wasn’t there something there…? With a little frown, the selkie tilted her head, a little confused; but after a moment, she glanced around and perked up as soon as she saw a figure rapidly swimming away from her. It mimicked her own; a humanoid top half, and a selkie bottom half - it was definitely another of her kind! But why were they so desperate to get away? With how fast they had sped away, it was almost as if they were afraid of Daniel - last she checked, she looked pretty cool rather than scary, but Daniel could only guess that newcomers of any kind were to be treated with caution regardless. Knowing better than to waste any precious time for the chase, Daniel hurriedly swam after the figure, her tail swishing frantically back and forth behind her as she propelled herself forward.
“Hey, wait up!” Daniel called out, hoping that the stranger would hear her and stop - but instead, they continued to swim away from her. Why were they fleeing from her? Were they still afraid of her? They’re still afraid...why? I’m not gonna hurt ‘em or anything, jeez. Already, Daniel started to feel a tiny bit agitated; she had a feeling this was going to be pretty tiresome. She just wanted to know who this stranger was; and she couldn’t exactly do that if they were trying to get away from her. They hadn’t even looked back at her yet; no hello, no nothing. With a frown, Daniel picked up the pace as she darted this way and that, following what she assumed was a fellow selkie. It had to be one; it looked just like her, with a matching tail and all - there was no way it could be any other creature.
The environment around her was a little different now; rather than being surrounded by barren sand or dying coral, a bit more life had begun to pop into view - a strange thing to see at the bottom of the ocean, but considering selkies existed, she had a feeling that the environment was not bound by nature’s rules all the way down here. Humans didn’t know much about the ocean to begin with, so flaws in judgement was something that wouldn’t come as a surprise for this underwater environment. Still, it was admittedly odd to see - all of this went against what Daniel had learned about the ocean, that while even the deepest, darkest places had life, it wasn’t bustling like the higher levels of the ocean.
But oh, was Daniel most definitely wrong. The numerous patches of pretty, bright coral around her were illuminated with various bioluminescent creatures; many of them were either swimming about and scuttling around in plain sight, or hiding away in the crevices of secure shelter the coral offered. Most of the creatures that were marked with bioluminescent light; varying from blue, to green, to red, were little fishes, octopuses, and shrimp, among countless others that Daniel was sure humans hadn’t discovered yet.
Written by monochromecheshire on 09 August 2017
