Tanked
Epilogue

Many truths turn out to be sad. The truth of my story is it ended, very quickly, after I was torn away from my mate and babe.

However, there were still many happy truths to follow.

Azalyss got to live freely in the shallows around a beautiful island with good humans that knew there was enough food to share and so never worried about the mers in their waters. He got to learn how to hunt, how to build nests, brushes, how to tend his own wounds and how to enjoy life. He never met his own people, other mers, but he got to learn their history and hear their stories from Synris.

Synris was ultimately a wonderful father. Although Azalyss never had a mother like I had wanted, he got a good father and that was enough.

Synris loved his son and was endlessly proud of him. He taught the younger everything he knew and then learned from him as all fathers eventually learn from their children. He did however forget to teach Azalyss that eels were not good pets, and I will admit the look of horror when Azalyss brought the thing back to him was quite amusing.

The humans didn’t bother them much. Once a girl gave Synris a crown of flowers from the island to wear. Another time a boy fell into the water from his father’s boat. Azalyss had laughed that they didn’t know how to swim at birth but even then, he was already carrying the boy back to the surface. He taught the boy to swim. Years later, Azalyss fell in love with that same boy’s granddaughter.

They all lived happily around the island. Though sometimes they missed me, they were happy.

Zephic and Salo were careful to never have babes of their own. They simply didn’t want any. Their cage, or tank, was expanded considerably later and they enjoyed the rest of their days playing together there. The humans there never gave them problems. Sometimes they worried about their friends and family but ultimately, they were happy and lived as they wanted.

As sad as it is, I never got to be a part of my only child’s life outside the watery cage. I never saw the sky again and didn’t get to be a mother for very long. I didn’t get to help teach Azalyss anything of the real world, or to grow old with Synris in the sands of the lagoons around the beautiful island…

But I saw it all. I saw them learn, laugh, play, cry, survive and live together. I saw Synris keep his last promise to me. I saw Azalyss grow up. I saw them love each other and got to see them live happily in their private shallows.

For that, I was happy.