Marinus went outside of Crassus’ house with a purpose. Today, he was going to go out for a swim and look at what his aqua farm was producing. He hadn’t swum in a while because the water was cold.

But now that the May sun was shining bright in the sky, it was time for him to return to being a merman.

First, he decided to check up on the lake. The merman went to the lake and undressed, and then breathed in. His legs turned into a tail. He crawled to the water and let himself fall in.

Immediately, curious fish came to play with him. They had no natural predator, and so they weren’t wary. Marinus’ decision to keep carnivorous fish from the lake resulted in a calm existence for the fish that resided in it.

He gripped one golden one and ate it as it squirmed. Ah, raw fish. How he missed it. His actions made the fish swim away in fright. But Marinus didn’t care. There was more fun in fishing anyway than just snatching fish that was foolishly swimming into his hands.

He gave chase. A red, spindly fish led him on a merry chase around the lake, but it ended in his hands, regardless. He went and placed it in a bucked full of water he had taken with him to the lake.

He had something red, could he catch something more old-fashioned? Something gray, perhaps? He dived and looked around. There, in a school of fast-moving green bait fish, was a single fat gray one.

Marinus didn’t know what it was. He hadn’t asked about most of their names. The merman had just checked if they breed like rabbits or were carnivorous. He wiggled his tail from left to right and shot up like an arrow.

The bait fish filled his vision, but that didn’t hide the gray fish from his sight. He batted a bait fish from his face and then blinked. The gray fish was nowhere to be seen.

Then something bit his tail fin. He looked down, surprised that he had let slip a meat-eating fish, but he didn’t feel any pain. Instead, the fish was cleaning his fin gently.

Marinus felt guilty then. Here he intended to eat the fish, and it was helping him. He swam to the surface, fishing forgotten. The fish swam up and began looking at him with its empty, fishy, eyes.

“I am sorry for wanting to eat you,” said Marinus, and the fish dived and splashed some water in the merman’s face by doing so. Now that he no longer wanted to fish, Marinus looked around.

The red fish would be a good side dish. He didn’t feel like returning it to the water. It was caught fair and square. He dived again, and this time he just swam around the bottom of the lake.

He was now searching for colorful stones to gift to Theanore. Maybe he would glue them on a slab of wood? Make her a wooden doll with shiny pebbles in its dress? It won’t replace her rag doll, or Princess Strawberry, but she would add it as a playmate. He was certain of it.

He saw many reddish and orange stones in a corner, and he picked two handfuls of them. Furthermore, he had no idea what they were, but they were small and perfect for gluing.

Satisfied with his find, Marinus turned his tail into legs again and then got dressed. As he filled his pockets with the strange stones, he wondered if Theanore would like them. Some had the same shade as his hair, some like hers. Possibly, he could make hair tie ornaments out of them?

He went back to Crassus’ house and made a quick work of cleaning the fish and placing it on the grill over the stove. There was already a vegetable soup bubbling in a pot and bread in the oven.

“Thea, I’m home!” He called. Theanore still hadn’t greeted him, and he went to look around if she was napping.

She was not in the house. But there was a note next to her bed.

I took Mary and Archibald and went to the bamboo forest to collect sprouts. Some chefs say that they can make nice rice with them.

Well, wasn’t it a bit late for that? Marinus was still not an expert on all things that had to do with land, but even he knew that bamboo sprouts were collected in the morning because they grew too quickly. You can hear the cracking of the grass, and wasn’t it strange that bamboo was grass? As it grew.

Possibly, Theanore had left in the morning. But it was noon now, so why wasn’t she back? Marinus shook his head. She was probably playing with the pandas, her task forgotten.

Smoke spread in the house and Marinus ran to the grill. He put on mittens and took off the fish from the iron grill. It was charred on one side and undercooked on the other.

“Rip, Hiss, lunchtime…oh, right,” sadness spread over Marinus’ face like a rainy cloud. The two murder muffins were gone. Currently, at the Bone Crusher dungeon at No Man’s Land.

He missed Rip more than Hiss, he was ashamed to admit. Hiss, well, hissed at him and purred a lot. Which in normal cats was normal, but in murder muffins was a sign of aggression. Well, hissing was a sign of aggression in normal cats too, but…

Marinus shook his head. Just because they weren’t here didn’t mean he had to forget them. They were Theanore’s first mobs. He waited until the fish cooled and then placed it in an easy to open box.

They had stopped using these types of boxes for food storage when they had found that the murder muffins could and did open them when no one was looking. With a single mana crystal, the merman sends the poorly cooked fish to his friends. Hopefully, they will be reminded that they are missed and might visit.