”Nice to meet you, Amanda.” The greeting ritual was completed and Hadama considered the human Abandoned as she spoke, reminded a little of someone else he’d met in a season or two past who had been nervous around the first merfolk she had seen. A very nice young woman, and a kind one.
”I come here to gather food,” he explained, words unhurried and patient, clearly not offended by her curiosity. ”I often meet humans along the beach, too.” Usually at random, as he had done today. In recent years more of his people had been coming into the ports to trade with the drylanders, but the less-visited beaches of the coast were still more common for them to come up to the border between land and sea for those things that could only be found in the shallows and tidepools.
”What brought you here?” Though he could guess from the digging that continued magically behind her it did no harm to ask rather than assume.
”I come here to gather food,” he explained, words unhurried and patient, clearly not offended by her curiosity. ”I often meet humans along the beach, too.” Usually at random, as he had done today. In recent years more of his people had been coming into the ports to trade with the drylanders, but the less-visited beaches of the coast were still more common for them to come up to the border between land and sea for those things that could only be found in the shallows and tidepools.
”What brought you here?” Though he could guess from the digging that continued magically behind her it did no harm to ask rather than assume.
