Triton wasn't a frequent visitor to Percy's little river nook. Sometimes Percy might not see him for weeks at a time.
Percy knew he was a he because Percy had asked. Triton told him it was good to ask, because merfolk didn't just have guys or girls. There were also mernix as a third sex, and many more genders on top of it.
But anyways, when Triton did show up, he wasn't usually very talkative. But he did comment on Percy's powers, and seemed interested in what he was learning. He'd been very surprised when he was gone for a month and came back to find Percy making a dome around himself to walk under water (like Katara in the serpents' pass!).
Percy asked him one time if he was named after the Greek God Triton, like from his mom's books she'd read to him. Triton seemed to find that funny, Percy wasn't sure why.
Percy decided it wasn't too important and went back to mastering the tricks Master Katara used.
But a new problem had cropped up after so many months cleaning hit part of the water.
It was getting clean.
Which was good of course! He was doing good, cleaning the water, it was getting better.
But… he couldn't go elsewhere in the river to clean it. This was the only spot that he was hidden from view. And he was running out of stuff to clean.
Triton wasn't much help when Percy asked him, just said that Percy should focus on improving his control over water. And then he suggested Percy learn how to use a trident.
Percy didn't understand that, but it wasn't the first time Triton had suggested learning to use a weapon. Triton seemed to like weapons.
Percy agreed to let Triton teach him though, since he was so interested. And Percy got to show off his ice shaping skills!
He'd learned how to make bigger things, and made a trident. It only a took a weak to make one!
Though it broke easily at first… but he got better.
Now it could take a few hits before shattering.
OO OO OO OO
It was nearly summer, so Percy hid his warm jacket away in the back of his closet. He didn't want Gabe to find it.
The warmer air was nice to work in, but Triton also seemed to be busier.
He didn't explain too much about his job, though he did mention some celebration called Hom'amio Kalala.
He asked the fish what Triton did, but they just called him Prince and Lord, and said the celebration was very special.
Percy figured that meant Triton was an important Merman. He wished he could go to the celebration though.
He missed Triton when he was gone, he was Percy's only real friend. And Percy had been expelled again, so he could've used a friend.
At least Triton wasn't mad at Percy for being expelled, he was upset with the school instead.
Triton thought it was the guide at the aquarium's fault for pointing Percy to pull the wrong lever. It wasn't Percy's fault that the class fell into the shark tank.
And Triton thought sharks were nice anyways, Percy agreed with him.
Percy was glad Triton was there for him, he was a good friend.
Percy's only friend.
OO OO OO OO
Triton said he would be busy for awhile, the celebration Hom'amio Kalala had passed (and apparently went well) and Triton had to do other work to prepare for something called storm season, or Veruo as Triton called it.
He wondered what they did during storm season, but Triton assured him it was nothing for him to worry about.
He declared he would be teaching Percy more about sea culture though, and gave him four books to read while he was gone.
They looked cool, like the dramatic old books in shows. They had hard coral covers that felt really nice to run his fingers over, and the paper inside was more… gritty? Than normal paper. Triton called it tepote.
The downside was that they were written in a language Percy didn't know, with an alphabet he'd never seen before. And they only had a few pictures.
Triton seemed upset that Percy didn't know the language, but provided him a dictionary anyways. He said the language was Halmaheran, the language of the sea.
He informed Percy he expected him to be able to have basic conversations with him when he got back. So… Percy now had summer homework.
Yay.
OO OO OO OO
Percy had figured out a few new fighting tricks for his waterbending. He was recreating Master Katara's blades of ice, but trying to make more of them.
He could control six at once so far, and hold fourteen in the air.
He wanted to be able to control twenty at once, to protect himself from all sides.
He almost felt like he could feel the water he was manipulating too nowadays. It was very cool.
It had been a year since he figured out he was a waterbender, which was the same amount of time it took for Master Katara to become a master (less if you only counted the time till she finished in the Northern Water Tribe). He wasn't as good as her, not at all a master, but with Master Katara to teach him he thought he was improving pretty quickly.
Master Katara was an incredible person to live up to, but he was doing his best.
Practice made perfect.
OO OO OO OO
Percy found that Halmaheran was actually really easy to learn. He didn't know why that was, but he certainly wasn't complaining. It felt natural, like he'd always known it and just hadn't realized. It only took a few weeks for him to not need the dictionary at all.
Though, he wasn't sure he was pronouncing the words right. He figured Triton would help with that.
The scrolls Triton gave him were pretty interesting once he learned how to read them.
The first scroll was all about sea etiquette. It was just an overview apparently, but he could already tell it was different from the things his mom taught him about land etiquette.
He didn't know much about land etiquette except what his mom told him–no elbows on the table, eat with your utensils, hold the door open for others, all that.
For one, Merpeople didn't shake each other's hands, or even bow like he saw people do in the TV shows. They held their hands certain ways, and moved their fingers in different motions depending on the rank of the person.
There were only a few general basic motions in the book, one for the High King, one for the Queen Consort, one for the High Prince, and one for the other Royals in the family. Then just… general polite motions to people, a basic greeting motion and the like.
Percy did his best to practice, but it was hard from just pictures.
He figured it was a bit like sign language. A kid in his apartment building used it, and it was kinda similar. He wondered if the sea had a sign language of their own.
Maybe he should learn sign language at some point?
He made a note of it.
But then uh- oh yeah, tail meanings. That was a cool part of the culture. The tails had different meanings!
Sleek ones were better for swimming usually, faster and stronger, but that usually meant they had less magic. The flowy pretty ones were usually slower and weaker, but had more magic.
Usually, that wasn't a rule according to the book, but there was a cool theory mentioned- Agafya's Theorem, that said that uh… the use of magic influenced the tails. But there was also Phaedra's Theorem, which said that the appearances were just hereditary, and had nothing to do with magic. Another one, uh…. Martim, said that it could be that those with flowy tails made up fro their weaker bodies by making their magic stronger, so it was caused by the tails.
But if you went by… what was their name- Agafya's Theorem! Then Triton's tail was kinda flowy, so he had to have some magic. That was super cool!
The appearance stuff only applied to mer with classic fish tails too, which Percy thought was cool. He hadn't realized there were mer without the fish tails, but apparently there were lots!
He wondered what kind of tail he would have if he were a merman.
…
Percy decided to make a tail out of water.
OO OO OO OO
Making a tail out of water didn't work.
It was very disappointing.
OO OO OO OO
Despite the fact that Triton wasn't there, and the homework, summer was actually nice.
He had more time to practice his waterbending, and was getting much better at his ice control.
It took a lot more work to make ice in the summer, and more focus to keep it ice. But he was slowly improving.
Ice was good for a fight, and he wanted to be good at it. Both because Master Katara was great at that, and because Triton seemed to put a lot of emphasis on fighting.
He wished he'd thought to practice more with snow in the winter, that was bad planning on his part. But at least the ice was doing well! He could practice snow next winter anyways.
He made a note of it.
He was going to be the best waterbender ever!
OO OO OO OO
The second scroll was Percy's favorite of the set.
That scroll was all about the magic of the sea.
Percy found Siren's Song the coolest for sure. He was a waterbender, and therefore of the sea, right? So he could totally learn it one day. He hoped he could, he wanted to learn it.
But that wasn't the only magic- there were loads of magics in the sea! The scroll only gave him an overview of the major ones though.
But of those, there were several really interesting ones.
Like Purification, or Vapaloa in Halmaheran. It would really help clean up the river, so was near the top of Percy's to learn more about list.
Speaking of, he made a list of everything he wanted to learn more about. The sea was so cool!
But yeah, anyways, Percy really liked Purification. It could clean basically anything. It could remove grime and dirt and pollution, and could even remove curses and stuff if you were really good! It was apparently super hard to learn (though that could be said of all the magics). Normally people used magic sand dollars to use it, since that was apparently a good way to store the energy.
Then there was Healing, or Tovufa in Halmaheran. It was pretty self explanatory.
He really wanted to master healing one day, to be more like Master Katara. He hadn't really put much work into that yet… he didn't exactly know how it worked.
He could just wait until Gabe got angry with him again he supposed.
Well, moving on, then there was Current Guiding, or Earatek in Halmaheran. It was basically controlling the sea currents!
It was pretty advanced according to the book, big scale stuff.
He paused, squinting at the river.
…
Well, river currents would be easier right?
…
Yeah, he should try that.
OO OO OO OO
So, controlling river currents was hard.
He'd probably need a lot more practice before he could do that reliably.
…
Or at all.
…
Yeah, he'd come back to that.
Anyways, he was thinking about magic types.
Next was… Prophecy!
Apparently a lot of the oracles and seers were from the sea, or connected to the sea in some way. Nereus was one of the Gods known for being a seer (though as a God he didn't use magic , it was His Divine power, but like- similar nature).
Being able to see the future seemed both scary and cool, the book had a bunch of mentions of the downsides. Like being kidnapped, or going insane from visions. He shuddered, didn't seem fun.
Then of course, Siren's Song!
Obviously he loved this one, it was just so cool.
It was viewed as the strongest and most varied of the magics. It could control people, or influence nature. It could be used to strengthen the other magics too.
It just… sounded so cool.
…
He wondered if singing lessons were needed for that… He should probably consider that, it might be useful…
Okay, so maybe he wanted to learn everything , but who could blame him? Magic! So cool!
He wondered if he'd be any good at different types of magic. He would try regardless of course, but he just wondered.
He decided to ask Triton for more books on sea magic.
OO OO OO OO
Percy did end up getting to practice healing, but it wasn't much fun.
Gabe got mad when Percy brought back less money one day and well…
It didn't end well for Percy.
He had limped upstairs, being as quiet as he could as he slipped into the bathroom. His head was pounding, the bathroom blurry as he scrambled for the shower handle. His hands slipped over the cool metal before he managed to grip it and turn it on.
He wanted to wash the blood off, before mom got home. Didn't want her to- to see him like this.
He didn't even bother taking his clothes off as he all but toppled into the shower, catching himself on the far wall.
The water was cool, soothing on his skin. The blurry tiles came into focus once more bit by bit.
He blinked, disoriented from the rapid recovery, and sank down to sit on the floor of the shower, watching the blood spiral down the drain in a blur of pink and red.
His mind felt clearer and his headache was fading. He ran a finger through the water as it slowly began to clear up, feeling more tired than when he got in the shower.
At least he knew he could heal himself.
OO OO OO OO
The third scroll was one he expected to find boring when he started it, it was about history .
It only took a few pages to realize it practically read like a fantasy novel, or a set of novels.
It still had dry phrasing, the same way his textbooks did, but the pictures and wars and treaties- they were all way cooler than on land.
The different merpeople's lands and sectors- how Poseidon, Arila av ert Wasare (or, King of the Sea) was an overseer of the sea as a whole, but also ruled the Mediterranean still. And how he was a figure that stepped in to aid in stopping wars, but also sometimes had to stay back. Because he ruled the seas as a whole, but didn't really rule the individual deities outside of his subjects, so he couldn't decide things for them.
There were a lot of rivalries and alliances in the ocean too!
He figured it was like land countries fighting each other, just way more interesting causes it was in the ocean and fish and other sea creatures fought too.
There were elite forces of sea dragons , and sea serpents , and so many more cool creatures! There were even some pictures in his book that he thought were super cool.
One of the major generals in a war was a shark! And an octopus (named Ta'vil'ri) was a super important spy that got important info that ended a war! And even the minnows got praise for their help in one of the wars, the war of the Perlisn've Caves. Apparently it was a battle over the sparkling crystal caverns said to hold the Heart of the Ocean, though Percy wasn't sure how accurate that was.
Percy really liked this history.
Why couldn't land history be that interesting?
OO OO OO OO
Percy decided he really needed more trash to clean up, it was too clean in his part of the river now.
So he decided to ask the scary beings he saw before if they could bring more trash towards him.
It… went.
They disappeared whenever he tried to talk to them, or approach them, or even looked at them for more than a second.
He tried sending a note next, but they ignored it and disappeared again.
Then he made cookies for them, leaving the note beside them. The cookies were left untouched and the note ignored. That was insulting, he made the cookies himself. He'd even left out the blue dye!
He decided to try something else, and went down to the bottom of the river with his watery bubble to make a message… only he got distracted working on the message and his bubble popped and he panicked and breathed in and-
Hey… he could breathe underwater…. Who knew?
That was fun to find out and distracted him for a good three hours.
He finally got back on track and arranged the meager amount of trash left in a message. Hopefully, they would see it.
When he returned the next day it was to find the river absolutely filthy once more. Right back to where he started.
He rolled up his sleeves with a grin, he could do this.
OO OO OO OO
The fourth (and final) scroll was filled with stories. He thought they were children's stories, and they were really fun.
There were so many different kinds, and he learned all kinds of things he didn't know!
Like- there was this one mermaid who was forced to become a human because she was betrayed. The poor mermaid was just trying to enjoy some time on land with an enchantment to give her temporary legs, but another jealous mer betrayed her and cursed her so she couldn't turn back, and then sent humans to kill her.
She survived the attack though, and then became really powerful. She managed to regain a mer form, though not her original one, using Siren's Song. Then she plotted revenge on the one who betrayed her.
The story didn't talk about what happened next, but he hoped she got her revenge. The one who betrayed her seemed really mean.
He couldn't imagine betraying Triton, who would do that to their friend? She deserved to pay for it.
Then there was the story about the merman that fought the sea serpents of the dark deep ocean (called ert poreso moare in Halmaheran) in order to save his love, the prince of the Southern Seas, from the shining mer who kidnapped him. It was so cool!
The mer that kidnapped him glowed with- uh- bio-bioluminescence… Percy didn't entirely know what that was, but it sounded cool.
Plus, Percy learned two guys could date! He didn't know guys could do that, but then he didn't know you could be anything other than a boy or a girl until Triton told him. He still had a lot to learn.
Then there was the really cool story about the young mermaid who escaped her aunt, who was a bad mermaid trying to take over the kingdom from the princess (Avineh in Halmerhan). She managed to reach the princess, and warned her about her aunt. The Princess and her head General worked together with the escaped mermaid to defeat the evil aunt, and then they fell in love!
They defeated the aunt and got married, it was amazing. They all loved each other so much, fighting for each other and saving the day. He really enjoyed it.
He hoped there were more stories, maybe Triton would give him more books on the tales.
It definitely helped that they were in Halmaheran, reading was actually enjoyable when he didn't have to figure out which letter went where.
Maybe he could write his notes in Halmaheran?
He made a note of it.
OO OO OO OO
The summer cleaning was going really well. He'd finished the reading, and was spending most of his time cleaning the water. He was getting pretty fast!
He knew a lot more about controlling the water, and it helped that he could breathe underwater now (could he always do that?) so he didn't have to worry about going under so much.
The filthy water was a bit hard to breathe in though, but not nearly as bad as he thought it would be from what the fish said. The water around him looked so filthy, well not immediately around him, but around him like a little bit out.
There didn't seem to be anything too dirty in the water just around him, and he didn't breathe in anything nasty.
It was almost like the water right around him was cleaner than everywhere else.
…
He side-eyed his book on sea magics.
Okay, so maybe he could do that purification stuff. He just had no idea how it worked.
That was good to know at least.
He continued to clean.
OO OO OO OO
Triton returned near the end of the summer, shortly before school was going to start again.
He found that Percy had improved a lot at Halmaheran and declared that for practice they would only speak Halmaheran for a while.
It was kinda fun, and a good exercise.
Percy got a lot better too, and Triton only had to correct his pronunciation sometimes. Since Percy learned from reading he messed up speaking sometimes.
Triton didn't seem to mind correcting him though.
He liked it, it was nice to share something with his friend. Even if Triton acted really weird when he'd told him that Triton was a great friend.
OO OO OO OO
Triton asked when Percy's birthday was.
He got all huffy when he found out he'd just missed it, it had passed only a few days before he'd come back.
Percy was nine now and very pleased. He was almost Ten!
Triton vanished for a few days.
OO OO OO OO
Triton got him a present!
Well two presents, to apologize for missing Percy's actual birthday he said.
He asked Percy if he'd had a celebration when he gave him the present. Percy said no of course, he didn't have any friends other than Triton. And Smelly Gabe definitely wouldn't have allowed one, though his mom did make him blue cake.
Triton seemed angry again.
Percy ignored it for now, he didn't think Triton was angry at him, and opened the presents. He'd only ever gotten presents from his mom before!
His gasped as he revealed the present.
He understood, thanks to the books on sea culture and sea magic,what the significance of a sand dollar was in the sea.
It held great purifying power and was difficult to make.
Triton had gotten him two.
He would treasure them.
Percy carefully put them back on shore, tucking them into his bag. Then he opened the next gift.
He studied it thoughtfully, it was a bracelet.
Didn't the book say something about bracelets being a very special gift? For those close to you, not strangers or casual friends?
He picked it up carefully, studying the conch shell shaped coral charm hanging from it. It was pretty.
It also meant Triton considered him a close friend.
"I had something more for your birthday planned, you'll get another charm for the winter solstice." Triton sounded displeased, but Percy was delighted.
He dove forward, water rippling as he wrapped Triton in a hug. He squeezed tight.
"I love it!"
Percy put it on quickly, beaming as it fit him perfectly.
Triton seemed a bit happier then.
OO OO OO OO
Percy sighed as he stared at his new school. Hopefully this one would be better.
Spoiler: It was not better