She hooks the curl of her teeth under the notched opening and pulls. The packaging relents easily, seaweed cellulose doing nothing against the bladed edges of her fangs, each tip curving lazily back towards the corners of her mouth like a sly smile, serrations making short work of the rest. It rips across the top in a lopsided line, but that’s fine enough work. Bellanda was never one for perfection anyhow.
The contents jiggle uneasily in place, roe and eel-chunks floating around each other as though suspended in mid-air, kept in place by the rest of the pinkish gelatin around it. Some beads out at the top, over-spilling where Bellanda tore too deep or was not as careful with her hands. It doesn’t stick together in one mass like something like Jell-o might, taking a more semi-liquid form, like that of a pudding. Meat and egg puddings might be rare on land, but it’s more common underwater. Probably because the mer idea of a dessert was wildly different from their counterparts above the surface of the water, though the implication remains the same.
A long purple tongue flicks out between her lips. The dual tips — less springing from a foundation a mere inch or so in and moreso shrugging away halfheartedly, as though reluctant to leave each other behind — flick over the sides of the packaging. The seaweed casing provides no flavor, but the stray drops of the contents inside are sweet, by mer standards. The gelatin has been spiced, in the way that merfolk foods so often were, by corals and by anemones and sea cucumbers and sea slugs, and other soft bodied creatures with stinging cells and interesting flavors that they’ve pulled up from the silt. It carries with it the faint taste of the roe inside, fish eggs piled high and collecting at the bottom, little baubles that appear at once more like jelly than the gelatin they’re contained within. The eel it’s paired with is more subtle, but a welcome addition to complete the flavor profile.
Bellanda does not eat the rest of the dessert. When she’s satisfied and nothing else is spilling out over the edges, she makes a gentle inquiring noise, and leans her head back to nose against her younger sister’s side.
Miranda chirrups back, lifting her head up to see what Bells wants. Her tail is pressed into the inside curve of Bellanda’s, wrapping over her and easily surpassing the length of Miranda’s tail, cresting higher over it like a sailboat over a dingy, and they were enjoying the spring sunshine. It’s shifted again, the earth making its path wobble, lighting up at once different parts of the beach as time moves on. As sunchasers, seeking its warmth, this has meant that their mid-afternoon naps has been relocated to an awkward rock that doesn’t wholly hold either of them, and protests at both, but is endured because it’s warm and also temporary, until the season settles better into summer.
Compared against her older sister, Miranda always looks like a waning thing, shy and sleek and seeking the rocky crevasses provided by Bellanda’s bulk. It’s the topic of this conversation, short and elusive as well.
“Yhstr-ere uina fuut’yr, ky’tha btie uanj’h oth’oon. Tr’sse nuuk?” Bellanda speaks slow, softly, in a tone reserved solely for Miranda. This is a delicate topic, and she knows that. She won’t press. There has to be an air of plausible deniability, an ability to excuse or to hide or to make exception due to circumstance, because open confrontation has never helped with anything. Baby steps. Small things. She nods her chin down at the dessert, more afterthought than anything, as though this too is something they can both look away from.
It’s a delicate dance to get Miranda to eat. She didn’t feel safe staring it face-on, buckling and refusing when pushed. The only occasions where she allowed it were small, feigning, easy to miss because Miranda felt safest that way, and nothing happened if Miranda didn’t feel safe. And, because Miranda had liked its taste before, before they found this new pattern of life, Bellanda thought it might be a little easier this time. Especially because they could make the excuse that it was Bellanda who was eating the dessert in the first place, and thus it was hers before it was Miranda’s, and this was mere afterthought.
Miranda moves, shifts. Lifts her head up just to drape it over Bellanda’s back, finding warm scales and warm armor straps with hot metal that bites pleasantly against the ridge of her jaw. It’s not rejection, not quite. It is, however, a sign that this hasn’t worked in the way Bell wanted it to. Her eyes shutter, and her reply comes short and disappointing. “Hysat-buul heta’gh ool qu’ia’h.
Iyw’ll yiu’ht’ia w’llait.”
The corners of Bellanda’s mouth pull in closer, her eye glancing back down to the meal. She does not flick her fins, tries not to move them so overtly, but they dip and lower all the same, cresting back and over the top of Miranda’s head. “Othay iua iidn’ae. Ur’tye nia.”
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