#snr

The first week of orientation doesn't even take place in the aquarium. There's a course at the learning center that Nadia enrolls Fermin in, damning him to a classroom for five days straight of didactic hell. It's a crash course on mermaid physiology, health needs, and even a brief history on the evolution of the various species of mermaids found around the globe. The whole globe. That's a whole day out of five, and Fermin hardly sees the use in knowing more about convergent evolution or why some mermaid species are considered to be feral while others are almost passably domestic. They don't even talk about sharklike mermaids until the late afternoon, close to when Fermin is supposed to be clocking out and going home to just fall into bed, exhausted by the overstimulation of too much information in too little of a time frame and too few fucks to give about most of what he was taught. There are numerous breeds of sharklike mermaids, and Fermin learns one thing that does linger in his mind, even as he lets his eyes slide shut and his mind drift in the vague direction of sleep. Pedro is part of a lineage that mimics a living fossil species. His species is almost as old as humans, though he may be no older than ten years old. He could just as easily be twenty. The hybridization process creates variability in the lifespans of mermaids on an individual level that transcend other species commonalities. Pedro could live to be a hundred, as some of the luckiest humans do. That's another thing that Fermin learned today. Actually, anything that pertains to Pedro, Fermin feels like he locked in his mind for safe keeping. He has sight, despite the appearance of his eyes. The lights in his enclosure are always low, though, and Fermin feels like he understands that better, too. God, it's all he can think about—Pedro and what he is and how he works. Not that, like. Fermin knows that he'll have to get to know Pedro to actually know him. Or he could just ask Nadia, but Fermin is more keen to the idea of seeing for himself. He doesn't like the thought when it comes to him, but it's true. Fermin wants to know more about Pedro. Nadia said that he was nonverbal. Surely Fermin's name isn't the first thing Pedro has ever said. But he did say Fermin's name.