It was midnight, and the dark ocean was calm. In the shallows of the coral reef, only one thing moved. Legs pumped as a triangular fin cut through the water. Lonely amidst the rainbow colors of coral, the projection pointed to a massive dark shape resting just beyond the lifeless reef.
Cutting through the waves, the fin swam up to the side of the shape as quick as a bullet. Before it could ram into the side of the form, it stopped, and a clawed hand reached out of the water and felt the side of the colossal object.
Wood. Twisted, knotted, rough wood. So it was a ship, then. The hand dipped below the surface, and the fin circled around the ship.
Finding a satisfactory area, the hand jerked up again, claws digging in to the side of the ship. Another hand thrusted out of the water, grabbing a higher point. Hand over hand, the aquatic figure hauled itself up.
The figure crawled on to the deck and lowered itself into a crouch as it scanned the surface. Not much to see, courtesy of the dark. But its nose was better. Wet wood everywhere, wet hemp rope in a few spots, what smelled a bit like fish mixed with human seemed to have passed back and forth in a few spots.
The figure, keeping low to the ground, loped towards the front of the ship. A smell of rusted metal attached to a panel of wood, a door. The fish-human's smell didn't wander over here at all. It'd be safer to scavenge over here.
The door made tortuous creaking noises as the figure opened it, making the figure wince. Using its nose and spread-out hands, the being explored the opening. 4 doors, all closed, but not used; there was no alien smell on them. A quick opening of one door made the figure's eyes blink in confusion. Lumps of yellow coral were in a net tied to the ceiling, and they glowed! A blue, smooth-looking hand quickly shut the door. Nothing but a large soft pad and a sheet in there anyways. The figure was looking for tools, useful things.
A quick check of the other rooms established them to be much the same. Crawling further down the hallway, the figure found stairs leading downwards. They led further into the hold of the ship, which was...empty. Only rope twisted to form unused hammocks, here and there, and bizarre, room-sized chunks of raw wood, rough and uncarved, occupied the hold. A long, broad clawed foot kicked some rope away in disgust. This ship resembled a starving fish. The others that the figure had stolen from had much better loot.
The figure crawled away from the hold and up the stairs. In front of it, the door was closed. Didn't it leave that open? Yes, and there was a person there, as well. Its nose twitched as it smelled the fish-human scent, and the faint tingle at its tip told it of the fish-human's bodily hum.
Overpowering them would be easy. Just by twitching its tingling nose, it felt how high up the hum in the fish-human's body went. No taller than a normal human, and the figure was taller than those by a foot. Its arm flexed, ready to shove the lone fish-human out of the way.
The figure bolted towards the door, slamming it open with a shoulder, and came face-to-face with two humans, both illuminated by yellow glowing coral attached to the floor.
Both of the humans were female, and one of them wore less clothing than the other. That one, taller, was dark-skinned, her skin bronze-like in color, and had seaweed, or something like it, growing out of her head, kept in place by a red bandanna. She was curvaceous of form, with a thin waist between ample buttocks and large breasts. She smelled like the fish-woman scent. Gill-slits were closed on her neck, and her feet were paddle-like. She also had gills on the sides of her body, below her arms, along with solid green eyes and fin-like webbed ears. She wore pants that fit her tightly, a torn shirt held with only one button, and what looked like a flag, tied around her waist as some kind of decoration. The woman's body hummed quietly with curiosity and a little wariness.
The other woman was shorter, pale of skin and with stringy, water-logged hair. This one was not as curvaceous, and wore a simple clinging dress and boots that went to her knees. Her eyes were frosted over, and her lips were almost purple. She didn't have a hum to her body, nor did she have much of a scent. What little there was was exactly like the surrounding ship; wet wood and rope.
The glowing coral illuminated the invader as well, throwing light up upon her unclothed body. She was taller than both women, and utterly hairless. Her skin was blue-hued, with a paler underside. A triangular fin grew from her back, the skin there rough like sandpaper, and gills were on her neck. She was far more muscled than either woman, her strength formed similarly to a human's and quite present on her arms and legs, though a layer of fat smoothened her belly. Unlike the women, she didn't need clothes. Her firm teardrop breasts with their dark blue nipples were free and her buttocks uncovered. Black tattoos covered the right side of her body, scrawling lines and spikes swirling on her breast and buttcheek, lining her chin and eyebrow and tracing her thigh and arm.
She gave off a warning hiss-like growl at the two women. The pale one shrunk back, but the dark-skinned one spoke. "No need fer hittin' stuff here. It wouldn't hurt anyone anyways. No food either, no-one's gone hungry here. An' if yer lookin' for treasure, forget it. It's worthless," the woman said.
The aquatic woman looked back at the dark-skinned woman and held back a hiss. "I was looking for tools," she said, her voice heavier.
The dark-skinned woman scratched her hair. "Nope, don't got much in the way of those, either. Lily here can maintain herself. M'name's Shella, by the way. Ain't gonna go around without knowin' folk's name," the dark-skinned woman said.
The aquatic woman looked from "Shella" to the only other figure on the deck, "Lily?", the woman who smelled of the ship. Odd. "I am Yrkala," growled the aquatic woman, "I need tools to make other things, make a home."
Shella looked at Yrkala closer. She must be noting the large, wedge-like nose, the lack of a bridge, making the forehead smoothly translate into the nose, the triangular teeth, and the small ears, folded against Yrkala's head. In this new world, few had seen people like Yrkala.
"You must be new here," Shella said decisively.
"I know that this place is new. It is hurt-less, sick-less, death-less," Yrkala growled. "But I do not want what other people offer. I want home of my own, food to hunt!"
"Tough luck there, Yrkala, was it? There ain't anythin' else that moves but us thinkin' folk. No fish, no whales, nothing like that. Unless you eat people, there's nothin' to 'hunt'. An' you can't hurt people, so don't bother," Shella stated.
Yrkala had already found that out long ago, when she had lashed out against some human men. They had asked things of her and she was uncomfortable with what they wanted. A twitch drew her eyes away from Shella. The other woman, Lily, was steadily walking backwards, away from Yrkala and Shella. She was so small, but the oddity of her existence! No smell, no bodily hum! Yrkala's curiosity was aroused. She stood to her full height, and took a step towards Lily. Lily bolted, running along the wooden deck utterly silent and disappearing into the dark where the glow-coral did not grow.
Yrkala took just a single foot-step to follow Lily, a sense of the hunt forcing her movement and delivering her beyond where Shella stood. From behind Yrkala, Shella said, "She's gonna do that. She only woke me up because you were rootin' around."
Yrkala looked down at Shella. She came to Yrkala's breast in height. "She did not have a hum in her," she stated.
"Well, Shella don't talk, so of course she don't hum," Shella said.
"No, not like in noise. Like in body humming with life and motion," Yrkala explained, tapping the side of her nose and feeling bursts of a tingling sensation within it. "Smell it."
Shella nodded in what Yrkala guessed to be mock understanding. It must be tricky for those who couldn't feel the bodily hum. A great many things must sneak up on them. A question occurred to Yrkala. "Why are you near the reef? Are you not afraid that your ship will crash into the reef and be stuck?"
"I trust Lily to navigate her way around this place easily. She got stuck, not too long ago, but that was because of a freak storm made by a siren. Nah, I'm here for the coral. It's the only thing, other than us thinking folk, that is even remotely alive. It kinda bothers me, but it's also kinda soothin'. For me, at least," Shella rambled.
Yrkala tilted her head in confusion.
