After a few seconds of silence, Marina scoffed. Of course it couldn't talk. But her archaeological inclination knew there were other ways it could reveal its secrets.
She put the medallion back on for safekeeping. Again, she had to pull quite a bit on her hair to get it through the chain so it could rest around her neck. The sun must have been drying it out harshly. She hadn't crawled far from the boat, so it was a simple matter of hopping along the edge of the dock and slowly...very slowly...easing herself down into it. Without legs to support her weight, she had to practically climb off the dock until she landed with a heavy--but not painful--thump on the boat floor. She slid to the bag she had brought onboard and pulled out a ziplock containing her cell phone.
Getting it to work was a trick. At first, it treated her fingers like they were truly in gloves, even though she could feel the screen keenly. She found that, if she concentrated just a little harder, the screen detected her touch. Not pressed harder. Just concentrated. She was too full of other questions to pay attention to the new one that popped in her head.
She took a photo of the medallion and posted it to every social media account she owned. "While diving I found this old medallion on the ocean floor! Anybody have a clue what it says?" Not a lot of her professors or mentors in the field followed her, but she thought it was worth a try. If nothing else, it would get signal boosted by some friends. The internet loved a good mystery.
While she was at it, she snapped some selfies and pics of her tailfin. These she did not post. She was relieved to see the suit still ended at her neck. The camera was mucking up the color of her hair, though. She sighed and put the phone away. There always seemed to be something wrong with the pics she took of herself, even when she wasn't a weird mermaid thing.
Her thoughts returned to the suit itself. She rubbed her palms on her tail and marveled at how quickly she'd gotten used to calling it that instead of her legs. She was surprised she didn't feel like she was drying out. She was a little thirsty, sure, but that seemed natural on a day like this. Mermaids usually needed water to survive, didn't they? Fish scales and all that. She had no scales, though. That must make a big difference. What exactly was her body like now beneath this suit?
Something made for swimming. And that's what she wanted to do more than anything. She could check the responses to her post in an hour or so. At that point maybe call for help. But the day was far from over and she had come out here to enjoy the water. She felt its call, same as she had all her life, and more than ever before, she was suited to answer it.
Marina hefted herself up the side of the boat, plugged her nose, and dropped.