I was very pleased with being a merman. I dove under water and found the mermaid nearby collecting seaweed. I asked her about what powers I had as a merman, since she had powers I figured I had some too.
"So, what powers do I have as a merman?"
"Oh," she said, "well, you can change into a human and still breath under water. Also, if you want, you can turn other people into ocean people. It is strongest with other men, since you have the closest chemical signal to them."
"So, it is not always that I can turn others in to ocean people?" I asked.
"You are always able to turn others into ocean people, it is easiest though to do when they love the water, and are the same sex as you, or possess hearts of joy."
"How do I do this?", I asked. I was interested. I had a beautiful gift, and I wanted to share it.
She answered, "The change happens over time, or it can happen immediately. Your scales produce a coating. This coating is the coating which can change the human over time, or immediately. If enough of your coating is ingested, then the change is immediate. If enough of the coating covers the skin, the change is immediate."
"How much of the coating can I produce, and how much can be safely removed at one time?", I had become further intrigued.
"Well, with the seaweed that I am collecting, when an ocean person eats it continually, the ocean dweller produces their coating in such a quantity that the coating grows to a great thickness around them. The coating is so thick that it is clearly visible. The coating can be removed when it can be visually seen. Some ocean people dedicate their lives to producing it. Others then put it into containers and it is sold as a supplement to improve skin. People are told they can eat it, or spread it on the skin. Some people want to get better at swimming. We sell it to them in quantities that permit them to rapidly transform into ocean people."
"Could it also be spread through the drinking water?" I was enamored with my new existence and I thought other people would enjoy this too. It was time to convert them. Transform them into a new life, a new opportunity.
"Yes, it can be done."
"How do we do this then?"
She smiled, then said, "I hoped you would ask. There is an intake for a desalination plant up the coast from here. The seaweed I have in my arms is at that location too, and it is located at the mouth of the intake. There is such a quantity of seaweed at that location, that a single ocean person could feed on it for decades without ever being hungry. Since our life-spans range into the thousands of years, it is possible to do this."
"Let us go there and bring people this joy." "Yes we must!", she answered.
We swam to the intake and I had her help fit me securely into the strongest intake area so that my coating would be infused into the drinking system the fastest that it could.
Over the next few hours I began to produce copious amounts of coating.
The workers at the plant's third shift were thirsty people. Third shift was mainly concerned with maintenance and quality control. The third shift manager looked up from his desk and asked his co-manager what the deal was on the increased speed in desalination. She said, "I do not know, but I am glad for it, the plant manager should be impressed."
"I think you are right.", he said.
I began producing my coating even faster with the greater quantity of seaweed that I was eating. My stomach seemed to grow to hold the seaweed as soon as it needed to do this. I was never full, but always continued to eat the seaweed.
The co-shift manager looked up from the desk and decided to do some quality control on the water herself. The water was good. It was better than usual. She filled a whole two gallon pitcher and took it back to the desk in order to drink while she worked. Her co-worker looked over as she returned, "Well, how was it?" "How was what?" "The water." "It is really good, you should go try some."
He got up and went over to the water control area, got some water, then got himself a two gallon pitcher to drink from as well. He came back to the desk and sat. "That is really good tonight.", he said. How about we flush what is in the system and just pump this right in to the city?" "That sounds good.", said his co-manager. So the two co-managers did that.
I was growing my coating at a rate of two feet a second all around my body. The coating was now holding me firmly in place in the intake tube without me needing to hold on to anything. I floated securely in the middle of it and the intake took it away as soon as I produced it. I was producing so much coating that I was able to be continually replacing what the intake was removing, and still stay secured in the intake. As my body grew in size, the rate of the production of the coating increased with it. The mermaid was bringing me seaweed so fast that I could barely keep up with her and pile of seaweed was beginning to form at my side. Towards dawn, the mermaid and I noticed that there were many people swimming in the ocean near us. Then we noticed that there were so many swimmers, that the sun, which had risen a few hours ago now, was entirely blacked out and we were in nearly total darkness, and yet the water continued to fill.
"What is going on?", I asked.
I did not need long to get a reply. Suddenly we were engulfed and surrounded like a raging torrent with mermen and mermaids. Old, young, children, adults, all becoming ocean people. A crowd started to form around the two of us.
"How can we transform others?", they asked.
We told them, and whole families set off to ocean-side communities where other members of their family dwelled in order to change those communities. I stayed in the intake. At the end of a week, there were no more people swimming and becoming ocean people. One of the newly transformed stayed with us the whole time and told us that the city had around two million people, and that they had all drunk gallons of the water. After drinking the water, they became attracted to the beach, and decided to go swimming, and then found that they could breath under water. Then after that they observed their transformations. In a week, two million people had become mermen and mermaids. The affect of the spreading of the other individuals was that other coasts of the country experienced the same thing as this city and coast did.
Soon, I left the intake, after not eating the seaweed for some time. My body stayed the size it was. My mermaid companion did not mind though.
We married after that. Now we are living off of Bermuda and I am holding our fertilized eggs until they hatch. No, I did not become female, but I know the pride of a seahorse father. Many seahorse fathers have congratulated me on carrying the eggs for us, and since my wife was very gravid, and I was very successful, all of our roe have added to my already prodigious size. My wife is happy, this is only our first pregnancy, and I am already comparable in size to a whale shark. Our next pregnancy should be even more successful, I will lose none of my increased size, and I never will.
Do I ever miss my life as a human? Sometimes, but I still have that shell. Maybe after the pregnancy we will see how life is on Bermuda for a bit.