Shocked by how young looked that second gendarme, you choose to ask about that wile experimenting your famous 'deep-bond'.
<Isn't that subordinate of yours a bit to young?> You mentally asked the adjutant.
You first heard her laugh resonating in your head, soon followed by her voice. <I know us, merfolks, hit puberty a bit latter than humans, but SHE is a mermaid.> She then took on a sad tone. <And you would have been right about junior sub-seamaid Natalie Wave if she was an ordinary girl, but… You need to know that, among merfolks, sirens are feared. We're often called monsters, even.>
<Really? I wasn't under the impression you were feared. And what that have to do with miss Wave? Are you saying she's a siren too? But her tail got fish-like scales and instead of the shark-like skin of yours?>
<That's because I'm good at my job, and even a monster, if working well, can gain the respect of others. Also, merfolks became far more tolerant of us these last years. And you can't determine if a mermaid is a siren or not by looking at her tail. Most merfolks have scaled tails, but a 'shark-like' skinned one like mine is a pretty common thing.» Explained Ondine. «And yes, junior sub-seamaid Wave IS another siren.>
<I still don't see why that make it normal for her to be working when she's so young.> You confessed.
<To understand, you need to know that what distinguishes sirens from other mermaids only appear around when they reaches 12, so between two and three years before puberty. The idea of somebody having natural echo-location without being born with it always was frightening to merfolks. Since 'growing' said echo-location also make our voice gaining it's legendary hypnotic power, merfolks of olds were even more fearful of us.
That resulted in a law forcing our families to break any ties with their sirens members, heavily punishing anyone who acknowledge a siren as their daughter. Said law also force every siren to join a branch of the army as soon as their powers appears. Nowadays, most merfolks find that way needlessly cruel, but most senators still lives in days past and fears since long proven to be unfounded.
For some reasons unknown to me, most sirens choose to join Infantry, but some like junior sub-seamaid Wave or myself prefer to join gendarmerie. In both case our live follow the same scenario. We got a year as junior recruit, alternating between training and school. Then we become junior sub-seamaid, still going to school half the time, and working as any sub-seamen the other half. If we are lucky enough, which is highly improbable, we can reach the rank of junior seamaid before graduating from school.
Upon graduating, we automatically get promoted to the next rank, which means the rares junior seamaid becomes sub-sergeant. But most sirens only get the rank of seamaid at that point, and will never be promoted again.>
<So, you're in the army? Also, can I know more about that gendarmerie of yours, how it's working, and by which miracle you reached your Adjutant rank if all you said is true?» You asked. «Also: You have echo-location?!? Cool!>
<You're the first person I know to think having echo-location is cool, Louis. Thanks.> Her gratitude was clear in her mental voice. <We call it gendarmerie because it's part of our army, but basically, it's like your police. And about the 'miracle' of me being Adjutant, it's a bit long to explain.>
<Wait, you're saying your police is part of the army?!?» You wondered. «And about your story, I think we have all our time.>
<No, things are more complex than that. We also have a police, but our works are very alike.> Ondine cleared. <About that 'miracle' like you call it, you need to know I always impressed my teachers with how good I was doing in school. So much that I become one of the few to be lucky enough to be promoted to junior seamaid.
Of course, that didn't please my superiors in the gendarmerie, but since my field-work was as good as my school works, they weren't able to stop me from being promoted. That said, they still gave me the work of a sub-seamaid. It become worst after graduating. They DID give me the work of a sub-sergeant, but without subordinates, I was forced to do alone the work of all an unite! But that didn't stop me from doing a better job than any other sub-sergeants. And a gendarme that, alone, do better that all the rest of her brigade put together, the King was bound to discover it, one way or another.
Some years latter, after hearing some rumors, the King ordered an audit. It's results prompted her to come in person, asking sergeant-chef Oyster to explain the meaning of all that, to explain why all I was doing alone, his other subordinates were unable to do it, even put together. In the end, the King discovered my sergeant-chef was both laziness incarnate and totally incompetent, and so were alls the gendarmes he ever recruited.
The procedure to fire a gendarme being long and complex, and not wanting more incompetent to be engaged during that time, the King needed to put someone else in charge of recruiting, someone that sergeant-chef Oyster couldn't order around, someone she was trusting to better instruct her law enforcement force. To my surprise, the King said that someone should be ME, promoting me to sub-adjutant, the first rank directly above sergeant-chef. That didn't please the siren hater sergeant-chef Oyster was.
Only one week latter, the King learned her daughter was a siren. She was devastated. Not by the news, but by the fact her child was forced to join the army, and wouldn't call her mother ever again.
When that young siren became junior sub-seamaid, she first was affected to the day security of this cove, ending in the team of sergeant Sludgy, another siren hater and a jerk to boot. But by the time, Oyster and his own weren't part of my brigade anymore, or any brigade for that matter, making my position pointless, and one of the night teams was headless, it's sergeant recently gone to retirement.
So, the King transfered me to the night-protection of this cove, before placing her daughter under my command. Normally, two siren can't be in the same team, but since she's a junior, the senators let it slide. For them, any siren should be tortured. Making a child work by night look like torture to them, and forcing another siren to supervise it, an even more fun torture. They were so pleased, so persuaded they were torturing us, they decided to promote me to adjutant, even wen my new position is supposed to be one for a sergeant.>
<She? Mother?!? Your ruler is female, but you still call her king instead of queen? And that daughter of hers, isn't she Natalie Wave?>
<We elect our King, who can be of either gender, for 80 years. At the beginning of the last one, we vote to know if his reign should be prolonged, for a total of 120 years. Be it one long of 80 or 120 years, when their reign end they are given the honorific title of Queen and can't be elected King again. And yes, junior sub-seamaid Wave is the daughter of our current King.>
<I… I can't imagine how hard it must be for them…> You said. But knowing you couldn't do anything about it, not at the moment at least, you added. <I got so much more to ask about your culture, and about you… And you probably have even more to ask. But first I want to know: What is that 'deep-bond' of ours?>
<Merfolks are deeply magical beings, and as such, we got some strange particularity. All merfolks will have a bond after kissing, but not as strong it make them have sex when forming, like ours. In merfolk culture, that psychic bond have the same value than weddings and alliances have to humans. After being bound, more kissing don't change anything more. The normal kind of bond can be breaked, but it's pretty traumatic for the minds.
In the past, merfolks bound to humans already happened. When that kind of couple got children, they always were the same species as their mother.
But a deep-bond is something rare and far more mysterious. It only happened three times in the past, and never with either a human or a siren being part of it. The only thing we know for sure is that when a deep-bond is formed, it means the two can only be happy together, and their bond can't be broken.
The three previously bonded couples also gained true immortality, but since you're human, I don't know if it's our case too. Did the bonding gave you enough magic? If it did, have you got merman powers or unknown ones? Are you going to sprout gills when immersed in water?>
Deciding to go back to oral voice, being a bit more rested, you asked "So, we're husband and wife?" Then, a bit frightened by that perspective, you took her hand in yours, adding. "Can… Can get to know each others in a less biblical way too? Go to a date, maybe?"
Sensing your mental state, Ondine came to hug you, your arm safely tucked between her naked breasts, whispering "Nothing will make me more happy that to go on a date with you, Lou Dubois." Soon, the two of you were sleeping in each other arms, nude on this beach.