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ironychan · 1 year

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A Little Human (as a Treat)

Part 1/? - Un Volontario

Alberto's cousin Flavia doesn't transform when she gets out of the water - a bit of a handicap in a family that likes to live in both worlds. The boys think they may have an answer, though... surely there will be something in the magical texts held at the Library of the Deep.

The Library of the Deep was a long, dark, spooky journey requiring at least one overnight, and when Alberto and Luca put the idea to Flavia they found she didn't like it at all. That did make some sense. She'd come to Portorosso to be out in the sunshine and around other kids, in a place where most people didn't mind sea monsters. Compared to gelato and watermelon and games in the piazza, a dark cavern full of weird creatures and artifacts didn't sound like much fun at all. Giulia therefore volunteered to stay and keep her company, while the boys went to ask the Librarian Diotima whether any of her books of magic had a spell that might help Flavia transform.

It took them two entire days to return. When they arrived, Giulia and Flavia were at the Paguro family farm, where Flavia and Uncle Leonardo were staying, helping Nonna Libera trim back some sponges that had started growing on the roof. I was Nonna who looked up and said, “oh, the boys are back.”

“They are?” Giulia saw them both swimming up with Luca's backpack bulging. Clearly they'd found something. “Flavia, come on, let's go see what they found!” She rose from the roof and darted down to meet them.

“Hi!” Luca called out as they got closer. “We're back!”

“Did you find it?” Giulia asked them. She'd been starting to wonder if the reason they were taking so long was because they were searching and searching and couldn't find anything.

“Sure did!” said Alberto proudly.

“Kinda,” Luca qualified.

“Kinda?” Giulia echoed. She realized Flavia wasn't beside her, and looked over her shoulder to find the younger girl still kneeling on the roof next to Nonna, nervously petting one of her pet lumpsucker fish. Giulia was about to call out to her again, when Luca's mother realized the boys had returned.

“Luca! You're back!” Daniela dashed out of the farmhouse door and gathered Luca and Alberto both up in a hug. “How's Ugo? You were warm enough down there, weren't you?”

“Yes, Mom, we're fine,” Luca assured her, embarrassed but accustomed to his mother's worrying. “And Uncle Ugo's fine, he's thinking of coming to visit again before I go back to school.” He gave Daniela a kiss on the cheek, then floated up to wave to Flavia. “Good news!”

Nonna Libera patted Flavia on the back. “Hear that, kiddo? Good news. Let's go see what it is.”

The kids, along with Uncle Leonardo, gathered in the sunny little garden among the anemones and crinoids, and Luca proudly spread out the pages of notes they'd brought back. Giulia was a little worried because the spells they'd copied before had been in Greek, but these all seemed to be in Italian, and like the previous pages of magic, included lists and diagrams of how to set things up. Flavia came and settled down between Nonna and her father, but still said nothing, and fiddled distractedly with the hem of her seagrass tunic.

“People were always suggesting things back home,” said Uncle Leonardo, carefully avoiding words like cure the way he always did. “They were all nonsense.”

“Well, we don't know for sure that this will work,” Luca warned, “but it sounds like something to try. See, we told the Librarian about Flavia and how she doesn't transform when she gets out of the water, and she said you're a...” he paused. “What was the word?”

“Throwback,” said Alberto. “You're what sea monsters were like before Oannes.”

“That's right. And you know what?” asked Luca.

Flavia opened her mouth to ask what, but Alberto wasn't willing to wait for her. “She is, too!” he blurted out. “She doesn't Change! That's why she went to live in the Deep in the first place!”

“Yeah, she said you're welcome to come and visit her,” Luca agreed. “She's never met anybody else with the same problem and she wants to meet you.”

Flavia hung her head. “No, thank you,” she said. She made a move as if to leave.

“Wait!” Luca said. “We're not done!”

Flavia hesitated.

“Yeah, we told her that's not what you want – you don't want to hide in the Deep. You want to do the opposite of that,” Alberto said.

Luca nodded.

Reluctantly, Flavia settled down again. Giulia gave her an encouraging smile.

“The Librarian said if we wanted the original spell Oannes used to create the Change in the first place then we were out of luck,” Luca explained, “because we don't know if that really happened, and if it did, he never wrote it down. But there was one she always wanted to try for herself but couldn't because you need a human to help you with it.”

“So we said, that's perfect, we know lots of humans,” Alberto said.

“How does it work?” Giulia asked. Flavia might be near-paralyzed by fear of disappointment, but she was definitely intrigued.

Luca pointed to a page where they'd copied out a drawing of two figures. “It's intended for sea monsters who want to be able to blend in with humans even if they get wet.” Luca hadn't liked the sound of that. The Librarian had suggested perhaps it was for people like Alberto's father or Carlotta Gennari, who wanted to marry a human or have a job, but it sounded to Luca like it was meant for spying. “You have to do the spell with a human, and it's like a trade – you pass the Change on to them, so you stay in human form and they transform when they get wet. The Librarian said she'd wondered if it would work for her when she didn't have a Change to give away, but she didn't know any humans and she was never brave enough to try to meet any.”

“So it probably won't work,” said Flavia.

“It might,” Giulia said. “We just need a volunteer to try it.” It couldn't be herself or her dad anymore, but quite a few kids in town had sea monster friends now. Maybe Maurizio, who liked to play with Arturo Trota and Silvio Donzella... the three of them were planning to enter the Portorosso Cup race together at the end of the summer. He might enjoy being a sea monster for a while.

“Is this safe?” asked Uncle Leonardo. “I mean, if it doesn't work, what happens instead?”

“The Librarian says most magic, if you get it wrong, it just does nothing,” said Luca. “You just have to be really careful and get all the steps and words right.”

“It worked fine the last time we tried something,” Alberto said, and then his face lit up like a Christmas tree. “Oh! And I know exactly who will help us with it!”

The Ottonello family Foccaceria was on the piazza, not far from the Pescheria. That was where they found Ciccio and his sea monster girlfriend, Giordana Trota. She'd taken an interest in human cooking and liked experimenting with recipes. Today the bakery was full of the smell of cinnamon, and the group entered to find Ciccio and Giordana playing checkers while they waited for their latest project to come out of the oven. Alberto marched in at the lead, while Flavia, whose self-consciousness was ten times worse on land, brought up the rear with a wet towel wrapped around her neck to keep her gills damp.

“Hey, Ciccio!” Alberto called out. “We need a volunteer!”

Ciccio didn't have a reputation for being the smartest boy in town, but he knew a trap when he heard one. “A volunteer for what?” he asked warily.

Alberto dropped their papers on the counter with a wet thump. “Let me put it this way: has Giordana told her mom yet?”

Ciccio and Giordana exchanged a glance. Attinia Trota had never liked humans, and while she was slowly warming to them with encouragement from Giordana and Arturo, she still wasn't the type to go into town for fun. Giordana had managed to give the impression, without ever actually saying so, that her new boyfriend was a fellow sea monster who happened to live most of the time on land, like Pinuccia and Concetta Aragosta did. She kept saying she was going to tell the truth sooner or later, but 'sooner' had definitely expired by now.

“Yeah, I didn't think so.” Alberto grinned. “So... what if you didn't have to?”

“Don't say it like that,” Luca told him. “She's still gonna have to tell eventually.”

“Yeah, but her Mom will stop being nosy for a while,” Alberto countered.

“Or she'll get even nosier because she thinks you have no excuse for being so mysterious,” said Giulia, who had more than enough experience with people who liked to know what everybody else was up to.

“What are you guys talking about?” asked Ciccio.

“An opportunity,” said Alberto immediately. “What if you could be a sea monster for a day, while Flavia here could be a human?”

Ciccio looked interested. “How would that work?”

They explained in more detail. The spell was much more complicated than the one they'd used to summon up a genie at Christmas time, with more ingredients and a magical circle that had to be put together over the course of a few days rather than a single morning, but it seemed to be just a matter of making sure they got all the steps right. They'd done a bit of magic before and it had worked fine, there was no reason they couldn't do it this time.

Ciccio, however, looked doubtful. “I dunno...” he began.

“I think it's a great idea!” said Giordana.

“You do?” Ciccio looked at her. “I mean... won't that just make it even weirder when we do tell your mom?”

“It's another step in convincing her that humans are just people,” Giordana said. “Just like us.”

“She already knows that. She's met Giulia and her dad,” Ciccio pointed out.

“And now she can meet you properly instead of just for five minutes at a time,” Giordana nodded. “Come on. You can stay for dinner! I'll ask her to make something special.” She took his hand in both of hers and batted her eyes at him. “Please?”

Flavia didn't say anything, but she was starting to look hopeful. She shifted from one foot to the other, too shy to speak but desperately hoping Ciccio would say yes.

“I'll see what my Dad thinks,” Ciccio decided.

He was gone for about twenty minutes, during which time the kids had to re-soak Flavia's towel so her gills wouldn't get itchy. She sat in a chair, swinging her feet and looking around the room distractedly.

“If Ciccio won't do it, we'll find somebody else,” said Alberto, who wasn't worried at all.

All Flavia did was nod, but the others could feel her absolute yearning. She wanted so badly to be able to do the things her cousins did, to not stand out, to be normal even if just for an afternoon, it almost hung in the air around her – but all her previous efforts had been disappointed. She didn't want to get her hopes up again, but at the same time, she couldn't help herself.

A timer in the kitchen buzzed, and Giordana bounced to her feet. “There's the rolls!” she said, and ran to take them out of the oven. The kitchen door swung shut behind her, but the kids could still smell the cinnamon as she opened the oven door.

A minute or so later, the door opened again to reveal not just Giordana, but Ciccio and Signor Ottonello. The latter was wearing a similar expression of skeptical concern as Uncle Leonardo had shown in Daniela's garden.

“What is for a day?” was his first question. “Is it twenty-four hours, or just breakfast to dinner? I don't want him out in the ocean at night.”

Alberto had not actually thought about that when he'd made the suggestion – it had just sounded good. “There isn't a time limit, is there?” he asked Luca.

Luca flipped through the pages. “I don't think so... it lasts from whenever you start it up to when the two of you come back together and end it. There's a specific time for setting things up, but not for how long you trade for.”

“So breakfast to dinner,” said Alberto. “If that's okay with Flavia.”

Flavia nodded quickly. She didn't care how long it was for as long as she got to do it.

“We'll just be at my place,” Giordana added. “You've met my mom, Signor Ottonello. You really think we'll let him get in trouble?”

Signor Ottonello and Signora Trota had met, briefly, and it had been a very stressful day for Ciccio and Giordana. Ciccio's father knew that. “As long as this actually is a prelude to telling your mother the truth,” he said to Giordana. “You know what I think of lying to her.”

“Yes, Papà, we know,” said Ciccio.

“We promise,” said Giordana. “Cross our hearts.”

“And your friends are sure this is safe.” Signor Ottonello looked at the younger kids.

“Totally,” said Alberto. “We've done magic before. We're basically experts.”

Signor Ottonello looked skeptical of that, so Luca repeated their earlier reassurance to Uncle Leonardo: “if magic isn't going to work, it doesn't do weird things – it just does nothing. That's what the Librarian of the Deep told us and she really is an expert.”

“Am I allowed to watch?” Signor Ottonello wanted to know.

“Definitely,” said Giulia. “Flavia's dad will be watching, too.”

Signor Ottonello threw his hands in the air and sighed. “When did this town get to be so damned weird?” he asked the heavens, and turned to head back into the kitchen, leaving the kids a little unsure of his answer.

“That wasn't a yes...” said Luca cautiously.

“But it wasn't a no, either!” Alberto whacked Ciccio on the back. “Perfect – we'll start tomorrow!”

As stated in the scroll, it took several days to set things up for a much more complicated spell than the one that had summoned the genie. There were ingredients to gather and diagrams to draw, magic words to speak and a bit where Ciccio and Flavia each had to prick a finger and let a drop of blood fall onto a slip of paper, which was then burned with some herbs. The priest frowned disapprovingly at all this and took to muttering prayers and crossing himself every time he passed them, and Ciccio's father looked very doubtful of the whole enterprise.

Luca, Alberto, and Giulia, however, were quite confident that it was harmless, the important part was simply to get it right. It was still an experiment, though, and they'd noticed that Flavia was even quieter than usual and simply did what she was told for her own parts of the spell, without any enthusiasm. The person who was most excited was actually Giordana, who they had to remind repeatedly that this might not work. If they hadn't, she would probably have already told her mother than Ciccio would be coming for supper.

“I thought all the Librarian's books were from ancient Egypt,” Giulia remarked, as she pounded up some dried pine resin in the kitchen mortar. “Shouldn't they all be in Greek or hieroglyphics?” It seemed odd that they'd been able to write this one out in Italian.

“Oh, it was,” replied Luca. “It was in a language called Coptic, but the Librarian can read that. She reads with her fingers,” he added, having evidently been fascinated by this. “She just runs them over the lines and feels the shape of the letters, and she's just as fast about it as we are reading with our eyes.”

“First she read it in the other language,” Alberto agreed, “and then she'd tell us what it said so we could write it down.”

Giulia frowned. “Why didn't she do that with the spell to summon the genie? Then we wouldn't have had to get Professor Hamid and Dr. Cozzolino to translate it for us?”

“She said it was because we didn't ask her to,” Alberto replied. “She didn't realize we couldn't read it ourselves.”

“I wonder,” Luca mused, “if it works, do you think she'll want to try it, too?”

“Before when we invited her to visit, she said she'd been in the Deep so long, she didn't think it would be good for her to visit shallow water,” Giulia recalled. “So probably not.”

“That's kind of sad,” Luca said. “If she always wanted to try but now she'll never be able to.”

Giulia showed Luca her progress powdering the resin. “How's that?”

“I guess it's good enough,” Luca shrugged. He certainly wasn't the expert here no matter what Alberto said. “Is that everything, then? I think we've just got the last ritual to go.” He'd wondered why the spell was so complicated, and had decided it was because the people who designed it wanted to be sure everybody involved really wanted to participate.

“Looks that way,” said Alberto, turning a page over to make sure there was nothing on the back. “We've just gotta get Flavia and Ciccio together tomorrow morning.”

“Great!” Luca nodded. “I hope this works... I asked Flavia if there was anything she really wanted to do if it worked, but she said she didn't want to think about it too hard just in case it didn't.”

There was a brief silence in which all three wondered whether, if this didn't work, they could find another spell and try that instead... but there was a definitely feeling that Flavia probably wouldn't be up for that. As Uncle Leonardo had pointed out, she'd tried other ways to address her situation and none of them had worked. She might not be able to handle yet another disappointment.

The next morning after breakfast, they gathered on the beach. Signor Ottonello was there as promised, standing at the top of the sea wall watching skeptically, with Ciccio's best friend Guido sitting next to him with his legs dangling over the edge. Giordana and her brother Arturo were waiting in the water, and Uncle Leonardo brought Flavia to shore.

Flavia was ready for a good outcome – she was dressed in human clothes, a white blouse and green plaid pinafore dress, and she was carrying a pair of black mary jane shoes to put on later. But she was obviously fearing the worst, anxious and distracted. Her father squeezed her hand, and leaned down to talk to her face-to-face.

“Angelfish,” he said, “are you sure you want to try this?”

“Yes,” Flavia replied firmly. “If I don't, I'll just wonder forever what would have happened.”

Leonardo sighed. “Just... please don't be too upset if it doesn't work, okay? Your friends said it's a long shot. Even if they did everything right, this magic isn't meant for your situation, remember?”

“I know, Papa Leo,” she said.

He bent his head a bit. “Your Papa Giorgio and I just wish you could be happy with yourself the way you are.”

“I know,” Flavia repeated, then asked, “are you gonna be sad if it does work?”

“No! Of course not!” Leonardo gave her a hug. “I'll be thrilled. But I need you to know that I already love you as much as I possibly can, and I have from the day you turned up. You know that, right?”

“I know,” Flavia assured him. “I love you, too, Papa Leo.”

Uncle Leonardo kissed Flavia's forehead, and then let her go and join the others.

Ciccio took off his shoes and socks and waded out to waist-deep water, and Flavia gave her mary janes to Giulia to hold onto, and joined them. Alberto, the tallest, then sprinkled the crushed-up resin, which was mixed with the ashes from the paper and herbs, over both their heads.

“Okay,” said Luca, checking their notes. “Now you put the palms of your hands together.”

Ciccio and Flavia, both clearly feeling rather self-conscious, obeyed. “Now what?” Ciccio asked.

“That should be it. And it's supposed to last until the next time you touch each other.”

Nothing seemed to be happening. Flavia's shoulders sagged, and her tail drooped into the water.

“Yeah,” said Ciccio. “I don't think it's gonna...” but he had to stop there, as out of nowhere a wave rose up and broke over the two of them, dragging them both under the water.

Flavia was the first to come up, and she did so coughing and gasping for air, because the spell had worked: she had transformed into a human girl with olive skin and straight dark hair cut short. Uncle Leonardo immediately ran to scoop her up and carry her back to the pebbly beach, where he patted her back while she leaned on him and coughed up salt water.

“You're okay,” he soothed. “Deep breaths. You're okay.” Then, once she seemed mostly recovered, he held her out at arm's length. “Hey... look at you!”

Flavia blinked at him in momentary confusion, then held up her own hands to look and gasped audibly. “It worked?”

“It sure did,” said Uncle Leonardo. “I honestly didn't think it was going to, but here you are!”

She reached up to feel at her face and hair, and Giulia ran to offer her something she'd brought along for exactly this moment. “I brought a mirror!” she declared, holding it out.

Flavia took the object as if afraid it would explode, and turned it over to see her reflection. For a moment she just stared in shock at her own face, and then she burst into tears.

Uncle Leonardo hugged her again. “You look beautiful, Angelfish,” he promised her, gently rocking her back and forth. “You look great.”

Meanwhile Ciccio had sat up, also transformed. His father was too shocked to do anything but stare with his mouth open, so it was Giordana who was first to come running and help him. She took his hands and pulled him to his feet, then grabbed him by the gills and planted a big kiss on the tip of his snout.

“Ow!” Ciccio exclaimed.

Giordana stepped back. “Ow?” she asked, startled and perhaps a bit insulted.

“Not you. It's my...” he looked over his shoulder. Ciccio was still short and chubby, as he'd been as a human, and was now covered with scales that were dark maroon on his back, fading to a dull pink on his face and hands. His fins were dark yellow, and interspersed with something quite unexpected: all over his back and shoulders were sharp spines, five and seven centimetres long, that had poked through his shirt and even torn it in several places. When he'd tried to raise his arms as Giordana kissed him, the fabric had tugged the spines forward, which had hurt. Puzzled by them, Ciccio reached to touch one.

“I don't think you should do that,” Guido warned. “They might be poisonous!”

“You think so?” asked Ciccio, wide-eyed.

“Yeah, lots of fish have poison spines,” Guido said. He looked at the sea monster kids for confirmation.

“Well, yeah. There's pufferfish,” Giulia counted them off on her fingers, “and lionfish, stonefish, stingrays...” Sea monsters seemed to look like all kinds of fish, from Luca being a wrasse to his Uncle Ugo being an anglerfish to the Librarian of the Deep resembling a coelacanth. It wouldn't be too strange if there were some with the venomous barbs of pufferfish.

Ciccio grimaced, and tried to remove his shirt so it wouldn't restrict his movement. Unfortunately, the spines grew facing backwards and down, and trying to pull the green t-shirt over his head bent them painfully backwards. “Ow! Why do I have those?” he asked. “Flavia didn't have those.”

“Yeah, but you don't look like Flavia,” Giordana pointed out. “And Flavia doesn't look like you.”

“Well, who decides what kind of sea monster I am?” Ciccio asked.

There were some shrugs. Nobody had an answer for him.

“I'll be right back,” Signor Ottonello promised, and went into the focacceria to get something.

Massimo had given Flavia a handkerchief to dry her eyes, and now Uncle Leonardo was waving the kids over to sit down on the steps. “Your friend Signora Marsigliese loaned me her camera,” he said. “I want to get a picture for Giorgio and Ma. You sit in the middle, Flavia,” he directed.

“Okay,” said Flavia, and tried to take a step, only to nearly fall on her face as she overbalanced without the counterweight of her tail.

“Whoops! Careful!” Leonardo caught her arm.

“You gotta stand up really straight,” said Alberto. “Like when you're piling rocks, all the heavy stuff has to be right in the middle or it'll topple over.”

“Lean on me if you need to,” said Uncle Leonardo.

He got everybody arranged on the steps, and backed up to take the picture. Nobody had any trouble smiling for it. Alberto, Luca, and Giulia were happy for Flavia and proud of getting the spell right, and all three grinned from ear to ear – while Flavia herself was beaming like a sunrise even as fresh tears welled up in her eyes.

“Here we go,” Signor Ottonello announced, re-emerging from the bakery holding a pair of kitchen scissors. “Stand still, Francesco.”

“You're gonna cut it?” asked Ciccio plaintively.

“It'll get it off without breaking any of those,” his father replied matter-of-factly. He cut the shirt open from hem to collar, and then down the sleeves so they could peel it off without bending the spines. “There's holes torn in it now anyway.”

“Sorry,” Ciccio said, sheepish. “I didn't know I was gonna ruin it.”

“You've got other shirts,” Signor Ottonello said. “If that's the worst damage those do today, it won't be too bad.”

Uncle Leonardo returned the camera to Signora Marsigliese and gave her the address in Procida where the Scorfano family received mail, while Luca and Alberto helped Flavia stand up and find her balance.

“What do you wanna do first?” Alberto asked.

“I don't know,” Flavia admitted. “I didn't want to think about it too hard, because I was afraid this wouldn't work.”

“You were interested in land animals,” Luca remembered. “There's a little zoo in San Giuseppe. It doesn't have elephants or giraffes like the one in Genova, but there's all kinds of birds and a couple of kangaroos that you can feed and pet.”

“Really?” Flavia asked eagerly.

“And if we're going to San Giuseppe we can go to the Confetteria,” Alberto added. “They've got so many kinds of candy there, we still haven't tried them all!”

“And the bookshop! It's not as big as the one in Genova either, but... oh,” Luca cut himself off. “No, you can't take books underwater. But there's a toy shop, too. I'm sure we can find you something there that you can take home.”

“We don't have a bike for you,” said Giulia, “but mine can tow the delivery cart and you can ride on that.”

“Hold it,” Uncle Leonardo interrupted. “How far away is San Giuseppe?”

The boys had very little concept of distances. They turned to Giulia for an estimate.

“Not far,” she said. “Maybe ten or twelve kilometres. It takes about half an hour to bike there.”

Leonardo thought about that. “That's closer than Pompei is to Napoli,” he said. “You're not going to try to go anywhere dangerous, are you?” He was probably thinking of some of the places Flavia had explored in the depths of the Gulf.

“Of course not,” scoffed Alberto.

“We promise,” said Giulia.

“The children are very responsible,” said Massimo, which might have been a bit of a lie but only a very small one. “I trust Giulia with Luca and Alberto at sea. I'm sure you can do the same with Flavia on land.”

“San Giuseppe is bigger than Portorosso but not nearly as big as Genova or Napoli,” Luca added. “We'll be fine.”

“Please can I go, Papa Leo?” Flavia asked.

“You'll be back by dinnertime?” Signor Ottonello asked. “Remember what I said, I don't like the idea of Francesco out there in the ocean in the dark.”

“Of course!”

“Absolutely.”

“We promise!”

Uncle Leonardo was reluctant, but he gave in. “This is what you wanted,” he said. “You wanted to explore. I...” He held out his arms. “Just promise me you'll be safe.”

“I will!” Flavia ran to hug him again. “Thank you, Papa Leo!”

Giulia hitched the cart to the back of her bicycle and tossed in a couple of pillows to make it a bit more comfortable, and they set off up the hill towards the main road. The kids waved as they rounded the corner out of sight. Uncle Leonardo waved back, then sighed and sat down heavily in one of the metal chairs outside the Trattoria.

“It won't be long until she's grown up and doesn't need us anymore,” he said mournfully to Massimo, who was standing not far away. “I know she can handle it, she's tougher than she thinks she is... but I don't know if I can.”

Massimo put a hand on his shoulder. “Coffee?” he asked.

“Yes,” said Leonardo. “Thanks.”

On the far side of the hill, past the old tower, was the petrol station where the main paved road passed through on its way to the nearby city of San Giuseppe. The ride that had been bumpy on the cobblestones suddenly became smooth when they reached the asphalt, and the kids moved to the side of the road to be out of the way of passing traffic. When a car passed them, Giulia and Alberto both waved, and then cheered when the driver replied by honking his horn.

Flavia sat back in the delivery cart and gazed up at the sky. It was a perfect day for having adventures – the sky was brilliant blue with big, puffy white clouds drifting slowly across it, and the occasional dark dots of birds flying over. She'd seen that before, but never like this... never with the shining green of the land plants all around her and the warm breeze stirring her hair. The feel of the wind reminded her of her towel, and she reached up to rub at the back of her neck, where the damp cloth usually sat when she was out of the water.

“Don't need it,” said Alberto, noticing the gesture. “Your gills can't dry out if you don't have any.”

“I know,” said Flavia. “It just feels so weird.”

“You'll get used to it,” promised Luca. He knew, in ways his friends did not, how odd the various sensations of being out of the water could be. “Don't look right at the sun, though. It's too bright and it can hurt your eyes.”

“What about the clouds? Can I look at those?”

“Totally,” Alberto said.

“Good! Because that one looks like a seahorse!” Flavia pointed to a wisp that did look very much like the animal's curly tail and long snout. “What are they made of?”

“Clouds? They're made of water,” said Luca.

“If they get too much water in them they leak, and that's why it rains,” Alberto added.

“Wow!” said Flavia.

“Clouds happen when the sun heats up the ocean and it boils just a tiny bit,” Luca said, always happy to share the amazing things he'd learned in school. “It's called evaporazione. Did you know the surface of the sun is over five thousand degrees? It's probably about twenty-five degrees out today, so the sun is two hundred times hotter! That's why it can boil the ocean even though it's so far away it takes the light eight minutes to get here, and light is the fastest thing in the universe.” That fact had been in a book one of the teachers had recommended after noticing how excited Luca got about using the telescope.

“Wow,” Flavia repeated. The hottest thing she'd ever felt was water from a vent in the sea floor – she'd burned her hand on it when she was small. The sun must be way hotter even than that.

“Don't start telling her all that,” Alberto teased. “Next thing you know, she'll wanna go to school, too, and then what happens to Ciccio?”

Flavia giggled. “I hope he's having fun, too,” she said.

“He will,” Giulia promised. “Being a sea monster when you're new at it is amazing.”

“Hey, it's pretty cool when you're used to it, too,” Alberto said.

#pixar luca #luca 2021 #luca paguro #alberto scorfano #giulia marcovaldo #fanfiction #this is a messof ocs and headcanons from two different fics #a little human (as a treat)

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