Our pleasant dinner had degenerated into a loud fight between my mermaid sister & our mom; Anee yelling, “How can you keep harping about how awful land people are if you never even met one?!”

Mom stated flatly: “I know all I need to about them.”

“You think you do, but Daddy liked humans. And he had experiences with them, not just a bunch of ignorant bigotry!”

“I've had dealings with humans before.”

“When? When was this?! I've heard all your stories and you never mentioned-”

“I prefer not to discuss it.”

"Now there's a surprise! 'Ewww, it's unpleasant! Let's not discuss it!'" mocked Anemone. She kept goading Mom, relentlessly, stopping just short of calling her a goddamn liar: “No Mom, I wanna hear this! Tell us! Tell us about your encounter with the horrible evil hewwww-mons-”

“I FELL IN LOVE WITH ONE!” roared the Queen, slamming her fists down on the table.

She froze there, stunned; like she'd just blurted out a secret she'd intended to take to the grave with her. Then she sighed, composed herself + told us her story...