Dylan had spent most of the morning playing with something shiny. Because humans were loud and stupid and had too many surviving young, they didn't have any space for the things they didn't want. Most people put their unwanted things in special boxes with the word 'trash' on them that you weren't allowed to look in. Once an item had been put in the trash box you couldn't go back and get it because that was bad. People stared at you for breaking their rules if you tried to get something out of a trash box; once something was put in there it was no longer usable by anyone.
With the rule that you couldn't take things out, it seemed sensible that people would only put items into trash boxes when they were broken, but they didn't. That was why humans were stupid; they didn't think to use things up instead of making more new ones.
Some people, however, didn't put their things in trash boxes at all. They threw their unwanted things into rivers and lakes and oceans, which was just as stupid as throwing useful things into a trash box, only it gave merfolk like himself the opportunity to find them.
What he'd found was a sort of stick, only it was shiny and smooth and didn't feel like trees. It was black and had MF on the side of it in shiny gold letters, but that wasn't all. Half of the outside came off to reveal a silver tube, and inside the tube was something red and sticky. It smelled like human female faces did sometimes and when you touched it the colour went onto your fingers. The best thing, however, was the turny bit; if you held the shiny tube and twisted the case attached to it, the red bit inside rose up into a crayon. Dylan had been thrilled with the idea of having a secret crayon in its own special case...at least until he'd tried to write with it and a piece of the crayon had fallen off. It was very fragile, but he should've known that. Why else would it be kept in a case?
It was around the time that Dylan had been trying to put the crayon back together when he'd noticed the body of a girl on the water's edge. She'd looked dead, at least until she started moving when she looked alive again, but only just. For a while he considered smashing her with a rock and eating her, but then he remembered he what the other mermaid had said about causing humans to look for them and decided not to. Perhaps he could ask her about the crayon instead.
The girl was pale with orange hair and she was breathing something out of her mouth. It wasn't white like your breath in arctic waters, but it wasn't dark and ashy like fire smoke. It was blue-grey. Then he saw the glowing stick in her hand. Oh. That explained everything. Humans liked to put special sticks in their mouths and suck their cheeks in because it helped them relax. Dylan had never tried sucking on sticks, but he couldn't see how it was relaxing. What if bits of stick got stuck in your teeth?
Humans. Stupid.
Dylan swam closer, so that he was in her line of sight, and broke the surface of the water. He looked at her curiously for a moment, she didn't like appetising at all now that she was awake, and held out the special stick.