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“She could sense the approach of land- taste when the waters changed, feel when currents turned cool or warm- but it didn't hurt to keep an eye on the shore now and then, and an ear out for boats. The slap of oars could be heard for leagues. Her father had told tales about armored seafarers in days long past, whose trireme ships had three banks of rowers to ply the waters- you could hear them clear down to Atlantica, he'd say. Any louder and they would disrupt the songs of the half-people- the dolphins and whales who used their voices to navigate the waters. Even before her father had enacted the ban on going to the surface, it was rare that a boat would encounter a mer. If the captain kept to the old ways, he would either carefully steer away or throw her a tribute: fruit of the land, the apples and grapes merfolk treasured more than treasure. In return the mermaid might present him with fruit of the sea- gems, or a comb from her hair. But there was always the chance of an unscrupulous crew, and nets, and the potential prize of a mermaid wife or trophy to present the king. (Considering some of the nets that merfolk had found and freed their underwater brethren from, it was quite understandable that Triton believed humans might eat anything they found in the sea- including merfolk.)” — Liz Braswell