Stick with Aurora for now

She woke before him, surprisingly. She had drifted to sleep after her second orgasm, and awoke entirely submerged. Her gills opened for a deep breath at her sides, and the smell of her sex filled her lungs. Then she became aware of the mild pinkish hue the water had taken on. A tinge of embarrassed lust touched her face. Hopefully he wouldn't know what that meant...or even better if he didn't mind.

She shook the thoughts from her head and emerged gently. Nothing wrong with entertaining an impossible fetish, but to consider actually allowing such a thing with him was out of the question.

But why was it out of the question?

She shook the thoughts away again. No need to go down that road. They're becoming friends, and she's feeling safe after several months of trauma in the previous household. That's all.

She looked to the floor to see him curled up and eyes closed. Panic hit for a moment until his torso expanded.

By the moons that would never stop being terrifying...what an awful way to sleep. She picked up the small speakers he'd found, and managed to work out where they entered the small screen he'd been letting her use. It took some experimenting but she found the program that had the language lessons he'd been showing her. The lineup to the right had a lot of similar looking things, and she tapped around until more suitable ones played. She appreciated his efforts but strange animations would only be confusing.

She sat on his bed, practicing with diagrams of human mouths. The speakers vibrated her entire head, filling her skull with their sound. Eventually she stopped the videos, realizing that they all always had their teeth out. She took off the speakers and walked back to James. She had to know.

Gently, she pulled his upper lip away. His teeth were there. She tried to press one into his jaw. Surprise leaped across her spine. His entire head had moved! She tried again to find the same result. Could they not retract them?! Of course they always look so threatening! No one could smile properly if they were forced to bare their teeth!

She released his lip, and stared at him. What if she...just once.

She gently moved forward, touching her forehead to his. Her spine shivered, and crawled with affection and a hint of lust. Something she couldn't identify crawled across her head from the point of contact. She moved back, and tried to make it happen again.

Nothing.

What was that one? Her elders and providers never addressed anything like it...she worried for a moment she may have imprinted without understanding.

No, that's ridiculous. You'd have to know if you imprinted, they always said she'd know it when it happened. She would know. Not suspect. She let out a nervous chuckle and told herself she was certain it hadn't happened before returning to her lessons. Practicing proved an adequate distraction. When she finally had the sounds down, she managed to piece together enough words to find a children's dictionary of the language. It wouldn't be easy, but she set about reading through it. The more she read the easier the next piece was to understand. She hadn't even noticed when James had woken up, or when he'd left the room. She'd made it to the "d" section by the time she realized it must have been quite a while that she'd sat there. Looking up, she saw James looking at his mechanical diagrams with food and that delicious drink that burned her chest. A bowl of surface fungus sat further from him, along with a cup of her own tasty beverage with chunks of ice inside. She took off the speakers. Time to put to use all that practice. Suddenly, affection and anxiety crawled along her belly and arms. Why was she nervous to speak to him now? Yesterday she was all too content to show off what she'd learned. The suspicion she'd imprinted crept back into her mind.

No, not possible. He didn't even have the capacity to imprint! Did he? Wait, that doesn't matter because it didn't happen. She took a deep breath and managed to say the first words he'd easily understood her say in his own language.

"Gwood mourningk Jamesz.", she said with a beaming smile. She felt her arms press into the sides of her chest, and clasped her hands with her thighs. The smile he returned made that same feeling she'd never known crawl down her spine.

Oh, no...