Mermaid 22

Worse, she occasionally crossed paths with humans on the water's surface. She flet crushed from above and let herself sink while still fighting the current. Once on the seafloor, rather the riverbed, she found a large beam of wood lodged with smaller debris caught on it. She flicked enough away for her to cling. Wrapping herself in a circle and holding her own green tail, she could rest without being washed away.
More fish swam by, upstream and down. Exhausted, Cordelia simply watched them. When she was rested she would approach them and try to get directions, a sense of distance.
The water still tingled, but she was becoming used to that. In fact, she barely noticed any more. Soon she would breathe mountain water as easily as salty seawater. She was a child of mountain water and soon she would prove that by finding her mother.