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Carolynn's deranger is delighted to discover a whole new world of audience members open to them, and he promptly books the whole band in every place he can think of. Fascination with their species draws in vast crowds, which makes Gundurun rapturous. He's even more ecstatic when he discovers that humans of our world have lots and lots of options for recording music. He brings back a ton of souvenirs for his family.
For a very short period of time, mermaid music explodes with popularity. A critic calls their style "the most important musical innovation since Schoenberg." Six dozen other mermaid bands start touring all over the place. Carolynn, Gundur, and Melody all perform solo, and Charson quits temporarily because he has twelve brand-new girlfriends he'd rather hang out with. Like all fads, however, the novelty shrivels. It's not long before the style is riviled by all but a few insistent critics, bands no longer attract huge crowds, and several cities pass laws against mermaid music, which they claim is "disturbing the peace." Gundurun is very annoyed by this, and decides to stay behind in our world for the purposes of "educating" humans in basics of good taste. His wives have are all scouted as models, so they don't mind this. Carolynn collaborates with Melody on a few beautiful pieces before getting bored with that style and returning to the highly aggravating. She eventually marries and has kids, all of whom are proficient in multiple instruments. She composes quite a few particularly horrid pieces, and has a great time playing music her whole life. Everything settles down in our world. Then Greenpeace imports several hundred thousand mermaids to protect the whales and dolphins. On the bright side, it works . . . |