Chapter Text
The midday sun shone down on the ocean as Lily walked to the Juicenet cafe, and for once she wanted to jump in. The idea had been plaguing her for days. Mary and Marlene had stopped asking her to join them on swims, but even so, Lily wanted to see what it was like to go in the ocean again.
Sure, it scared her. The whole mermaid thing did. But it was like an itch in the back of her head, and she needed to do it.
In the week since the incident took place, she was barely able to bring herself to step in the bath. When she did she shut her eyes and tried to pretend that the big orange tail was not there at all. Somehow she felt that going in the ocean would clear away the scariness of it all.
Her steps faltered as she walked and she hesitated at the edge of the water. She could just jump in now and get rid of the feeling. She wanted to. So, so much.
Lily snapped back into her senses. She kept walking, trying not to look at the ocean.
When she arrived at the cafe, it was crowded for after school. She and Remus had agreed to meet up and study, which she normally would look forward to. But since the Mako incident she couldn’t bring herself to focus on any of her school work.
The Juicenet was a popular place for teenagers to hang out, as there wasn’t much else to do in there down once you got tired of the beach. Lily liked the surfing theme and the atmosphere, and found it a nice place to study despite the noise. The employees knew her order with the amount of time she spent there.
She found Remus sitting at one of the cafe’s computers, smoothie in hand, the sun shining through his mousy brown hair. She came up behind him and peered over his shoulder.
“Hey, Remus. What are you working on?”
His fingers paused on the keyboard but he kept looking at the screen. “Remember how you asked about mermaids the other day? I decided to look into it for you, while I waited.”
Lily felt her pale face flush at the mention of mermaids. It made her want to crawl out of her skin.
“That’s sweet, but you didn’t have to. I was just curious.”
He shrugged. “It’s kind of interesting. A lot of cultures had them, apparently, but there were really different variations.”
Lily liked that Remus was a nerd like her. It made her feel less weird, and she didn’t know any other boys that would research mermaids for her. But this was one subject she didn’t want to learn about. She really wished she hadn’t brought it up.
“Do people still believe in them?” She asked.
“I haven’t seen anything about that yet, but I’d assume not. Here, I got you this.” Remus handed her a smoothie. Her usual order, strawberry and banana.
“Let’s find a table.”
They sat themselves in a booth out of reach of the glaring sun and pulled out their textbooks. As Lily opened her’s, her hand brushed her pencil off of the table and onto the floor. Before she could grab it, a waitress came by, holding a tray of waters.
The waitress only stumbled over the fallen pencil but that was enough to knock a glass of water off the tray and onto the table, right in front of Lily. It landed on its side, and water spilled down into her lap.
She panicked and froze, like her life was flashing before her eyes
Oh, sh*t.
She was going to turn into a fish in front of the entire cafe.
“I’m so sorry, miss!” The girl apologized.
“No worries!” Lily squeaked as she leapt up onto her feet.
The water had soaked into her clothes and there was no way to wipe it all off, so she did the only thing left to do. She bolted from the cafe, almost knocking the poor waitress over in the process.
She should have run to the bathrooms, she figured, but by the time she realized that she was out the door. Thankfully, the water front where boats where docked was close to by the cafe. She leapt into the ocean right as her legs disappeared.
It was terrifying at first, the extra weight of her tail pulling her down. She could barely swim without it. She felt like she was going to drown. But after a moment she realized she didn’t have to breath.
It didn’t feel as wrong as it had before, her in the ocean. The water felt cool against her skin and light shone from above her. She reached a hand out to touch the scales of her tail, but didn’t recoil. They glimmered in the muted sunlight. Her waist seamlessly faded into them. It was unbelievable, unworldly.
Her fascination came to a halt when she realized people might have seen her jump out into the water. She must have looked deranged. Thankfully, there was hardly anyone outside of the cafe, but surely people noticed her running. And even worse, what if they didn’t see her resurface and thought she drowned?
And what about Remus? Did he see her? He must be so confused, she thought. She doubted he would be angry at her. He knew she always had her reasons for things. But then he would be concerned for her and that was even worse.
Resurfacing was out of the question, at least not until she found somewhere more secluded. Seeing a soaking wet girl with a fish tail dragging herself out of the water would raise some eyebrows.
Lily decided she would find a secluded place to wait and dry off. It took her a second of flailing to start swimming, but after that she found swimming with her tail came easier to her than she would have thought. It was fast and strong, and she soared through the water with ease. It was like flying.
She gave up on tracing the shoreline and just swam, without a clear direction in mind. Her vision was blurred by the speed, but the water didn’t sting her eyes. She realized that she couldn’t feel any water pressure, despite how deep she must be.
The reefs were under her, she noticed as she looked down. She slowed, her red hair floating around her head wildly. She have been farther out than she realized.
Swimming upwards, her head resurfaced above the water. Behind her, the shore was a blur in the distance. She shouldn’t have been able to swim that far in such a short amount of time, yet here she was.
Turning back, Lily saw Mako. She had made it to the island where it had all started. It stood in all its mysterious glory just a few dozen yards in front of her.
It stirred up unpleasant memories of her last visit, yet she felt strangely drawn to it. She wanted to go investigate, to explore the place that had changed her life.
Slipping back under the cool blanket of water, she headed towards the island, watching her pace so she didn’t swim headfirst into the rocks. Swimming really was thrilling, and the reefs under her were beautiful.
It took two laps around the island to find the entrance to the cave, but she spotted in eventually, nestled into the rocks. Swimming through brought her back to the week before, back before her entire worldview was turned on it’s head.
She hesitated at the end of the short tunnel. It felt important, this moment. Every thing had changed here. She closed her eyes and swam up into the pool.
—Mary—
Mary and Marlene both jumped as Lily entered the cave. It took Mary several seconds to process who it was in the first place. She seemed so out of place.
The two girls had been meeting in what they had dubbed the ‘moon pool’ almost every day for the past week. They talked about all their new discoveries and problems. Neither was much into researching but together they compared notes. What kind of moisturizer and face wash they could use without turning (almost none) and which articles of clothing could turn with them (everything except headbands, glasses, and some jewelry.)
Mostly they tested their powers.
Marlene had discovered hers a few days prior. They had been arguing who they could let in on their secret (Mary wanted to tell her sister about being a mermaid, but Marlene thought it was a horrible idea.) Marlene had gotten upset, and suddenly the water started heating up, slowly at first until it stung. Mary had freaked out and jumped out of the water.
By now they had figured on the boundaries. Mary could freeze almost the entire pool if she started from the bottom, but not much more than that. Marlene had evaporated all of the water once, and the steam was so bad that they had to leave the cave.
They learned that each of them now had a resistance to extreme temperatures, Mary to the cold and Marlene to warmth. Marlene bragged that hers would be much more useful, given the Australian heat, but Mary thought it was impossibly cool either way.
This was the first time they had company in the moon pool. Mary never would have imagined Lily would have ventured out on her own, but her she was.
“Lily!” She cried, surprised. “You’re here!”
Lily obviously hadn’t anticipated their presence and looked equally shocked to find others in the cave.
“God, you two scared me. Hi!” She laughed.
“You swam all the way out here? I thought Mary would have to drag you,” Marlene commented from Mary’s side.
“I didn’t have much of a choice. Though this is all… It’s amazing. The swimming thing, I mean.” Lily’s pale cheeks flushed, probably expecting an ‘I told you so.’
She explained to how she got water spilled o her in the Juicenet, and how she had to leave Remus there.
“Ugh, I forgot about Remus. He must be so worried for me.”
“You could have just hid out in the bathroom,” Marlene pointed out.
“It would’ve taken an hour for my clothes to dry. And it’s not like I can do anything about it now.”
“I had a close call with my sister the other day,” Mary offered. “Had to run to my room. It happens.”
“Is this what are lives are going to be like now?” Lily asked. “How are we going to keep this a secret?”
Marlene shrugged. “Im not complaining. We basically have superpowers!”
“Yes, because that's better than being able to keep a job as adults.” Lily rolled her eyes.
“We could be mermaid actors. You know, for like parties and aquariums?”
That seemed to make Lily more worried. Mary didn’t know how to comfort her. She could see why she would be nervous about keeping their secret. It would be difficult. But she should have come to terms with it by now. It was more a good thing than bad, in Mary’s opinion.
“Come on, Lils. We can make it work together, you know that. Besides, it’s so cool”
Mary slid across the pool to sit by Lily, putting an arm around her shoulder.
Lily glanced up at her, and the crease faded between her eyebrows.
“You should try it,” suggested Marlene. “You’re power.”
“Have you practiced since the other day?” Mary asked.
“Practiced? For what?” Lily looked down at her hands.
“Well, we’re like the only people in the world who could do this things. We should figure out how to use them. Besides, it could be useful. I can’t get mugged or kidnapped if I freeze their feet in place.”
Lily nodded. “Okay, yeah. I guess I could…”
She trailed off as she stared at the water. She pointed a hand towards it, fingers splayed, and a trail of clear water began to rise from the surface. It’s twirled in the air, shaking and dipping down for moments, then snapping back up as Lily got the hang of it.
“Woah,” Marlene exclaimed. “I wish I could do that.”
“Don’t be jealous, Marls. I thought you said yours was the best?”
“You have a power, Marlene?” Lily asked, genuine interest in the eyes. She dropped her string of water back into the pool.
Marlene nodded, her mouth quirking up at the corner in what Mary recognized as in attempt to conceal a smile.
“Yeah, I figured it out the other day. Scared the sh*t out of Mary. Watch.”
She raised a hand, and curled her fingers into a fist. As she did so, the water began to heat up. Lily gave a little gasp, her red eyebrows raising.
“Wow, that’s really cool. You can heat water?”
Marlene nodded.
“Don’t boil us alive,” Mary squirmed, the scales of her tail warm under her fingers. The water dropped a few degrees.
“As cool as this is,” Lily began, “Remus won’t be able to get ahold of me, and I really need to get back before he gets worried.”
“We’ll go with you,” Mary offered.
“Yeah. I’m getting tired of beating Mary back,” Marlene chimed in.
“Oh, shut up, it was twice.”
Marlene smiled. “Race you back.”
