Her Soldier, His Warrior

Fish Out Of Water [Mermaid!Enya au] (Part 1)

Prompt: Soren and co find something lurking in the sea

Setting: After events in Through The Moon

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"Be careful Ezran! Or you'll get swept away!" Callum yells as his younger brother races towards the crashing waves of the ocean. "Soren aren't you supposed to be watching him?"

"He'll be fine, it's not like there's any dangers in the water we need to look out for." The soldier assures him with a chuckle. "Besides, it's not like there are any deep sea monsters this close to the shore."

"You saw the big fish in the lake, I'm just being cautious." Callum scoffs. "Weren't you the one who saw a sea monster as a kid once and had a huge fear of any body of water that wasn't a bathtub for nearly two years?"

Soren snorts, remembering how years ago he nearly drowned as a child, only to be pulled to the shallows by something that certainly wasn't his sister or his parents. He had only caught a brief glimpse of the creature before he passed out, a pair of bright and pale blue eyes and long flowing blue hair, that's all that he could remember. As he got older he was pretty sure maybe it was a Tidebound elf that saved him, but he wasn't so sure. And for a year he would refuse to go anywhere near a large body of water, for fear of falling in and crossing paths with something less friendly than whatever saved his life.

"I'm pretty sure it was a Tidebound elf, the beach my dad took us to was close to where you could probably sail all the way to Xadia by boat, or swim if you were crazy and brave enough." He assures the prince before beckoning for him to sit down beside him.

"Hey guys! The water is great!" Ezran yells from the water, already knee deep in the water. "This is the best vacation idea ever!"

Earlier in June, Rayla had left them, leaving behind a note stating she was going to search for Viren and not returning until she got rid of him. Callum had been left quite depressed for the past few days after they returned home, hardly talking to anyone but Ezran in a soft tone and practically sleeping in the library surrounded by multiple books on the study of everything about Xadia. It was Soren who suggested a trip to the beach, one his family had went to many times when he was younger, saying it would cheer the prince up and allow them to take a break from their duties for a bit.

"Careful your highness, there's a drop off in this area!" Soren yelled as Ezran wades a bit deeper into the sea with Bait hugged to his chest.

"I'm fine!" Ezran yells back. "Hey Callum! Come join- AAAH!"

"EZRAN!" Both teens yell as the younger boy suddenly slips and falls under the waves. Soren is already on his feet and racing towards the spot Ezran had fallen and immediately leaps into the water.

Good thing I got rid of my armor earlier, otherwise I couldn't do this. Soren thinks as he kicks his legs to propel himself towards Ezran and Bait, who were trying to swim for the surface. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw something swimming towards them at a rather alarming speed. Oh not sharks!

Soren kicks his legs faster as he reached for Ezran, before the boy was suddenly snatched from his view. Panicked, Soren looks to the surface to see something swimming up with Ezran, something with what looked like...fins? Was that a Tidebound elf? Before he could start swimming towards the surface, the figure dives back into the water and makes a beeline for him, now allowing the soldier to get a better look at Ezran's savior.

The being looked like a human girl, but her skin was a pale blue that turned darker, long flowing blue hair trailing behind her almost to the tip of what looked like a fish tail where her legs were supposed to be located, pale blue eyes that locked with his when she got close. The girl grabbed him from under the arms and flicked her tail towards the surface until their heads broke from the water. Siren coughed and gasped for air as the girl drags him to the shallows where Ezran and Callum were waiting with worried expressions while Bait croaked loudly in concern.

"Narwhals and tidepools, you humans are idiots!" The girl snaps as Siren feels the sand under his feet and manages to crawl from the drop off edge. "Both of you are lucky I was swimming by, otherwise you would have drowned!"

"Callum! I think she's a Tidebound elf!" Ezran shouts excitedly, grabbing his brother's arm in excitement. "Or a mermaid! I think she might be a mermaid!"

"Ez, Tidebound elves don't look like...that." Callum states, gesturing to the girl. "And... mermaids don't exist, that's just in the stories."

"Wait a minute, have I seen you before?" Soren asks as he gets up from the water, wringing the edge of his shirt out. "Or have we met? I feel like I've met you before."

The girl squints at him before nodding. "Yeah I think I remember you, you were that idiot kid who slipped and fell from the drop off. My family was swimming nearby when it happened, everyone was too scared to approach because we couldn't risk ourselves being seen by humans. Thankfully I was fast enough to catch you and get you back to the surface before some humans spotted me trying to get the water out of your lungs, got myself a good scolding from both my parents for risking my safety."

"Wait, you were the thing that saved me?" Soren asks in surprise, earning himself another nod. "I knew I wasn't crazy! I kept telling my parents and sister it was a Tidebound elf, and no one believed me!"

"Sorry to burst your bubble, but I'm not a Tidebound elf." The girl says with a shake of her head before shifting herself into a comfortable seating position and lifted her tail partially out of the water. "I'm what's descended from a Tidebound, we call ourselves-" she lets out a noise that sounds like a whale bellow. "But to make it easier, you can call me a mermaid."

"But mermaids are made up!" Callum points out. "They're just myths!"

"Then if I am made up, unicorns, dragons and giant squids must also be made up." The mermaid laughs as she drops her tail back into the water. "The only made up sea creatures are sirens, those are fake and we use them to make children behave themselves."

"You do look like a Tidebound, but how exactly are you descended from one?" Ezran asks as he picks up Bait. "Are you half human?"

"My people are descendants of children who had a parent who was a human and another as a Tidebound. Some were born human like the human parent, others were born looking more like their elf parent, but there were a few who came out looking like a cross between the two that couldn't really survive well on land or water depending on their features." The mermaid explained. "These had a hard time living, as did the other hybrids who weren't accepted well by the humans or the other elves. One day, a sea archdragon by the name of Aukai felt pity for these hybrids and decided to grant them a way to live better. The ones who didn't want to live on land and the ones who couldn't function well in the sea were given a few drops of his blood to turn them into...well what I look like. His blood allowed us to function like Tidebound elves, but we take on an appearance similar to him. Aukai was our savior and creator, many generations later we still praise and thank him for letting us be able to exist like this."

"So you are magical?" Callum asks. "Like are your people connected to the ocean arcanum?"

"Well we have the sea dragon's blood running in us, so I suppose we are." The mermaid responds and shrugs. "But I have never done any magic, and I've never heard of any merfolk who can do sea magic."

"That's still pretty cool! I actually thought you functioned more like a fish because of your neck gills, but you can breathe on land perfectly!" Ezran says with a grin.

"I can't stay on shore for too long, it gets hard to breathe after a while." The mermaid admits as she gestures to the water. "And I can't be out of the water for long either, otherwise my scales will dry up and I'll die. I should probably get going, before someone comes looking for me."

"Wait!" Soren yells as she said off the drop off and dove into the water. "We don't know your name!"

"Why do we need to know her name?" Callum asks him. "It's not like we're ever going to see her again anyways."

"Don't you think it'd be useful in case we run into any hostile merpeople?"

"When will that ever happen?"

"Some time in the future!"

"Well, maybe we should keep quiet about this for now." Ezran suggests. "And stay quiet about me falling into the ocean."

"Sounds like a plan." Soren agrees. "Otherwise your aunt and Opeli will have my head."