Salt Water

Change of tides

Girl pov.
"I'm sorry"

Those words were the last thing I had expected. Eventhough he had owed me a sincere apology, I had never thought he would ever give it. Judging by his posture, hanging head and shoulders, and his small guilty sounding voice, he spoke the truth.

"I hadn't...I never intended to... Dramatically change.." He mumbled.

He looked into my eyes and somehow got the courage to speak fluently:

"I did something wrong while making the potion and now your..." Gesturing at my tail.

"A mermaid." I filled in. "Can you, like change me back?" I asked a little frightful. Knowing that all my hopes were set on his yes-reply and that the chances of that answer weren't 50-50. It might be foolish to want to leave this world so quickly without getting a taste of it, but I didn't belong here. My life was up there somewhere.

My question drove all the his frustration and doubt out again.

"Yes..No..I mean I don't know. I'm doing my best, but I don't know what went wrong." He stuttered.

At first the word doing struck me. It meant he was already trying to help me. I had totally misjudged his personality. He wasn't some evil wizard, who saw me as a crazy experiment. He was a young frustrated boy, or actually man. In my heart I wanted to forgive him, but my mind wasn't quite sure yet of his innocence. How sweet he might now seem, he had been able to pull me deep into the ocean without hesitation. Plus I still had no clue of what his potion was supposed to do.

"Why did you kidnap me in the first place?" I questioned crossing my arms before my chest.
"I wanted to talk to you." He answered seriously. Ok that was the most useless answer he could give apart from; I don't know.

I think he saw my not amused face for he quickly added; "about sea pollution and overfishing."
Aaaah, I thought, he's worried about the ocean. Thats logical. I could picture him worried about his surroundings, since all those oil-spills and the alerting decrease in fish-populations. Still if he wanted to do so he would not have needed to kidnap me. Slowly a slightly terrifying thought appeared in my mind.

"You weren't trying to turn me into a fish, so you could drop me near a fishing boot, were you? As to teach me a lesson I'd never forget?" I asked a little freigtend.

"Nooooooo!". He said without hesitation. "That's babaric. Besides, you seem well capable of finding a fisher boat yourself." He grinned. "I wanted the potion to give you gills." He looked at my tail with a guilty face and added; " But it gave you a little more than that."

Gills, I thought astonished and slightly shocked. He must have guessed what was going on in my mind and said with a soothing voice.

"Only temporary. I wanted to show you some things underwater. Afterwards I would have brought you back to the wharf, without gills. I promise I had no bad intentions. But now..." He sighed and looked up to me with a long face.

"I'm so sorry. I'll do my best to reverse my mistake."

I was aware that there was a chance I'd never be able to walk again and that there was nothing he could do about it "Thank you for your help." I said with a soft voice. I was on the brink of tears. The idea of having to leave my entire world behind, was well, painful.

"Hé." He said comforting. "Being a mermaid isn't that bad."

I give him a slight smile. I had forgiven him and doing so I gave him my trust. I just hoped I wouldn't regret it.