Tails (Transformations: Book 1)

5

"Nice to meet you." She realized she was staring at him and blushed a little. She looked down with a nervous smile.

Freya felt someone grab her hand and looked back to see Idun, who dragged her away from the pair with a grin. "Let's leave them to get to know each other." She pulled Freya through the crowd to where some other girls were standing, dressed almost identically to them, but with different colors. "We've hardly seen you, lately, Freya. You need to spend more time with us, at least tonight."

She looked back over her shoulder at Aria and Kai, but knew there was nothing she could do about that, anyway. She sighed and looked at the girls, managing to smile, again. "So, Idun, how are the trees?"

Kai watched them leave and looked back at Aria. "Are you friends with one of the nymphs?"

She stared at him, blankly. "What nymphs?"

He indicated the group of girls across the room. "I saw you come in with the nereid...Freya, right?"

"Freya's a mermaid." Aria replied, figuring this was part of the game.

He gave her an amused smile. "I guess she's played a joke on you because she is definitely a nymph. You can tell that just by the way she is dressed."

She looked back at her friend and realized the group she was with all had the same braids and almost-identical dresses. She figured they must all be part of some special group in the role-play. "Well, I suppose she never mentioned anything about being a nymph." She smiled back at Kai. "I'll have to talk to her about it, later." She paused. "Do you mind me asking what you are?"

"Not, at all." He revealed his perfect teeth, again, in another charming smile. "I'm a merman, and you?"

"Mermaid." She replied, immediately.

"I knew I had a good feeling about you." He told her. "I figured you weren't a nymph, but it would have been unfortunate if you turned out to be a siren."

"Well, I'm certainly not one of those." She assured him. "I can't even sing very well."

"Neither can I." He paused, suddenly realizing they were standing around in the middle of the dance floor. "Um...would you like to dance?"

She nodded, forgetting, for a moment, that she had no idea how to dance. It didn't really matter that much, though, because he couldn't dance, either. Their awkward movements complimented each other fairly well. She laughed as she realized his dance moves were as bad as hers. "I'm guessing you don't do much dancing."

"Not on dry land." He admitted. "Get me underwater and, I assure you, I am much more graceful."

"Well, I will have to see that for myself, sometime." She replied.

He smiled. "I would like that."

The song ended and they stepped off to the side, so they could talk without getting in the way of the dancers. Echo came over and smiled at the pair. "You two looked like you were having fun."

"Well, you know I'm not much of a dancer." Kai told her with another grin. He seemed to be very good at giving out smiles that could make a girl's heart flip.

"Most of us aren't." Echo pointed out, looking at the awkward pairs on the dance floor.

Kai nodded his agreement. "I'm sure we'll get the hang of it, eventually." He looked to Aria. "This is my friend, Echo."

"We've met." She smiled to the girl. "So I take it you are a mermaid, as well."

She nodded. "I haven't met you, before, but I guess that is one of the benefits of these full moon parties. We get to meet mermaids from different places." She glanced across the room and frowned. "Of course, that's not always a good thing."