The Mermaid's Reckoning | ONC 2024

Chapter 10

It took several minutes for Pretie to understand where she was when she woke up the following morning. She was pleasantly warm, her skin dappled with sunlight filtering through the hole of the rocky nook in front of her. As the girl blinked the sleep from her eyes, she recognized the weight of an arm settled atop her waist. She tilted her head, just enough to see Ephyra still laying behind her, her body pressed flush to Pretie's back. Pretie rolled over to watch her sleep with a magnetized fascination. 

With her eyes shut and her face slack, Ephyra looked far more relaxed than Pretie had ever seen her. Her lips were parted slightly, her eyes flitting back and forth beneath their lids. Pretie listened to her rhythmic breathing, watching her gills flap gently against her neck. The girl found herself reaching out a hand, as if to touch the ridges, to brush a finger across them and follow them up, up, up to Ephyra's jaw, her lips...

What am I doing? She thought to herself, her eyes going wide as she realized what she had been about to do. She hesitantly lowered her hand. All this time underwater must be making me crazy. Why would I— Still, she couldn't help but stare at the mermaid beside her. The sharp cut of her jaw and cheekbones, her sleep-mussed hair, the silvery scar lining one side of her face. Before Pretie could stop herself, she had lifted her hand once again. This time, she traced a pointer finger across the scar, absentmindedly wondering where the mermaid had gotten it.

Pretie's touch must not have been as soft as she'd intended—or Ephyra was a lighter sleeper than she'd realized—because she stirred beneath her hand. Her eyelids flickered open halfway, revealing a glimpse of her dark, glittering eyes.

"Well, good morning to you, too, Prettypants," Ephyra mumbled in a rough voice. "Is there a reason your hand is on my face?"

Pretie whipped her arm back, feeling her face flush with shame for being caught. "No. I wasn't doing anything."

A smirk tugged at the mermaid's lips.

The girl huffed, looking away. "How'd you get that scar, anyway?"

Ephyra's hand leapt up to the mark. "Oh, this old thing? You really want to know?"

"It doesn't sound like the others are awake yet," Pretie replied with a shrug. "So, yes. I do want to know."

"I'll warn you, it's not super exciting," Ephyra admitted. "It's actually not something I usually talk about. It happened before I met Melody and Krill, so they don't know about it either."

"Oh. You don't have to tell me if you don't want to. I'm not going to make you share something you don't like talking about if—"

The mermaid shook her head, offering her a crooked smile that didn't quite meet her eyes. "No, no, it's alright. I don't mind." She paused to take a breath, as if to steel herself for what she was about to say. Pretie watched her gills flutter with the motion. 

"I was still young," she began at last. "But... It was around the time I'd realized I was different from the other mermaids, at least in their eyes. And around the time they were old enough to care about it, and what it looked like to hang around me. They were... Well, they were really rude to me, to say the least. It made me feel like shit. I felt like I was just as ugly and out of place as the others thought, and it... It drew me to do some really reckless things.

"I felt like I had to do these super dangerous things to prove myself. I think, though, deep down... It was more than that. I felt like I'd somehow earned the pain and danger I put myself in. I didn't care about the consequences, because I thought I deserved them. I thought they were some kind of punishment I had to give myself for being who I am."

Pretie watched her, feelings of sadness and dread dueling inside her as she listened to Ephyra's story. She found herself reaching out a hand to the mermaid, who took it almost immediately, twining her fingers through Pretie's and giving her hand a squeeze. 

"Anyway. This particular scar came from a run-in with a barracuda. I instigated some sort of chasing game with it. The barracuda wasn't too happy, as I'm sure you can imagine, and got a little frustrated with me... Didn't even bite me, but the teeth caught me in the side of the face, and..." Ephyra tapped her scar with one of her pointer fingers. "The rest is history."

"That sounds..."

"Horrible? Yeah. Yeah, it was." Ephyra flashed her a grin as she wriggled into an almost-sitting position, pointing at a patch of missing scales on her cornflower blue tail. "This one's from a shark—who wasn't as friendly as Butch, unfortunately." She lifted the edge of her shirt to reveal a mottled web of scars on her side. "Jellyfish. And I think I've got another somewhere that's—"

"Ephyra..."

The mermaid's dark-eyed gaze rose to meet hers. Her too-wide grin shrank a fraction. "Sorry. I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable. But, hey, it's all in the past. It's okay now. I don't— I don't care about any of that stuff anymore."

Pretie tightened her grip on Ephyra's hand. The effect was instantaneous in the way the mermaid's smile slipped completely, her gaze softening.

"You let me in," Pretie whispered, managing a small smile herself. "Don't shut me out now."

"No, no, it's okay. I'm fine. I don't need to make you worry about all of this. As I said, it's in the past."

"Eph."

The nickname slipped out of Pretie's lips before she'd made any conscious decision to use it. The mermaid's eyebrows hitched upward. "I'm alright. Don't you worry your pretty little head about it."

"I might be a useless figurehead back in Aecora, but I'm not there now, am I?"

"I suppose not," Ephyra murmured after a moment, quirking an eyebrow. "So?"

"So you can talk to me about this. You don't have to keep brushing past it like I'm the one hurting. Is this still something you're struggling with? Do you still have these... Urges to let yourself get hurt like that?"

The mermaid paused, her lips pursed. "Well. I... I'm working on getting past them. I can sincerely promise you that I haven't done anything like that in over a year."

"I'm glad. Can you... Can you also promise me that you'll let me know? If it ever gets to the point where you're worried about it again, I mean." In the back of her mind, Pretie knew she would be leaving soon. In the back of her mind, she knew she wouldn't be here for Ephyra when she was back in Aecora, her legs returned—which would be the case in less than 24 hours, if the group succeeded today. But all the girl could think about was the longing at the forefront of her mind to help her, to support her however she could.

A knowing smile twitched onto Ephyra's lips. "Alright, Prettypants. I promise."

"Okay. Good."

"You lovebirds finished cuddling in there? We'd better get going if we want to find the stone by the end of the day." 

Pretie jumped as she heard Krill's voice, nearly hitting her head on the top of the rock alcove. Ephyra flashed her an amused grin, her eyes on Pretie even though her voice was projected out toward Krill when she next spoke. "Yeah, yeah. You sure you don't want more time for you and Melody to make out? Or did you already factor that into your nonexistent schedule?"

The girl wished she could have seen Krill's face then, but she had to settle for his sudden silence. She snorted out a laugh. Ephyra chuckled, shaking her head. "He's hilarious, isn't he?"

"It's so obvious that he and Melody have a thing for each other." Pretie agreed.

"Yeah," the mermaid replied, giving Pretie's shoulder a playful nudge. "It really is, isn't it?"

Ephyra's touch sent off a firework of warmth across her skin. Before Pretie had the time to consider what it meant, the mermaid had grabbed her hand.

"You heard him, though. Let's go, sea slug." 

"You dare to speak this way to a princess? You're pretty rude."

"I know. But I think you're starting to like it." Flashing Pretie a grin, Ephyra tugged her out of the alcove. The tip of her tail brushed against her cheek. Whether it was Ephyra's intention or purely an accident, the feeling brought a smile to Pretie's face as she followed her outside.