The Tale of Zaharos

Chapter 4: Things getting fishy

Have I mentioned what day was the previous one? Well, it was Saturday and I am now going to skip Sunday.

(Right now I have an evil grin on my face. It's so much fun being the narrator and skipping days whenever you feel like it!)

Sunday! The day of sun, the (supposedly) most beautiful day of the week. All this is very nice, but a beautiful day is not necessarily interesting and even if the events of that Sunday were indeed particularly interesting, I am not going to describe them. (This is my revenge on those who didn't laugh at my jokes.)

Monday morning and kids, too tired to get out of bed, start thinking over their past choices. This usually includes 'Why was I too bored to do my homework?' and 'What am I going to tell the teacher this time?' However, since they didn't have any homework to do during the holidays, kids were thinking 'Why can't summer holidays last forever?'
At that particular morning Erika was feeling awful. She regretted agreeing to take Mariana to school. It's not that she didn't want to help her, it was just that she wanted to stay as far away as possible from that 'other' world.
(Unfortunately for her, it was not possible to stay very far away from that world while living in Zaharos.)

Erika had never liked fantasy or adventure books, so she felt deeply disturbed to find herself entangled in a magical adventure. 'Why do I have to be so kind?' she thought.

Mariana on the other hand was excited, even though she regretted choosing Erika as her human school guide. Erika was always so kind to her! Mariana had never imagined that she would react like that. She was about her age too, so they would be in the same class. At the time, she had thought Erika was the best choice but now... 'Well, this is how things are,' she thought and ran to Erika's house.

They arrived at school considerably early so they chose a spot in the playground and waited. Then a really strange thing happened only to be followed by an even stranger one. Mariana's necklace started emitting a peculiar light. Erika, who had not noticed the necklace until that moment, looked taken aback by that new bit of magic. Mariana was equally surprised.

"What is this and why is it shining?" she asked failing to hide a tone of alarm from her voice.

"This is Friendships' seashell. It's a seashell powered from a bond of friendship. I don't know why it's glowing this time. Friendship is a very peculiar branch of magic," answered Mariana while taking off her necklace to observe it.

Erika had to admit: the necklace was otherworldly and remarkably beautiful.  She noticed that this was only half of the shell. While she was debating whether to ask who had the other half, a girl appeared wearing a similar necklace. Erika had met her just a day before, at the beach. Sidonia. That was her name.

Mariana looked dumbstruck. "You're not allowed to be here!" she said, finding her voice.

"Neither are you!" retorted Sidonia.

"Wait a moment, do you know her?" Erika asked Mariana, discreetly pointing at Sidonia.

" 'Course!" said Mariana,"How do you know her?"

"We met yesterday," explained Sidonia,"Mariana, things are getting fishy. Something is completely off, I have come to warn you."

Mariana had never heard Sidonia so worried.

"What's wrong?" asked Mariana slightly scared of what the answer would be.

"Polymorphics were talking with the queen on Saturday. They had a heated argument about something. I don't know how it started but now I come to think of it, I saw them entering the town. Our queen would never offend the polymorphics but Elder Twelve said she had offended them." Sidonia stopped to take a breath.