Breathing Water

CHAPTER 16

I move my hips back and forth making my tail move and I swim up a little. I turn and see a large rock. I flatten my body to parallel to the surface of the water. It took some effort, though. I move my hips again and my tail flips out of the water pushing me forward. I slowly continue to practice this motion moving towards the large rock.
Once I reach the rock I hold onto and pull myself around to the other side and face towards the open ocean. Something reflects the sun into my eyes. Adjusting my position I focus in on where the reflection came from. I see a flat metallic like object laying on the ocean floor. Swimming to the object with effort it becomes easier to make out the shape. It appears to be a shell that is reflective, like another mermaid's mirror.
As I reach the mirror like shell I reach out to grab it and notice the transformation in my arms. I have spots of pearlescent scales scattered along my arms and a piece of seaweed wrapped around each hand with some extra pieces of string in a decorative pattern. The seaweed and string are the same pale blue as my nails. I take another second to examine my arms and then I return to my original objective.
The mirror is buried in the sand slightly, so I tug at it. Because I am under water it takes a lot more strength to pull the mirror out of the sand. It also doesn't help that the mirror was actually mostly buried in the sand.
Dragging it along the ocean floor I take the mirror to lean against a rock. Pushing myself backward I admire the new me in the mirror. With the tail I am slightly longer than I usually am. The tail resembles Ariel's, because the fins look like sheer fabric that moves with the current of the water, except mine is a pearlescent color. The scales end where the scar was and black oyster shells on my hips. There are slightly bigger oyster shells covering my breast and surrounded decoratively by the pale blue seaweed and string. My cheeks shimmer with the same pearlescent color as my tail and my eyelids sparkle with the same pale blue as the seaweed. I have a seaweed and string headband kind of crown in my hair. Strand of my hair are held behind my head loosely keeping the headband and my hair in place. I feel like I am an underwater princess with the way I look. I smile with my rose colored lips and show glistening white teeth.