The Aquarian

Chapter 8

P.S, The drawing of Marina (on the right) and Scarlett (on the left) was done be Hazeltwins, and as you can see, she did an amazing job! Go check out her awesome art book!

I had a hard time accepting my fate, even though I've always wanted to become a researcher, it never seemed like a possibility.
This never seemed like a possibility.
I've spent lots of time thinking about it, though, and I know that if this is what it takes for the Aquarians to survive, then of course I have to try.
My insubordinate behaviour was thankfully unnoticed by Scarlett for a while, or maybe she just decided to ignore it, all though that would
take a lot of will power from her.

The only other person who noticed anything related to what Grandmother told me was my best friend, Aquina, who was going to ask me to study with her but saw what happened to Grandmother and asked afterwards.

Everything was fine until Scarlett suddenly bombarded me with questions as we where walking to school.
"Marina, what did Grandmother tell you that made you so upset? I'm your sister, I deserve to know." She said, trying to guilt me into it.
"The only reason you want to know is to meddle your way into it." I replied.
"No." She said half-heartedly.
The whole way there, she attempted unsuccessfully to convince me to tell her what was going on.
I told her she wasn't supposed to know, that it was confidential, but that didn't stop her from trying all her little methods, like trying to make me laugh and break down my cover.
The pest.
She is kind of funny, but there was no way I'd ever admit that to her.
                                 *
"Um, ok. Everyone find your seahorse and please remain quiet until further instruction!" The red haired instructor told us.
I followed the line of frantic mermaids and mermen, desperately searching
the back of the coral reef for my assigned seahorse.
They all had a large shell woven gently around their neck with burtroot.
Each had the name of the Aquarian they where assigned to, and the seahorses number written in ink.

Finally the first class is here, I thought.

I found my seahorse in the back in a slight curve on the reef.
It was a light teal blue with green patches and black dots, number twelve.

The seahorse was buckling his head friskily; quite playful, compared to the others.
I was about to complain to myself about receiving the rambunctious one, when I remembered what I had read in my clamshell books about seahorses;
"Gently stroking the mane while holding the head tense can calm an excited seahorse," so I proceeded to do just that.
I got the hang of it before the instructor even finished explaining how to properly get a hold of the seahorse.

I guess my horse must be obedient once told what to do, as I still resort to the information I read in the beginners book.
  "So, I guess I'm going to make sure your doing the proper thing, so, yeah ...I'll do an individual assessment later on some time." The instructor (who was introduced to us as Mr. Todulumus but said we can call him Jack) said nonchalantly- make that way to nonchalantly in my opinion.

You guess your going to do that? I think that maybe you should be a little more affirmative if this is an official class, I thought, then I remembered that he only recently became a researcher prodigy (making him eligible to teach these classes) a month ago, so maybe he'll grow up.

He finally got around to me, and had a slightly shocked look on his face, which quickly faded.
"You must have received a good one, lucky." He said with a friendly smile.
"He was acting quite rambunctious in the beginning, though, I'm calming him down with the technique I learned from a book." I explained.
"I guess you've got a case of beginners luck, normally you've got to give the info a little bit of analysis first." Jack said teasingly, but I could tell he was doing it to annoy me.
What, did he not think I considered the information I read?
I tried not to let my annoyance of his stupid joke show, but he still picked up a hint, as his freckled cheeks flushed and he looked down.
It was almost like he forgot why he was there, but quickly remembered-
"Ok, let's see your stance."
I stood beside the seahorse, giving her a firm grip.
He nodded, saying it was good, and didn't need to correct anything like he did with the others.

At the end of the class, it was time for our first assessment.
We had been practicing jogging on the seahorses, and I had been helping the other mermaids, just like in Biology.
Now, to test our skills, we where all going to race to the next reef.
I was anticipating the moment when he finally did the count down, hoping I was decent enough to be trained by the search.

"Ready, set,onward!" Yelled the weird merman goofily.
I raced off, remembering the techniques and just raced off encouraging the young seahorse.
Some people fell off their seahorses right off the batt, forgetting the very important starting position.
Some of the others couldn't control their seahorse halfway there, and they buckled them off.
None of the others made it 3/4 of the way; I was the only one left, and I kept doing what I thought was ok, even though my seahorse did continue to buckle, I could mostly control it.
Some of the movements began to already seen natural to me, and my fear of being horrible gave way to lively energy that just felt right - natural.

Maybe I can do the search. I definitely won't be that good, but if I keep practicing, maybe I have hope in helping the research team, I thought.

I skidded to a stop at the reef,
then trotting back to join the group, receiving praise from the others.

Once the class was over, I couldn't resist asking Jack about my racing skill.
"So did you depict that as beginners luck or a good race?" I asked jokingly,
"It was a great performance." He admitted.
I nodded and was almost beyond the reef when Jack called out-
"You just forgot to read the paragraph about glide alongs in your book, which we'll work on next time."
I sighed in annoyance.
Whatever, it was an ok start, as long
as I continue practicing the glide alongs and he can stop annoying me while teaching.