“I understand you're bored. But you can't do it. They've got enough issues without needing you to throw balls of energy around their heads.” Apollo hissed softly. The mermaids laughed, soft tinkering laughs, like they were singing.
“Tell Clotho to come play with us again then. We miss her.”
“That's not my job.”
Mermaids were frustrating things. Ancient, wise as the waves they played in, with lives as long as turtles, and yet sometimes they behaved like children. That was why Clotho and they got on so well. Fucking immature things.
He shook his head free and continued to try and speak with the mermaids, as they drifted backwards and forwards, their 'hair' reaching out. Mermaids weren't like the humans thought. Made like fish, not like humans, they weren't at all sweet or kind. Childish, playful, and wise, but not sweet or kind. Not to another species. They were dark grey, with the pale grey stripe a dolphin or whale had, skin that of a dolphin rather than a human. Their hair, which was fine like a humans, was long and fine, pored, rather like the nose of a shark- designed to detect electrical impulses in the water. Prey. Fish, crabs, squid, other things. The child of a mermaid was born with a flat skull but as the offspring grew older, their foreheads bulged out just slightly, till it contained the air sac they use to communicate. Like dolphins. They sang songs that could crash ships and destroy sailors when they wanted to. When it amused them.
Or they could send giant balls of energy up into the sky, like they were kites, and tease the air force. This also amused them. Not all UFOs were created by the mermaids- truthfully, Apollo had no clue what most of them were, or why they were here. The three old women didn't tell him that. But a few were.
Apollo had shown Amelia one, when she was a child, he'd lured a mermaid up to the surface and they'd talked. Apollo sometimes, when he wasn't feeling so old and grouchy, liked to come play with them too. Taking the shape of a dolphin, darting through waves, leaping for the sheer joy of it, it was like being alive again. Some part of him was eager to do it again. Play. Smile. He'd had enough of the depressing crap and wanted to play catch the bubble.
Aware he was distracted, Apollo clenched his teeth, and got back to warning them to stop it. He had to stop thinking about that. He had a job to do. If he thought the mermaids were frustrating, he hadn't even gotten to the Lock Ness monster yet.
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Amelia sat beside her empty ocean, watching the waves wash backwards and forwards, waiting. The rain was consistent, the dampness not going away, but her neck was starting to gain some strength under the bandage. She amused herself by holding her breath. She could do it for hours and she was okay.
Then she stood up and explored around the ruins. The childish curiosity had gone now but she still felt an urge to look, to touch, to explore. Things crumbled under her fingers and she found the door swing a little wider, a little more open, as she wondered. Touched her stomach.
Apollo had said that people might come. Did this mean that her world wasn't cut off? How big was it anyway? She gazed at it, trying to see, but the fog just rolled on. Amelia had seen walls once on the first day but she hadn't seen them since. Was she alone or was there others beyond her world, like distant lands, like this wasn't just one world? It was many knitted together?
“It could be really big. One day you should create a elephant. Or you could make a giant dinosaur. Or a airplane. Map it.”
The voice shocked her, and she saw a girl sitting beside her on a log, swinging her legs. She looked about fifteen, maybe, maybe a little older. Or younger. It was hard to know. She had long brown curls that frizzled a little, like they were eternally that way, her nose not perfect and somehow it made her more beautiful. And she wore a yellow and orange dress, Greek, maybe silk, that stood out against her warm brown skin.
YOU ARE READING
Inbetween - Book 1 of the Guardian series
AdventureThe Inbetween is a tale about the Guardians- those stuck between life and death who serve to protect the living- and Amelia. Just a few months after turning twenty Amelia was betrayed by her childhood sweetheart and murdered by his new bride. She fo...
