Cursed with Fins TWO The Land Calls

Chapter Eighteen

Third Person P.O.V.

The adult merman paced back and forth in front of his cubby hole room that was within a rock wall, he ran his fingers through his wavy black locks that danced in the cooling waters. He has been on constant worry of his missing child and another who he would consider his own. They have been missing for about a day now, getting ready to go on two. He had no clue of where they could be at, he knew it was not normal for Azalea to stray too far from home, and Skylar would most likely be close to her. Maybe Skylar could have convinced her to swim away with her, the young king thought the newly made mermaid was still mad at him for what he had done earlier. No! Even if Skylar tried to, Azalea would never leave like this, someone would know where they have gone. It's not like her to disappear without a trace, without anyone seeing her.

He sighed, he felt horrible for him snapping at her like that. He didn't mean anything by it, he just wanted to protect the child. She was still young, and this life was still new to her. She has not witnessed a human's ability, even if she was one at one point. Even if she knew the other humans or not, it was still dangerous. If he had allowed her to see them, then at some point she would be wanting to be with them more and more, risking her life. She could possibly try to go on land during day time, possibly of being seen. Or going other places with them. It was too much of a risk that he wasn't willing to take.

He felt hands on both of his shoulders, looking over them he sees Meredith.
"I'm worried for them too, my love." She leans her head on his shoulder. "But as long as they have each other, they will be okay."

He wrapped his arm around her waist, and the other rubbing her arm soothingly. "You are right, but they shouldn't be separated from us for long. They are too young to even think about going out on their own, were suppose to make our pod bigger, not smaller."

"Aquilius!" A younger merman swam up to him quickly. "We have found no trace of the girls, it's like they just up and vanished." He panted, out of breath.

"Hm." Aquilius hummed, thinking. "Send out more of our men, we need to be on look out, we must find them. Search on land if you must."

The teen's eyes went wide at his words. "Go out on land? H-how do we even do that? Surely they wouldn't be stupid enough to go up there where they would most likely dry out."

"They wouldn't, but apparently Skylar have been trying to go up there to meet up with other humans. Maybe they were taken, or.." He looked up. "Gods forbid, killed." He met back with the boy's eyes. "I need to know if they are okay, or.... Gone.."

"Yes, sir." The boy nodded quickly, then swimming away as fast as he can.

Meredith looked up to him. "You really think they went up on land?"

He lightly shrugged his shoulders. "It's the only other explanation, if we can't find them anywhere in the water. It's the only other place they can be. I just want to get them back home safely."

Skylar's P.O.V.

We arrived at a store's parking lot, of course parking the car in it's place and going in. "Alright, girls. You can go on ahead, meet up with me on the bench by the bathrooms when you're done." Mom told us, digging around in her purse, being sure she had everything.

"Okay, Mom." I started walking straight ahead, Azalea following.

"Why are we here again?"

"I want to do something nice for the merkids. If I'm going back in the water, I prefer not to be bored." I walked to the back of the store and to the clearance aisle, looking at pool toys.

"Sooooo were getting... these weird things?" Azalea picked up an object, studying over it.

"Yeah, were getting them toys. Whatever that can last in water good. It's probably gonna be kinda hard, considering about ninety percent of them float." I looked over a net bag full of squishy toy balls. "Those will float." I huffed, putting them back on shelf.

I scanned over the shelves, then picked up diving rings and diving rockets. "Do you think the kids will like these?" I held them up in front of her face, making her back up to better see.

"What are they?"

"Diving rings, and these are rockets but basically the same thing. Actually, maybe the rockets will work out better." I pulled them away, reading over the words on the packaging. "The rings are a little too plain." I put the rings back onto the shelf, walking down to the toy aisle.

It was a bright pink aisle, full of dolls, and stuff toys. "Wow, you guys make a lot of toys.."

"Yeah, this is only the icing on the cake. There are way more options than this, this store in particular just has a few toy options though." I picked up a barbie doll, looking over it. I smiled. "I remember when I use to play with dolls. Me and Ava use to play when we were little." I walked up to her. "Now that was a childhood, now half of our generation of kids are playing on tablets and Iphones." I rolled my eyes.

"What are those?"

"Not a good childhood, that's what." I joked. "Well, I think these will last good underwater." I gasped, looking around excitingly. "I bet they have a few of those mermaid barbies somewhere!" I looked all on the bottom shelf and up to the very top, trying to locate them.

"Barbie mermaids?"

"Oh yeah, I feel bad for you that you couldn't grow up with what we did. Barbie is like one of the top toys girl's love to play with. Heck, some guys actually play with them too. I've seen those, they made like millions of movies of her being a fairy, mermaid, and so on." I grabbed a arm full of dolls, placing them on the emptiest shelf I could. "Now, I've found some mermaid dolls, which ones do you think we should get?"

"Hm," Ava put a hand to her chin, looking down them all. "I like this one!" She grabbed a blue one. "And this one." She grabbed a mermaid one that had a red tail that faded into pink, she glanced around for a minute. "What about mermans?" She looked up to me.

"I don't think they make those, at least I haven't seen them before."

"What? Really? Mermaids isn't just for girls! It's for guys too! We need guys just like you people do, how do you think I'm here?! Not magic, I'm sure!"

I died laughing, falling over and to the floor. I didn't expect her to go that far. "Getting legs, yes I'm sure by magic." I said in between giggles.

She smiled, trying not to laugh too. "I mean by my very existence. I may not be so sure about the birds and the bees but I'm pretty sure two females won't equal a child." She fell down laughing too after saying this, she barely was able to get that out. I started to laugh harder, rolling in the floor. Thank goodness the store wasn't very busy today or I would be getting a lot of weird looks.-

"ma'ams? Are you two okay?" An employee asked us, while we rolled in the floor. Darn it!

I pushed on Azalea to get her off of me and so I'm able to get up. "Yes, were fine. Thank you." Azalea pulled me up. He nodded and walked off to attend to his job.

"Uhh, I better not have a lot of dirt on me now." I giggled, brushing myself off. "Okay, let's just get a few dolls, and the diving rockets." I grabbed a few dolls and one thing of the rockets, then walked out of the aisle to find Mom.