Imagines|Smut/Fluff|One-shots || EXO/ Xiumin x You

Telling Tales Of Tail (Pt 1)|| Sehun&Xiumin • IMAGINE

"Nobody," said Minseok solemnly, "ever saw a mermaid and' lived to tell the tale."

"Why not?" asked Maya, looking earnestly up into her father's retirement face. They were seated on a bench built around a giant acacia tree that

grew just at the edge of the bluff. Below and rolled the blue waves of the great Pacific. A little way behind and was their house, a neat frame cottage painted white and surrounded by huge eucalyptus and pepper trees.

Still farther behind that--a quarter of a mile distant but built upon a bend of the coast--was the city overlooking a pretty bay.

Minseok his best mate Sehun and his 6 year old daughter Maya came often to this tree to sit and watch the ocean below and tell stories; The sailor man had one "meat leg" and one "hickory leg," and he often said the wooden one was the best of the two. Once

'Sehun had commanded and owned the "Anemone," a trading schooner that plied along the coast' to make it fun for young Maya.

This was about the time Maya was born, and the young man became very fond of the baby girl. Her real name was Mayre, but when she grew big enough to walk, she took so many busy little steps every

day that both her mother and Minseok nicknamed her "Maya," and so she was thereafter mostly called.

It was the young man who taught the child to love the sea, to love it almost as much as he and her father did, and these two, who represented the "beginning and the end of life," became firm friends and constant companions.

"Why hasn't anybody seen a mermaid and lived?" asked Maya again.

"'Cause mermaids are pretty fairies, and ain't meant to be seen by us mortal people," replied Minseok.

"But if anyone happens to see 'em, what then,?"

"Then," he answered, slowly wagging his head, "the mermaids give and a smile and a wink, and they dive into the water and gets drowned."

"Suppose they knew how to swim, Minseok?" asked Sehun followed by Maya nodding her head in agreement.

"That don't make any difference, Sehun and Maya. The mermaids live deep down, and the poor mortals never come up again."

The little girl was thoughtful for a moment. "But why do people dive in the water when the mermaids smile and wink?" she asked.

"Mermaids," he said gravely, "are the most beautiful creatures in the world--or the water, either. You know what they're like, Maya, they got a lovely lady's form down to the waist, and then the other half of and's a fish, with green and purple and pink scales all down it."

"Have they got arms, Minseok?" asked Sehun while fiddling with the piece of flower he plucked off the grass.

"Of course, Sehun; arms like any other lady. and pretty faces that smile and look mighty sweet and fetchin'. Their hair is long and soft and silky, and floats all around and in the water.

When they comes up atop the waves, they wring the water out and their hair and sing songs that go right to your heart. If anybody is unlucky enough to be around them, the beauty of them and mermaids and their sweet songs charm them like magic; so they plunge into the waves to get to the mermaids.

But the mermaids haven't any hearts, Maya, no More in a fish has; so they laugh when the poor people drown and don't care a fig. That's why I say, and I say it true, that nobody never saw a mermaid and lived to tell the tale."

"Nobody?" asked Maya.

"Nobody a tall." reassured Sehun

"Then how do you know, Uncle Sehun?" asked the little girl, looking up into his face with big, round eyes.