🏁 Tetrology Of The Sea - Book 1: From The Sea 🪼🔨💻 💞 🔮

Thirty-Two

The darkness was overwhelming and Travis felt like he were being tortured more and more. He couldn't get out or get free and he bucked, trying to get out of the clutches of his captor. He yelled out and ripped his hands from the nail in the table-
He opened his eyes and looked around. The room was bright and he smelled cleanliness instead of the grime and salt of the sea. He blinked a little when he felt someone touch him. He jumped but felt a soft hand touch his face.
"Calm down, sweetheart; you're alright now." A familiar voice said.
He blinked and felt the person settle some glasses onto the bridge of his nose and Ruth came into focus.
"Mom..."
She smiled brightly and Josh came into view.
"Dad."
"No, it's Josh."
"I know... you should just get married already." He said in a raspy voice.
Josh chuckled as he looked at Ruth.
"Daddy?"
Travis looked down and saw Esper next to his bed and he smiled tiredly at her.
"Hey, sweetheart." Esper crawled into the bed and hugged him tightly. "I'm glad you're alright."
"I thought I wasn't gonna see you no more." She said with a sniffle as she nuzzled in his neck.
Travis chuckled and hugged her tighter.
"You scared the hell out of us, Travis." He heard at the foot of his bed.
He looked and saw Aylin looking at him with a smirk, his hands in his pockets.
"I knew you'd take care of her if nothing happened."
Aylin looked away. "Yeah, well, it's not like Shana would have ever let that slide. Right?"
Travis was about to agree when another voice interrupted him.
"My daughter deserves better than you." Travis looked over and saw Shana leaning against the window and she turned, smiling at Travis. "Right?"
He nodded and Esper smiled at Travis widely. "Mommy came back home!"
"How do you-"
"We all thought you weren't going to make it and so we decided it was best she know that she had a mother that loved and cared for her and wouldn't let her be alone." Ruth said with an apologetic look. "We really didn't know if you were going to wake up."
"How long have I been out?"
"A week at least." Aylin answered. "When we found you we thought we had lost you for sure."
Travis nodded and then looked at Ruth.
"Craig! Where is he?"
"Let's just say he won't be hurting anyone ever again." Josh said with a shudder and Travis had a feeling that he didn't want to know what happened to him.
He nodded and then looked at Shana.
"Can we have a moment? I want to talk with Shana alone."
Everyone nodded as Esper gave him a kiss on the cheek and went with the others. Travis looked at Shana as she walked to the hospital bed.
"You came back."
"I would have anyway."
"Did you find yourself while you were gone?"
"I found my ground, yes, but it wasn't worth anything without you there." He looked at her. "Travis, I told you that I was madly in love with you and meant that with every ounce of my being. Every moment I was thinking of you and Esper." She grabbed Travis' hand and looked into his eyes. "Travis, you promised me that if I still wanted you when I got back that you would give us a chance. I know it wasn't that long but I can't forget about you... Please just give us another chance."
Travis sighed but smiled at her. "I guess I will keep that promise."
Shana smiled widely and Travis knew that he should have just stayed with her from the very beginning. She always brought him joy and he knew that he would make her happy.

**********************

Several days later as Travis helped Esper with her homework, there was a knock at the door. Travis told them to come in and looked up just as the door was opening. A man who was heavily pregnant walked in and looked at him with a big smile.
"You have awakened. I am happy that you've woken up."
"Grandpa!" Esper yelled, climbing down and running to the man.
Travis looked at his daughter in confusion. "Grandpa?"
"I am Aquarius, the king of the seahorses... I am also your father."
Travis looked at him and then turned his head.
"How do you mean?"
"I can explain," he said, pulling the chair to the bed and sitting in it carefully. "I give birth to most of the seahorses in the ocean, of course they have that ability themselves, but I give birth to the biggest of them. As my children, they are allowed to remain as seahorses or to take merfolk form. You were one of my... most peculiar of children. You wanted so desperately to go to the surface and be with humans, understand them. You were wanting something much higher than to float about the sea as a sea creature, living out your life that way. You wanted something more. I did not deny this of you and so I took you to Medusa, a royal healer as well as serum maker and a ruler herself, and she gave you a serum to allow you to turn human when you are dry. We agreed it be best if you lost your memories of the ocean and I sent you to Ruth Bagery."
"Sent me?"
Aquarius smiled. "You are my child, I would not have sent you to the surface to be raised by people who would cause you harm. The rulers of the sea are in touch with all creatures as well as they can feel the ocean and those that are connected with it. I had known Ruth Bagery was lonely for a very long time and I knew she would find you and take you into her home. I knew she would love you wholeheartedly and so on her nightly walk, I placed you on the edge of the shore so that she would find you."
"Then why was I a child?"
"Because you were a child. As a seahorse, you age differently than as a human. When you turned human, you were indeed a child, not an adult."
Travis nodded a little. "Why did you reject my coming back to the sea then? Was it you?"
"No. The serum allowed you to live your life on land but it could not take away everything. You could not have survived underwater because that was how Medusa made the serum."
"I see... well, um... I guess that's interesting..."
Aquarius smiled and got up. "I must return to the ocean. I have been in this form for too long. Goodbye, my son... We may never see each other again."
Travis waved goodbye a little hesitantly as Esper leaned on his chest.
"Was I in you like that, Daddy?" Travis looked down at her and she looked up. "Grandma told me I was inside of you."
"Yeah... At one point you were."
Esper made a face and looked back up at her father.
"Why do all the girls have big tummies like that then?"
Travis kissed her head. "Because humans have the babies in the girls, not the boys."
"If you marry Mommy and she has a baby, will the baby be in you or in Mommy?"
"That's a very good question. We'll ask Mommy if she wants to find out when she comes to visit, okay?"
Esper's eyes widened in excitement and Travis showed her the ring he had had Aylin get for him.