1. Frozen: Of Frost and Flame

CHAPTER XIII

The Endless Sea. April 19, 1842. A dinghy. Beginning of the eighth hour.

Dala woke to see the sun rising behind her and to find Ruben still asleep on the other side of the rowboat, snoring softly. She decided to let him sleep since he'd been awake practically all day the day prior.

Dala stood up and looked out across the sea, taking a deep breath and smiling. "Amazing," she whispered. "The ocean is so much bigger than I thought it'd be!"

The soft swishing of the waves filled her with bliss and made her shudder with excitement. This must have been how T'chetri felt, she thought.

Splish

Dala spun around, surprised by the sudden noise. She blinked rapidly, convinced she had just seen a large fishtail disappear in to the water. That either means breakfast or something else, she mused. Hopefully its breakfast. She rubbed her hands together, generating large amounts of heat thanks to being irradiated in the war machine's powerful light. She scanned the water around the boat, getting ready to fry the thing when it arose again.

Suddenly, a human head poked out of the water.

Dala screamed and fell backwards, rocking the boat and waking Ruben. "Whoa! Whazzat?" he cried. "What's going on?"

Dala pointed at the head and screamed again.

Ruben followed her finger and his eyes bugged out of his head.

The head grinned, and a hand rose out of the water and waved at him. "Hi!" it—or she, Ruben guessed, since it's head was covered in wavy blonde hair—said in Norwegian.

"WHAT IN THE SMOKES' NAME ARE YOU?!" Ruben shrieked in fear, leaping to his feet.

The girl frowned and tilted her head. "I'm a mermaid," she replied--understanding Ruben's Pyric--and a fishtail rose out of the water behind her a flapped a few times to accent her point. "What are you?"

Ruben blinked. "Uh... I'm a Firemonger," he answered, switching to her language though he was still shaken.

The girl gasped, eyes wide, and clapped happily. "Hooray, we found you!" she squealed. "Goody!"

Ruben and Dala glanced at each other. "...Goody?" Dala repeated, confused. "Were you... looking for us?"

"Who's we?" Ruben asked at the same time.

The mermaid's eyes twinkled as she shoved two fingers into her mouth and whistled.

Ruben and Dala turned around as the whistle was answered by cheers and hoots, and they saw five more mermaids swimming towards their small boat. Two of them were pulling a large man along with them and were apparently enthralled with whatever he was telling them.

"...and then he gets all angry and stuff and whacks me on the head with his mug!" the man said, cracking up as he told the love-struck mermaids the story.

One of the mermaids gasped. "Did it hurt?" she asked, horrified.

"Nah," the man said dismissively. "But Seamus got his when I whacked him back!"

"Wow, you're so strong," the other mermaid sighed.

"And thickheaded too, apparently," Dala put in, crossing her arms as the mermaids and the man came within earshot.