Wherever the waves would take her

Alone once again

The moment the girls docked on the island, they quickly ran to the shore and stripped, dumping their clothes on the boat. They didn't bother with the cove's formalities anymore since the King and Queen had gone back to Oceania and started swimming out.

Twisting to shift, Evie propelled herself forward as the gills on her neck opened. The cold seawater felt amazing on her skin as she made to stretch her arms above her head, energized.

She had a feeling that something was calling to her. The tiny being in her egg. It was waiting for her to make an entrance to the world.

Evie and Rowena found Dana at the main city gates with Strabo. "Quick, Naga's beside herself. She seems to know that the egg is going to hatch, Clarion is with her at the moment."

She checked her watch impatiently as the mermaids strapped themselves into the saddle. Before ensuring that the mermaids were properly strapped in Dana took off quickly, Strabo pushing himself powerfully through the water as eager as his rider.

It felt like moments had only passed before they were dismounting from Strabo in front of the Beck estate and racing towards the cave. Clarion and Naga were curled up around her egg which was pulsing lightly, the purple sheen more pronounced against the black even more so now.

Evie was the first to go up to them, putting up a trembling hand to touch the surface of the egg. It felt alive and warm to the touch as she rested her forehead against its scaled exterior.

A slight pulsing energy that she felt within her was humming in anticipation.



"I'm here buddy." Evie breathed. "We are waiting for you to introduce yourself to us."

Right on cue the egg had stopped pulsing as the first crack at the top of the egg appeared. Bit by bit the being inside chipped away to break free from its confinements. Everyone had moved back to give it space as the baby serpent shook itself free from the remaining eggshells and looked at up Clarion.

"Naga you saucy minx." Clarion laughed hugging his serpent. "I knew you had a little something extra for Strabo when you became more aggressive towards him." He winked in Dana's direction.

"You have good taste, good job on the kid beautiful."

Evie didn't hear Dana's sputtering reply on how she was going to use her sword on Clarion, focusing on the hatchling in front of her.

"Hello, you're a handsome boy aren't you?" Evie moved closer to the baby serpent, it's body only slightly shorter than her in length.

His body was the same colour as Naga, white, almost iridescent scales like Evie's that faded into that black and purple sheen that both Strabo and Egede had.

"What should we call you?"

The baby serpent looked at Evie for a moment, blinking his big purple eyes - Strabo's eyes - before pressing his forehead to her and shot a small jet of water at Evie, the tiny pearl under his chin glowing softly and turning blue for a moment before quickly fading back to gold.

That moment only lasted before he moved towards Evie, one sharp claw extended as he performed a quick slashing motion. The baby serpent had aimed just slightly off-centre on her chest where her heart presumably was to draw little pinpricks of blood along her skin.

Evie had startled a little at the baby serpent's initial contact but relaxed immediately once she
 felt the remnants of a bond forming between them.

"Hebo? I like that." Evie smiled as she stroked his little snout. "Father will probably start to tell you all about some river from back home if you'd like because he used to travel along that river to try to help the locals whenever it flooded. He wasn't a fan of the amount of sediment he encountered though, and always preferred to sail by boat instead which was rare for him to do so but it was better than sneezing out-"