Thea had never imagined to find a mermaid when she looked around in the basement, her dads had forbidden her to enter. Now she wants to free him. • • • Authors notes: Note that most characters have been aged up for about 4 or 5 years for plot reasons. (Meaning Alea & Thea are 16, Ben is 23, Lennox 17 or 18 and so on.) There is no sexual content in this fic, however quite some violence and various mentioned crimes. The violence is about as severe as it is in the book series. Everything should be tagged, if I missed something, feel free to tell me. The story doesn't contain any spoilers beyond volume 6 and just a few minor ones from the earlier books, since it's an au. There are also some made up things and plot points, so it's possible that the spoilers won't even be noticeable. The title is inspired by the chapter name "Das Mädchen und der Wanderer"/ "The girl and the wanderer" from volume 6. Content Warnings: Major: kidnapping, injuries, fight scenes, non-consensual body modification Minor: blood, death of a parent figure, mentions of cancer, mentions of car accidents, mentions of major injuries, mentions of various crimes Orion and Jinx committed, mentions of genocide Sammy doesn't use any pronouns in this story, so the reader can think of Sammy with whatever gender they want. The cover was made by myself. You can find the original drawing on my Instagram @ cassarascrown Word count of the whole fic: ∼12.8k Now I wish you fun while reading it, I really enjoyed writing this one, so I hope you readers like it too. Here the playlist I created for Thea & Cassaras: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/79qSq9PL7wGLSJLD6SdVEn?si=9cd76f0a30c14c57 A big thanks to zhorcaj on ao3 for betaing this fic and giving me feedback!