Ariel Read online

  As she shook his hand she laughed and he wasn’t sure if he was dreaming or not. “My name is… My name is Toshio Matsushima. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

  She started laughing. “You are so weird. I’m so glad I didn’t kill you. My tail will come back when I get in the water to get your stuff, but as long as the moon is full and I’m out of the water I can walk around. Give me a sec and we can go have some fun. Do I call you Toshio or Matsushima, or the whole thing?”

  The way she spoke was so fast and sporadic, Toshi wasn’t sure what to think and was starting to be more certain he was dreaming. “Call me Toshi,” he said in a quiet voice.

  “That’s so cute! Toshi! I’ll be right back, Toshi.” Each time she said his name it was like a stab in the chest.

  As she entered the water with barely a splash he watched her tail return. She swam like a dream towards his discarded blind and as he watched her he was surer than ever she had to be exactly that, a dream. But, Toshi knew in his heart of hearts if he wasn’t dreaming than he was most defiantly in love with a mermaid named Ariel.

  Chapter 03

  The Potion

  Serenity had waited until she saw the mermaid and her love return to where she knew they would be to take the potion. She didn’t need to see their coitus or any other such ritual, it was unneeded for her research otherwise she wouldn’t have thought twice about observing those rituals as well … no matter what Elizabeta had said.

  If her partner knew she had worn a charm to hide and observe the possible transformation, she would have subdued her in some way. Elizabeta’s power as the only immortal mage, and the help from her Viking husband, would be the only way she could subdue Serenity, but she tried not to dwell on her body’s limitations. It was not her vampire master’s—her father’s—fault she became ill, thus needing to be turned at such a young age.

  Size or not, she had the power to make the simple charm and slip out of the lab with Elizabeta unaware. Elizabeta had mothered her in her strange way since the two met, even if she did respect her as a partner in their work and research.

  As Serenity’s aqua eyes fell on her current research, she pulled out her Electrabook and began scribing the events on the opaque plastic-like device.

  Ariel’s sea-foam eyes flashed with anticipation. “Tonight’s the night. Are you scared?”

  Toshi’s lips pulled into a soft smile, making her heart speed up. Ever since she realized she loved him, he had that effect on her. “I’m not scared at all, Ariel.”

  The way he said her name had her bringing her lips to his. “I’m terrified. I hope it works,” she said to his lips in a hushed voice.

  He nodded and pulled the vial from his pocket. Unknown to the two lovers, a vampire-mage sat not far away with an electronic pen poised and ready to write all she saw. Toshi swallowed half of the liquid, and then Ariel the rest. The moon broke from behind a stray cloud and hit the two of them as Ariel pulled him towards the water.

  As soon as their feet touched the lapping waves of the quiet reserve, where no people could venture so late at night, a tingling began to envelop Toshi’s body. “Something’s happening.”

  His voice sounded eager but Serenity wished she could ask him to explain exactly what the “something” was. She didn’t have to wait long though because the something soon turned into him grabbing his stomach and lurching over as a sound of pain came out of the human. The mermaid pulled him further into the water screaming at him to hold on, her tail forming under her pale sundress.

  Serenity waited a heartbeat, unsure if she should approach her subjects and assist. The potion was not working. Worse than that, it appeared to be killing Subject Matsushima. Pulling her phone from her pocket she stood and snapped the wood disk concealing her presence.

  “Do not be alarmed, I am calling for help.”

  “Serenity! Do something. Your potion is killing him!” Ariel seemed frantic as she held Toshi, who began wheezing for air.

  As her phone started ringing, the vampire watched as gills formed on Toshi’s neck and Ariel shoved him under the water telling him to breathe. The rest of his body remained the same as he took a gasping breath under the water and the other line picked up.

  “Elizabeta, the potion didn’t work. However, I no longer believe Matsushima to be dying.” Her even tone was a slap to the face for the mage on the other end.

  “Damn it! I had a feeling you went there. Well, shit … I guess I can’t be pissed since it didn’t work and you are there to help now. He’s alive though right, we didn’t kill the poor guy?” Her stomach sank as her husband’s hand gripped hers.

  She looked up at his cool blue eyes and nodded as she breathed a sigh of relief when Serenity told her he was alive and breathing underwater, but still in human form.

  “We can work with that, but I have to get Ces involved. We need her deeper connections in the Supe world.”

  The phone went dead after Serenity conveyed their location and she joined to the two creatures in the water: one, a crying mermaid with blue and violet hair and the other an average Japanese male with gills and a frightened look in his eyes.

  “I am sorry the potion did not work as expected but reinforcements are on the way. With the director’s help, we should be able to sort this out.”

  Serenity’s assumed her words were unnoticed, and didn’t care either way. She just pulled out her Electrabook and began jotting notes while Ariel held Toshi in the water assuring him it would be okay, giving him light kisses as he held her hand.

  ~

  Cesair’s golden eyes took in the situation and she knew she needed to get more individuals helping with running the SIA. With her obligations taking her away to Fairy at times, even with the time adjustments, there were operations happening she should have been aware of which she was not. Had she been aware of what her head mages were attempting she could have told them it was futile attempt.

  “Though I am impressed with your willingness to bring these two together, though I understand for two very different reasons, there is no way a spell or potion can accomplish what you seek.” Cesair knew Elizabeta was swept away with the notion of bringing true love together and Serenity wanted information, which is all she ever desired, but either way it was no good.

  “So you are saying we will never be together? Can you at least fix my Toshi?”

  Cesair knelt her lean frame down to the water’s edge. They had moved to a lagoon where he could lay in the shallow with the other’s nearby without being submerged. “That is not what I am saying dear. However, the only way I know to turn a human into a merperson has not been done in thousands of years.”

  Ariel looked up at the tall woman’s molten depths and knew of what she spoke, the legends of the first mermen and women. “I thought the stories of them not being born a fairy tale.”

  Cesair smiled. “Poseidon has many tales surrounding him, but the fact he created the first merpeople, who then had the ability to breed a new species, was not a fable. He is the only one with the ability to change a human into a merperson, though.”

  Ariel was at a loss for words. She looked down at her forsaken love in the water, he had tried to speak but his half formed body was unable to and it broke her heart. All he could do was lie in the water and breathe. If he died she knew she would take her own life for sure. He was unlike any other human male and though she was supposed be with, and have children with, another merperson, she fell in love with Toshi.

  Cesair stood and drew in a deep breath. “Do not fret, Elizabeta can craft me a charm to breathe underwater and I can join you in petitioning to Poseidon for your case.”

  “I would like to join you, maybe if there are more of us—”

  “No, Elizabeta. I understand you wanting to be there for the sake of Mr. Matsushima and Ariel’s love but that will be unneeded, and would not help with their particular culture. I will go merely as a liaison for the SIA and as an Aos Si, which is what his mother is.”

  “Couldn’t we seek t
he help of his mother, then?” Ariel sounded concerned.

  The three beings not in the water looked down at the mermaid, but Cesair spoke. “I am sorry, but she is currently under investigation for crimes unassociated with her offspring. Needless to say, she would not be forthcoming in assisting us. I am hopeful, though, that Poseidon is more understanding and willing to assist.”

  Ariel looked stricken, it sounded as though the ancient legend may not help them even if he was real, which she had never believed. Stories she heard as a child were ones read to her at bedtime.

  “Ariel?” Cesair’s voice pulled Ariel’s attention to her once more. “We will take Toshi to a tank at the SIA where he will be safe. In the meantime I need you to talk with your parents about speaking on your behalf.”

  Ariel’s heart caught in her throat. She had not even told her parents she fell in love with a human. She did not say as much though, only nodded at the request and told Cesair where her home was located in the hidden city between Bermuda and Florida. Cesair informed her of her plans and the mermaid watched as she and the two mages formed a magical barrier around the water her Toshi was in. She kissed him on the lips as the bubble pulled him away, leaving her to slosh in the water filling the space left behind. Tears fell as he mouthed, “I love you,” and pressed a hand to his bubble before he, Cesair, and the two mages disappeared in a portal the director had opened around them.

  Chapter 04

  Poseidon’s Return

  There were portals under the water the director had set for the people who lived under the sea. She didn’t have a lot of influence with merculture but did make it so they were safe from the humans on the surface, so as long as the merpeople didn’t do more than have a little fun with them. There once was a time when sirens would sit on rocks laughing as sailors crashed to their deaths trying to get to their beauty and mystery enticed by their haunting song.

  Cesair had put an end to the killing in exchange for protection and help when it was needed. Part of the help she had bestowed was portal transportation to ease from getting to city to city without being detected by humans. It helped merpeople flourish and grow. Families became bigger, wealth spread, and killing humans for fun became a thing of the past. Sure it happened now and again, but not any more than humans themselves killed each other.

  The one thing merpeople tended to enjoy doing was enticing humans in a different way. Whispering sweet things in their ears for a night of passion before the full moon set was commonplace with merpeople, but falling in love with a human was looked down upon. Ariel had never known of a human and a mermaid or man falling in love.

  As she entered her home in Westeria Plains she wasn’t sure what she would tell her mother or father, and in such a short amount of time. The coral door shut behind her and she swam by their modest furniture, decorated in new purple sea stars her mother must have acquired on her recent trip to Southern Most Antiquis. The spell to keep them in stasis helped to liven up furniture but Ariel didn’t have time to compliment her mother on her most recent find.

  “Oh, Ariel. You’re home a little late, Hun.” Her mother turned from her in the kitchen. Many names of things crossed from human to mer world, and with Cesair’s confirmation of the tales of where the first merpeople came from, Ariel knew why.

  “Mom, I need to discuss something important with you and father.”

  Her mother swam to her, her deep turquoise tail full with age. She looked healthy at just over one-hundred and thirty-two years. She still had at least another two-hundred left, and with Ariel only being thirty-four herself, she had a few centuries to go.

  Her arms wrapped around her, the fabric made of woven reeds pounded soft first covered her mother’s top and pressed into Ariel’s bare skin. Unwed merwomen usually remained topless, it was impolite to do so when wed.

  “Tell me what has you worried so.” Her mother’s pale depths took her in.

  “Mother, I’m in love but I need you and dad to accept him.”

  “Oh, Ariel dear, I’m so happy for you. Who is the lucky merman?”

  Ariel frowned, and swallowed hard, feeling trapped in her mother’s hands and eyes. “He is named Toshio Matsushima and he is Japanese, mother.”

  Her mother’s face fell. “A human … but, Ariel.” She sounded in shock as her hand fell away at last. “I’m not sure what your father will say.”

  “There is more, mother. I attempted to turn him into a merperson and it didn’t work. The director of the SIA is on her way here to help, but I need you and papa to help petition to Poseidon to change Toshi. Please mama, please help me.”

  Ariel was crying as her mother sat, shock flooding through her. “Cesair and Poseidon. My goodness, Ariel, what have you been doing on the surface the past year?”

  “It’s been more than a year, mother.”

  “What’s been more than a year?” Ariel’s father came in from the back, his smile was kind as he hugged his daughter then fell when he took in his stunned wife. “What’s the matter? What happened?”

  There was a knock on the front door and Ariel went to it before answering, knowing it had to be Cesair and happy for the help in delivering such hard news, though she knew it was not the director’s news to deliver. She opened the door and tried not to be surprise to see a non-merperson underwater breathing with ease. If only Toshi could have lived with her in such a way, but his body would not survive even if he could breathe through magic. She tried not to cry thinking on her love as she guided the golden haired director to where her parents were.

  Ces had tied her hair back in a braid and used a telekinetic spell to help ease her movements through the water, but couldn’t help and think she might seem almost ghost like as she floated to the two stunned merpeople in their modest kitchen.

  “Good evening, I’m sure you are surprised to see me here.”

  “Ariel, why is the director to the SIA in our home?” Her father didn’t sound angry, only shocked.

  Cesair looked to the young mermaid and smiled. Ariel knew it was up to her to deliver the hard news. “She is here to help petition to Poseidon to turn the man I love into a merman, because the potion I attempted to use did not work.”

  As Ariel waited for her father to be angry, or disappointed, or something she was stunned when instead he chuckled. “I had a feeling your time on the surface was more than just a little fun.”

  “You couldn’t say anything to me, Percy?” Ariel’s mother didn’t think his hunch was as funny.

  “You would have stopped her, but the girl needs to find her own way, just as we all do.” He squeezed her hand and she nodded.

  She knew a thing or two about loving outside the norm. Her parents were not happy when she fell in love with a simple merman who worked a kelp farm outside of the American continent when she could have married royalty in the Southern Seas.

  Smiling she nodded to her daughter. “You have our blessing dear, whatever you need your father and I will be there to support you. Even if it means going to Atlantis.”

  Ariel couldn’t believe her ears. It was the one city where a portal was not placed since it was forbidden for merkind to go there. The city was said to be the fabled birthplace of the merpeople but was off limits and the only way to get there was through the Straits of Gibraltar and a human made water way too toxic to venture in.

  “Do not worry, I have been to Poseidon’s home and we will not need to travel by conventional means. Come, if you are ready we can go now. The sooner the better for Mr. Matsushima.”

  Ariel’s brow pursed in worry as she tried to hold back more tears and her father pulled her to him, his deep purple tail wrapping around her in a loving way. She hugged him as her tears came at last, mixing with the water around them. Her mother came to them and hugged her as well. Cesair approached the group and in an instant the room around the dissolved and they were on their way to plead to the first merman in existence for something that, in Ariel’s mind, was beyond his concerns.

  ~

&n
bsp; The group appeared in a vast plaza made of marble and inlaid with gold and silver. The whole place gleamed under sun shining through the water causing it to shimmer, even if some pillars and walls were crumbling in places.

  “Are you sure Poseidon is still alive?” Ariel sounded apprehensive, and Cesair could understand why.

  After he was no longer considered a God among humans and his people left Atlantis, Poseidon became reclusive. She would check on him every few hundred years to be sure he had not faded away. Each time he was always alive, and never near death, but with his glory days gone he didn’t seem to have much desire venturing outside Atlantis, which held all he needed. That was why she placed the safety barriers around Atlantis for him, to protect him and let him sort through whatever it was he needed to sort through. Time was different to the immortal so she knew if he needed thousands of years, then that was what he needed.

  The unsure merpeople followed her through the plaza and up the steps to the temple. What the merkind didn’t know was that Atlantis was once able to go above the sea, a place where him and his kind could walk in freedom. With his magic present they did not need the strength of the moon’s pull to allow them to change to human form, they could be human at any time in Atlantis with Poseidon there as their king.

  The grand door opened for Cesair with ease and she called out to the once glorious God, hoping this would not be the time he had fallen to his own demise.

  “Cesiar? What brings you by?”

  She breathed in a sigh of relief as he came around a corner with a smile on his broad lips. His eyes fell on the merpeople around her and his eyes became confused.

  “In all the years you have visited me, you have never brought any of my children by.”

  “This is not a usual social visit, Poseidon. I am here on behalf of this young mermaid here, Ariel.” Cesair guided Ariel forward.