QT: Gilded Waters

3: Seen

Laughing, Dierdre flies through the air, flipping in and out over the waves with her new dolphin friends.
It had been a week since she'd first run away, and it was fun.

There were no scary humans out in their ships like Mother had warned her so often about. The ocean was comfortable, as she swam around the vast ocean, taking in the new colors, the sights and sounds of the different areas of the ocean floor. There was the forest of kelp, where she played hide and seek with fish who nibbled at her hair. The mountainous region, where holes in the ocean floor released jets of super hot water, which she dodged with ease.

The deep abyss, which she'd peered into but quickly swam far, far away from. That place gave her the goosebumps.

But every other place was like a dream come true. She could play with the fishes all she wanted, do acrobatics with the dolphins, and ride the whales.

It was fun!

Her body was strong now, able to take her wherever she wanted without feeling any fatigue or shortness of breath. It felt great to torpedo through the water with one flick of her tail.

And best of all, there were no aggressive come-ons from the mermen who wanted to leave a good impression on her, no strange looks when she declined the human flesh and popped a sea grape into her mouth instead.

Dierdre was free!

The sun begins to set, casting an orange light that colors the surface of the waves into molten bronze. Giving a big smacking kiss on to a squeaky dolphin's nose in goodbye, Dierdre waves goodbye to her new friends and swims towards her new home.

It was a sandy beach cave with freshwater pools that would fill with the rising tides. The cave, a part of a forest mountain, had sunlight that would fall in at just the right amount, turning the whole inside of the cave an azure color and making the water shine around her. There was no roof in this cave, only leafy trees growing from the sides and around the rocky walls of the cave, roots and rocks mingling together to form a firm wall.

From within the cave, one could only see that there was a forest out there, overgrown with trees and filled with lovely bird calls singing to one another.

Dierdre loved this place. This was the one place where she could enjoy the ocean but still feel like she was almost human again, on Earth. She would never have found it if she'd stayed with her mother deep down on the ocean floor.

Deidre reveled in the sunlight, the way it felt on her soft, bare human skin, felt comfort when her scales tightened as they dried.

Her modesty, she'd lost long ago, when she lived with her mother and the other beautiful mermaids, who went around wearing nothing to cover them but their colorful, long hair.

Arching her back and stretching, white breasts peeked in and out between strands of long, wavy black hair. A slim waist with a cute belly button. Pale white arms, webbed long fingers, ending with sharp silver claws. An extremely beautiful creature, she was. Even more breath-taking than her mother.

Dierdre sighs. The surface world was just as beautiful as the ocean she lived in. If she could transform her tail into feet, like that old fairytail...
But that was just wishful thinking. Dierdre was glad that she was alive.

Alive and healthy!
Her new body was strong and powerful, her breathing easy with no pain at all.

She couldn't get over it.

Deidre felt the opposite of her namesake. Happy. She'd made new friends like the dolphins, and the grumpy octopus who'd run away from her at first now snuggled into her hand.

Not wanting to admit that she felt the teeniest bit lonely without Mother to chit chat with about the daily new discoveries, Deidre braids her hair down her back.

The silver scales that dot up her flat stomach shiver as she pulls back the long black hair that catches over it.

Embraced in the warmth of the rock under her as well as the soft beams above her, Dierdre yawns, small mouth opening wide. A small pink tongue glistens, two cute canines flashing out of the corners of her mouth.

A warm salty breeze blows of her skin deliciously. Leaning back onto a rock, basking in the sun as it continues to set, sometimes using the fins of her mottled silver-white tail to splash water on herself. The water trickles over her scales and makes them glisten, keeping them from drying out.

One little nap, and then she would dive back down again, into the dark depths of the ocean.

Dierdre lowers herself so that her shimmering silver tail lays half submerged in the water, and folds her arms under her head as a pillow.

A small mouth opens into a cute yawn, and thickly lashed eyes flutter closed. Once, twice, until calm, even breaths huff out of her dainty chest, tail slowly swishing as she heads off to dreamland.
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Meanwhile....

She doesn't notice the fervent eyes watching her with an intense gaze, like a starved predator preparing to catch its prey. There was a man there watching her from above.

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Long black hair flutters over wide shoulders, pupils widening with intense focus on the sight before him. He stood frozen on the cliff above the beautiful creaure below, hands frozen in place, pushing back the tree branches.

".......a.........mermaid?"

They weren't supposed to exist anymore. Mermaids hadn't been seen since the two dynasties before the current Xia dynasty, at least 3000 years ago. As the highest ranked mage in the Emperor's court, Shen would know. He alone held the keys to the entire Emperor's library, and he'd gone through every single book there. Even the ones written on strips of bamboo ties together, his eyes straining to read the words that faded off rotting wood in the dim library.

Yet, he who was born a magic genius, revered by others since childhood and now treated with a fearful respect by the Emperor himself, couldn't help but widen his eyes at the sight before him.

Nothing had fazed him. Until now.

The mermaid girl laid there like she had no care in the world, the sun shining down upon skin like the moon and scales that shimmered like the stars. The easy elegance of her body, the smooth transition from human upper half to fish tail was smoother than water running down carved wet stone. The sunlight made the water shimmer around her, highlighting the effervescence of her presence there on the rock.

It was supposed to be one of his usual trips, teleporting here and there across the continent to gather mystical herbs and ingredients for his experiments. He'd wanted to bring back the fantastic creatures of old, the ones who'd disappeared at around the same time frame so long ago.

No one else seemed to care. They called him a fanatic and left him up to his own devices, which suited him just fine.

Not one of the old relics had done the mermaid justice. Or perhaps this one was especially beautiful.

All he knew was that she was perfection. And she was his.

Hahhhh-
Hahhhh-

The breath rushed fiercely out of his lungs as his cheeks felt hot.

Mine. That mermaid was mine. The blood roaring in his ears told him so, as he gazed at her intensely.

Shen had devoted most of his life to studying forgotten creatures of lore. But seeing her now, here, breathing and alive. It was like someone had driven their fingers into his chest and squeezed his heart, tight enough to make the breath catch in his lungs.

Even his beloved research of creating new life, the one thing he dedicated his life to, couldn't bring him alive like this.

Though they'd been too afraid to laugh at him to his face, aside from a small number of fellow mages, everyone thought he was crazy. Crazy for believing the mermaids still existed. That they'd ever existed, at all.

All his dreams had come true right in this very moment. Because of her.

One thing he knew for certain as a true mage-scientist .

Shen was not letting this chance slip by.