“So I just swim around the cliff wall, and it’s there?” Andrea asked, studying the map Shelly had drawn in the sand.

Shelly nodded, in response, pointing to the small “x” she had drawn to indicate the grotto’s location. “The entrance is submerged, but marked on the surface by an angular outcropping. The ground then slopes upward, inside, leading to dry land. The circlets and shiny rocks are in a box, at the back of the cave. It’s been there for a long time, so I don’t think anyone will mind if you take it.”

“You’d be surprised,” was Andrea’s dry response. “But I won’t tell anyone I took it if you don’t.” Saying this, she began to walk toward the water, before pausing and half turning to glance at Shelly. “Are you coming with me? Or are you keeping Henry company?”

Shelly hesitated, glancing first at the ugly four legged creature Andrea called Henry, and then looking longingly at the water. “I would love to, but… I do not know how to swim in this form…”

“I can teach you,” Andrea promised. “Wouldn’t mind a second set of hands in the water, anyway.”

“I…” Shelly stared out into the ocean. A wave crashed against the shore as she watched, the water tenderly caressing the beach sands mere inches from Shelly’s feet. Shelly took one step forward. Then another. It was painfully slow, walking, but surely she’d be better when she was in the water. Surely it would be as natural as breathing to swim.

“Shelly?” Andrea called, behind her. “Shelly, I said I’d teach you. You shouldn’t just dive in.”

Shelly did not respond. She hadn’t even realized she was walking toward the waves, but even knowing she could not bring herself to stop. The waves beat against her body as she advanced, and she allowed it, taking step after step with as wide a stance as possible, to avoid being knocked down. 

When she reached the point where the water reached her waist, she bent down to duck her head beneath the water, and breathed.

It burned. Before she even knew what was happening, she had lifted her head and started to cough loudly, desperately trying to get the water from her lungs.

A hand touched Shelly’s back, and she flinched, reflexively raising her elbows for defense only to remember that she now lacked her poison barbs.

“Relax,” Andrea said, holding out her palms in a gesture of peace. “I don’t mean any harm. I’ve just… Uh… Never seen someone try and breathe water twice in one day, before.”

 Shelly only glared at the human for a moment, before starting to walk back toward the shore.

“I really can teach you to swim, you know,” Andrea offered, easily catching up to Shelly’s slow pace. “I’m a pretty good swimmer.”

“You are a human,” Shelly responded. “You do not swim. You merely manage to not drown.” Striding up onto dry sand, Shelly turned her attention back to the sea, just as another wave crashed upon the shore. 

“Something you could use lessons in,” Andrea insisted. “Seeing as you’re human and all now.”

“I am not human,” Shelly insisted, again glaring at Andrea. “I am a mermaid. A daughter of the deepmother. I am-”

“A human,” Andrea insisted. “By curse - ‘cause gods help me, I’m starting to believe you on that - but still. Right now, you’re human. Which means you’ve got to learn how to do things the human way. Starting with ‘not drowning’ as you put it.”

Shelly stared at Andrea for a long moment, before turning her attention back to the sea again. “I just want to go home…”

“Well you can’t. Not yet,” Andrea said, hastily adding the last part when Shelly again turned to glare at her. 

“Not yet,” Andrea repeated. “But if that treasure of yours is real, then you’ve pretty much hired me to get you to the wizard. Which means you will get to go home. Just not… Yet.”

Shelly gave a small nod, and wiped an errant tear from her eye. “Not yet…” she whispered. “But soon. And then I will teach you how to swim.”

“I’m counting on it,” Andrea replied, grinning faintly. “But uh. For now. Maybe we skip the swimming lessons, and I just go get the treasure?”

“...Perhaps that would be best,” Shelly agreed, looking again out to the sea. She wanted badly to return to its depths, but the deep mother had made her rejection clear. Until this curse was removed, she would simply have to stay ashore.

“Well, with that settled…” Andrea glanced down at her ocean-soaked pants, and grimaced. “I suppose asking you to start a fire for me while I go into the water would be pointless?”

“What’s a fire?” Shelly asked, confused.

“Figures,” Andrea sighed. “Well. At least I can keep something dry…” she said, before starting to pull her shirt over her head.

“Wh-What are you doing?” Shelly demanded, aghast at this display of indecency.

“Relax, I’m wearing something under it,” Andrea responded, as Shelly attempted to cover her eyes with one hand.

Peering out between her fingers, Shelly saw that Andrea was indeed wearing something, though not much: a band of black cloth that wrapped itself once about her breasts.

“It’s underwear,” Andrea explained, rolling her eyes. “Mostly it keeps my nipples from showing through my shirt, but today it’ll be helping me maintain decency. Since that seems to be something you worry about, miss mermaid.” She smiled teasingly as she spoke, and a soft blush touched Shelly’s cheeks.

“I was simply worried about your intentions,” Shelly explained. “I didn’t know you had more clothes on under that…”

“And if I didn’t?” Andrea teased, lifting an eyebrow. “Your face gets awfully red at seeing another woman naked. Are you one of those girls who likes girls, by any chance?”

“You mean a maiden of the moon?” Shelly asked, before shaking her head. “No. I have a fiance.”

“Lots of girls have fiances. Doesn’t mean they like men, though.” Saying so, Andrea began to walk into the water. It was as she moved past that Shelly noticed it: a small black heart, tattooed against her shoulder blade.

“What does that marking commemorate?” Shelly asked, curiously.

“A mistake,” was Andrea’s answer, voice dropping in temperature as she walked into the waters. “One I hope to correct, before long.” Saying so, she walked into the waters, until they were at about chest height. Then she lowered herself into the ocean, and began to swim.

It was an interesting sight - the way her legs kicked, and her arms moved. It was not at all like a fish’s movements, but rather something fully human. Although Shelly had called it simply ‘not drowning,’ she was almost impressed by the way Andrea managed to travel through the water. If she had fins, she might have been an almost passable swimmer, Shelly thought.

Soon Andrea had swum around the cliff face, and disappeared. Leaving Andrea to sit on the sand, next to Andrea’s discarded shirt, and wonder idly what the girl had meant by fire.

***

Two hermit crabs fought on the beach. One, slightly bigger than the other, succeeded in pulling its smaller counterpart out of its shell. The other, newly ousted, skittered its way to some nearby driftwood; the only protection it could find on such short notice.

Such was nature, Shelly supposed, though she did feel sorry for the creature. She knew all too well what it was like to be forced from your home by another. She wasn’t so different from the tiny crab - but it wasn’t dead driftwood she’d become reliant on, for her protection. It was a human: a callous and uncaring creature who would help Shelly only so long as there was something in it for themselves.

Except Andrea hadn’t exactly lived up to that reputation. For one thing, she had saved Shelly from the waters, without asking for a thing. She had taught Shelly to breathe air, and even offered to teach her how to swim.

Perhaps Andrea was actually… Nice? For a human, at least.

Though, nice or not, she certainly wasn’t very fast. Shelly was not sure how humans measured time, or indeed if they did so at all, but by her internal count it had been about fifteen minutes since the human had disappeared beneath the water. Was she still in the grotto, stuffing her pockets full of shiny rocks and circlets? Or was she already on the way back with her so-called treasure? 

It had been Shelly’s choice to remain behind, in the end, so there was little she could do but wait. She sat in silence, with only a beast of burden for company, and only her imagination to occupy her. She tried to imagine what could be taking Andrea so long.

The grotto was not large. The entrance was close by, as well. They were in relatively shallow waters, and there were no local predators that Shelly knew of. She should have had plenty of time to reach the grotto, and come back with her pockets stuffed. It would take a few trips to get all of it, if that was Andrea’s intent, but the first trip should have been long over.

Had the supposedly kind Andrea run off with the treasure? Shelly tried to remember whether there was another beach, on the other side of the rocks, but could not for the life of her remember. Where land was and wasn’t hadn’t ever been of particular interest to her before.

A head broke through the water, some twenty tail lengths from the shore. Shelly felt immediate relief. While the head was too far away to make out any features, there was little chance of it being anyone but Andrea. The head floated above the waves for a moment, and then sank back beneath the waves. 

Worried at the strange behavior, Shelly wondered if there was perhaps something pulling Andrea back beneath the water, or otherwise keeping her from simply coming ashore. The thought sent a chill of fear down her spine. 

If Andrea died, Shelly had no idea what she would do. She had no knowledge of how to survive on land by herself, let alone how to get to the wizard. She considered moving toward the ocean, but she knew that she’d be just as useless in the water as on land. There was nothing she could do except watch, wait, and hope for Andrea’s safe return.

Eventually, the face appeared again, closer to the shore. Another breath of air, and down again. This repeated several times, each instance bringing Andrea closer, until at last she walked ashore. 

She was holding the entire box of shiny rocks and circlets in her arms.

“Is that why you were having so much trouble reaching shore?” Shelly asked, incredulous.

“Yup.” Andrea grinned. She looked proud of herself, for some reason. “Kept having to go back to the surface for air, but I managed it.”

Did human greed know no bounds? If only Shelly could take back the worry she’d felt for the woman. As it was, she could only shake her head at the display of avarice. 

“Don’t look so shocked,” Andrea said, grinning softly. “This stuff’s valuable in human lands.”

“Why?” Shelly asked, raising her brow in disbelief. “You can’t eat it. You can not shelter yourselves with it. Does it serve a purpose I don’t see?”

“No, but you can trade it for all that stuff,” Andrea explained, walking over to her four legged beast and placing the box on the sand. From there, she started to scoop handfuls of circlets and shiny rocks into the bangs that hung from her so-called “mewl.”

“Why would you need to trade things for shelter or food?” Shelly asked, shifting in the sand to face her companion. 

“Well… Why wouldn’t you need to?” Andrea asked, confused in turn. “The butcher’s not going to give up his meat for free, you know.”

“Why not?” Shelly demanded, now moving to stand. Shelly still had to set her feet much further apart then Andrea did when she wanted to walk. She found it slow, and uncomfortable, but still she made the effort to move closer to Andrea.

“Why… Not?” Andrea parroted back at her, tilting her head in confusion.

“Do they not get free meat from the farmers specifically so that they can spread meat among those who want it?” Shelly asked. “Are they not a crucial part of making sure the city’s entire populace is well fed?”

“Ah…” A small smile flickered across Andrea’s features. “We seem to be having a cultural miscommunication. Farmers expect to get money - like this,” she said, indicating a small golden coin from the box she’d carried up. “Everyone expects money in the human world. If you don’t have money to pay for something, you can’t have it. That includes food and shelter, of course.”

“But that’s… Horrible…” Shelly whispered, barely able to believe what she was hearing. 

“What can I say? Nothing in life is free.” Andrea shrugged her shoulders, seeming ready to dismiss the issue. “On the brightside, at least you’ve covered my bill? Andrea the adventurer is now one hundred percent at your service!” Andrea turned as she spoke, placing one hand against her black colored breast band and bowing at the waist.

Shelly frowned in response. “If our situations were reversed, I would help you without requiring payment. Your thanks would be enough.”

“If our situations were reversed, I’d certainly appreciate it,” was Andrea’s blithe response. “But they aren’t, and I appreciate this treasure a lot more. Now help me gather up some wood for a fire, so I can dry off and get my clothes back on.”

“Not that piece,” was Shelly’s first contribution, indicating the piece of driftwood Andrea was walking toward. “It’s sheltering a hermit crab.”

Andrea frowned, but then shrugged her shoulders and started to walk down the beach toward the next piece of wood.

“What is a fire?” Shelly asked, still standing still. “What does this ‘wood’ have to do with it?”

“A fire is something created when you burn…” Andrea hesitated, taking in the hopelessly confused look on Shelly’s face and shaking her head. “You’ll understand when you see it. Just help me get some wood.”

Shelly frowned faintly, and then shrugged, and moved toward a large chunk of deadwood. It took her a while, as she was still barely able to walk, and by the time she had brought the wood back to Henry Andrea had already stacked up three more pieces.

“Put it on the pile,” Andrea told her. “Preferably leaned up against the others, like what I have here.”

Shelly studied the makeshift pyramid that had been formed from the wood, and carefully leaned her own piece against the structure.

Andrea then went over to her packmule, and took out a small metal box, a tiny grey stone, and a piece of iron. Opening the box, she pulled out what looked to be some sort of desiccated plant material, and stuffed it between the pieces of wood. Then, she struck the rock against the metal.

There was a spark of light, and then suddenly the wood caught ablaze.

“That,” Andrea declared proudly, “is a fire.”

“A… Fire…” Shelly repeated, staring at the flickering light. “It’s beautiful…” she started to reach toward it, only to have Andrea grab her by the wrist.

“Important lesson for the surface world,” Andrea declared, her brown eyes firmly locked on Shelly’s. “Fire is hot. Don’t touch it, or you’ll get burned - burned, like the wood is burning. See?”

Shelly stared at the fire for a moment, and then let out a small gasp: where the flames touched, the wood was slowly starting to blacken and crack apart.

“Yeah,” Andrea confirmed. “Like that. So don’t touch fire.”

Shelly nodded her head, fervently, and then frowned. “But… Why did you make something so destructive?”

“To warm up. I don’t know how it works underwater, but up here? Humans get cold. And wet. And when we’re either of those things, we use a fire to get warm, and dry. I’m using it to dry out my pants - and my underwear.”

Andrfea smiled as she spoke, but Andrea only frowned at the foreign concepts. She wasn’t sure what it meant to get cold - her home was always a stable temperature - and she certainly couldn’t understand an urge to not be wet.

If this small act of destruction was necessary for the human, though, then so be it. At least the fire was pretty to look at.

“You know, once I’m dry we’re going to have to start walking. It’s a long way just to reach the wizard’s mountain, and then of course we have to climb it… It’s going to be slow going, until you learn how to walk, too.”

“How far away is it?” Shelly asked, curious.

Andrea frowned, looked around for a moment, and then grinned. Reaching down to the sand, she dug up a small white shell, and then used it to draw an x on the ground.

“We are here,” she declared, pointing to the x. Then she drew a line, several inches long. “We need to go east. We’ll be traveling along the main road, which means we’ll come across several cities and towns.” She drew several small squares, along the path of the line. “Eventually we’ll reach here… The mountain…” At which point she drew a large triangle, much larger than the previous squares. “Once we climb that mountain, we’ll be at the wizard’s.”

“That doesn’t seem too far,” Shelly said, studying the makeshift map.

“That’s because I’m a terrible map maker,” Andrea replied, scowling down at the map. “It’s far. It would take us a week to reach the mountain, even if we had a horse to ride. Walking, I don’t know how long it’ll be…”

“Then we should start going soon,” Shelly insisted, starting to get to her feet.

Again she was caught by the wrist.

“Not so fast. I still need to dry off,” Andrea reminded Shelly. “But after that… Yeah. The sooner we’re gone the better.”

Saying so, Andrea casually threw the shell to the side.

Quietly, a hermit crab skittered out from beneath a piece of driftwood and climbed into its new home.

EmilieEmber

Been a while since the last release, huh? This was supposed to become public on the 19th, so I really have to apologize for the extra wait.

Thanks to FallingLeaf for some proofreading <3