Page 16 of Dry as a Fish (Chaos God Sugar and Spice Companion Shorts #3)
SLOANE
" D ELPHON!" I screamed at the top of my lungs. I sucked in another huge breath. The room, like all the bedrooms in the shared household, was soundproofed pretty well, so I was going to have to be loud. "DEEEEEELLLLLPHOOOOOON!"
He burst through the doors, the panic on his face matching the panic in mine. "Sloane?" he cried out, looking around the room for me.
"WHAT IS THIS?" I shrieked, lifting what should have been my legs up in the air.
His eyes finally found me. I had wanted to take a quick rinse in the bathtub, which he called his pool bed. Like all the pools, it had an inflow and an outflow, so I thought it would be alright to do a quick scrub down. What I wasn't expecting was to lose my limbs.
Delphon's eyes narrowed as he stared at where my feet should be.
"My parents need to see this," he said, and turned around.
"DELPHON!" I screamed again.
He whirled around and came back over to me.
I took a deep breath and tried to talk in a calm voice. "I need to cover myself before your parents come in."
He nodded, grabbed a sarong from one of the drawers, and helped me tie it around my top.
Then he ran out of the room. Within seconds, the entire family was in our bedroom.
They must have all been hovering outside after hearing me scream.
Delphon came back over to the water as they all surrounded me.
He sat down on the edge and slipped in next to me.
I reached out and grabbed his hand, squeezing it hard.
"Oh!" his mom gasped, covering her mouth with her hands.
"Well, this makes a lot of sense," his dad said.
"YEEEEEEESSSSSSS!" Orcalia pumped both her fists up in the air.
"Can someone please tell me what is going on?" I whispered.
"Oh my chaos, so, just so you know, I was hoping it was-" Orcalia started.
"Let me," her dad said, putting a hand on her shoulder.
"Daaaaaaad," Orcalia whined.
"Experience vs impulsivity," he said, lifting an eyebrow at her. "I will be more succinct and calm, and she needs that."
"Let your father speak," her mom agreed.
"Let the man talk!" I seconded, desperately needing some fatherly energy in that moment.
"Okay fine," Orcalia rolled her eyes and crossed her arms, but it didn't diminish the smile on her face .
"So going back and forth to the mundane realm requires learning a spell," her father began, his tone smooth and even.
"The mundane realm is bereft of magic, so staying there for very long can drain an individual so much that they can't come back.
Some choose not to come back, especially those whose species are especially targeted by the forces of Order, such as Incubuses and that ilk. "
"My parents are not sirens," I said.
"I would have been able to tell," Delphon agreed.
Delphon's father took a deep breath and continued.
"One of the many delightful things about mundanes is that they can crossbreed with many different species, even with species that cannot mate with one another.
So, in conclusion, it is likely that somewhere in your family tree there was a siren, and your latent shifting ability was triggered by connecting with your heartsong. "
"So I'm a mermaid," I said, looking down at my gorgeous new tail. Then I gasped and lifted my fingers to my neck, feeling the frilly edges of my new gills. "I can breathe underwater?"
"There are lots of things you can already do underwater," Delphon said, the corners of his lips twitching.
"Alright, everyone out," Delphon's father said. He turned and spread his arms wide, scooping both his wife and daughter in his embrace as he began to crab walk them to the door while holding them in a hug.
"But Daaaaaaad!" Orcalia complained.
"New heartsong bond," his father said as he dragged them out through the door, closing it behind them.
"I'm a mermaid," I said, lifting my tail and watching the water drip off of it .
"You were never meant to stay trapped on land," Delphon said, his voice soft.
"No one is ever meant to stay trapped anywhere," I murmured.
"May the flow of Chaos carry us into that new world together," Delphon agreed.