Water and Air: A Waterfire Saga reincarnation fanfic.

A Current of Destiny

Neela and Serafina were fast friends. By the time I was with Thalassa, I knew that my sister was in good hands. I smiled as I swam towards her.

"Now," Thalassa began. "Take deep breaths. Remember, your magic is in your very bones, your very blood. Your heart and soul. It is inside you. More than that: it is you. Remember that, and keep that part of you, and then you will do many things that some deem impossible. Remember, we once walked on land. Now, we are the mer. We swim in the deep, but we may again walk on land. And then, one day, we may fly. Now practice those breathing exercises I taught you. Remember, imagine, allow your magic to flow."

And thus I sat on the ground, breathing as she taught me, imagining my magic flowing through my veins, every scale and pore of my skin, through the tips of my fingernails and running through my fins to their very end. Everywhere. My pounding beating heart was the source.

I didn't have magic. I was magic. I was a creature of magic.

Thalassa made sure I wouldn't tell anybody- not even my mother just yet. She would be alarmed, no doubt.

I wouldn't have told anyone, anyway. It was a mistake to tell Artemisia about Lucia's parentage, just as it was Portia's to bring her to court. Now Lucia was unfairly banished and I damned well wished I had just kept my stupid mouth shut and not tried to fix this.

Neela and Serafina still remained firm friends. And a year and a half later when I first started being privately tutored by Thalassa, I managed to do it.

At first I felt a rush of ice and molten lava at the same time- it was unbearably painful, but I kept going. I kept willing my magic to go, I remembered what it was like, to walk on two legs, to breathe air again, to feel the sun, to see the clouds.

And I willed it even more, I remembered what it was to have legs and feet and I kept going.

Until I did it.

I was in a dry room, drained by magic, when I managed to do it. I looked down and instead of silver scales covering my tail and fins, I saw two legs and feet with ten toes.

I gasped in astonishment. I did it, I actually did it.

I was a human again.

And boy, did I have to answer a lot of things to my parents.

Isabella was not impressed to be called out of council, but when she heard it was Thalassa she immediately came. So did my father.

I could only imagine what they must have thought when I stood there in the stateroom, with only Thalassa by my side, with a sheepish look on my face. They naturally thought that their normally responsible daughter had gotten into serious trouble.

"What is it?" My mother cast her eyes towards the ceiling, as if praying to Neria for strength. "What happened."

I opened my mouth but closed it. I didn't want Thalassa to get into trouble on my account. But then again, I didn't want to get into trouble.

"Well, Mum, you know that I like to... research a lot," I began. I swallowed, regaining some nerve. Heck, if she collaborated with Wave Warriors, surely she could tolerate this. "Well, I read and listened to all the myths and stories about our kind that the Terragoggs came up with. Considering that this was all after Atlantis, I knew the different cultures couldn't have had contact with one another, at least not for centuries. So I... Got curious and then I was intrigued about the notion that a mermaid could turn her tail into legs and her fins to feet."