What Lies Beneath the Water

Truth (12)

 *Aqua's POV*

I woke up on Saturday with one of the biggest smiles on my face! I was up at six in the morning, locked Dahlia's side of the bathroom, and took a bath to let my tail out. Following my amazing bath, I did my normal morning routine. I even made sure to perform my hair spell before I unlocked Dahlia's side and went back to my room. I grabbed my white lace romper with a sweatheart neckline and sleeves that started just below the armpit and put it on. Then I went to my jewelry case and put on my bracelet that Tomoe charmed. Lastly, I paired my bracelet with earrings that hat a treble clef and bass clef that were in the shape of a heart. Then I put on a pair of brown sandals and a royal blue purse that I put my wallet and freshly cleaned water bottle in. My final touch was a pair of silver reflective sunglasses.

I locked my dorm room and then made my way straight through the school and out the door over to the board walk where Kai was supposed to be waiting for me. He was late of course so I just sat there like an idiot for fifteen minutes, waiting for him. I remember how Dad would yell at Kai almost every day about being on time and each time Kai just waved it off.

But after a decent amount of waiting, Kai came running my way in a plain white shirt and blue jean shorts. Just simple and casual.

He gave me a hug, apologized for being late, and said, "How have you been feeling lately, Sis?" He held out a plastic water bottle filled with the smoothie. I quickly poured its contents into into my metal bottle and recycled the plastic bottle.

"Not bad. I've been letting my tail out almost every day, and the smoothies help. I think the bracelet helps the most." I held it up, and Kai looked confused. "Tomoe charmed it so that it would help with the nausea, and it really does."

"You really do have them wrapped around your finger. Have they told you about their new pupil? Everyone has been speculating that it's Dahlia Michaelis." I just stopped at looked at him in confusion.

"Kai, you're an idiot." I stated simply.

"Why am I a- OHHHHH!" He nearly shouted. I swear I saw the lightbulb go off. "Wow, that's quite the honor, Sister."

I held up my hair and showed him my apprentice mark from Her Majesty and was surprised to see that the stemmed blue rose now had black and white dragons surrounding it. He just stared at it in awe for a minute before saying, "I feel like I've missed so much."

"Half a century can do that." I made sure that he could hear the passive aggressiveness in my voice. He always said that he would try to return for a birthday or some holiday like that, but he never did. Every birthday I sat in my room waiting for him to come, and he never did. The most I got was a letter and a violin when I turned a thousand years old.

"I couldn't come and visit you, Aqua. As much as I wanted to see my little sister, I didn't want to interfere with your studies or duties as first in line."

"My studies are practically finished. I don't know if you got any of my letters, but all the classes that I took with tutors at home are above the all advanced classes that are offered here. It's gotten to the point where Dad has to get me new tutors every week because I know more than them. So you don't get to pull the studies card. The truth is, is that you are too scared to come home. Why? I don't know, but don't lie to me." I finally let it off of my chest.

"Fine! I never came home because of Dad! He always saw me as a golden child and what would he think of me being a teacher? You honestly believe that he would be proud, Aqua?" I could see how much this truly pained him, but I don't understand why. A teacher is one of the most honorable jobs. A teacher has the ability to affect thousands of lives and educate the future generations to be more accepting, loving, and educated than its predecessors

I stopped walking and looked straight into his eyes as I said, "For the past five-hundred years I haven't been allowed to mention your name because Dad would get so depressed about the fact that his only son never comes home! And he knows that you are a teacher. He's known about it ever since Uncle Gil came and told him about how you were doing what you loved. He was smiling from ear to ear in case if you were wondering."

"For real? He was happy?"

"He's our Dad, Kai. I know for a fact that he is happy as long as you are." I said with no doubt in my voice. I became extremely close to dad ever since Kai left, and I know him like the back of my hand. There were even some days that we would sit at the dinner table and just split half of the stack of papers filled with propositions, new laws, criminal cases, etc. I would give Dad the synopsis of the laws or propositions and if he said yes, I would just forge his signature. It looks absolutely identical to his, even down to the miniscule amount of magic laced in the ink. I learned how to go through governing papers, and he was able to give his eyes a rest.

We just kept walking forward for bit before reaching a stop light, so we had to wait until we saw the walking person light up and crossed the street. I heard a few people whistle at me as I crossed the street with Kai, and I was disgusted. Did all human women have to subjected to such objectification? Surely, I wasn't going to let him get away unscathed, so one little electricity spell later, his car was stuck in the middle of traffic.

"Kai, where are we going?" I asked as I took a big gulp of my smoothie and ignored the putrid taste it left in my mouth.

"To see someone who hasn't seen you since you were born."

"I don't know if you know this Kai, but half of the Mermaid Kingdom hasn't seen me since I was born. I sort of grew up in the shadows." I stated, and he just laughed.

We kept walking until we came upon a subdivision with all of these beautiful houses where sprinklers were running trying to keep their grass nice and green. And just as we were walking in our comfortable silence, Kai pushed me into the sprinklers causing my hair to bleed back to the blue ombre.

I bended the water off of my body, immediately drying me, got up, and kept walking. I didn't even say a word, instead I started whistling which brought one of my newest powers to the surface. Father said that it is called Higher Judgement and only gets passed down to strong future rulers. Frankly I just think that he said that to inflate my ego, but either way I'm ok with it. And the power allows me to control every single mermaid, even those who are not full-blooded mermaids.

Kai started getting nervous and finally said, "Are you okay?" I smiled at him and took my sunglasses off, revealing my glowing sea green eyes that I got from mom. Then I said, "Stand in front of the sprinkler and tell me how much of an idiot you are."

"What? No, I'm not – wait why are my legs moving to the sprinkler? AQUA!!!!!!" The sprinkler started dousing him in water. I saw him trying to move away from his spot but stood in place and tried his best to keep his mouth shut. Not ten seconds later he said, "I am a total and complete idiot." It was quite amusing.

After he fulfilled my command, we went back to walking and came upon a beautiful white, modern house. Kai knocked on the front door and out came an indigo haired girl with a bright smile. "My god Kai! You're soaking! What happened?"

"Aunt Arabella, I would like you to meet the culprit of my current soaked body, Aqua Okeah, my sister."