The Mermaid That's Sweetest

23] A Second Beginning

Yet, I couldn't feel guilty.

So, I just felt everything else.

I had unfinished business.

I turn, and I go out to see the aftermath of the battle before the sun rises.

****

I swim in empty waters, past foul tasting water, but no bodies. Both sides had retrieved the dead, the wounded or the dying. For creatures of the water, we mermaids often stayed out of it. I wonder briefly if that makes us more land mammal than sea mammal.

Not that it mattered.

I cruise around the castle in quick searches, my eyes scanning the bay, the rocks, the windows in the castle itself. The activity is minimal.

I get the feeling neither side achieved a victory today.

I almost return to the Ruins, until I realise I need to check one more place.

There was a possibility, if injured in battle, Eros has retreated to a solitary rock pool to heal. Like the first night we met.

I don't like the coincidence of my thoughts, especially with the coincidences of those Ruins. If this was fate, then me finding Eros in a similar way to the beginning, was a symbol of another beginning... or an end.

I wasn't weak anymore. With a pull of a thread, I could shape the Rough. I still had the Orca teeth around my neck, and they seemed to stay warm, as if holding the magic for me.

I head away from the battle waters and swim around the cliffs.

They jut, curve and wind in this area of the Belle Island. It's hard to swim through these Rough currents. Well, it would have been hard to swim, except now I tread through easily because of my recognised power.

I turn around one particular jutting cliff, where the water is more violent and although I see nothing yet – my heart rate speeds right up.

Here.

A strange feeling from here.

I slowly, slowly tread forward, navigating the rise and fall of waves to try and get a better look.

Over the rough waves, is a flat plateau. Rock pools. Mostly untouched by the raging waters. A perfect hiding place to heal.

It's empty, each pool is untouched... and behind one huge boulder that has crashed from an unstable cliff wall... I spot something.

At first, I think it's just a log.

But it's a limp, long tail... too long to be of a Coral Merka or Mermaid.

There was a pool that the tail was protruding from, but there was no twitch, flip or swiping.

It was as still as a dead corpse.

Shit!

I had to see. I had to know.

I ride a large wave to the hidden area, shifting and landing in a squat. I pull my drenched silk robe around me and I don't creep close like the first time. I jump over the pools and skid around the boulder, curious to see...

Oh, no.

Not just a half dead Erebos.

My Erebos.

Eros is bleeding, his nose is barely above the water line, but his got one eye open. His whole demeanour rapidly changes as he witnesses me. I stand a few feet from his tail, shocked as he forces himself out of a slump, sitting upright, his tail shifting back a bit, one arm against the rocks, hauling his torso upwards. He shifts backward, gets comfortable and opens both eyes, holding one broken arm close to his body... trying to hide the fact that it's broken. He bends his tail, trying to hide the second fact that a deep spear wound is bleeding slowly but steadily from the middle of it.