Stolen Scales

Chapter 45

It's one of the Seaguards, named Iòsaph. She grins sheepishly at him and signs her apology. "Sorry."

"It's not a problem, Princess. Before I go, is there something you need?"

Kyma starts to sign in dissent, but then stops and signs something else. "Do you have any idea where my friends are?"

He points behind her at Lyss and Alai. "Them?"

"No, the ones I came to the kingdom with."

He nods thoughtfully. "I believe they are helping out in the kelp groves."

Kyma grins at him. "Thank you!"

"No worries."

He turns and swims back in the direction he came as Kyma twists around to look at the two girls behind her. "They are in the kelp groves."

Lyss nods. "Then let's go. I trust you know the way?"

"Yes."

The moment Kyma finishes the hand movement for the sign, she tucked her hands against her sides to make herself more streamlined and darts off through the water, twisting around and between portions of the reef in her path around the island. One moment she is shooting through clear water, the next she is rounding a bend to be right at the beginning of the first of the kelp groves. This one is for Hijiki, but Kyma gets the feeling that they are in the Irish Moss grove, knowing that Fala has the biggest sweet tooth in anyone she's ever met. Despite that guess, Kyma does a quick check in the Hijiki grove and like she expected, they are nowhere insight.

She waves at the merrows who are gathering the Hijiki that is ready for consumption before she moves on to the next grove, the Dulce grove. They aren't there either, so the group finally moves on to the grove for Irish Moss, which is in a more shallow area than the other kelp groves. She twists around a clump of it before finally seeing the first of the gatherers. She initially searches for the two based off of their skin, which has a tendency to stand out, but it doesn't do so among the merrows.

That is likely due to the wide range of skin colors even though they are generally darker-skinned. When she realizes her error she curses to herself and looks for Nani's tail instead, knowing that Nami is the only one to have a tail with that color scheme, red and blue, with ice blue specks. Now that she is looking for it, she can easily make out Nani's tail, even among the reddish Irish Moss.

She darts forward to tap them on the shoulders and starts signing excitedly the moment the turn to look at her. "I'm so glad I finally found you guys!"

Nami frowns darkly and signs back. "You are so lucky they taught us the signs."

Kyma looks at her, confused by her expression of anger. "What's wrong?"

Nami scowls. "You abandoned us, Kyma."

Kyma shakes her head in denial. "No I didn't. I would never abandon you guys."

Fala raises her eyebrow and signs before Nami does. "Really? Then why haven't you been to see us in over a month? You've been too preoccupied with your new friends and your new life."

Kyma starts to sign "That's not true," but changes it to something else. "Can we talk about this at the surface?"

Nami's shoulders lower like they would if she had sighed, and she ascends to the surface, followed by Fala. Kyma spirals up to the surface with small flicks of her tail and Lyss follows her, leaving Alai to wait at the bottom for their return. Kyma glances down briefly to see Alai move towards Fala's neglected nascer, likely to help out a bit while she waits. Kyma pops her head out of the water to see Nami looking at her with both a confusedly curious and angry expression.

"What did you have to be at the surface to say, Kyma?"

"Nothing really, I just thought it would be easier to have this conversation verbally at the surface than using the signs beneath the waves. Back to your earlier comment, I wasn't too preoccupied with my new circumstances, Nami."

Nami scoffs. "Well it sure seemed like it, Kyma."

Kyma nods, frowning sadly. "I know, and I understand how it may have seemed that way. And I was busy, with my lessons. But guys, I did try to meet up with you guys. It's just that any time I tried looking for you, you were never anywhere to be found. Will you forgive me?"

Nami gives Kyma a sharp look of disapproval before letting it dissolve as she moves forward slightly in the water to pull Kyma into a tight embrace. Fala joins a moment later, and Kyma looks up from Nami's shoulder to see Lyss smiling faintly at the hugging group. The girls pull back from the hug and Kyma looks towards Lyss.

"I'm going to guess that we'll be up here for a while. Could you swim down and grab Alai so she isn't stuck down there? Please?"

Lyss frowns at Kyma. "I'm not supposed to leave you alone, Kyma."

"I know, I know, but you'll only be gone for a second, and I trust them with my life. Besides, you'll still be able to look up and see me through the water."

Lyss sighs in assent and dives, emerging only a few seconds later with Alai in tow.
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Quick question, who forgot about Nami and Fala or was wondering where they went?

Also, I have something important to tell you guys. I am going to change the schedule for when I post my chapters a bit. Not to worry, I will still be putting chapters up. The thing is, I'm going to stop posting chapters on weekends. I'll probably still be writing a bit for Stolen Scales during the weekend, but I want to devote the weekends to editing Stars of Memory.

On that note, happy reading, and I'll see you next chapter!

~Goddess of Fate, signing out.