Page 24 of Mermaid on Heels
“Liriya,” Bianca called her softly, with a soft smile and a gentle look in her eyes. One look at her face, Liriya realized she didn’t want to lose their newfound friendship; Bianca was noble at heart, kind, and sweet. “No one is perfect.”
Liriya stared at her for a second, letting the four-word assurance sink in, before she blurted out, “I am a mermaid.”
Bianca didn’t gasp atop her lungs, scream, exclaim aloud, or did anything so as evenblink. Instead, genuine confusion claimed her pretty features, and her eyebrows furrowed. “What’s a mermaid?”
It was Liriya’s place to be surprised and shocked. Hearing from Luke and his brother that their people thought Merfolk were merely a myth, she hadn’t expected Biancanotknowing her race existed. She had anticipated a shocked reaction regarding the myth spread among humans. Now, it seemed like Bianca hadn’t heard any such thing as a mermaid.
“You do not know?”
Bianca shook her head slowly.
“We live in the sea,” she revealed.
Bianca’s eyebrows rose. “Okay…?”
Liriya stifled a laugh at the look on her face. “I am not crazy, you know.”
Bianca composed herself and shook her head, as though trying to shake herself out of a trance and focus. “I don’t understand…”
“Alright, I shall explain everything. Just please do not be too shocked,” Liriya almost pleaded at the end before taking a deep breath—a feeling still odd—and continued, “I—weare not humans. I mean, weare, now, but not really—oh,good oysters, I do not know how to say this!”
She hid her face in her palms.
“It’s okay, I’m listening.” Bianca’s surprisingly encouraging voice made her look up. “Why don’t we sit down?”
“But you have to put the bread in the oven, do you not?” There, she had learned a word or two—now she just had to seewhatit was andhowit was done.
“Alright, let me set it in the oven first, and then you can tell me everything.”
Before long, the bread was in the oven and the two girls sat down on the chairs at the dining table in the kitchen, facing the stew pot over the fire.
“So?”
Liriya looked at her friend and wondered how she could be so calm after what she had told her. “You have not heard of Merfolk at all?”
“Um… Half human body and half dolphin, lives underwater, and sings haunting melodies to lure humans?”
Liriya stared at her in disbelief. “You have heard aboutSirens?”
“From my mother’s bedtime stories, yes. I put together the pieces from what you said earlier; living in the sea, not human, and your etherealness.”
“Wait. Your mother told you stories about Sirens and notus—Merfolk?” Liriya nearly exclaimed in disbelief.
“There’s a difference?”
“Of course!” Faelina’s face was the first to rush to the forefront of her mind and Liriya gritted her teeth. She didn’t like the fact that her new friend had been told about Sirens—stupid, evil sirens!—and not Merfolk. She beat down her stupid jealousy and explained.
“Sirens are our enemies; it has been like that for generations because their intentions are considered bad. There had been a time when Merfolk and Sirens lived in harmony; that was until the sirens used their gifts for bad causes, and the great underwater war began. No one actually won, of course, but it ended with Merfolk and Sirens splitting and setting their borders… I am definitely boring you, right?” Liriya frowned, seeing the unreadable look on Bianca’s face.
Bianca composed herself and shook her head. “No, no, no. It’s just… it’s just I couldn’t believe… Is it—is it true? Real?”
Liriya sighed. “Yes.”
Bianca huffed out a long breath she happened to be holding. “So you breathe underwater, live underwater, you’re not a human but a mermaid… Then how are you here, as a human?”
“We figured we have a transformation power.”
“A what?”