DISCLAIMER: Rune Factory 3 is a no no. Playing the game is a go go.

I'm too lazy to do credits so I'm just going to do a big huzzah for everybody that favorited and left reviews.

Huzzah!

Enjoy.


Edit: Fixed some stuff.


~o~~o~~o~


That man saw Pia in the rain!

With these thoughts in mind, she hopped inelegantly across the inn's bridge and into the building, not caring that she was leaving a wet mess on the wooden boards, though she would have to clean it all up eventually.

"What's wrong, Pia?" Shino asked. Her hands were poised over the notepad in her hands, interrupted in the middle of recording the inn's finances for the day. "Did someone see you?"

Dripping with rainwater, Pia looked down at her tail and nodded.

Shino sighed. "You've really got to be more careful. It's a good thing mostly everyone in town knows your secret."

Pia nodded again and didn't say anything. Wordlessly, she took off her shawl and hung it up to dry on a rack near the door. Then she walked to the baths to grab one of the mops and clean up the mess at the doorway.

As she walked back, the water on her skin dried, absorbed quickly by her body to replenish her scales' delicate sheen.

"Goodbye, Pia." One of their usual customers walked through the door. Sofia smiled at her. "It isn't nice to see you."

"Ooh! How can you say that?" Pia grumbled. "You always say things like that. I still don't understand you!"

"Hello, Sofia." Shino greeted the girl. "Again, please forgive Pia. She often takes things literally."

"Oh, that's right. Sorry I forgot, Pia." Sofia apologized, momentarily losing using her opposite talk. "I'm going to go take a bath now. Goodbye!"

Pia mumbled a goodbye, but it was left unheard as Sofia rushed for the baths. Everyone was always eager for one, though Pia didn't always like warm baths. She preferred the water temperature to be as cold as…

Pia turned her attention elsewhere and glanced outside. The rain appeared to have slowed somewhat so the sun was sure to come out later in the afternoon. Gradually, her thoughts wandered and the mop nearly slipped from her loose fingers.

Before the rain came, there were clouds.

Earlier, Pia had watched them as they gathered in the sky, dark and ominous, yet lonely at the same time. She could never run fast enough for cover from them, though she knew the reason.

Before even the clouds were formed, there was the sea.

Pia was suddenly overwhelmed by a wave of nausea and her breathing quickened as she felt sick to her stomach.

"Pia!" Shino was over at her side instantly. "What is it?"

Looking up at her, Pia saw that the woman's usually calm façade was gone. Instead, worry was etched into her brow.

"It's okay. I just…I just wasn't feeling good. That's all."

Shino, however, read all too easily through her lie. "No, that's not it, is it? Did you remember something, Pia? Tell me the truth. Please."

The woman's eyes were pleading and she held Pia's hands in such a way that she eventually gave in to her words.

"I…" Pia began.

"Heya!" Carmen barreled into the inn dressed in only her swimsuit. Latched to her arm was her blushing and similarly dressed husband. "We're here for a bath!" She exclaimed.

"But not together, Carmen." Micah muttered in embarrassment. "It's against the rules. Hello, Pia, Shino."

"Hello. Such a young couple." Shino chuckled as she stood up. "Just leave the money at the counter after you're done. I need to talk with Pia."

Pia nodded and had been about to walk with Shino to the bedrooms when she heard a few stray sentences from Carmen and Micah's conversation that suddenly had her listening intently.

"…wait 'til my brother catches that king fish. I'll cook you the best meal anyone's ever had once I win it from him."

Pia stopped in her tracks, bringing Shino to a halt as well. Muttering a quick apology to her, Pia turned away from her and approached Carmen before she could enter the baths.

"Carmen," Pia did not realize her voice was already trembling with the beginnings of an uncomfortable anger when she spoke out loud. But then she tried to hide it when she asked her question.

"So your brother has gone to Privera Forest?"

Carmen must've easily sensed something was wrong because she turned around and faced Pia slowly. "Pia…Don't misunderstand…My brother only wants to-."

"He's going to kill Mr. King!" Pia yelled, startling the other people in the room. They hadn't expected her to be able to raise her voice so much. Even Pia, in some distant corner of her mind, wondered why she was acting more hysterical than usual. However, that wasn't going to stop her from doing what needed to be done.

Shino took a step toward her and so did Carmen and Micah. She knew they were all going to make an attempt to calm her down.

However, she maintained a steady look at each one of them individually and made sure they knew that they weren't going to get very far in doing so. She was too determined to stop Carlos from catching one very powerful and very large fish that commanded most of the other ones in the waters around Privera Forest.

If Mr. King was defeated and captured, then… Pia shook lightly with her bottled anger. He even had relatives in Dragon Lake who praised him for his strength and size. Young fish often told her with pride that Mr. King was their role model and they were all going to grow up to become just like him.

So if their role model was caught, cooked, and eaten like any other fish in the wild, what would they do? Pia shuddered to think how much Mr. King's death could affect the fish kingdom of Sharence. It would make them all the easier to catch. Then the population could start dropping drastically and then…!

Pia shook her head from side to side to clear it. Now wasn't the time to let her thoughts get in her way. She would have plenty of chances to let the despicable fisherman know them loud and clear.

She rushed to her room to grab her Dekash.

While Privera Forest was a beautiful place, there were still monsters roaming around and Pia had made the mistake before of not bringing something to protect herself. Luckily, she had Gaius make her one out of a tuna. Even now she still prayed for forgiveness from the fish who had given his life for her sake.

The Miyako Inn was far behind her by now and no one had come after her even though they all knew exactly where she was headed. Good, she thought, that meant she had permission, though Shino would give her a good lecture or two after she came back.

For a moment, Pia considered turning back and apologizing to Shino for her earlier behavior. And maybe tell her and Sakuya goodbye. Pia winced at the second set of lectures she would probably receive for leaving Sakuya behind without saying anything.

Somewhere along the way, Pia realized she had forgotten her shawl back at the inn so maybe she should just hurry back and pick it up…

"No! This is the sake of the fish." Pia reminded herself. "Sacrifices are always necessary when it comes to them."

But now she attracted the attentions of the few people traversing the streets. They would glance at her scaly clothing and then at her fins. Even if she had already walked the streets of Sharance for more than ten years, she still drew a few stares. After all, her clothes had been tailored to match the look and feel of her tail so when she transformed in the rain, the material would stretch to accommodate the change. The designer…

She no longer remembered who it was.

The shawl, however, belonged to Shino and it was the one she had draped over Pia's body when she and Sakuya found her beached on one of the shores in Oddward Valley. The woman had remarked that Pia must've traveled far in order to get here and must be exhausted. They took her in after that and treated her like she was family. And gave her a home.

A family. A home. Did she ever have those before she met Shino or Sakuya?

Daria's pretty house came into sight, shifting Pia's attention away from her thoughts. She was now on the outskirts of Privera Forest and she came to a stop before the entrance to the first part of the natural dungeon.

"I won't let you hurt a scale on Mr. King." She promised her enemy. "You have fished your last fish, Carlos."


~o~~o~~o~


The fisherman sneezed once.

Rubbing his nose, Carlos wondered if he was coming down with a cold. But no worries! He brought several packets of cold medicine with him. Carmen was probably going to figure it out eventually that he had cleaned out the first aid cabinet, as well as the fridge.

Oh well, more work for Micah, he supposed.

Carlos paused in his work to survey what he'd finished so far. The small wooden shack was coming along nicely. He had the foundation down already and should have the roof finished by tonight. Gaius had given him a few tips on carpentry and while he didn't end up becoming the best barn-builder of all time, he could at least manage a few small shelters to keep him dry for the next week or so.

Food was going to be the next biggest issue since, no matter how much Carlos wished it, he couldn't eat fish raw. They would have to be cooked, at the very least over a fire.

Twenty minutes passed before he stopped his work again, only this time he was interrupted.

He heard the shifting of sand from behind him and immediately went on the alert. He had defeated the few monsters roaming the island and had closed up the portal temporarily. "Who's there!" Carlos demanded, dropping his hammer to pick up his water spear.

"I am!"

The voice nearly caused him to drop his weapon. Carlos spun around, shock written all over his features. He wanted to say something but, for once, the ever-talkative man couldn't speak a word.

Her scales captured and reflected the sunlight, looking for all the world like some other-worldly being rising out of the waters. He had to put a hand up to keep from being blinded by the light.

Peering at her from behind his hand, he saw that her hair, even thought it was soaked, didn't lose its shape, as if the water couldn't touch the individual strands. Then his eyes roved to rest on hers before he realized that was a mistake.

He was immediately trapped in her gaze, trapped like she was physically touching his chin to hold him in place.

Her eyes... they were a darker, reddish version of her hair and they stared at him with a passion that was different for every person. And with Pia…

Carlos found the strength to look away. He licked his lips, realizing they had gone dry. A single look...that was all it took. His voice sounded hoarse to his own ears when he spoke out.

"Why are you here?"


~o~~o~~o~


Pia watched the fisherman as he hammered away at something that looked like a small hut.

So he was trying to build a house? That suited Pia just fine! She would stop him before he even got started on his fishing.

It looked like he planned to stay here for more than a few days and it made Pia glad to know that Mr. King was such a tough fish. It would take more than one man to haul that fish out of the sea. Carlos, however, was not a normal man. She would have to be extra careful.

There was just something about him that made him stick out easily in a crowd so Pia always seemed to know when he was in the vicinity. Even though she hardly knew him, she could tell there was more to this fisherman than what people normally saw in one glance. It was because of this particularly special aura he exhibited that her eyes were often drawn toward him no matter how fast or far she tried to run from him.

With some effort, Pia forced herself out of her thoughts. She had to focus! If she didn't stop him now, it would take even more work to stop him later.

Freshly determined once more, Pia pulled herself onshore. The movement alerted Carlos and he called out to know who was there.

Pia did her best to stand up while she still had her tail before she declared, "I am!"

He had his spear in hand when he turned to look at her. Was he looking to fight Pia?

The thought turned into a challenge and she stared him down, mentally preparing herself for a possible battle between man and fish. She would give her all for Mr. King and stop this man from committing a terrible crime.

"Why are you here?"

His question made Pia want to sigh. Did he really have no idea why she came all the way here with her dekash strapped to her back?

"I won't let you hurt, Mr. King." She stated, planting her tail firmly into the ground. "I'm here to stop you."

At first, his eyes looked confused, but then it seemed he finally understood what she was talking about because he replied, "I don't know how much your Mr. King means to you, Pia, but for me, he's just another fish. And it's always been my dream to catch him."

Upon hearing his reply, Pia grew solemn. "Then I will have to make you stop."

She brandished her dekash, sliding it out of the strap on her back, and settled into an offensive stance Shino taught her just a few weeks ago. Pia's skin had dried already, transforming her back into human form. To successfully execute the move, she needed two feet.

"You're going to fight me, Pia?" Carlos asked her, but Pia knew it wasn't really a question because he lowered himself closer to the ground in a style that Shino once mentioned was similar to the one Pia knew now.

"You come from the east too?" Pia asked out of her own curiosity.

He surprised her, however, when he answered her question. "My father did."

She nearly broke her stance because of it, but then she shook herself, waking up to reality. This wasn't time for questions or answers. It was time for battle!

Pia waited until she had circled within striking distance before she made her first move.

In a burst of speed, she swung her dekash for a low blow at his feet. He dodged and blocked her attack easily, but Pia had been expecting him to. Following his evasion, she forced the tuna nose first into the sand to stabilize it well enough for her use it as a pole.

Carlos struck out at her side to catch her off-guard and Pia swung around on her weapon to avoid the attack, only to notice something that nearly made her stop fighting, but her body was too caught up in the heat of battle to stop her onslaught.

Kicking off from the ground, she got enough momentum to lash out with both feet at Carlos's chest.

Only to have him literally catch her feet! His spear was on the floor, where he had dropped it earlier and most likely on purpose so he had his bare hands free. Using her momentum and quickly changing his direction, he applied his own force in the same direction she had kicked out.

Both of them landed hard in the sand, but Pia knew she probably took most of the fall. The air was knocked out of her and the edges of her vision went dark for a moment before her breathing stabilized again. Somewhere in her mind, her basest instinct told her she had been defeated. But that didn't mean she had to accept it!

Pia tried to get back up, but Carlos was on top of her in a flash. She felt his weathered hands push down on both her arms, higher up on her shoulders so he had greater control over her movements. He used his body weight to pin her down.

They were both breathing hard, but Pia felt like she was breathing the hardest out of either of them.

Despite her incapacitated state, she held a steady gaze on him, letting her eyes rest on his neck at first. He had a bump there like any other man and it bobbed up and down once as he swallowed hard. Then her eyes roamed from his neck, past his lips, to his eyes and they locked gazes. She never really noticed that they were the same shade as his hair, a blue-green like…

Pia broke eye contact, knowing her thoughts were straying towards dangerous waters.

When she finally looked back at him, she kept her eyes trained on his mouth, simultaneously slowing her breathing and clearing her mind. There was one question left, however, that burned at the back of her throat. Why had the fisherman attacked her with the wrong end of his spear?

Pia gathered her wits and made eye contact with him once again, determined to get her answer. When she saw his expression, however, the words died in her mouth.

The look he gave her was strange. It was strange in the way that it made her feel tingly from her stomach to her toes and sent blood rushing to her cheeks as her face burned in a mixture of embarrassment and something else equally mortifying.

"Ca…" She was in the middle of saying his name when expression in his eyes grew darker and her voice trailed off.

Hide, her body screamed at her, run away as fast as possible! His gaze was no longer normal.

However, she may have been too late to escape.


~o~~o~~o~


Everything went wrong the moment he had to touch her.

She was a mermaid and Carlos always assumed that they were cold as the waters they resided in. So when he grabbed her arms to push her down, he was thrown off guard by how warm she was. Her body temperature was even higher than his and putting pressure on her arms only exposed his hands to the smallest throbs of her heartbeat. They were quick and light, not so much like a bird's, but more rapid like the anxious breaths of a fish out of water.

How would it feel if he pressed that heartbeat to places other than his hands? The moment he asked that question his imagination ran wild and he suddenly pictured himself capturing that rhythm with his lips, running his tongue along the skin, tangling his hands sensuously in her hair. Would that make her heart beat faster?

Heat pooled in his stomach, burning it, twisting it and Carlos recognized what he was experiencing then. It was something that had never affected him as badly as this.

Desire.

There was no other explanation for his sudden and unexpected raving madness to close the distance between their bodies and... consume her. The desire was so strong that it hurt.

But before he could do anything to relieve himself of the overwhelming fervor running throughout his body, Pia decided his next move for him.

She kneed him as hard as she could directly in the groin.

It was like someone took his hammer and slammed him in the face. Keeling over, Carlos saw stars in the corners of his eyes as he fell pathetically over to one side. One of his hands covered his crotch while the other was placed feebly on the sand in an attempt to hold himself up.

He failed miserably.

"Don't you dare touch me ever again!" Her voice barely penetrated the haze of pain blanketing his mind, but he managed to understand the gist of what she was telling him.

When he tried to say something, however, all that came out of his mouth was a sound several octaves higher than his normal voice. But, despite this particularly unmanly reaction, even worse was the fact that he was in too much pain to even feel mortified about it. Carlos desperately wished for unconsciousness. Anything was better than this incredible agony.

The he forced himself to let go of his crotch and pull himself to a kneeling position before he retched and lost his breakfast all over the sand.

Pia just stood there, watching him get sick.

"I'm not sorry for doing that to you." She stated in voice that was matter-of-fact.

Carlos tried to make a coherent reply back to her, but a groan came out instead.

She continued. "But I'm sorry for your pain."

The throbbing still wasn't gone, but it had receded enough for her words to fully register in his mind.

"Yet you still want your Mr. King?" Carlos managed to ground out without making any extra noise, but his stomach was still heavily unstable.

"I won't let you kill him." Her reply was stubborn and unyielding.

"Not even after you kicked me?" Carlos staggered to his feet only to kneel back down from a wave of nausea. Was this what pregnant women felt like all the time?

"You should not have looked at Pia like that."

Oh, he almost forgot about that. The longing to dry-retch really put a man's thoughts somewhere else. However, he still ended up nodding his head in understanding.

Any girl, under the circumstances, would've reacted in the same way.

"Then we're even." Carlos said and he made one final effort to get back to his feet. Once he managed to do it without stumbling, he continued. "And the King Fish is fair game."

A moment of silence stretched out between them, allowing Carlos some time to recover and gingerly shift his weight from one foot to the other so he could test his stability. Pia's expression gradually grew more and more cross.

"If you kill Mr. King, other fish will die too." She was suddenly looking at him more intensely than he had ever seen her before. It almost sent the heat pooling back into his loins. Almost. His crotch still remembered her knee. "So you can go ahead and try. Your fishing poles won't get one bite!"

Her energy captivated him.

Carlos blinked once and had to tear his eyes away from hers. This lust! Had he always had this hunger within him like some wild animal? Or was it possible a mermaid had the power of seducing a man until he went mad with desire?

The intensity in Pia's eyes, however, was anything but implying enticement.

He doubted she even knew how to tempt a man, as innocent, naive, and straightforward as she was. So where did this attraction for her come from? And why was it happening now with a girl he hardly understood or knew?

"Go away, Pia." He could barely contain the longing from being laced into his words, but his voice came out sounding huskier than usual anyway. He chanced a look to see her reaction and saw that her expression had turned blank, as if his words were still trying to register in her mind. Taking this as a good sign, he continued. "I don't want to end up hurting you." At the very least he meant what he said.

His last few words, however, brought color rushing to her cheeks and looked ready to unleash a wall of righteous fury. However, she made a visible effort, the clenching of her fists, to keep from doing so and simply said one word to him.

"Fine."

Then she turned around and marched away, away from him and back to the water. Once she reached the edge of the beach, Pia turned to look at him one last time.

"You will regret making Pia angry."

Then, without another glance back, she dove into the water and disappeared from sight.


A/N:

More interesting things to come. I have big plans for this story.

As for my main adventure, Hero of Unova, yeah... I'll get going on it.

See ya.