I'd been at Mediocris academy for around five months now. I loved it. My training was going really well, my control excellent. It was discovered during my training that my strongest element was water, which explains why when I was most stressed things would randomly freeze around me. This didn't explain my fascination with fire, as the water fae from other dorms seemed to hate fire fae and vice versa. Tristan explained to me that we're a connection to all the fae, it makes sense, soul Faes wouldn't be able to function if there was a battle within themselves.
Favouring the water element also falls down to the fact that I'm a mermaid shifter. When I first discovered my powers, the twins had dragged me through the house, which was so much larger than I thought, until we reached this room that was built into a cave wall. There was a ledge that lead down to the water. I was shocked really this was more of a small plunge pool, rather than the massive lagoon I was expecting. I mean with all the magic that was thrown at me since I discovered what I was, I was expecting something more.
Before I had time to comment on the weird structure of the room, Valerie and Victoria pushed me into e lagoon. All my limbs froze at once, I felt like I couldn't breathe it was that cold. Once I had managed to swim in the right direction, I burst through the water, shouting a number of profanities. I glared at the twins, who were smiling hugely at me, or rather my body. This caused me to pause in my vivid imagination of revenge to glance down at myself.
Through the water I could see the shimmering, golden fish tail, only then realising it had replaced my legs. This caused my first panic attack the twins would cause. I began to think about my movements, causing my arms to stop moving to keep me, plus the extremely heavy tail, afloat. I then sank into the water, being dragged down by the tail, which also wasn't moving. The tail was kind of shaking side, side, as if it were just a costume and by moving my legs enough (which is what I think I was trying to do) I would be able to split the fabric of the costume.
I've always been quite daring when it comes to swimming, thinking I was able to handle anything. It wasn't until I was on holiday that this changed. Me and my friends that I had met out there, Jake and Rebecca, decided to go into the sea. It was quite windy but the sea looked quite calm. This wasn't the case though, as soon as we were about shoulder deep in, we lost our footing at the current began to pull us backwards and towards the left, where there was a cliff, with massive rocks at the bottom. The beach was deserted as it was secluded, and our family were finishing lunch in the restaurant at the top of the beach. Luckily before we made it to all the jagged rocks, the current took us to this larger rock that sat away from the others, and was easy to climb onto. So that's what we did. At this point the locals noticed what was going on and one man grabbed the life ring and swam towards us. One at a time we were pulled back by the other locals. We left with only scratches and bruises from climbing the rock, but it should be just how out of control you can become in the water.
Similar to when I almost drowned, my mind blanked when it went under the water. I can't remember much, but Victoria explained that her and Valerie were waiting for me to surface. Victoria then realised that my arms were reaching and swishing all over the place, and dived in and brought me to the surface.
We sat on the ledge after I had calmed down so the basics could be explained to me. It was like swimming the butterfly crawl, you justndidn't need to do the arms in the same way. Once I was sure I could do it, and wanted to try, I was instruct to follow Valerie, who was going to swim through the entrance at the bottom. Valerie's tail matched her bright red hair and was a similar length to mine. I followed her through the tunnel at the bottom of the pool and surfaced on the other side. If Victoria hasn't come through at this point, and pushed me over to the other edge I'm sure I wouldn't have had another panic attack.
Victoria, who's tail was more of an orange colour, lead me to the edge of the well...lagoon. I wasn't disapointed this time. The lagoon was huge, surrounded by green, lushes trees and colourful plants, it was beautiful. The open area allowed for the sun to beat down on the lagoon so the water wasn't as cold. There was a waterfall and rock area at one end of the lagoon, and a small beach on the other. These areas were filled with other mermaids. Some were extremely colourful with bright pink hair to match their tail, the same with light blue. Whilst others had normal brown or blond hair which went with a tail of different shades of green and purple.
Valerie had already swam over to the other mermaids by the rocks. So me and Victoria followed. Here was introduced to their friends Michelle, Kate and Ella. Michelle seemed to be closest to Valerie, and had dark brown hair, brown eyes, dark skin and dark purple tail. She had similar facial features to Bonnie, but seemed more bubbly than the witch back in mystic falls. Kate had dark blonde hair, green eyes, light green tail and really pale skin, I was worried about her burning, but luckily before I voiced this Victoria shook her head knowing what I was thinking. Ella had light brown hair, grey eyes, tanned skin and a dark blue tail, it was almost black. I got on well with, and am still close after these past few months, despite the fact that many mermaids fall out with each other every other day. It's almost like its there nature to be bitchy, and they love to gossip and flirt which causes a lot of problems. I haven't really gotten to know the other mermaids because of this. They made me an outcast as soon as they discovered I was a fae. Apparently because I'm a fae that transforms into a mermaid, I'm not a real mermaid and it is not acceptable to associate with me.
I was getting on really well with Anton. When he had the time, away from alpha and family duties, we had started to train together. It wasn't necessary for a fae to learn how to fight, but it couldn't hurt. Well it did hurt, a lot sometimes. A vampire and wolf shifter fighting led to a lot of broken bones and blood loss. But it helped build up my pain tolerance.
When we started to become closer, going past the stage a flirtatious banter, to the stage where we actually cared a lot about what happened to each other. This made the training hard. Being close to Anton was another reason why a lot of the girls, not just the mermaids, at the academy disliked me. Female wolf shifters really took a dislike to me. Our close friendship and occasional flirting, put into other people's head that there was something more going on. This wasn't the case, but wolf shifters, similarly to werewolves were territorial, and didn't care that neither me or Anton wanted that type of relationship with each other. In the short months that I had been here Anton has managed to become my best friend. Being close with Anton also improved my relationship with Dawson, who got over his embarrassment, and I began to realise he actually a great guy. He was light hearted, and a joker, unless of course you were someone who was a threat to the people he cared about.
Tristan and I were also close, I still trusted him the most, and he wasn't just my close friend but my mentor. He could be a little serious though sometimes. Like if me or Layla were messing about in training, and I admit I could get a little over confident and start messing around and doing tricks, Tristan would become like Stefan brood, and sulk a little bit. He wouldn't speak, just raise his eyebrow and give us a stern look. This is the reason why when people would say we would make a great couple I felt a bit ill. Me and Layla were like sisters, I would do anything to protect her, and when Tristan was having a go at us he was like our dad. But that was the only time it was like that. Other times he was my teacher and mentor, advisor or my friend.
So far today I had gotten ready, and came downstairs to have some breakfast. There was hardly anyone around as the school was having a mini break for the May celebrations. They celebrated the discovery of the fae race. Nearly every important fairy event occurred in May due to this. The school was actually first opened in May, rather than starting a new year in September. The academy wasn't just any school though, there wasn't too many human studies, so they didn't need to stick to the school holidays.
The only people still here were me, Tristan, Layla, Anton, Dawson and the twins. Layla didn't have Ny family, they had gone missing when she was younger, and she'd grown up at the academy. She found it difficult to trust people first, it had taken her till recently to trust Anton and Dawson. Luckily for me though her connection to me as a soul fae speeded up this process, and she trusted me and Tristan the most.
They were all in the tv, games room as we called it. Layla had some children's programme on, and I began to realise how much of a family we were. This is when the doorbell went, which was surprising as we weren't expecting anyone. When I opened the door I was shocked to meet the blue eyes of Damon salvatore. I had been trying not to think about him since I came to the academy. At times it worked, a lot of the time it didn't. I was still in love with him.
"Hey we need to talk".