"Wake up." Mozenrath snapped, nudging his left arm back to bump into Rena's nose, startling her awake. They'd been riding for over a day, pure exhaustion causing Rena to fade in and out for the past several hours. She'd finally found a semi-comfortable position resting her forehead between his shoulder blades, letting the sound of his heartbeat lull her into unconsciousness. Now she was awake, and cranky.
"What now, are we finally here?" She asked groggily, trying to yawn away her irritation. "My backside is numb from this stupid horse."
The young man just grunted, mildly in agreement before maneuvering the beast up a small dune to pause at its top. Rena blinked against the sunlight but gasped as the heady smell of salt air and drum of waves crashing caused the sleepiness to fade away. "Oh Mozenrath…it's beautiful…"
He just rolled his dark eyes and unhooked himself from her grip, dismounting. He paused to stretch a bit, before offering her a hand down absentmindedly. He didn't hide the humor from his face when her legs gave out the moment they hit sand, they had been riding for 2 solid days after all. He left her there, gaining her balance back as he plucked the saddlebag from the horse's backside and waved a hand over the beast, making it fade into smoke and sand.
"Mozenrath, why did you bring us here?" Rena asked, shielding her eyes against the sun with her hand, sweat trickling down the nape of her neck. Wobbily she moved to the edge of the waterline, letting the tips of the foamy waves nip at her toes. "I've never seen the sea before."
He just looked at her with an irritated expression, dropping the bag he had over his shoulder onto the ground with a thud. And as nice a day as it was to be at the beach she was pretty sure this wasn't for recreation.
She couldn't help but stare at it though. This WAS the first time she'd ever seen the ocean and with its rolling waves, blue water and calm wind it was a sight to behold.
"Take off your clothes." Mozenrath ordered flatly, beginning to disrobe himself.
She balked at his words, unable to keep the stupid expression of her face as he looked at him. "What?!"
"Just get undressed." He snapped back, glaring. "Don't make me do it myself, I wouldn't be gentle."
She narrowed her eyes at him. "I'm not taking a scrap of clothing off until you give me a reason why."
"Because I said so, that's why!" He bellowed, now shirtless except the glove on his right hand and bandages over the rest of his arm. He squatted down and started rummaging through the bag for something and tossing a strip of cloth to her. "Wear that if you must but the rest of you needs to be naked for this to work."
She caught the fabric and looked it over. A tube top, similar to the one Jasmine wore except this one was a dingy reddish-brown, hung on her fingers. "This just raises more questions."
He let out an exasperated sigh and stood a leather mechanism dangling by his side as he marched up to her. "Look, I need your help getting something out there and I'm pretty damn sure you don't know how to swim, right?"
She thought about it for a second, looked out to the ocean, then back and nodded.
"So unless you want to drown just shut up, get naked, put that on, and GET IN THE DAMN WATER!" He yelled the last bit and marched back to the abandoned satchel to continue rummaging through it.
She made a face at his back before begrudgingly starting to strip. She folded her clothes and sandals carefully and hid them behind a nearby rock before dawning her new "boob cover" as Mozenrath had called it once, and hastily got into the sun-warmed water until she was waist deep, hastily turning around and away from the dark haired male still on the beach when she noticed just how disrobed he himself was.
She heard splashing from behind her as he entered the water but didn't look behind her. She heard him mutter something before her legs started to tingle and suddenly collapsed out from underneath her causing her to completely submerge for a moment. Rena flailed for a moment, thrashing in the sea until she managed to float her body enough to bob her head above water. Mozenrath was beside her, wet headed as well, his dark curls plastered to the sides of his face, expression still foul. When she tried to kick her feet she felt the sensation of them being stuck together and ended up flinging herself to the left. "What did you do to me?"
He rolled his eyes and gave her a 'you're a moron' look. "Just submerge and look for yourself."
Taking a second to right herself she took a breath and submerged awkwardly. As she opened her eyes she was surprised to notice that the salt in the water didn't sting, but that small wonder was quickly overlooked as she started awe struck at the tail that now replaced her legs. It was a muddy red color, like the color of red clay, with a deep burgundy tail fin where her feet used to be. She sat there bobbing in the water for so long it took her second to realize she was breathing while still submerged.
With a flick of her tail Rena moved into deeper water, twitching here and there in attempt to figure out how the mechanics of moving underwater worked. As she practiced her hair kept getting in the way so she swam low and grabbed a piece of seaweed, using it to tie her hair back, up and out of her vision.
"Now do you get why you had to disrobe?" came Mozenrath's voice. She turned to see him swim up from behind her, move about her with great ease in the water. His tail was much darker than hers, purple with black fins, looking more like a shark's than a regular fish's tail. His glove still remained but where the bandages had been was now covered in a leather harness from beneath the glove all the way to his shoulder, where a strap wrapped over his thin frame to belt around behind his back. "It's more convenient than waterlogged wrappings."
She smiled lightly at him. "It looks nice. Did you make it yourself?"
"Naturally. Now hurry up we have a ways to travel yet." He started out towards deeper water, his tail moving left and right, again, like a shark, propelling him hastily forward. She started after him awkwardly and after the second time of stopping and waiting for her he growled and grabbed her hand, yanking it almost out of socket as he hauled her behind him.
They swam for about an hour until they were well into the ocean and away from shore before moving deeper into the dark water. As her eyes adjusted Rena watched as local sea life moved about their usual lives, not paying them much attention. After a while they came to a cliffside where they stopped and ducked out of sight as a great white swam past, looking for its next meal. Her caramel eyes ogled at the sheer size of the beast while it cruised through the water, black eyes on the hunt. As it disappeared into the depths he yanked her along a while longer until they reached the lagoon of a small chain of islands. The sand underneath them was a creamy white, almost the color of milk while the water was crystalline blue; but as Rena started to swim towards the surface a gloved hand yanked her back down.
"Don't." He warned. "If you get out of the water the spell will disappear and you'll be back to having legs. Ships like to occasionally dock in this lagoon, and if they catch you it's more trouble than I want to deal with."
"Alright, so then what are we here for?" She asked looking him in the eye. Rena watched as a smirk crossed his face.
"We're here, for that." He pointed towards the deep part of the lagoon. As they moved closer they could see a whole slew of sunken ships littered the bottom of the lagoon. Ships of all shapes and sizes scattered here and there, and all seemed to be teaming with life as mermaids and fish alike moved throughout, much like a bustling town below them. "This is Zealaguna, a sub-region of Atlantia, the kingdom on the mermaids."
"It's amazing!" She gawked, watching as a school of fish moved through the underwater town, periodically stopping as other pasted in front of them before moving on. "But why are we here?"
"We're here to get into there." He pointed to a large set of ships, three or four of them piled on top of each other making a massive castle-like structure compared to the other ships surrounding it. "Barbaraca rules this region as crown regent in King Triton's absence. But as of yesterday, she's been called away to the capital and left her eldest son in charge."
As he explained what was going on a shiver ran up her spine. Something about his voice made her turn to look at him. "How do you know all this? And what does this all have to do with you and me?"
"Simple. You are here to help me find a way into the palace while I'm here to steal a moon tear." He smiled wickedly.
Rena paled. "What's a moon tear?"
"None of your concern just know that they are extremely rare and I need to get one by the full moon in three days time."
"But why…"
"Stop asking questions and just follow me!" He snapped, swimming past her and down to the edge of town, pausing around the corner of the nearest ship and waiting till a few fish swam past. "Now, you're job is simple. Meet the prince and get him to show you where they keep the moon tears. After I get my hands on one we're good to go."
"Wait," she paused in her swimming and looked at him. "Why do I have to do it?"
"Because I need to be available to snag the tear while you keep him busy. Besides, you're a girl, use it to your advantage like you did with Salazar. Some of that 'feminine wilds' or whatever."
Rena gawked at him, stopping dead in the water. "You're joking, right? I tried that with Salazar and you threw a drunken fit, remember?"
He stopped as well and turned to her. "No, I'm not joking. And I didn't throw a fit, I was merely irritated of your over-doing the flirting thing. Obviously I can't do that kind of stuff AND steal the tear." She opened her mouth to complain to which he held up a hand. "Look that way."
Rena had enough time turn her head to the left before something slammed into her, both she and it letting out grunting sounds as they were flown off course and slammed into the side of a ship, a green and yellow awning that had been put up by the ship's owner, knocking loose and falling on top of them.
Everything was a blur of green and yellow which she tried to get loose of with a good flick of her tail only to slap someone in the face with it.
"Ow!" Came a deep male voice, a dark hand coming out of nowhere and yanking the fabric off her head. There floated a merman with the prettiest eyes she'd ever seen. They were bright and beautiful while everything else about him was dark: deep purple tail, dark hair in neat rows against his head which were all tied back together at the nape of his neck, dark brown skin, ice blue eyes and big growing red mark on the side of his face.
She paled and covered her mouth. "Oh I'm sorry; I didn't mean to slap you like that."
To her surprise he smiled, rubbing his cheek. "You wouldn't be the first woman to do that." He held out a hand and helped her off the sandy ground. While her mind may have still been on having feet and getting to them, her tail was still new and instead launched her into his arms, only sheer strength keeping them upright. Rena blushed and awkwardly apologized again, pushing away from him. "I'm sorry, I'm…um…" her mind went blank, she couldn't exactly tell him that it was new and she wasn't used to having a tail. "I've been out of the world for a while and I'm still not used to being in such closed spaces again."
To her surprise he seemed to believe, smiling softly at her. "It's alright. Where are you from?"
Rena paused again, desperately trying to think. This was so much easier with Salazar as he was just an old man and not an underwater person. She hadn't to make up a completely new identity to get by on the surface! "The…Mediterranean Sea…originally anyway. Like I said, I've been out in the deep for a good while now…um…researching new…kelp…recipes."
"Uh huh…" He nodded slowly looking her over a second. She bit her lip as he did so, wringing her hands nervously. "So find any good ones?"
"Good what?"
"Kelp recipes." He smiled. He could melt chocolate with that smile, especially when he flashed his pearly why teeth which surprisingly looked very sharp.
"Oh! Yeah, I uh…" She looked around for inspiration but found nothing but ogling passerby's. "You know, I didn't catch your name. I should at least know your name so I can apologize properly and all."
He laughed and bowed to her. "I am Prince Starus of Zealaguna. And you are?"
Rena froze. Should she give her real name or make up a fake one? What should she do? Without thinking she blurted out. "I'm Rena." 'Damn, too late now.' She told herself.
He took her right hand and kissed the top of it. "It was a pleasure to meet you Rena, even if you did slap me."
She blushed again, watching his eyes and how they seemed to sparkle as he smiled at her. "Nice to slap you…I mean meet you! Oh wow I'm really bad at this…"
He held her hand a little longer than what would be expectable on the surface (but for all she knew that could be the thing here under the sea) before letting go and turning to leave. "Hope to see you again soon, Rena."
As he began to swim away she could see Mozenrath out of the corner of her eye, motioning with a jerk of his head to go follow the prince, a glare of an expression on his face to hurry up. Rena gulped and took a deep breath before yelling out. "Prince Starus," gulping again when he actually stopped and looked back to her; she swam to him and said the first thing on her mind. "I've never been to Zealaguna before and I have no idea where anything is around here."
Starus just smiled softly; obviously he wasn't oblivious as her subtlety was the size on an elephant. "Would you like me to show you around?"
Rena relaxed a bit that he'd caught on so quickly to what she was meaning. "Oh yes, that would be fantastic. But only if it's not too much of an inconvenience to you."
He offered her his arm which she happily took and they moved off through the gawking crowd while one stayed back, not looking surprised in the least.