Day eighteen of MerMay prompt month.

Okay, so I'm done with proofreading before posting, at least until I get this all finished. Currently I only have two chapters finished, and ten more to write completely. So I'm going to be spitting these out as fast as I can and I'll spend the month of June editing any glaring mistakes. (This AN will be deleted when I get to editing this chapter, so if its still here, I haven't combed through it yet.)

Bubbles - Isabella

After spending an hour or so on the beach, Ferb and Isabella eventually folded up the towel and put it back into her bag, ready to head back home. This time they took a different route and ended up walking through a fairly new park that hadn't been there when Ferb was a child. Isabella smiled as she glanced around, catching sight of couples wandering some of the paths hand in hand, or a few dogs chasing after thrown balls…

"I can't remember the last time I ever blew bubbles…"

Isabella turned around to see Ferb watching a group of kids chasing bubbles around a few yards away. She glanced up at his unexpectedly longing expression and, before fully recognizing what she was doing, she latched into his arm and started dragging him towards the kids. "Let's do it then," she said brightly.

Ferb blinked in surprise. "What? But… that's for children, isn't it?"

Isabella giggled at him before quickly asking the parents of the kids if they could blow some bubbles for a while. The parents agreed so long as the kids could still chase them, which was fine. Isabella handed Ferb one of the bottles of bubble soap with a triumphant grin.

"I'll let you in on a little secret." She winked at him. "There is no such thing as 'just for children'." And with that, she blew a stream of bubbles directly at his face.

The kids watching them laughed brightly, seeing her action, and Isabella was quick to let another stream chase them around the park. It took Ferb a couple of tries before he figured out the right amount of force to put into his breath, but soon enough he was putting bubbles into the air as well.

Isabella gazed at her old, and new, friend as he in turn watched the trail of bubbles, his eyes lit with wonder. She snickered as a thought came to mind, causing the man to look at her curiously.

"Do you remember when we were kids and we made that giant bubble to float around the city in?" she asked him.

Ferb frowned for a moment, trying to place the memory, before his eyes widened and he physically winced. "Fae," he muttered. "How did we not die before we even became teenagers?"

Isabella only laughed, no longer confused by his sometimes random choice of words. He used fae a lot, enough that she could guess which word it was taking the place of. And she'd heard him call Buford pike sometimes; that wasn't too weird but it was a little more confusing.

Must be a Zennor thing, she thought as she brought the wand up to blow more bubbles for the shrieking and giggling children.

When the kids left for home, worn out after spending almost an hour chasing the bubbles and likely going down for a nap before dinner, Isabella rested on the bench. Mindlessly scrolling on her phone while waiting for Ferb to come back with some drinks from the nearby corner store, she was pondering the expression he showed while blowing the bubbles. It was a wistful look, and it made Isabella curious.

The way he had said those first words, about not remembering when… It sounded like he was talking about something he had lost, never to find again. Which was ridiculous. They were adults now, and all that meant was that they got to choose when they could be childish or when to be serious, not that they should never act like kids ever again… It was not something she thought someone who had a brother like Phineas Flynn would ever say.

She hardly noticed Ferb had returned until the bottle of soda was waved in front of her face and she jerked her head back in surprise. He had a curious look in his eye as he watched her grab, open, and sip at her drink. They sat in a mildly tense silence before Isabella decided to just ask him.

"Why did you think you couldn't do childish things anymore?"

Ferb started, not expecting her to ask him anything at that moment, let alone that. He took a gulp of his drink, pondering how to answer. Finally he let out a soft sigh.

"I… I suppose I got so used to the idea that, once you've reached a certain point, you can't go back… And I had forgotten not everyone thought like that," he said with a soft grin directed at her.

She smiled back. "Who did think like that?" she asked quietly, pushing her glasses up her nose.

"My… mother…?" Isabella could tell by the way he said the word that it didn't really fit, but he didn't have anything better to call her. "She is a very straightforward person. Very structured, and she follows the rules as much as she can. If something was a certain way, then that was the way it was supposed to be and any deviation from that wasn't the correct way." Ferb shook his head.

"While I was there, every year was set in stone. I had a goal to accomplish in a year, and not reaching it would not happen. And finishing early was just as bad." He chuckled, almost darkly. "I think, if she had been around when I was a toddler, she might have been able to overcome some of that strictness. But she left before I was six months old, so…" He shrugged and took another sip of his drink.

Isabella didn't say anything. She only reached out and grasped his hand, giving it a soft squeeze of support. He smiled gratefully at her before continuing.

"That was actually a big part of why it didn't work out between her and my dad. While they were together, she decided they needed to move back to her hometown because that's what her family did: they left to find a spouse, then they would return with that spouse and start a family in Zennor. The fact that I was already born meant that the move across the country had to be done sooner. When my dad said he didn't want to—with good reason, having recently left university and just starting a career—well, she took it… badly. It wasn't the way things were supposed to go, so it wasn't the right way. And… yeah, that was it for them."

Isabella watched as Ferb quickly drained the rest of his drink before standing and walking over to the recycle bin. An excuse to not talk for a moment, she figured. To give him a bit of time to get his thoughts straight again—because she assumed that he hadn't meant to say all of that right then—she slowly but continuously drank her soda even after he returned to his seat beside her.

It didn't take long for the moment to pass though, and when she side-glanced at him, he nodded at her. A silent acknowledgement that he was alright with sharing more if she was still curious.

"I'm guessing there wasn't a whole lot of playtime while you were gone," Isabella said quietly.

Ferb chuckled, mildly impressed by her ability to easily get to the heart of the matter, but still make it lighthearted so that it didn't bother him. "No. Definitely not as much as Buford seems to think, anyway."

Isabella giggled and finished her drink, not yet bothering to toss it. "Why did you go?" she asked instead.

Ferb blinked owlishly at her, as if he had been put on the spot but wasn't sure what to do. "I… I kind of had to…?" He shook his head uncomfortably. "It's hard to explain."

Isabella nodded and nudged his arm with her elbow, saying as she stood to throw her empty soda bottle away, "It's okay, you don't have to tell me."

Ferb watched her with gratitude in his eyes even as he stood to follow her. It was getting time to head home anyway. As they walked the distance between the park and their family homes, she caught Ferb glancing at her out of the corner of her eye.

"What?" she asked slowly.

He twitched and gave her a puzzled look. He tapped the side of his face and said, "When did you get glasses? I've been wondering…"

Isabella huffed a short laugh. "Oh, I've been wearing them for…" she had to think. "About two years now." She pushed them up her nose self-consciously. "My dad blames my dusk and dawn visits to the beach. You know, instead of the fact that he needed glasses all through college," she said, her tone dry.

Ferb chuckled as she rolled her eyes. "Well, they look cute," he told her, completely genuine.

She smiled brightly up at him, her eyes sparkling even as she felt her face warming at the compliment. "Thanks Ferb."

Yacuruna

They are a mythical water people, similar to human beings, but are said to live in beautiful underwater cities. Belief in the yacuruna are most often found among the indigenous people of the Amazon.

They are described as being hairy with their heads turned backwards and having deformed feet. Some illustrations of the yacuruna show them being accompanied by a serpent and riding a black crocodile like a canoe.

They have the ability to communicate with the aquatic animals of the Amazon and can control them at will. Locals belief they can transform into an Amazon river dolphin (or pink dolphin, as they are commonly known), or into a handsome and alluring man to capture women to take back to his kingdom.

[Its weird that I gave Isabella glasses, I know. But I was playing around with a dress-up doll app my daughter plays on my phone, which is how I create my characters for these fics (I have made Isabella so many times and in so many different ways...). I added glasses just because, for funsies, and it inspired me. Also, it is common for kids with fantastic eyesight to lose it by young adulthood—I am one of them.]