A/N: Alright, my lovely readers, here we go as promised. To those who did get the chance to read the Author's Note I posted that is going to be deleted when I upload this chapter, I'm so so sorry that I haven't updated this story in so long. I promise I didn't give up on it. I was very busy this summer with moving and getting ready to go to college and taking a trip to California and these past few weeks with college starting and being utterly swamped with trying to keep up with the projects at Art College. What I'm saying is I really have no excuse. I was just incredibly busy and had no time for this story at ALL ((plus I may have lost the notebook I'd written it in for a good portion of the summer)).

So here I am and Art College and I've finally finished editing the written story ((good god there's so much red pen on the page)). Anyway, I'm going to stop talking and just start typing out the story. I'll have more written at the bottom.

Disclaimer: I do not own any Homestuck characters, they belong to Andrew Hussie. The AU belongs to salihombox on Tumblr ((please don't kill me if I got the URL wrong)). Definitely check it out if you haven't already. It's called Aquariumstuck and it's definitely worth taking a look at.

Now here's to the story. Enjoy.

Chapter IV

Kankri's POV

I begin to feel a strange warmth start to spread throughout my body, resonating outward from where Meenah's hand is touching mine. I can feel my body starting to morph and change. My legs meld together into a tail and wing-like fins grow out from my hips. One also grows out from my back and extends down my spine from between my shoulder blades to just below my butt. I can feel the skin on either side of my neck split open and I almost panic, except there's no blood or pain, so I assume it's a part of the change. The transformation only takes about three minutes in its entirety and is quite easily the oddest sensation I've ever felt in my life. Once it's done, Meenah steps back and takes a good look at me. She raises an eyebrow and lets out a low whistle.

"Definitely didn't expect you to turn into a koi fish, or whale part koi fish anyway," She says.

Looking down at the others below us at the base of the tank, I see similar expressions of interest and surprise on each of their faces. Finally, I look down at myself and see that Meenah is correct. During the transformation, my aquatic half manifested in the likeness similar to that of a koi fish.

My legs have melded together to become the tail of a koi fish. Scales cover my shoulders, extending over my collarbones to meet at the top of my sternum and stretch down my arms to taper off just above my elbows. I feel a faint fluttering sensation on my neck as I breathe. I reach up and gingerly touch the side of my neck to try and discover the source of the feeling only to feel a set of delicate gills that certainly weren't there before brush lightly against my fingertips.

Porrim leaves the room, returning after a few moments with a handheld mirror. She passes it up to Meenah who gives it to me so that I'm able to get a good look at my face. While my body below the neck has changed drastically, my face has remained relatively unchanged, with the exception of some scales around my eyes and down framing my jaw some. My ears have also changed into an odd type of fin a bit similar to the ones Cronus has though mine are more rounded like the fins of a koi fish.

After taking in my new appearance for a minute or two I return my attention to Meenah when she clears her throat. "Okay, so before you can just start here on your own, you need to know how to use your gills so you don't end up drowning. You'll take in water through your mouth and the gills will filter the oxygen into your lungs and the water back out. It's pretty similar to how you normally breathe except it's underwater. ) (ow about you go under now and try it for a bit," She instructs me. I nod my head in understanding and submerge myself completely beneath the water. I do my best to relax and follow her instructions. After some initial difficulty, I quickly find that breathing with the new gills is much easier than I'd originally expected. It only takes a few minutes before I've got the hand of it and am breathing easily.

Going back up, I smile, "Thank y9u, Meenah. It is very kind 9f y9u t9 d9 this and I greatly appreciate it."

"Don't mention it. R-EALLY, don't. I only did it because Aranea asked me to," she replies.

Porrim climbs up to join Meenah on the ledge. She hands me a device that looks like the walkie talkies that she, Tula, and Mit use for communicating when they're in separate areas of the Aquarium. This one is slightly different in design. My confusion must be showing clearly on my face because she quickly explains.

"It's a walkie talkie that's specially designed to+ wo+rk underwater. This way, yo+u'll be able to+ reach Latula, Mituna, o+r myself in case so+mething happens to+ Cro+nus."

I nod in understanding and thank her. I thank Meenah again as well before swimming down to where Cronus is resting. The others soon leave and I'm alone with Cronus. I set the walkie talkie down so it's easily within reach and breathe a small sigh of relief, glad to finally being able to stay at Cronus' side. I briefly wonder just what time it is now. A quick glance at the clock on the wall outside of the tank tells me that it's almost nine, just about time for the Aquarium to open to the public. No one will see this tank though. It's off limits as are all of the tanks with the mertrolls.

Turning back to Cronus, I settle myself down on a clump of sea sponges next to him. I remain there at his side, watching over him, for a little while before I feel an unexplainably urge to reach out and stroke his face. I'm quite surprised at myself considering I'm not a huge fan of touching in the first place. I just find myself wanting to try and give him some kind of small comfort, to show him in some way that I'm here by his side.

Eventually, after a considerably amount of inner debating, I end up gently taking his hand in mine, my fingers lightly brushing over his knuckles. As I hold his hand, I can help but notice how his hands are so different from my own. Where my hands are fairly small with somewhat delicate fingers, his are larger, more firm, like the kind of hands you could hold and feel perfectly safe and at ease, just from simply being held by them His hands are also so much softer than mine with only a few small callouses building up on his fingertips. A small smile crosses my face when I realize that they're from him working so hard to try and teach himself how to play the guitar.

During one of my earlier visits to come see him and the Aquarium, he'd told me about how he'd once seen a human playing once on a beach a few years before when he'd strayed too close to the coastline. Ever since them he's always yearned to learn how to play it so he could make the same wonderful music that he heard the human playing back then.

I'd told Porrim about this and we'd pitched in a bit of money and found a company that would make a custom order waterproof acoustic guitar. I hadn't been able to present it to him with Porrim due to being called away by an emergency at the coast guard, but Porrim had written to me to let me know that Cronus absolutely loved it and had started practicing immediately. She'd even taken a photo and sent it to me of what Cronus' reaction was when he opened it and was told that it had been my idea to get it for him. The photo is still sitting on my desk at him. Cronus' eyes are full of so much joy and happiness in the photo that I couldn't stop looking at it for nearly ten minutes when I first got it. I'd been amazed that something I'd helped make happen brought him so much happiness. It warmed my heart though to know I had helped bring such a wonderful smile to his face.

Looking down at his larger hand cradled ever so gently in my smaller ones, I can easily tell just how hard he's been practicing. He's only had it a month and he's already developing callouses. My own hands are covered in them and the skin is significantly rougher than his from all the work I do with the coast guard, along with all the writing that I do in my free time.

When I was younger, I had dreamt of becoming a world renowned author, but I never thought I had the skill to make my dream a reality. I would always either get stuck while in the middle of a story and have no idea where I should take the plot after setting it up or if I did manage to finish it, it wouldn't be something I felt was good enough to be published. Things just never seemed to click into place and I eventually just gave up. I could never throw any of my stories away though, so I hid them away in the back of my storage room on bookshelves. I also couldn't bring myself to ever fully give it up so I still write whenever I get the chance, but it's never anything serious, or even good. It's just notebooks filled with short stories and the beginnings of novels that will never have an ending that, once filed, are left to gather dust with all my other stories on the book shelves in the back of my storage room, hidden away from the world and the eyes of anyone who might read them.

I'm so lost in my own mind, that I don't notice Cronus starting to stir, his eyes slowly blinking open to look around in a hazy confusion, until a voice calls out. The voice is incredibly weak and barely above a whisper, however, even with how weak it is, holding none of its usual confidence, I recognize it easily and my eyes are instantly on the one whom the voice belongs to.

"Kankri? Is that you?"

End of Chapter IV

A/N: SO, tell me what you guys think! I really hope that this chapter is an acceptable peace offering for being away so long. I promise I'm going to try and get back into the swing of uploading things. I'm hoping to do it on a weekly or bi weekly basis, though it's hard to tell what I'll be able to manage with my classes since sometimes I'm super crushed with work and sometimes I don't have a ton. I'll have to see what I can manage to do before promising anything.

Anyway, Cronus is awake at last! Next chapter you'll get to read his reaction to finding a mertroll Kankri at his side watching over him like a guardian Koi Fish hehe. I hope you guys like the form I chose for Kankri. I know the obvious choice is a crab but I just had this really pretty design for him as part koi fish and I had to go with it. When I get some more free time I'll try to draw it out and post it somewhere so you all can see it.

As always, your reviews are what keep me writing so keep sending them to me. I appreciate every single one I get.

For now I must go because I have painting and drawing homework to do.

Until next time my lovelies.

Wolf-Chan out