Disclaimer: I do not own Mako Mermaids and I take no credit for any characters or places mentioned here. I just really like Mako Mermaids!
Chapter Two: I won't set my sights on other seas, there is no need to panic.
After leaving the café, Ondina kept running until she found a secluded part of the pier and she sat down against a pillar and tucked her legs in close to her and hugged them. Tears ran in little tracks down her face, and she angrily wiped them away with her hands.
I can't believe I'm crying over a boy, she thought angrily. Especially a merman. They are so dangerous I'm glad he's gone, she tried to reassure herself but she wasn't so sure. The last couple of days after the whole merman chamber thing have been painful for everyone that was involved. Zac had cut himself off from everyone except Evie, so she had whisked him off to a holiday somewhere near Cairns to swim with the dolphins in the warmer waters to forget his problems. Things were tense with the mermaid council and Mimmi was so upset that Zac hadn't comforted her after the revelation that they were siblings, so she spent most of her time alone either with Poseidon the cat or swimming in waters far away from Mako. Sirena had picked up shifts at the café and Ondina hadn't felt like leaving the house so she just laid around until Rita came home and then did some mild socialising, but she really didn't feel like talking to anyone. Except Erik, a voice inside her head said, her mild annoyance.
Ondina had been purposely avoiding Erik at all costs, staying downstairs at all times, even when he came to deliver their usual order of seafood, which was more often than not left on the front doorstep, as no one else was home. She had heard his muffled voice through the door when she decided to sneak upstairs sometimes just to listen to him, but she hadn't really heard anything that he had yelled out. She couldn't decide if she was still angry at him for the chamber incident, or if she just wanted to forgive him and run straight into his arms. The best thing to do, she decided, was to give it a few days and then come back to him, but he had left without a word to her.
It was your own fault anyway; you didn't exactly give him a chance to talk to you, the voice continued, making its presence all the more annoying inside her head. But she knew it was right, she hadn't given him a chance and he had left, it's not like he was going to stay here forever, he was a traveller, after all.
She hadn't been in the water since coming back from Mako after the events of the last full moon, and her body wasn't reacting well to her sadness and her constant state of land-girl-ness. She glanced over her shoulder to make sure no one was watching, and then she stood up and dived neatly off the pier into the blue depths of the ocean.
Ondina had never given much of a care to anything really, being a mermaid is like being free. No dumb land thoughts ever clouded the mind when underwater, everything is always so clear. She had never understood why land people have so many worries all the time, but then again, she supposed, they didn't get the anything like the freedom that she felt when swimming underwater. Mermen had been gone for a long time, her generation was one of many that needn't worry about such matters, and living at Mako was the easiest thing in the world after it was declared an ocean sanctuary and thus, divers and large boats were prohibited from entering the metaphorical barrier in an effort to save the marine wildlife that populated the reef there, and to ensure a constant home for mermaids, she thought, feeling freer than she had in a long time, swimming with the schools of brightly coloured fish that populated the area. All that had changed, and she was beginning to think that the mermaid council had covered up a lot of unsavoury things in an effort to keep the peace of Mako, and this is why it turned out the way that it did.
For the last few days all she was doing was blaming herself for the mess that had happened, but she realised now that none of it was really her fault. Regardless of all the trouble, she still missed Erik dearly and was upset that she didn't even get so say goodbye to him, and now he was probably gone forever. She picked up speed, driving her body out of the familiar waters of Mako and further out than she had gone in a long time, the water felt wonderful against her skin and felt a small bubble of elation rising up through her as she did the activity she was always meant to do. She closed her eyes and laughed, her worries pushed far away into the back of her mind as she swam faster and faster, just needing that feeling of complete serenity to push through her as she undulated through the water. She felt something in the water beside her that felt like a dolphin was swimming close by, she opened her eyes just to see a flick of blue tail disappear behind a large bed of coral. Her throat hitched and she desperately needed to rise for air.
It couldn't be… She thought to herself and shook her head, pushing her body closer to the surface of the water. She broke the surface and breathed in full, deep gulps of air. She was far away from any land, and unlike land people, vast expanses of water did not scare her. She looked around, feeling at peace with the world. It won't last forever, she thought sadly, looking back in the direction she knew all of her problems were waiting for her. She was just going to dive back into the water when she felt an arm snaking around her waist. She nearly screamed but a hand was put to her mouth. She started struggling, flipping her strong tail against the attacker. Land people she thought, and if she was right, she'd be toast. Like, literally toast. They'd butter her up and put her in a tank for the rest of her life and she'd never be able to see Mimmi or Sirena ever again and she'd blow the secret that every mer person has kept for generations upon generations. Tears once again started streaming down her face and she went limp as the attacker refused to let go. She was gently spun around and she looked into piercing blue eyes that gazed deeply into hers as if they hadn't seen them in one million years.
"What do you think you're doing!?" she exclaimed viciously, trying to pull herself out of Erik's vice-like grip to no avail. She tried to act furious with him but she just couldn't be, she had wanted to find him desperately.
"I knew you would come and find me once you found out that I'd left" he said matter of factly, pulling her closer to him as she continued to struggle, worming her way out of his grip.
"Well, just because you maybe thought that I would go out of my way to find you, it doesn't mean anything. Now that I've found you to say goodbye, that's it. We're done. There was even no "we" to start with, and now you're going to leave and never think about me ever aga-" and before she could finish her statement, he kissed her hard on the lips. She pulled back abruptly, narrowing her eyes at him. Erik looked sheepish and tried to dive back under the water. Before he could do so, she pulled him back and laced her fingers through his golden hair and leaned in a little bit and kissed him lightly, deepening the kiss as he wrapped his arms around her waist.
Suddenly, the sound of loud bells and the slapping of water against wood could be heard from a distance and she pulled away from Erik, looking into the distance, his arms still around her delicate frame. Voices could be heard shouting in the direction of the two merpeople, and Erik and Ondina exchanged looks of panic as they realised that they hadn't been as careful as they should have been.
A/N: Thankyou so much for reading this! I decided to break what I had written into two chapters for now because it is quite a lot for just the one, I failed to update my other Mako Mermaids story so I just decided to do a new one, since I'm really liking the new season a lot better than the last one. Please let me know what you think! x