Author's Note: So sorry that it's been so long guys! Summer school, work and an internship. Excuses, excuses. I'll try harder.

Disclaimer: In the last 2 chapters, there was a prophecy and a Greek story. I completely made those up.

Enjoy Chapter 7!


"Chaírete, tis megaloafs sou. To ónomá mou eínai Carter. Chaíro polý," I struggle to get out. "Was that better?"

I hear a quiet chuckle float out from the clump of seaweed Lukianos disappeared into a few minutes ago. The seaweed begins to sway a bit more violently and then Luke's torso emerges from the green, tangled vines.

"Almost. You made up a word there, though," he says without bothering to hide his amused smile.

"Which one?" I whine. "I thought I did so well."

"It's megaloprepeís."

"That's what I said, tis megaloreps," I argue.

He chuckles, "Wrong again, Carter mou. Listen to how I say it: Chaírete, tis megaloprepeís sou."

I repeat his words and he must be satisfied with my pronunciation, because he disappears once again within the seaweed bed. He's been trying to teach me Greek for almost two weeks now and I still couldn't correctly say 'Hello, your majesties. My name is Carter. It's nice to meet you.' That's supposed to be my opening line to his parents when we finally get to Atlantis. I was hoping to impress them with my Greek, since they're Greek gods, but now I'm worried I'll just embarrass myself by butchering their native language.

"The rest was okay though, right?" I call out, swimming a bit to the right to get a better look at a brightly colored object hiding out in the seaweed.

"Yes, the rest was fine," his voice is a bit muffled. "You know this would go faster if you helped."

I scrunch up my nose in distaste, "I wouldn't know what to do."

I flick my fins to float closer to the seaweed. It's a tiny seahorse, gripping onto one of the vines with his curly tail. I can just barely see him between the seaweed vines as they ripple with the current.

"You could learn," Luke retorts, his voice sounding closer. He must be swimming back out.

"I need to hold what you collect, remember?" I divert. There was no way I was swimming into a bed of seaweed. It looks way too claustrophobic and with my luck, I'd get lost or worse, tangled up and stuck.

Lukianos emerges from the green, a few vines lingering on his tail as he swims out.

"I'm done, anyway," he sighs, the hand free of the trident is holding vines of seaweed. Somehow he's able to hold more in one hand than I'm holding in two.

It wasn't our first meal comprised of seaweed. We had eaten it a few times already, but I was pleasantly surprised by how little we had to eat. I absolutely loved to eat when I was a human and often had more meals than I really needed, but I was still trying to get over the fact that I was eating sea plants, so the less I had to eat, the better.

"See? That didn't take very long!" I enthuse. "And nobody got lost or trapped."

"You wouldn't get trapped, your tail is powerful enough to break the vines. And as for getting lost, you just have to swim up to get out," he lectures with a reproachful look.

I simply shrug my shoulders.

"C'mon," he rolls his eyes, but there's a smile on his face. He swims past me and I start to follow. "We can eat while we swim."

It doesn't take us very long to eat the edible parts of the vine, since Luke no longer has to pick them out for me, as well as for himself. Dinner is over in about 15 to 20 minutes and then it's back to endlessly swimming in a straight line.

"How much farther do we have to go?" I know I sound like an annoying kid on a road trip, but I'm tired of only swimming all day. It gets pretty boring. We play games like I Spy and 20 Questions to keep us entertained, plus there are the Greek lessons, but those only keep the boredom at bay for so long. The issue with not having to eat or sleep as much is that there's a lot less to break up the monotony of travel.

"If we're quick enough, we should reach the outer waters of Atlantica before the moon is half-full," he answers calmly.

Another thing I learned in the past few weeks, is how to feel the influence of the moon. Merfolk culture revolves around the moon. They use the moon to estimate time when they're too far under water to see the sun and also as their calendar reference, in both instances by feeling the effects the moon has on the oceans.

I have about a 50-50 pass rate at guessing the time of day. Lukainos says that's a great start ad that I'm a fast learner, but he's never met another created mermaid before, so I don't believe him. He's biased, because he's the one teaching me and if I'm doing well that means he's doing a good job as a teacher.

I concentrate on the movement of the current for a few seconds in silence before asking, "That means only a few days, right?"

He chuckles, "Yes, land-dweller, only a few days."

"Hey!" I protest, veering towards him to bump my shoulder against his. "It's hard to adjust to a new culture after almost 20 years of living one way."

He simply shrugs one shoulder, "I suppose it would be hard…for a land-dweller."

I can't help a small smile as I roll my eyes at his antics.

I start to veer into him again, but he twists to the side and wraps his arms around me, so my side is pressed against his chest. His trident presses lightly against my left shoulder blade. Before I have the time to understand what just happened, he's propelling us forward at a speed I could never hope to reach. It feels similar to racing down the freeway with the windows down. I tilt my head up to watch as we race past all kinds of sea creatures, startled by our speed. A laugh (literally) bubbles out of my mouth at the exhilarating feeling.

I feel Luke's answering chuckle vibrate around me and then we're spinning, too. I let out a squeal of delight that turns into another happy laugh as our current whips my hair around to tickle my neck and face. My vision is blocked by a hurricane of hair.

Our spirals start to slow and I feel Luke's arms shift around me until I'm facing him, our torsos pressed together. His arms loosen slightly, just enough for me to pull my arms away from my sides. As soon as my arms are free, he pulls me close to him again and I reach up to loop my arms around his neck as the current pushes against me. His tail brushes mine, but I instinctively match my tail movements to his so I'm not in his way.

My hair settles into it's now-natural stream behind me when our spinning is slow enough, allowing me to meet Luke's eyes. They're boring into mine in the most intense way I've ever seen. He's not just looking at me; he's seeing me.

We finally slow to a stop. I hadn't even noticed his subtle movements, but we're horizontal now. Something about his gaze has me trapped. I'm not even sure if I'm blinking. Or breathing.

My gills surge open to welcome a new batch of oxygenated water. I guess I wasn't breathing. I try to concentrate on slowing my rapid heartbeat, but that triggers my gift. I hear his heartbeat, strong and steady. I let my right hand slide over his shoulder and down his chest slowly until it rests over his heart. I close my eyes.

Silence. A warm peace washes over me, like a hot shower after a day in the show.

A smile pulls at the corners of my mouth slowly, until I'm grinning. My heart is beating normally now.

I open my eyes and move my hand back up to latch onto the other one around his neck. His heart starts beating rapidly and I look up at him, a little concerned. He's much closer than before. And closing the gap.

The closer he gets, the faster his heart races.

I try not to smile and close my eyes in anticipation.

His lips meet mine in an awkward and uncertain peck, at first. He starts to pull away slowly. I do my best to suppress a smile at his timidity and use my hold around his neck to pull him back towards me. I encourage him with a tender kiss on his bottom lip before kissing him fully on the mouth. His response is once again unsure. I nudge my nose against his, softly, and bring one hand up to play with the short hairs at the back of his neck.

That triggers something, because his lips are back on mine with a passion this time. He kisses me hard, but slow. I try to pour my swirl of emotions into my response, matching his intensity as best I can.

One of his hands trails up from my waist to rest between my shoulder blades, pressing me closer to him and reminding me of the embarrassment I felt when he had to fashion a proper mermaid bra for me out of shells and seaweed vines twisted together for strength, because my cloth one was slowly coming apart due to the salt water.

A small giggle bubbles out at the memory of how awkwardly we ignored each other for a few hours after that.

He pulls away from me with a questioning look. I pull him back for one more short, sweet kiss. I let a content sigh out and deliberately watch my hand trace along his jaw line to avoid explaining my giggle. He stays silent though, so I meet his eye as my hands latch behind his neck again.

"I was beginning to wonder if you'd ever kiss me," I tease, giggling softly.

He takes this as the reason for my giggle and kisses me on the forehead. "Believe me, I've been wanting to do that for a long time."

I look down and bite my lip to stop another giggle from slipping out. I listen for his heartbeat to distract myself from the heat pooling in my cheeks and I hear it spike. My eyes flit up to his to see them fixated on my lip, still firmly between my teeth. I release it, suddenly extremely shy.

His eyes flicker up and mine go round. His irises are pure gold again, like in the shipwreck.

"Lukianos, your eyes," I whisper.

Suddenly, what little light is able to filter through from the surface is completely gone and we're in dark waters. Luckily, my new mermaid eyes can adjust to the lack of light. I look around us to see we're in an underwater building. There's one door that I can spot just over Luke's shoulder and a king-sized bed in the middle of the room that I can just barely see when I crane my neck to look over my own shoulder.

"Um," I look back at him awkwardly.

"That wasn't me," he blurts out, his eyes- now green, again- as wide as saucers. He blinks once and then hangs his head slightly, "I mean it was, but it wasn't on purpose, I swear."

We float there in silence for a few seconds, awkwardly still holding onto each other.

Then I start laughing. I pull away and float over to sit on the bed, my hand pressed to my mouth in a failed attempt to hold back my laughter.

I look up at him for a moment and see his eyes filled with confusion, but I can't stop laughing. His confusion slowly turns to amusement and I can see him fighting to hold back a smile. Pretty soon he's laughing along with me.

He floats over to the bed, but sits about a foot and a half away from me.

"I honestly don't know how this happened," he admits when we've calmed down. He uses his trident to scratch the back of his head lightly, which I'm coming to realize is a sign of embarrassment or nervousness for him. He manages to look me in the eye for a few seconds only, "You aren't mad?"

I scoot myself a little closer to him so I can lay one hand on his arm, a comforting gesture. I let one side of my mouth slide up in a small smirk, "No, I'm not mad. A little flattered, actually."

His surprised eyes meet mine in a heartbeat. I watch as his eyes shift from one of mine to the other, searching for something. He smiles brightly.

"Okay," he says with that grin. I laugh a little.

"Okay," I repeat, nodding my head like we've reached some kind of agreement. I let my hand slide down his arm until my fingers lace with his, then I use my hold to pull him off the bed with me. "Now undo your little love shack so we can hit the road, Jack."

His eyebrows knit together and a small frown clouds his features. "My name is Lukianos, not Jack," he mutters sadly.

I giggle at his naivety of human pop culture, but use our joined hands to drag myself close enough to kiss his cheek. My free hand rests on his broad shoulder to keep myself pressed close to him when I say, "It's just a reference to a human song, Luke. Actually there were two references there, but that's besides the point. The point is I know your name, you silly merman."

"Oh," he replies, looking slightly unsure of himself now.

I place another kiss on his cheek to reassure him and then lightly trail my hand from his shoulder down his bicep, over the tendons in his forearm and between the knuckles of his fingers until my hand is wrapped around his. I lightly swivel his hand, drawing his attention to the trident we're now waving around together.

"Oh, right. Undo the love shack," he nods.

I watch with an amused smile as gold encircles the outer rim of his irises and then slowly ebbs away. When I glance over his shoulder, we're back in open waters. I meet the eyes of a very startled looking mackerel, who darts away after a moment of stillness.

A tug on my hand has me swimming again at Luke's side. We swim for a few moments in silence before I finally gain the courage to speak.

"So, I'm not normally one of those girls who demands the guy to DTR, like, right away, but I am new to this whole merfolk culture and these heightened mermaid emotions and I don't really know how you guys do things down here." I'm able to keep my voice relatively even, but I quickly realize how vague my words are. If I'm going to ask him to be straight forward with me, I need to be straight forward with him. I close my eyes for a second to steel my nerves and when I open them again I let my words stream out unabated, "I mean, is it like a date thing or a courtship thing? I guess what I just really wanna know is what that was to you, ya know? Like, what does this mean for us? What are your expectations of me now, just so we're on the same page?"

I feel my throat close up a little bit as anxiety courses through my veins.

"I'm sorry," he starts. My heart plummets. He's going to say it meant nothing. I should have just kept my mouth shut."But what exactly is DTR?"

My heart beats a little faster. Not an outright rejection, maybe there's still hope. He turns his head to look at me and he just looks confused.

"Oh, it's a stupid modern lingo thing," I explain, a little embarrassed. I deliberately stare straight ahead, avoiding eye contact. "It means define the relationship."

"Ah," he makes that humming sound again, the underwater equivalent of clearing your throat. "Well, I thought that was obvious, astéri mou. The prophecy is coming true and I thought our most recent actions would be proof of my intentions to fulfill that prophecy."

It's my turn to knit my eyebrows together in confusion. "Yeah, but the prophecy just said that I'd set you on the right course and you'd unite the seas. I don't understand," I admit.

He uses his hold on my hand to slowly pull me towards him, but this time he somehow manages to situate me so I'm swimming under him. His arms wrap around me from behind, the fingers in his right hand intertwining with those in my left and his left hand guiding mine to wrap around his trident so that our fingers overlap around the metal. His heart beats steadily against my back. I feel his lips press softly on my bare shoulder before his chin rests softly where his lips had just been.

"Then let me explain it to you, Carter mou," he suggests. "You are the greatest thing that has ever happened to me. You are the most important thing in my life. You are the only thing that matters right now and forever. I will do whatever I have to do to keep you by my side for the rest of our eternal lives. I will always keep you safe. I will do anything to make you happy. I will always put you before anyone else, including myself and my kingdom. And everyday I will strive to be the man that you deserve, because you deserve nothing but perfection. I am completely enamored with you. And someday, whether that day is in a few weeks or a few centuries, I am going to marry you and we'll rule Atlantica together as King and Queen of the sea."