Nixie and Lyla return to Mako to meet Weilan and Nixie finds herself crushing hard. Set post S3 but Weilan has not returned to Shanghai.
The last thing Nixie expected when she and Lyla finally returned to Mako was to be greeted by an exuberant Chinese Mermaid the second she surfaced in the pool under Rita's. What was even less expected was the immediate thought of 'oh she's cute' and a surge of butterflies in her stomach.
"You must be Nixie and Lyla. Rita said you were coming back today. She's out just now but she asked me to wait incase you two arrived before she got back."
"I'm Lyla. She's Nixie."
"Weilan," Weilan held out her hand in a gesture Nixie had seen land people use. It was when they wanted you to take their hand and shake it. It was one of the many things land people did that Nixie found weird.
Seeing Lyla was only going to stare at Weilan, Nixie took it upon herself to shake the Mermaid's hand. Her hand felt nice. Nixie inwardly smacked herself. She had literally just met this Mermaid. Is this what Sirena meant when she gushed about David? About how the moment she first saw him she had felt something?
She hoped not. Feelings like that made people do stupid things and she was above such stupid things.
Weilan's hand left her's and the Mermaid settled back against the ledge.
"So where is Rita?" Nixie asked. She'd been looking forward to seeing her again. And Sirena especially. Maybe Cam too.
"Mako, but she shouldn't be too long, her class finished a little while ago. She said she'd be straight back afterwards."
"Class?"
It was strange being back in the Moon Pool. Strange and cramped. Ondina and Sirena took up the middle of the pool, floating on their backs while Nixie and Mimmi were left on the ledges. Lyla was off who knows where.
She tried, long after the other three fell asleep, to join them but nothing she did worked. So she slipped off the ledge, ducked under the water, far below the sleeping Mermaids and swam out into the ocean.
There had been a few nights back before they left Mako that Nixie would find herself heading to land, unable to sleep. Sometimes she just stayed in the pool under Rita's, sometimes she went onto land to sleep. Usually if Rita was in the pool Nixie would stay with her.
Tonight the pool was empty but Nixie could hear music drifting down as soon as she surfaced. She debated just staying in the water and was almost at a decision when her stomach decided to let her know that it was empty.
Land it was.
Nixie lowered herself back into the water and with a lazy flick of her fin glided onto the raised ledge to haul herself out of the pool.
Drying off only took a few seconds, a quick twist of her hand and every drop of water was pulled away from her and thrown back into the pool. Then the fastest steam dry possible left her sitting with her legs.
In their months travelling searching for a new home there hadn't been much chance to keep up her walking skills. Sure they'd visited so many amazing places but Nixie kept finding herself wondering what the land was like there. Rita had told her so many stories and shown her all these different things she had collected while travelling; it made her want to explore for herself.
The music got louder as Nixie made her way upwards towards the grotto. She stopped at the door and looked in to see Weilan, flopped on the stone bench upside down, head hanging off the edge and feet on the upper level, with a speaker at her side.
"Hi?"
"Oh, hey!" Weilan swung her legs around and sat up, resembling a normal sitting position.
"Sorry, didn't realise anyone would be here."
"It's cool, don't worry about it. I'm too used to sleeping on land so I crash here."
"Why not upstairs? It's not exactly comfortable down here." Speaking from experience, that one night Nixie spent down here trying to get comfy up in the little alcove on the upper level. It had not worked. She'd spent the whole night constantly moving trying to find some way of lying that didn't hurt her back.
"This bit is fine, the cushions give adequate comfort."
Nixie just nodded.
"So what brings you out here? Moon Pool too crowded?"
"Just a bit. Not sure it was designed for four adult Mermaids to sleep in. Especially with how much room Ondina takes up when she stretches out."
"Tell me about it. One night in the Moon Pool was enough for me."
Nixie's stomach gave a rumble to rival a whale's call.
"Hungry?"
"Kind of."
"Me too," Weilan jumped to her feet far too energetically for someone still awake at this time, "want to get something from upstairs?"
"I guess?" Food did sound nice.
"I have the best idea. We should watch a movie!"
"Movie?"
"Have you never watched a movie before?"
"Nope."