Welcome back, everyone. Enjoy and review.

After the Movie

To his surprise, Lance found that Lewis and Rikki had taken him to see "Poseidon's Daughter". To his even greater surprise, he actually found that he enjoyed the film. A sailor and a mermaid falling in love… It had sounded so simple, like something that had been done before. Derivative of Hans Christian Andersen's famous story "The Little Mermaid", perhaps? It was possible, but on the other hand, Lance was not sure where else he had ever heard of a story where a mermaid got legs so she could be with a man of the Surface… Albeit the Andersen story didn't exactly go that way. She got the legs true, but she didn't exactly end up with her intended.

Besides, mermaids didn't always need to go to some witch or have true love turn the mermaid into a human. Coming from an Irish family, Lance had heard well the stories of the merrows, the Irish Mer-people. It was said the merrow-men were so ugly, that the merrow-maidens sought human men for their husbands, even taking on human form with the aid of a magic hat, if Lance remembered correctly. The O'Flaherty and the O'Sullivan families, the latter of which his paternal great-grandmother had belonged to, were even said to have been descended from unions between human men and merrow-maidens, with descendants of such unions being said to have scaly skin and membrane between their fingers and toes. All complete nonsense of course. He knew there were great mysteries in the world, but mermaids were the stuff of children's fiction, he must have been told so a hundred times.

Still, the special effects in the film had been so good, he could have sworn Cleo actually had been a mermaid when she doubled for Scarlet Belladonna. For just one moment, he could have believed there were such things.

As the three exited the theatre, Lance heard Rikki ask him: "So, what did you think?"

"It quite enjoyed it." Lance replied. "A bit confused about the sudden appearance of the eel during Cleo's scene though."

Shrugging, Lewis said: "It's just something that happened."

"And they kept it in?' Lance incredulously inquired. "A bit weird to keep in, but okay." Looking up to the sky, he then asked: "So what now? Anyone else to introduce me to?"

"Well, you've basically met everyone, anyone else you'll just meet at some point." Stated Rikki.

"Rikki told me about your meeting with Zane and Miriam yesterday." Commented Lewis with a smile. "That comeback towards Miriam was great!"

"Those two I could do without knowing." Uttered Lance, walking away from the two and looking out to sea. What was out there? Well, there was that Dolphin City Triangle that had been in the news, but in all of Dolphin City's long history had there ever been a ghost ship like the Flying Dutchman or ghosts in general? What about sea monsters? Real sea monsters! Not like that hoax he'd heard of. What about lost treasures? Had anyone gone searching for lost treasures around here? He wasn't sure. Closing his mismatched eyes, Lance could almost hear his name being called by the sea, he felt the allure of the Deep, but what was there to look for? He wasn't quite sure. There were many great mysteries in the world such as monsters, lands of legend and more, but where did one even start?

Besides, he now knew a guy named Zane Bennett… That was kind of weird, back in his hometown he'd known a guy named Zane and his boyfriend Bennett and now here he was knowing someone who was called Zane Bennett. Why had Lance said his surname sounded familiar anyway?

"Lance?" asked Rikki, walking over to him as he opened his eyes to look at her. "You doing alright?"

Unsure of what to say, Lance only gave a small nod.

Notes

The bit where Lance wonders about mysteries regarding the sea are ideas for later in the story if I want to potentially step away from the slice-of-life stuff and go into different territory with this story. If I stick with the slice-of-life genre, I might do another story involving sea mysteries.

Zane sharing his name with a couple named Zane and Bennett is a bit of an in-joke. Originally, I was going to do something that took inspiration from both the live-action and animated continuities while also doing my own thing. Zane being split into a couple named Zane and Bennett was one of those ideas. Other ideas included Emma and Bella being combined, the Setori family being Middle Eastern and Rikki being in the shadow of an older sibling.