You heard a series of splashes in the distance, followed by silence broken only by the waves softly crashing along the shore and your "girlfriend's" tailfin slapping against the sand. Whether they had figured out the reason for their missing sister or had simply decided to leave for the rest of the night, you reckoned that the other fishy femmes had departed to the depths, leaving you two on the sandy and rocky beach.
Having realized that you'd be at a distinct disadvantage if you allowed the mermaid to pull you back into the water, and not knowing what a heartbroken maiden could do if you declined her offer altogether, your choice seemed clear to you. Carefully, you placed an arm underneath her scaly tail, the other supporting her back, and lifted her off the ground whilst her large caudal fin continued to move of its own accord. Mermaids, it seemed, were heavier than they looked. Despite the weight of her tail, you managed to hold her in your arms at least for the moment.
"I take it we're going to your place," she said with a giggle escaping her lips, her head swooning. One of her own arms draped around your shoulders and was quickly joined by the other as she held on for the ride.
The look in her beguiling sapphire eyes caused you to smile as you nodded in response to her question. Even if she was taking this a little fast, you admitted that there was certain something about her besides her physical beauty. How cute. How innocent. ... How naïve.
You had managed to walk a fair distance back up the path you had travelled down to the beach, but now you shook your head as if trying to shake off a dazed stupor. What did you think you were doing? How was this arrangement possibly going to work? What could she be thinking? Surely she knew that she'd need water eventually. Her tail would stick out like a sore thumb in this surface world you called home.
"Listen, I... never really got your name," you began.
"That's because I didn't give it," the mischievous mermaid replied with a smirk. Her caudal fin softly snaked back and rubbed itself playfully against your side as you continued to carry your precious cargo.
"Can I have it?"
"No, because it's mine."
"Can I... know it?"
"You can, if you ask the right question."
"-May- I know it?"
"Yes, you may. It's Ambrosia."
Ambrosia? You were by no means a scholar, but you know a little world mythology and folklore. For one, the word, as you recalled it, was Greek for "immortality", and it was the name of the food or drink of the gods and goddesses of ancient Greece. Had you literally abducted a daughter of Poseidon as well as metaphorically? Perhaps the god was just as much a legendary fiction underwater as he was now in the "world above". Whatever the case may be, you were dumbfounded for a moment or two, stopping dead in your tracks as her name circled your mind.
"Why have you stopped?," the excited aquatic woman asked.
"... Oh, sorry," you said, embarrassed at being woken out of your trance. "My name's Michael, by the way," you finally introduced yourself to your "girlfriend".
"That's a nice name," she remarked.
"Listen, Ambrosia, I'm not sure how we're going to make this work...," you started again, as you started down the strangely empty trail back to civilization as you saw it. You proceeded to be cautious about which roads you walked down to avoid the most traffic, foot or otherwise.
"We can make it work! Please don't throw me back into the sea. I've been dreaming about this for centuries!," she looked up into your eyes as she pleaded.
"... Centuries? How old are you?," you stopped again, looking back into her begging eyes.
"I'm... 328," she sheepishly admitted, a blush coming to her cheeks. Her tight grip on your arms loosened as if she realized that her dream was coming apart at the seams.
Even with your now befuddled brain, you had noticed that a park you were passing by on your way home was also relatively devoid of people this time of night. Making a detour, you set her down as quickly as you could onto a bench. Her long tail wiggled and writhed against the wooden structure and the grassy ground as she tried to stay upright.
"See, this what I'm talking about! I'm only 29! ... ... You're beautiful, but this just isn't going to work."
"Michael--"
"No, you have to realize that your age... your tail... All this is going to..."
"Michael!"
It was then that you noticed that her voluptuous chest was rising and falling sharply. You had assumed that it and the tears running down her cheeks were just about your relationship problems, but you remembered the greatest difference of all between the two of you.
"... And you need water," you commented as you brought your tirade to a quick end. Even though her skin still looked just a little wet, she was still panting. "What a fool I've been to take you off that beach," you berated yourself as you placed a hand on the scaly bend in her tail: her "knee", though she actually lacked one.
"Michael...," the now weakened mermaid tried to speak with half-closed eyes. A limp hand softly touched your cheek, but then slowly fell. In short order, you picked her back up into your arms. Her caudal fin, which had been happily flapping about, was now slowly flexing itself and twitching on occasion. "Don't worry, Ambrosia..."
You had to figure out where you were you going to take the panting and gasping mermaid and quick.