After a few minutes of the four mermaids playing with each other and waiting to swim farther away into the ocean, Emma looks to see two young girls with mermaid tails on a nearby beach.
“Hold on, girls, I need a moment.”, Emma said before flicking her tail to follow the direction of the two kids.
“Hey, Emma, where are you going?”, Jessica questioned.
“It’s nothing important, just go on without me”, Emma answered.
Miranda wanted to question Emma as well, but she was quickly met with a splash made by Emma’s tail.
“C’mon, girls, she said she was just leaving for a moment. I think we should all just calm down and wait for her.”, Sammy said.
Miranda and Jessica nodded in agreement. Emma was their dearest friend that caused them to be mermaids in the first place, and if she wanted space for a while, it was fine by them.
Emma could feel her tail touching the sand as she approached the beach and in front of her were two ten year old girls.
One of the girls was looking in her royal blue mermaid tail with awe. She wore a light blue top that seemed to be part of a two piece bikini, but her tail cut the lower half of her body and bikini out of the question. The girl also had long flowing blonde hair, but next to her was a snapped hair tie, implying the girl wore a ponytail before her transformation. The other girl next to her had a forest green mermaid tail and had long flowing black hair. She wore a light green top that would’ve been a one-piece swimsuit if her tail hadn’t cut it short. Emma looked to see beach shovels and buckets surrounding the young girls, they were probably building sandcastles before they became half girls and half fish.
The two girls were awestruck at the beauty of their tails as their scales glistened in the sun and their tailfins twitched and flicked, most likely due to how more sensitive tailfins are than regular human feet. Emma noticed something peculiar under the tailfins of the girl’s tails.
Under the twitching tailfins of the girls were two pairs of sandals, they most likely popped out as the two girl’s feet became webbed and lengthened to be fins. Most notably, hidden under the one of the girl’s royal blue tailfins was the second half of the two-piece light blue bikini one of the girls was supposed to be wearing. The fact the items were underneath the mermaid tails and not resting beside them suggested to Emma that maybe the mermaid tails grew past where the toes of the two young girl’s toes would have been located, the forest green and royal blue tails seemed awfully long to belong to ten year old girls, but that was besides Emma’s main of concern at the moment.
Emma cleared her throat to bring attention to herself. The expressions on the two girls initially expressed fear, possibly due to them thinking they were spotted by someone who could maliciously exploit them for their mermadic traits, but later became calm as Emma left a subtle and understanding smile to them.
‘What happened here?”, Emma questioned the two kids.
One of them with the royal blue tail spoke in a soft, but somewhat melodic, voice, “I was just playing with my sister and having fun when I heard a beautiful song.”
The other girl with the forest green tail answered as well, “But then, I felt something weird inside my belly, before I knew it, my legs were gone, my swimsuit looked like it was cut in half and now I have… this.”, the girl raised her green tail to emphasise her story to Emma.
‘Oh… That was probably me and my friends who caused that.”, Emma replied.
The two girls had a puzzled look on their faces. In their eyes, Emma seemed like just a normal human girl going on a swim, how could she have possibly turned them into mermaids?
Emma realized this and giggled.
“Here, I’ll show you”, Emma said as she dived down, showing off her beautiful blue tail. When Emma’s head rose up from the water again, she was met by two awed faces of the girl.
“Oh my gosh, we’re not alone!”, the blue tailed girl said.
“Wow… so there are more mermaids out here…”, the green tailed girl said under her breath.
Emma couldn’t help but chuckle, the young childish enthusiasm of the girls were just adorable to her. After her chuckle, Emma answered to them.
“Of course mermaids are out there. There’s a lot of amazing secrets about the sea that humans don’t know about, but now you girls have that access to sea now. You two have a wonderful gift, don’t forget that.”
The expressions of the two girls, for the first time since their transformations, were two hopeful smiles.
“Yeah, you’re right, Miss Mermaid. Maybe this isn’t so bad after all!”, the forest tailed girl said.
Emma giggled again, “My name is Emma, not Miss Mermaid. Although, that is a pretty neat nickname. I almost forgot, what are your names?”
“My name’s Ashley, nice to meet you, Emma.”, the blue tailed girl answered.
“My name is Carrie, pleasure to meet you!”, the green tailed girl said.
“Well, it’s a great pleasure to meet you both. I’m sure you two would be wonderful mermaids.”, Emma said.
The three mermaids happily chatted. But approaching behind them was a woman in her early 50s. She had greying hair, bags under her eyes, wrinkles all over her body, a tired expression on her face and a bag filled with items that had the belongings of her children.
When the woman came close, she was spotted by all three mermaids. Ashley and Carrie looked at the woman in shock and gasped.
“Mom!”, the two girls yelled in a nervous unison. The two terrified girls tried coming up with excuses in her heads, but their tails were pretty much proof to their mother that they weren’t her normal human daughters anymore, and the woman’s horrified face showed it. Emma looked at Ashley and Carrie in sympathy, they seem genuinely very worried of explaining their mermaid transformation to their mother, but what made Emma extremely saddened was that it was her fault that she and her friends sang so close to where the beach was. Those poor little girls were just at the wrong place and the wrong time, they had no way of knowing that listening to a song would turn them into creatures that they thought were just a fairy tale.
The woman dropped her bag and covered her face with both of her shaking hands. Emma couldn’t tell if she was crying and raging.
Emma looked to see both Ashley and Carrie with their eyes watering in fear in what will happen next. Emma brought her arms to the two girl’s shoulders to bring emotional support for them.
The woman was quietly mumbling to herself, but Emma could make out the words. “Oh dear God please no… no… no…. It's already bad enough that my husband left me and is taking away my girls, but now my daughters aren’t even human anymore. Oh God, the court’s going to kill me. All I wanted was one more vacation with my kids before they’re taken away...I...I…”, From her voice, Emma could sense sadness, to the point where it seemed the woman was crying to herself.
Emma was just about to say something when the woman suddenly collapsed in front of her.
“Mom!”, the two girls cried out. Ashley and Carrie both dragged themselves to their mother, with their fishy lower halves were an unfortunate liability on land.
“Madame, are you okay?!”, Emma asked. Her brain had trouble processing this, her mermaid experience was never this stressful up to this point.
“Mom, what’s happening to you? Oh no, please don’t cry.”, Ashley said in panic.
“Please Mom, please be okay. I know that what happened to Dad broke your heart, but please don’t let our change hurt you further.”, Carrie said with tears streaming her face.
The woman said nothing, she simply turned her back on her daughters and curled in a fetal position. The only sounds that she emitted were moans of pain.
Her daughters dragged themselves closer to their mother and stroked their mother’s back in hopes of easing her pain.
“Mom, we love you. I know you’re going through a rough time, but Carrie and I will always support you. Please don’t let the fact that we’re both mermaids change that.”, Ashley said as her voice cracked through her tears.
Not too soon after, the pained moaning from the woman stopped moaning.
“You...you really mean it? You two still genuinely love me?”, said an unfamiliar voice. The voice sounded very young and seemed to come from where the woman was sitting.
Emma, Ashley and Carrie were all caught off guard due to how young and melodic the mother’s voice was, but Carrie had the courage to speak.
“Yeah Mom, you’re amazing. You’ve done so much for the two of us and we couldn’t be any happier. We love you!”
The woman got up from her fetal position, with her back seemingly looking a bit different, her skin seemed more vibrant, bright and smooth now. The woman turned her head around, revealing a beautiful face that was crowned by strawberry blonde hair. Soon, she revealed a pair of large and healthy breasts that were covered by a pair of blue green seashells. The woman then revealed a long and beautiful blue and green tail that glistened under the sun, which was located under the woman’s midriff. The beautiful mermaid woman was supposed to be in her 50s, yet she looks to be in her mid 20s.
Ashley and Carried were amazed at the sight of their mother. Not only is she much younger than her wrinkled old self she was a few moments ago, but there also one thing that’s now impossible to miss, she was a mermaid!
The woman emitted a warm giggle at the expressions of her daughters. After the giggle, she opened her mouth to finally talk without fear, “I love you too, girls, dearly. Thank you for making me feel loved again, I can’t ever repay you two enough. Also, you don’t have to worry about explaining your transformations into a mermaid in front of me, I’m one too.”, The woman winked.
She opened her arms to Ashley and Carrie and the girls happily jumped to hug their reborn mother. Emma was so happy at the sight, it was the most heartwarming thing she seen all day.
After the long hug, the mother gently put her kids on the beach’s water.
“Feel free to explore the beach’s ocean, I’ll join you shortly...”, The mother said.
“Wait, are we really living in the sea now?”, Ashley questioned.
“Yup, the sea is now our home, I want you both to love it!”, Her mother replied.
The two girls cheered in happiness and enthusiastically dove down into the water with a graceful flick of their cute tails.
The mother turned to face Emma.
“Thank you, child. You helped my girls and I have a brand new start in life. My life on land was filled with divorce toxicity and fear, but now I can start over. I can’t thank you enough for this.”, The mother said.
“You’re very much welcome, madame. I hope you love being a mermaid as much as I do!”, Emma replied.
The mother giggled, “My name is Marina, not ‘madame’, I’m not that old, yet!”, Marina said as she winked.
Emma nodded and Marina then happily jumped into the water to join with her daughters into the ocean.
After looking at Marina and her children swim into the sunset, Emma later dove into the water to reunite with her fellow mermaid friends and she has one heck of a story to tell to her pals!