Nate and his friends were silent as they were led back to the healing chamber, mostly from being tired but also due to the processing of what happened. Nate had a smile on his face as his sister’s kind words of his parents repeated in his head, he was becoming more excited to finally meet his family, and see the home that was taken from him since he was a baby.
“Your sister seems nice,” Rose said, leaning towards her merman. “I expected her to be more snobbish but it seems your parents raised her well.”
Nate nodded, taking his mermaid fiance by his side and rubbing her back.
Sam and others were in a bit of a higher mood. While they aren’t going to guarantee easy positions from Nate’s prince status alone, they were at least content knowing that they had people in high places looking out for them. After all, the main reason why they were celebrating on that yacht in the first place was that they were eager to take on the real world, or at least take up more ambitious work in grad school.
The only difference is now their "real world" will be the world of the merfolk.
With a mixture of yawns and rubbing of eyes, Nate and his friends went to their respective slabs, many of the couples sleeping together for comfort.
Without much commotion, everyone went to sleep, knowing they would be finally leaving the chamber very soon.
-------------
Nate let out a yawn as he stretched his arms and smacked his lips. He turned to see Rose still resting by his chest. Nate took a closer look at Rose’s hands and saw that the engagement ring was on the brink of slipping out due to the finished webbing between her fingers. He looked at his hands to see that his fingers were well-webbed like Rose.
He wondered how merpeople proposed underwater, considering that engagement rings don’t seem to be very compatible with webbed hands.
Nate took a deep breath as he realized something. “The transformations… They’re finishing up.”
He looked down at his upper body to see that he now had a lean build, with muscles more defined than last time. His tail was also filled in with reddish-orange, bright orange, and black scales. Along with that, he now had numerous and developed small fins on his tail that would make it a bit annoying if he tried to roll over on his bed.
Now realizing he was finished, he looked back at Rose. Her hair was a brighter shade of red and with some pink strands included. Nate looked down to see that her tail was now a mix of red and pink. Of course, what had the most of Nate’s attention was her chest. Her chest has finished growing, filling up the size of her red bikini top and more.
He wanted so badly to play with Rose’s chest, along with mating with her in general, but he didn’t want to make a scene in front of the guards, let alone offend Rose, who was still sleeping. On a compromise, he decided to wake up his future wife with little kisses, starting from her chest and ending with a loving kiss on her mouth.
Rose’s body began to move around and she finally woke up giggling from the tickling Nate’s kisses her giving her. “Haha, morning, Nate! You look even more handsome than yesterday.”
Nate chuckled. “Well, my transformation seems to have finished.”
Rose paused and touched her tail, seeing how complete the transformation was. “Wow. I really am a mermaid now.” She whispered, now fully taking in that she was a new species resembling less of a normal human and now more on the side of the fae.
The new mermaid was in awe. She looked at her fingers and frowned when she saw her engagement ring threatening to slip off her hand. “I should talk to Amara about this. I don’t think rings work too well with webbed hands.”
“Whatever the case, I think our vows will mean a lot more than a ring,” Nate said with a smile.
Rose smiled back and it was her turn to kiss Nate. She couldn’t wait until the day she and her merman finally had their own bedroom.
By midmorning, people were starting to gather around for breakfast. As his friends were swimming down, Nate looked at the bodies of his friends, knowing that their transformation would’ve been done by now as well.
Sam’s tail was finally filled in, with it being mostly black but having two thick red stripes on the sides. Taylor’s tail was now fully made up of different shades of yellow, with her golden blonde hair almost glowing from the lighting.
Mike had different shades of green, mostly forest green with lighter shades present to accent the tail and fins. Stacy’s tail was a mix of tans, browns, and some golden colors. Their bodies did go through very subtle transformations. Mike’s had just a bit more definition to the muscle and Stacy seemed slimmer, completing their transformation.
It didn’t take much for Nate to spot the pattern of merfolk anatomy in his friends - The mermen were usually muscular and had strong build while the mermaids usually were slim and had large breasts. Nate found it a bit amusing. While humans on land weren’t too different in their upper bodies, it’s clear that swimming really plays a role in really exercising the bodies of merpeople. He wondered how other merfolk in his kingdom looked.
Amanda seemed to be less mournful but looks like she needs just a bit more time before she could process the loss of her boyfriend. Other than that, her body looked great. Her hair looked full and healthy and her tail had a lovely mix of different purples forming an interesting pattern.
Emiko now resembled what she most likely looked like in Japan before her 15-month long isolation on the island. Her tail was a mix of light rose pink, maroon, and white, which seemed to be part of her tail color rather than being a leftover from the fish that merged with her - The white color even seemed to have a very faint magenta hue.
Nate wondered where Kelly and Kenny were and looked up to see their slab. He could see the outline of two tails flopping around, it didn’t take much for the imagination to see what they were doing. He winced but at least gave credit for the two for having the courtesy to not scream out loud in this situation.
Nate turned his head to look at the royal guards, who were pleased to see him but it was clear they weren’t amused by the lovemaking antics of the two K’s not too long ago.
The gang looked at the table, the usual mixture of fish, other seafood, and coral, and began to dig in. Like last night, everyone was rather silent, processing that they were no longer humans fighting their changes but were now fully merpeople - a mythical species they never would have imagined even existing a few days ago.
The island has claimed them. Now the group wondered what was going to become of them, and what could a new merkingdom offer them in the future.