Lindsay didn’t know what to say or even what to do, being alone with your crush was hard enough add to that both of you had become merpeople and we now camping out in the remains of Atlantis. The only things going in her favor is that Oscar didn’t seem to know what to talk about either and that everyone else seemed to fall asleep with some ease.
She scanned the room, the small, crowed sand covered room, the geothermal vent which cooked their fish provided warmth, but it was getting colder. Already Barbara and Stacy where snuggling together face to face, Stacy’s head in the crock of Barbara’s neck due to their height differences each providing warmth for the other. Nearby Elizabeth had her back up to James as he wrapped her up from behind their tales wrapped around each other. Ebrah had a blanket of some kind made from seaweed but it was not large enough to cover more than just herself.
For the longest time no one spoke, and Lindsay tried to look more into the glowing rock which provided a small amount of light and not her currently shirtless crush who was sitting beside her trying to stay warm himself.
“All this because I ran into an old high school friend.” Chuckled Oscar as he looked at James who had his head buried deep into Elizabeth’s hair while they slept.
“Sorry you got dragged into this.” apologized Lindsay
“It’s alright, part of me wanted to get dragged in.” stated Oscar as Lindsay raised an eyebrow but he said no more. “Aside from James I don’t know much about you four and most of all Ebrah and you don’t know much about me.”
“Well, if there is only around a 100 merpeople in this community we will have time to get to know each other.” noted Lindsay as she looked around again at the remains of the room, the fallen and broken columns and the closed doors which lead out to the remains of an abounded city.
“Never thought I would live out a D&D game.” Lindsay whispered to herself as Oscar looked at her.
“You play D&D?” inquired Oscar as Lindsay blushed a bit, worried that he would see her as a big nerd.
“Yes.” Confirmed Lindsay
“Roll a perception check, you are on watch.” Laughed Oscar as Lindsay looked at him confused.
“You play?” inquired Lindsay as Oscar laughed an nodded his head. “What your character like?”
“I don’t have one, I am always stuck as the Dungeon Master with my friends.” Explained Oscar “What your character is like.”
What followed was kind of relaxing as the two of them just talked about stuff that happened in their games. Lindsay felt much more relax around Oscar and as time went on finally the watch beeped marking the end of their watch.
“Well, that was better than I thought.” Stated Lindsay as Oscar nodded his head before looking at the sleeping Barbara and Stacy.
“Time to get them up and get some sleep ourselves.” Said Oscar as Lindsay swam up and over the only source of light and heat in the room. It took a little bit of time to wake her sister and her girlfriend up but in time they where up and she was lying down on the sand as close to the geothermal vent as possible trying to stay warm.
When she woke up, a small fish was swimming by her nose, and she thought she was dreaming as she looked across sand covered ground to her now mermaid sister. Then she remembered the events of the day before, she was now a mermaid. She tried to sit up only to find an arm wrapped around her an arm that was not hers. When she saw the green membrane between the fingers, she knew who the arm belong to and her blush got even deeper as she turned her head to see Oscar’s face inches from her, what was worse was judging by her position she had moved toward Oscar while they slept not the other way around.
“My God.” Whispered Lindsay as she looked around, her sister was still asleep and so was Stacy, Elizabeth and James where awake and talking to each other quietly and Ebrha as stretching like she had just woken up.
Slowly and carefully, she untangled herself from Oscars embraced about what happened, maybe it was everything going on or maybe it was the fact that Elizabeth and James could see her embarrassment on her face that prevented them from saying anything.
“Alright we should be good.” Announced Ebrha as she opened one of the doors and they went back onto the street which only yesterday had a killer machine monster on it. The orb on top of the pyramid was glowing in a way which reminded them of sunlight around 8 or 9 in the morning. In the distance they could see the same machine was lowering itself down among the buildings on the royal campus. “Good, it’s going back to recharge so the others must be back in their docks as well.”
“Wait…they charge like they run on batteries?” inquired Barbara
“Yes, and before you ask we have attacked their charging stations in the past and lost a lot of people that way, including my parents.” Stated Ebrha with some sadness in her voice. “We did go down from 20 of those fuckers to 19 but we lost a lot of people destroying the charging for that machine.”
“I see…” said Barbara, she was a fighter and if she was going to spend the rest of her days as mermaid and there was a way to make this place safer, she was going to do it.
They journeyed down another one of the main streets and toward an area of the city which was full of multiple residential areas and one of the smaller markets. As they got closer they noticed that while the buildings where in disrepair they where slightly better. They reached a small barricade in the road, they swam up and as they passed over as a voice came out of a nearby building.
“Ebrha your back early?” said a voice as a merman with dark green and black tail came out of a nearby building. He seamed to be Japanese or maybe Korean and his long black hair was braided back in a pony tail, he wore a green armor over his chest and had a spear in his hands and a crossbow on his back. “Found some new members I see.”
“Morning Haru, ya I got some new fish.” announced Ebrha as Haru looked at the six newcomers, as behind Haru three more merfolk came out, one was a mermaid the other two merman dressed in similar items but different color armor.
“Well, our shift is over, we might as well head back with you.” Said the mermaid, a pink haired mermaid with a pink tail with some yellow in it. Her accent sounded like she was from Sweden or Norway meaning that these stones where transporting people from around the world.
“Thanks, Juni.” thanked Ebrha “Did any of the machines come around last night?”
“One came close enough that we had to sound the alarm to tell people to go into the bunkers but none came over the barricade.” explained Juni as she and Haru joined Ebrha in escorted the new merfolks toward the small community of former humans who now called Atlantis home.