Klein glanced up at the sky. The sun was already dipping toward the west; if they dallied any longer, they wouldn't arrive before dark.
“Let’s fly,” he said simply. He turned his palm over, and mana already began spreading in a layer beneath his feet.
Ophelia furrowed her brows.
Klein’s body rose off the ground, hovering about two feet in the air. Then, he raised his hand and drew a short rune—wind elements gathered around him, wrapping around his form as his hem and hair were whipped up simultaneously.
“How much mana do you have left?” Ophelia didn’t move. She stood where she was, looking up at him and asking directly.
“With the consumption from these past few days, plus the spell just now...” Klein counted on his fingers. “About thirty percent? Forty? Anyway, it’s not less than half.”
“‘Not less than half’ is what you say.”
“It really isn't.” Klein looked down at her and raised his right hand. “I swear.”
Ophelia stared at him for two seconds.
She didn't speak during those two seconds; she only observed the color of his face, the area under his eyes, and the blood in his lips.
Klein’s complexion was normal. He wasn't pale, he wasn't breaking out in a cold sweat, and there was none of that dark bruising under the eyes that typically follows overexertion.
She withdrew her gaze.
“Once we arrive, you rest first.”
“Fine.”
“I’m not being polite.”
“I know. I’ll actually rest.” Klein nodded, his attitude incredibly cooperative.
Ophelia said no more. She drove her battle qi down through her feet and leaped into the air with crisp efficiency. Her ascent was completely different from Klein’s—there was no spell foundation, no elemental assistance; it was purely battle qi overcoming gravity itself.
Klein saw it clearly, but no one knew what he was thinking.
The two of them paused for a moment, side-by-side in the air.
Klein tilted his head toward her, his hair blown into a mess by the wind, but he flashed a smile. “Shall we?”
Ophelia gave a grunt of affirmation.
Two silhouettes swept out over the pier, one after the other, rapidly pulling away along the coastline. The sea below was covered in a layer of shattered gold by the sunset, and the distant reefs looked like black teeth poking out from the waves before being left behind. The wind rushed into their collars, carrying a salty, fishy moisture and the warmth of the sun.
Klein flew half a body length ahead. Suddenly, he turned his head and said something to Ophelia.
The wind was too strong, tearing half the sound away.
Ophelia tilted her head—not much, just enough to point her ear in his direction.
Klein said it again.
This time, she heard him clearly. She pressed her lips together to keep them from curling upward, but the slight arch of her brow was impossible to hide. She didn't reply; she simply increased her speed slightly, catching up from half a body length behind until she was level with him.
Their shadows were cast upon the sea, one on the left and one on the right, swaying and stretching as they were pulled long and then shortened by the crests of the waves.
Below, that floating mass of seawater followed steadily.
Aphros lay against the edge of the water bubble, her chin resting on her crossed arms, her head turning left and right following their conversation. Her grayish-green eyes watched Klein and then Ophelia, observing them very seriously.
Aphros tilted her head.
A sentence suddenly popped into her mind. This sentence didn't belong to her own experience—she had only been born a short while ago and had no experience to speak of.
But the sentence appeared anyway, carrying a strange sense of certainty.
Such a lovey-dovey couple.
Aphros blinked.
She wasn't quite sure where the word “couple” had come from, nor was she sure exactly what feeling “lovey-dovey” referred to. But she was very certain she had used them correctly—those were the words; no others were more fitting.
She wrinkled her nose, buried her face in her arms, and flicked her tail at the bottom of the water bubble.
The water's surface rippled twice.
After a few breaths, she couldn't help but look up again for a peek.
The two were still like that. One speaking, the other tilting her head to listen.
Except this time, Ophelia’s hair was blown up by the wind, and a strand of it brushed across Klein’s shoulder.
Aphros buried her face again.
I don't get it.
She shook her head, her fish tail curling up to hug herself as she decided to stop watching.
...
Time moved to the present.
Aphros had already settled into the pool.
The pool wasn't large, but it was enough for her to stretch her tail. The walls were made of stone, and the bottom was covered in a layer of fine sand—Klein had done that, saying he was afraid she’d find the stone too hard.
Then, the two of them had left.
Aphros had stared at their retreating backs for a long time.
Now, she rolled over, belly up, and stared at the sky above for a while.
Boring.
Truly boring.
She rolled back over, buried her face in the water, puffed out her cheeks, and blew a string of bubbles. The bubbles floated up—pop, pop, pop—bursting one after another. She reached out a finger to poke the last one—the moment her fingertip touched the bubble's wall, the round, swollen thing exploded in front of her eyes, splashing water all over the tip of her nose.
No fun.
Her tail slapped the bottom of the pool, sending up a spray of water that dampened the stone slabs on the edge. She rested her chin on the back of her hands, her grayish-green eyes darting around as she stared at a bug that had crawled in from somewhere in the corner for a long time.
The bug slowly crawled in an arc, rounded a crack in the stone, and disappeared.
She stared at the spot where the bug had vanished for a few more breaths, as if waiting for it to crawl back out.
It didn't.
She let out a sigh, her chin slipping off her hands as her entire face submerged into the water, sinking back to the bottom of the pool. Bubbles emerged from the corner of her mouth, drifting upward intermittently.
And then—
A voice.
It wasn't heard with the ears.
The voice appeared directly in her mind, without direction or distance; it simply emerged out of nowhere.
Aphros wasn't surprised.
She didn't even look up.
She simply stopped breathing. The last bubble at the corner of her mouth hung there for a moment before slowly detaching and wobbling toward the surface.
She stayed quietly at the bottom of the water. After a few breaths, she finally spoke slowly.
“You say you are the sea.”
The tip of her tail hooked in the water and then released.
“And my mother, too.”
She wrinkled her nose.
“...That’s not right.”
The water's surface rippled slightly.
“A mermaid’s mother—” she raised a finger and tapped the water below, her tone very serious, “should be a mermaid, no matter how you think about it, right?”
The voice seemed to say something else.
Aphros tilted her head.
“Taking a step back, even if that’s not it, she should at least be a person, or... a fish.” Her finger retracted, clenching into a fist that she pressed under her chin. “You are neither human nor fish. You say you are the sea? How can the sea be a mother?”
The bottom of the pool was silent for a moment.
The voice didn't stop; it kept speaking.
Aphros’s expression shifted—not with fear or resistance, but with the kind of softening that comes after being repeatedly persuaded. Her brows knitted together and then relaxed.
“You say I am different?”
She fell silent for a few breaths. The tip of her tail traced a circle in the water, moving very slowly.
“Fine, fine.” Her tail flicked. “I’ll believe you for now.”
Silence returned for a while.
This silence was much longer than the previous ones. There was nothing unusual about the pool water; light shone in, casting a patch of shattered gold on the bottom. Aphros lay at the bottom, her finger unconsciously drawing circles in the sand.
She drew one and wiped it away. Then she drew another.
Halfway through the second circle, her finger stopped.
She didn't stop of her own accord.
It was because the voice had said something else—a very long passage.
Aphros’s grayish-green eyes were downcast, her eyelashes motionless beneath the water, as if she were listening with extreme focus.
Then, she stopped.
“So.”
Her voice was very soft, so soft it didn't even cause a ripple on the water's surface.
“What exactly do you want from me?”
The light and shadows in the pool suddenly darkened for an instant.
Just an instant.
It was so fast that Aphros herself wasn't sure if she had just blinked.
But the sand beneath her finger—she looked down.
The circle she had just been drawing had turned into a symbol she had never seen before at some point.
She hadn't drawn this.
Aphros’s finger hovered above the sand, motionless.
The pool water remained calm. The light and shadows returned to normal. Nothing had changed.
Except for that symbol, resting quietly in the fine sand, as if it had been there all along.
Rate on N.U.
