The Butterfly Girl: A Star is Born

#14 The Early Bird Gets the... Fish?

[Apollo]

Apollo ended up becoming completely distracted with his computer for quite some time. He hadn't realized that he hadn't got any response from Sophia, and when he finally checked his phone again, he finally decided to go find her. He guessed she was probably at the tree house, sitting outside with her drawings. Apollo walked out into the backyard and looked at the sky. It wasn't late, but it seemed about time to bring Sophia inside before it became too late.

Hopefully she's not wandering off anywhere.

Apollo climbed over the fence and started heading down into the grove. He contemplated what he wanted to eat later, deciding to ask Sophia when he found her to see if she wanted anything different. When Apollo made it to the familiar clearing, he looked around the large tree to see if he could find Sophia sitting anywhere. When he came around, he found that Sophia wasn't up there. And when he climbed up, he found Sophia wasn't inside either. Apollo checked his phone again to see if she had sent him any texts, but became confused when he still saw nothing. He started thinking of other places where Sophia might be.
The waterfall.
She might be at the waterfall. She might've wandered off towards the lake. Perhaps when he didn't respond to her message earlier, she went out to see if he was okay, but by then he was most likely... stuck underwater or they happened to pass each other at the same time just as Apollo was going home. But then, why hadn't she responded to his text? Apollo guessed she may have forgotten to check her phone. It was very likely, as Sophia has a tendency to forget a lot of things. So Apollo headed towards the lake to see for himself. When he made it to the edge of the cliff, he couldn't see Sophia standing anywhere around the waterfall. It didn't look like she had been there.
He quickly flew over to his usual swimming spot to see if she was there looking for him. But instead of seeing Sophia, he saw something thrashing about in the water and he heard a strange muffled sound. The frequent splashing made it hard to see the full picture. Apollo lowered himself down and was surprised to see a figure thrashing about in the water. It looked like... the figure was being attacked by something and couldn't seem to escape.
Apollo didn't hesitate.
He dove down and grabbed the figure's arm and started to pull them up, but they were a little heavier than he thought. He could hardly pull their torso out of the water. The figure kicked and screamed and they finally looked up to see who was trying to pull them out.

"Apollo!"
It was Teri. Apollo recognized her instantly because of her bright green face. As was her hair, but a few shades darker. Teri pulled her other arm out of the water and Apollo pulled one of the slimy creatures off of her, grabbing onto her outstretched hand and dragged her out of the water.
"We need to get out of here!" Apollo shouted. Teri screamed as the writhing creatures were still trying to drag her down. Apollo was able to pull her aside to the tiny beach.
"Watch out! They're coming back!" Teri screamed and Apollo turned around.
Every one of them dove beneath the surface, turned around and launched themselves out of the water, flinging themselves towards Teri and Apollo. Just before they even reached them, Apollo held out one hand and a blazing fury of fire rushed from his palm. Torching all the creatures until there was nothing left but a few burnt pieces of ash on the sand. Teri looked up in shock and stared at Apollo whilst he was trying to catch his breath. The other creatures that stayed behind in the water quickly dove back down beneath the surface and disappeared.

Apollo quickly rushed over to Teri.
"Are you okay? Are you hurt?" he asked.
"No, no... I think I'm okay. I..... um!" Teri suddenly adjusted her position and something waved behind her back. Apollo didn't notice it at first, but suddenly became transfixed by the rest of her appearance. He remembered the first time he saw her face, originally thinking that the lake was what was making her face and hair so green. But now that they were out of the water, he could clearly see... that her face and hair were literally two shades of green. With the way she was sitting, Apollo could only see her upper torso and she seemed to only be wearing a small, teal halter top. There was also something sticking out from both sides of her face where her ears should've been, but Apollo couldn't see what they were because Teri's hair was covering most of them. He couldn't stop staring at her and Teri couldn't meet her eyes.
"... Who are you?" Apollo asked nervously.
"I... I told you, my name's Teri."
"Yeah, I know but..."
Teri looked up, seeing Apollo's confused face and suddenly realizing.
"Ah... I should go. Please don't come back here." Teri started to crawl away on the sand but Apollo reached out a hand and grabbed her wrist.
"No, wait!"
They both stopped and Apollo looked at Teri's hand. Her fingers had some weird webbing between them. As Apollo continued looking upwards, he finally noticed that Teri's eyes were also an unnatural shade of teal.
"What... are you?"
Teri's face was stunned. She couldn't find the words to make a rebuttal.
"Um... I-I... no, what are you? What are those behind your back?"
"What? Oh-oh shit!" Apollo realized his wings had been exposed this whole time and he quickly folded them in as tightly as he could.
"You're... not human?"
"Uh... n-no. Not really. But neither are you." Apollo countered.
"Yeah... I know. I guess neither of us are, huh? Hehe."
Teri began to relax a bit and adjusted her position. Apollo started to relax too and sat in a more comfortable position. With Teri's full body in view, he finally noticed that she was indeed not human. Not in the slightest.
Her hands were webbed, the things on the side of her face were big, pink fins. And what was moving behind Teri's back... was a long, dark green tail and the flailing fins were a bright shade of purple, leading into pink along the ends.
"You're... a mermaid?" Apollo wondered out loud.
"Well... to put it bluntly, yes. And... you're not a human, right?"
Apollo begrudgingly sighed, "To my knowledge, not really. I don't really know, but humans definitely don't have these," Apollo puffed out his wings. "Or these," he pointed to his violet eyes.
"Humans don't have eyes?"
"What? No, no! I mean, they don't have this eye color. It's not a normal color for people to have. At least... I don't think so." Apollo explained.
"Ohhh... what about those then?" Teri pointed out
"My wings?"
"Is that what those are?"
"Yeah. No, those aren't... normal either. At all. No one has wings like these."
With their secrets finally out for both of them, there was no reason to continue hiding their features. Teri's tail playfully flicked back and forth and Apollo relaxed his shoulders as his feathers spread across the sand.
"What about that thing you did earlier? Was that... fire?" Teri asked.
"...What?" Apollo's face went blank.
"The Cardosulks were coming back at us and that... fire came out of your hand and it made them go away. Was that you that did that?"
Apollo wasn't sure if he could reveal that or not. But after thinking about it for a moment, he guessed there wasn't any point in hiding it anymore. Especially since Teri had just witnessed everything he had been trying to hide for pretty much his entire existence.
"Yeah... yeah. That was me. Here, check this out." Apollo held out his arm and Teri leaned forward. Apollo began snapping his fingers a few times and sparks began to fly from his fingertips.
"Sorry, sometimes it doesn't always come out on command."
Teri cocked her head in confusion and curiosity as Apollo concentrated, until a small fire burst from his palm and Teri reeled back.
"Woah! Is that... fire?"
"Hehe, yeah. You've never seen it before? It's okay, it won't hurt you. Well, actually it can but since I can control it, it definitely won't hurt you."
"You can control that?"
Apollo nodded and began to bounce the flame up and down his arm. It rolled up around in his palms and it shrunk to the tips of his own fingers, until he extended the flames upwards, making it taller than a normal candle flame. Teri watched in awe, her eyes growing wide with the reflection of the light in her pupils until Apollo rolled the flame back into his palm and quickly extinguished it by curling his fingers into a fist.
"Wow... you can really do all that?"
"Yeah... but, there is one other thing. Here, look."
Apollo held out his other arm and let it droop. Teri was confused by his posture until she noticed the skin around his fingers beginning to change color, and it was growing up his arm.

His fingers went pale.
His hand turned white.
His arm went cold and something started growing down from his fingertips.
Thin, clear icicles began to drip downwards and the air inside his palm started growing cold and a thin veil of mist started expanding outwards. Soon, Apollo's arm was completely frozen over and tiny snowflakes began to fall from his hand. But they completely melted just before they fell upon the sand.
"I can control fire. And I can make ice. It does whatever I want." Apollo smiled while saying this.
Teri stared intensely at his hand, her face lighting up and the fins on the side of her face twitched gleefully.
"That's amazing! I've never seen anyone who's able to do that. That looks pretty powerful. Were you born with it?" Teri asked. Apollo moved a long strand of hair out of his face nervously.
"I... don't know. I've just sorta... always had this power, I guess? I really don't know. I've just had it for as long as I can remember."
"You don't know where it comes from?"
Apollo shook his head, "I don't know where any of this comes from. I don't know why my eyes or purple or why I even have wings. I like them, I really do. I just don't know why or how I have them."
Teri tilted her head. "Huh..."

As far as Apollo knew, only Sophia knew of his powers. He's never showed it to anyone else, but that didn't make this encounter any less uncomfortable. He hoped he was able to trust Teri enough for her not to tell anyone else. If there was even anyone else around for her to tell.

"Um... what about you? Why are you still out here?" Apollo asked.
"Oh, well... after you left, I was just out here making sure the rest of this area was safe from those creatures that attacked you before. I was... about to head home until you came and saved me. Thanks for that, by the way."
"Yeah, no problem."
"But, I thought you had gone home? Why did you come back?" Teri asked.
"Oh, well I did go home actually. But I'm... looking for my friend. I think she was out here looking for me, but maybe we missed each other or something."
"Miss each other?"
"Yeah, I think she might've come out here as soon as I went back home, but it doesn't look like she's here. I think I might know where she is now, but I haven't heard anything from her yet."
"Do you need some help looking for her?"
"Um, no, it's okay. I think I know where she is. Weren't you about to go home?"
"Oh, well yeah. But it's... not too late. Maybe I can at least-"
"Teri?"
"Huh?"
"What happened to your tail?"
"What?"
Teri whipped her head around to see that her fishy tail had completely vanished, and in its place... was a long purple and pink pleated skirt and two perfect legs that matched the green tone of her skin. Teri turned her whole body around to look at her new appendages. Apollo crawled forward to get a better look at them, very surprised and very confused as to how that even happened.
Teri moved her legs around in the sand and wiggled her feet.
"Wow, that's so strange. I didn't know that's what having those felt like." Teri marveled at herself.
"What the..."
"I didn't even noticed that happened. It felt like nothing."
"Wait, wait... so... you mean this is normal?"
"Oh yes. When... people like me come up on land, our tails can change into legs so we can both swim in water and walk on land. I've never actually done it before, but it's pretty neat right?"
Apollo narrowed his eyes.
"Woah, woah, woah... are you saying there's more like you? And you can just... do this?"
Teri nodded. "Mhmm. You told me all about yourself, so I suppose it's fair that I tell you everything about me since it seems we're not hiding from each other anymore. It's okay, I'm just as surprised as you are."
".....Yeah, okay."
Teri started shifting her weight in the sand, trying to figure out how to use her new legs for the first time.
"Okay, let's see. I'm sure I can figure this out, I think I just..."
Teri tried to pick herself up off of the sand, but couldn't figure out how to keep herself balanced. After a confusing moment or two, Apollo helped her get up on her feet. Though, learning to walk on sand probably wasn't the best way to start and they both ended up falling over each other a couple times. After a few more failed attempts, Apollo thought it'd be best to try on a more stable surface, offering to carry Teri up to the cliffs and walk all the way to where they lived. Teri was excited to try something new, but Apollo was secretly hoping he could kill two birds with one stone and hoped that Sophia was up at the tree house waiting for them before the sun went down.