Unfamiliar Waters [boyxboy]

The Welcome Wagon

"Are you just going to stand there gaping like a fish all day...or are you going to let me get to class?"

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Caldon jumped at the sound and proximity of the voice behind him. He could feel his instincts immediately heighten. It felt like a predator was behind him. He could see the shadow covering  his figure.  His fight or flight instinct had finally kicked in and it looked like it was flight. He spazzed and whipped around to face the stranger and effectively whacked him in the nose with his head. 

"Im just... I was just.. uhhh....apologies!"

With a beat red face, Caldon quickly opened the door and ran inside the school leaving a very stunned student behind. He never even saw his face. You see mer-folk don't like to be startled, anything of that nature can spark a fight or flight mechanism in the individual, to a human, it would just look like a major spazz attack, kind of like what horses do but just less bloody.

He ran through the halls dodging students as he went. In his mind he was thinking about how he really needed to get his instincts under control or this would become unbearable. He was still running absentmindedly, until something caught him by the shirt collar and forced him to a halt and back to reality.

"Woah there dude, no need to be in such a hurry" said a student with a 'Surfer' way of speaking. Caldon had definitely heard this accent before.

The student let go of his shirt and Caldon collapsed on the floor wheezing. He had never exerted his lungs like that before. It really hurt. Why do people choose to live up here? The air felt hot and his chest was aching. He quickly pulled out his large water bottle (filled with salt water of course) and took a large swig of it, careful not to spill any on himself. He could feel the salt slowing  his heart rate and slowly helping to put his body at ease. He took another swig just for good measure.

"That's right, take a chill pill dude" the stranger said extending a hand into his view.

 Caldon glanced up at the person who the voice belonged to and cautiously accepted their hand. Standing up he fixed his shirt, brushed himself off and looked at the stranger. It was a human male with shoulder length platinum blonde hair, held back by a pair of mango colored sunglasses, and dark sun kissed skin. He appeared to be pretty fit with a broad physique that one gets from being active not from just lifting weights. The guy stood at around 5,10. He was wearing a pair of blue and white flower printed swim trunks and a Sublime band T-shirt with some simple flip flops.

The stranger shoos away some random onlookers and looks to the random kid to access the damage.

He stared at the kid before a look of realization crossed his face. "Hey!! You must be that transfer student! Wow man, good thing you ran into me .. Ha ha... I completely forgot you were coming today" he said excitedly with a goofy smile stretching across his face while scratching his head. He looked a little dopey but in that cute kind of way.

"Im your welcome wagon! The names Ethan. Now what was I supposed to do....oh yeah... why don't we go to the office so you can get your crap" he said a little too loudly for Caldons sensitive ears (sound travels differently underwater).

 Caldon flinched at the loud voice."Uh certainly?"  He answered meekly not really understanding what he was talking about. The new idioms he was learning were really blowing his mind. It was like a completely different language than the english he was introduced to. Ethan smiled and grabbed his arm led him down the hallway humming a song under his breath. While walking Caldon began to think about what was just said.

"Um.. excuse me? What is 'crap'" he said with a voice filled with curiosity.

Ethan snorted and let out a loud laugh "Bro, haha, are you serious?! " he said glancing behind him giving Caldon amused smirk. His smirk slowly fell as he saw that the new kid was indeed serious.  Remembering that the kid was probably foreign or something. He softened his features and decided to educate the poor kid "Oh. Well..its like a term for stuff, err things. In this case it's your schedule and other school forms"

"Oh that makes sense! Thanks" Caldon said with a smile making a mental note of the word.'Crap... it had a nice ring to it'

 He was now wondering why he was called brother. He was certainly not related to Ethan, in any form. Maybe he just looked like his brother and Ethan was confused for a moment. 'Yes, that had to be it' he thought to himself, glad he figured out this little puzzle.  While he was lost in thought they had arrived at the front office.

Caldon stopped in the doorway to observe the room. It was a rather large place, in comparison to the hallway. It had some pretty bland colors, Caldon noticed.Humans really dug bland. There was a lot of cream and burgundy. You would think for a school by the beach the office would be a bit more colorful or at least represent the school colors. He would probably fall asleep in here from lack of visual stimulation. He glanced to the center to see Ethan chatting up the lady behind the front desk who looked like she could give less of a damn to be there. She was a busty woman her late thirties with died blonde hair, a tight fitting pink dress, and ...face paint? or maybe it was war paint. Caldon was slightly puzzled with her appearance. In his culture such facial adornments would only be worn in times of strife or a cultural celebration.  Ethan was paying her quite a lot of attention but she seemed to have little patience for the blonde guy. The lady, Mrs. Roberts, rolled her eyes and quickly gathered the pile for the transfer student and handed them to Caldon.

"Will that be all Mr. Muirgen?" she said butchering the name with absolutely no enthusiasm in her voice. She was hoping to get the students out so she could go back to playing her card game on the glowing device in her hand.

"Um , Yes, Mrs. Roberts, Thank you for the crap!" he said with a polite smile accepting the papers and walking back out into the hall.  She rolled her eyes and went back to her phone. Ethan snorted and let out a chuckle patting Caldon the back as he walked through the office door.

"Dude that was gnarley!" he said with a goofy grin.

"Oh! I am sorry!" Caldon said with a worried look, he didn't want to offend Ethan, who very well could be his first human acquaintance.

Ethan chuckled " No, gnarley means cool or awesome, like,you're a pretty gnarley dude."

"um...Thanks!" Caldon said with a goofy grin of his own. Ethan grabbed his schedule out of the mini stack of papers and looked at it for a second. "It also looks like you get to be my late pass to English lit" he said while pulling Caldon down another hallway  "I'll give you a tour of the place during our free period, I cant be too late to class again or else the teacher will bite my head off. I swear that woman is a shark or something" Ethan said with a grumble as they reached their destination. Caldon paled slightly ' a cannibalistic shark lady lies behind this door of English lit...I don't want to die before lunch?!' he thought as Ethan made a move for the door.

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Welp heres the second chapter. Sorry for the super long wait. Please leave some thoughts or comments!  Ill probably edit this soon and add some stuff. Im not super pleased with the length :P

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So again this has been re-edited. I kind of cheated with his last name. Its irish meaning "born of the sea". I figure  since it was vikings who settled iceland in the first place, they also took female slaves(from ireland) from the British isles to settle their as well. So it still kind of works. Fun fact! these women brought literacy with them and could have been some of the first Saga writers.