𝕻𝖔𝖊𝖙𝖊𝖘𝖘 - (Wilbur)

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟕

Upon spending most of her night silently humming the song Wilbur had written, she was expecting to return the paper the next day. But her moment in the forest with him was short-lived as he threw the familiar cloak onto her head and picked her up merrily, she yelped as he took her past the forest in a new direction before setting her down a distance away and urging her to follow him. She did as told and for a while, grew nervous that something bad may happen. Though she put it past her, it was somewhere she had never been as there was only a large expanse of grass to be seen. Then eventually, pale yellow dirt. She put her feet in it as Wilbur urged her to and she was surprised by how unsupported and grainy it was. It felt nice and soft for her, as she stepped further away from the grass and onto what Wilbur said was sand. The known sound of water making an impact with something was heard and in such a rhythmic pattern, Inka looked around for it and found the source.

The largest body of water she had seen, so large she couldn't see the ends of it, so large she didn't know where to properly begin. Wilbur sat down within the sand and let Inka kick around for a while before he took off her cloak, "welcome to the beach, Inka!" Wilbur laughed and folded up the brown fabric. She didn't realise how warm she felt until it was off, the day was far better than the other few days, light rain and clouds. But it was warm throughout and Inka didn't mind.

She picked up shells in the sand and asked Wilbur what they were, he seemed more surprised that she didn't know than she did being there. But she found them pretty enough to collect for Sally. Glistening orange ones and creamy pinks with stripes. Sharper ones with pointed ends and ones that looked like danse, some came matching and others came broken but all of them were so beautiful in their own right.

Wilbur began playing his guitar, while she began dancing, he laughed as she happily spun in her new area and as a pair, both sang the song they learnt the day before. It was an enjoyable experience, where the smell of the water stung her nose and the water was stronger than she had ever felt. Naiads called it the ocean, where merlings lived. She kicked across the wet sand and felt the water try and pulled her into the ocean on its course back to the mass of its home, she found it was called a riptide and they could be dangerous, so she kept her distance.

With some persuasion, Inka managed to get Wilbur to roll up the legs of his trousers and kick off his shoes, making his way to her. That was where she tried building something in the sand, finding it easily moulded when slightly wet. Wilbur helped and they made something remotely close to a structure, which Wilbur laughed at as Inka sacrificed some shells reluctantly to simulate features he would stick in. Naiads were so lucky to be able to live where the diversity was so broad. But Inka wouldn't have traded it for any amount of value. Her beloved forest and green shrubbery held no amount of monetary value nor did it hold any less biodiversity to the beach, which felt barren with the vast emptiness of sand. She daydreamed close to the ocean while Wilbur went back to where his shoes were. Soon after, she went on a search.

Wilbur ate and watched her as she danced around the coast in search of something, she was a sight to see when she was enjoying herself. And she was, she wanted to meet a merman so badly at the realisation that was where they were. And as Wilbur strummed into the air for the clouds above to listen to and waves to dictate so delicately, she saw one. Excitedly, she stepped closer and fell to her hands and knees, looking at the moving figure while Wilbur strummed and watched her, thinking of a range of new songs to write about with the new scenery. A part of him wanted to do it more often, take Inka to new places and see how she inspired him.

She reached out into the water like a child and the movement vanished. She sighed until she saw another glisten in the water, stealthily and a fair distance away. Much to her disappointment however, what she thought was a merling was actually a fish minding itself. Seaweed washed up beside her and as she hugged her knees in slight disappointment, she picked up the waxy, thick plant. She wondered if nymphs could become seaweed would that be the transformative product of a naiad and a nymph? It was an underwater plant. Minus the impossible chances of a naiad (all women) and a nymph (also all women in species) being able to procreate, would the product be both, where the child could turn into a sea plant? A more appropriate and "possible" circumstance was a merling with a nymph - still impossible considering merlings didn't reproduce the same way nymphs did, merlings reproduced like fish. Another variant could have been a nymph as a plant being fertilised by a sea plant, but they didn't hold pollen, so it was still upsettingly impossible.