Sink Or Swim

Willow T.

TWO DAYS LATER

Lynne and I just slept over at Coco's house. It was really fun, but now I had to work again.

I just got back from Coco's house. I quickly dropped off Lynne's bag in my room. Lynne had one of the best reactions of this whole 'mermaid' thing out of all halflings I've Collected. Collection is one my jobs here, besides managing my store. Usually I only have one Collection to do per day, but today was a special day. I had one more halfling to go. Her name was Kalissa. Her dad and mom are both halflings, but she mostly got the human part of each of them. Nonetheless, it was my job to get her here, with or without free will.

My store, PearlPub, was a store for enchanted pearls and stones. These magical pebbles had the power to make one invisible, turn blue, small, tall, you name it.  They also come in a variety of bombs: ink bombs, light bombs, waterfire bombs, and glitter bombs. All you had to do was say the words inscribed on the pebble. They were handy in any situation. 

The craft of enchantment was a family secret. Enchanting was a type of magic that is very powerful. It takes years of practice to successfully enchant an object. An enchanter can manipulate anything to do what he or she wants. However, in Aperanta, it is illegal to use enchantment with the intention to hurt others. I have a license to make bombs, but they could only be sold to those who are full citizens of Aperanta. 

 The store itself was passed to me, after many generations of enchantment. My sister Daphne, and I were learning how to enchant. However, only I had the skill for it. I'm the main enchanter at PearlPub.

But the law never directly stated that you cannot make a form changer. For this particular Collection, I enchanted a pebble to make the user turn into the opposite form. If you were a mermaid, you would turn into a human, and vice versa. I had a feeling it would be quite useful for Kalissa, who probably wouldn't know how to shift. Daphne would have agreed with me if she were here. 

Speaking of Daphne, she was a year younger than me. She was very skinny, skinnier than Lynne. She had brown hair in a slightly lighter shade than my dark oak hair. We both had wavy hair. We looked alike, but our personalities differed greatly. She was outgoing and loud, while I kept to myself. Besides being an extrovert, she also was a Siren. She had the natural talent of singing, and loved doing it. She could hypnotize humans and mermaids alike. Her voice was always melodic and sweet like honey.

She was also helping me Collect Kalissa. Since we don't know Kalissa's temperament, we don't know if she would willingly go with us like Lynne did. I didn't meet Kalissa's family to get permission either. 

In other words, we were kidnapping her.

"Daphne?" I whispered. "We have to go." I swam to my sister's room and knocked quietly. No reaction. So I decided to forcefully wake her up with a light bomb. It wouldn't hurt her, just blind her temporally. Once I found it, I set it off next to her and backed out of her bedroom. BAM! There was a bright flash of light, and I heard Daphne mutter tiny curses. I entered the room once again, and a glitter bomb exploded in my face.

"TAKE THAT, BURGLAR!" Daphne shouted. Then she looked up at me. "Oh. Sorry," Daphne smiled awkwardly. "I thought you were a burglar."

"Ugh, now I'll have to deal with this glitter the whole day," I whined. I tried to get the glitter off of me but I know that it's made to stick on for at least a day. After all, I was the one to enchant the pearl to explode with sticky glitter.

"That's what you get for doing that," Daphne smirked. "Besides, now I lost my perfect glitter bomb on you." Daphne didn't look the least bit guilty for making me sparkly for the rest of the day.