In a world where Vampires and Shapeshifters exists, who's to say that other creatures don't exist?
Mermaids tend not to come close to land especially not to beaches, but what happens when a young mermaid gets caught up in the tide and comes to close...
The silence that ensued after the words left Embry's lips was felt like it lasted a life time. The pack and the elders looked worriedly at each other and at Ursula. Sam pushed Emily behind him incase Ursula was to get angry while Paul and Jared moved to be closer to the elders. No one could read the expression on Ursula's face.
"You knew about her this whole time? And you didn't tell me?" There was no rage in Ursula's voice. In fact there was no emotion present anywhere on her face. Embry looked up at the pack and back at her before answering.
"Well.... She had never gone into the water before, and uh. She um. Kept going north toward Canada. I didn't even think about the fact that she might drink mermaids or anything besides human or animal.... All we knew was that she was drinking locals." Embry gripped her hands tightly, "How was I supposed to tell you about her? You didn't know what I was yet, and I didn't know if you knew about Vampires.... If I had ever even thought for one second she might come after you and your pod I would have warned you..." Embry cupped her face in his hands gently and pressed his warm forehead against her cold one, "Ursula I am so sorry, and I will do whatever it takes to make things better with you, help you however I can to get your pod back to being 100%. Please just tell me what I need to do!" Embry had tears pooling at the corners of his eyes at this point. Her facial expression was blank and she hadn't made a sound the entire time he was talking to her. Her eyes seemed far away. Ursula stayed quiet for a moment more and when she spoke her voice was very quiet and slow. She lifted her hands up to cup Embry's face.
"I forgive you." Her thumbs wiped away the tears that had fallen from his eyes. Embry let out a breath of relief and hugged her tightly. "I understand why you didn't tell me. Even if you had there wouldn't have been much I could do besides tell mother and the elders." She turned her attention to the others now, "leeches normally don't bother our kind. We don't taste very good to them. Especially halflings like me. They know we could kill them easily on our territory. She took them by surprise and hit us while we were putting the little ones to hibernate."
"Don't you mean to sleep?" Paul asked confused.
"No, if someone of our kind is born on land, they must come back to the water as soon as possible. The first phase is the most painful, so we try and get all the babies born on land back in at the same time. The sirens of the pod sing the little ones to sleep so they sleep through the transformation. That way they don't feel the pain."
"Do you think she knew when to strike? Maybe she had been watching you guys?" Sam looked at her with pity in his eyes.
"No, she just got lucky. We would have known if she had been watching us. Thankfully we saved all the little ones. We saved most of the parents also. Mother was one of the first to try and stop her from what Flotsam told me." She looked at Embry again, "I need to get those herbs for my pod to help them heal. And we need to go to the food store you spoke of. I'm going to need lots of fish."
"Isn't that like cannibalism? Fish eating fish?" Paul laughed and looked at Jared who just looked at him like he was stupid. "C'mon man that was fuckin funny and it's a valid question!"
"Is it cannibalism for you to eat a dick?" Ursula snapped at him with a glare so intense even Sam wanted to curl up in a ball away from her.
"URSULA-WHATEVER YOU MIDDLE NAME-hey do you have a middle name?" Embry looked at her suddenly curious about that, "NEVERMIND THAT'S BESIDES THE POINT. Where did you learn that kind of language?!?" Ursula just looked around innocently like she didn't hear him. "Well?" He looked at her expectantly.
"You aren't gonna like my answer"
"Ursula I swear to god if you say the sailors."
"It was the sailors."
"No more watching the sailors for you." Her face contorted into a mix of surprise and anger.
"You can't just do that!"
"GUYS! I think there's more important things to do than to bicker about than watching the sailors and her language. Like the fact that there's two gingers watching us through the back window."
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"What??" Everyone unanimously turned around and looked out the window to see a flash of red duck down out of site.
"You idiots can come in now." Ursula glared at the back door while it opened and two tall gangly looking teens with flaming red hair stepped in. Their hair was wet and so were they. They also were holding large leaves in front of their lower regions. Embry looked at them confused.
"Ursula, why do I feel like I know them?"
"Because you do. Something seem off about them? Look really closely at them." And so they did, but after looking at them for a moment or two they started getting headaches and felt the need to look away.
"Jetsam?!? Flotsam?!?" Embry was in shock. He had been able to look at them the longest out of everyone at the table, excluding Ursula. After looking at them for too long they started to almost flicker and for a split second he could see the two eels floating .
"Wow good job. World's greatest guesser award goes to the shittiest imprint. Would you like a cookie?"
"That's definitely Jetsam isn't it?" Jetsam had never been very fond of Embry and made it clear to him that he thought he was beneath Ursula.
"Yup." Ursula was inspecting her nails with a bored look on her face. "I thought I told you guys to stay at the cove?"
"You did" this time it was the other twin who responded, "but bozo over here wanted to make sure you were okay. Even though we would have felt it."
"Wait a minute who are these guys?" Jared finally spoke up after getting over the killer migraine he got looking at them for two long.
"They're your companions, am I right?" Billy Black spoke up for the first time since he arrived.
"You'd be correct, Billy. Flotsam and Jetsam are my eels. Most companions can take a human form also. They just use a bit of magic and boom, they're easily concealable to humans. It's a simple redirection charm they use."
The rest of the evening went by smoothly with Ursula describing what she needed for herbs and how much fish she would need to bring back to the cove. It was decided that the next day they would go looking for the herbs and get the fish and that the following day she would return to the cove and get things sorted out with the cove and that she would return within a week.
Hey guys! I just wanted to clarify a couple things, such as why she forgave him so easily. I had a big choice to make with that scene. I felt like her holding a grudge against him was something that's been overplayed in a lot of stories. Fanfiction and books alike. I also felt like that's something her character would have been able to rationalize in her head especially after Embry explained why he never thought about the possibility of Victoria going after Ursula's family. Also I wanted it to be clear that Ursula isn't the only Halfling in her pod and that it's quiet common for human and mermaids to have children together especially between imprints. The next chapter is going to take place about three weeks later so two weeks after returning to her pod and everything that happens there will be explained also.
