Poseidon || KTH

~6~

Taehyung couldn't understand how the Queen had stayed away from the water for so long - especially at such a distance. He hadn't even been out of the ocean for a full day and his legs were itchy and restless.

Larissa paused with her fork halfway to her mouth and smiled, "That antsy huh?"

He grunted in reply, his blunt fingernails raking uselessly over his jean clad legs.

"Well I suppose I need to go under too," Larissa stood and moved away from the small table in the apartment above her store, "Come on, lets go,"

"I can't," Taehyung said, "If I go in the water The Poseidon will know and I'll be expected to have the Queen or Princess already,"

"It's fine, we aren't going into the ocean," Larissa reached out and grabbed Taehyung's hand, pulling him to his feet. He reluctantly followed her out of her apartment and back inside her shop.

He looked at her with an annoyed expression but she just grinned and pulled him back behind the register into the stock room.

"This building has a basement," She said moving a shelving unit on wheels to reveal another door, "They all do. I brought the basements of five of the buildings and had them all knocked through - with the exception of a few support columns,"

Larissa opened the door and ushered Taehyung inside. At the bottom of the stairs, she flipped a switch and overhead lights snapped on to reveal an indoor pool. There was very little space around the outside but from what he could see, the pool looked clean and incredibly inviting.

"Wow," He said, turning to her, "But I'm not swimming in some human bleach water,"

"It's salt water," Larissa rolled her eyes and pointed to the left where a huge cabinet was set up, "Filters all lead to there, and I teat it frequently. Also, this is where I grow my plants to eat,"

Taehyung began to strip out of his clothes, "You grew that seaweed? How could you afford this? I assumed human money was not easy to come by,"

Larissa grinned as he stepped out of the jeans and hooked his thumb in the boxers, "Human's have this weird thing called sugar daddies. Basically this guy paid me in exchange of some services... He's a billionaire. Real lucky catch,"

"So you were paid for human sex?" Taehyung dropped his boxers.

"No," Larissa also stripped, "He just wanted pictures of my feet and a few of me in a mermaid costume,"

—-

Thal came awake with a strangled gasp. She was still at her little desk but there was a blanket over her, which meant that her mother had come home.

She stretched, arching over the back of the chair and moaning as all her muscles stretched and then relaxed.

Standing, Thal hung the blanket over the back of the chair and headed out of the room, aiming for the bathroom. The door was closed and the faint sound of gentle splashing came from within.

Her Mother was in the bath. Again.

Thal's mother spent a lot of time in the bath. She had all these weird bottles of bath salts that she claimed relaxed her, but she kept them in her room so Thal couldn't use them. She also bleached the bath after every use so there was no residue of the salt left behind.

It was a strange ritual but everybody had to take comfort in something.

Thal headed back to her room to wait for the bathroom to be free and slumped at her desk.

She had been studying for a while, completely in the zone, but when she fell asleep things became different.

The image of the young man at the beach watching her haunted her dreams. She dreamt that he wasn't human - he was a powerful warrior on a mission from somewhere else and that he dragged her and threw her into the ocean where hands grabbed her and pulled her under the surface.

It was not a pleasant dream and had left her with an unexplainable ache in her chest when she awoke. She had never felt like she was missing anything before, but now it felt like the ache was an empty space in her life.

Shaking her head, Thal stood up. She could smell bleach which meant that her mother had finished in the bathroom.