Lir’s legs are teetering when he and Tobias exit the fisherman’s boat and find land once more.

Thankfully, Tobias takes it upon himself to bid the helmsman farewell, for Lir isn’t sure he could simultaneously concentrate on standing still, all the while pretending being Tobias’s nephew and trying not to throw up.

After what feels like an eternity, though is surely only minutes, the fisherman finally takes his leave.

Lir steps back from the shore. He waves his farewells, but regrets it instantly.

He loses balance. He topples over. Yet, the pain of falling does not come. A warm embrace, a worried look from Tobias, is what arrives instead. “Easy there,” his mentor says as he helps him up. “Even people who regularly use their legs have trouble walking on land after long trips out at sea.”

The statement makes Lir frown. “You seem fine though.”

His mentor keeps a firm grasp of Lir’s waist as they scurry further from the ocean and into the woods. “I’ve had my fair share of experience. But trust me,” Tobias chuckles, then meets Lir’s gaze. “It wasn’t always like this. I was terribly seasick the first few times.”

Lir is on the verge of asking Tobias more about his adventures, but the first signs of rain sprinkle their clothes. The light drizzle washes away Lir’s face-paint. The way his dark strands are flattened out next to his eyes makes the yellow in them stand out even more.

As water pelts his skin, pieces of him feel connected to the world around him like never before. It is like Lir is one with the Earth. He shuts his eyes. He cannot pinpoint what it is exactly that causes this, yet the sentiment of being stalked by something beyond his comprehension is also intensified in this very moment. Lir considers telling Tobias about it as they march around a swamp. However, lightning spreads throughout the sky and forces him to pause, and reconsider.

A loud crash follows. It takes everything Lir has within him to resist the urge of covering his ears. He can’t. Not when he is holding on so tightly to Tobias’s clothes, who keeps him upright and steady as they hurry through the storm. The weather’s violence increases with each passing second. When his mentor clears his throat, Lir knows what’ll come next won’t be good news. “I hate to say this,” Tobias blurts, between two heavy huffs, “but I think we might not make it to the inn tonight.”

“It’s fine.” Lir gulps. Is it really fine? Will they even survive this, with the little provisions they’ve packed? “It’s not like I have anything else to do anyway.” He pauses. “Hey, can I ask you something?”

“You already know the answer to that,” although Tobias’s phrase is somewhat of a tease, the way he says it is more fond rather than a taunt.

“Why didn’t you ask the fisherman to drop us off directly at the capital’s port?”

“Ah…” Tobias knits his brows together. “About that…” He glances around for a potential place of refuge. “I know I said we’d be going to Aglia, but the man we want is very secretive. He’s not easy to find. We’ll need a guide.”

Lir cocks his head to the side. Suddenly, he’s a bit dubious about Tobias’s previous plan. “I thought you knew him.”

Tobias nods. “I do,” he says. “However—” The wind lashes out at their faces and slices his phrase in half. Tobias raises his arm before his face. His sleeve resembles the wings of troubled bats. “He often changes the location of his office which, I admit, always leaves me a bit at a loss… though I suppose that is the whole point of him doing so.”

This man Tobias is describing must either be an extremely careful genius, or a very paranoid hermit for bothering with such eccentric measures. Lir raises a brow. “So…” He clears his throat, then coughs—although his new body has gills, it isn’t very great at shielding him from the cold. At least, not yet. “Why would this guide know more than you, if you and this are close enough for him to harbor a Halloran in your name?” he asks Tobias.

Tobias shrugs. “Simply because Gale delivers ingredients to his doorstep every other month.” There is another crash in the sky. His shoulders tense. “If anyone would know, it’s definitely him.” Lir’s mentor stops in his tracks. He takes a deep breath, then points to a cliffside that towers over the forest. “Look,” he says, and if Lir concentrates hard enough, he can vaguely make out the shape of a cave, protruding from its arched rock. Though, Lir is far from convinced this idea is a good one.

“You want to go in there?” Lir cringes. “Really?”

Tobias nudges Lir’s hip with his own. “I’d rather not,” he mutters. “But it’s better than staying out here.”

They don’t talk much after that. It’s dark, and difficult to navigate throughout these woods as the storm continues to howl throughout the night. Lir is persuaded they could run into something, or someone, that could mark the end of their days—the very thought gives him chills.

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Thunder continues to reign among the land. Lir detests the sound, and even if he forces himself to carry on, he still finds himself jumping, always, at each additional blasted quake of the clouds.

In a nearby bush, something growls.

Lir parts his lips to speak, but Tobias hushes him. “Don’t speak,” he whispers. “We’ll have all the time in the world to be afraid once we finally reach shelter.”

Lir obeys. He keeps to himself in silence and nods. For the first time in days, he thinks of Wolf.

It was also raining on the night the young man confessed his feelings to Lir, and it feels like it’s been an eternity since they last stood beneath the market’s tents, listening, to pitter-patter fall. Murmuring sweet nothings, into each other’s ears.

He hopes Wolf is okay.

Lir hopes, that if anything, Wolf hasn’t gotten himself into too much trouble since he disappeared.

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After fighting against slippery slopes and persistent mud-born insects intent on clinging to their boots, Lir and Tobias arrive before the cave. From afar, it had seemed like the entirety of it was only darkness, yet, now that they have taken a step inside, glowing crystals spread out across its walls like the brilliant wings of an eagle.

Lir gasps. “Woah.” His eyes widen at the sight. “What is this place?” He reaches out to touch one of the gems that emanates a soft, pink glow, but Tobias stops him.

“Don’t touch it,” he hisses, as he takes Lir’s wrist between his fingers, before he urges it back down, until Lir’s hand stills, and hangs like a marionette by his side. “You could get hurt… again.”

Again—as the days go on, Lir finds himself slowly growing to loathe the word. “I wasn’t going to,” he mutters. “I was just looking.” Lir wishes he could detach himself from Tobias’s hip. It would be nice to run away—if he could run, and if he weren’t so weak, from throwing up all day, and dying yesterday.

Tobias shoots him an unimpressed glare. Lir can only imagine what it implies. ‘Yeah, sure, you were.’ Or maybe, ‘Stop being a child.’ Perhaps it is even something akin to, ‘I regret coming on this trip with you.’

Lir shakes his head. He pushes the ideas away. There’s no use in thinking about it, for he’ll never know, and he has no plans to ask.

They advance further into the cave. The crystals begin to change in shade. Tobias and Lir turn to face the almost translucent emeralds. They come to a halt once they reach the cave’s middle.

A large body of water is placed right in the center of the path they’d been taking. The liquid barely looks real with how the light around it reflects across its surface, and ripples into a myriad of brilliant hues that merge together in a peculiar dance Lir cannot tear his eyes away from.

However, the sight of a tail swiftly swimming past them makes his heart freeze.

Lir braces himself to say something, to fight, or push Tobias out of the way—yet, to his surprise, it is his mentor who speaks up first as he steps forward and shields Lir’s figure with his body. “Who’s there?” Tobias’s shoulders rise with the tension that washes over them both. Lir’s first reflex is to grab onto the hems of his mentor’s robe and pull him backward. However, before he can do so—before he can ask his mentor if he has lost his mind—the owner of the lucid tail, tinted a faint shade of ivory, surfaces in the shape of a man whose faded, coral skin is covered in a matching set of scales.

“That’s very presumptuous of you,” the man tells them both with a scoff—even though Lir is looking down at him, it feels as if he is the one looking down on them. “You barge into my home!” The merman twirls around himself in the water. “You make a ruckus, and a mess! And then—” He smiles. His attention gravitates toward Lir, before it stops entirely on Tobias’s figure. “Then…” The Halloran frowns. His gaze fills with rancor. “You bring in the trash of the ocean here, a human, and you expect me to make small talk?” He swims away, casually, and turns his back to them, as if Lir and Tobias aren’t a threat, even when he would clearly be outnumbered in a fight.

Lir finds this unnerving. He can’t relax. He can’t reply.

The Halloran comes back up to the surface again. His long, blond strands remind Lir of how algae tends to sway beneath the ocean floor. They touch the edges of the man’s hips, that linger beneath the water. “And you…” The Halloran’s glare falls back onto Lir. “You haven’t gotten your tail yet. Why?” He cocks his head to the side. He yawns, as the tip of his fingers cover half his mouth. “Is it funny to you,” the Halloran asks him, “that you may perish by acting this way?”

Tobias gasps. The sound is a choked one. “Perish?” He steps forward in cold rage. Lir has to hold him back at some point, for his mentor is dangerously close to slipping into the pool. “What are you trying to say?”

“Urgh.” The Halloran cringes. “This is why I hate humans.” He snaps his fingers. Without warning, Tobias falls to the floor like a limp ragdoll, void of life.

Lir cuts his knees open on the stones beneath them when he tries to prevent his mentor from hitting his head against the ground. The Halloran doesn’t seem to care much for his minor injuries, though, for he quickly returns to staring at his nails. “What did you do to him?” Lir shouts, as he tries to shake his mentor awake.

The Halloran waves his question away. “Stop that.” He huffs. “You’re not helping him in any way with your barbaric manners. Just plop him up against the cavern’s wall somewhere and let him have his lovely little nap.”

So, he’s just sleeping then, Lir thinks, with relieved sigh, as he follows the Halloran’s suggestion and presses a hand to his barely beating heart. “Why make him sleep?” it is the first question that leaves his lips. “And what—” Lir bites his lip. His fingers curl into fists as he turns to face the Halloran, who could very well become his enemy in the coming minute, depending on whether or not he suggests they eat Tobias next like in the legends Lir had heard long ago. “What was that all about? What do you mean I’ll die if I don’t get a tail?”

Can Lir actually grow one? How would that even work?

Another smirk takes the Halloran’s lips. He bares his teeth. They are razor sharp, akin to the ones of sharks and deep-sea creatures his mother warned him about as a child.

“I made him sleep because I knew you would have questions, newborn,” he tells Lir. “Ones that can’t be discussed in the presence of his kind.”