Fantasy Tales Series: Rise of The Merfolk

Chapter Twelve~ Edited

'I can tell she's a Mermaid because of all the ruins and ancient jewels she carries. Westerners are also huge hoarders, although most Merfolk are attracted to shiny things. Like I haven't seen a deep-sea orb in twenty years.' Cora picked up a small translucent sphere. She became entranced by it for a moment. I admit I also almost  got lost in its magnificence for a minute. The light reflected off of it creating an array of colours on the surface of the orb. If I could find treasures like that in the ocean than I would be one happy Mermaid. Cora placed it back down and moved to one of the silver goblets on display. 'This one as well. I'll bet you my treasure trove that this was retrieved from a shipwreck.' 

I peered at it but the goblet just looked ordinary to me. 'How can you tell?' 

'After living an entire life around shipwrecks you get to know which treasures are worth restoring and keeping. This looks like it was from the seventeenth century.' 

'Woah.' That was amazing. What else in this shop was historical evidence?

I stopped in my tracks and took out my necklace. A sudden thought had popped into my head. 'Wait, so this is real then! Like this is the actual stone that powered the actual tridents and not just a rip off she gave me?' Up until now I had been on the fence about whether or not I believed it was the real deal. This was conformation. I was holding ancient history in the palm of my hand. 'I thought she  just copied the design from the legend and then used the fake history to sell it to people! She gave me mine for free but I thought it was promotion for her store.' 

Cora's face went pale as she looked at it. She raced over to me and examined it. 'How did I not notice it before! Where on earth did you find this!? I'm such an idiot I should have noticed.' The stone seemed to shine for a second. Almost as if it knew it held a scary amount of powerful magic.

'Here! In this shop! I think it was what triggered my transformation.It was after she gave it to me that all my changes started to come out!' Our voices had been raised from a hush whisper to a loud exhilarated squeal.

'Aqua that's amazing! Why didn't you say so!' She laughed. 'We have to get this back to the Mermaid council!'

'If it's that ancient anybody could steal it for money. That's why I didn't say anything to you.' I confessed. I didn't mention that another reason I hadn't told her was out of fear she couldn't be trusted. I was warming up to Cora.

Cora studied my expression, like she knew I was lying about all my reasons for not telling her before nodding in approval. 'Smart thinking. She must have given it to you for safe keeping then.' I got the vibe that Cora saw through my lies easily. 'She was right of course, keeping it with a younger Mermaid who can protect it is better than leaving it in a glass case in a shop.' 

'How could she have known that I would be a safe place to keep-,'

'She's an oracle! Have you not been following along?' Cora laughed slightly to take the sting out of her words but it was true- I needed to stop asking how and start accepting. Magic was real. Time for me to wake up. At the same time I was also slightly miffed. I was new to all this and I should be allowed to ask stupid questions if I wanted too.

'I was wondering how long it would take you to figure it out.' A soft and gentle voice interrupted. 'Not as long as I thought- excellent job.' 

We both whirled around and stared at the newcomer. It was her- the old psychic. The person whose home we had just tarnished. the woman didn't look like she minded our rude manners. Sophia would have scolded me and told me to send her flowers as a proper apology. I resisted the urge to smile. She was dressed in a long black gown covered in bunches of different coloured flowers. Glasses hung around her neck and her tight bun held all of her grey hair perfectly. She was so elegant, I could only hope to be as neatly put together as her age when I was that old.