The Dominant Species

I was meeting Alastair again.

My pulse quickened, like it usually does.

For a second I felt the sadness I always felt whenever I remembered that we couldn’t be together.

Then, I remembered our solution. It was a long shot, but it might work. Luckily, we were royalty, so we were in a position to do something about the law.

When Alastair came I pushed all of the negative thoughts away.

I was already working on changing the law, but this would take a long time.

For now, I’m going to be happy that I’m with Alastair.

If you could feel the bliss I felt every time I saw him.

I swam to him and we embraced.

“I can’t stay long because my responsibilities need me,” I told him.

We kissed.

“Have you found someone to teach you how to use your magic in combat?” Alastair asked.

“Yes. Have you?”

“Yes.”

“I’m scared,” I admitted.

“Me too.”

“And that’s nowhere near as scared as we’re going to be when we actually hunt down the creatures.”

“We’ll have trained by then,” Alastair pointed out. “And we wouldn’t be alone.”

I held Alastair and tried to let his comfort take away as much of my fear as possible. A few minutes later, we started practicing acrobats.

“Did you know that my friends have finally figured out what they want to do with the rest of their lives?” Alastair asked, teasing. “What is that?”

“They want to help animals.”

“How?”

“They want to build places to take them in when they are injured or sick. They want to heal them. And help them find food when they can’t.”

“Lots of people like to help animals,” I pointed out.

“I think that is wonderful.”

“Me too. You said you liked animals.”

“Yes, I’ve been building a place like that for them in my kingdom too,” Alastair said. “I’ve been working on a place like that myself,” I announced.

Alastair looked at me with love and respect.

He kissed me.

“I want to tell you something,” I said when we broke apart.

We sat down, holding hands.

“I’ve been practicing a new spell,” I began.

“What spell?”

I decided I should tell him because I wanted him to know everything about me. He would make me feel safe. There should be someone I hide nothing from. No secrets. I wanted to have nothing to worry about. And this is the one thing in my life that Alastair didn’t know about. Actually, no one knew about it.

“It’s a spell no one has tried before,” I continued.

“Because it’s different or because it’s powerful?”

“Because it’s powerful and different.”

“Do you really think there’s a spell no one has tried before? I mean, there have been so many of us for millions of years.”

“I did some research and I don’t think it has ever happened before. Besides, there will always be people who try to do better than the ones before them.” “And for a long time merpeople were too primitive to try to be better.” “Exactly.”

“What gave you the idea to try that spell?”

“Remember how I told you I want to feel special?”

“Yeah, but you are special.”

I kissed him.

“But I don’t feel it,” I argued. “Besides, it’s not just that.”

“Magic is one of your passions,” Alastair said, understanding.

“Yes.”

“What does this spell do?”

I told him and he encouraged me to keep practicing. I was going to anyway, but I felt good that he was supportive. I liked that I wasn’t hiding things from him anymore.