📚and then they didn’t get icecream

Arael takes Maria out to the beach, only to meet an unexpected interruption.

Characters: Arael, Maria

Warnings: None

Wordcount: 2,061

Vibe: h2o just add water

idk what else to say other than these two are Sillay

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“What? Chickening out already?”

And so, the game began.

Another night, another tug-of-war between a visiting Arael and Princess Atmariani… though by the affectionate nickname of Maria that Arael had given her, the stakes were never very high on their relationship.

“If I wanted to go to the beach, I could just ask to. It’s not worth it if I add the risk factor to it.” Maria replied with a sigh.

“What, you’re finally admitting your parents don’t like me?” was Arael’s quick rebuttal.

And then, silence.

“I don’t have to admit what we already both know.”

“Whatever! Shut up!” Arael huffed, grabbing one of the many pillows on the couch she was seated on and throwing it to the ground.

“I just thought it’d be, I dunno, fun? The casino there does fireworks shows on Sunday nights.”

“Are you implying you were going to sneak us into a casino? Neither of us could pass as adults, and you know it.”

“No, no! I’m not that reckless, geez! They’re fireworks, we can just watch them from the town, or whatever.”

Maria sighed, and looked to the ground – leaving a long enough pause that Arael just shrugged and headed for the open balcony.

“Your loss!” Arael called out, flexing her clawed arm a bit in preparation to create a wormhole to leave.

“Hey! Wait!”

Maria jolted upwards off of her bed, and ran towards Arael.

“As long as you buy us ice cream.”

“Yeesh, I thought that was a given!” Arael replied, as she regained a smile on her face seeing Maria’s willingness.

Without further words, Arael shot forth the wormhole and took Maria’s hand – and just like that, the two hopped through, just as they’d done time and time before.

And, out on the other side, the two touched down on the soft sand of a beach. It took a moment for Maria’s vision to return to her, but Arael was already looking around.

“Alright, you good?” Arael turned to Maria to ask, seeing as she was done rubbing her eyes.

“Yeah.” Maria nodded.

“Where are we?”

Arael scratched the back of her head, and gestured for Maria to give her a second. Flexing her wings a bit, Arael launched herself into an upwards hover. She looked around a bit, then descended back down.

“I, uh…” Arael started, avoiding making eye contact with Maria – as she could sense Maria wasn’t the most confident.

“I might’ve… overshot the wormhole.”

“By how far?” Maria replied, raising an eyebrow.

“Not too far! It’d only be like… a 15 minute walk to the town?”

“Oh, that’s not too bad, then. The way you were acting had me expecting worse.” Maria sighed.

“Hey, you never know! What if you didn’t feel like walking?”

“Well, I’m glad you were feeling considerate, at least” Maria replied with a smile.

Though Arael was content on heading off as quickly as possible, Maria’s attention drew towards the sky above and the ocean.

“Maria? You comin’?” Arael said, as she felt Maria’s arm tug once she’d walked enough.

“Town’s this way, the more we wait, the more likely the ice cream place you like is gonna be closed…”

“Arael, can you wait for a second? Look!”

Maria pointed to the view on the horizon with starry eyes, while Arael just kind of stared blankly.

“It’s… the sky? Lunaires? The water? What is it?” Arael asked, cocking her head.

“Is that really all you have to say?” Maria responded, elbowing Arael a bit.

“It’s beautiful!”

“Wait, wait, hold on. Have you never… seen this type of thing before?”

“No? I live in a desert, Arael! And the only times I’ve been out here have been during the day, so I’ve never seen views… like this.”

Arael nodded along.

“I guess it would be pretty spectacular seeing it for the first time, then.”

“The water is so clear, too! I bet it’d feel like swimming in the sky to wade in there.” Maria sighed in an awe-struck manner.

“Well, why don’t you, then?” Arael asked, moving in the opposite direction to pull Maria a bit closer to the water.

“Augh-! But…” Maria yelped, firmly tugging her arm back.

“But what?”

“…I don’t know how to swim.”

Arael’s expression became washed with a blank-faced bewilderment.

“Are you serious?”

“Yes! Whenever I come here with family, we usually just stick to the town!” Maria replied defensively.

“What about the palace? Didn’t your mom install a bunch of crazy water features and baths around there?! It’d be crazy if you’d somehow NOT checked those out, you LIVE there!”

“That’s different! Those aren’t even very deep in the first place!”

Arael groaned.

“Well! I guess I’ll teach you, then.”

Arael tried to tug Maria a bit more, but Maria appeared lost in thought, and wouldn’t budge. But, by the time Maria had made up her mind and stopped giving the physical resistance… Arael was mid-pull, and because she was expecting physical resistance she ultimately didn’t get… launched face-first into the water.

Unfortunately for Maria, Arael was physically stronger than her… and so, when Arael took the dive, Maria went down with her.

After she overcame the initial recoil of the fall, Arael went to wipe her eyes and wet hair out of her face. She wanted to get right back up, but was struggling against both the light lapping of the waves, and the fact that Maria had fallen on top of her.

But, Arael had carried Maria before and felt her weight… something felt off.

It wouldn’t be long until she realized, though – because when glancing over past Maria’s face as Maria was trying to rub water out of her eyes, Arael saw… an aquatic tail, one not too different from the type seafolk would have in Arael’s hometown.

The shock led Arael to quickly jolt upwards, out from under Maria to hovering slightly above the waves. But Maria wasn’t done getting her bearings together, and fell face-first into the water now that Arael was no longer a barrier.

Arael watched, as Maria quickly panicked under the water, then… froze and looked around. The water was clear enough that from the height she was at, Arael could clearly see it now, too – somehow, Maria’s faun legs had seemed to have swapped themselves out for an aquatic tail.

Continuing to watch from above, Arael started getting a bit worried – seeing how Maria wasn’t coming back up for air, when logically, she should have by now. So, she descended her hover a bit, and leaned to grab one of Maria’s hands while still hovering just above the waves.

It took a second, but Maria took Arael’s hand, and Arael pulled her top half out from underwater. When Maria came up, she didn’t gasp for air at all.

“What… the heck was that?” Arael asked, her eyes wide with awe.

Maria wanted to answer, but she seemed to be in the same awestruck state that Arael was. At least, until she tried to adjust her position, and became very aware of her tail as well.

Maria screamed upon the realization, and began rapidly splashing her new tail around… getting Arael even more soaked than she already was.

“Hey, hey enough!! I’m already gonna have to send this dress to dry-cleaning!!”

“But! But!! The… the… my legs! Tail?! Why’s this happening?!” Maria said frantically – though her voice did have a slight air of excitement to it.

“Do I look like I know?!” Arael replied, moving to hover by Maria’s side, out of the way of the splashing.

“It’s pretty sick, though.”

“I mean! I’m not saying I don’t think it’s cool!! I’m just really, really confused!”

“I guess, it makes the breathing underwater thing make sense, too… but why this decided to happen now…” Arael said, her voice fading into a mumble as she began to ponder possibilities.

Though, Maria was quick to interrupt Arael’s line of thought.

“Wait, you can’t breathe underwater?”

There was a pause, and Arael had the most completely dumbfounded look on her face.

“WHAT KIND OF QUESTION IS THAT?!” Arael yelled, confused beyond belief.

“You thought being able to breathe underwater was normal?!”

“Yes?? I mean, I’ve never had a frame of outside reference, but I just assumed everyone could do that!!”

Arael let out a deep, deep sigh and rubbed her temples.

“Ok. Ok. This is really weird, but-” Arael started, but her words were cut off.

While a reasonable distance away, they could still be heard loud and clear – the fireworks show that the distant beach-town casino had started.

With the break that the start of the show had given, both Arael and Maria had some time to collect their thoughts.

Slowly, Arael lowered herself back into the water by Maria’s side, and sat down. The water was lukewarm despite it being night, and she was already completely drenched anyways, so she saw no harm in it.

In turn, Maria looked over to Arael.

“But what?” Maria asked, finally picking up where Arael had left off.

“But… I think we can work with this.”

“What do you mean?”

“Like. Ok. Bare with me here.” Arael started.

“This is weird and surprising, but… it’s cool, yeah? Like, this is a cool thing that not everyone can do.”

“Well, I’m glad you think so, at least. After I was worried about it for myself, I was worried you’d think it’s weird.” Maria chuckled.

Arael’s face flushed red briefly, before she quickly gathered her composure again.

“Yeah! But, anyways…” Arael continued.

“It’s kind of like… you know how I can make wormholes, yeah?”

Maria nodded along.

“When I found that out… it was like a whole new world opened up for me! Like, this cool thing I could do could take me anywhere I wanted!”

“And how does gaining a fish tail equate to that?” Maria asked.

“Well, I mean, combined with literally being able to breathe underwater… think about it!” Arael said enthusiastically, gesturing to the sky with her hands.

“The ocean connects to a lot! And you can just… freely explore it or use it as a means of travel! How cool is that?!”

“That does sound nice… but again, Arael, I live in a desert.”

“And there’s a jungle neighboring it, yeah? Doesn’t one of your caretakers live there?”

Maria nodded in response to Arael’s question.

“When you’re staying with that caretaker, or heck, just ask that super lax royal advisor to take you here… you can just say ‘oh, I’m just visiting the water!’ and boom! You can go literally anywhere it reaches!”

“That… does sound nice, yeah…” Maria said with a sigh.

“But… what will my parents or other caretakers think of me running off like that? They’ve already gotten mad whenever they catch me running through wormholes with you, remember?”

“So what?” Arael remarked.

“My parents didn’t like me running through wormholes either! But I just did it anyway, it’s not like they could stop me. And now they just don’t care!”

“Mm…” was all Maria mumbled in response.

“Like, if you want more freedom and rebellion in your life… you gotta do some of it yourself! And this is the perfect avenue for that!”

A pause came from Maria.

At this point, the tide, which was already on its way out, had gone out enough so the two were no longer partially submerged as they watched the fireworks amidst their conversation.

“That… makes sense, actually.” Maria said, having finally thought on long enough.

“I guess… this is the chance I’ve been waiting for, now that I know about it. Thank you, Arael.”

Maria faced Arael with a warm smile, a move that caused Arael to get a bit flustered.

“Geez, I really didn’t do much, anyways!”

Maria chuckled a bit in response.

“Yeah, sure. I guess I’ll just have to ask for trips to the beach more often now.”

Suddenly, in a slightly sparkly flash, Maria’s recently gained tail reverted itself to her hooved legs once more.

“Oh! Huh. Good to know it… was going to go back. I was a bit worried about that.” Maria remarked.

The final firework went off, and after a short moment of silence afterwards, Arael got up and stretched.

“Well… you think the ice cream place is closed by now?”

Maria just laughed.

“It’s alright! I found something to come here for, anyways.”