#first snippet of the year thats long enough to have a readmore!

[crystalninjaphoenix]

MerMay 2022 Day Twenty-Two Luck and Wishes

It was the middle of the night. Stacy didn’t enjoy being up at this hour—she was much more of a morning person—but when your half-fish husband wakes you up with a magical message about something possibly being wrong, what else could you do but drive down to the nearest beach to check it out?

The main problem was the kids. She wasn’t comfortable leaving them alone at night, but she also couldn’t arrange for a last-minute babysitter. No sitter would answer her calls at this hour, her parents would demand to know what happened for her to leave, and her sister, the only person who knew about Chase and his merm friends, lived too far away. So she ended up waking them and piling them into the car to go with her. Usually, they might protest and say that they’re old enough to stay home alone, but they were excited to see their dad again. She still hadn’t forgotten them sneaking out a month ago.

Stacy had brought a variety of things in preparation for whatever this emergency is, including a first aid kit and her laptop. But as it turned out, she didn’t need anything more than a good flashlight. “It’s just a tag,” she explained, shining the light on the small red circle in Jack’s dorsal fin. “Not a tracker of any kind.”

Jack spun back around to look at her, making a few worried-sounding chirps. “Yeah, are you sure?” Chase asked, translating.

“I’m sure.” Stacy smiled tiredly. “There’d be more to it if there was some sort of tracking device. It would be bigger, with more complicated parts.”

In unison, the two merms relaxed, sinking lower in the water. Chase put his hand on Jack’s shoulder. “See, nothing to worry about,” he said. Jack nudged him and chattered some more. Stacy was pretty sure he was saying something like ‘well it was your idea to call Stacy.’

Muirin and Sereia were sitting on the beach nearby, just close enough to get their feet wet. “Why’d they put a tag on you, anyway?” Muirin asked.

“Yeah!” Sereia nodded. She had her talisman in her hand, turning it over and over.

“Well, scientists who work with fish and other wildlife put tags on, uh...things they want to keep track of,” Stacy said carefully. “So that they can identify them again if they get released into the wild.”

“That’s kind of stupid,” Chase said. “I mean, you’d think they’d remember what the fucking merman they captured looked like.”

“They don’t know that you all look different,” Stacy countered. “For all they know, all merms look similar, like fish. And I guess they’re not entirely wrong.”

Jack folded his arms and said something sharp. “Uh...he wants to know what that means,” Chase said carefully. Jack shoved him again; apparently his translation wasn’t quite correct.

“Uh...I mean...” Stacy gestured vaguely at the two of them. “You two...um...”

“Stace, do you think all merms look the same?” Chase folded his arms as well, narrowing his eyes.

“I-I—uh, not—I mean there’s—” Stacy stammered.

All of a sudden, Jack and Chase burst into laughter. “Ah, just messing with you,” Chase said, splashing Stacy’s legs with water. “We know we look alike. It’s not as weird for merms as for humans, but it’s still not common.” Jack was laughing so hard that he disappeared under the water.

Stacy sighed, then rolled her eyes. “Glad you find it funny,” she said, splashing Chase right back.

Chase covered his eyes just in time to avoid getting water in them. “It was a little funny.” He cleared his throat—whistling a little in the process, as merms did—and returned to serious matters. “Well, while we’re here, did you find out anything new?”

“About TridentCorp?” Stacy sighed. “No, I’m afraid not. The last time, we found the location they were keeping you, Jack, in completely by guesswork. Well, not completely, but we still weren’t entirely sure you’d be there. I haven’t found any news about a new TridentCorp location or anything, and they’re not saying anything about having a fricking merperson on their website. You think they’d want to brag about that.”

Jack chattered something. “He said ‘Maybe they’re in the same place’?” Chase translated.

“I don’t think they’d do that,” Stacy said haltingly. “After all, it’s been broken into once. This is a massive company, it wouldn’t be too hard for them to put the merm in a different location.”

Silence. Water lapped at the pebbly shore of the beach. Sereia sighed loudly. “Why is this so hard?” she groaned. “It’s always easier in books and movies.”

“Because the good guys get lucky,” Muirin countered. He put his hands in his pockets. “If only we got lucky.”

“If only,” Sereia muttered.

And in that moment, the dark stone talisman in her hand flashed with purple light. A similar light came from Muirin’s pocket, bright enough to shine through the fabric.

Chase exclaimed something in merm. Jack and Stacy were looking away, but glanced back towards the kids just in time to catch the fading glow. Sereia gasped, her head snapping to look over at Muirin. “That’s the magic again!” she said excitedly.

“That was!” he agreed, nodding. “And I think I get it. Last time it happened, we were wishing really hard for something. I think these talismans are wish-based!”

“But what did it do?!” Sereia wondered. “Do you think we’ll get lucky now? Maybe we just—just summoned luck to our...ourselves...” Her sentence fell apart as she yawned.

Stacy sighed. “Well, even if you two have magic, you still need sleep. And now that there’s nothing urgent to take care of, we’d better head home.”

The kids groaned, but Chase said, “Your mom’s right. It’s pretty late, and you probably have school tomorrow.” Jack nodded in agreement.

“Alright, we’ll go.” Sereia stood up. “Bye, Dad.”

“Bye, Dad,” Muirin repeated.

“Bye, shellies.” Chase smiled gently and waved goodbye.

Stacy and the kids trudged back to her car, heading home through the dark city streets until the streets turned into a highway, taking them back to the distant neighborhood they lived in. Muirin fell asleep during the drive, but Sereia was positively bouncing with energy, wondering what their magic did. How would they know when it happened?

Once they got home, Stacy immediately put the kids back to bed before falling asleep herself. Unknown to her, miles away, luck was coming their way.