I kind of got sidetracked at the mention of going to the surface to have the baby.  Some people did, it was simpler to at least be in human form to give birth, apparently, but the thought scared me.  There were so many bad things that could happen up there, how would they want to risk bringing a brand new baby to the surface?  Sure, Jett was strong in his full kraken form and Sidney had your average oceanid level of elemental magic, so it wasn’t like the baby should be in danger, but…why would anyone want to risk bringing a baby to the surface?  It was just so dangerous.  Too dangerous in my opinion.

“And I don’t even know how to take care of a baby kraken!”  Sidney wailed, bringing my attention back to her.

“Babe, relax.”  Jett sounded a bit amused.  He wasn’t big on talk generally, but when he did talk, it always made me pause for a moment.  His voice was so deep and rumbly that it almost sent shivers through me.

“We don’t know yet if it’s a kraken or an oceanid,” Jett pointed out.  “Besides, if it is a kraken, I suspect I’ll be able to provide some insight.”

Sidney didn’t even seem to hear what Jett said.  “Do I need to feed a baby kraken toy boats instead of fish?”  She mused.  “But Jett doesn’t eat grown-up boats.  I mean adult boats.  No, I mean full-sized boats.  Um, whatever I mean.”

I turned my attention back to building this room, knowing Sidney was just going to keep freaking out about this until the baby was born.  The most I could do to help right now was to make sure they were both as ready for the baby as possible – beginning with this additional room to their house.

Jett seemed to realize my intention and picked up the pace a little, but I noticed one of his spare arms came to circle around Sidney, who automatically just sort of leaned into him while still ranting about how to take care of the baby who may or may not be a kraken.

It took most of the day – and a lot of stress-talking from Sidney – but eventually we finished the basic structure of the room, smoothed out the rounded walls, ceiling, and floor, and finally removed the portion of the wall between the new room and the larger living area to officially connect the new room to the main part of the house.  Sidney and Jett would be able to make a door and prepare baby furniture on their own, but I decided I might stop by tomorrow to offer help and try to take some of the pressure off them.

Jett offered me a one-armed – human version – hug when we stepped back to survey the finished room.  “Thanks, Sage.  You helped a lot.”

I beamed at him, then at Sidney.  “I’m glad we were able to finish!  Now let me know if you need help making anything else, and if you need me to babysit after the little one arrives.”  I took Sidney’s hands and gave her a firm look.  “And relax, you’ll be an excellent parent, I know it.”

Sidney sighed a bit, nodded, and then released my hands to float over closer to Jett.  “Thank you, Sage.  I’ll definitely take you up on the babysitting offer, though.”  She paused and leaned her head back to observed Jett.  “Do you think the baby will break the crib?”  Aaaaand we were already back to random worries about kraken babies when we still had no idea whether it would even be a kraken.  Sidney seemed to be convinced it would be, or maybe that was just her insecurities because she felt capable of handling an oceanid baby but was utterly confused about a kraken.

I left Jett to try to calm Sidney’s worries – he was better at that than I was, anyway, and if anyone could convince her that handling a baby kraken, if it was indeed such, wasn’t going to be a big deal, it would be a kraken himself.

I just hoped that if the baby really was a kraken, it wouldn’t end up wrecking all the hard work we just did.  I mean, Jett didn’t go around destroying stuff for fun, so it was probably fine, but one never knew for sure with babies.

~~~~

I loved watching storms from underneath the ocean’s surface.  Floating along on my back, watching as above the surface, the storm raged.  Maybe it was what humans felt like when watching storms from behind their windows, but underwater I could taste the lightning as it struck and feel the brush of the waves that raged on the surface.  Somehow it made me feel peaceful and relaxed.  Probably a weird sensation given that it was a storm, but it was just nature.  Nature was fine, even if it was dangerous.  It was surface dwellers that were the scary ones.

I watched as I floated along slowly, just taking in the storm and appreciating the beauty of the angry sky and sea.  Then I frowned, slightly annoyed as I saw a boat drift across my field of vision.  Not a super small boat or a large one, either – one of the kinds that was big enough to have a tiny cabin inside – but it didn’t really have a good reason to be out on the ocean in this.  I was out past the island barrier, so the ocean was rougher here.  It was really a weird time to be headed out to sea, and this boat seemed to be headed further out, not in.

That was…odd.  Come to think of it, the way it was moving was odd, too, almost like it wasn’t being piloted at all, it was just floating along.

Oh bother.  The boat had come loose in the storm, hadn’t it?  And now it was just floating along willy-nilly, wherever the currents took it.  It was likely going to sink at this rate, or possibly hurt someone.  I didn’t know enough about boats to even think about climbing on board and trying to steer it, but I debated trying to call someone to help just pull it somewhere where it wouldn’t be at risk from the storm, at least.

And then I noticed something.  A figure, stumbling out of the cabin onto the deck and almost immediately getting hit by the wind and rain.  It seemed bewildered or maybe drunk?  Clearly not intending to end up in the middle of the ocean during a storm –

Predictably, the figure then got washed overboard.  I had no idea if this was a human or supernatural, but honestly it didn’t matter – my instincts were to prevent the person from drowning, so I immediately sped forward and searched for the person in the storming waves.

The person, as it turned out, was not doing a good job helping prevent themselves from drowning.  I was fairly certain they actually had no idea how to swim, given what a poor job they were doing with not sinking immediately and not swallowing water.  I swam up and grabbed them – her – under her arms and across her chest from behind, pulling her to the surface and trying to drag her along, but she wasn’t exactly helping me, either.  Drowning panic, probably – not even aware that I was actually helping her.  She was struggling, trying to fight me all the way until I reached one of the small outer islands and swung around, sort of slinging her forward in the same motion to allow her to land safely in the sand.  The moment she realized she had land beneath her feet, she stopped struggling and sank down on the sand, looking stunned and confused.

I hadn’t followed her out of the water and now planned to sink back into the water.  After all, if she were human, this was going to be rather hard to explain.

“Wait!”  She called before I could get back underwater.  “Oceanid!”

Oh.  Supernatural then, if she knew what I was by our proper name.  Most humans just called us mermaids.  Only supernaturals – or, well , maybe protected humans who knew about the supernatural world – would know that our proper name was oceanid.  That was…better, I guess, but she was a land supernatural, I was pretty sure, or she wouldn’t have been on a boat.  And I had no interest in getting involved with land supernaturals.

“There should be some shelter under the trees,” I told her, just my head and shoulders out of the water as I pointed towards where some trees were growing near a rock outcropping.  She wouldn’t be totally protected, but it was summer and she was a supernatural, so she shouldn’t die of exposure, either.

“I can’t swim!”  She exclaimed.

I’d sort of already figured that out, so I wasn’t sure what the point of telling me that was.

Thankfully, she explained.  “I can’t get back to the shore on my own!”

Oh.  That…made sense.  I glanced behind me, but saw no sign of the boat from here.  “I can try to find your boat,” I turned back to her, feeling a little doubtful about the idea, “but I’m not sure I can get it back here.  Maybe if it has a rope or something I can pull it with?  Otherwise I can get someone to take you to shore in the morning.”

Silas would help.  It was within dolphins’ nature to try to help drowning people, so he’d make sure she didn’t drown on the way back.

“It’s not my boat,” she grumbled, surprisingly upset by the reference.  She seemed to be getting more steady the longer she sat, and I was pretty sure now that she wasn’t drunk, so maybe she’d just fallen asleep on the boat by accident?  The boat that wasn’t hers?

“Can’t you just take me now?”  She asked.  “With the storm, it’s not likely people would notice you in the water.”

“No.”  I shook my head quickly.  “I don’t go inland.”

That clearly surprised her and she seemed really confused by this idea.  “You…don’t go on land?  Why not?  Wait, you really live underwater all the time?  Doesn’t that get old?  You never get to watch movies or anything!  What about coffee?  Or popcorn?  Or – ”

“I don’t care about all that,” I interrupted her, “and no, it doesn’t get old.  I like it underwater.  Just go get shelter, okay?  I’ll send someone to help you.”

“Wait!”  She came forward a couple steps, looking almost panicked.  “Please don’t leave me alone,” she begged, then seemed almost surprised at herself that she’d said that.  “I mean – um, even if you don’t want to take me to shore, can you at least stay for a while?  I’m all – I just thought I was going to die, and I still don’t know how to get back to shore, or what to do when I get there because if they tried this, they’ll try again, and I just – can you please stay?”  She asked hesitantly.

I normally liked to help people.  However, a couple things she said were really giving me red flags and she was a land supernatural.  Those were…not safe.  Nothing was safe above the water.

But then on the other hand, she did seem shaken and confused and it felt kind of mean to leave her here alone.

I sighed a bit.  “Wait a minute – I’ll have to find some clothes.”

“Oh.”  She thought for a second, then shrugged out of her soaked overcoat, which honestly I wondered why she was wearing it given the time of year.  It was more of a raincoat though than a winter coat, so maybe that was why.  “Would this work?”

She was a little taller than I was and the coat went past her hips, so it would probably fall almost to my knees and give me plenty of coverage.  I hesitated, but she would feel safer if I didn’t leave her to go find something to wear first, so…I could make this work.

A little reluctantly, I accepted the coat and tied it around me before pulling myself out of the water and then reestablishing use of my legs again.  How weird – twice within a week I’d gone on shore, even if it was just an outer island.  This was some kind of record for me.

Barefoot, I led the way further into the island to the shelter I’d mentioned.  It didn’t totally block the storm out, but it did a good job with preventing most of the rain and wind from hitting us.  I found a couple pieces of driftwood and considered for a moment before attempting fire magic.  It took a few tries, since the wood was damp, but eventually it caught fire and started burning slowly, sending up a soft glow against the rocks where it was almost completely hidden from the wind and rain.

The supernatural had watched this without a word, but now she came over and sat with her back against the rock next to the fire, sighing deeply.

“Thanks,” she murmured softly.  “I know you didn’t have to help me and all, but you just saved my life and now I made you stay, and I’m kind of sorry about that, but, um, thanks for staying.  It’s – this wasn’t how I’d planned to end my day.”

A little awkwardly, I sat down, too, but tried to keep the fire between me and her.  She might be shaken and feeling like she owed me for saving her life, but that didn’t mean I was going to drop my guard around her.  I knew what land people were like.  I couldn’t trust her at all, especially after what she said earlier.