My consciousness seemed to go in and out for some time after that.  I heard voices, but couldn’t quite open my eyes to see what’s going on.

“She has a lot of broken bones, but I’ve set them.  The jaw will be inconvenient, but it’ll heal, too.  I’m also fairly certain some of her injuries occurred while in human form, then translated into aquatic form, which isn’t ideal, but I can understand what she was thinking – trying to get to the ocean.  The biggest problem is her tail.”  My fuzzy brain thought that sounded a lot like our nurse, an oceanid named Kendall.

“Will she heal?”  Sidney sounded almost agonized.  “Can you fix it?”

“I’ll try, but I’ve never seen a rip this big before.  I’ll sew it together and treat it with medications, but you know fin injuries are hard.  We never know for sure if they’ll heal or not.”

Jett’s voice filtered into my head.  “What if we got a fairy?  They can heal.  We don’t normally see them, but would they be able to help?”

“Hard to say.”  Kendall sounded almost resigned.  “Maybe?  But the problem is, fairies can’t come down here to heal and we can’t bring her up to the surface.  If she was conscious, she could hold back on transforming, but she’ll do it automatically if she’s unconscious.  Not only would that mean the fairy wouldn’t be able to see her tail to heal it, transforming into her land version might cause further damage to the tail while it’s healing.”

“So we keep her underwater, that’s fine,” Sidney was a little less scared, a little more focused.  “I know a fairy from my deliveries.  We can get her close to a beach, keep her underwater, and bring a fairy there – it’s worth a shot, right?  If a fairy might be able to heal her?”

“All right.”  Kendall seemed to gain a little confidence from Sidney.  “Find your friend, Jett and I will get Sage to the inlet off the east-most island.”

Then I felt someone’s arms slide under me, and the pain bursting through my body at the movement made me fade back into oblivion again.

The next time I semi-woke up – still without full consciousness – I just heard Jett and Sidney talking.

“What did Anthony say?”  Sidney sounded tired now.

“Attempted murder, aggravated battery, I don’t know what all.  I wish,” Jett paused, “I kind of wish I’d just killed her, but Sage….”

“Yeah.”  Sidney’s voice was soft with understanding, and I could hear him moving to comfort Jett.  “You held back, babe, for Sage, and I know she’ll appreciate that.  Even if that centaur bitch deserved being absolutely squashed by you.  Several times over.  At least you smacked her a few times before giving her to Anthony.  That counts for something."

“We should have been more careful,” Jett groaned.  “We knew she was still out there.  I didn’t realize she’d come back to try to find Sage – I still have no idea how she actually did.”

“We’ll deal with that after Sage wakes up, but don’t blame yourself.  We all thought it was safe.  I don’t think any of us realized how far the centaur bitch would go to get Sage – I figured it was more a target of convenience, we all did.”

Jett sighed.  “Anthony feels bad about it, too.  Charlotte thought it was strange that Kate locked onto Sage so much, but she admitted that sometimes centaurs pick a target and kind of…feel robbed, I guess, if their target manages to escape?  I guess that’s why Kate decided to go after her when she found her again.  She didn’t get her chance all those years ago.”

“Bitch,” Sidney grumbled, yet again.  “If I see her again, I swear I’m going to drown her myself!”

My consciousness faded out to Jett trying to remind Sidney that murder might not be the best option.

Eventually, though, I opened my eyes to find myself at home, in my little house.  I almost cried at the sight of my own ceiling.

“It’s okay, Sage,” Sidney gently took one of my hands and kissed it as lightly as a raindrop.  “You’re safe now.”  He turned and glanced behind him.  “Kendall?”

Kendall swam over, gave me a smile that said she was glad to see me awake.  “I’m sure you feel awful right now, but if it’s any consolation, you probably feel better than you would if you’d woken up a week ago.”  She paused.  “Oh, right.  It’s been a week and a half since the incident.  You’ve been pretty out of it, which makes sense given your injuries.  You probably have another week and a half to two weeks to fully heal, so you need to take things slow.  Oh, and your jaw is broken and still healing, so don’t try to do anything too drastic.  Or swim.  Don’t try to swim yet until you’re fully healed.  Actually, you know what?  Just stay in bed until you’re fully healed, that’s the safest.”

She bustled off to collect some medicines – mostly things grown in the ocean by water nymphs or on land by fairies – while I tried to figure out how I did feel.

Sore, achy, bruised, battered – all of that, yes.  But I was still alive, Jett and Sidney had found me in time and I had no idea how.

“How did you find me?”  I attempted to ask.  It came out as mumbled garbage, mostly, but Sidney still seemed to understand.

“I’d decided to help you so I took Zoey to Theo’s, then went to look for you.  I couldn’t find you in any of the regular spots, and the last time anyone had seen you was out to the west.  I don’t know, I guess I just felt something was wrong, so I got Jett and we started looking.”  His eyes were a little tense, but he tried to smile as he tucked a bit of my hair behind my ears.  “Then Jett said he got a taste of your magic in the water.  I didn’t realize kraken could do that, but apparently it’s kind of like sharks can smell blood or something?  He could trace your magic back to you because you were in the water when using it, so he found you that way.”

I hadn’t realized kraken could do that, either, but I was extremely grateful they could.  I was positive I wouldn’t be alive now if Jett hadn’t been able to find me.

However, Sidney’s earlier movement reminded me of something and I reached up with stiff fingers to confirm that my hair really was gone.  Most of it, at least.

Sidney caught my hand when he saw my eyes start to look tearful.  “It’s fine, I mean, no, it’s not, she shouldn’t have done that, and your hair was beautiful and I loved your braid, but it’s okay, you’re still beautiful, and it’ll grow back.”  He leaned down to kiss my forehead very gently.  “I’m sorry about your hair, though.”

Sidney, like most merfolk, understood the significance of having long hair.  It was part of our culture and stealing it from me hurt in a different way from the physical pain.  Sure, I still had hair, and it wasn’t all gone, it just…was mostly gone.

Oddly, I found dealing with that a little harder than the other injuries.  Broken bones and bruised tissue would heal in a matter of weeks, but my hair would take years to get back to where it was.  More than a decade, at least.  That was kind of hard to swallow.

The following day, I was listening to Kendall explain how my tail had been healed with fairy magic but I needed to be careful and let her know if I experienced any pain, blah blah blah, when Sidney and Jett arrived.  I glanced up at them, a smile starting to form when I stopped and stared at Sidney in shock.

Sidney looked at me a little anxiously.  “Um, I…wanted you to not feel alone in this.”  He bit his lip and shifted a little, waiting for my response.

Sidney had cut his hair to the same length as mine.  For me.  I felt tears fill my eyes again, but this time emotional tears from feeling how much he loved me, and I reached out my arms for a hug.

He obliged immediately, as did Jett – gently, though, because they were still concerned about possibly hurting me – and I closed my eyes, feeling a sense of peace start to fill me.

Physically, I’d survived what had happened.  Mentally and emotionally…I was pretty sure I would be okay this time.  Especially if I had Jett and Sidney with me.

~~~~

“What are we doing?”  I asked Sidney as I swam after him.  I had been considered fully healed for a week now, but he, Jett, Silas, and Kendall had still felt the need to baby me and insist that I take things easy – meaning most of my errand duties were currently banned.

I’d been up to the surface once, though, to give an official statement and formally identify the walrus shifter who’d helped Kate.  Anthony had managed to track him down through the transaction from Kate’s bank account, and the guy had admitted he’d just done it for the money.

“Nothing personal,” he’d told me with a shrug as he was led off.

“Nothing personal?”  Sidney had fumed.  “Sage nearly died and he’s just like nothing personal?!?!”

Jett had managed to calm him down before he went and jumped the guy.  “Some people can do terrible things for money.  He probably doesn’t see it as personal.”

I’d actually felt like it was just a tad personal since, well, he’d lured me to my potential death, but I guess to the walrus shifter, it was just a job.  Still, he was being charged with accomplice to attempted murder or something along those lines, so he would likely pay dearly for that money with years of his life – while Anthony assured me that Kate would likely never get out, given her involvement in the kid’s death before and now what she’d done to me.

So the official stuff was all taken care of, the danger was past, and I was feeling pretty much back to normal, which was when Sidney had abruptly announced that he and I were taking a trip today but hadn’t explained where we were going yet.  He didn’t answer my question, either, just kept swimming.

I glanced over my shoulder as we passed a group of merfolk, puzzled.  I was starting to notice a strange trend amongst the merfolk.  It seemed like an awful lot of them had shorter hair now, which was not a merfolk thing.

“They did it for you,” Sidney interrupted my thoughts, catching where my gaze was.  “A lot of the town realized you’d feel bad about your hair and are trying to show solidarity.  I’m not sure if I’m disappointed they stole my idea or happy that they’re supporting you, too, but at least I was the first one, right?”

I full-on stopped to stare at him, then back at the merfolk.  “What?”  I felt almost horrified.  “It’s one thing if you do it – you’re my boyfriend!  But the entire town?”

A smile broke out on Sidney’s face at my use of the term boyfriend, but he still answered.  “Not the entire town, maybe like…half of them?”  He laughed at my expression.  “Sage, love, we keep telling you everyone in town loves you.  We all appreciate how much you help everyone.  You’re like a little ray of sunshine down here that we can’t all help but love.  Of course people want to show support for you, even if it’s just cutting their hair.”

“But cutting their hair is a huge deal!”  I protested.

He gave me an affectionate smile, slid one arm around my shoulders, and started tugging me forward again.  “It is,” he agreed, “but we all think you’re worth it, okay?  Let people show they care about you this way.  You were happy when I did it, right?”

“Yeah,” I agreed, “it helped, but that didn’t mean everyone needs to do it.”

Sidney let me grumble the rest of the way to our mystery destination, which turned out to be the training grounds.

We didn’t use the training grounds much, but they still existed.  They were supposed to be used to train merfolk in battle magic so we could be prepared for potential invasions, hostile takeovers, whatever form merfolk skirmishes normally took.  We still had several merfolk in the community who did know battle magic and most of us got some training just in case, but we weren’t as strict in training as many merfolk communities.

I looked around in confusion.  “What are we doing here?”

“I’m training you.”  Sidney placed his hands on my shoulders and turned me to look at him.  “You know a thousand and one ways to use your magic to help people, and I love that about you, but I want you to know some magic to defend yourself, too.  The water bubble trick you told us you used is useful, but I get why you couldn’t kill her – that’s not you, even if it puts you in danger.  Again, love you for that,” he tapped the end of my nose with his finger, “but I want to make sure that if anything like that ever happens again – which of course I’m hoping and planning not to – but just in case, I want you to know magic that can separate you from your attacker.  Instead of just a bubble that could be deadly, maybe make a wall of water or earth.  Something that protects you and lets you escape.  See what I mean?”

I thought about it, then nodded my consent.  “That actually sounds nice.  I hated feeling trapped like that, but the only way to make her stop was to kill her and I didn’t want to do that.  If I had more options to protect myself maybe without necessarily hurting someone else, that would be good.”

Judging by the smile on his face, Sidney was pleased with my response, so we immediately got to work learning new ways for me to use my magic.

We couldn’t practice too long because Sidney needed to get back to help take care of Zoey and I was helping one of the single merfolk build a house later, but at least we got started and had a plan on how to make sure I’d never be in the same situation again.

I switched to male form before going to help the nymph build their house – I figured I’d need more strength for this, since I didn’t have Jett’s ridiculous size to easily handle all the mud we’d need – but as I swam, I reflected on what had happened and where I was at now.

Back in elementary school, I’d nearly fallen apart after seeing that kid beaten up and that event had reshaped my life.  After I’d first reencountered Kate with the centaur herd, I’d thought about just staying underwater again, but the fact that Jett and Sidney were proud of me making steps towards starting to spend a little more time on the surface – and that I was making friends up there – helped me not lose the progress I’d made.  They helped make sure I felt safe when I did go up, but they didn’t want me to stop going to the surface just because of Kate.

Now, the thing I’d feared the most had happened to me.  It had been painful, terrifying, and traumatizing, but…I was still okay.  Maybe it was because I had Jett and Sidney with me, I wasn’t sure, but I wasn’t falling back into the terror I’d lived in when I was younger and now Sidney was even helping me figure out how to get some more confidence in myself and my abilities to avoid something like this in the future.  Not that we were hoping anything like this would happen again, but at least I thought I could hold myself better together if it did.  I had a deep foundation here in the merfolk community and I was building something new with Jett and Sidney that made me feel strong.  I wouldn’t let people like Kate knock me down forever.  I would keep getting back up and keep going forward, even trying to reclaim some of my confidence on shore, too.

I was not going to give up.