Steven’s POV
Aqua was the one who changed the shape of the day.
Which, honestly, should not have surprised me.
The apology was over. Dylan didn’t hate me. Nobody was bleeding, unconscious, or one bad sentence away from another fight. The lake was calm, the air was warm, and for the first time in what felt like forever, the day had stopped feeling like something I needed to survive.
Which was probably why Aqua looked between the two of us, glanced toward the water, and said, “Actually... I think we should enjoy ourselves today.”
I narrowed my eyes immediately.
“That sounds suspicious.”
Aqua’s mouth curved, completely unbothered.
“Only a little.”
Dylan stood near the edge of the dock with his hands in his pockets, looking out over the lake like it had already made more sense to him than most people ever did.
“I have no objection,” he said.
I looked between them.
“Okay, that phrase is really starting to feel like a trap.”
Aqua ignored me as gracefully as ever.
“I’m going to go back to the house and bring a few things,” she said. “You two stay here.”
I blinked.
“You’re just leaving us alone?”
Her expression deepened in the exact way that meant she knew what she was doing and had no intention of apologizing for it.
“You’ll survive.”
Then she turned and headed back through the trees before I could come up with a better complaint.
And just like that, it was me and Dylan.
The dock creaked faintly beneath our weight. The lake spread wide and silver-blue in front of us, sunlight breaking over the surface in soft glints whenever the breeze moved. Somewhere near the reeds, something small splashed and disappeared.
For a few seconds, neither of us said anything.
I folded my arms.
Dylan kept his hands in his pockets.
The silence sat there between us like it was waiting to see which one of us cracked first.
Apparently that was me.
“This place is actually pretty nice,” I said.
Dylan glanced at me once, then back at the water.
“Yeah.”
I waited.
That was apparently all I was getting at first.
I looked over the lake too, mostly so I wouldn’t have to stare at him while trying to think of something less awkward to say.
It really was nice here.
Not just pretty.
Peaceful.
Like the air around the water had decided it didn’t care about drama and wasn’t making exceptions for anybody.
“You come out here a lot?” I asked.
“Sometimes.”
I huffed a quiet breath through my nose.
“You ever get charged by the word, or is that just a natural gift?”
That got the faintest shift at the corner of his mouth.
“Only when the question doesn’t need more.”
I glanced at him.
That was almost funny.
Almost.
I looked back at the water, then at him again, and that was when I caught it—that tiny change in his face that probably would’ve slipped past me if I hadn’t already spent a week getting irritated enough to study him.
It wasn’t a smile exactly.
Just something softer. Quieter. Older, almost.
Like this place meant something to him.
I followed his gaze out over the lake.
“This place really gives you some peace, huh?”
Dylan didn’t answer right away.
Then, finally:
“Yeah.”
That one word landed differently.
It wasn’t clipped this time. It wasn’t defensive. It just... was.
I nodded once.
“Yeah,” I said too, because weirdly enough, I got it.
The silence after that wasn’t awkward.
Just quiet.
Good quiet.
By the time Aqua came back through the trees, carrying a blanket, a basket, and two extra bags somehow balanced without dropping anything, the air between me and Dylan felt less like tension and more like unfinished conversation.
Aqua looked between us immediately.
No fresh damage. No glaring. Nobody halfway into another argument.
She looked far too pleased with herself.
“You survived,” she said.
“Barely,” I muttered.
“That’s dramatic.”
“You left me here alone.”
“With Dylan.”
“That is what I said.”
Dylan’s mouth twitched again.
Aqua set the blanket down on a stretch of grass near the dock, facing the lake, and started arranging things with the kind of care that made even simple food look elegant. Sandwiches. Fruit. Pastries. Bottled tea. A small container of something creamy and sweet-smelling that she’d probably made herself because apparently she liked making effort look easy.
I stared at the spread.
“You really did all this.”
Aqua smoothed one edge of the blanket and sat down.
“We are having a picnic.”
“That sounds way too official.”
“I think you make everything sound suspicious when you’re nervous.”
I opened my mouth.
Closed it.
Dylan sat on one side of the blanket without any argument, still somehow managing to look composed even in the grass. I sat beside Aqua, accepted the drink she handed me, and eyed it.
Aqua noticed immediately.
“It is good,” she said.
“That is not always a guarantee.”
Aqua blinked in mild offense.
“Steven.”
Before I could say anything else, Dylan unscrewed his bottle and took a sip.
He paused.
I watched him. Aqua watched him.
His face stayed irritatingly neutral.
Then he said, “It’s good.”
I looked at Aqua.
She looked smug.
I took a cautious sip of mine.
Okay.
It actually was good.
Again.
I pointed at her a little.
“You’re getting inconsistent.”
“Inconsistent?”
“Yeah. Sometimes your drinks are amazing. Sometimes they taste like lemons chose violence.”
That got a quiet sound out of Dylan that was almost a laugh.
Almost.
Aqua stared at both of us.
“I feel attacked.”
“We’re documenting a pattern,” I said.
“An unfair pattern.”
Dylan took another sip.
“It does seem mixed.”
Aqua looked betrayed.
“You too?”
I grinned.
“See? I’m not alone.”
Aqua narrowed her eyes in the most harmless way possible.
“I worked hard on this.”
“And it paid off,” I said, lifting the bottle. “Today.”
That made her expression soften again.
Conversation came easier after that.
Not instantly. Not like we all turned into different people. Just... easier.
Aqua asked Dylan about college, and I quickly discovered the fastest way to make him talk more was to say something obviously ridiculous and force him to correct me.
“So your roommate definitely belongs in prison.”
Dylan looked at me.
“For being messy?”
“Yes.”
“That seems excessive.”
“He leaves wrappers everywhere.”
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
“I’m aware.”
“That bad?”
“Worse.”
Aqua laughed softly into her drink.
I pointed at Dylan.
“See? Validation.”
“That isn’t what validation means,” Dylan said.
“It is when I’m right.”
Aqua shook her head.
“You two are strange together.”
“Rude,” I said.
“True,” Dylan said at the exact same time.
I stared at him.
He looked mildly unfortunate about the fact that he had just lined up with Aqua against me.
Aqua looked like this was exactly the kind of progress she’d been hoping for.
At some point, while we were halfway through the food and the sun had warmed the air just enough to make the water look even brighter, Dylan looked out over the lake again with that same quiet pull in his face.
Then he set his bottle down.
“You two can stay here if you want,” he said. “I’m getting in.”
I blinked.
“In those clothes?”
He glanced down at himself like the question barely mattered.
“That was always the point.”
Aqua’s eyes brightened.
“I should have guessed.”
Dylan stood, walked toward the dock with that same easy quiet he did everything in, and stepped onto the boards.
I watched him go, frowning slightly.
“You really were planning this the whole time.”
He looked back over one shoulder at me.
“I wasn’t aware it needed hiding.”
Then he stepped off the dock and disappeared into the water.
One clean splash. One widening circle of ripples.
Then the surface broke again—
and what came back up was definitely not just Dylan Worth.
For one full second, my brain stopped cooperating.
Tail.
Green.
A full merman tail.
Not flat green either—an ombré sweep of color shifting from lighter jade higher up into a darker, richer green toward the fins. Sleek scales flashed in the sunlight as he turned in the water, looking more natural there than he ever had on land.
I just stared.
“What the—”
Dylan pushed damp hair back from his face and looked up at the dock.
“Yes?”
“You’re a merman.”
“Yes.”
I turned to Aqua so fast I nearly hurt my neck.
“You’re not shocked.”
Aqua’s lips curved.
“I suspected.”
“You suspected?”
“I thought he might be part Waters,” she said. “I did not want to pry.”
I looked back at Dylan.
“You could’ve mentioned that sooner.”
“You didn’t ask.”
That was such a ridiculous answer that I almost laughed in disbelief.
Aqua leaned a little closer to the dock.
“So your mother is a Waters?”
Dylan nodded once, resting one forearm on the wood.
“Yes.”
“What is her name?”
“My mother is Lina Worth,” he said. “Before she married my father, she went by Lina Johnson. Her family comes from a Waters line that settled on land.”
Aqua’s expression turned thoughtful.
“I do not think I know her.”
“She doesn’t spend much time in Atlantis,” Dylan said.
That sounded like one of those lines with a whole story behind it and absolutely no intention of telling it today.
I looked down at the water again.
Then at Aqua.
“Well?”
Aqua blinked innocently.
“Well what?”
“You have to get in now.”
That startled a laugh out of her.
“I do not have to do anything.”
“Yes, you do.” I pointed at Dylan in the water, then back at her. “I am now the only non-merperson here and I feel weirdly underqualified.”
Aqua smiled, but I saw the hesitation under it.
Triton.
Being found. Being sensed. Being pulled back into rules she had run from.
I knew that look now.
Before I could say anything, Dylan did.
“Your brother will find you sooner or later.”
Aqua looked at him.
Dylan stayed half-resting at the dock, tail moving lazily in the water, but there was nothing lazy about the way he said the next part.
“That doesn’t mean you stop living until he does.”
The breeze moved over the lake between us.
I looked at Dylan.
That was more honest than he usually spoke. More direct too.
Aqua seemed surprised by it for half a second.
Then something in her face settled.
Not because the fear vanished.
Because she had decided not to let it win this one.
“I suppose that is true,” she said quietly.
I smiled immediately.
“So that’s a yes?”
Aqua gave me a look.
“You are very eager.”
“Yes.”
She laughed softly, stood, and stepped toward the dock.
She didn’t change first.
She just looked at the water, then at us, then took a small breath and dove in exactly as she was, dress and all.
I blinked.
The surface swallowed her in one clean rush of blue and white.
For a second I thought the dress had stayed.
Then deeper down, as her body shifted beneath the water, the dress unraveled into blue light, reforming into something smoother and fitted around her before her tail fully unfurled.
When she rose back up, her tail trailed behind her in a sweep of blue so beautiful it genuinely knocked every useful thought out of my head.
It wasn’t just one shade. It shifted.
Lighter higher up, deepening richer toward the fins, like sky giving way to deeper water. And near one side of the fin, a pale white crest stood out clearly enough that even I caught it immediately.
I stared.
“Okay,” I said. “That’s... wow.”
Aqua laughed softly.
“You are being very eloquent today.”
I pointed at the white mark.
“What’s that?”
She glanced down at it and smiled.
“It is a royal crest. It tells other merfolk that I am of royal blood.”
I blinked.
“So your tail has a title.”
“That is one way to say it.”
Dylan, still in the water nearby, looked at the crest with quiet interest.
“I’ve never seen one that close before.”
Aqua looked a little pleased by that.
“Well,” she said, “now you have.”
I looked from one merperson to the other, then down at my own very un-magical human self standing stupidly on a dock in the middle of a scene that was getting more unfair by the second.
“Oh, come on,” I said, yanking my shirt over my head. “You two are not leaving me up here by myself.”
I dropped it onto the dock, backed up a few steps, threw both arms up like an idiot, and yelled, “Cannonball!”
Then I launched myself into the lake.
Aqua’s laugh hit me before the water did.
The entry itself was fine.
Big splash. Cold shock. Too much water all at once.
But I knew water. I wasn’t helpless in it.
I’d done enough swimming and water sports growing up to know how to right myself fast, and for one brief second I actually felt pretty good about the jump.
Then I opened my eyes underwater and immediately realized the real problem.
Dylan and Aqua didn’t move through the water like swimmers.
They moved through it like it belonged to them.
And suddenly my very human version of being “good in water” felt embarrassingly basic.
I kicked to steady myself, but the deeper water threw off my sense of direction for half a second, and the second that happened, instinct hit hard.
No air.
My chest locked.
Not because I couldn’t swim.
Because I was underwater, too deep, too fast, and my body had already decided this was a terrible plan.
Aqua appeared in front of me almost immediately, blue tail gliding through the water with an ease that made the whole lake look softer around her.
She touched my face first.
Calm.
Steady.
Like she was telling me without words that she already knew how to fix it.
Then she kissed me.
Not a tiny kiss.
Not just sweet.
A real one.
Deep enough that for one confused, electric second I forgot why I was panicking at all.
And then the pressure in my lungs just... stopped.
I froze.
Pulled back a little.
Blinked at her underwater like I had lost my mind.
Then I sucked in a breath.
Underwater.
A real breath.
I can breathe.
My eyes went huge.
I grabbed my own throat. Then my chest. Then looked at Aqua again like she had just broken reality personally.
I could actually breathe.
Underwater.
My whole face must have gone from panic to total astonishment in half a second, because Aqua put both hands over her mouth and laughed without making a sound.
I stared at her like a complete idiot.
Then pointed wildly at my own face.
She nodded, still laughing.
I breathed in again just to make sure it was real.
It was.
What the hell.
I opened my mouth and, because apparently underwater magic had decided I had not suffered enough from shock already, actual words came out.
“I can breathe!”
The sound came strange and softened by the water, but it was still speech.
I looked at Aqua in total disbelief.
“What did you do?”
Aqua swam a little closer, eyes bright and amused, and touched two fingers lightly to her lips, then to mine.
“Temporary magic,” she said. “From the kiss.”
I stared at her.
Then immediately grinned so hard it probably looked deranged.
“That is the coolest thing you have ever done.”
Aqua smiled.
“I thought you might like that.”
Then she spun away from me in one smooth sweep of blue and doubled back like she wanted me to follow.
And for once, because I could breathe and the panic was gone and the whole lake suddenly felt like a dream I had no intention of waking up from, I did.
She swam circles around me while I tried very hard not to move like a drowning brick with legs. I got a little better after the first few seconds. Not good. Definitely not graceful. But good enough that Aqua kept smiling instead of dragging me around like a rescue mission.
Dylan passed farther out once, green tail cutting cleanly through the lake as he glanced over and clearly took in the fact that I was no longer sinking.
“Comforting to know you solved that quickly,” he said.
I pointed at him underwater.
“Do not ruin this for me.”
One corner of his mouth lifted before he swam off again.
Aqua drifted back in front of me after that, her hair moving around her face like pale gold caught in water.
I was still kind of losing my mind about the whole breathing thing.
And also about her.
Mostly her.
So before I could overthink it, I reached for her and kissed her again.
This time deeper.
No panic under it.
No surprise.
Just me wanting to kiss the girl I loved in the middle of a lake while breathing underwater because apparently my life had become absurd in the best possible way.
Aqua kissed me back immediately.
When we finally pulled apart, she looked at me with that soft, half-flustered expression I loved more every time I saw it.
“What was that for?” she asked.
I didn’t even try to be clever.
“Because I love you so much.”
That softened her whole face.
Her hands came up to rest against my chest.
“I love you too,” she said.
And somehow, underwater, with sunlight breaking above us and her tail flicking soft blue just beneath the surface, that still hit me like the first time.
We stayed close for another second before she laughed softly and swam upward, tugging me with her.
By the time we came up again, I was grinning like an idiot and absolutely not ashamed of it.
Dylan was farther out now, giving us obvious space without making a thing of it.
Ahead of us, a flat rock formation rose from the water just enough to make a resting place.
Aqua looked toward it.
“Want to?”
“Yes,” I said immediately.
She smiled and led the way.
By the time we reached it, I had improved from human disaster to slightly less embarrassing, which I counted as real growth. Aqua slipped up onto the rock like it had been made for her. I hauled myself up with significantly less elegance.
“Don’t say anything,” I muttered.
Aqua’s eyes sparkled.
“I was not going to.”
“You were thinking it.”
“I was thinking many things.”
“That sounds threatening.”
Aqua laughed and shifted closer, water shining on her skin, blue tail draped over the rock in a way that made every useful thought in my head vanish again.
Out on the lake, Dylan swam a lazy circle and then called toward us, “I’ll leave you two to it for a while.”
I looked out at him.
“You sure?”
“I’m swimming,” he said. “I’ll meet you back at the blanket.”
That felt very Dylan.
Respectful.
Perceptive.
And just detached enough to pretend he wasn’t being nice on purpose.
I looked back at Aqua once he’d moved farther off.
Water surrounded us on every side, bright and quiet under the sun. The rock held the warmth of the day. Aqua looked more fully herself here than anywhere else, and I didn’t think I’d ever get used to how beautiful that was.
“You’re unreal,” I said quietly.
Aqua smiled softly.
“No. I’m right here.”
I laughed under my breath.
“You know what I mean.”
Her blush deepened just a little.
“Yes,” she admitted.
I brushed a damp strand of blonde hair back from her face.
A blue streak clung to her cheek, darker now that it was wet, almost the same shade as the deeper blue near the end of her tail.
For some reason, that hit me harder than the royal crest had.
“Your hair,” I said quietly.
Aqua blinked.
“What about it?”
“The blue.” I touched the damp strand gently, letting it slip between my fingers. “It matches your tail.”
Her face softened in a way that made my chest feel too full.
“I suppose it does.”
I smiled.
“I don’t know how I didn’t notice before.”
“You had not seen my tail before.”
“Still.” I leaned closer, my thumb brushing lightly near her cheek. “It makes sense now. Like part of you was always showing, and I just didn’t know what I was looking at.”
Aqua’s blush deepened, soft and pink across her cheeks.
Then I kissed her.
Slower this time.
Warmer.
The kind of kiss that didn’t rush anywhere because it didn’t need to.
When we pulled apart, Aqua smiled against my lips and nudged me lightly.
“There. Now you have officially kissed a mermaid princess in a lake.”
I laughed.
“Big day for me.”
“Yes,” she said with complete seriousness. “I can tell.”
We stayed there a little longer after that, letting the water lap softly at the edges of the rock while the whole world felt quieter and better than it had in a long time.
When we finally swam back, Dylan was already near shore.
Because apparently giving us space came with perfect timing too.
Aqua and I climbed out at the dock, dripping and laughing a little, and before I could reach for my shirt, Aqua lifted one hand.
A cool shimmer passed over both of us.
The water vanished.
My skin warmed. My hair dried. Even my shorts stopped clinging.
I stared at her.
Then grinned.
“I forgot how much I love when you do that.”
Aqua smiled.
“I thought you might.”
“Still one of my favorite things you can do,” I said. “Right up there with making me breathe underwater.”
She looked pleased with herself.
“You continue to be correct in extremely unfair ways.”
We walked back to the blanket together, where Dylan had already settled with another drink like he had not just shattered my understanding of him and then politely given me time to kiss my girlfriend on a rock.
I dropped down beside Aqua and looked at him.
“You’re weirdly normal about all this.”
Dylan glanced at me.
“It’s normal to me.”
“That’s fair,” I said. “Still weird.”
The food somehow tasted better now than before.
Maybe because the air had changed.
Maybe because I had.
Maybe because it’s hard to stay tense after shouting “Cannonball!” and discovering your girlfriend can literally make you breathe underwater.
At one point, with the lake glowing in front of us and the late sunlight turning everything warmer, I looked over at Dylan and asked, “So do you mostly train your Worth side? Or your Waters side too?”
Aqua looked interested immediately.
Dylan tipped his bottle once in his hand before answering.
“Mostly my Worth side.”
“That tracks,” I said.
Aqua smiled.
“You do hold yourself more like a Worth.”
Dylan gave the smallest shrug.
“That’s how I was raised.”
I leaned back on my hands.
“So the water stuff just came later?”
“Not exactly.” Dylan looked toward the lake again. “It was always there. I just wasn’t trained in it the same way.”
Aqua tilted her head.
“And now?”
He was quiet for a beat.
“My mother’s been helping me develop my Waters side more seriously recently,” he said. “So I’ve been training that too.”
I nodded slowly.
That made sense.
And somehow, weirdly, it made him make more sense too.
Enough that Dylan sitting across from me now felt like a real person with layers instead of just Fredrick’s son, my too-calm trainer, or the guy with impossible shields.
Aqua looked very pleased with that answer too, like every little piece she learned about him made her gladder she’d pushed us into this day.
And sitting there on that blanket with the lake glowing in front of us, the food half gone, and the air easy for once, I realized she’d been right.
Somehow, she usually was.
Aqua always seemed to know what I needed emotionally before I did. Not in a controlling way. Just in that quiet, impossible way of hers that made life tilt toward something better if I trusted her long enough.
If she hadn’t pushed me to come apologize, I would’ve spent the whole day sitting in my own guilt until it turned ugly.
If she hadn’t decided to turn the apology into this, Dylan and I probably would’ve gone right back to awkward nods and training drills and pretending that was enough.
Instead, we were here.
Eating.
Talking.
Relaxing.
Starting to like each other.
I looked over at Aqua, who was laughing softly at something Dylan had said in that dry, accidental way he had when he forgot to guard himself, and I felt this sharp rush of gratitude hit me all at once.
For her.
For today.
For the fact that things were okay.
More than okay.
Better.
I glanced at Dylan again.
He caught me looking.
“What?”
I shrugged.
“Nothing.”
He narrowed his eyes slightly, unconvinced.
I took another drink and let myself smile.
Across from me, Dylan looked like he did not trust that smile at all. Beside me, Aqua looked quietly happy. And somewhere in the middle of the warm lake air, the leftover tension from the last few days finally loosened enough to drift away.
By the time the light started softening toward evening, it felt strange to think that not long ago Dylan had been just the guy Fredrick sent to train me.
Now he felt like something else.
Not just a trainer.
Not just an obligation.
Not even just Aqua’s idea of a friend.
Mine too.
And maybe that was the best part of the whole day.
That none of it had been forced in the end.
It just... happened.
The water.
The laughter.
The truth.
The way Aqua had known exactly what all of us needed.
I leaned back on my hands and looked out over the lake one last time, thinking maybe hidden towns, magical lakes, and impossible people weren’t the worst thing that could happen to a guy.
Not if they gave him days like this.
And not if Aqua was the one leading me into them.