Echo told Nerice where the seafloor and other debris were with perfect crity. Images fshed in her mind and she adjusted their course as each part of the puzzle revealed itself. Using the disrupted seabed and twisted currents that the kraken had caused, Nerice wove her way to a small goon that was out of the creature's reach, then crawled out onto the soft sand and fell ft on her back, her breathing bored. “Is that your idea of fun, love?”

  “Actually..” Ruby mirrored her dymate and flopped, but right on top of Nerice and listened to her ragged breathing. “...it really is.” She started to giggle and kissed Nerice’s ft stomach. “That out there is exactly what I crave…” She licked Nerice’s navel, “...except for you, that is.” Ruby flicked the stud in her lip while she watched the ten-armed beast take down one of the ships with three of its massive arms, crushing it like twigs. “I say we kill it.” She gleefully cpped.

  “You what?” Nerice lifted herself onto her elbows and looked at Ruby incredulously. “You do see that is a fucking k-r-a-k-e-n, Right?”

  “Yep.” Ruby fshed her hallmark smile at Nerice, “I haven’t come up with a pn yet.” Ruby watched the ship's fire once again doing very little damage to the huge creature. A warm feeling pulsed from her hip and she saw her dagger glowing softly. “I think the dagger wants that beast's blood.”

  “I just said it, my dymate.” Nerice ughed and shrugged before flopping on her back again. “Kraken, and I can’t believe I am going to help you do this. I am going crazy.”

  Doing little pyful rolls up and down Nerice’s skinny form, Ruby hummed and then stopped right at Nerice’s chin, giving her a pyful peck. “Just think. This is just the first thing we get to do. You have many more years of this.”

  “Kill me now.” Nerice smiled and urged Ruby closer and changed into her human form and then rubbed her feet along Ruby’s tail. “You might want to change back, so people don’t just suddenly see a couple of mermaids.”

  Poking her lover on her soft breast, Ruby snickered and replied, “They have a legendary squishy-squid-kraken thing eating them and you are concerned about another fantasy creature?” Ruby changed form, her legs glistening with red scales. “If that’s the case, we need clothing.”

  “I hate wearing clothes.” Nerice sighed and pinched Ruby’s nipple. “I thought you did too.”

  Murmuring sensually, Ruby wiggled free of her lover’s little pretend cw. “I like being naked with you, that isn’t the same thing as not wanting clothes.” Ruby pointed at the kraken. “Now, leave my boob alone and help me think of something.”

  “I got it!” Nerice smiled wide and pointed out of the bay. “We go that way really, really fast and go south. We live to get you on a pirate ship. No super hard tangly-tentacle ugly beastie thing that I can only imagine and piece together from your loveable images.”

  Grumbling softly, Ruby pnted a kiss on Nerice’s blue lips and wiped the sand off her scales as she stood up. “That really isn’t the pn I was hoping for.” She pointed at the beast just as it made a chittering roar that shook the rocks nearby. “I was thinking of selling its carcass to the people of that city.”

  “Opportunist.” Nerice snarked and hopped on Ruby’s back again. “If I am doing this crazy shit, you get to carry me.”

  Taking a few seconds to adjust her lover on her back comfortably, Ruby amended Nerice. “No, love. That’s piracy.” Ruby walked along the beach front and they eventually got close enough to the outskirts of town that they saw its tiny wooden sign denoting its name. “Humm, Coral Harbor huh?” Releasing Nerice’s legs, Ruby stretched and rubbed her shoulders when her dymate jumped down. “They aren’t very original.”

  “Tanya, where do you suggest we get something to wear?” Nerice pointed to the soft flickering yellow lights in the distance. “After that, how do we kill that thing out there, after that where do we find some ship that you want to be part of, and hey..do I really have to call you by that stupid name Ruby?” Nerice took a quick breath and muttered, “You are already red like one, so …humpf…” Nerice walked off the cobblestone road and did her best to hide in the brush.

  Ruby slowly followed her lover to the brush and hid like Nerice was. “What are you doing?” Ruby questioned and ignored the flurry of comments Nerice tossed out moments before. “Why are you hiding? From a distance you look like you are wearing blue pants, your hair is covering the rest…what's the problem?”

  “If they see my scales then they will know I am different…that you are different.” Nerice sighed and looked at the moon, “Ruby, why am I saying this again? The sisters agreed years ago to just feed into the legend of a mermaid, not to actually tell them all that we exist.” She reached down and squeezed Ruby’s hand. “It’s like how vampires hide in pin sight.”

  Logically, Ruby knew that Nerice made sense but emotionally, the salty pirate in her soul wanted to do what she’d learned over the st two years. Dancing at night with as many women as she could, drinking until she nearly fell over, affixing cute streamers to her legs and arms to make her look like a fluttering angel when she moved. A simple smile crossed Ruby’s face when she felt her heart burning for that adventure. “You know, I should be shocked that you said vampire...” Ruby looked around in a circle and pointed to a dim light on the edge of a woodline. “...but since I have seen and befriended a minotaur, become a mermaid and witnessed a kraken first hand…it’s kind of hard to surprise me anymore. Next thing you’ll be telling me that there are mages.”

  “There are?” Nerice crawled on Ruby’s back once more and pointed to the house, “Let’s go rob some poor farmers of their clothing.”

  Crunching loudly through the light brush, the light that Ruby followed got brighter as she crossed into the farmer's cornfield. “You sounded like a pirate back there Ner-Ner.” Ruby reached under Nerice’s butt and pushed her blue mermaid up a few inches. “That’s better.” Ruby trudged through a long line of corn stalks, and had a slightly creepy feeling overcome here when the long thick and dark green leaves shuffled quietly in the night. “There’s something wrong. It’s like how gulls get quiet before a storm.”

  “Tanya?” Nerice patted Ruby on the shoulder quickly. “Our right, I hear it to our right, walking upright…” Nerice leaned forward so she could whisper. “Breathing sounds almost…bubbly. Like how a pufferfish sounds.” Nerice clicked a few times and got a small image between the cornstalks. “I think it’s hunched over.”

  Pulsing wildly, Ruby’s dagger seemed to burn her leg until she drew the red glowing bde from its sheath. “Steady as she goes, old friend.” Ruby calmly kissed the bde and then waved for Nerice to quietly stand behind her. “I think I see it…” Looking back at her dymate one final time, Ruby inquired, “Is that a trident it’s got?” A couple of clicks from Nerice’s tongue and teeth confirmed what Ruby had suspected. “Nerice, sweetheart…where there is one, there is at least another. No one skulks with a trident of all things…alone.” Ruby snapped her mouth shut when the thing swiftly turned its head and headed right towards them and waved its webbed-like hand.

  {“Can you see anything behind us, Nerice?}

  Ruby whispered in her mind and nearly ughed when Nerice responded.