Marker; 561 votes and 7695 reads
(Published 1-1-19)

AN; I'm very thankful for the interest that you guys have been shown in this story, so to show this gratitude here's a long chapter. So I know this might seem like a random time shift to you, but it isn't. Read the whole chapter through and it'll make sense.  It will reveal some of Marina's background that will be important for later on in the story. The story from here on out will shift back and forth between the past and the present.

PS.I'm going to return to my old ways of chapter hostage holding.  No chapter for YOUU till I get 650 votes on this entire story IN TOTAL. Also important note below so please read!
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Summer, 1970

I leaned up against the railing that separated the boardwalk from the beach below. Behind me, the sun was just dipping below the ocean's horizon, while humans milled in and out of shops that lined the boardwalk. A warm sea breeze crept up behind me, and ruffled my long skirt and bunched it around my ankles.

I bent down to smooth out the brightly colored red and purple fabric, when I looked up again there was a skinny, pale blond haired boy walking towards me. He had on a yellow button up shirt and a pair of waist high white shorts, that only highlighted how sun burnt he was. The boy had to be, at most, 17 in human years.

I knew that I too looked to be around 17 in human years, but I was much, much older.

I smiled at him, and tried to meet his eyes, but he adverted them awkwardly.

He had barely reached me when his squeaky voice was already sputtering. "We have some beer, so come to our party to drink it. Of course you don't have to drink it...You could just come and watch us drink it, I mean..."

"Look at me," I said and let my power roll out with my words. I was amused by his blundering, but I was growing hungry, and I wanted to finish this quickly, so I could return to the ocean and have a nice meal.

"The boy looked up, his watery blue eyes met mine, and they quickly lost their focus.

"Tell me what you actually want," I commanded.

"You look like a hippie and my dad says hippies are bimbos, so we were hoping that you will make out with me or one of my friends."

"Well I'm not what you call eh... a hippie?" I reached up and absently played with the strand of pearls around my neck. "I'm something much, much more interesting . Where are your friends?"

The boy turned and pointed to a building with a large plastic ice cream cone, topped with a white and red swirl. There were two heads peering around the side of the white building where this display sat on. The two boy's faces abruptly disappeared in a panic when they saw that I had my head turned in their direction.

"Marina!"

My head jerked up abruptly to see my sister, Delphine, had snuck up on us. I was so focused on the boy and his friends, that I hadn't noticed my sister's approach.

She had on an all indigo jump suit that hugged her slender build. Her long black hair was curled in swoops around her face, which I thought looked ridiculous. I myself always preferred to wear my own long, natural, and straight down my back.

The blond boy gazed at her in awe, and she frowned back at him.

"Return to your friends and tell them I would love to have some of this..ehh beer. Bring them to me and we can all go together," I said to the boy.

"Groovy!" he replied dreamily and slowly drifted back towards the plastic ice cream cone. When he reached it, he was promptly yanked into his friend's hiding spot by his yellow shirt.

Now it was time to give my sister my full attention. Reluctantly I turned my attention to her gray-green eyes, that mirrored my own.

"Marina, enough already. You've already taken two pearls today."

"And now, I will take five tonight," I replied in the language of our people. My fingers once again wondered to the strand of pearls around my neck, but this time they ventured to the section of string that was not filled yet."

"You need to stop speaking in our language while we are amongst humans! And you also need to lose your accent, and speak just like the humans in the area. If the wrong human heard you..."

Over her shoulder I can see that the blond boy was returning with the two boys I had seen earlier.

"Hey boy, what is your name?" I called out to him. My sister turned away from my to watch the three boys steadily approaching us. One of the boys was heavier set with thick rimmed glasses and curly hair brown. He wore jeans, a white and blue stripped shirt, and a leather backpack. The third boy also had glasses and was slightly shorter than his friends, and was dressed in a lime green stripped t-shirt, and flared white flared pants. His face was covered in pimples.

"Michael," the blond replied. He stopped right in front of us, and his friends stopped a couple feet behind him."

"Michael, what do you think of my accent?" I asked him.

The boy knitted his eye brows together, "Um..you sound like you're maybe from...Spain or Israel?"

"No, not where you think it came from, no. I want to know if you like it?"

He bobbed his

"Y-yeah it's real nice..really sexy actually. Ouch!"

My eyes flickered to the boys standing behind him. They were looking in other directions away from each other. They were trying to look innocent but clearly one of them had hit him or something from behind.

"What are your friends names?" I asked Michael.

"Hi I'm Robert," the boy with the curly hair, who couldn't of been older than 17 years old," said, and stepped toward, and extended his hand out towards me. Our eyes met, but since I had Michael under my spell, his eyes didn't become unfocused. But he did look a tad dazed by the time the greeting was over.

"And this is James," Robert said and pointed to pimple-face.

James jerked his chin towards me, "How's it going foxy lady. Is this your sister here," he said, and gestured to Delphine, " and does she want to get blitzed with us too?"

Delphine looked like she was about 20 in human years, but she could also past for 17 or 16 too.

I shook my head, "No she's what you call a...square."

I abruptly felt Delphine's nails in my skin. I looked up to see that Delphine had wrapped her fingers around the small of my arm.

I gave all the boys a sheepish smile, "I'm sorry can I just meet you at the drinking spot, I need to talk to my sister first," I said.

All boys looked concerned, well except for Michael. He was just staring at me blankly.

"I'm fine gentlemen, my sister just wants to make sure I am safe. Go on while I talk to her for a moment!"

"Alright," Robert wearily. We will be on the beach, just look for our bone fire," he said. "See you later Michael," I said and smiled. He smiled widely back at me, his eyes had a faraway look in them.

"I will be with you shortly," I reassured him when he showed a bit of hesitation before he followed his friends."

Once they were gone, I angrily turned towards Delphine, "I don't care what you say. I will be completing this necklace tonight!"

"Why do you need to finish this necklace right this second, you already have two that you completed in the last month alone. Slow down, there is no need for all these pearls. If you keep it up you might draw eyes of hunters and if they catch you, even father may not be able to save you."

"It's just so fun and easy to collect them, now that I'm finally allowed to come on land and hunt, instead of being forced to lure sailors off their boats like all the other common mermaids. In fact, I don't understand how you barely have a hand full of pearls and you have been on land years and years before me? You should have twenty necklaces by now!"

Delphine's eyes narrowed at my words "I have a few pearls, because I'm careful, not reckless and I only strive for the best quality of pearls. I wouldn't want to be killed by a hunter, over a handful of lousy pearl. So, I take my time with each of my marks, until the pearl is perfect and I harvest them when it is safe too. They are unlike your pathetic necklaces that you have been making in this last month."

I felt anger boil up inside me at her words, and I let out an bitter laugh. "You're just jealous of me, because I'm more powerful than you. Do you not want me to collect anymore pearls, because you are afraid that father will change his mind about you being the heir and pick me instead!"

I watched as Delphine's face turned white with rage. "Fine, go on being reckless, hunt to your hearts content, but I'm warning you. You yourself might find yourself becoming the one that is hunted over worthless pearls." With that she spun on her heels and dissolved into the crowd of humans walking up and down the boardwalk, while I watched on wordlessly.

It took me longer than I had expected to find Michael, Robert, and James, due to the fact that they had picked a rather remote section of the beach, a place that what I would never would have guessed that human would chose. And by then, they already had a fire going on the beach and were sitting around it on large pieces of drift wood. The sun had long since sank into the ocean and the sky was a dark blue and full of stars. The boys were talking among themselves when I stepped into the warm glow of the fire.

Robert was the first to notice my presence "Hey! Marina glad you could escape from your sister!" he called. He held a white can of beer in his hands, in fact they all did.

I smiled and waved back, but I was careful to avoid his gaze, at least until I had Michael under my spell again. Michael was the one I had marked and until I got him, the others would have to wait their turns.

"Yeah, she was just bugging out about me underage drinking."

Robert picked up a can of beer beside his feet and tossed it to me, which I caught. I sat down on the drift wood that Michael had perched his slender frame on.

He was staring down at his hands.

"Mich-" I began with the plan to put him back under my spell, but an unexplained sense of dread had made the pufferfish in my stomach expand and it was accompanied by the sound of footsteps coming up behind me.

I snapped my head around to see that a girl dressed in a yellow t-shirt and a pair of high wasted jeans had now joined us in the glow of the firer. Her medium length brown hair was done up into a high ponytail.

"Got us some firewood," the girl announced and dropped a couple sticks besides Robert's feet.

Robert thanked her and feed some of the sticks the girl had brought him into the flames.

She sat down on a piece of drift wood across from me. She looked at me, and I was instantly captivated.

The girl wasn't what I call traditionally pretty by human or mermaid standards. Her teeth were a little crooked, her nose was a little too big, her chin a little too pointy, and her eyes a little too small. Still, there was something about her face that I couldn't quite take my eyes off of. Something was desirable in those features, but that sense of dread I had felt moments ago was coming from this girl, but why?

It seemed she couldn't quite take her eyes off me either. I was one of the only things she had looked at since she had taken her place around the bonfire. The roaring of the ocean and the pounding of my heart in my ears were now two very strong competing sounds. I wondered if her heart was pounding in her ears too.

Robert promptly handed her a beer before turning his attention to me. She finally took her eyes off me to accept the beer from Robert, but pinned me again with her stare moments later.

"Oh Marina..." Robert said, oblivious to what was going on between the two girls in his presence. This is Elizabeth, Elizabeth Marina. She saw that we had some brew while she was walking past us on the beach, and asked to join us," he explained. " And how could we say no?" Robert said and gave Elizabeth a quick, lust filled look, that made my stomach turn.  Why did it make my stomach turn though? I shouldn't care.

"Nope, can never say no to a pretty girl!" James chimed in.

Michael simply nodded, but did not say anything more.

Elizabeth tore her eyes from me and flashed Robert and James a grin and raised a can of beer in the air, "Thanks for the beer boys," she said and brought it to her lips and took a long drink, before bringing it back down."Don't you like your beer, Marina? You never opened yours." Elizabeth said, her eyes fell on my hands. "If you are afraid of getting caught no way the fuzz will bother us out here, go on and drink."

I looked down at the beer still in my hands. She was right, I hadn't. I had been too preoccupied with her, that I had forgotten I had been holding one. I grabbed  the metal tab and went to crack it when her voice stopped me.

"Wait hold on a moment," she said and placed her own beer down beside her feet and stood, "I think we need a bit more driftwood to keep this fire going. Marina,will you come with me to get some more? Us girls got to earn our beers somehow, can't just freeload. Even if we are pretty," she said and grinned around at the guys, who let out a couple laughs.

I looked down at the pile of drift wood besides Robert's feet, perplexed. Didn't we have enough? But I had already stood from my seat and had begun to  follow her into the dark, before I really had time to think about it.

The boys called after us to hurry back. We walked until the bonfire was nothing more than a small speck of light in the darkness.

Suddenly I was face to face with Marina, who had moments ago, been gliding through the dark up ahead of me. " You like me," she said, and in a flash she had her hand cupped around my chin and she was stroking the side of my cheek.

"W-what?" I stammered, caught off guard for the first time in my short life by a human, but I didn't pull away from her touch. The unease I had felt when I had first met Elizabeth was now a distant memory.

"You agreed to come out here with me to find more firewood, when clearly we did not need anymore. And even if we did, you could have easily refused, but you didn't. You wanted to be alone with me. And the way you looked at me, that's how I knew what you wanted, and it wasn't...wood figuratively speaking."

"Tell me what I want ?" I asked, my heart was how pounding harder in my chest and there was a weird tingling sensation that was running aup and down my spine.

"It wouldn't be as sexy to answer that question, than to just do it.. the thing we both know you want," she said and all the sudden her fingers were tangled in my hair and her lips were on mine.

At first, I was still in disbelief about what was happening that I stood there, stunned. But the heat rising in my body quickly snapped me out of it and clasped my hands around the back of Elizabeth's head and pulled her closer to me.

Suddenly, I was somehow on the sand and she was on top of me. She laughed and pulled her lips away from mine, and pressed her mouth to my ear.

"You should have listened to your sister," she said and positioned herself so she was straddling me.

"Hmmm?" I said, not really processing what she  had just said, I just wanted to kiss her again, but then something cold was pressing up against my throat, and that desire died.

"I said," she said and pressed the knife that she now held in her hand harder against my throat, "You should have listened to your sister. I would have never found you, if I hadn't heard you speak your language...mermaid."

(PLEASE READ BELOW)

AN; So I know that some authors warn about LGBTQ themes or make their readers aware of them ahead of time, but I just found in unnecessary.  We live in 2019 people its time that gay/lesbian relationships are part of the norm. Also disclaimer, I am not part of the LGBTQ community (I am very straight and have only been in straight relationships) so let me know if I at all am butchering this topic at all. It is not the main focus of the series, but I promise you, it will come up again and I don't want to be disrespectful (and no I don't think all gay people just meet each other and randomly want to hook up right away. That was just unique to Marina and Elizabeth) .  Marina is bisexual, I'm not sure why, but when I made her that's how she was. Like previous characters I had before were straight.