33

Jason came to on the sandy beach of a small island. He opened his eyes slowly; they hurt so much. It felt like there were car batteries attached to his eyelids.
After successfully prying his lids open, he took in the sight of who was currently peering over him and let out a high-pitched scream.
“Don’t tell me he’s going to faint again,” Jaye complained from a small distance away, “that scream must’ve been enough to call the Kraken back.”
“Kraken won’t be coming out of hiding anytime soon,” someone said with a female voice that reminded Jason of ocean waves, “it’s going to take some time to nurse that eye and he’s way too proud to let himself be seen injured.”
Jason figured that if Jaye was here and being grumpy, then the thing above him mustn’t be dangerous. What he could see from his position lying on the ground was a baby blue torso, complete with a baby blue neck, baby blue head and long, pointed baby blue ears. Connected to the torso were equally baby blue eyes but the freakish thing was that its eyes were a pure white with no sort of stain or speck; just white. It had long black hair and lots of gold trinkets in its ears but its features were distinctly feminine, especially the heavy breasts that were covered by said long black hair. It had a pointed feminine chin and delicate feminine shoulders. Jason couldn’t help but stare and stare.
“Allow the man stand. He must be at his wits end by now,” said Zemar. She didn’t seem to be too far away. At least she sounded to be right beside Jaye. The creature above Jason left his line of vision and he was able to stand up, but with great difficulty. His bones felt like lead and it was so hard to push himself into a sitting position by his elbows. He almost went back down again when he saw the bottom half of ‘Ursa’.
A freaking mermaid. There was a scaly tail about two meters long which her torso disappeared into. The scales shone and glinted in the bright sun and it was actually very beautiful… when Jaosn tried not to think about the weird eyes. Weirdly enough, she was actually smiling at him. Or at least he hoped it was a smile; she had strange little pointy teeth that were bared at him and he really hoped she was smiling. He also hoped that smile was because she was glad to see him awake and not because she was glad for some live bait.
But then he remembered that Zemar would never let him be ripped to shreds by blood-thirsty merpeople and she had actually sounded calm when speaking to Ursa so things must be alright. He dragged his eyes away from the mermaid and looked around him. There were more of them, about six in total and Jaye and Zemar were here too, talking about something in hushed tones. Barine was nowhere to be found and since Jaye and Zemar seemed determined to keep him out of their conversation, he kept surveying the mermaids. They moved around by shuffling along the sand with their arms, tails dragging and scales glinting. They were adorned with many gold trinkets and adornments, some of them wearing so many bracelets that they clinked together when they moved. There were mermen here too and they were of different shapes and sizes, one even had a beer belly! That amused Jason because he wondered if they had some sort of undersea beer they drank. They were all the same blue but their tails varied in color and length.
“Do you feel better now, Jason?” Zemar asked from beside him and Jason jumped. He had been so engrossed in watching the merpeople that he hadn’t even noticed that Zemar had walked up to him. She was now standing up and looking down at him with concern on her beautiful face, “Can you stand on your own?”
By ‘on your own’, Jason somehow knew she didn’t mean without leaning on her to stand. He knew she was indirectly asking if he wanted magical limb support. This thought bruised his ego and he replied, “Yes, I can,” through gritted teeth.
She nodded and was about to say something else when there was a bustle at the edge of the shore, where a small forest was clustered, and the mermaids started shuffling there, murmuring in excitement. Zemar turned to face Jason again, “Barine and some of the mermaids went berry-picking about an hour ago. They’re back now and it seems like these mermaids sure love their berries.”
Jason coughed and finally asked the question that was on his mind, “What happened after I err…”
“Fainted like a little girl?” Zemar offered helpfully, earning herself a glare from Jason, “Calm down. The Kraken left but the ship was destroyed. But the merfolk had been watching the Kraken tear us to pieces and were glad when you gave him a nice stab in the eye. Apparently, he’s a big bully and they all hate him. So they came to us with canoes and brought our asses to this island. We told them where we were going and apparently, they know a shortcut. So from here, it’s about a day to the Frozen Islands from here. We need to gather some supplies for the journey and make thicker clothes for the nasty cold.”
“So while we were on the ship, how did you expect us to survive if we hadn’t met the merpeople?” jasona sked.
Zemar shrugged, “Probably kill a werefox for food and there were fabrics on the ship. Barine and Jaye would’ve made clothes for us.”
“JAYE sews?” Jason asked incredulously. He was getting antsy about eating a werefox but this beat it by a long shot.
“Of course,” Zemar said like it was the most normal thing in the world, “don’t let him use the toxic masculinity to throw you off. Sewing is his unusual talent. He’s been helping the mermaids since we got here.”
She pointed to her left and sure enough, there Jay sat on a huge palm frond surrounded by admiring mermaids as he worked on a huge fabric that looked thicker than wool. The mermaids, however, were more interested in his bulging muscles than what he was actually doing. Luckily, he saw several clothes already folded a few metres away so he guessed that Jaye was almost done and the mermaids weren’t slowing him down. He looked back up but Zemar was gone. He spotted her beside the merfolk who were oohing and aahing over the berries and with considerably less effort, he was able to get up from the palm frond he was laying on and make his way over to them.
After a few steps, he felt it. Probably because Barine had pointed it out to him, he felt the presence of strange power around his bones and muscles. It almost felt like a lover’s caress; barely there, but also very much there. Jason gritted his teeth and ground them in annoyance. Despite his hesitation that he could move by himself, Zemar had still gone ahead and infused his limbs with magic.
Trying to abate his irritation because he probably wouldn’t have been able to get up without her help, he trudged over to the gathered crowd and joined them in preparing the supplies, which included smoking some animals they had hunted down. There were also some fish that had to be well smoked for the journey. Plus, the berries had to be dried so they wouldn’t go bad. The merfolk who went hunting with Barine had changed their tails into legs and some others also changed to feet so as to help with the preparations. Jason wasn’t surprised that their legs were also blue, or that they walked around completely naked. But he was mildly shocked to see that they had navy blue fingernails and toenails.
When all preparations were done with, Jason hid behind a tree and dragged on the clothes Jaye had made. They were all made from a very thick material Jason couldn’t identify and included a shirt, jacked, cape, trousers, socks and the merfolk had given them padded shoes. Jason wondered just how cold the Frozen Islands actually were. This gear would be too much even for Antarctica. He put on the shirt, trousers and shoes but left the jacket, cape and socks off because it would be way too hot for them here. It had been weird without underwear in his life but he was getting used to it.
He stepped out from behind the tree and saw that his comrades had the same idea. They were already loading their capes and jackets into the large canoe that bobbed at the edge of water. Jason passed his clothes to Barine and she helped him load it. That was when he noticed that two mermen were tying thick ropes to their waists and the other ends of the ropes were connected to the canoe. They were also armed to the teeth.
Seeing his confusion, Jaye told him, “They’re warriors who are going to drag the canoe to the Frozen Islands for us and wait for us to get back. They’re armed in case we come across any… disturbances.”
Jason raised an eyebrow, “I thought they were peaceful people.”
“They don’t go looking for trouble. But if trouble comes to them, they have to be able to fight it off, don’t they? Especially with the amount of creatures and demons found in the water.”
“That makes sense,” Jason placated and found his way into the canoe, settling in one of the wide, cushioned seats.
Before long, they said goodbye to the merfolk and zipped off at an alarming speed, leaving a spray of water as they went.