Home bound

We are making our way through the cold air and snow drifts to the waypoint pad. The boy is starting to get cold so I cast a warming spell over him. And as always Samantha is chilled even with her warming spell.

"Tell me about your sister." I ask the boy.

"Um her name is Bella. She is older than me and use to take care of me til I was old enough to care for myself." He spews on.

Not what I wanted to hear.

"Did she have someone she was seeing? Like she was really in love with?" I ask.

"Hazel." Samantha whispers jabbing my side with her elbow.

"What? Ninety percent of mermaid cases are due to heart break mixed with a curse by the sea side." I look over to my trainee.

She shrugs forfeiting this argument.

"Alright I hate to sound all businessy but I need to know where she disappeared, what time of day, and if there was a huge change to something in her life. Examples being breakups, death and/or friendship problems." After a few moments of him processing my list, he responds.

"The town she lived in is Athens." He went on about random pastries near her job site til I asked him to answer the other questions. "Uhh I would say early morning she disappeared. Her boss said she never showed up that morning. And I'm not sure on her love life or friendships. She was very private."

"Alright. Athen isn't far from here. Once we make it back to base I will get us a tracking spell from Matilda. That's if you have something of the person you want to find." Matilda made that spell due to how many things she had going on in her store. And the many people that would leave their things there and never come back.

He then went on after asking him if she went outside often for anything. Which he said she only leaves the house for work or grocery shopping. 

We waypoint to Matilda and grab a tracking spell then head to Athens which is still cold since it's in the northern region. The kid hands me a barette of his sister and then we watch the pretty yellow auras dance around. Then they show us a line right to where we wanted to see.

"What's  going on?" Asks the boy.

'Your sister has been found. You ready?" I ask the kid. He nods frantically.

"Good. Now keep up." I take off in a jog followed by Samantha. It takes him a second but he jogs with us.

We come to a patch of ice where the auras stop. Meaning she is below the ice. I brush away the snow on the surface and the ice is two feet thick and is clear as glass. Every so often we see a blue mermaid swim by.

"That's her! That's Bella!" Says the boy getting on his hands and knees.

I explain to the two, Bella has her hair color, shimmering blue scales and her fin isn't fleshy or with spikes meaning she's cursed so we can at least give her back her memories.

I write the spell she needs to look at on a paper and slap it facedown on the ice. The paper glows as the spell takes effect. Bella's face lights up recognizing her brother. Sadly the way to break her curse of the mermaid is she needs to kiss someone, spell erases their memory and then transfer the tail. We follow Bella to open water so the siblings can talk.

Turns out her favorite pastry shop closed down and she was devastated while walking the waters edge and some mermaid took advantage of that. Yet with her memories returned she said she is fine staying a mermaid because she wants to travel like her brother. Her brother, Jim wanted to be a merchant but fell into the wrong group with the last crew.

Samantha and I left the happy siblings and headed home.

"I can't wait to sleep." I tell my trainee.

"Same." She says. "Oh wait, you still haven't slept in a long while! That's not good."

"Oh I know." I reply getting more groggy knowing my bed is getting close.

Samantha helps me into my small house where James was laying on the couch. I pull my boots off after getting inside.

"Hey honey, you looked whooped." My handsome brown haired boyfriend says putting down a book.

"Yea I am. I'm going to bed. I'll probably see you tomorrow. Good night." I say walking to my room.

I hear James and Samantha swapping info before she leaves. But being exhausted I collapse on my bed and am out like a light.