and I fell heavy into your arms {Andy}

[Mumble]

Mumble had always felt at peace near water. It reminded him of all the best things in his life, and it gave him a sense of surety and calm when nothing else could. There was something constant about it that made his heart quiet when nothing else could, and he had spent a lot of time near the water over the past five years. This lake, though, surpassed all of it. There was a magical air that felt like it permeated his whole body, his heart and mind and set his soul at ease like he hadn't felt in years.

The lake also didn't feel like it had aged at all. The rest of the school, the town, everything was overgrown, but the lake was here, as sure and wide and deep as it had ever been. He took off his shoes, holding them in one hand, and rolled up his jeans to his knees before walking down to the water, stepping into the shallows. The sun still wasn't too high in the sky; it was fairly early in the morning and the world had a clean energy about it that was somehow purifying. 

He walked along the shore in the shallow water, and it didn't take long before the soft slap-slap of his feet took on a rhythm in his head. There was, as always, a song in his heart, and he smiled to himself, matching his footsteps to the beat of the music only he could hear. 

And I'll kneel down... Mumble hadn't had much heart for dancing during the last few years. He hadn't had much energy for anything, and when he did dance, it had been mostly out of desperation, when there was nothing else he could do. Wait for now...and I'll kneel down...know my ground... He was getting more into it now, adding a flourish here, a spin there. And I will wait, I will wait for you...

He hummed quietly, dramatically out of tune, but the beat in his head was true and strong, and he felt a smile crack open the dark haze he had been living in for so long now, and he reached down, catching the water with his fingertips, sweeping an arc of droplets upwards towards the sun. It was like purging poison from his soul, and as the song in his mind rose in a crescendo, he came down onto his knees in the water, chest heaving as he realized how long he'd been dancing and how fast his heart was racing. He sat there, breathing hard, not particularly caring that his shoes were getting a little damp beside him. 

And then something twisted, something flashed bright and magical, the air opened up, and Mumble's world stood still...

[Andrina]

Andrina's portal opened up a few feet above the surface of the lake, as if the magic was unsure exactly where it was supposed to be going and this was the best it could do. A bit like Andy. She twisted in the air, gasping and confused. Her green and purple tail glinted in the morning sun. She would have been glad for the warmth, for the air, if she wasn't falling into the unknown. Only a few seconds passed before she splashed down into the water, but it took a lot longer for her to get her bearings.

She propelled herself around in a circle, her heart racing. For the first time in years she felt energized and awake. Any moment she could die, but at least she was living. This was new and exciting and even if she never figured out exactly where she was, at least she wasn't still in that same ocean with the same people that could never truly understand her affection for the outside world. Sure there was maybe one sister...but Andy always resented Ariel for stealing away all of their father's affection. It didn't feel right to confide in her. So she had been alone, or rather, she had secluded herself. This may just be another lonely place to hide, but at least it was new for now.

It was a lake, she realized. It was much murkier and warmer than the ocean. She noticed a few familiar rocks, lost items under the water. She spun from side to side, recognizing more and more as she did so. This was...Elanert Lake. She had been stuck in the lake for months back at the school. The school? She couldn't be back. It had been so long and it seemed so impossible. She had given up. Why would the school choose now to bring her back? Andy felt angry. Why couldn't it have done this sooner? Was it just messing with her by sending her back to this lake? Andy swam toward the shore. Perhaps she wasn't the only one to have been sent back. She could at least try and call for someone. She broke the surface when the water became too shallow for her to continue swimming. She jolted and splashed when she realized she'd come up only a few feet from someone.

"Holy coral! I'm sorry I didn't mean-" She began to ramble, shaking her head and blinking the sun out of her eyes. It was dark under the sea, she hadn't spent a lot of time looking at things in the sun. It took her a moment to focus and then...

"I...Mumble?"

She was frozen with shock. Her brain felt like it was full of mush. He was sitting in the water.

"You're all wet."

[Mumble]

He wasn't sure what was happening; he didn't put the pieces together at all, because he'd been in a pretty befuddled state of mind when he had come through the portal himself, and had no real concept of what it would have looked like from the other side. He saw something fall, wasn't sure what it was, and stayed where he was sitting, looking in the direction of the splash, but it wasn't until she came up out of the water just a short distance from him that he realized what he was looking at.

Even then, he didn't quite believe it. Five years. Five years he had spent searching for this girl, swearing he'd never stop until he found her. He had gone to the ends of the earth to look for her, had exhausted every intellectual, physical, and financial resource he had to locate her and he had come up short, he had nothing really left to keep going with other than his own two feet. He would have done it, too, he would have walked the world for her if he had to.

And then suddenly, there she was. Right in front of him, right there in the water, and all he could seem to do was stare at her, speechless, eyes wide and round in disbelief.

Then she said his name, the shock of the moment shattered, and he scrambled forward on his knees, splashing into the water towards her. "Andy," he said, desperate and a little broken, his voice cracking as he pulled her into his arms, holding her close to his chest, totally indifferent to the fact that his clothes were quickly soaked. "Andy, Andy, Andy." He wasn't going to cry, he was determined not to bawl his eyes out in front of her the second they were reunited, but his heart felt like it might explode with the surge of emotion that welled up in his chest.

"I never stopped looking for you, not for even a second, and they were like, you idiot, there's no such thing as mermaids, but I knew, I knew I'd find you." He leaned back just far enough to hold her face in both hands, and pressed his forehead against hers, oblivious to the wet and the cold and the world around them.

[Andrina]

It took longer for the shock to wear off on Andy's end. She felt the strange urge to dive as he rushed toward her, confused and stunned by the overwhelming feeling he was bringing with him. It was like a tsunami headed straight for her, but she couldn't get out of the way. She didn't want to. Not this time. Not after five years of nothing.

He was saying her name. That was Andrew Mumble saying her name. The man she'd thought she'd lost forever. The man she was certain she'd never hear say her name again. Was this a dream? Would she wake up feeling lonelier and more heartbroken than ever? But he was there and he was pulling her close. He was soaked, but his clothes still felt soft an unusual against her skin. She hadn't felt cotton in five years. Her arms remained in mid air on either side of him as he spoke. This was a dream, it had to be. Andy wasn't ready to give in and have it all taken away.

Then he pulled away and she was afraid that he would leave. She rushed to put her hands on his shoulders, but there was no need to hold him hostage. He was pressing his forehead against hers and her breathing hitched. The tsunami had hit and all she could do now was let it wash over her with its crushing force. The tears came all at once and shook her from head to tail. Her hand that had been gripping his shoulders slid up to his face.

"Mumble..." she sobbed. He'd been looking for her. He'd never stopped looking and she had given up. How could she have done that too him? She leaned back so she could look into his eyes, her chest heaving with five years worth of sorrows. She stroked his wet hair back with a shaky hand. She wanted to apologize for not believing this day would come. She wanted to apologize to him for being gone for five years despite not having a choice. She wanted to hold him for the next five. Instead she only cried harder and managed a few more watery words.

"I love you."

[Mumble]

Her hands were in his hair and his arms were around her and nothing else in the world mattered, not the pain of the past five years, not the cruel things people had said, or the worry in his parents' eyes the last time they came to visit him. Not the empty bottles of jack next to his bed back home, not the sleepless nights or the restraining order from that dumb mermaid museum, none of it. It all fell away, left nothing but the two of them in the moment.

"I love you too," he managed, his voice rough and strained, as he tried valiantly to keep the tears back. He wasn't even sure he was succeeding, there was water everywhere, and it could just as easily have been tears or lakewater on his face. He pulled her in and kissed her, and it wasn't even a great kiss in the grand scheme of kisses, because they were both crying and he was shaking, either from cold or sheer emotion, but it was a kiss he'd been waiting on for five years, and it was everything he could have asked for. "I'm never letting you go again."

It was a silly promise; it wasn't as if he'd chosen to let go of her in the first place. But he was about certain that he would die if he had to spend even one more day without her, and it was that realization and the sweeping rush of feelings that had been building up over the past five years that brought the words out of him. Between desperate, breathless kisses pressed to her lips, her cheek, the top of her head, he cradled her close and he breathed out "I love you, I love you," and then, his lips next to her ear, one hand tangled in her hair, "Marry me."

He hardly even realized he said it himself at first, and when he did, he choked back another sob, one hand coming up to cover his mouth in surprise, his other hand still in her hair, and then slowly, he lowered the hand over his mouth and grabbed her hand with it.

"I'm not joking," he said, swallowing hard. "I don't want to live another second without you, I know what it's like to not have you, and I never...I never want to do that again, so you should marry me."

[Andrina]

"Good" she breathed when he confessed that he loved her too. They'd said it before. She shouldn't have been surprised, but still his words washed over her liked she'd been holding her breath on the subject for as long as they'd been apart. Everyday in the mitts of her depression, a part of her would cry does he still love me? Every day she'd think he has to have moved on by now. Yet here he was telling her how he'd never given up. What a beautiful fool. How could he have thought he could get to her from his world. Or, maybe, she was the fool. Here they were. Had he done this or some outside force? Did it really matter?

He was kissing her and it was messy and a bit awkward, but it felt like bliss. After the crushing guilt and overwhelming anguish, came relief and joy bubbling up from her chest. She felt lightheaded and drunk, a few hiccuped giggles escaping her lips between tears and kisses. She felt warmer each time his lips pressed against her skin and healthier, fuller, happier each time hers touched him. She couldn't have imagined how much she missed the touch of his skin, the way he felt in her arms, how he looked at her like she was the single most important living thing on earth. She thought she had mastered longing for him until this moment. She couldn't get enough. He pulled her close and she squeezed him so tight her arms hurt. Then he whispered something in her ear and she loosened her grip in shock.

"I... She breathed in response, her brain taking too long to translate what he meant. "Marry me." She giggled deliriously. It was shocking and exciting and difficult to process after just now seeing him for the first time in five years. She had to slow down for a second and force herself to think, which Andy didn't do often. Had she missed him? Terribly. Did she love him? Absolutely. Did she want to spend the rest of her life with him?

Andy had been engaged before and it had ended in such a traumatic disaster that she had sworn off men entirely. That seemed like ages ago now. She'd seen Brad around back home, but his betrayal never hurt like it did before she met Mumble. He was just some terrible merman and Mumble was...perfect for her. Mumble loved her. He amazed her around every turn. Yet, was he serious? Or had he just gotten caught up in the moment.

As if he'd read her thoughts he told her he wasn't joking. He kept talking, but a smile had already grown on her watery face. The sobs had stopped rolling in, but the tears kept coming. Her chest hurt from the pounding of her heart, her eyes stung with tears, and her face felt sore with the force in which she was grinning. She wasn't sure why he felt like he needed to convince her when it came down to it, but she listened anyway.

"Ok." she said simply. "Ok, Mumble lets get married." She said, louder this time. She squeezed his hand and felt such a rush of adrenaline and elation that she barely knew what to do with herself. "Lets get married!" She shouted, propelling herself forward and into his arms. Whether or not they tumbled into the water, Andy didn't care. She found his lips once more and kiss him ardently.

[Mumble]

He had no reason to think that getting married would keep them from being separated again if something happened like it had before. They couldn't really get married right here and now in this water on the shore of this lake (considering they were the only people here), and if he'd thought about it, Mumble would have said he wanted Andy to have the best wedding she could possibly dream of. If she wanted something complicated, it might have to wait a while, seeing as he had no money at all, but...they knew people with magic. Maybe it didn't have to be that far away. But whether it happened ten minutes from now or a year from now, getting married wasn't going to keep her from getting swept away from him again if the portal decided to send them home. It had sent him home before, and he had to believe it could do it again.

But he wasn't thinking of that right now. Right now, the only coherent thought in his mind was of the girl in front of him...wait, no, on top of him. She jumped forward, and he toppled backward into the water, sliding one hand down to rest at the small of her back, laughing as he returned her kiss.

"Alright, alright, yeah," he said, grinning. "We'll do it. We gotta..." There were a lot of things they needed to do. They needed to get back to the school, he needed to bring her to the others, so they could all unite their resources and whatnot, but...that could wait. He had more important things to worry about right now, like how much he had missed this girl, how he suddenly remembered that he had never spent enough time kissing her before, and how all he wanted to do was keep kissing her, and whatever else followed. And then he slid his hand lower, and...oh, wow, there was a tail there.

"Hey," he said, still smiling, because his brain hadn't quite figured out yet that this was a major problem. "Hey, you have a tail."

[Andrina]

He was agreeing with her and attempting to make some sort of plan, but Andy was busy trying to kiss every bit of his face. She hummed a vague agreement to his words despite the fact that he hadn't finished his sentence. She didn't care when they got married or how many people where there. The only thing that she truly cared about was the fact that he wanted to get married. He loved her and he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. They could buy some cheap rings and simply tell people that they were married and she would be perfectly happy. Not to mention, she'd done a grand wedding before. It didn't turn out great. However, if Mumble wanted to do something grand she'd be sure to show up. They'd have to do it by some water, of course. This was her only requirement if they were inviting people at all. and only then because her family would probably like to attend.

Andy felt his hand on the small of her back and a tingling sensation rushed up her spine. She was wearing somewhat less clothing than she normally did on the surface. Shell bras where pretty traditional in Atlantica. She wasn't complaining now as she pressed up against him, her kisses becoming more fervent as time passed. She moved on to his neck when he began to speak. She wasn't feeling much like talking anymore. Not when kissing felt so nice. Still, she felt his hand move down and then his words finally registered.

"I do," she giggled at first, not entirely pulling away. Of course she had a tail, she was a mermaid. Mermaids have tails. She had a tail and he did not. She went through the portal and she still had a tail. "I do..." she said, her voice sounding more serious as her brain caught up. "Oh my gods, Mumble" She said, holding him at arms length and staring at him with a horror struck expression. "I still have a tail!"

The last time she had come through the portal she had been granted legs, she would have assumed the same thing would have happened again. It didn't. She was stuck in the lake again. Holy mother of Poseiden, she can't be stuck in this lake again.

[Mumble]

Mumble's mother probably would have had a holy fit if he'd tried to elope, but right then, he absolutely didn't care. The only thing in the world that mattered was this girl, how real she was, how here she was, with him, in his arms. Right then, he was willing to leave absolutely everything behind for her. Even if there were a way to go back home, it didn't matter to him, not now, not anymore. If they could figure out how to get his parents here for a wedding, sure, they could have a big wedding, but there was nothing on this earth or any other that could have possessed him to walk away from her now.

They were both so caught up in the moment that it took Mumble a good moment or two to really start to worry about the tail thing. He didn't quite focus on it in earnest until she leaned back away from him, and he had the presence of mind to focus on what she was saying. Right. The tail. She had come through a portal, just like he had, but she was definitely still a mermaid.

That not only complicated some things Mumble had been thinking about doing right at that moment, it complicated...everything. Was he going to have to stay here beside the lake for the rest of his days? Acceptable, he decided, though not ideal. Or maybe...yes, probably the better idea would be for them to try and find someone who could help them out with this.

"Merlin," he said, which was maybe a strange thing to say when your girlfriend fiancée was on top of you and you hadn't seen her for five years, but he had a reason. "I mean, Merlin is here, he got here when I did. He helped me with my...with the thing that happened before, where I was singing, you remember. We could ask him, if he knows what we could do. But..." He met her eyes anxiously. "I don't want to leave you. I can't leave you, I can't go anywhere without you, not right now, after...after everything, and how awful everything was for five years. Things are so strange here right now, everything is older than it should be, and...if something happened, and we got separated again..."

[Andrina]

"What?" Andy said, imminently following Mumble's interjection of a name. Maybe it was just an expression she had never heard of. Mumble had a tenancy to say things on occasion that Andy just kind of went with. Either because there was really no sense in trying to make him explain, or because she figured she just wasn't familiar with it. There were still a fair amount of things she had never heard of in the surface world. Now she had been away again for five years and some of the things she once knew had faded. Maybe he was just expressing his shock.

That was perfectly acceptable given that Andy was starting to freak out herself. Moments ago she had been happy to accept this as her new prison. It was at least different from her old one. However, now Mumble was here and she could be stuck in this lake and away from him again. She felt that striking and intense fear she had felt when he'd pulled away after he held her for the first time come back ten fold. Luckily Mumble had something more to say and something wonderfully helpful at that.

She nodded when he mentioned the singing curse. That was another confusing and odd time in their relationship. They'd had a lot of those, but that was in the past. They were together now and neither of them was going insane or being viciously blackmailed. They were in love and they wanted to get married. She just had a tail for now. She'd gone back and forth between having a tail and legs many times throughout the years. This was not only fixable, but perhaps a minor problem in the grand scheme of their lives. They would make this work, but, first...she had to let him leave.

Andy pulled him into a hug as he mentioned everything she was thinking. That he didn't want to go, that he couldn't. That he feared being separated again. These were her exact thoughts toward him as well, but she knew she couldn't keep him in this lake with her forever. He was cold, she could feel his exposed skin against hers. She much more used to living in cold water. He could get sick. She didn't want that. Besides, they had a lead now, at least. Not to mention, this would be different than last time she was stuck here. This time he would know and he would come back.

"I know, I know" she said gently, her words weighted with resignation. She turned her face into his neck and pressed a kiss against his skin. She wanted to stay there, her head nestled on his shoulder. The smell of his skin made her want to cry as a million good memories came with it. "You have to go." She sigh, her words a bit muffled in his shirt. She didn't want to pull away. A thought came to her from some distant part of her brain. "Bring me one of those...." She lifted her head, thinking hard. "The things...the chairs" She said. She'd seen people using them when their legs had been injured on land. Why couldn't she remember the name? "The chairs with wheels, you know..." she put and arm on either side of her an mimed someone using their arms to move the wheels. Listen, she was a mermaid, human stuff was hard to keep track of.

[Mumble]

A suffocating panic bubbled up in Mumble's chest. He couldn't leave her here, he just couldn't. Right here in this moment, she was real and alive and warm in his arms, and maybe she had a tail but she was still Andy and if he walked away and ended up sucked back to his stupid bedroom in stupid Washington state, he was going to die of it. They would try to tell him that he'd imagined it all again, and he would just die, that was all there was to the matter.

"Andy," he said, shaking his head, "I can't. I can't leave you here, you don't know..." He swallowed hard, trying to keep his voice functioning. He couldn't remember the last time it had been this hard to speak. Maybe when Merlin had first tried to dispel the singing spell that she-who-must-not-be-named put on him, and it felt like molten lava was being poured down his throat, that was a little worse, but right now it felt like his whole throat was cramped and his lungs were closing up. "I spent five years. Five years I was looking for you, and they were telling me that there was no such thing as mermaids, that there wasn't any magical school or portals or any of it. I just found you. I can't leave you here. We'll figure something else out. I'll stay here in the lake with you. I'll...I'll carry you back to the school and we'll get you in a wheelchair there. That's...that's what it's called, by the way."

He looked down at her tail, thinking to himself that it was a pretty tail, as far as tails went. He definitely would have preferred that she didn't have a tail, but...it was beautiful, just like the rest of her. Guin, she was still the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen in his life.

"How long can you be out of water?" he asked. "Like, do you have to go back in or...something bad happens to your tail? Can you breathe okay out of the water, you're okay right now, right?"

[Andrina]

He was starting to panic and it made her heart race too. She was trying her best to be the calmer of the two. She needed to convince him to go. He wasn't making it easy as he mentioned how hard it had been without her. She recognized the desperation and despair in his eyes, but the rest of his story was very different from hers. She didn't have to convince everyone back home that magic was real. She especially couldn't imagine someone telling her that she couldn't believe in mermaids. That didn't make any sense. Not believing in mermaids was like not believing in people. One was on land and one was in the water. Did people from his world really not believe in mermaids? That sounded stupid, almost silly, but the way Mumble described it made it sound horrifying. Her most difficult task was trying to convince her fellow merfolk was she was getting so worked up over a human. After all, most merpeople preferred to stay in the ocean. Her sister and her were an extreme exception.

She held his head in her hands, sympathizing and trying to think of what to say. The problem was, she didn't want him to leave either, so it was hard to think of ways to tell him to go. She knew he couldn't live in the lake, but the idea tugged at the corners of her mouth. It had not occurred to her that he could carry her, which made her feel stupid in hindsight. She was certainly a rather small mermaid and he wasn't weak by any means. Andy just didn't love the idea of having to be carried, even if it was by Mumble. Andy liked to be as self sufficient as possible. She liked to feel capable. Still, being carried was better than being parted.

"Wheelchair-really? Are you sure? I was sure it was something fancier..." she trailed off, instantly becoming derailed by the train of thought. How could she have not remembered the word 'wheelchair?' Mumble moved on and she had to focus again.

"Well..." she thought, scrunching up her face. "I've never really tried it for that long," Andy had spent some spans of time lying out in the sun on rocks and such in the past. Not so much since she'd gone back home. Even then she hadn't kept track of time because water was always right there if she started to feel uncomfortable. "I'd guess probably a few days if I stay out of the sun." They had a pool at the school, right? and she could...carrying around some water or something. They could make it work, right?

[Mumble]

He had to keep it together here. He had to. He couldn't just show up to their epic reunion and have an equally epic meltdown. She wouldn't want to marry someone who couldn't even have a first conversation with her without having some kind of freakout. That wasn't what he was trying to do here, he just...it was so much, all at once. He'd gone from living in his world with the last dying embers of hope, trying to hold onto the last shreds of his sanity, to suddenly being thrust back into the world he had been willing to stake his reputation and all his well-being on. And now all was not well even here.

"It's definitely wheelchair," he said, smiling a little in spite of the gravity of the moment. Surely if this were a hallucination or something, if he was finally somewhere in a padded cell deep in a delusion, it wouldn't be this detailed, his brain wouldn't have known to hallucinate cute little Andy things like forgetting the words for basic human technology.

"Okay," he said, rubbing his forehead, deep in thought. "Okay, so, I can take you back to the school now, we can talk to Merlin. We'll figure out what's going on with the school; I don't know if there's running water yet or any of that, but if there's not, I can bring you back here. If there is running water, we can....there's tubs, I bet there's a big one, like a jacuzzi somewhere, or the pool." It was going to be okay, he told himself. They were going to work this out. Or at least, he had to make her believe that he thought so.

"It'll be alright," he added, "we're together now, so it's already better than it was before, and we'll figure out how to get your legs back. Or get me a tail, or something." Having a tail and not being able to dance sounded like the second worst thing Mumble could imagine, but it was second worst to having to live without Andy again, so if it came down to it, he'd already made up his mind there.

[Andrina]

Andy knew that these plans were important. She knew that she didn't want to be stuck in this lake and she knew she didn't want to be parted from Mumble ever again. Her heart ached with ten thousand worries and desires and her head felt foggy and heavy with rushed thoughts. Here she was, finally back where she belonged and, of course, there was some obstacle causing them problems. Would the climb ever end? Were they just meant to struggle forever?

Yet, she was not out of her right mind. She was not injured or ill. He was not being blackmailed or cursed. They were together. So what if she had a tail for a while? How much pain could it really cause them so long as they remained side by side? These thoughts warmed and steadied Andy. Her gaze softened as he spoke of pools and tubs and his friend Merlin who could help. That was plenty of a plan and it hurt to see Mumble worry about her. She wanted to get back to the kissing and holding each other.

"It'll be alright" he added, and she smiled gently, watching his lips move and form the comforting words. She let his reassurance wash over her. It would be alright. They'd been through much worse. This was nothing. They were together. They were going to get married. "Oh Mumble," Andy said, pulling him close. "You can't get a tail, everyone knows I only love you for your dance moves," she lamented sarcastically, planting another kiss on his lips. She pulled away and chuckled a little, thinking back on their plan. "Do you think you're parents will approve of you keeping a mermaid in your bathtub?" She laughed a little more at the thought, a bit delirious from the morning's events.

[Mumble]

His parents? Why was she bringing his parents into this? He was infinitely relieved she didn't jump right in on the get-Mumble-a-tail plan, though. He would have done it for her, he would have done anything for her, but that didn't mean it wouldn't have broken him a little...or a lot, or completely.

"We're going to get you some legs," he assured her, "and I'm going to dance with you at our wedding, and that's a promise. You better start thinking of songs now, because it's going to make everybody cry. Including me." He kissed her softly, then let go of her, reluctantly even though he was just going to be picking her right back up again. "Let me just get my shoes on."

He moved back to where his shoes were, and struggled briefly with pulling on wet socks and sneakers. It was distinctly unpleasant, but he truly didn't care, there were so much more important things in play right now, wet shoes were the least of his worries. Once he wasn't barefoot anymore, he stepped back into the water (at this point, there wasn't really any part of his clothes or person that wasn't soaked with lake water). "Okay, so, first of all, you are not gonna have to see my parents. I think they still think I'm crazy. You know, they don't even remember sending me to school here? I think there's some weird magic at work here, because nobody back at home took me seriously about any of this."

He leaned down to slide one arm under her tail. "Just hold on around my neck, I got you, okay?" He hoped he'd be able to manage this; he had never carried a mermaid before, and it occurred to him that it might be a little slippery, like trying to carry a wet fish around in your bare hands. But at least she would be actively trying to hold onto him, and not writhing around trying to escape.