Rue tossed the book of swatches to the ground with an annoyed grunt. The anxious wedding planner scampered to the floor to save his precious tool from being tarnished by any unknown dirt. Rue thought her head was going to explode!

She sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Mr. Cat, why don't we pick this up tomorrow?"
After snatching up his book, Mr. Cat looked at his client. "If you wish Ms. Rue."
Mr. Cat gathered up his belongings and walked out the door.

Rue massaged her temples. She knew planning a wedding wouldn't be easy, but who knew it would be this aggravating! Maybe she shouldn't do this all by herself? Maybe she should call up her dad and ask for his help? But then she thought of her dad's lack of style, sense, and… well frankly, lack of humanity, and thought better of it.

Her dad hated it when he found out about her engagement to Mytho. He even tried to get her brother to talk her out of it! Luckily her younger brother, Fakir, was just as stubborn as she was and politely told their dad to go screw himself if he didn't approve. Yeah, she loved her brother…

But for now, knowing that there was literally nothing she could be done in this situation, she had to do this alone. Unless Fakir had miraculously grown a wedding planner nerve somewhere in his body.
Rue let out another moan as she flopped on the couch.
"Still struggling with the planning, sis?" Fakir said as he entered in the living room.

"Don't you dare start!" Rue snapped.
Fakir chuckled a bit, "I'm telling you, a jousting tournament would work perfectly!"
"And I'm telling you to take this wedding seriously, you twit!"

Fakir just kept laughing.
Fakir leaned his head over his sister's. "How about a break? We can go outside, I can get the boards, invite Mytho and Freya-"
"You had me until you mentioned her." Rue said sourly.
"Aw come one Rue. You're going to have to get used to her if she's going to be in the wedding."

Rue let out a sigh, "Fine…"

It had probably taken a good 20 minutes to get everything ready.
In case you were wondering, Rue lived by the beach. This was mostly rooted in the fact that she and her brother loved to surf and the stories their mother used to tell. And once she turned 18 and found her own path to make money, you better believe she planned to live on the beach for the rest of her days.
Mytho wasn't much of a surfer, but he always loved to watch Fakir and Rue glide along the waves.

Freya, Fakir's girlfriend, wasn't very fond of the beach. Specifically the water… and the fishy smell… and the sand getting everywhere, or at least that's what she told them. Rue always thought Freya was a bit of a killjoy when they went to the beach with her. Mostly because she'd say next to nothing, hold a look of distain on her face, and not even watch Fakir trying to show off to her.
In case you couldn't tell, Freya rubbed Rue the wrong way most of the time. But Rue saw how happy Fakir seemed to be with her and who was she to try and run her brother's life.

The weather was absolutely perfect! And the waves were alive with large roars of collisions.

As Fakir and Rue went about on the waves, they had no idea of the pair of fine blue eyes watching from a distance among the waters.
In fact, no one on the shore noticed the bright face full of curiosity and wonder as the siblings continued to glide over the water on their boards. And if any of those people noticed her, they probably would be in absolute shock upon seeing her, and that was because of the simple fact that this stranger was a mermaid!

This mermaid, who went by the name of Ahiru, didn't exactly own a gorgeous face, but she was pretty. She had fair skin, bright orange hair tied back into a tight braid, and a stunning silver tail.

The gills on the side of her rib cage flared as the surfers continued to amaze her. But the one that kept her attention the most was the boy with long dark hair. He was incredible with all his moves! It was easy to tell he was trying to get the attention of the girl on the shore. From what the young mermaid could tell, she looked enchanting with her long blond locks and slim figure. Must be why he was trying so hard with these tricks. So why was she ignoring him? Isn't it a wonderful thing to humans to have someone strive to want them? The whole situation was puzzling to Ahiru.

She watched them constantly. It was sort of a habit to come to the surface and watch the humans do this strange ritual on the waves. They charmed her more than any spell she ever cast.

At that thought, Ahiru fingered one of the pearls around her neck, specifically the one that held the spell she had just activated in order to watch the humans… the invisibility spell.

Being a silver tailed mermaid meant you were destined to be a spell caster among the merpeople. You were to create spells and trap them within pearls and be easy access for merpeople to use. Such was a lonely life with only your mentors and your family… if you were lucky. But Ahiru's skill severely lacked when it came to trapping spells into their correct pearls. Her barren necklace only had her conch shell and maybe three pearls on it.

Ahiru sighed and removed her hand from the pearl. At that moment, her conch began to sing. Ahiru quickly dived underwater. Once she was deep enough, she unclipped the shell from her necklace and held it out. Small lights began to escape from the shell's opening that surrounded Ahiru. A familiar voice echoed through the lights.

"Ahiru! Where are you?" It was Ms. Edel.
"Ms. Edel! I was uh… nowhere in particular…" Ahiru wasn't very good at lying.
Ahiru could hear an annoyed sigh.
"I've already lectured you about the human world before. Please don't make me do it again…"
"You don't have to! I used the invisibly spell… and I kept a huge distance from them!" Ahiru said hastily.

"And it worked? Ahiru that's wonderful!" Ms. Edel cleared her throat, "I need you over here right away."
"More training?" Ahiru moaned.
"You'll never get better if you don't practice my dear." Ms. Edel said sweetly.
"I'll be there soon…"

The small lights began to clump together and sink back into the conch shell. Ahiru clicked the shell back onto her necklace, deactivated the spell, and headed out towards Ms. Edel's.

Ahiru disappeared among the seaweed and arrived in Ms. Edel's underwater jewel cave.
Ms. Edel was floating over a bright upward crater from the ground (rather like a cauldron) swirling what looked like multi-colored smoke. Her silver scales shined amongst the glow.

Her face brightened upon seeing her student.
"I'd like to see your invisibility spell in action." She said warmly.

"Oh!" Ahiru quickly fumbled around her necklace until she plucked at her newest pearl. She closed her eyes and concentrated hard. When her eyes opened, Ms. Edel smile grew wide.
"Splendid, Ahiru! Absolutely splendid!"

Ahiru quickly deactivated the spell and took a clumsy bow. When she picked up her head, she noticed the color smoke again. "Ms. Edel, what were you working on?"
Ms. Edel seemed to find a struggle with her words. "If you must know…" She began, "I was testing the only magic that can't seem to be contained."

Ahiru gave her teacher a sideways glance until she remembered her basic training. "Emotions?"
Her teacher nodded.
"But you already have emotions Ms. Edel. Don't you?"
"I suppose." The older mermaid said as she tended back to her cauldron, "But then, how much of it is coming from this well of feelings?"

You see, one of the rare tropes of the silver tailed merpeople was that they would lose their emotions overtime. Some say it was because of them constantly playing with spells, other say it had to deal with lacking contact with merpeople. But regardless of the reason, it was a disease they had yet to find the cure for. And Ms. Edel was getting closer to her time when she too would lose hers.

Ahiru swam over towards the curling smoke. She fiddled with it as it made strange shapes from the water pressure. She watched as it escaped her fingers amongst every motion.

The smoke was hypnotizing. She could understand why Ms. Edel would be playing with something she was slowly losing.
Ms. Edel soon pulled her student back to her attention. "I didn't call you over to play with emotions. We have training to do. There's going to be a rainstorm today, and we'll need to prepare for it."

Ms. Edel passed her hand over the cauldron and it began to close itself inwards.
"Let's try a protection spell as a warm up." Ms. Edel said as she swam over to retrieve a book from her shelf.
"Where would you use this spell, Ahiru?"

Ahiru took a deep breath, "Angered sea creatures, human nets, or any emergency involving an attack from another merperson."
"Good," the mentor said, leafing through the pages, "What kind of pearl would you trap the spell in?"
Ahiru paused to find her answer, "A yellow one?"

Ms. Edel didn't say anything at first. The student's heart dropped into her stomach.
"That is correct." Ms. Edel held out a yellow pearl for Ahiru to take. She also handed her the book that contained the spell. "Now you must sing to the pearl. But only to the pearl! You understand what will happen if you don't."

"Yes Ms. Edel, I know." Ahiru said gently. She took a deep breath through her gills and turned her focus to the pearl. She sang the incantation as best as she could, keeping in mind of tune and rhythm, as the pearl began to glow. By the time the last note was reached the pearl began to vibrate. A fear slowly began to rise in Ahiru. If she couldn't contain the vibrations, the pearl would shatter and the spell would fail… like everything usually did for her.
Ahiru snapped her focus back to the pearl, pushing the fear down. She would get this one right! She was sure of it!

The last note ended, and the pearl was still in one piece. Ms. Edel took the pearl between her thumb and index finger, and concentrated hard. A silver shield grew around her. The spell was a success!

The shield vanished and Ms. Edel handed the pearl back to her student. "Well done. This is yours now."
Ahiru happily took it, and clipped it to her necklace.

Another spell down, a million more to go…

A/N: I think is a good as any place to stop for the moment. I'm going to try and make these chapters a little bit longer than usual, but I can't do too much right now since I'm drowning in homework. *sigh* Such is the life of a college student. Anyway, I'll post chapter two soon, I promise!

Until then, let me know what your thoughts are so far! Thank you so much for reading!