Have some WaterFire Saga stuff. I didn't get everything I wanted in this one, but oh well.

(mermaids/pretty canon complaint, don't need to know any of it/soulmates/also magic weapons)

somehow I've gotten hooked on this ship, so have some Serafina/Astrid (or as I like to call them, Sastrid)

Astrid was sitting on the pier with her sketchbook, idly drawing series of buildings of Ondalina after giving up on attempting to draw the Icelandic mountains in the horizon, when the mer had showed up and pushed herself up onto the pier.

She'd actually seen them a few minutes before, and had decided to leave her be. The mer was staring at her curiously, and Astrid barely refrained from rolling her eyes. It was like she'd never seen a human up close before.

Not that she was anything like a human. But at the moment, Astrid wriggled her toes, she did have feet.

After a few minutes, the mer painstakingly shifted into a more human form, blue-green dress swirling around her knees with a delicate rapier on her hip . Yep, she was definitely here for the whole Council of Six Waters and inter-realm relations summit. That dress was way to fancy for any regular tailor's shop.

Then, the mer had the absolutely brightest idea to try standing up. Needless to say, she immediately stumbled, and Astrid almost pitched her sketchbook into the sea trying to prevent the girl from face-planting on the dock.

The girl swayed from where Astrid was holding onto her waist, and her grip on Astrid's elbows had her wincing.

I severely doubt that she's been on land much before now, Astrid sighed heavily, because this could very well end up a disaster.

Once the girl was relatively steady, Astrid released her and picked up her sketchbook, shoving it into her jacket, before running a hand over her face.

"Dune Sea shining! Have you ever been on land before now?" It was not the first time she had used her chosen Words as a curse, the first thing you said to your soulmate couldn't be something as mundane as "hello" or "excuse me" or "what on earth were you thinking" no matter the tone, but it was the first time she'd ever had anyone react to them in the few years since they'd appeared on everyone and forced the Integration and some scientists had the bright idea to have everyone come up with a unique phrase to prevent confusion.

"Well," the girl said hesitantly, before her expression turned a bit panicked, "No! I've never actually been to the Mariana Trench!"

Astrid would have laughed at her expression if her reaction to meeting people shortly after her soulwords had come in hadn't been very similar. Also if those words weren't printed on the inside of her left wrist.

As it was, she extended a hand for the girl—her soulmate!—to shake. "Are you here for the summit? I'm Astrid."

"Yeah," the girl shook her hand. "My name's Serafina. That's a interesting coincidence, I have a friend also named Astrid." She paused, "Please tell me you're not human?"

Astrid narrowed her eyes. Although the mer could shift human form for varying periods of time since shortly before the Integration, just about when soulwords started appearing, there still was prejudice among the older and more traditional that preferred to keep the worlds separate. "Why? You're not against integration, are you?"

"What? No!" Serafina tucked a long, wet strand of brown hair behind her ear. "It's just complicated. Humans can't live undersea all the time or in deeper pressures, and I kinda… need that… in a relationship?"

"Oh. Oh my god," Astrid's breath caught slightly in realization. "You're that Serafina! Sera! I didn't recognize you! You cut your hair again, really short. Also I doubt I've ever seen you in a dress."

Serafina's eyes widened, and it all made a bit more sense. Serafina di Merrovíngia, Regina of Miromara, wouldn't be able to just adjust the entire layout of the entire palace for one human, and although there were spells that would allow humans to live underwater for short periods of time, there was no way to cohabitate full time. Although, in recent years structures reaching the surface for that sole purpose were becoming more common.

"Astrid!" Sera exclaimed and seized her in a tight hug, burying her face in her shoulder. "I'm embarrassed, it's official. I didn't recognize you, just because I wasn't expecting it and your hair is up in braids. Which I don't think I've seen you in before."

Astrid patted her on the shoulder with her hand that wasn't pinned by Sera's arms. "It's alright, I didn't recognize you either. I haven't actually seen you in person since before the Integration, wow, that's almost three and a half years, and you've always worn very fancy outfits or tactical gear with very little in between, sooo…"

"Wow, this is awkward," Sera mumbled into her shoulder, "I'm very bad at this."

"That's alright," Astrid said, as she was released. "What's up with everyone else? I don't think I've talked with anyone other than Becca last week? But she's here so... for the past month or so, it's all been very busy." And like researchers had figured out early on, the words only counted if it was face to face.

Sera hesitantly looped their arms together, and then practically fell on her for support as they started walking. "Tell me about it. Neela is fine, we got in with Mahdi, Yazeed, and Des yesterday on one of those semi-submersible boats? I'm pretty sure that's what they're called. Anyway, Ava should be showing up sometime soon, along with Manon Laveau, who's apparently been elected to be the americas' freshwater ambassador. Ling is coming with the President of Qin, and I think Becca, Marco, and Elisabetta have been here for at least a week as the "experts" on human-mer relations, but I'm pretty sure that that's only because their family has known about us since Merrow."

She stumbled against Astrid again, and Astrid had them sit down on the nearest bench. "Please explain why you were swimming, alone, while you should probably be learning to use feet?"

"I thought I had yesterday! And well, I just wanted to see what it was like here."

Astrid stared at her flatly. "It took me at least a week to get a hang of shifting and immediately walking with minor stumbling, and I've been here for almost over a month now."

Sera sighed and rubbed at her calves, which if Astrid remembered correctly, would be just starting to become sore. "So there's no chance I'm going to be able to wear those things called heels tomorrow like Neela wants me to."

"Nope."

"Dang it," she straightened, staring out over the dark sea like she could see all the way back to Miromara, "I thought I was over this since the deal with the Italian ambassadors. Thank goodness I'll be able to sit down for this at least."

"Yeah," Astrid slowly smiled as a thought occurred to her, "It's a good thing Alítheia didn't try to show up as a guard like she did with the meeting with the Greeks."

"Please don't remind me, I'm just thankful that she decided to and I quote "watch all the children" than try to hitch a ride on the semi-submersible."

"I feel like Coco is behind that."

"You feel correctly then, it's amazing how many small children find a giant mechanical spider "cool"."

"I bet there's lots of mechanical engineers who will think the same thing once they find out about her." Looking down the dock to a nearby street, Astrid saw another figure with a similar, half-drunk looking walk. She nudged Sera in the side. "Is that Neela?"

When Sera nodded excitedly, Astrid flagged her over.

"I've officially given up on zee-zees." Neela announced, collapsing onto the bench on Sera's other side. "Also I've discovered leather jackets, and let me tell you, they are wonderful."

"Dune Sea shining to you too."

Neela looked no different than every other time Astrid had seen her, which meant wearing something completely different than the last time. Now, it was a high necked black-and-nude striped shirt, high waisted black pants and impossibly high heels for someone had just shifted the previous day. The only accessory that didn't change was the Askari armband from her cousin Kora.

Neela snapped her fingers excitedly, before gesturing in between Astrid and Sera. "That's—right? Sera?"

She nodded shyly, a far cry from the powerful regina, eyes flickering over to Astrid before embracing her friend. "We figured it out about five minutes ago."

Neela nodded. "Okay, cool! Now the question is, how did we not figure this out sooner?"

Astrid shrugged. "I don't think anyone really wanted to discuss the strange words appearing, and if anyone shared what they were, promptly forgot about everyone else's in favor of coming up with weird phrases, unless they'd had a face to face conversation and the words matched. And I don't think people really figured out the whole face to face thing until later on so no one really thought it anything matched up, because I don't remember anyone sharing phrases or stuff like that."

"Me neither."

"I also think," Sera added, "that it all got caught up in the sudden manifesting of the weapons of everyone above twenty-one." Her hand went to the rapier at her hip. "How anyone figured out that these are quite literally the perfect weapons for their bearers is beyond me, especially since most people in general don't use things like these."

"I, for one," Neela drew her sword, "think that it is totally rad that most of us all got swords of some sort. I've got the coral and dragon fang sword, Kora freaked out about that by the way, it was great. Sera, you've got that court type sword that says anyone who gets in your way will be destroyed, with their reputation in shreds, which is totally fair. And Astrid, you're practically already a Viking princess, so hey! Fancy I-will-mess-up-your-face-sword for you!"

"Put like that," Astrid said wryly, "Anything makes sense."

"Yup, guys, I'm exhausted, so let's go find Becca and co. and drag 'em to relax in the hot springs with us."

"That sounds like a good plan," Sera stood up and immediately latched on to Astrid's shoulders for balance, "It's been too long since we've all gotten together."

Astrid stood up and hesitantly laced their fingers together, still not entirely sure what to do with the bombshells that had been dropped that day. "I couldn't agree more."

Regina Serafina di Merrovíngia walked into the meeting room the next day that was filled with world leaders and reporters from all over the world wearing four-inch heels.

Astrid had no idea how she could do that, but attributed it to Neela working some sort of magic.

They still had no idea what they were going to do about the tentative bond of magic between them, but as Astrid saw the courage and determination in Serafina's eyes as she walked in that room and was immediately bombarded with questions, she knew that they'd figure it out. Eventually.

Astrid and Sera get together at somepoint and it's fluff.

I wrote this like Sera/Mahdi and Astrid/Des never happened, but like, if you want to have Sera/Mahdi/Astrid and mostly stick to canon, have fun, and its subtext!

hope you all liked this, and please review.