He’d gone ahead of her, eager to rip off the strange clothes. There was a shaky exhilaration lingering there in his belly. Hastily pulling the shirt up, he unbuttoned it and threw it aside. Already he had removed his shoes, the sand nice and warm under his toes. 

    “Jie, what in the hell has gotten into you?”

    “I…I don’t know what came over me just then. I’ve never wanted to do that before.” He spoke seemingly out loud, tossing aside the suspenders from his arms and reaching down to unbutton his pants. At once they too met the other discarded clothes and he at last felt like he could breathe. Turning, he looked at her still in her dress. She glanced down his body but found her gaze brought back up by way of his hands. 

    “Get undressed bòhé.” He whispered against her mouth, drawing her breath. 

    “The waves will make us clean again. Once they do, we’ll go from there.” 

    “But,”

    “I don’t care where I have to travel to. As long as you’re safe… as long as we’re together I don’t care.” He pressed his face against her neck with a shaky uneven sigh. 

    “I know you’re scared sweetheart. Was that the first time…you ever did somethin like that?” He didn’t answer but she felt him nod against her. Licking her lips, she drew him closer in a hug. 

    “We’ll go for a nice swim right?” Smiling at her, he lifted his head. 

    “Yes. For a little while.” 

    “Okay.” He watched as she began to undress, casting aside the outer dress and reaching behind her to unlace her corset. Once she stood in her shift, boots and stockings, she reached up to carefully pull the hat and its pins from her hair. It all met the sand. Leaning down, the stockings slipped down her small slender lower legs and the boots too were strewn. Just the shift left, she reached for his hands and he came to her, leaning down to kiss her. It was his hands that pulled the shift down and once she was fully nude, he lifted her up into his arms. Slowly, her arms and legs came around him and he walked them towards the softly lapping waves. Soon they crashed into them.

*** 

    He let the water wash away the blood from his face and hair and outwardly sighed. Opening his eyes, he found her still underwater, seeming to float in mid air. Smiling, he swam towards her and gave his fins a gentle flutter as he playfully circled her. Wrapping arms around her, he lifted them to surface. 

    “Do you feel better?” She asked, breath starting to grow heavy. 

    “Mmhm.” He answered against her neck. 

    “Good.” 

    “I’ll do it again.” He murmured against her skin. 

    “If I have to I will.” Turning in his arms, she sighed against his shoulder. 

    “I know honey. I know.” Sighing deeply against him, she pulled back with a playful smirk on her face. 

    “Think you can outrace me back to shore?” He snorted with a grin. Obviously. 

    “Shall we see?” 

    “On my mark. Get set. GO.” They both dove underwater. He eyed her up ahead and decided to give her a running start, slowly slipping his fins alongside the current. He watched her as she went to surface for a moment and came back down. Now. Pushing hard, he gave himself a fast shove forward and she disappeared from view as he propelled straight like an arrow. Laughing to himself, he saw the dunes of the sand shore just up ahead and grinned as he came up for air. Smirking, he waited for her to surface, knowing she was sure to be a bit tired from all the extra peddling from her arms. Soon, she did and her breath huffed loudly. 

    “Are you surprised I won?” He teased, laying his lower body against the sand beneath the water line. 

    “Oh hush. You don’t have to brag about it.” Snickering, he took her in as she took a breath and dove a final time under. A few minutes or two passed and his smile now started to wan. When he didn’t see her appear, he sat up straight, eyes starting to scan the waters. 

    “Bòhé?” Her head popped up but only for a moment and it appeared as though she had tried to speak, the water silencing her. Shit. Quickly, he dove back under. There a bit aways from him she was. He was certain that she had been closer than she appeared. As he drew closer, his fins pumping frantically, his heart stopped. 

    It looked like she was fighting something. To his horror, hundreds of hands seemed to arise from the deep dark waters even further below them and they grabbed hold of her. NO! He got close enough to where he could grab her but suddenly was repelled by an invisible forcefield. It sent him north, his body flying through the water like a rocket. When the bubbles cleared around him he felt a hand wrap itself around his neck and pull, bringing him up to shore. 

    “You know the price you have to pay for that little stunt don’t you?”  Eyes widening, the woman with the huadian from all those years ago… the one who had lured, killed and cursed him was in front of him, her claws digging into his neck. 

    “Let me go!” Those unchanging red lips smirked. 

    “You didn’t think about the rules did you?” 

    “Falling in love with her isn’t a crime. I’ve done no wrong!” He hissed, reaching up to rip her hand away from him. But alas, pain ripped instead through his neck and shoulders and she gripped even tighter, a grip inhuman. 

    “No but killing a mortal is.” At that he visibly paled and the veins in his neck and shoulders appeared blue. 

    “He was going to kill her. I had to do something.” He tried to reason but it was to no avail. 

    “You’ve got two strikes against you now.”

    “What else is there?”

    “Fathering a half mer child.” He blinked his confusion and again tried to rip her hand away from him. 

    “You’re insane! Let me go.” 

    “You didn’t know?” Those lips drew into a sneer. 

    “The human you love is carrying your child. And she, poor thing, is dying.” The last time he had ever cried was when he had held his sister’s corpse in his arms…and yet he could feel the grief and agony start to chip away at him minute by minute that he was prevented from going to her. 

    “She will die here and the sea shall claim her.” Lifting arms up, he slapped her and shoved her head away from him, an action she allowed. Watching through half lidded eyes, she took in the way he dove underwater, his fins slapping the water firmly on his descent. He was the same foolish boy now as he had been all those years ago. Because of his actions, the consequence of it would be forced to sit in his chest and dwell in his belly for four generations from that day forth. 

*** 

    His tears fell as he swam to her, his heart ripping in two. No… no no no this was not the plan… They were supposed to run to another land… a land where they could live without the threat of other humans. It was supposed to just be the two of them… Heart shattering, he found her still and limp against the sea floor, body lying against a pretty bed of multicolored reefs. 

    The sorrow and anguish he felt materialized as small pearls that gently fell upon her face. He had needed more time. More time to figure it out. Figure out how to make her like him. If she was like him then time would not matter. The lore be damned. The law of the sea be damned. As endless as the waves were so they would be. Coming to her, he lifted her up into his arms, lifting a hand to caress her hair. Eminta….More pearls slipped down her body and drifted into the sand below them. He let out a tortured scream, the fish at once around them scattering. Holding her tightly, he began to go up.  Up to the beach. 

*** 

    Tears welled up in Fei-hua’s eyes as she listened to the story, her hands clasped so tightly in her lap. 

    “When I got her to the beach, I could finally let the deep agony inside me free. I wept like a child… the same when I found my sister slain… my parents slain. No, it was worse. I don’t think I’ve ever cried that way before her and not after her.” 

    “Professor Yi…” His throat was tight and his hands were stiff as one lifted the cup of steaming hot coffee to his mouth. 

    “The fact that she had conceived…it still torments me in my dreams.”

    “Do you think she knew?” It was a very long while before he spoke, his eyes not on her now. They looked out the window, a pained expression on his face. 

    “No.” Is all he had the patience and will to answer. 

    “My God…”

    “It didn’t matter what it was. Half mer. Half mortal. If it was a piece of her I would have been pleased. As long as the child knew that with her and I it had been created with love in its purest form.” 

    “Professor Yi… I’m…I’m so sorry…” 

    “For the longest time I laid there next to her, my mind and soul now empty. I laid against her, pressing my face against her stomach that would never grow round. The water had made her skin cold wet and clammy. Her body had started to grow hard as though solid stone lived beneath her skin.” Turning eyes away from the window, he glanced down into his cup of black abyss. 

    “You asked me once the same as she did. Why do I always go to the sea? Why do I go to a particular beach in Encinitas when there are so many others?” Sad eyes looked up at her. 

    “There is where I revealed myself to her. There is where we laughed, talked and held hands. On that beach is where we made love and…on that beach is where she lay dead.” It hurt to swallow. 

    “I wanted to bury her…bury our unborn child there. But instead, I offered her up, finally let her go…let them go to the sea. I held her head above the water and pressed a kiss against her lips now grey. Placing the pearls that I’d cried around her, I tried to make her as beautiful as I could…even with the tears of agony. And then…then I let the waves carry her wheresoever they desired until I could no longer see her.” The girl in front of him wept, hands lifted up to hide her face. Her shoulders shook with her grief. 

    “It’s been four generations since she was taken from me. Now…now I wait.”

    “W-wait for what?” 

    “Until we are reunited again.”