2. Chapter. Twoie Bubble

Bubble

Bubble had a task at hand. And that task was so simple, that even a 14 year old mermaid could do it.

At least, that's what her family had hoped, the reality of it was that she was as swift as a kite, at night, in a storm. And that's when the problems arose.

"It's a way of weeding them out dear," She could imagine her family saying, "and if she doesn't come back, then she'll stay a trash maiden."

This was what Bubble did not want. She was smarter than that, she knew the different between trash and not trash, usually anyways. And that was better then some royalty that defacto "good".

She wanted to be good, useful anyways, instead of the dumb trash-maiden that her sister was, or the raw seaweed puller that her dad turned out to be. No, Bubble was going to be great, she was going to be an diplomatic bounty hunter!

So. Her first mission, was to help a really, really stupid unicorn.

Now the story goes that this unicorn heard from a fairy that heard from a dragon that ate some berries that were like the best candy there was. And this unicorn had looked at the tree they was from and had said, "Why isn't there any here?"

Now the faeries told him, "Well, there on the other side."

The unicorn, he saw that the tree had another side. And was like, YEAH! So, he waited around it during a storm, and traveled through the hole to get some ripping sweet candy!

That was several moons ago. His family wants him back, they're frankly worried about him, and are going to be paying really well, I mean an actual contract well.

Well, a contract with the unicorns. Bubble… She really did care, honest, She really did. But… What she cared of about more was that no bodies cared to succeed in the months that it's been posted! Ten, count them 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,(10) dark moons. I mean, yeah! Maybe I can take it on and actually be somebody!

I mean, contracts are like an ambassadors job anyways, and traveling is like an ambassadors job too, and like writing, and talking and learning. And that's what I am going to be doing to get the unicorn home to his family.

Bubble smiled, she was on her way to make good on her first assignment, and it was one that she really thought she might be able to handle!

All that was good, great even, she had found the unicorn, he lived with a human, the human was nice, but about a week ago, the human wanted the unicorn to leave. What happened was that he ran out of flowers to munch on, and was kinda… Well... they had narcotic qualities and his human seemed to think he was really, really sick.

SO! Bubble made a deal with a cat, Calico, who's a skarkie, (not important) and she had a troll eye. (very, very important) and Bubble was assigned to… Find it.

'What!!!' Bubble rushed around when she heard the news, 'What happened???'

Then she saw what happened, the tree was destroyed, Calico's eye was lost, and the unicorn was still too sick, lethargic and depressed to do anything…

She found the marble! It had gone to the bottom of the river, way down stream, and Bubble had finally made it back up, not completely back, just upstream enough so that the current would take her to the creek.

So, did she make it???

Sunny, Randy in Creek

'Damn,' Randy thought, 'what's with all that blood???' He really didn't want Sunny to see these red streams, coagulating together when they could as they passed him and flowed down to the main river as he heard a faint scream.

'I thought I heard something.' His hearing was sensitive to somethings, and honestly hoped there had been an accident at the market, but.

Bubble

"AAHGHHHH!" Bubble crashed into another rock. The "stream" was very fast here, the rocks were very jagged, the stone crocodiles were surprisingly friendly as she hung on. Yeah, she knew there was a waterfall soon. Yeah, she knew that this part didn't get easier. Because, every single time she had to do it was harder.

But then there was the unicorn.

Unicorns have a special type of magic, it's vibrating magic, yeah. Like herbs, people didn't fully understand it, but the fact that they could make stuff grow, they could heal stuff, and project patterns in the air made them magic.

It also made them hunted. Hunted for they're horns by crazy people on the black market. Thankfully, the Algonquin confederacy was one of the places that actually cared, or had groups that did anyways, it would be nice if Iroquois or Zhōngguó actually did. But, First world doesn't mean much of anything but exports and war bonds…

Randy, Sunny

"What was that!?" Sunny exclaimed, she climbed up a foot or two of one of the growing trees to get a better look, then heard another yell, this one was louder, but it was softer as something very large was falling down into the roaring waterfall.

Suddenly, she saw something move in Missy's bushes, her eyes gazed at it as it bent over and she saw a head.

'Randy... Is that real???' She thought as she didn't want to disturb the magic that she had just found, instead she swung a tree branch to try and get Randy's attention and stood motionless.

Randy's sight followed the figure, He was 900 percent sure that he'd have to cal 911 in a second, but instead of reaching into his backpack for his cellphone, he ran to the shoreline and was positive that he'd have to climb down the rusty waterwheels ladder and swim over to help whoever had fallen it, they looked unconscious, and--

He saw a twinkling spiral horn come closer to the figure. He knew what it was, but… It was impossible, his sister told him it was real, but she also told him to go back to church, and we know how well that worked out.

The glowing, cone shaped horn bent down and picked the figure up, the long haired bleeding girl up, and then she seemed to stop bleeding, the unicorns horn seemed to glow brighter, or move rapidly, and shine, and it was so iridescent that-

Randy was starting to shut down as he noticed that blood had stopped flowing a minute ago, and watched Sunny splash mud all over the place as she jumped off of her tree.

"I gotta go there!" She exclaimed, his niece, Felix was running after her, but stopped on the bottom step and waited for Randy to tell him that he could go, or that he couldn't go.

"Go!" Randy shook his hand, "Keep Sunny safe." he added as he fumbled toward the stairs, everything was fine. Everything was going to work out. 'God is on my side today.' Randy told himself, 'God is on my side today.'

It wasn't real. Nothing Amy told him was what he wanted to hear, so nothing that she told him was real.

But it was real. "It is real Randy." His subconscious tried to reason with him, "It's real, Sunny's real, and she need you. She needs you because Amy asked you to watch her, and Randy," it seemed to look right at him and added, "she does love you."

He looked at Sunny. He noticed that Felix was right beside her, sitting in the middle of the bridge.

"Randy, that's really magic, right."

"Yup." Randy called back, he could see it too, a part of the yard that Missy hadn't covered up, he knew now why she had covered it up."

"Is that all Mom's friends?"

"I don't know." Randy admitted.

'But you're like best friends right?' Sunny looked at him, "I really want to go over there."

"Okay…" Randy said, he wasn't sure why he had said it, was it a blatant lie to a little girl, was it because sometimes everything feels possible, or was it something else, some realization that his sisters stories had merit to them, that if she was right about those, she might have been right about some other things.

"Okay." Sunny stood up as Randy came over and leaned over the railing, he sighed, he thought about this bridge, "You know this bridge is real important to her,"

"Mellissa?"

"Yup." Randy said, he didn't want to admit that they were as close as Maine and Alaska, but instead, he told her, "It's funny, I thought I heard screaming."

"But it's like a fish right?" Sunny asked him, the sea cow on the shore in front of her was still mostly limp, it had hair, but it wasn't as silly and childish as a siren or mermaid.

"Yeah…" Randy looked at the girl laying in front of a fairy tale horse on the beach, she had extremely filthy hair that seemed to cover her whole body. "I don't think so." He answered, "She might have gills, but I don't think she's a fish."

"She?" Sunny said, "You think it's a person?"

"What?" Randy looked at his niece in surprise, "You don't think she's trash do you?"

At that, Bubble flung to her side and rocked her way into the water. "OMG! She's like not like drowning is she?"

Randy watched, he knew that words wouldn't help Sunny as she held her breath, he knew that if he was as good person as he'd like, he'd put his hands on her shoulders, to like, tell her that she's not alone, but he knew that he wasn't even a person, let alone a good one.

Boop. Peep poob boop boo. Bubbles rose to the surface of the water, but nobody came up.

Sunny breathed hard, her pulse felt like it was getting faster as she started to whine, and then. Bubble hopped up out of the water to what looked like her knees and gave the unicorn a kiss.

"She's okay."

Randy did look over at Sunny and smile, he could do that much. He looked at Felix and smiled, everything was nice. Everything was fine. He and Sunny breathed easily as he started back down to the beach, then when he was about halfway down the stairs, he realized how bad his timing was. He looked back at the bridge, where Sunny stood now, and Felix still sat.

He realized that it didn't matter, he could pretend to be fishing all day long and it wouldn't matter at all because 1: He honestly didn't understand fishing. 2: Sunny only wanted to see "The great witch Melissa" And 3: He was probably really stupid, and although, he told himself that Missy's flirts about visiting were just stupid jokes, her dad's words, "You really should come over some time, anytime really, the house is unlocked you know." probably really did matter, probably were sincere, and they probably were something he should have listened to a long time ago.