Chapter 25

The next morning, I woke up with my face pressed against Tidun's chest and he had his arms wrapped tightly around me. I felt so warm and protected that I didn't know how I was going to sleep any other way from then on.

We went to breakfast in the mess tent, and Tidun met my parents for the first time. Maybe it was from the stuffy turtleneck, but it felt like I'd sweated enough to form a puddle under me. Although there was no reason to worry, since my parents seemed to love Tidun. Mom took over the entire conversation, asking Tidun all about himself and his family. Dad was quiet as usual, nodding as he ate his food, but I saw him glancing between the two of us a couple of times and nodding again to himself. I took that as a sign that they accepted us.

We told them the two of us and Aisha were going to the underwater market and spending the night. Of course, Mom spent a good ten minutes telling me to look after myself and making sure I had everything I needed. Tidun chuckled as he watched Mom fuss over me, which only had me blushing at still being treated like a child by them. She only stopped after I kept reassuring her that I'd be fine.

I originally had plans for us this afternoon to continue the hunt on finding Tidun's passion, but I decided to cancel, since it was obvious what he was passionate about. He liked people, and he was good with them, so all that was left was discovering how he could utilize his skills to help his kingdom.

He felt bad about canceling since Id spent time making the plans, but most of my plans involved something with our hands, and after seeing Tidun bump his hand while using the pottery wheel yesterday, it was probably for the better to skip. Thankfully, shifters healed fast so the bump had already healed, leaving behind a faint pink tint against his pale skin that he assured me would be gone by tomorrow.

Tidun left after breakfast saying he needed to take care of some stuff for our trip, but honestly, I think it was because he wanted to respect my time with Aisha. She was surprised he wasn't there when I went to pick her up but seemed happy about spending some alone time together. I hated that she thought that just because I had a boyfriend it meant everything would be about him.

I wanted Tidun to be a big part of my life, but that didn't mean Aisha's importance to me decreased. She was my best friend and that would never change. I made sure to tell her that, teasing that she couldn't get rid of me that easily. I briefly saw her lips tug up in a smile before she covered it with a snort.

Since we were going on an overnight trip later, Aisha and I decided to relax at the circus grounds. We took our art supplies to an open clearing that didn't have too many people walking through and just chatted about random things while she crocheted and I sketched. She'd finished her crop top and was now working on a maxi skirt she'd seen online.

It'd been a while since I last posted on Ether, so I uploaded the drawing I did today. Not even five minutes after I hit post, I got my first like and comment by a username I'd recognized. This person had been with me practically since I'd opened my account and always made sure to show their support by interacting with my post and sending me encouraging messages. I didn't know who they were, but it felt good to know that somewhere out there, someone liked my work enough to keep supporting me. It made the feeling of inadequacy diminish just a bit.

Tidun returned around four in the afternoon to pick us up. I was curious about how we were actually going to get to the marketplace, but he only smiled and said it was a surprise as he continued to drive.

He stopped at the closest beach, parked, then led us to an isolated stretch of the beach that was hidden by short cliffs. He handed us two gold bracelets and instructed us to put them on and follow him in the water.

I had my doubts about a bracelet keeping us dry, but I should have never doubted magic. Aisha held one of my hands while Tidun held the other as he led us slowly into the water.

Aisha lagged behind, putting me in the middle between them. I turned around to find her glancing wearily toward the ocean. I squeezed her hand, letting her know she wasn't alone in this. She shot me a grateful smile and continued following us deeper.

It shocked me too that I was willingly going into depths of the ocean where I had no business being, but instead of being scared like I thought I would be, I was excited to see a place I'd never known existed. And through it all, I knew Tidun would protect us, even from any possible giant squid attacks.

When we were completely submerged, what seemed like a clear bubble appeared and covered our heads like a helmet, allowing us to breathe normally. I could feel the water around me, but it didn't feel uncomfortable like wading in water with wet clothes usually felt like. It was like the water was there, but there was a barrier preventing it from actually reaching me.

I turned to Aisha to see that she was also looking down at her body in amazement. She used her free hand to pat her clothes, and I could see her hand slightly bouncing off her body.

Tidun gave us time to adjust to the new sensations and to just look around. It was my first time being able to see anything underwater so clearly, and I was amazed by how much life there was even this close to the beach.

Fish swam around us, looking at us curiously as we swam further away from the shore. Once we were deep enough, Tidun turned to me and let go of my hand. He didn't speak with his mouth but with his eyes instead, and they were telling me to trust him.

I nodded, and he glanced at Aisha before swimming away. Without us as baggage, he was fast. One second he was in front of me, then I blinked and I could only see a dot of his figure far in the distance.

In another blink of an eye, instead of the small dot, a ginormous whale was there instead. A yell of surprise came from Aisha, making me realize that we could still talk underwater, but the sound was just more muffled than above water.

Aisha tugged on my hand, yelling something that sounded like, "It's coming closer!" But I didn't move, even as he swam closer to us.

I wasn't afraid. Because even if I'd never seen this whale before, I knew exactly who he was. Except, I had seen this whale before. It was the same whale I'd seen the day our circus arrived in this town. Now it made so much sense why I'd been obsessed with drawing him when I saw him, the same as it was when I saw his human form.

It was Tidun. It had always been him.

And he posed no threat to us.

Tidun stopped right in front of us. He was so big that I could only see one of his eyes.

The first thing I noticed was that his skin was the same color as his hair: mostly silver, but a beautiful blue when light shone over him. His eyes were also as dark as his human eyes, only much larger, but it felt like I could still read what he was trying to tell me.

I swam closer and pressed a kiss to his nose—or was the blowhole a whale's nose? His tail waved much like a dog would when happy, except his movement caused me and Aisha to be pushed back a couple of feet.

Tidun slowly swam to us again, this time presenting his mouth to me. I knew the whale was Tidun, and I loved him and all, but I'd never imagined myself having mouth-to-mouth with a whale…I couldn't even imagine the logistics of it. His mouth was a hundred times larger than my entire body, but if he wanted a kiss in his whale form, I wasn't going to question it.

I leaned in and puckered my lips, ready to kiss one of his large bottom teeth—that seemed the most reasonable choice of action—but before I went and made a fool of myself, I saw whatvaguely looked like cloth seats strapped to his bottom teeth inside his mouth.

I quickly pulled back and tugged Aisha into the little setup, hoping she didn't catch my blunder. Thankfully, it didn't even look like she was paying attention to me.

We quickly got into the seats, which even had seat belts. Tidun closed his mouth until there was just enough space for light to pass through but nothing else, and then he took off. I noticed a gold band around a tooth on the other side of his mouth that looked strangely like the gold ring he usually wore on his pointer finger, and figured the magical ring did magical things.

With his mouth mostly closed, we could barely even feel how fast he was going, but I knew it had to be fast by how much water was whooshing by. Aisha and I settled in, not really chatting but looking at everything that passed us by instead.

Half an hour later, Tidun's pace slowed. We'd gone so much deeper into the ocean than was humanly possible. There were a few times I felt pressure, like my ears were going to pop, but the bracelet suit thingy Tidun gave us would always adjust itself so we weren't uncomfortable.

The last five minutes had been too dark for me to see anything clearly outside, but Tidun went deeper, past some seaweed, and it suddenly became as bright as if we were on land.

"Look!" I said, tugging on Aisha's arm. She had her eyes closed and was dozing off when my shout shocked her awake. She leaned over Tidun's teeth with me as we approached the bright dome that was at the bottom of the sea floor.

It looked similar to the bubble we had over our heads, but on a much larger scale. Inside the dome were what looked like hundreds of stalls set up in rows and all sorts of creatures wandering through them.

Tidun had us get out of his mouth before transforming back to his human form, then taking us to what looked like the entrance of the market. Two giant seahorses with what appeared to be tridents floating beside them stood on either side of the entrance. Their beady eyes glanced at us, but they let us pass through without issue.

There was no water inside the bubble, and as soon as we passed the entrance, our bubble helmets disappeared on their own. Aisha looked around, clearly excited to see the place that was so different from anything we'd seen before. I was eager to explore too, but there was one thing I needed to do first.

I tugged Tidun close and wrapped my arms around his neck. "You're beautiful in your whale form," I said, going on my tiptoes to press a quick kiss to his lips. When I pulled back, the brilliant smile he gave me told me I'd done the right thing.

He pulled me in for another kiss, this time slower, and with a lot more tongue. If Aisha hadn't cleared her throat, I might have said screw it and dragged Tidun to the nearest place with a little bit of privacy.

I reluctantly pulled myself off of him and gave Aisha a sheepish smile before following her deeper into the market. Tidun chuckled and caught up to us. He explained the history of the place and pointed out some of the stalls he'd frequented, but for the most part, he let us wander around and get lost in the beauty of it all.

And with the two of them by my side, the market seemed that much more magical.