A Fairy Out of Her Tale - Dear Diary - 52. Scene 52

21st January 1995

Dear Diary of Unsettled Stomachs,

Unn still wasn't with us for lunch. It made me worried, even though having Lydia sit next to me and feed me some of her food was quite distracting. Kris made a rude comment at some point (his tone made it obvious what it was, even if I didn't understand the words), which Lydia amusingly translated as "Thank Czer we're not having spaghetti." I was going to ask who this Czer was, but Lydia offered another mouthful of her lemon tofu strips and I got distracted. It's not like it matters anyway, it's probably the name of some shape-shifter deity he believes in (and who's obviously nowhere near as great as our Mother Deity).

But because Unn wasn't there again, Lydia and I decided we should go visit her after lunch. She was in her swimming pool bed, keeping her fish half under water while the person-shaped half rested on a floating blue mattress. She looked like she was about to vomit (or had just vomited, or both). She didn't lift her head to look at us until we spoke to her.

'How are you feeling?' I asked after the basic greetings.

Unn snorted. 'How do you think? If I felt anything worth being happy about, I wouldn't be here.'

Lydia jumped on my defence. 'No need to be so snarky, she was just trying to be polite.'

'My room has been spinning for the last two days. I'm not going to apologise for not being the most conversational.'

'Maybe we should leave...' I turned back to the door, but Lydia grabbed my arm before I could move.

'We'll go soon, I promise.' She smiled to me and turned back to Unn. 'We came here to check on you and to thank you for helping us get back together.'

'You're dating again? I didn't do anything.'

'Well, sort of. It was because of your act of self-endangerment that Lóránt called us all yesterday and said we should at least try to make an effort to be friends and look out for each other. That made me want to give Nessa another chance.'

'And Lydia turned out to be pretty forgiven with she realised I didn't understand what I had done.'

Unn lifted her head briefly again, just enough to glimpse at us keeping our bodies as close as the laws of nature allowed. 'I'm happy for you. As much as I can be happy about anything.'

'And we want to extend to you the same offer,' Lydia said. Unn lifted her head again in an impulse, but groaned and laid back down like she would definitely be sick any second now. Lydia closed her eyes, but continued to speak anyway. 'We've had our differences and we were never proper friends before, even though we've been living together for a few years. Maybe it's about time we change that.'

'Are you going to say the same to Kris?'

'Dear Mother Deity, no!'

Lydia looked at me with an eyebrow raised, and I felt Unn's intent to stare too.

'He scares me,' I explained. 'I don't think he wants to be our friend anyway.'

'Maybe not. We can see about it later.' Lydia patted my lower back in reassurance (that was about as high as she could comfortably reach) and turned her attention to Unn again. 'So, what do you say? Can we try to be friends and look out for each other like Lóránt said?'

'I'll think about it when I'm not using all my brain cells to not release whatever is left in my stomach.'

'Are you dizzy because of the ice cream still?' I asked.

'No.' Unn gripped the floating mattress until her knuckles turned white, then let go and took a deep breathe. 'The ice cream just caused me to get rid of every bit of food I had on my body. It's been over for a while now.'

'Then why are you still sick?'

'Because all the vomiting and other biological functions I shall not mention in the presence of a dwarf also got rid of the spell that was keeping me from getting sea sick again. Lóránt hasn't been able to replace it yet.'

'Spell for sea sickness? How can merpeople get sea sick?' I asked again. Lydia gave me a look that said I should've kept my mouth shut, but it was already too late.

'Exactly! Even the clueless fairy thinks it's a ridiculous idea!' Unn grunted. 'It's one of those rare diseases that baffle scientists because they go against any evolution or spiritual theory they've ever come up with. The movement of the water currents makes me dizzy, which means that the first few years of my life under water were one long, sick nightmare.' Unn stopped to grip the floating mattress again. Lydia and I waited in silence, as if pretending we weren't aware of how close she was to do something disgusting we would rather not watch. 'I've always wanted to live in the surface, escape the water, but my family and just about everyone in our flock believed merpeople should live and die at sea. They said life up here wasn't made for us, that people would cut off my tail to make sushi with and leave me dying on the beach as soon as I approached the shore.'

'That's horrible.' I would need a lot of Lydia cuddles to not have nightmares with that mental image tonight.

'And the most senseless lie, but whatever. In comes Thorfinn, a merperson-demon guy who promised he could put a spell on me to make the dizziness stop. I was 13, didn't know any better, and my parents were keen to do anything that would stop me pestering them about going to the surface.'

'I have an idea where this is going.'

'Then do me a favour and don't make me say anything else.' Unn capsised the mattress and swam to the furthest corner from us. Lydia realised what was going on before I did and hurried me out of the room.

'We need to give her privacy,' she said as she kicked the door shut and led us back to my room.

'Are the demons after Unn because of that spell?'

'I think so, though I don't know the details.'

'I hope Lóránt can make her feel better soon.'

'Yeah, me too.'

We stood there in silence for a while, before we realised we were alone in my room and had a very inviting bed waiting for us. We didn't think about Unn again until Lóránt called us for dinner, and, to be honest, I can't bring myself to feel guilty about it.