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Moonlight danced across the surface of the lake, rippling and swaying with the tide. Wilbur sat near the shore, sand sticking to the palms of his hands as he watched the waves move in and out.
He hummed a tune under his breath, tapping his finger against his leg to a steady rhythm. The vines that hung from the bottom of the pub swayed with the wind, churning and brushing against each other.
Wilbur sang a quiet song as he dug his fingers into the sand. Words coming absently, not caring about the rhyme or reason behind it. His tail wagged back and forth as he did so, tilting his head to the side.
The wind blew his hair in front of his face, caressing his skin and he relished in the feeling that spread through his limbs. A brief sense of clarity compared to the echoing numbness whenever he was invisible. His existence was light as a feather, able to be blown away by the wind with any small breeze.
He liked the feeling of the sand underneath his fingers, the wind in his hair. The vibrations of the song against his lips. It seemed different at night when he was the only one awake. Not including the other phantoms that swayed and swam through the sky above.
Sure he could feel the wind when it was daytime, he could feel the sand. He could experience all of this. But he couldn’t sit where he was sitting now. He couldn’t do all of that at once where he was.
There wasn’t a single tree nearby, nothing that he could huddle under for shade. Nothing that would shield him from the sun’s painful sparks against his skin.
The moonlight didn’t do that to him. He could sit here for hours, as long as he wanted. Until his voice was hoarse or until his skin was rubbed raw from the grains between his fingers. He had no need to be invisible, to sit through the suffocating void that lived inside him.
Something about the song he sang was familiar, it tugged deep within his mind that he had heard this song before. That it was something that he knew when he was alive. But that was as far as the feeling took him.
Suddenly there was a splash from the lake. Wilbur stopped singing, turning his attention to the murky black water as the surface rippled, distorting the image of the sky.
Wilbur watched the ripples fade. He didn’t know if there were fish in the lake or not. Tommy wouldn’t let anyone go fishing in it, even if there was. The phantom hybrid blinked, his eyes were naturally adjusted to the darkness that surrounded him, but as he tried to peer into the water he couldn’t see anything.
There was another blip in the water and more ripples, this time it was closer to the shore. Wilbur furrowed his eyebrows, flashing invisible for a second, reminding himself that he always had a way to escape if something went wrong. He always had a backup plan.
Not moving from where he was sitting, Wilbur waited in silence.
A head peeked out from the water, glowing pink eyes stared at Wilbur from where he was on the beach. Wilbur’s eyes widened and the figure in the water ducked back down.
This got Wilbur to his feet. But instead of running or fleeing, he crept closer to the water. Trying to see what was there.
Since there was no dock or anything on the lake, he could only get so far to be able to see. It’s not like the figure could be able to come this shallow in the water, he assumed. At least not comfortably.
“Hello?” Wilbur called, cupping his hands around his mouth like a megaphone. He was sure that whoever was there couldn’t understand him. After all, you can barely hear anything underwater.
“Hello?” The figure peeked up out of the water again. The light was reflecting off the water droplets that slid down their light blue-colored skin. From what Wilbur could see at this distance, pink hair rippled with the waves behind them and the way their purple eyes stared at him.
“Hello,” Wilbur responded dumbly, his eyes were wide and his tail wagged back and forth. The figure swam a bit closer, still under the water from the neck down. Finned ears twitched and seemed to shift with the movement of the water. Pieces of coral strung together floated up towards the surface.
“Sorry if I startled you,” She spoke with accented common. A soft high pitched lilting voice that somehow seemed to carry over the sound of the waves.
“No it’s okay, I’m a very hard person to startle,” Wilbur crouched down near the edge of the water, sitting with his knees digging into the sand. The person kept swimming a bit closer but kept most of their body below the surface.
“I liked your singing,” she looked down at the water, a hint of embarrassment creeping across her cheeks which flushed a darker shade of blue. Her ears drooped. It reminded Wilbur of when Ranboo got embarrassed.
“Really?” Wilbur asked, “it’s nothing much…”
“You’ve got a nice voice,” she was a few feet away from Wilbur now. In the illumination from the moon and where the water was shallower, he could see the rest of her body just under the waves.
She was laying on her stomach on the sand, a long tail sticking up over the water, thin, delicate fins spread off from the end of it, dragging against the water. Spine-like fins ran from the back of their neck all the way down their back. Patches of scales shimmered in the light across her cheeks and some other places on her skin. She rested her hands near the surface of the water, sharp nails with webbing between her fingers that made Wilbur look down at his own hands.
She kicked out her feet, long claws curled in the air, webbing between them stretched. It was hard to see what she was wearing but Wilbur noticed the stringed coral and shells that rippled in the water around her. Her pink hair spread out down her back and spread through the water like dye.
“Thank you…” Wilbur picked at the hem of his shirt.
“Do you live on the floating island there?” She pointed up to the floating island that hovered nearby. Wilbur looked back.
“Oh uh… yeah I do,” Wilbur said, “do you live in the lake?”
She nodded shyly, “yeah…”
“That’s so cool,” Wilbur exclaimed honestly, “how come we’ve never seen you before?”
“I uh…” she sank down a bit more into the water, “I don’t come out too much during the day… and I get too shy…”
“Oh I forgot to ask your name,” Wilbur dug his fingers into the sand, “my name is Wilbur.”
“Niki…” She said.
“That’s a pretty name,” Wilbur leaned forward, the water splashing against his hand. Niki giggled, covering her mouth with her hand.
“How come you’re laying in the water like that?” Wilbur asked, tilting his head to the side. Niki looked up.
“Oh, my gills need to be underwater,” Niki explained, she pushed herself up some and Wilbur could see her gills flexing across her neck. She sank back into the water. Wilbur hummed.
“That makes sense.”
They continued talking, asking about each other’s lives. Wilbur kept asking what it was like underwater or how she lived down there in the lake. His eyes sparkled with curiosity, Niki’s eyes kept flickering up towards the floating island above and she would ask Wilbur about it.
This lasted for hours until the early speckles of dawn were starting to peek over the horizon. Wilbur’s eyes widened.
“I have to go!” Wilbur said, scrambling to his feet, “I’ll talk to you later!”
“Huh…” Niki flinched back at Wilbur’s sudden movement, “oh… okay!”
She watched Wilbur half jog towards the shade of the floating island and as he pulled himself up the ladder that dangled off of it. When Wilbur finally got to the top, he looked down to see that Niki had disappeared into the water. He pushed open the door to the pub and stepped inside as the sun was starting to rise.
“Good morning Phil,” Wilbur whispered, he crept over to where Phil was just starting to wake up on his mat outside of the nest. He crouched down next to Phil, poking his cheek.
“Hm?” Phil grumbled and furrowed his eyebrows, “what?”
“Phil you’ll never guess what happened,” Wilbur rocked back and forth on his knees, his tail wagging back and forth. Phil squinted up at Wilbur.
“Don’t you usually let a man wake up a bit more first?” Phil asked, rubbing his eyes. He pressed the heels of his palms against the ground and pushed himself up to a sitting position, the blanket that was wrapped around him bunching up in his lap.
“Well you seem to be awake already,” Wilbur said, tilting his head to the side, “anyway I’m a man and I’m perfectly awake.”
Phil chuckled tiredly and pressed a finger to his lips, “quiet so you don’t wake everyone else. Now, what won’t I guess.”
“There’s a lady in the lake!” Wilbur said, covering his mouth with one hand as he realized his excited tone, “she’s so cool.” he added in a whisper.
“A lady in the lake?” Phil raised an eyebrow, “what do you mean?”
“I mean that I was sitting at the edge of the lake and then suddenly there was this lady staring at me from the water,” Wilbur spread his hands in a wide arc as he talked and explained his story, “we talked all night and it was great.”
“Huh…” Phil rubbed his eyes, “Sounds like an exciting night.”
“You’ve got to meet her, Phil!” Wilbur put his hands on Phil’s arms, “you’d love her.”
“Wilbur the sun isn’t even up yet, give me a moment,” Phil shook his head and laughed, his tone light-hearted. Wilbur stuck out his bottom lip in a pout.
“Not everybody is as awake as you this early in the morning,” Phil ruffled his hair and pushed himself up to his feet. He stretched his arms above his head until his shoulders gave a satisfying pop. He shook his wings out and helped Wilbur to his feet.
Wilbur shifted his weight as he watched Phil move around the kitchen, pouring himself a glass of milk and smoothing down his hair. Wilbur waited rather impatiently for Phil to be done with whatever he was doing.
“Come on,” Wilbur said, he took Phil’s arm.
“I’m coming,” Phil followed Wilbur outside the pub, his wings flaring out as Wilbur flashed invisible, realizing that he should’ve brought his cloak.
It was too late for that now as Wilbur was already descending the ladder, the rope burning against his palms as he slid down and jumped off the last few feet with an ungraceful landing. Phil followed him, stepping off the edge of the island and letting his wings catch him before he could hit the ground.
Wilbur tucked himself under Phil’s wing, using him as shade from the sun as he half dragged Phil down to the shore of the lake. Phil matched his strides easily, holding his wing up enough that Wilbur could still move safely.
“Niki!” Wilbur shouted as he reached the shore of the lake, he bounced on the heels of his feet, his tail wagging. His feet sunk into the sand and it got in his boots all over again.
Wilbur scanned the water, reflecting the yellow and orange of the sunrise across the water. He tried to see any sign of Niki’s presence in the water. Some sort of sudden ripple or the flick of her tail. Though the surface of the lake was unfortunately smooth. Wilbur pressed himself closer to Phil’s side as the sun was starting to rise higher.
“Niki?” Wilbur asked, worry creeping into his tone. He had just seen Niki, it wasn’t like she could have gone that far.
“I don’t think she’d be able to hear you if she’s underwater,” Phil said, putting a hand on Wilbur’s shoulder, “if she is even there.”
“She is there!” Wilbur insisted, “she was just there.”
“Are you sure that you actually saw someone?” Phil asked, “the water likes to play tricks on you at night.”
“Are you calling me a liar?” Wilbur asked, feeling his cheeks heat up.
“Wil, no,” Phil insisted, “I just wouldn’t think that there would be any people in these lakes nearby. Not with all the hunters. It would be too dangerous.”
“We’re here.”
“Well lakes are a bit different than land,” Phil just shrugged.
“Well I know she’s there, I bet she just can’t hear me because she’s underwater,” Wilbur scoffed, “I was talking to her all night.”
“I believe you,” Phil said, spreading his hands. But there was a hint of something else in his tone. Wilbur pouted, crossing his arms in front of his chest.
“Let’s go back up, I’m sure the boys are going to be waking up by now,” Phil shook his head and sighed. Wilbur already knew which boy he was talking about. Tommy always woke up just after Phil and the Avian always liked doing a headcount right after he woke up in the morning.
And if you weren’t there for his headcount. Oh boy.
When they got up to the pub, Tommy was just starting to sit up. His eyes scanning over Ranboo and Tubbo, both still asleep in the nest. He turned when he heard the door open.
“Where were you two?” Tommy asked, tilting his head to the side. There was a hint of accusation in his tone.
“We were just out looking at something that Wil found,” Phil reassured him, ruffling Wilbur’s hair, “don’t worry.”
“Hmpf,” Tommy settled back against the edge of the nest, his wings flaring out behind him. Phil chuckled.
Ranboo peeked his eyes open from where he was laying down, his tail twitched and moved to wrap back around Tommy’s ankle. The Enderian settled back in his position, not bothering to try and get up.
Wilbur spared a glance out the window towards the lake. The ripples of the sun reflected against the water making it hard to see any details. Wilbur hated the sun, always ruining the things that he wanted to do.
That night, almost as soon as the sun was going down and everyone was just starting to go to bed, Wilbur crept out of the pub and descended the ladder. He half jogged to the edge of the lake, his eyes scanning around in the dying light, a faint glow illuminating from his skin.
He waited there for a while, sitting at the edge of the lake and skipping smooth stones that he was able to dig up. After a few minutes passed, he nervously glanced up at where the moon was. A few more minutes and he was worried that maybe Niki didn’t know that he was here.
An hour passed.
Then Wilbur saw movement in the water. A ripple near the surface and a tail fin flipping out of the water. Wilbur grinned, his tail wagging back and forth.
Niki peeked her head up out of the water, glowing eyes wide.
“Hi!” She grinned, presenting sharp rows of pointed teeth. Wilbur grinned back.
“Hi!”
“You dropped these,” Niki held out her hands, dumping a pile of rocks on the sand in front of Wilbur. It was all the smooth stones that he had dug up and had been skipping while he waited for Niki.
“Oh,” Wilbur said, “Thank you.”
He didn’t admit that he hadn’t really dropped them and had intentionally thrown them into the lake. If she had gone through all the trouble to get them back for him he didn’t want to make it seem insignificant. Niki just giggled and Wilbur pocketed some of the rocks.
“Why don’t you have these?” Wilbur handed Niki two stones. They were smooth and flat ones, perfect for skipping.
“Really?” Niki crept forward more, taking the rocks from Wilbur’s outstretched palms, staring at them like they were made of pure gold.
“Yeah, we can have matching rocks,” Wilbur held out the two rocks that he had left. Niki seemed thrilled at that offer.
“Thank you!” She made a gurgling noise from the back of her throat. Wilbur was at least somewhat sure that was a happy noise. She tucked the rocks somewhere that Wilbur couldn’t see.
“I tried to find you earlier,” Wilbur said, “after I left, I went to go get Phil. He would think you’re great! But I couldn’t find you.”
“Oh… I’m sorry,” Niki twirled a strand of her hair, “I would’ve come up but I…” she ducked her face under the water, the rest of her sentence erupting into bubbles.
“What was that?” Wilbur furrowed his eyebrows confused.
“I would’ve come up but I got scared,” she admitted.
“Oh,” Wilbur rocked back and forth on his knees, “that’s okay… I probably should’ve told you about that but I didn’t think of it until I got home.”
Niki shrugged, “I don’t usually talk to that many people…”
“Doesn’t that get lonely?”
Niki nodded shyly.
“Well, I can come talk to you! And I can even introduce you to my friends too,” Wilbur explained excitedly, “then you won’t have to be lonely.”
“That seems a bit scary,” Niki ducked under the water again, hiding her face with her hands.
“They’re not that scary I promise,” Wilbur nodded, “well… Ranboo is a little scary at first but I promise he’s nice.”
“Okay…”
“Tomorrow I’ll bring Phil down again okay? And then you can meet him.”
“Okay,” Niki seemed a bit more comfortable with that suggestion. Wilbur supposed that it would be a bad idea to try and drag everyone else down at once, it might scare her away.
“And I can still come to talk to you at night… if you don’t sleep during the night…” Wilbur deflated, “have I been keeping you awake?” he asked the question although he was able to notice the lack of buzzing in the back of his skull. The distinct feeling that tugged at his instincts whenever someone didn’t sleep.
“No! No you haven’t!” Niki exclaimed, “I sleep during the day.”
“Oh that’s a relief,” Wilbur chuckled weakly and shook his head, “I didn’t want to get ahead of myself.”
Wilbur’s chest was fluttering happily at the thought of having someone that he could spend the nights with. It often got lonely when he was the only one awake and Wilbur wondered how long Niki had been sitting there just under the water, listening to him sing without saying anything.
They talked the rest of the night, just like they had last night. And Wilbur even agreed to sing a few songs for Niki while she listened in awe, her eyes wide.
That morning, Phil was once again awakened to Wilbur poking at his face. The phantom hybrid's sense of personal space thrown out the window. Phil sighed. Wilbur was speaking quickly, his voice rising in volume until Phil shushed him and gestured to the nest.
Phil was dragged out of the pub and down to the ground below. This time Wilbur brought his cloak so he didn’t have to hide under the shade of Phil’s wings. Wilbur tucked the hood over his horns and gripped the edge of the fabric.
Niki was laying in the shallow part of the lake, ducking under the water when Phil and Wilbur approached. Wilbur sat down in the sand, his cloak kicking up the dust. Phil sat down next to Wilbur. Niki’s blue skin seemed so much lighter in the sun than at night. Everything about her seemed a few shades paler than through the cloak of darkness.
Phil mentally slapped himself, a part of him truly hadn’t believed Wilbur when he said that he saw someone in the lake. He hadn’t seen a merling in thousands of years, definitely not anywhere near here. Especially considering this lake had dozens of rivers and tributaries that flowed into it. It would make sense for one to live here, but also more dangerous with the recent hunters.
Niki offered Phil a spiral shell, she smiled nervously and Phil accepted the gift. Wilbur was looking at Phil with a smug I-told-you-so expression. Phil shook his head at him.
They had a pleasant conversation, getting to know each other. The sun was starting to rise higher up in the sky and Wilbur tugged his cloak around himself tighter.
It had been a nice few moments while it lasted. Phil and Wilbur realized that they had missed Tommy’s headcount as they heard the telltale squawk from the top of the floating island. Niki yelped and ducked into the water, swimming away as Tommy jumped down.