Moving to Sulani - Marion's life changing decision

 

    Marion Thomas grew up seeing movies and reading books that were filled with mermaids. She was absolutely fascinated by the romantic tales of them. Sure, there was the odd tail that spoke of them leading sailors to their doom... but that just couldn't be true. What she believed to be true was that they were a mystical loss race of sim-kind, perhaps ones that evolved because of the sinking of Atlantis beneath the waves.

    The tales of their beauty and singing skills sparked a drive for adventure in her, and a dream that one day she could be a mermaid and raise a mermaid family herself. She wanted to swim beneath the waves with the ease of a tail. Dive to the depths that even scuba gear couldn't reach. Explore the lost treasures, mysteries, and wonders lost in time because of science not having advanced enough to keep track of things when they happened. Even the science now was having a hard time tracking shipwrecks from years prior because it was hard to pinpoint exactly where a ship might have gone down. Or a plane for that matter during the more modern eras.

     Oh to live by and in the beautiful ocean would be a dream come true. 

 

    It had just been a dream for a long time. Then she heard the rumors. Sightings of mermaids were becoming more and more common. They weren't just getting written off as drunk sailors seeing manatee. In fact, it seemed that mermaids were indeed real aquatic sims, living and breathing, and able to have legs on land so as to blend in with society.

    And they were rumored to be residing in Sulani. 

    She had to go to Sulani.

    She packed up everything that she could carry, selling off the rest of her possessions to get enough money to make the move to Sulani. Purchased a house and some basic furniture with her life savings, and stepped on a plane to start the adventure of following her dreams. She continued to research, writing down everything that she learned in a journal. Clipping out articles and pictures from newspapers and attaching them in her research journal. Joshua Portal was a leading historian and science adventure with a tv show that tracked cryptids and other mysteries, and she was fascinated and took inspiration from watching his shows in order to figure out how to find out more about real life mermaids.

    The conclusion she came to is that they must be magical. 

    "Hey there dolphin friend. You wouldn't happen to know any mermaids in these waters would you? I heard the rumor that they were here and I really would love to get to know them because I really want to be a mermaid myself. Do you think that's at all possible?" Marion was thrilled that she had found a dolphin and really was hoping that somehow the dolphin would understand what she was asking and be able to lead her to her dream.

    It was such an intense passion that she had, wanting to become a mermaid and have a mermaid family. Maybe she could even find the lost city of Atlantis! How cool would that be! It was rumored to be a city of mermaids after all. It was depicted as a mermaid city in Little Mermaid for example. True, it was a fantasy movie. But, she could at least be hopeful that it had an ounce of truth in it. The stories had to come from some place of truth.

    After her new dolphin friend left she took a jet-ski and traveled the islands until she found an alcove that caught her attention because of the ruins of a ship. It just screamed adventure. And where is the best place to go when you're looking for adventure? Well, if she was to continue following her idol Joshua Portal's adventure guidelines; the best thing to do was to find a cave because it's the most unexplored areas of the wilderness, and the most likely area to contain secrets to unravel.

 

"Playful Dolphins

In a moment of quiet between Marion's echoing footsteps, she heard the distinctive sounds of dolphins reverberate towards her.

Excited to see dolphins in the wild, Marion followed the sound to the source. A pod of dolphins were playing in a cave pool, tossing around a mass of seaweed and breaching the water with marvelous jumps.

It didn't take long for the dolphins to spot Marion. Instead of fleeing they engaged her, tossing the wad of seaweed at her and waiting expectantly. With a bit of trepidation, Marion tossed back the ball of leaves and quickly found herself in a game of catch.

As time passed, the dolphins began to leave, but not before offering Marion a fish they had caught."

    The trip into the cave was absolutely worth it. Marion was so excited to hear the call of playful dolphins playing in a cave pool that clearly had an entrance hidden somewhere underwater that led out into the ocean. It made her think of another animated mermaid show she had seen where some high-schoolers got turned into mermaids by the magic of moonlight or something. It had been years since she saw the show, so she couldn't remember the exact details. It really has been a lifelong dream to become a mermaid. She has always been fascinated by them, and she was still sure that the siren stories had to be false. Why would it be true? People fear what they don't understand and that's how horror stories are formed. Perhaps the original sailor that came across a mermaid tried to attack her when she was singing and she defended herself. Thus the story was born that mermaids sing to lure sailors to their deaths.

    Yes. That had to be it.

    Marion shrugged off the story that her thoughts had wandered to as she watched the dolphins play. Suddenly she got hit by a ball of seaweed as the dolphins let out trills of dolphin laughter and splashed around. She quickly understood that they wanted to include her in their play. Perhaps she had made a good impression on the dolphin she had met earlier. Was that dolphin here? Or had they just told their dolphin friends that she was a good sim?

    It would be really nice if she had befriended dolphins that could find some mermaids for her. Or some way to turn her into a mermaid. But that was being to hopeful. She couldn't speak dolphin.

 

Enchanting Song

An Enchanting song floated through the winding passages of the cavern, spurring Marion to investigate the source of the bewitching harmony.

Turning around a bend, she became the audience to a mermaid, lost in her own melody. When the song ended, Marion cheered for the mermaid and received a wave before the mermaid dove back into a nearby pool, leaving Marion humming the tune through the rest of her exploration.

    As the seaweed game seemed to be wrapping up, and the dolphins were disappearing under the surface and not coming back, a new song hit Marion's ears. It was as if fate had read her mind. She had just been thinking about the songs of mermaids, and there it was, someone singing in the caves somewhere. So, following the sound echoing through the caves, Marion continued her cave adventure while looking for the source of the singing.

    Marion followed the singing echoing off the walls until she came upon a wide cavern with another pool of water in it and sat listening to a beautiful sim sing. The sims back was to her, so she just quietly listened, enjoying the beautiful music until the sim finished singing. Marion couldn't help herself. She applauded, her claps echoing off the walls of the cavernous pool room. The sim jumped in surprise and turned and looked at her and then dove into the pool and disappeared with a splash of their tail.

    Their tail.

    Tail!

    MERMAID!!

    Marion ran to the edge of the water and looked in trying to see through the dark depths with her mouth hanging open in shock and joy. She had seen a real life mermaid! Not a movie mermaid. Not a book mermaid. A real, living, mermaid! Right in front of her! Singing just as beautifully as she had always imagined a mermaid would sing. And as if it was proof that her thoughts about sirens had been correct, the mermaid had just run from her. Not tried to drag her to the depths of the ocean after being drawn in by the beautiful singing.

She couldn't believe that her dreams were coming true. Well, kind of. She still wanted to become a mermaid since it must be possible if they're magical. The question was how. But, at least she now had visual proof that her beliefs were founded in reality!