I waved goodbye as he flew off.
When he was gone, I glanced at my tail again.My stupid, beautiful tail.
I shut my eyes and imagined it as a pair of long, smooth human legs. A tingle shivered down my lower back. I opened my eyes to see human legs in its place. I flexed my toes. Weird, but not horrible.
I hauled myself out of the water and shook my hair. I didn't use my legs often but maybe it was time I got used to being in human form. At first I wobbled, not used to standing up, but I leaned against the trees that grew along the shoreline as support. If I got really good at walking, I could even pretend I wasn't a mer at all. I could make up a disguise, pretend I had a silly animal as my other form, like a beaver or something.
The idea made me laugh. Whoever heard of a beaver shifter?
2
Castor
This stick was drivingme crazy.
"No, no, it's not right…"
Shaking my head, I regarded my delicate handiwork. It was so close to being perfect but refused to take that final step. If the stupid piece of wood would simply cooperate with me, things would be a lot easier. But as every beaver knew, wood was notorious for having a mind of its own.
Determined to fix it, I picked up the misbehaving stick between my teeth, careful not to snap it in half, and turned it the other way. I re-examined it and frowned. Now it was even worse than before.
I sat up on my hind legs, tapping my webbed foot in frustration. I could fix this. I knew I could. I was a strong, experienced, capable omega, and this was not the first dam I’d ever built. I was no young buck. I lost count of the number of dams I'd built throughout my life.
But somehow, there was always one piece missing.
I thought maybe this stick was the final piece. The cherry on top that would solve everything.
Except all it was doing was taunting me, silent and wooden.
"I'm going to eat you if you don't behave," I muttered.
The stick said nothing.
I sighed and sat down. All this hard work was starting to hurt my back, but I couldn't give up now. My dam had to be perfect. If it wasn't, how would I ever find my fated mate? No beaver shifter ever found their one true love by building a subpar dam. It had to be just right.
And mine obviously was not, because I hadn't found my fated mate yet.
I got up, ignoring the low throb of pain in my back. There was still work to be done. No time for a break yet.
For one thing, I still had to deal with this stick. I gave it one last shot. Instead of this way or that, I placed it perpendicularly.
And it still looked wrong.
"Well, you had your shot," I mumbled to the stick. I picked it up, swam beneath the dam entrance, then crawled on top of the lodge and threw the stick as hard as possible. It made a small whizzing sound before pathetically disappearing in the water.
I clapped my paws together, glad to be rid of it.
But my satisfaction was short-lived. If that stick wasn't the final piece of the puzzle, then something else was missing from my dam. That had to be the reason I was alone, right?
I shook my head to clear my thoughts. No use moping around. Fate had her whimsical ways, and I believed there was a reason I hadn't found my fated mate yet. And I didn't know if I could influence fate or not, but I was damn well going to try by building the best dam I could.
Physical labour was always the solution to getting mired in one's thoughts. That was the beaver shifter way. There was always something to build, leaks to patch, little details to perfect. All I needed was new perspective.
I leapt off the top of the lodge and into the water. After swimming a short distance, I crawled out on the opposite bank and looked at my dam from afar. It was a good, solid home, both inside and out. It was insulated to protect from the elements, deep enough to keep predators out, and frankly, a wonderful place to raise babies—whenever they came into my life.
But babies required a mate first. For beaver shifters, choosing a mate for the sole purpose of reproduction was out of the question. It wasn't exactly frowned upon, it was just something we didn't do. True love conquered all in our culture.
Which was why, in the deepest recesses of my heart, I was afraid I would never meet the One.
