Icarus walks out of school on a Friday, dailing Aries on her phone as she walks home. She's glad it's finally the weekend and she can take a break from all the stress of graduating year. Aries answers the phone while they're watching anime as usual.

"Yo" they state

"Hey, schools over for the week. My mums going to a high school reunion all weekend so I figured it's a good time to do mermaid things while no one's around" she replies.

"Oh yeah we still need to hunt around the area for clues"

"Come over tonight and we can go as soon as the sun rises tomorrow"

"Alright I'll be over by like 5. Should we just do like pizza or fish and chips for dinner or something?"

Icarus thinks for a moment making a decision.

"Better idea, grilled does takeaways now so what about burgers?" She suggested.

"Dude their veggie burgers are so good, let's do that" Aries agrees.

"Sick, I'll see you at 5"

With the plans all wrapped up, Icarus returns home and Aries goes to pack stuff for the night. When 5 rolls around, the two sit outside to eat and plan the next day. By now the sun is setting and it's becoming evening.

The night is warm, the back porch of Icarus' house is lined with fairy lights and frangipani trees. The outdoor table set where the two sat was covered with take away bags and napkins form the delicious dinner. Icarus pulled her long hair out of her face, already in her pink hello kitty pyjamas and skin care half done on her face.

Aries had clipped their fringe out of their eyes too, it having gotten a little long and needing a trim. Their pyjamas were a mix and match consisting of frosty fruit shorts and a monster high tank top.

"So we have time to kill until tomorrow so how about we just watch a movie and go to bed early so we can get up early tomorrow?" Icarus suggests.

"I was thinking that. We've already investigated the area around the spirit pool to death so I guess our next shot would be past the gallows" Aries replies.

The gallows was the roughest part of the coast, waves crashed against a cliff face and the rocky area made the swell rough and hard to traverse. Only surfers with a death wish dare to get in the water there, and boaters didn't go through the area, they went around it.

"I recon if we're going to find anything it'll be somewhere out of the way, like in another rock pool or cave or something" Icarus said, admittedly a little worried about traversing the gallows.

"Probably, it'd be kinda stupid to be performing magic around civilians or they'd absolutely get caught" Aries replied.

They finish up their dinner, as the sun drops behind the horizon and moon starts to come out. Aries grabs the empty wrappers and gets up.

"I'll go throw these out brb" they said.

"Cool, we can ice those cupcakes later too" Icarus replies.

Aries heads inside for a moment, leaving Icarus out at the table with her drink. As it's getting dark, she decides it's time to turn the outdoor lights on so she gets up to do so, she looks up to reach the switch and turns them on. But as she's looking up something catches her attention. Turning to look at it, she's met with the moon, near it being one of the planets she doesn't know and in mere seconds she's hooked. She just stops, stares and feels something strange rush through her.

"Ic, you want another drink?" Aries calls out from the door.

But there's no response so they head out to ask again, only to find Icarus completely tranced.

"Ic? You good?" Aries asks, walking over.

At first they're confused, Ic wasn't responding even when they poked her. She just stood there, staring. Aries follows her gaze and when they see the moon and planets, they immediately understand.

"Oh no... I forgot people connected to spirit pools do this..." Aries sighs.

Thinking for a moment, they realise the best thing to do is get her inside and lock her in.

"Ok uh- let's not stand out we're the mosquitoes will eat us ok??" Aries said, grabbing Icarus' arm to pull her inside.

Icarus still won't move though, and stays in place.

"Ic seriously come o-" Aries said.

But before they can finish, Icarus suddenly snaps out of it and turns to face Aries.

"Don't you want to go swimming Aries?" She asks.

"Not right now, no. Now come on let's go insi-"

Aries tries to pull her inside but Icarus brings up her hand and sprays Aries with her powers, making them fall to the ground with a tail.

"Wrong answer..." she mutters before turning and wandering off out the gate down the street.

Aries sighs in frustration and looks back at their tail.

"Fuck-" they sigh.

Icarus is on a mission, heading straight for the beach. She takes twists and turns down the streets of pointbreak the trick she pulled on Aries giving her a head start. Aries dries off with their powers and rushes after her, having already lost her.

"Goddamnit ic- um... the docks she'd be going to the docks..." Aries mutters, rushing off toward the docks.

Before they know it they're on a wild goose chase to find Icarus before she jumps in. Running around the streets at night in their pyjamas looking for the tranced mermaid. Finally Icarus reaches the docks and in her tranced state completely fails to notice that just a few jetties down is a girl pulling up crab nets. Aries is hot on her trail though, and calls out to her.

"ICARUS!" They call.

The noise gets the girls attention, and she looks up from the crab nets. Icarus stands at the edge of the jetty and looks up at the moon. Aries rushes up to her, also failing to notice the girl with the crab nets. She drops the nets and watches the strange scene, moving a little closer to see.

"Icarus don't be a dumbass come on, let's just go home and not make things harder for ourselves ok?" Aries pleads.

Icarus doesn't respond, but in that moment the crab net girl watching suddenly notices something. In the bright moonlight, anything shiny will catch the reflection and a shine was prominent on the hand of the androgynous person she watched. Aries ring, she gasps at the sight.

"No way..."she mutters.

"Icarus I swear to-"Aries begins.

Again they're cut off by the same water trick right before Icarus dives into the water and swims off.

"Again seriously?" Aries complains, jumping in after her.

With the two disappearing under the water, the crab net girl runs over to the edge of the jetty and looks into the dark water. She sees nothing, they're already gone.

"I knew it. I knew she wanted to tell me something..." she muttered, looking up at the moon as Icarus did.

The two merfolk didn't know it, but their slip up was the next piece of the puzzle. The girl stood at the end of the jetty, the wind blowing the curtain bangs she had out of her face as she just looked down into the water, a lot of questions she had slowly being answered.

The goose chase is now underwater, Aries weaving through the dark waves after Icarus, who keeps managing to evade the siren. Eventually Aries completely looses Icarus and breaks up to the surface to look around.

"Shit..." they mutter.

At a complete loss, there's only one thing they can think to do.

"God I hope no humans are in the area..."

Icarus stops in her tracks as she's swimming, starting to hear haunting singing in the distance. Turning to face the direction it's coming from, she swims toward it in a trance like state. Unbeknownst to her in her moonstruck mind, that singing is a siren call, leading her right back to Aries.

She can't even describe it, it was both beautiful and terrifying. But she couldn't stop moving her tail, it just followed the singing. The mix of a moonstrike and sirens trace made her mind blurry, she couldn't really comprehend what was going on around her. It was like someone else was controlling her body, and her mind had been shut off.

All she could hear was the water around her and the chilling vocals of the siren.

The next morning the sun is shining and Icarus is washed up on shore being tossed by the waves. She slowly wakes up and gets hit by a wave, coughing the water up and spitting out sand she looks around in confusion.

"Damnit Icarus NEVER do that again"

She jumps, seeing Aries standing just out of the waters reach looking down at her.

"What the- why are we? What happened?" She stammered.

"Long story short I totally forgot people connected to spirit pools can go into trances... you jumped off the docks in the middle of the night and I lost you for a bit" Aries explained.

"I don't remember any of that, apart from... some kind of music?"

"That was me, I had to use a lure call to get you back before you accidentally exposed yourself to a human"

Icarus was rather shocked at that statement. She knew full well Aries was a siren, but had never actually seen them use a lure call before. She wasn't even that sure how they worked.

"That worked?" She asked.

"Lure calls always work. That's why I only use them when I have to" Aries replied.

They beckon for her to get out of the water, and she does by dragging herself into the dry sand. Aries dries her off and her legs return. She finds herself still in yesterdays clothes with no shoes, phone, keys or anything else with her.

"I'm so confused" she said.

"Come home, I'll explain" Aries replied.

As they begin to walk home up the beach. Icarus scoffs at her messed up hair and sand covered clothes trying to brush it all off.

"Remind me too never get put in a trance again" she said.

"Oh don't worry I'm not letting that happen again, too much stress" Aries replied.

Meanwhile the girl from the docks has just woken up for the day and still in her pyjamas, opens her cupboard and pulls out a box. The box in question being decorated with sea style decor and having 'Pandora's box' written on the top. Sitting at her desk, she opens it to reveal a letter, some shells, a hand mirror and other beauty items. And right on top is a ring, handmade from wire and a charm that resembles the one Aries has.

She thinks back to what she saw last night, amazed she even managed to notice the ring. Looking down at the ring, she put it on her finger and admired the charm.

"You had me real lost for a bit there grandma..." she muttered.