Somewhere in the cave, a barely audible splashing noise was heard.<br/><br/>Smoothly, Allen dived under water and took a deep breath. The deep underground lake was something he could not resist in the end. He joyfully dived deeper and stretched his whole body, almost, as if he wanted to merge into the water.<br/><br/>It had been too long for him. He had underestimated the land, after all. Even though a Mermaid, that was old enough to grow legs and explore the land, would not die on land, he would slowly lose his powers. Merpeople would also communicate in water, to find one another. To catch a mermaid in water, was almost impossible.  His strength, speed and body regeneration powers were many times greater than a humans, unless his legs got hurt.  Also his voice's protective magic weakened a lot, when he avoided water alltogether. But especially pure or oceanic water was what merpeople needed.<br/><br/>Sighing, he let himself dive deeper and drift back and forth. He felt his regeneration process speeding up, again. Opening his eyes lazily under water, he saw everything clearly, even though it was dark. His tail, that had turned a dim and dirty greenish blue after years on land, slowly lost its old scales, and shimmered in a deep blue glitter, with just a tiny bit of green.  The 'royal blue' as the merpeople called it. A rare color, that was probably extinct by now.<br/><span style="font-style: italic">~ If I return to the ocean, this color will either earn worship or hate. ~ </span><br/>Shrugging, Allen turned around, and swam a few more rounds. No need to worry about this now - since he took the bait, he might as well go to the end and fully recover.<br/>His old scales were replaced with new ones, and his hair grew longer, and the shade of green darker.<br/>He felt more energized by the water, the more he swam. This was really a sacred place.  But he wondered, if this place had become sacred only recently, or something uncovered it? ...<br/>Looking around, it was like, indeed, there seemed some recently fallen rocks at the lake bottom. It seemed like after the recent storms, the cave's top collapsed, and opened a path for the moonlight.