<div style="text-align: justify;">She had been following him for quite some time now.<br/><br/>As quickly as she swam, it took her no time to find the blue shirt again, standing out against the varying greys that made up the Winthrop Parkway and its surroundings. Alannah giggled quietly to herself as she remembered that the names on the short, strictly residential streets that lay between the Parkway and the ocean all had names like Triton, Spray, and Coral Street. She had only ever seen corals on the internet, but it was yet another thing that kept her thinking that maybe she should just throw everything away, be a mermaid forever and swim down to Australia. Thoughts like that were frequent, but where she had earlier just been happy fantasizing about this extraordinary world, Dimitri now popped in at every opportunity to remind her that if she just chose to do that, any chance at all of ever talking to him again were just as tiny as if she were to choose to migrate to a different planet.<br/><br/>She was humming lazily, carefully keeping an eye on the blue shirt that had made its way northward for quite some time now, when it came to a halt. The rocks had been replaced by sand, but it was still deep enough for Alannah to swim closer to the shore, yet stay beneath the surface. She just wanted a look. It was dark, after all, and even if Dimitri <span style="font-style: italic">thought</span> he saw something, no one would believe him. She poked her head up above the waves, surprised to see him kneeling on the ground. That wasn't normal. Maybe if it had been earlier in the day or at least just a little bit warmer here, Alannah wouldn't have thought much more of it. And then - what on <span style="font-style: italic">Earth</span> - he buried his hands in the sand? And just sat there? What was going on? She dived again and swam a bit closer, keeping her head just below the surface.</div>