With velvet hands, the merman rips the catfish apart. With dark merfolk hexes, he cleaves the fish flesh from its bone.
With jinxes, he cleaves the flesh from itself. With a banishing charm, he sends the fish into a Dutch oven. With spells, he lights the coals both under and over the Dutch oven, and adds herbs to the fish.
Inadvertently and with his tail, he's left little Esa by the shore. She's still under a thousandth her normal size. Every now and then the flooded river rises, and either submerges or drenches her...or both. This always burns her up, of course. Alas, it's just too bad that too much water can douse too little fire...which is always what happens here.
Esa should be more thankful that she's in a bikini. Or not; a lot of creeps in this jungle, and in the river, would probably prefer her way too much that way.
Esa SO has the urge to hit on that merman... Alas, what would she say to him? Better yet, would he even see her? She sure is small...
For her, this'd be a great time to practice teleportation. So, she starts out by getting a feel for where she wants to go. When she's ready, she vanishes.
She re-conjures herself...in his eyebrow. Now, she's like a maggot among his eyebrow hairs. This is a bit embarrassing...but not entirely unenjoyable...
Below her, the Dutch oven is a very long drop-off. She'd sure hate to fall that distance. If she wasn't a witch, this sitch would be a bigger bitch. Alas, even if she is a witch, she's not entirely invulnerable...with her size being her main Achilles heel.
He removes the Dutch oven lid, and stirs what's inside. As the lid is lifted and the steam bellows out, he smells it, and smiles.
On his eyebrow, so does Esa. He sure is a good cook. She sure wouldn't mind if he replaced her mother, back in the Manhattan slums. (That's what Esa calls them, of course.)
Esa's not sure if she deserves to eat part of the beast that almost killed her at the bottom of that river. Even so, this merman saved her life down there. Hence, she can't help but feel like she owes him. She just...can't quite imagine what the hell she could do for him...as much as her own ovaries almost ripen at the thought of becoming his maid.
Ah, it's hopeless. He'll never see her. And to think that she's right above his dominant eye...
On a stone before Mauricio, a trogon lands. He's got something in his beak. He drops it.
Via reflex, Mauricio catches it, and holds it before his other eye. With it, he surveys it.
At this, Esa heaves a sigh. It turns out this one ISN'T his dominant eye. Or at least, it seems strange to her as to why anyone would analyze a crystal with their recessive eye if their dominant eye was the one that paid attention to everything...
A few turn out to eat with Mauricio. Two other mermen do. A coral snake, an emerald boa, and a fer-de-lance do too. By the looks of it, they're not no-maj snakes...
When Esa sees them, her boobs inflate, and she nearly falls off the eyebrow hair she hangs from. Mauricio could've told her there'd be snakes at this cookout...if he could even see her.
An olingo shows up, too...as does a potoo. A yapok (i.e. a water opossum) shows up too, dragging his wet fur along. A small pack of bush dogs also shows up.
On the fish, they chow. It's no Canarian seafood restaurant. But then, nobody here would know what that is. Funny; I always thought the Canary Islands made the Venezuelan States the way they are...
As much as Esa enjoys Mauricio's eyebrow, she's got spells to attempt. She's probably going to damage Mauricio's equipment...or worse, give herself away to one of those snakes... But like she said, she owes this merman for having saved her.
So, she practices her teleportation again. She vanishes, and reappears just above the Dutch oven handle. She squeals, as she falls a short distance. She catches the handle, and hangs from it.
Far beneath her feet, a dirty Dutch oven sits. Its coals are cold. Esa closes her eyes, chants, and vanishes the filth from the dishes. She also vanishes both the exhausted coals and their ashes. "Leave no trace," as the woodsmen say.
Esa now hangs from this handle, and looks over Mauricio's way, hoping that he'll notice that his dishes are clean. She hangs, and waits for quite some time. She has a crush on him so big, that she doesn't notice how much her arms or hands hurt, from hanging from here...
On either side of the oven handle, the hinges creak. Esa squeals...and later screams...as the Dutch oven handle falls over...and lands on the side of the oven NOT facing Mauricio.
Esa panics, because she thinks he heard that. Not knowing what else to do, she practices another teleportation.
This time, she re-conjures herself back in the hair of his recessive eyebrow. She's in his recessive eyebrow because she forgot to think about his dominant one. She was just so desperate to become invisible, she did the first thing she thought of...which is where she was before...as far as it still is to fall from here.
Alas, it turns out her need to protect herself never existed. He didn't hear the handle clank. Not only that, but he still hasn't noticed his kitchen's hygiene. He's still eating, and talking, and laughing with his dinner company.
Esa sighs. She sees all of their dirty dishes, as they eat. All at once, the thought of being this merman's maid isn't so fertilizing to Esa...
On Maurice's shoulder, a mosquito lands. He doesn't see it. With a growling stomach, the mosquito elongates its proboscis, and prepares to sink it into...
Alas, he smells something in the wind. It smells...sweet... And feminine... He finds it VERY desirable...
With his big eyes, he sees Esa: a Latina damsel in distress, helplessly hanging from a merman's eyebrow hair. At this, the beast's stomach growls even louder.
He leaps from the merman's shoulder, and takes off. With a spell of vampire magic, he sends an electrical energy blast in Esa's direction.
It hits Esa and shocks her, causing her to fall. Screaming, spinning, and flailing, she falls past the merman's huge gaze. It's his recessive eye. It's the eye that absorbs his inspirations by day...including the ones he doesn't know he's absorbed until he dreams of them one night.
Like a basketball hoop, the mosquito flies right under Esa...and Mauricio's eye, and catches Esa mid-fall. From there, he flies away.
Mauricio senses him, and fans him away with his huge hand. Esa screams, as this happens. Involuntarily, she jolts...a lot. This, in turn, causes her to fall from her mount. And she's falling, spinning, and screaming again...
With another vampire spell, the mosquito shoots out a tether, which seizes Esa by the ankles. It also binds her in netting, to where she can't abandon ship. Esa tries to teleport her way out of this...only to find out that the mosquito has cast a magic-dampening spell on her.
Upside-down from a sling, Esa hangs helplessly from her new captor's abdomen, as he hauls her up and away, way too far from her merman crush. For Esa, this is bad. In moments like these, she wishes she were back in Manhattan...even if that does mean she never would have met Mauricio that way...if she can call what she's done with Mauricio meeting him.
Alas, Esa would also be lying if she said that part of her didn't secretly enjoy this...