Read Sprite (Annabelle's Story Part One) for Free Online

explaining each race: basically what they looked like, where they lived, and so forth.
    Merfolk or merpeople were just non-gender ways to refer to mermaids and mermen. That part I already knew from years of movies and folklore. What I didn’t know was that there were two main types of merfolk: the Tritons and the Mami Wata.
    The Tritons, he explained, was the name given to his people living in Tritonis. Based on the name, it was easy to guess they were descendants of Triton—the messenger of the sea.
    Although, not all Tritons had a direct lineage from his bloodline. Overtime, Triton’s name and image became the basis of his kind. Typically, they had dark hair and light skin, but there were variations from time to time. Sometimes from different kinds of merfolk mating over the generations. Other times, it was somewhat of an anomaly.
    The Mami Wata was one of these other types of merfolk. The Gulf of Guinea off the west coast of Africa housed their main colony. And yes, I had very little clue of this gulf’s location. Adrian said that after the battle between the Trackers and the Guardians, some sprites chose to live on their own because they thought it was safer. This led to smaller colonies scattering around as well. For the rest of the sprites, especially the Guardians, it wasn’t ideal. The Guardians couldn’t fully protect the Mami Wata or the Tritons who ventured out on their own. The Guardians hoped to change this in the future.
    He continued by painting a picture of the Mami Wata in my head. Their name meant a gorgeous woman or man, and the Mami Wata were said to possess African beauty, partially because they devoted ample time to their appearances and also because they liked to dress up. They’d deck themselves out in baubles, such as combs, watches, and shells. Sometimes the Mami Wata arranged their accessories in their sleek black hair or other times they wrapped their necks in necklaces. Regardless, the Mami Wata exuded beauty through a combination of their caramel skin, flowing hair, and excessive jewelry.
    With the idea of nomad sprites in my head, I dug for more answers. “So, there could be other merfolk out there?”
    “Yes, but we don’t know of any remaining kinds. There used to be the Melusine, the Ningyo, the Rusalka… there were many races.”
    “Wow, this is kind of a lot to take in.”
    He shot me a reassuring smile. “I know, and this is just the merfolk. How ‘bout I tell you a little about the nixies. We can always backtrack if you want.”
    Nodding, I listened as he provided an introduction to the nixies.
    And get this, they’re actually shape shifters.
    Immediately, werewolves popped into my mind. After he teased me for thinking wolves lived in the sea, Adrian clarified that nixies looked nearly identical to seals or dolphins in the water and appeared in a human-like form on land.
    This really sent me for a loop. Apparently, the seals and dolphins I saw earlier were really nixies. I nibbled on my bottom lip. I had no clue. Now whenever I saw a nixie, I’d wonder if it was a mammal or a sprite. Merfolk were easy: human on top and fish on bottom. No confusion there.
    Things only got more complicated when Adrian put names with the two types of shape shifters. The first were the selkie, which were the seals, and who generally lived in the Irish Sea. And the second shifters were called encantado, the ones that looked like dolphins. They originated from further south off the coast of Portugal, which I made a mental note to later find on a map.
    “So how does their shape shifting work?”
    “Well, encantado and selkie turn into human-forms differently,” he started. “For the selkie, it’s easiest to think of them as wearing a wet suit. Once they leave the sea, they peel off their sealskin and walk the land like a normal human. It’s kind of weird to think about it.”
    “Seriously? Their skin just peels off?”
    He nodded. “It can get a little tricky for the selkie because they