Adrien woke to his mother's voice and forced himself out of bed. His excitement grew as he reminded himself that she was going to teach him important information about humanity. Oh, and how to swim, which was super important considering Marinette basically lived in the water.

"Great! How long will it take me to be good at it? Like, pull someone out of an undercurrent to save them from drowning, good?"

Iris blinked. "Adrien, that's oddly specific..." she folded her arms. "What did you do? Did you save a human from drowning? That's not a bad thing, but it's risky."

Oh, there he went saying too much... He shrugged, about to make some excuse before reminding himself there was no need. His mother would probably be happy when he told her.  "I saved Marinette from drowning. She's going to wonder why I won't get in the water if I don't learn quickly. I got lucky it stormed yesterday, or I might have had to try.." He didn't mention Alya, not wanting his mother to get worried about him potentially getting revealed.

Iris's eyes beamed. "You saved her!? Oh, my this is sounding like a fairy tale." she then grabbed him by the arm. "Let's go!" she dragged up to the surface.

Adrien let his mother drag him to the surface. "I know a good place we can transform and practice," he said as they paused. He led her to the little cave-like area he used last time and pulled himself onto the rocky beach. "Alright, Plagg. Claws out," he said and Plagg was pulled into the ring, leaving a very human Adrien on the rock.

Iris slipped the bracelet on her right arm and stepped out the water as a human. She looked down at her legs. She really missed coming to the surface. She looked over at Adrien. The reason she was letting him go the surface so he could befriend Marinette. Iris wanted the two kingdoms united again. By the look of what she saw yesterday they both hit it off. "Alright. So I'm sure you seen how humans swims, right? They use both their arms and their legs. Now let's get into the water."

So their swim lesson started off decently. Iris slowly took him to the deeper parts of the water. She held on to him mostly until she felt comfortable enough to let him go. He seem understand the basics of swimming. After she felt like he was ready, they went back to the shore. "Nicely done." she rubbed his hair. "Now you can swim with you're little friend." she went back into the water and took off the bracelet. Iris looked back at him. "I'll see you later. Be aware of your surroundings and be home before dark. I'll make up something if your father asks. You should be fine today he'll be busy with work all day." Iris then went underwater and headed home.

Adrien rested on the rock after his mom left. Swimming wasn't as hard as he thought it would be. All the DDR the day before had really helped him get used to using his arms and legs in sync with each other.  Sure, he wasn't a very strong swimmer, but that shouldn't matter. No one was going to notice as long as all they were doing was leisurely swimming.

Once he felt some energy return, he started to head towards town. He was hungry, but he wasn't sure how to get food. He didn't have any money. Maybe Marinette would invite him to lunch. Then again, he'd feel bad about leeching off of her. Well, he was sure he'd figure it out. He could just walk to the beach instead. Marinette would probably be there... He nodded. That's what he would do.

Marinette was jumping across rocks while Alya was looking through binoculars. She was still positive that Adrien was a merman. When she talk to Marinette again last night, she said they had a good time and he wanted to hang out again. She lowered the binoculars and sighed. If he was a merman he wouldn't come up on the public beach. He probably would change into a human somewhere in privacy.

Her friend look back at her. "He's not a merman."

Alya looked at her. "Yes he is and I'm going to prove it to you."

Marinette rolled her eyes. She then saw Adrien walking down the beach. Her eyes lit up. She then looked back at her friend. "Would a merman walk on the beach from the town?"

Alya turned and saw Adrien. She grind her teeth in frustration.

Marinete ran over to Adrien. "Hey!! You were able to come!"

Adrien was happy to see them on the beach as he approached from the direction of the town. He waved and smiled as Marinette ran to greet him. "Yeah. We got done with everything this morning, so my parents said I could do what I wanted."

They walked back to where Alya stood as he spoke and he nodded to her in greeting when they stopped. "So, what's up?"

"Oh, nothing," Marinette replied.

Alya thought a moment before answering. "Nothing? Marinette, we're looking for mermaids remember?" her friend gave her a small glare. Alya glanced back at Adrien hoping to see some kind of reaction. "Do you want to join our hunt?"

Adrien paused before smiling. His people were careful enough not to come near shore. He was the one most likely to be found out, and that wouldn't happen. "Sure. What have you done so far?" Might as well fish for information while he was at it.

Alya was so going to take advantage of this while Marinette wanted to strangle her. She knew what she was up to. Alya looked out at the water. "Just looking around the shore, but there's too many people here now. Why don't we look for them while swimming?"

Adrien nodded, internally happy that he got the chance to practice with his mother this morning. All he had to do was play along. Hopefully, Alya wouldn't notice his weaker swimming. "Sure. They probably wouldn't be obvious enough to see from the shore anyway."

He ignored the sound of a growling stomach and removed the shirt Plagg had conjured for him, placing it close to Marinette and Alya's stuff. Then he walked to the water and stood with the waves washing over his feet as he waited for the other two.

Marinette shook her head. She couldn't believe Alya was doing this. She gave her a look and then ran right into the water. She dove underneath and swam a bit until she had come up for air.

Alya ignore her friend's look. She was certain Adrien was a merman and nothing was going to stop her. She walked into the water and dove under as well. She swam all the way to Marinette when came up for air, Alya looked back at Adrien. "You coming?"

Adrien nodded and walked into the water. He doubted that he'd be able to run in and keep his balance.  Once he was in deep enough, he dove and swam towards them. Unfortunately, he couldn't stay under as long and had to come up midway before swimming the rest of the way above water. That would probably look suspicious for someone who was supposed to be a strong swimmer...  Hopefully, Alya didn't notice.

He stopped when he reached them and glanced out at the open waters to act like he was searching. "So, what do you usually do to look once you're in the water?"