aka, "What the fuck is this spread, even?"
It isn't a good sign when she starts developing a rash on her crotch, but her health class hasn't totally failed her; she knows to get an STI screen. It's a significantly worse sign when the test results come back inconclusive. Then, when she passes out unexpectedly... Suffice to say, she's in the hospital for good reason.
"So, what's the word, doc?" she asks as the white-coated fellow approaches her bedside. It's rare for a doctor to actually make a bedside visit; nurses do most of the routine care. She half-closes her laptop on the hospital tray to give him her full attention.
"Well, Charlotte, I have good news, bad news, and good news again," he replies, resting his hands on the bed railing. She's pretty sure it's supposed to be a friendly gesture, but to her it just looks like he doesn't know what to do with his hands while he talks. "The good news is, we've figured out what you've got."
"Sounds great! I'm guessing the bad news is about my insurance refusing to cover the meds, then?"
"Mm, well, depending on how you look at it it's either better or worse than that. What you've got is an infection of gileorrhesis, as the merfolk call it. It's a common sexually transmitted infection among them, apparently." He pauses a moment to assess how she's taking the news—still slightly stunned, is the answer, but she doesn't show that on her face—then continues. "The reason it's worse news is that, unfortunately, gileorrhesis is caused by aetherobacteria, which infect your ley nodes. As you might know, we only recently discovered the principles of magic after the Dimensional Shift fused our universe with the merfolk's, so while treatment is normally a routine application of antibiotic energy, we lack the facilities to construct and cast the appropriate incantations here at General Health." He pauses again, this time deciding that Charlotte's face is sufficiently confused to warrant a break. "I'll give you a moment to process all that."
For her part, Charlotte slowly settles back onto the hospital bed. "You're kidding me..." she mutters, massaging her temples. This is what I get for being adventurous after finally coming out to myself. First time having sex, and of course I fuck a mermaid and get some weird new disease. She doesn't even know how she's going to let the mermaid know she's got it; she'd talked herself into cruising at a shore bar, it isn't like she could go back and ask for "Ziphy." There were probably a hundred Ziphies in the ocean anyways. She sighs. One thing at a time. "Okay, so what's the other good news?"
"Well, the good news is that you don't have to risk waiting to see if your aetheroimmune system clears the infection on its own – the merfolk embassy has offered to take you to one of their hospitals underwater and provide treatment."
"You're kidding me! That's incredible! Though, I can't imagine that'll be covered by my insurance..."
"No need to worry about that, actually! Princess Xiphiria herself has offered to cover the costs and even supply the uh, transformative magics you'd need to stay at the hospital." He spots the confusion on Charlotte's face, and clarifies, "It's uh, mermaid spit, to be more direct about it. When ingested before submerging in seawater, it causes humans to grow supplemental gills for roughly twenty-four hours, allowing them to comfortably survive underwater." He chuckles in a thin attempt at camaraderie. "Magic, am I right? I'm told this is a great honor, but if you ask me it sure seems like a whole new avenue for disease to cross species boundaries."
Charlotte smiles and politely chuckles along, trying to carefully keep from thinking too hard about "princess" and "mermaid spit." Her health comes before she cums, at least for the moment. "It's certainly something! If it means I can get treated though, I think I'll survive just fine."
"Excellent! I'll get started on the transfer paperwork then, and we should have you on your way soon." The doctor smiles one last time, then makes his exit.
As soon as the door is shut, the floodgates open in Charlotte's mind, leaving her flushed as she wriggles deeper into the hospital's sheets. A mermaid princess's spit! In her mouth! She's sure there will be some kind of sterilization process involved for safety, but still! Hot! The moment she can pull herself together, she sits back up to look up Princess Xiphiria online. She isn't going to stop having useless lesbian fantasies about this, so she figures she might as well have the right person in mind.
Her face falls as images load. "Oh, you're kidding me..."
She recognizes this face. Underneath the jewelry and fancy crown, Ziphy's face looks out from the screen. Shore bar Ziphy. Cruising Ziphy. "Seemed weirdly excited about 'having a human girlfriend' and fantasizing about the future" Ziphy. Apparently, "secretly Princess Xiphiria looking for sex with a human incognito" Ziphy.
Charlotte was suddenly a lot less sure about her upcoming hospital stay.