Chapter 29: The Tale of The Creatures of the Sea
1792 Words
They’d conjugated to Alister’s office this time, all in varying states of exhaustion. The plan was still in shambles, but Axel and Madeline had rigged together quite a bit of equipment. The only problem was, they weren’t sure of it worked.
“What is this Viatrix’s plan exactly?” Nora groans, flicking a rubber band in her hand. She’d somehow managed to prop her feet up on a half-asleep Axel, her back resting precariously on her leaning chair.
“Not sure. She just said that I needed to get better and get help essentially.”
Are you sure that there was no ulterior motive?” Madeline speaks up this time with a grimace, putting all her papers in her bag without much order.
“Honestly, I’m not sure at all. I genuinely avoided thinking about it because it was the only thing I had going for me at the time.”
“Which is understandable, but we still need to consider the possibility.”
“I know, it’s just… what could Viatrix possibly get out of anything like this?”
“Who knows, could be a number of reasons.” Alister shoots him a grave look, making the bleak day outside even darker. “This is a form of war after all.”
“Okay, taking into consideration that Viatrix might have an ulterior motive, we still need to do something about the whole invasion of sirens into merfolk land.” Hartley pulls himself to his feet, wincing at the accompanying sounds of bones popping. He shakes himself off and starts pacing back and forth in a small space. “We just know about the make-up of the species, what exactly can you tell us about the people themselves.”
“The people?”
“The history, what’s the story behind the sirens and what could possibly cause them to react like this?”
“Well, it’s old tales really, but I can try to recall everything.”
“Thank you.” Alister nods his head, fixing the glasses on his nose.
“It’s rumoured that centuries ago…”
The Queen of her kingdom puffed her chest and looked at her people with limitless pride. They’d done it, after years of hiding in the shadows, or hiding from the surface, her people would finally be safe. It was shoddy, it was shaky, but it was home and that was good enough.
Years, it’d been years since the humans and creatures of the sea went to war. The humans and their fragile frames and short lifespans had grown bitter. Not all of them, many still stood to protect their fellow creatures, but the ones that did where far too powerful to stop. They owned ships and vile weapons, large balls of pure metal that exploded the water and killed on impact. Small rounded balls of metal that pierced the strong hide of the Mermatians, leaving their death long and painful.
They prowled the seas and dumped large nets into the waters, capturing Sirinians and Mermatians alike, knitting tales of immortality and eternal beauty. With their dwindling population, the two species banded together to build a place that would be safe enough to live.
The Sirinians were natural charmers of the underwater world, using their voices to get what they wanted. Despite how many tales go, they never sung to lure the humans into traps, they sung for their mates and their stories to be heard, humans were unfortunate to be pulled into their songs. They twisted the stories, claimed that they were attacked, and ships were sunk by these ‘vile creatures’.
The Mermatians avoided the surface as much as they could, their not-quite-human appearances tended to spark even darker stories of the Sirinians. They preferred the darker grounds were the sunlight didn’t hurt their sensitive eyes.
“My love, you are frowning again.” Her king, and Sirinian husband smiled at her.
“I know, I just couldn’t help think about how much things have changed.”
“Hmm, it seems like just yesterday we were enemies, fighting at each other throats.”
“Oh? Fighting? You mean you fought, I won.” The Queen whistled with knowing look and quirked smile. The King chuckled, whistled softly as his wife took his wrist in her grip and bumped her nose against the fragile skin. Sirinians were known for their powerful voices, their ability to lure and kill with a single switch in pitch, but, like their appearance, they carried a strength similar to the humans. The Mermatian Queen was always careful with her beloved, she’d never hurt him.
“That you did.” He huffed, “I just can’t help but worry.”
“I understand. It won’t be so easy, our uniting is just the tip of getting two entirely different people to work together.”
“I don’t regret it.”
“Neither do I.”
“I just worry for the day when we have to fight again.”
That fight came hardly a handful of years later in the form of ships and nets and fire.
“How did they find us?” The King snarled as he shook his head, his spear in a harsh grip.
“I do not know, but we will not be safe if we stay here.”
“We cannot just leave, we just built our home.”
“Our people are more important than a place of sand and stone. We can start all over again.” The Queen grabbed her husband’s face, lifting his head to meet his worried eyes, “We’ll find another home, we’ll get through this.”
“But I don’t want another home, I don’t want to keep fighting, I want my people safe.”
“And we will, it’ll just take a little longer than we intended.”
“Fine, then we make this fight a good one.” The King grabbed his spear with a passion, his glare burning like lava.
“That’s the spirit.”
“Helacean!” The Queen scream with anguish, her hand outstretched, claws clattering off the nets. Diamond and metal. Her husband’s eyes were lidded, his tail limp.
“My love.” He whispered, his bloodied hand touched her face, she leaned into it, sided heaving.
“Please, my claws cannot get through this. You have to use your voice.”
“I can’t, you will be hurt.”
“I don’t care about that, I’ll heal.”
“I will not make it out of here, I refuse to let my last act be harming my love.”
“Please Helacean, you can’t leave me, I can’t rule two clans without you by my side.”
“You will be an amazing queen, my love.” He tugs the spear in his hand, passing it through the space in the net as it begins to pull back roughly, the bad humans knowing that they’d gotten their prize. “Give this to my child. Tell them that I love them with all my heart. I pray to anything that listens that we will meet again someday.”
The Queen screams as her guards pull her away, carrying her to the safety of the depths below.
Years had gone by the pain of the loss of her soulmate. With no King as their representative, the Sirinians had grown bitter, even worst so when the Queen refused their argument to wage war on all humans. It would do them no good, their numbers were to thin and not all humans were their enemy.
The Sirnians left, building their homes as far away from the humans as they could, deep in caves, turning the lifeless rock into thriving homes. The Mermatians continued on, building some semblance of structure out of the only thing they knew, war. They built a castle, they built jobs, they created a formal structure of barter. With them came healers, researchers, guards, and so many other things. The new castle named in the honour of the lost Sirinian King, Helacean.
The Queen continued as strong as she could, her brave child at her side. She had her father’s voice, and her mother’s strength, she carried both their scales, black and silver, she was the perfect mix of both of them.
Many years into her ruling and to-be handing over the crown to her child, she was visited by someone. A being with lightest colour of hair, and brightest of eyes. She, as they introduced themselves, carried herself like the sighted of the castle, Mermatains who carried the ability to see glimpses into the future. The Queen herself didn’t really believe in it, but both she and her people needed the reassurance on the bad days.
“You are a strange one.”
“I am just like the young royal.”
“Oh?”
“I am a product of the alliance, and I am proud.” She was both Mermatian and Sirinians and then she was neither. The Queen’s heart when out to her at how hard the last few years for her might have been, feeling like she didn’t quite belong anywhere.
“I see, so how may I help you.”
“No.”
“No?”
“No, I am not here to receive help, but rather, I am here to offer my own.”
“And how would that be?” The young halfling swims gracefully through the Queens quarters as though she were familiar with it. The Queen only lets her as she is quite intrigued by the events. Eventually, she came across what it seems she was looking for.
“I come from a family of sighted, ones who have dabbled in prayers and visions and strange herbs.” She tugged out the small item wrapped in cloth as gently as she could, despite this, the Queen grows angry at her nosing.
“What right do you think you have to mess around in my chambers, I ask you to leave that item alone!” The Queen is frozen to her spot however, as the young halfling pulls back the cloth on the shining spear. It carried no damage other than the ones it received on the day she was entrusted with it.
“But this is where the magic lies.”
“I refuse to play your mind games, speak clearly or leave!”
“Your husband, the King, left a wish on his weapon, knowing that you would be the only one to keep it.”
“A wish?” The Queens voice grew weak as she remembered that day with absolute clarity.
“A wish, I pray to anything that listens that we will meet again someday.”
“How?”
“That anything happened to be me, and I will not rest until that prayer is fulfilled.”
“What will you do?”
The halfling swims towards the collapsed Queen with a sad smile, placing the spear in her lax hands and muttered a strange language. “Though you may never meet as the forms you carried, you will meet again in every lifetime, creature of the land and a creature of the sea. Though you may not remember the tales and the memories that cause it, the same, age-old love will always be there.”
- Writer
