The Mer Prince

Chapter 8

XY (The Assassin)

"Come here blue boy, you are staying." Wait. Shit. No.

The King and the breeder turned to look at me and the black tentacled witch, glaring at me with a silent threat that if I pulled anything, I would wish I was dead when he got through with me, and a confused look was toss towards towards Ursula. "Shoo shoo, I can handle the boys." She assures as if I wasn't the deadliest assassin amongst my ranks, but a child, closing the door cloth on their tails.

I was looking between the Prince and the witch, confused as to what was going on and cautiously on guard. But Ursula ignored me and sat back down by the Prince, talking in that human language that I could hardly make sense of as it seemed to only travel between them.

"You already know our language. But if you want a tail...." She said in a low voice in our language. The Prince brightened and said something in the human speak, making Ursula toss back her head and laugh. I wanted to urge him not to make a deal with this untrustworthy witch, but it was certainly not my place to speak, and I did not wish to become a piece of coral.

After some human speak she asked "What color?" And he answered quickly, pointing to the cloth door. She raised an eyebrow and laughed again. "In that case, no deal is needed. I want to see how this works out." She says, and I looked towards the Prince to see if I could get any hint of what he had asked for, wondering if he wanted a tail like his fathers.... or some other tail?

Ursula snapped her fingers and bubbles swarmed the Prince and raised him towards the ceiling, flurries of the beautiful spheres of air, and just as suddenly as they had rose, they popped and disappeared.
My jaw dropped at what the Prince had picked.

Floating before me was not a human in white clothing, but the rightful Prince in a very royal.... breeder's tail. The contrasting colors seemed to contain the setting sun's brilliant array of oranges, royal frills drifting along the edges as he looked down at it, and ran his hands along it's sides sexi- err. Admiringly.
My first thought was: Oh shit he's sexy.
My second thought: Oh shit the King is going to flip.

Breeder's were marked by their orange tails, and they were usually females, able to bear guppies unlike everyone else. The occasional male however.... they could still bear guppies, but unlike the females who could bear up to 18 small guppies at a time, they often had one and carried it in their stomaches until the guppy was large enough they'd need to be held in both arms like a human child. To many this was weird and unnatural, and often times these guppies were murdered before they could even swim properly. But beyond that, the males were said to be more alluring and attractive than females, and that was definitely the case for the Prince. The breeders, although thought weird, usually wore lots of lace and clothing, something many were confused about. It wasn't amour, it didn't stop the current's chill.... but now I understood why they wore it.

I snapped into a protective state, grabbing a cloth from off a couch of sorts and rushing over to the Prince with it, wrapping it over him and making him squeak in surprise. He peeked out of it and looked at me confusedly, Ursula smirking at my sudden action. I looked at her flatly, my arms still protectively around the prince.

She said a word or something in human speak and swam behind us, pushing us to the door. The prince happily swam out of my grasp, keeping the cloth around him as I turned to 'politely' ask Ursula to give him a different tail or anything, only to find her gone. A sharp call from the King snapped me away as I swam out beside the prince, who, thank Poseidon, still had the cloth around him, the fabric covering around him from his shoulders to the tip of his tail without restricting his swimming. The coral snapped at him and he pressed to me again, and my tail twitched at the contact.

I can't have him. The obvious fact was yet again tossed in my face as we swam out into the light, the prince sneezing cutely beside me at the sudden change of light.The King looked between me and his son, who I distanced myself away from. The breeder meant for the prince eagerly swam forward, tugging at the cloth and swimming circles around him. I turned my back to them, looking instead at the guards around us, trying to remember any of them from previous encounters.

They gasped behind me and I glanced towards the King, who simply shook his head. "I had a feeling she'd pull a trick like this." He gruffly said, and my gaze turned to the prince, who....
who looked hurt.
His choice of tail was obviously disliked and he frowned, looking down at it with less happiness now that he was being criticized for it. I yearned to be able to reach out to him and pull him in a hug, to tell him it was a beautiful tail, and a sharp pain pricked my heart as the breeder looked at him, disgusted.

The King started to swim off, but not before turning to me. "Take him to the royal apartments. Keep him hidden. And DON'T let anything happen to him. We are on the brink of war, I don't need rumors of a false son floating around my head." He growled before swimming past me.

I glanced at the breeder, who, as soon as the King left, spit at the prince. "You are no man." She growled before speeding off, leaving the prince to sink to the fine white sand as the guards followed after the King.

The King, who I thought overly-compassionate for anyone for current cycles, I had learned, always had a darker side. And he used turned it on his son.

I hoped the war would tear him apart.