Fishy Fish

The Queen II

The Queen Ⅱ

We swam through the waters for what seemed like forever. Before I loved diving deep below and swimming around in the warm Ocean. But now? It sucked! The other three all had tails that were just like a giant mono fin. It propelled them up and down in the water. And, while I still swam fast for when I was normal I still wasn't as fast as them. Plus I had to breathe air and they didn't.

Finally, Venus turned around. "Here we are!" She said smiling. Out of habit I looked up and saw nothing but more blue ocean. Thankfully, Melody saw my confused frown and she laughed and dunked my head in the water.

Ohhh! I felt kind of stupid. Duh! The mermaid metropolis would be underwater. Sometime I amaze myself with my stupidity.

Melody grabbed my hand and we dove down. It kind of looked like an underwater NYC, towering sky sea-scrapers made of limestone and coral. A couple of kids played near what looked like tag before I realized that they were freezing and burning stuff. (If you were wondering I have no idea how there was fire underwater.) The kids looked like me, except on the sides of their legs and arms there were scales and fins. There seemed to be bottles of something on the bench. "Why do those kids have legs?" I turned and asked Zaop. "Because their still tadpoles, they haven't gotten their tails and gills yet." she explained. "You see those bottles over their?" I nodded. "Those are filled with oxygen. They have rocks at the bottom to keep them down here, they're so the little tadpoles can breathe." she said. I nodded again.

We walked down a smoothed marble road. up ahead there was a slanted sand banked and we started to swim to the top. At the top of the slope there was a small cave perched on a mini island. Outside, there was a bowl of silvery liquid. All of the three girls dipped their necklace they were wearing into the liquid and walked inside the cave. Once inside they all three stood in front of the cave wall in a small circle touching their necklaces at the tip. "Nous demandons la présence de la reine." They chanted. Zaop's headpiece began to glow as the cave wall rose. I was in awe of the sight. Thousands upon thousands of pearls glittered and sparkled. It seriously looked like they were trying to communicate to me with a language oh-so foreign.

Up high upon a giant throne made of sea-glass, sat a very regal woman. Her long red hair sparkled like a well lit fire, and it seemed that the edges seemed to spark and ignite at a random. Just like Zaop's! I thought. Actually, the more I looked at her the more I realized how much Zaop and her looked alike. Down to the similar looking headpieces with the orange gems. (The Queen's had many more gems and sparkled with more beauty.)

"Luna! Darling! We've been wondering when we'd see you!" I winced at her calling of my real name. Everyone at Jade Point always just called me Fish. It was a name I had heard forever since I had taken up swimming after my mom-nevermind. She gestured for me to come closer so with unease I took a couple of nervous steps. My hands were braiding and weaving so fast in a couple of seconds I had near cornrows on the right side of my head.

The queen rested her heavily bedazzled hand on my shoulder, and stared deep into my eyes. "Ahh yes! I see you have taken accustomed to your necklace already! The green suit you?" She didn't know about me wearing it forever. I glanced back at the girls, who nodded discretely and told me to play along. "Um..yes! Yeah! Um...Zaop knew just the right one to give to me! It um...yeah." I stopped before I said anything I would probably regret. "Well I assume you girls would like to go shopping for some new clothes for Luna," I winced at my name again. "So here is some shell pieces for you!" We quickly left before the queen would figure anything out.

"What was that?" I yelled at the three as we swam back towards the metropolis. "How come she thinks my necklace wasn't always mine?!" I demanded. All three of them looked super guilty, but Venus was the one that finally spoke up. "Well there is an old Auln Quoli legend..." she trailed off her eyes meeting with something in the water. "What legend?" I encouraged her to continue. "Well usually when a maiden turns fourteen, she gets her necklace based on what her talents or special abilities are during a ceremony called lunsa na deith." she said. What's a maiden? I wondered but decided to keep up with my strategy of pretending that I knew what I was talking about. "But I've had my necklace since birth!" I said very very confused. "Yeah well that's the thing..." Venus, Melody, and Zaop said in unison. I could tell this was an uncomfortable topic to say the least.

"Wegavethenecklacetoyourmomwhenshewasamaidenbutthenshegaveittoyouandwecouldn'tstopthat." Melody said rambled. All three of us gave Melody the strangest look ever in the history of weird looks. "Um sorry Melody one more time in english please?" Zaop said. "Um, yeah sorry. When your mom was a maiden, the necklace was hers. But when she got sick she needed to pass on her maidenhood, I guess to you? No one really understands it." She said cautiously. It took me a moment to process this.

"Wait my mom was a mermaid?" I asked. "Not just a mermaid, a maiden." Venus reminded us. "Ok, ok, jokes over. What in the name of christ is a fricken maiden?" I asked completely and utterly bewildered out of my mind. Melody and Venus looked at Zaop. She took a shaky breath. "A maiden is a mergirl selected by the queen to fight as a warrior against enemies." She said. Oh yeah well that it explains it so much! Not. Seeing the face I made Venus spoke again.

"The old legend that I mentioned earlier. The legend states that a maiden fell in love with a land dweller and sacrificed everything she had save him from a shipwreck she had caused. She then went onto land and live out the rest of her days with legs. But," Venus said with a grim look on her face. "A mergirl can only live so many decades without a tail, the maiden will die but not before giving her gift to one of her offspring. That merling will then find her way back to the ocean and face the greatest danger Amosite and all of the sea has ever known." Venus finished. Her story gave me chills up my spine. "Well that was a story.." I mumbled. "Well on a happier note, let's go down and show....." She didn't want to call me Luna. "Um, call me Fish!" They nodded and as they started to swim down I laughed to myself, Ha! Isn't that basically calling me hamburger to them? Whatever, this is going to be awesome!

But as Fish followed the three to explore Amosite, sinister things were happening on a seemingly deserted island far away.

Army's legs shook so violently, he didn't know if it was from nerves or if a giant earthquake was taking place on the tiny island. Don't think about facing her, think about paying for medicine for the tadpoles! he thought. Thinking that made him feel better. He knew what he was doing was wrong, but at least he had a good reason.

"ARMY LOUIS! STEP INTO THE QUEEN'S CAVE!" a giant voice boomed over Army's head. He began to compare the small island to that of Queen Amosa's.

Well, for starters, it's much shinier?

While this fact was very true, the walls of the cave standing before him were not covered with precious stones and gravel that he had thought caused the sparkling. Army's tanned face grimaced as he realized what caused the ancient rocks to gleam in the Caribbean sunlight.

Is that- blood? Gross.

Ignoring the crimson splattered structure, he took a shaky step before regaining his confidence (that was so boldly known), and strutting right on into the cave. 

~~~~~~~~~~~

Ahhhhhh.

I only published this part because someone requested an update ASAP and I couldn't just start a new chapter without explaining the Queen visiting thing.

I wrote this chapter all last year, the grammar and dialogue give me nightmares.

I pinky-swear that the next chapter will be a TON better for grammars sake and sentence structure.

Question: Have any of you read Falling Too Far by anifantasies?

Until Later-

xoxo,

            Dylan