Fins Above:HOPE

CH.11

The sounds of infighting had dialed down from the last time Galia had swam off, now dragging a giggling Brizo onto the damp shore. The cawing from above swarmed them until they were in front of her captured shoal. Strato had her white feathers stretched out, drying in the sun on the tallest perch there. As she had her back turned, two smaller wyverns swooped in and wrapped her in drapes. The wyvern lifted her head and twisted to face Brizo and Galia. While the two merfolk watched their battered shoal wiggle against the poles they were bound to, Strato and Cirrus began to squawk.

"We've been waiting for you, kingpin." The pastor dipped her head while Cirrus kept his feathers ruffled.

"You stole something of ours." He cawed with a scrunched face.

Galia hunched a bit, weak in the knees as her human skin rolled around the scales on her back. She knew that they were addressing Brizo, but she was her mate, and her mate did not look all there at the moment. Hope. Brizo kept yelling about it until the sun was lost in her eyes. Galia could feel her slowly slipping away from her, like she had found another Sarga.

The seer reared up, eyes flaring with a protective glare. "She was entrusted by Aurora and Sarga to go on this journey. You refused to grant us items easily, so she stole it in hopes that she could bring back Gutear's legacy." Galia did bring the book, that was enough proof of their necessity of theft. Strato angrily rejected any answer from her though.

Strato wailed. "I was not talking to you!"

"Lower your voice when you speak to her." Brizo cocked her head. Holding a stare of converging bloodlines, feeling her heart thunder out with the souls of the original sirens.

Cirrus beat his wings, eyes widening at her tone. "This is our island that you sleep upon."

Galia lowered her head, rubbing the sore muscles on her legs. They were just going to fight and yell if she didn't do something. Her eyes fixated on her shoal's efforts as escape, snagging their scales on the ropes so that it would weaken in grip. She felt a twinge of guilt in her lips. If she hadn't left them, they wouldn't have been tied up like this. She thought so intensely that the argument her mate was having with the pastor had completely washed over her ears, but as it popped back to her, she looked at Brizo with an uncomfortable frown. She isn't deaf anymore?

The kingpin seemed to have changed their condition so quickly since they entered the sea mist of the island, to the point that Galia wasn't able to pick up on it. Her body quietly moved in front of Brizo's so she could confirm something. But her mate was blinded to her movements, or at least she had no problems with it. To Galia, Brizo had been messed up since imbuing Sarga's sword with the book's essence. What could be making her shells loose in her head to the point of no return? It had to be that chemical, because her levels are high and her wounds were purple. And it seems like the others had noticed as well, especially Strato. Did she know that Brizo's plan was to overdose?

Brizo felt her shoulders adjust as she strode forward and growled at the wyverns. "This island was going to be the first on the chopping block if the sirens surrendered to human influence. The ocean would die and then your lives would be in danger." She scoffed. A curled smile lacing her lips. "I mean look at you all. You were plump before the war! And the fatty meats you find in the waters are located closer to the bay. The metallic capital."

A smile? Furytail watched her kingpin hold the side of her head and laugh at the wyverns to their crooked beaks. Brizo was so serious a few bellchimes ago. But she could tell that the siren's sense of self was emerging into something unlikely in common sirenhood. The mermaid folded her hand over her belly, now looking over at Weedfoam, who was chewing into his rope. Then she looked to Conchbelly, who had his back near the opposite side of the pole she was bound to. He could see the overdrive in Brizo's face as she barked.