A Merman's Tale

Seirra: Chapter Fifteen

     Two days later, Marina still wouldn’t be convinced to go back to Aquania. Worse, she decided to get herself a new boyfriend who never seemed to want to leave her side—which meant less opportunity to talk to her without the risk of revealing our identities as merpeople.

     One week. 

     Seven days.

     I might have found the princess but her resistance to come back to our kingdom was slowly making me hopeless. If only there was another way for the Key to do its job without having to bring the stubborn princess back.

     All this time I thought finding Princess Marina was hard enough. I had prepared myself for some of her resistance but all the arguments I prepared all had something to do against the late queen’s possible brainwashing. It never occurred to me that she had wanted to go back but something else had stopped her.

     I leaned my forehead on the window and looked down on the street in front of Books and Covers. Grasveld Aisles was a peaceful city, almost like the old school towns in fairy tales. The idea of merpeople living with them would scare the hell out of these people. But after their initial scare, it was pretty much obvious that they would try and find out more about my people. And that was what scared the hell out of me.

     The sound of hurried footsteps brought me out of my reverie.

     “Seirra!” Margaret called as soon as the door burst open.

     I immediately turned away from the window towards her, and saw her fumbling to get the Crystal Key of Saol out in the open. Strangely, it was glowing. Blue light shone brightly from the pendant like I had never seen before.

     “What happened?” I asked, rushing over to where she was.

     I was worried of the possible reasons for the Key’s odd behavior. The Key was in her possession because of me and if the blue light indicates more danger directed at her, I would never be able to forgive myself.

     “I don’t really know. Classes just finished and as soon as I was in the music room to practice for the upcoming auditions, the Key began to glow. I knew I needed to tell you so I hurried to go back home. It was a pain to try to hide it from everyone’s stares but I managed it somehow,” she answered frantically.

     The blue light slowly began to fade without giving any clue as to why it was glowing.

     I sighed loudly.

     “This is getting out of hand. Unpredictable things have been happening lately and I no longer know what to do.”

     I dropped on one corner of the sofa as I covered my face in frustration. Margaret walked over and sat beside me. She gave my right knee a comforting squeeze.

     “That’s right. And you’re putting me and Grampa in danger throughout the entire process.”

     I felt myself sunk lower on the cushion. For some reason, she kept her hand on my knee and I knew she was not as serious as she sounded. I could even sense her smiling despite our bizarre circumstances.

     “But that’s alright.” I removed my hands from my face and saw her encouraging smile. It held a hint of sadness but she did her best to hide it. “There are only seven more days before all these ends, right? All the more reason to force Marina to go back and marry you. When that happens, everything goes back to its normal, peaceful state.”

     I heard her voice choking at the last word but I decided not to comment. Her words were meant to lift our spirits up but all I felt was…loneliness. I didn’t let myself dwell on it, though.