The Mer Prince

Chapter 31

XY's POV

I don't know when I passed out. There were so many sharks in the water, and too much blood in the waves. My head was still spinning, and the water was rushing back into my lungs, but darkness floods my vision, my back stinging from a trident grazing between my shoulders. I've failed to protect him. I have to get him back. I have to get him back!

My eyes open slowly to blue skies, and I slowly move my numb arms. I try to move my tail, and then I stop. Something is not fucking right here. The sky had no ripples, no waves.

"Good, you're finally up." It is the sea witch, Ursula!

I sit up immediately and groan in light pain, looking at my legs- oh my Poseidon, my LEGS?! Tail? No, legs! And what is this long thing?! Is that a third leg?.... its that what it is?! I HAVE HUMAN LEGS!

"Hey there, you're looking sick." The sea witch draws my attention, disguised as a human in black attire, holding a plastic water container I had seen before, that was human trash, and offering it to me.

"WHAT IS THIS EEL SHIT?! WHAT ARE THESE?!" I ignored the offer and gestured to the legs, shaking a bit at the odd new sensations and lack of pressure holding me up. We're in some sort of stone building out of the water- I should be dead!

"Legs. Calm down now stabby boy." The witch says, "You'll need them if you want to get our Charley back."

Charley. Oh, no no, fuck no, the last time I saw him- the net, the sharks, he was taken away! "Where is he?! Is he okay? Why do I need these!" I was in a rightful panic. I couldn't protect him. This was all on my head!

"Relax blue. He's safe, for the moment. He won't stay that way in the conditions they have him in though." Ursula says, in her riddled words, which was a bunch of eel shit to me.

"What do you mean?!" I wanted clear answers, not cursed uncongenial words.

"Shut up and let me explain now dear!" She whacked me across the face lightly. "Charley was taken by net to a lab here, in this place called Hawaii, and he is currently in a glass box! You are going to have to help me, with those legs I gave you, to free him!" She said, with conviction.

"Great, but one problem... how do I use these?" I ask her with a small glare, feeling one leg falling off the fluffy surface I laid on, and to a scratchy carpet.

"Easy." She moved me up to a sitting position, then shakily up onto the poles. "This is your right, this is your left, just take one and put it in front of the other."

I did so. "What's the third for?"

"It's your dick."

"...Does it have to be exposed? Does it not tuck like before?" I disliked the idea greatly.

Ursula laughed. "Honey, human dicks are like that. You should be proud of how 'exposed' yours is... though I'll find you some clothes. You practice walking."

I could hear a comment about Charley liking something, before I looked down to my 'feet'. I lifted one and all my weight went onto the other, making me wobble before I placed the first ahead of the other a sardine-length. Such a new experience, learning how to... swim upright? No, walk. This was the famed human walking, that Charley once had to do. No wonder why he had a hard time swimming straight, this was a new sort of torture to me!

By the time the witch came back, I had made it around my surroundings, which included past the fluffy bed, by a dresser of an odd, probably buoyant material, and by two rectangular doors. The whole theme of the building seemed so... rectangular! It was as if an anti-art extremist from my kind had decided to arrange everything in the place, everything with points, so dangerous. It all seemed like a cod-awful culture.

Ursula walked back over with clothes. "Here, these are for you." She said, giving me a stack and walking off.

I raised one item and frowned, it was those things that cover human legs. Ants, I think they are called? Or is that an animal? The next item in the stack was even more confusing, looking like a cap with two holes cut out of it. I could imagine two ways to put it on, yet I stuck with the shirt and pants since I was not willing to try either way. Thank goodness I had seen how many men put on armor.

I 'walked', more like shook as I tried to mimic the way Ursula could walk so easily around, tripping over myself and hitting the floor. I hit my vulnerable 'third leg' and groaned, eyes doing something weird as I blinked water from my eyes. Ursula found me and took me by the shirt, dragging me along by the shirt out of the room, eliciting another groan from me as I did not bother trying getting up. So much sensitivity, no way to sheath it, what from the Great Trench is wrong with humans?!

"Come on tough guy, time to eat." Ursula put a bowl by my face and propped me up against a wall. "Can't heal all those scrapes without nutrients."

I looked at the contents weirdly, but took the meal. It was liquid with chunks of stuff in it, orange things, green stuff, and brown. Certainly not chum. The utensil in the bowl was a miniature bowl. I filled it with the liquid and looked to Ursula, who was using the utensil to funnel the liquid into her mouth. I tried the same. It was a mess.

"YOU DON'T INHALE THE BIG FOOD!" Ursula had to start slapping my back as I could no longer take so much in my mouth now. Smaller throat perhaps? Whatever the reason, it was a fucking pain and I couldn't breathe! Thank Poseidon, I coughed out the brown stuff and cleared my throat, rubbing it as Ursula flicked my head lightly.

"You have a lot to learn...." She sighed.