He Lies Within the Sea (eremika)

Chapter Fifteen

The sounds above were not comforting in the least. What to expect? She was not quite sure, but it certainly was not what happened.

Waiting in the pits of some odd underwater castle, locked away in a cell with a tail behind her, was the last thing Mikasa would have ever seen in her future. In fact, it wasn't anything a wild imagination would have dreamed up, and in her childhood, she had imagined herself a mermaid thousands of times- always a princess, never a prisoner. In a way, perhaps she was a princess, but she didn't even consider nor care.

Right now, there was no time to think about her mysterious family tree, something lost to her mind. No, instead, she was listening to what was some sort of shaking in the water, ripples of bubbles spreading beneath the sea, slithering across the floor with a venomous bite. Something was going on above her, and the echoes of shouts sounded like ghosts in these halls. Something was definitely going on, and it seemed like someone- likely the King- was pissed beyond belief. The ghosts sounded like him.

Her heart pounded with the muffled chaos, beating until the very moment it felt as if it stopped. The door opened, and she only imagined that anger would transfer to her, but instead, a figure sped through like a flash of light, slamming it shut behind them. Her breath caught when they turned, their tail a similar flash of a reddish color, rich in the colors of the sun's setting.

Her hair was a deep black, her skin an odd ivory, her eyes narrow and sharp. She had a warm edge to her despite her stern concern, and she knew this face more than she knew her own self at this point. It was her mother, standing before her with widened eyes.

She was practically glowing, too. There was an aura about her, something subtle and sparkling with a kiss of power. She didn't know what that meant about her mother, but all she could do was watch as her mother sped forward and placed her hands on the prison. One huff of a breath emitted from her, bubbles appearing beneath the sea, and suddenly, the prison shattered into millions of pieces, chipping away and freeing Mikasa in seconds.

Nothing more than a gasp escaped her mouth after it fell agape. She stared up at her mother, unable to do anything about her widened eyes, her stopped heart, and her stiff body. What had she seen? Her mother seemed to glow far more than it had a moment ago, like more power thrummed at the base of her being.

"What?" Mikasa muttered, blinking at her mother. She noticed her mouth moving, but she didn't hear anything.

Her mother mouthed more words, but nothing came out of her lips.

"What?" she tried again. Her mother furrowed her brows, opened her lips, and screamed.

Bubbles erupted around her, the area bursting with a wind that nearly knocked Mikasa fast against the wall if she hadn't lifted her arms, allowing some odd sort of protection to pass around her, like a shield. The area trembled with the power, but when her mother closed her lips, all she could do was stare at her daughter.

This time, she mouthed slow, so Mikasa tried hard to make out what her mother was trying to say.

I- Cannot- Speak- Anymore- Here.

"Why?" she wondered. Her mother replied with a simple shrug.

Follow- Me, she seemed to say.

Mikasa followed after her, passing over to the vault door that left to the exit. When it opened, it revealed a tunnel going upwards, light shimmering downwards, barely reaching the dark abyss of below. Quickly, her mother sped through with a swift shimmer of her tail. She followed after her effortlessly, as if she were this creature her entire life.

But she wasn't, and that was what made this more odd than it already was. Sometimes, when she was a child, she could swim in her dreams just like this, her tail a similar color, sometimes even legs, but this wasn't a dream and she hadn't had such in at least a decade.