Sea'S Hell

Seashellseashellseas-

Cat gritted her teeth.
Every day. Every single day, she had to go through this shit.
"you got some pretty ones this time?" one of the kids asked with a stupid grin.
Yes, Cat wanted to answer. In fact, I have never found such things before. .
Instead, she tightened her grip on her bag and started muttering a protection spell. One of the kids ran up and went to imitate her, hunching his shoulders and whispering loudly, making the rest shriek with laughter. Cat walked faster. She couldn't run— not with the bracelets around her ankles. Another lovely gift from her master.
But there was her house and her fence, and the kids immediately stopped, annoyance on their faces. None of them came closer; they already knew the pain of trespassing here.
"Bring some for us next time, lady. We'll pay you," yelled a boy, another terrible smile on his lips.
And Cat found herself stopping at the door. Found herself turning, trembling not with fear but restraint, and saying with a terrible voice:
"Do not ask such foolish things again, child."
It took a moment, before she realized why they were all staring at her, slowly backing away. She covered her mouth in horror.
"Oh, dear," an all too familiar voice drawled. The little tormentors screamed and fled. Cat gritted her teeth again and turned around to look at the cause, sitting on her windowsill.
"Thanks for ruining what's left of my reputation as a human, Kai." The cat on the windowsill stared right back at her with unnervingly grey eyes. His tale moved slowly as he stretched and jumped to the ground.
"I was getting tired of this town anyway. Where shall we go next, Sweden? Or are we finally going back to the ocean?"
"You could have come with me this morning." Cat walked up to her workbench and started rummaging in the cabinets, pulling out instruments no human would ever recognise.
"So what did you get this time?" Kaianam asked, sniffing her bag. It was the first time since she had stepped out of the waves that Cat smiled. She opened her wet bag and slowly revealed nets full of treasures.
Kai nearly fell off the table.
"Are those— are those Alvenian pearls?" he said, hairs raised. Cat watched his reaction with a smug grin, before raising something else out of the bag bulging with treasures unknown to mankind.
At the sight of this item, Matt's tail turned back into that of a fish.
"A shell of the Dragon King's crown... I haven't seen one in years."
"It must have fallen off when he fled, ten years ago." Ancient eyes found young ones.
"Where did you find those?" Cat hesitated. The water spirit wouldn't like this part.
"Cat."
"An old cave. It had the marks of a Sea Witch, so I entered," she answered. Kaianam shot up, turning patches of fur back into watery scales and baring dragon teeth at her in anger.
"You went into a Warghghail?! Catalfira!" Cat cringed at hearing her full name and the tiny dragon went on.
"Just because you are a Sea Witch yourself, does not mean you can just enter such a dangerous place! Do you realize what could have happened? You could've lost you live, or worse: you could have been cursed. Do you want another curse? And for what? A couple of measly seashell—"
That was it. Cat slammed her own, scaly hand on the table, making Kai look up and into her blazing eyes.
She lowered her head, not breaking eye contact, and hissed at him, "They are not just seashells." Kai blinked. Despite both belonging to the same world, she rarely used that voice. Impolite, she called it. Non-human, she meant.
The one thing Catalfira had wanted to experience, before being called to the king of Mer and slave away the rest of her life. Humanity.
But Catalfira was not human. She was Sea Witch, and Kai had forgotten something very important.
They did not take kindly to those who insulted their life's work, or even the ingredients needed for it. Kai sighed and returned to his full catform. He shouldn't have said that. With a last growl of annoyance, he jumped of the table and went to his nook in one of the kitchen boards, making sure to at least not lose sight of anything the Sea Witch did with those dangerous treasures. Cat turned from the spirit with a mere sigh and focused on the treasures again.
She had found her first clue today. If all went well, more would follow and quickly.
She would find the Dragon King, and he would free her, and it would all be because of these treasures.
Catalfira cradled the King's Seashell and whispered her prayers.