Our Fated Tail

Seren

Seren

"Why did you do that?"

I looked at my father and glared. It's been a month since Anilena left and I haven't left my room since we got back from the Archives. Father would bring me my food and make sure I was alive before giving me a sentence or two about how he was disappointed in how I handled the situation and that I needed to go after her. I didn't. She had told my father to tell me that if I wanted to see our child that I would have to come to her, but as much as I love both of them, I don't think I could face her. Not after what I had said and how I had reacted. They both deserved happiness and I had gotten my first and only love. Not every mer could say that. A lot of us just mated with each other to reproduce and have a companion.

A knock on my door made me jump and I grumbled at them to go away. Shelby came in holding a package in her hands. It was small and she looked like she had been crying up on land. Her eyes were red and swollen as she handed me the little box inside and left the room. Inside, a black diamond sat on a silver band nestled inside with a laminated picture of Aiden. He was wearing a red shirt and black shorts while Anilena was lifting him in the air. They were both smiling and I felt my heart stop.

Pain started in my gut and rose upwards until I was curled up paralyzed. Shelby came in a little while later and when she touched me I screamed in pain. She gasped and disappeared as I started screaming. When a mer falls in love, it is only once. When we lose them, we go into a state of insanity. For my father, it lasted a month. For some, it never ended and most of them turned to suicide. But I can still remember how my father would stay in his room for hours just screaming and breaking things. Those days it was silent in the whole kingdom. Everyone heard it. I felt the pain settle in my chest as black dots danced in my vision, swallowing more and more of it. Blood pounded in my head and my heart was thumping sporadically as I screamed and wailed in pain. I didn't want this to happen.

I had no control and the whole process of losing one's mate is dramatic. It's never a pretty sight and a lot of people that have witnessed it find it to be ridiculous. I wanted to scream at our ancestors and our gods as the pain finally faded away. When my body was completely numb I felt myself grow weak and exhausted. Nausea and sleep washed over me like waves and I slowly fell into a peaceful state.

"Wake him up."

"It's only been a few weeks. It isn't safe to wake him up. What if he goes insane again?"

"So keeping him sedated is going to help? I can get them to come here. They wouldn't let him become this and both of them were terribly misunderstood."

"Listen, my loyalty is always to the king and his family, but that wretched eel can stay where she belongs. There are plenty of mermaids that would love to take care of him and they know how to run a kingdom."

There was a large snap and I jolted awake to see my little sister beating the kelp out of Algenae. I coughed out her name and she stopped. I frowned as she grinned and watched Algenae's blood mixing in the water. When she got up, she hissed at Shelby before she swam off out of my room. The pain that I felt before I succombed to unconscienceness began to creep up again and I grabbed my chest gasping. Shelby helped me lay back down as she snatched a little bottle up from the cupboards. I felt my eyes widen as she pulled out a needle like the humans use. (We did use a lot of modern things.) She let out a sigh and stuck the needle in my arm and injected the medicine in my blood. I closed my eyes groaning.

"I'm sorry. I didn't think it would be this bad."

"How are you?" There was a shuffling near me. "No I'm not underwater," Shelby snapped. "It's Eren. He's hurt." Who was she talking to? "I moved him to land. He's been in a coma for four weeks. Whatever happened between you two, you need to fix it and make up with each other." I flinched inside when I heard the screaming voice on the other end of the line. "He lost his best friends because of your psychotic ex! You both lost your friends so you need to grieve together!"