The Mer Prince

Chapter 48

Saline's POV (Krill me now.)

Parlor lights were eclipsed by the intermittent passing of my sibling's fluke, his idle pacing marking the seconds of which I was momentarily imprisoned with my ménage. The other seven chattered incessantly along the far fringe of the room along a bar of well-lit mirrors. They charged the air with a cacophony that I surprisingly managed to stand, while the odor of their perfumes and maquillage held stagnant in our sealed room.

After being accosted by an octi, I had thrown myself upon the measly futon provided for us and occupied myself with a mirror of fine silver and greened copper, engrossed with fixing my own marred vanity, though inevitably irritated by my own kin blocking the only illumination to my side of the room.

"Alkaline, if you find it permissible to pass forth between the radiance of our lamp and myself again, I should find it permissible to throw a weighty object at your head." I forewarned my brother as I dabbled a concealment clay over blemishes, and was content to find he promptly ceased his nervous act.

"Saline." Alkaline settled himself beside my fluke instead, to my immediate displeasure. "Should we see it fit to fret about our current state of affairs?"

"No, of course not!" I snapped at my digits in his face to expunge the mopey face he dared to attempt. He was a nervous wreck and constant nagging inconvenience for the proud lineage of red fins, though I could hold him at no fault for being so.

And still, he persisted with his dreary demeanor. "You were just accosted! Attacked, in the castle itself!" He lifted the mirror from my grasp and moved the silver so that I could discern a welt across my cheek with my single unscathed eye.

My discontent reflected back at me in the form of a sneer, and I blotted the deep red out with white clay. "What occurred has no consequence on our current alignment."

Alkaline clearly disagreed, "The ruffians did not hesitate to barge in and afflict you with wounds, even though you were the one to allow them entry."

"That is merely their disposition." I slid the clay into a casing and arose from the futon. My tolerance for his anxious chatter was wearing thin.

"You insist on ousting all seven of us for the sake of newfound moral principle! We should go back to how things were!" Alkaline set his hand upon my shoulder and I turned to be free of him.

"We will not! Besides, such principles are hardly newfound." I paused, observing the door to our sanctuary to be slightly ajar. There was no hesitation in my connection between the door and an intruder, feeling scales prickle in unease.

And yet, I maintained my conversation. "The principals are merely stipulated by the late queen, as we have all witnessed from her shell...."

I turned with a great hesitancy, a hand over my chest and clutched over a trinket, and articulated to the room, "The shell that is on my person, at the moment."

Alkaline's manner changed from fraternal concern to moderate confusion, though I could tell from the lapse in conversation from my siblings that a new presence among us had not gone undetected. Such unpleasantness arose when a familiar blue and emerald shape arose from between two of my sisters' flukes, causing both to squeal, and he wielded an ancient trident in his fists.

"Assassin XY." My own incredulous tone astonished me, and I oriented myself towards him. The buffoon from the trench that I had remembered now approached my person with an ancient spear wielded by the Elite from a thousand cycles ago, adorned in a - likely stolen - jeweled coat from the finest tailor. To say I was flabbergasted would not be adequate, no, I was beyond awed.