Ocean Song Beneath the Waves

Bonus! Happy New Year!

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Rodion exhales deeply. Yet no amount of deep breaths can do anything to calm the turbulent storm raging within his heart. He has failed at the one thing he was supposed to do above all else. All he had to do was protect his sister, and he even managed to screw that up like so many other things in his life.

Princess Arcelia stands at his side in silence as they stare at the horizon from atop the pier. She had thought it best to bring him to the surface, a place where he might find some semblance of comfort. Yet it is apparent that there is no such comfort to be had when one’s sibling is suffering. She has only experienced such an occurrence once, but she was still a young child and cannot remember all the details surrounding the event. It’s all a blur in her mind; from her brother’s consistent loss of temper to his refusal to see anyone when choosing to bury himself in his work.

She recalls a time where her brother used to smile more, and spend time with her, but it’s been so long. Nearly fifteen years if she had to give an exact time. She’s only twenty years old, vastly younger than her brother who has seen a full century of life. Still young, but supremely more knowledgeable of things than she.

Lost amidst her own thoughts, Princess Arcelia doesn’t even notice when Rodion turns to stare at her. At least not until she becomes aware of his gaze burning holes into her head.

“Clear you have something to ask. So do ask it,” she says with something of a sigh as she turns to face him with her curious teal gaze. The wind blows in just then, and she reaches up to push back a strand of honey blonde hair.

Rodion shuffles his feet for a bit, averting his gaze as he seems to glare at the sand for a minute before turning back to face her. “It has something to do with that Storm guy…” He trails off thoughtfully as he looks out towards the sea for a moment. “I have some kind of a feeling about him.” Princess Arcelia tilts her head, a serious glint in her eyes.

“What kind of a feeling?”

Rodion shrugs with a strange expression that she can’t quite place. “Not sure. Something about him makes me feel as though there’s something more we should be worried about.”

Princess Arcelia’s eyes bulge just a bit. “What more could there be for us to worry about? We already have Proteus running loose in the seas with his minions, your sister has been trapped within her own body, and it seems that Vilmaris has finally made a move after years of silence!”

Rodion sighs, then he scratches at his silver hair. “I don’t know! I know there’s all this other stuff to worry about, and I wish that my sister and I didn’t have to worry about it!” He squeezes his eyes shut as he places his hand against his forehead. “I just wanted to keep Rena safe, and what a shitty job I’ve done of that!” He groans. A pressure forces itself upon his body, and for a moment he feels like he’s drowning. And for some reason, his thoughts immediately take him back to that awful day when their whole world turned upside down.

“Mommy!” Serena had cried, panic taking over as she drifted further out to sea.

Their mother stood at the shore with his father and brothers, a desperate look on her face.

“I have to go get her!” She cried above the thunderous roar of the storm. All Rodion could do was watch as the waves tossed his poor eight year old sister around like a beach ball.

Their father had moved to stop their mother, a frantic look on his own face. “You mustn’t! It’ll take you with her!” The storm had come suddenly. Sure they knew, but they had already decided that they would be back home long before it started. Never did they think to check if the forecast had changed since that morning.

Serena’s wailing was growing further and further away as her head kept disappearing and reappearing above the waves.

He and his brothers watched as their mother shuffled her feet, ready to go charging off into the sea at any moment.

She looked at their father. Her eyes were somewhat calm, and clarity had made itself at home within them. She placed a hand on their father’s cheek as they exchanged silent words between their gazes alone. She looked back at Serena who had disappeared once more, glanced at the four of them and took off towards the ocean. She dove in without a moment’s hesitation and disappeared amidst the waves.

But only Serena ended up on the shore that day. Their mother never reappeared, and after a month they had to come to terms with the fact that she was dead.

“Rodion?” He rapidly blinked as he finds himself back on the same shores, but there isn’t a single cloud in the sky and the sea is calm. He turns his gaze to a worried Princess Arcelia who has been peering into his face this entire time. “Where did you go?” Her tone is soft, and somehow only serves to soothe his wounded heart.

He looks from her to the sea once more. The source of all his pain, as usual before he replies, “Just thinking about life before we fell into this world of yours’.” And that wasn’t a total lie. He just isn’t going to tell her that he was thinking about a time when he had hated the sea the most. For some reason, he couldn’t bring himself to. She stares upon him with such big innocent eyes, eyes that’ve yet to know true pain. He doesn’t want to upset her with his own hatred for the place she has called home since the day she was born.

He places a hand over his eyes and groans. What the hell is wrong with me? Since when do I give two shits about some ditzy little girl? And a princess to boot! But he thinks better about his insult. Princess Arcelia may be annoying, but she’s anything but ditzy, of that he’s painfully certain. He shudders at the memory of her merperson anatomy lectures. He hated Prince Oceanus too much, and was too proud to ask about how this new body of his worked. He couldn’t get the attention of any servants at the time, and Princess Arcelia was too damn curious to not butt her nose into his business. Though thinking on it now, it might’ve been a poor decision on his part to have even considered asking her about merpeople anatomy. And she was far too casual about it to sit there and discuss the male and female parts that make them so similar to humans.

He shakes his head with yet another sigh as Princess Arcelia leans back away from him a bit to stare out at the sea.

She sighs. “Come, it is growing late. Let us return to the palace,” she says softly as she walks towards the nearby pier. Rodion watches as she leaps into the water, tossing the wet clothes back onto the boat once her transformation completes.

Rodion glances back towards the horizon before following after her.

She opens her eyes to darkness once again. For a moment she thinks she’s in Hallmar’s dungeons again, but she finds that her tail isn’t shackled and no metal bars greet her fingers when she reaches out. Wait. Her tail! Serena looks down when she realizes that she’s standing on what feels like a solid surface. She finds her human legs waiting for her when she looks down. She’s been dressed in a stark white flared halter dress.

Fear begins to flood Serena’s being. If she isn’t in Hallmar’s dungeons then where is she? And why does she have legs now? She racks her brain, trying to remember what had happened. But her eyes widen as she comes up blank.

“SERENA!” She jumps as the voice echoes out into the darkness. But everywhere she looks, there is nothing.

“You must stay away from the water. You’re too little and it isn’t safe.” The voice seems so familiar to her, but she can’t remember the person who possessed it.

“Why couldn’t you have just listened?” A more masculine voice has begun shouting, overlapping the much softer feminine one from before. Serena hugs her body tightly as she crouches down and attempts to curl into herself.

Voices shout at her from all sides as the darkness begins to morph into a myriad of blurry images that she can hardly make sense of.

“Accursed child! You will be consumed! That is your destiny!” A scream fills her surroundings. However, she quickly realizes that it’s her own scream, desperately trying to drown out the disembodied voices tearing at her mind.

“You, precious human child, are the one I entrust with my hopes. You must remember how it is you came to be here.”

Serena cries out, “Just make it stop! Please!” But her cries fall on deaf ears, and she’s reduced to a sobbing mess of hysterical tears. What kind of mental torture has been inflicted upon her?

All around her, images dance in a sea of blurred images rushing past her. Disembodied voices continue to taunt her and scorn her, while the overbearing weight of it all induces a series of induced rapid breathes. Her skin grows paler, but the glaring red of her cheeks make obvious the struggle she’s in to calm her breathing. Her wild eyes dart all about her in search of some kind of escape, and tears continue to fill them as though to interfere with the search.

Somewhere in the chaos, she can hear laughter. It isn’t the least bit gentle, and only serves to mock her like every other voice shouting out around her.

But unlike every other voice, she remembers this one quite vividly. She may not remember how it is she came to be here, but she certainly remembers the torturous voice of Proteus. “Poor, little human,” he drawls with amusement dripping from every syllable. “All alone, and imprisoned within your own mind. I am quite surprised that you have not yet succumbed to insanity.” He chuckles, but she gives no reaction. Having had him in her head as often as she has, she’s become pretty desensitized to hearing his voice in her mind at all. But she zeros in on something he just said. Imprisoned in her mind? Is that where she is right now?

The other voices have been reduced to a bothersome murmur, while the myriad of blurring images have slowed just a bit as though time has slowed down around her. Yet still, she cannot make out what the images are.

Serena shakes her head and asks, “What do you mean “imprisoned within my mind”?”

Proteus chuckles some more, as though he’s the only one privy to some entertaining joke. “You have been trapped inside your body. You do not remember what happened?” He asks mockingly, and she can almost sense the amused grin on his face.

“What happened then? You seem to know.”

“Why tell you when I can just show you?” Something moves much faster than the images out of the corner of her eye. She snaps her head in that direction to find a glowing ball heading straight for her, containing clearer images than the ones around her. She goes to put her hands up to shield herself just as the ball connects with her body and wraps her up in a sea of light.

When she opens her eyes, she finds herself standing within a large hall filled with people. She twists this way and that, spotting the familiar faces of the king, her brother, Princess Arcelia and Queen Salacia. Upon a platform at the center of the hall, she sees Prince Oceanus. And then everything seems to click when she spots Delmara entering the hall through the main double doors.

The wedding! Everything seems to move faster when she realizes what is happening. She sees herself stand up and challenge Delmara, imprison her in the pearl, right up until Hallmar wraps his hand around her throat.

Subconsciously, she touches her throat, now aware of the burning sensation there. She can feel slight indentations in the skin where his elongated nails were, stretching across her neck as she watches him drag them through her skin. The burning intensifies as she watches her body slowly float down to the floor of the hall, but someone dives in and catches her before she ever reaches the floor. Her eyes had slid shut, but Serena’s more shocked to find that it wasn’t her brother who had caught her like she had expected.

Prince Oceanus had rushed in without a moment’s hesitation, sweeping one arm under her tail while the other supported her torso. He shook her, called out her name with a strange look in his eyes that she cannot seem to place just as her brother comes charging in screaming her name at the top of his lungs. Then everything goes dark, and she finds herself in that sea of blurry images once more.

“How did this happen?” Serena asks quietly as she continues to keep her fingers to the newly formed marks in her neck. They aren’t full wounds like she had experienced when it had happened, but they seem almost similar to a ghost wound. Much like a ghost limb when the body thinks a missing limb is still there and it isn’t, which usually results in intense pain. That’s the only thing she can think of to compare her strange, almost non-existent wounds to.

But she isn’t as panicked as she was before. Rather, she feels more…content. She managed to save the kingdom from Delmara and her father even if it did mean imprisonment within her own body. At least she has a brief reprieve from the madness from earlier, even though it came at the cost of having a mental audience with Proteus, the current bane of her and her family’s existence.

“Now then, I have things to do, and you are of no use to me as you are. So I shall be taking my leave,” he says dismissively to a seemingly insignificant creature unworthy of his time. “Besides, your torment is only beginning little guppy. I can already hear your agony calling,” he laughs as his voice fades out from around her.

Panicked, she shouts out, “Wait! You cannot just leave me here!” The last thing she wanted to do was ask Proteus to keep her company, but if it means that she won’t have to suffer the impending chaos then she can survive his irritating comments. But what can one expect of an ancient evil whose main concern is drowning the surface and condemning the sea? Proteus leaves entirely, and she finds herself alone once again as the voices grow louder and the blurred images speed up once more.

And once again…she releases a glass-shattering scream.

Rodion enters Serena’s room after returning to the palace with Princess Arcelia. Said princess had decided to leave him along when he started making his way to Serena’s room. She thought it best to give him his solitude, and decided to go seek out her grandmother instead.

Rodion stands before the doors of her room, staring at them with a strong sense of trepidation. Guards have been stationed on either side of the door to keep track of who enters and exits. They stand stoically, gazes forward, and spears pointing heavenward, ready to defend if necessary. Though, that brings him little comfort. He places a hand on the right door as a brief image of his sister flashes across his mind. His most recent memory, her sleeping visage that gives no indications of ever awakening.

The guards briefly glance at him from out of the corner of their eyes to see what he’s doing before resuming their stance. Rodion sighs as he pushes the door open and goes inside. The first thing he sees is the large white clam bed with Serena sleeping within it amidst the purple silk sheets and pillows. Her hair is splayed out amongst the pillows like a creamy blonde halo and a peaceful expression upon her face that somehow reminds him of the little girl she used to be. Her skin is pale, and the bandages have been changed.

But he quickly realizes that he’s not the only one in the room. He reluctantly pulls his gaze from his sister to meet the figure of Prince Oceanus, who stares upon her with such a tense expression upon his face.

At first Rodion wants nothing more than to express his displeasure at seeing the irksome royal at his sister’s bedside. However, he thinks better of it when he fully studies the look on the prince’s face. Of course Serena managed to weasel her way past the prince’s exterior. She somehow managed to occupy a space in his mind like she does with most people she meets. Just enough to get him to care about her well-being.

Prince Oceanus looks up. “Have you something to say?” And then Rodion grits his teeth and glares. That didn’t last long at all. Unlike his sister, he’s no good with people, and this prince riles him up like no other has before. Whether it’s because of how close the prince has gotten to his sister or just because of his personality, Rodion doesn’t know. Nor does he care since he’s just content with disliking the prince regardless of the reason.

So he retorts, “If I had something to say to you, then you would be the first to know. Trust me.” Rodion spends a good minute grumbling before moving closer to Serena’s bed. Now that he’s closer, he immediately notices the slight crease of her brow, indicating that her sleep might be anything but peaceful.

After about five minutes of staring at her face Rodion quietly asks, “Has there been any new developments since I left?”

But Prince Oceanus’s expression somehow manages to become tenser. “Unfortunately, no. My grandmother has been pouring over the books in the library while my father continues to try and ascertain Vilmaris’s intentions. Calder has all but holed himself up within his caverns doing Poseidon knows what.” The prince’s words drop to a murmur as his gaze remains fixated on Serena’s face, trying to justify why it is he’s so concerned with her.

Rodion sighs loudly, and Prince Oceanus’s brow twitches when he does so. “Alright, so what is the deal with Vilmaris then? From what I understand, they have been silent all this time, and this Storm guy has been following my sister. Why?”

Prince Oceanus’s expression becomes more contemplative. “I am not certain as to the reason that myself, but it is rather odd. I find it hard to believe that their only interest in the two of you is simply that Proteus desires you.”

Rodion scoffs, “Your world has too many problems to deal with, and my sister is paying for them. While Calder searches for a way to fix this, we should try to figure out what Vilmaris wants.” Rodion huffs. “The last thing I want is to get mixed up in even more trouble. So where do we start?”

Prince Oceanus moves to the window, and stares out over the garden to gaze at the city beyond the palace walls. After a minute, he finally says, “I do not know where to start in that endeavor.” He turns back to Rodion with a serious glint in his eyes. “After all, there are many things about the sea that we do not know. So we must somehow unravel the secrets beneath the waves.”