Fins Above:HOPE

CH.14

"Your stupidity cost you your only solace." The merfolk below could hear Agir's harsh talk with Brizo.

"It was not my stupidity. It was this book." She held the book above the water towards the kingpin, hissing on her tongue. "This damned book has cursed me with something uncontrollable."

"The moon has ''cursed'' so many this season." Sponge bubbled beside Agir, rising from the ocean with a look of annoyance. "Brizo, you have destroyed the connection between your people and the wyverns. Strato was the only pair of wings that had let you stay there peacefully."

"She was the reason the sirens were driven out back then." Brizo clenched the book with a frown. "That wretched wyvern used Whaletooth's hunting path to drive the humans near and keep tabs on them for years. The humans sent the rogues they captured into our shoal. The war leading up to her ascension was the war my father fought underwater."

Sponge glanced at Agir, but Agir didn't look back. "And what led you to this conclusion? The book that cursed you. The book that may not even be the real one."

The merfolk who were listening in rose up onto the surface of the sea, looking towards the siren with a bit of disgust. Brizo felt her gut clench in distaste. She could hear the water simmer around them before they began to pass two large books in the crowd. One bedazzled with beads, the other completed with woven moss. In the refraction of the sea, Brizo could hear a few more voices that intrigued her. Staghorn and Gem spoke under their bubbles like they were hiding something.

Then, from afar, Brizo smelt her mate and their splashes far from where she stood. The crowd silenced for a few moments, now seeing Brizo's fingers lock against the handle of Sarga's blade. Sponge widened his eyes, opening his mouth as he felt a rush of confusion enter his mind.

"You aren't supposed to wield that." The tang threw his tail to the side, huffing out towards the siren. If she has the blade, that means that Sarga never imbued it himself. If she has the blade and the book... Sponge hitched his breath as he approached closer. "That isn't yours."

Brizo felt her arms shiver in pride, and a devilish smile took over her very being. From that moment on, a lingering tone shifted in the mist and the blade escaped its sheath. Brizo inched upwards, standing to her full height as she bellowed. "That Sarga died as a siren, and if this is his, that means its siren property."

The waters began to heat up as the merfolk battered the surface of it. Jellynose rose from the depths and wrangled Sponge backwards, holding the merman away from his certain death. She could taste it on the air that the siren before them was no longer the one they knew. Though her appearance did not change, in Brizo's entire self, she was housing something other than her mind. The siren flicked the sword up and waved it around as they watched.

Brizo sneered, "I watch every one of you now in these unfamiliar eyes." She then pointed the blade towards Agir, "Say, what is she called?"

Agir reluctantly answered, holding his head higher, "Your name is Brizo ota'tal Fang. You belong to a long line of sirens and you are kingpin to a siren's cove."

Brizo felt her smile fade before it erupted into laughter, "My lineage continues!" The siren felt the grooves in the book she held, running her fingers deeper into the creases of the pages, "Brizo... Her mother must have loved her to name her after such a goddess."

Sponge wrestled with Jellynose until the smaller merman twisted her ear downwards and was let free. He dove back into the water, spreading his gliding fins as he made his way to the two whispering merfolk. Gem paused her conversation to hoot at the stride of the tang.

"What is happening up there?" The clownfish felt her arms strain under the pressure of the rope tying her down. Her glance moved to Staghorn, who had guilt on his face as he watched Sponge approach.