Trinket (Reverse Harem)

[TITLES ARE HARD]

So this was what not being a hippocampi princess looked like.

It looked like Theia Nobody.

When they took me back to my room they didn't bother throwing the veil over me. Just led me straight through the town like the prisoner I was and dumped me back in my room to twiddle my thumbs and try to figure out how to find Korr, Ethat, and Asund.

Even if I found them, what was I supposed to do? They were injured and exhausted, and we were the gods knew where deep under the ocean.

We weren't going anywhere.

I wasn't along for long: within two hours some more guards came and gruffly informed me to come along, quietly, and not make a fuss. No veil or presentation this time.

"Should I be glad you guys don't have more bubble wrap?" I asked them sarcastically as the four of them marched me down the hall.

"Do you want to be bound up?" one of the ones behind me asked.

"Don't talk to her," the one to my left snapped.

"Maybe we should stuff her mouth full of bubbles," the other one behind me said.

"I've had worse things in my mouth," I grumbled.

"I'll bet you have, mutt."

"So is every hippocamp a piece of shit, or have I just been lucky so far?"

The one to my right looked over his shoulder just enough the very corner of his eye made contact with mine. "I'd say you're very lucky to even still be alive."

"I didn't ask to come here," I growled. "Ormiss could have just told me to fuck off and have a nice day."

"Be quiet," another one growled. I'm losing track of which one is talking.

We all grumble at each other and march through the palace until I'm brought to two grand doors inlaid with pearls and the fins of exotic sea creatures, and into what has to be the literal throne room, complete with Queen and guards.

Well, for a nobody, getting to the throne room says something.

Unfortunately, Korr's the diplomat. I'm just a nobody, and that's a bad thing.

The woman sitting on the throne was beautiful, older, and looked haggard and very sad.

Damn, she probably had been hoping that I was her lost daughter.

There were three ways in and out of the small throne room, if I didn't count the large window overlooking the city below behind the throne. A pair of guards stands at each entrance, with two more at the window. Each carries a lantern-staff like the ones that had come with Ormiss.

Ormiss also stands off to the side, observing, along with a couple of other hippocamp. Great. My least favorite hippocamp, although one of these clowns is sure to get that title soon enough. Unless Ormiss has more tricks up his... fins.

"It's appropriate to kneel in the presence of royalty," the hippocamp queen said mildly.

I obediently knelt before her and stared at the delicately-woven ocean-reed rug.

She shifted in her seat and the weight of her gaze feels heavy, like Tynne's mother when she'd stared at me and didn't approve one damn bit about who her son had been fucking for almost two years straight. That concern I might fuck up all her plans. Or I already had.

"What are you, Theia Nobody?" she asked.

"I am only Theia," I said quietly.

"So how did you summon our attention?" she inquired.