"Very well, little mermaid, I shall accept your challenge."
"It wasn't a challenge you filthy-"
"I, Alexander vow to make you love me before the spell shall break."
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As seaweed floated past Neris' submerged body she wondered where she would let out. She had stopped fighting the trap and had begun to burn with curiosity, why would someone want her? Had they wanted her at all, was she merely in the wrong place at the wrong time and she'd be let out upon reaching the shore? Unlikely. Whatever had led her to this, she was either extremely unlucky or her captor was very lucky, it was not often she was caught off guard like that.
Then again, it was not often she stormed out of the throne room and she'd done that today too.
As the trap slowly dragged her towards the top of the ocean she looked around for a fish. Any fish. She needed to try and get a message to her family. Unfortunately fish were notorious for being horrible messengers, the best messengers were dolphins but Neris would be unlikely to find any here. It was a desperate move she knew, especially after she had left her family so angrily. But she was desperate.
She thanked Poseidon as a small clownfish wandered into her path. "Clownfish! I need you to do something really important for the princess of this sea. There will be a reward!" She begged to the poor fish.
It wandered closer and studied her before darting away.
"No! Come back! Please help me!" She screamed as the moon which had once been a far off fantasy, seemed to be almost close enough to touch.
With a splash her pale face broke through the surface of the water. She gasped for air, her gills and lungs battling. She had red marks all over her body from where she had been rubbing and thrashing against her bonds. She screamed once more as she broke the surface before she lost her voice from exhaustion. It was a painful sound and Neris prayed to Oceanus that someone had heard her and might come to investigate.
A painful music reached her ears as the chains scratched against each other. If Neris had to guess she would assume that the wet chains were rubbing against the dry chains. Which could mean only one thing; she was reaching the end of the trap. Terrified she scoured the water for some sort of weapon. Spying some seaweed floating around she reached out, straining against her chains harder than before. Finally she grabbed it with her teeth and wrapped it around her wrists to act as bandages.
She squinted into the distance, was that driftwood? She willed the currents to send it towards her, praying to every sea deity her grandmother had ever taught her. The piece of wood was small but anything that could hit something would be appreciated. Water lapped against her sides and she looked closely at it, trying to read the currents.
Tantalisingly slow the sun-bleached wood drifted closer to Neris. She eyed it hungrily, it was pointy at one end, and the young mermaid knew that if she could get one hit in with that pointy bit she might stand a chance against whatever awaited her at the end of the chains. With a start Neris realised she was being tugged away from the wood, she knew that she didn't have much time to grab the wood, if any.
Wishing she had done more exercise when she had the chance, Neris threw her thin frame against the metal again. She knew she couldn't stop the chains but if she could slow them down enough... There! Neris lengthened her tail as far as she could, her muscles spasming and her scales rubbing uncomfortably against the chains but her fins managed to hook underneath it and push it towards her. Her fingers clutched desperately at the edges of the wood.
With smile reminiscent of slow burning coral, Neris approached the harbour.
She could tell it was a kingdom, she could see the bronze and marble palace, it was a distinctly human kingdom filled with streets lined with shops. She wondered if this would be her first and last encounter with humans. She had never particularly enjoyed watching them, unlike some merfolk. She had preferred to explore forbidden caves and shipwrecks.
The change was so slow that if she hadn't been paying very close attention to where she was going she might have missed it. The chain had begun pulling her towards somewhere else, more towards the left hand side of the palace than the right side. The right side blended in with the larger houses in the kingdom while the left side held docks and boats.
Until then Neris could almost have assumed she was being automatically pulled, but with the change she knew with a burst of clarity that she was being wound in by a human. She wondered if he knew he had captured a Mermaid or if it was all an elaborate fish trap.
No, the trap had been made to capture something other than fish at least, Neris knew that humans had plenty of types of fish trap but none so complicated as this. Yes, Neris was well acquainted with human fish traps and this was not one. At least this trap was not lying at the bottom of the seabed entrapping innocent fish.
Anger pounded through her veins, and the anger reminded her of a type of fish mermaids did not often encounter, one they even went to great lengths to avoid. This fish looked harmless on the outside until you touched it, then it would latch onto you until it's poison had entered your bloodstream. If you weren't dead by then you would be in seconds.
This human had no idea who he was dealing with.
She gripped the driftwood tighter, her knuckles turning white. She knew she should look unafraid and to some extent it would have been true, she was not afraid. She was angry. And that made her afraid, afraid for herself. Neris knew she made her biggest mistakes under the influence of her most violent emotion.
She tried to take deep breaths but the sensation was strange to her above water. She had, of course, taken a breathe on the surface before and even if she hadn't she knew that mermaids could breathe out of water, she just disliked the feeling. It was unnatural.
Holding the driftwood tightly, but not as desperately as before Neris prepared herself to meet her captor. Her path lay in the docks, this much she was sure of. She could just barely make out a young man standing there, looking out to sea and holding a chain Neris was willing to bet her life on was the same chain holding her captive.
Sunlight glinted off the docks and Neris realised with a start how long she had been gone from her family, they would have begun to worry if not already send out search parties for her. The fact she had not noticed the normally captivating sunrise made her all too aware of how blind she had been.
Knowing that a man awaited her only made Neris hold her head higher, she would not show fear. If he wanted to capture her she would not give him the satisfaction of watching the heir of one of the ocean's greatest kingdoms collapse into a puddle of fear. She was Neris, daughter of Tithyus and she would not let this young human see her afraid.
She would fight him for the powerful weapon that was her fear. She glared at him, holding the driftwood like she would her older sister's hand. She faced the man who had somehow captured her with his crude traps. She would be attack him like icy waves, attack, ebb then attack again.
She was good at this tactic, she had used it on many young merfolk who had teased when she was young, in return she had devolved a thick skin and cutting words. Neris always had been a target for younger mer's bullying as she was fiercely loyal to her family and the kingdom.
Most of the other children had told her it was a weakness and that her family was a laughingstock, her older sisters having abdicated the throne as soon as they were old enough. And her younger sister... She was the reason Neris avoided the humans so much.
Perhaps Neris should be thankful to those cruel children who had called her names and forced her to grow up. They had made her who she was today, a mermaid who could face a human.
