absolute GARBAGE

Part 1

Two teenagers floated through the water, casting excited glances at the crumbling castle towering above them.

"You know we're not supposed to be here, right?" one of them said nervously, looking over his shoulder.

"Are you chickening out on me, Quentin?" the other merman teased.

"No, I just want to tell you not to do anything stupid," he said. "But I guess I won't, since everything you do is stupid, Ventar."

Ventar rolled his eyes, and continued to make his way towards the castle. The ruins were left over from the last war, when the Kingdom of Pearl had forced them to leave their castle. Afterwards, the previously hostile kingdom had built them a new palace as a sign of the friendship between them.

He pushed the door open, the wood crumbling underneath his fingers. His onyx eyes swept the room, which was filled with moth-eaten fabrics draped from the ceiling and antique furniture. Mosaics covered the walls and roof, while once- lavish carpets covered the floor below.

"The throne room would be this way," Quentin said, making his way down an elaborately painted hallway.

The castle was dark, and little guppies swam in and out of the little holes in the walls. There were chipped paintings of Lunar's past, wars and victories, kings and queens who ruled the kingdom, and magic that flowed through the royal family. The two explorers emerged, their eyes bulging and gasps slipping out of their mouths. The throne room was breathtaking, with the most beautiful throne the two teens had ever laid their young eyes upon.

But what was the thing that held their rapt attention was not the throne, but the wall behind it.

It was a map. The details in the map showed a massive exodus. The merpeople were leaving a land of sea monsters and sharks that they had once ruled. The mosaic depicted the long and treacherous journey to the land which they lived in now. But the one thing that intrigued Ventar the most was who was leading the group, not the place they were leaving. It was a king, not a queen.

"Whoa," Quentin breathed. "Look! That old kingdom was in the center of the Bermuda Triangle! We could go there!our names would be known by every citizen of Mermaidia!"

"Let's go then," Ventar said.