Interlude: Erenna Sirena
We rested deep in the undersea valley, hidden away among the caves and gaps hollowed out in the rock walls. Chrystal and I were curled up in a small cave, our bodies squished together. Kale was perched on a large jutting rock above us, snoring loudly. For now, we were resting, nursing our stings. I wasn't feeling much pain anymore, since my body could quickly rid itself of poisons. But all three of us were weakened and battered from our encounter with the giant siphonophore, so for the time being, it was best for all of us to hide until we had recovered.
I lightly poked Chrystal. "Are you still awake?"
"Ughhh...what is it?" she mumbled. "I'm tired..."
The two of us rolled over on our sides to face each other, gazing into each other's eyes. "Have you thought about...what we're going to do after we deliver the message to Prince Stellaris?" I asked. "When I look at you, I can tell...you really don't want to go back to Princess Tamayori, do you?"
The jellyfish girl stared at me, unsmiling. "Mmm...you're more perceptive than you look, Kurage. To be truthful...I had no intentions of coming back after the message was delivered. I don't think I can serve Princess Tamayori any longer. I know this might be harsh for you to hear, but I really don't believe she cares about either of us, or any of her other messengers."
I nodded. "I know that. I wanted so badly to not believe it, but after everything I've been through, I can't keep denying reality. As grateful as I am to Her Majesty for saving my life when I was small...I believe I am expendable to her. The same goes for you and the rest of the messengers. We venture out into the great unknown to deliver our messages, out of merely our honor and service to our princess, but many of us never come back, and if we do, we're never the same again. When you escape from your own little bubble and realize just how massive and unfathomable the oceans are, and this world as a whole...you can't go back to being the person you once were. When we first met, I wondered why you were so mean, but now I understand. It wasn't that you were mean. It was that I was innocent and naive. I try so hard to not cause conflict, I don't want anyone to get hurt or be killed...but it's impossible. Not everyone can be saved.
I want to see the good in everyone, but so many things have happened. I can't put words to how I feel. The world is so beautiful, yet so terrifying at the same time."
"That's very much true," Chrystal said. "I don't want to go back to Princess Tamayori, only to be sent out to die again the very next day. I can't live a life like that, in service of someone else. I wasn't born to serve anyone. I was born to be free. And so were you, Kurage."
I pressed my body into Chrystal's a little tighter. "You're right. When I think about it now, I don't believe Princess Tamayori rescued me out of the kindness of her heart alone. She never showed me motherly affection, or treated me like her own child. I was raised to become her loyal servant. The knowledge that she saved me constantly hung in my mind, and it bound me to her forever. That was how she would ensure my loyalty to her. But I've grown up. I'm not tiny and helpless like I was back then. I can survive for myself. Now that I have you and Kale, people who truly value me for who I am, not what I can do for them, I don't need to be bound to Her Majesty anymore. I'm a jellyfish folk, it's in my instincts to float free in the sea, not tied down or held back by anyone or anything. I want to be independent. The only reason why I want to deliver this message is as a final act of gratitude toward Her Majesty for rescuing me all those years ago. After how far I've come, I feel like I at least need to do that. If not...this entire journey will have been for nothing."
"I understand," Chrystal sighed. "I'm sure Kale will be disappointed that he won't be getting free food for life, but we'll figure something out. As distrustful as I was of him at first...I really don't think he intends to devour you. He has no reason to protect you just to dine on two tiny jellyfish girls. Besides, I believe he likes you a lot. He cares about you, in his own weird way."
Chrystal wrapped her arms around my waist and drew me in close. She bit her lip. "I-it's...hard for me to admit, but...I like you a lot too. I don't know what it is about you, but I can't shake off this feeling of wanting to be close to you. Even though it's only been on this trip, I can't imagine swimming without having you by my side. I told myself I would never depend on anyone, but I feel like I can be myself near you. You have a pure heart, Kurage. You're unlike anyone else I've ever known."
A light smile curled the corners of my lips as I stared into Chrystal's ice-blue eyes. "Thank you for telling me that. I never had true friends before I met you and Kale. I'm so grateful to both of you for giving me the chance to understand what friendship feels like." I slipped my hands beneath Chrystal's chin and held her head in my hands. "Let's run away together. We'll drift like true jellyfish and go as far as the sea will take us. I know we can find a safe place for us to call our own, where we don't have to fight to survive, and we don't have to take orders from anyone. We don't need to rely on anyone else but each other. Chrystal...I want to be with you forever."
My instincts overtook me. I leaned my face close to Chrystal's, and I planted my lips upon hers. Chrystal's eyes widened, but she didn't pull away. She kissed back instead. We held each other with our mouths, while our free hands traced the curves of one another's bodies, slipping between our tentacles and ruffling our frills. Our billowy lower halves became entwined. It felt as though we were merging into one. Whatever this was, whatever it meant, all I knew was that I wanted it to last forever.
Chrystal and I belonged to each other. Our tentacles shared light tingles between each other, not a painful sting, but a sensation that made our nerves bristle. I couldn't have imagined this feeling with anyone else. The softness of Chrystal's body, her warmth, her scent...I drank in all of it, and she did the same to me. Silently, without words, in our movements, we made a promise to each other. No matter what happened, or how far away we traveled, even if we set adrift for the rest of our lives, we decided that we would always be together.
Side: Kale
Kale wasn't always a frightening beast of the deep. In fact, he secretly despised being referred to as such. It made him feel like he wasn't a true Seafolk. Instead he was merely a monster, a creature to be feared and avoided at all costs. Granted, it was mostly of his own doing, and his appearance didn't help either, but he couldn't control his instincts, it was a part of who he was. He enjoyed toying with his prey, teasing them about their coming demise. Like all squidfolk, hunting was something that came naturally to him, and he was very good at what he did.
When he embraced his true nature as a predator, he didn't feel so lonely down there in the deep dark sea. He preoccupied himself with serving the needs of his appetite to distract himself from his perpetual isolation. Sometimes, he just couldn't contain himself, and his sadistic side took over. But every time he gave in, he drifted further away from being a Seafolk, and aligned more with a beast. Kale came into the world in the ocean's pitch-black dark zone.
He knew nothing of who had laid the egg that had given birth to him, or anyone even remotely related to his bloodline. He never met another bigfin squidfolk aside from himself. For a long time, he believed he was the only one, a long-armed, big-finned freak of nature, but he knew there had to be others. They were just extremely rare and reclusive like he was.
Kale assumed he was destined to live out his life in loneliness and isolation, swimming and eating until he eventually dropped dead. All that changed when he met Kurage. That tiny pink jellyfish, with such an adorable scared little face as he bound her up in his tentacles, preparing to devour her alive. As much as he wanted to feast upon the small jellyfish girl, some part of him told him not to. It told him that this person was a friend, not food. Kind of like how humans find kittens to be cute, Kale saw Kurage as a tiny, adorable creature that needed to be protected from all the scary things in the sea.
That being said, the deal she made him as well was an offer he couldn't refuse, but the more he traveled with her and the other jellyfish girl, he thought less and less about that. He didn't even think as much about eating.
He wanted to be close to Kurage and Chrystal. Regardless of what kind of relationship the two jellyfish girls had with each other, he wanted to be their friend. As much as he liked to tease, he couldn't imagine himself eating Kurage now. He cared about her too much. He couldn't explain why, but she had stolen his heart. He didn't want to go back to being who he once was, drifting around thousands of feet deep in the ocean, doing nothing but snatching up any unfortunate creatures that bumped into his tentacles.
There was no way Kale could give up what he had. He absolutely could not go back to being alone. The bigfin squid had become so attached to both of them that at this point, he didn't even care if he got free food from that princess or not. In his eyes, for someone to turn from merely interesting prey to a beloved friend...that was someone very important to him, someone worth protecting. So many poor, pathetic creatures had prostrated themselves before him, begging for their lives, making up all kinds of excuses for why they didn't want to be devoured, but all it did was irritate him. It only made him want to eat them up even more, just to make them be quiet.
Kurage was well on the path to becoming that, but she somehow managed to set herself apart, not only by giving him a solid deal, but by even offering herself up to be eaten if the plans fell through. And even with all that, she so readily put his trust in him, rode on his shoulders and petted his fins, complimenting him and telling him how incredible he was. Call it naivety or stupidity, but it was intriguing. No one had ever tried to save themselves from his clutches in such a way before.
But more than anything, being with Kurage helped to soften his hardened heart. For once in his life, he met someone who didn't treat him as a demon of the deep sea, but instead as a true Seafolk. That was something he was certain he wouldn't get from anyone else. If he could be useful to someone, if he could be valued and cherished as a friend...then it didn't matter what happened to him in the end, he would have lived a life of true purpose.