"The ocean stirs the heart, inspires the imagination and brings eternal joy to the soul"
18|A TASTE OF SWEET POISON
The look of disgust is not difficult to see on the Princess as she has been presented the food. A young girl, perhaps a year or two older than Isolde herself yet she cannot be certain of it. The girl is not what captures Isolde's attention, despite her having a tail and her appearance is stranger than what she has known, but what holds her attention captive is the tray that was put on her lap or rather the thing that is on top of the tray. "If he wanted to poison me, he certainly will succeed if I were to eat this" She speaks.
The girl lets out a quiet giggle but she does not allow Isolde to know that she found her words amusing which can only add the longer she watches the disgust on the Princess' face. Pushing the tray further from her, Isolde feels as if she is going to throw up at any second now. Right in front of her is brown mush which reminds her of when she crushed her potatoes as a child for she did not like the taste. It has square bits of what appears to be something black that appears squishy.
The smell hits her hard and it smells like as if this bowl which it is in has been left out in the burning sun for two weeks and it has begun to rotten. It only needs the mold to appear deadly to her. "Never shall that touch my mouth" She speaks as she tries to push it further away from her and for the first time she takes a good look at the girl and nearly gasps when she sees her appearance which Isolde had ignored before and she cannot believe her emerald green eyes when she sees her.
The girl does not appear to be tall and yet she is taller than anyone that she has ever seen, now that she can see her fully. Her skin is pale and almost white but there is some color to it. Her face is normal but her eyes are larger than any eyes that she has seen. The girl's two eyes are from the middle of her nose to the middle of her forehead and the eye color is pure blue. Her irises have no other color but deep light blue which truly stands out as her hair is white.
The hair is long and flows around the girl but what shocks Isolde the most is a tail that begins from the hips and it flows down and then bends upwards as the fins on the end are going jump and down which keep her almost floating. The tail is shimmer when the lights from around the room hit it and she cannot be certain of the color of the tail or if it has a color to begin with. Isolde's mouth drops open as she stares at the girl who only has a kind smile on her face.
Isolde doesn't speak and neither is she able to for the shock is too much. She has seen many creatures in a short period of time and yet this one shocks her more than anything as she has heard stories of this creature. A siren. A blood-thirsty monster that drives sailors to their doom to never be seen again. Their song lures them to their deaths where they are eaten. The legends speak of how the sirens are beautiful and yet they are as ugly as ugly can get but all that Isolde can see is beauty as the girl in front of her is beautiful.
Upon further inspection, the emerald eyed girl notices how there are gills on her neck which move each time that she breathe. Her ears are long and pointy with the ends pale white, paler than the rest of her skin. She has her mouth closed but Isolde can see the slight white fangs which stick from her mouth and intend her rose pink lips. The fear is present inside the Princess but her body is too petrified to even move away from the girl or even do anything at all for the far has struck her bones.
Noticing the look of terror that the Princess and her future Queen gives her, she bows her head slightly before swimming away with a sigh and as soon as the doors closes, Isolde begins to relax her body as well as her breath which she had no idea she had been holding in for some time, that is until her lungs had started to slightly burn. Breathing heavily but then as soon as she does the foul scent of the food comes and she gags. "This is an utter nightmare" She speaks and she had no idea of the nightmare that she would endure in the near future.
Some hours later the door opens and she still sits there, barely moves. Not only for the fear of hurting herself but of something much worse. She had realized not so long ago that she is sitting on a floating shell and there is a great length down at the bottom. How did she not notice it before? Isolde had been lying down for a long time but her vision had been blocked by the tall edges of the bed or rather the shell which she has to admit does look rather beautiful, but she is not about to voice those words out to the world to hear.
Relief runs through her when she sees Thomas coming over to her and her lips even curl up into a small smile but only a slight one which is barely visible. She would not want him to know how she is quite happy to see him, neither would he stop teasing her about it but he would not forget. "I see you have not eaten your food. And I hear you believe I try to poison you. But, I shall tell you the horrid truth; if I had wanted to poison you, I would've done so already and you would neither be breathing nor alive" He tells her.
She looks at him to find that his blue eyes challenge her but her eyes challenge back. Never would she give up without a fight and there is not a chance that she will allow him to win over her. Even if for a reason she does not know hr heart wishes to be near him and pounds within her chest whenever he is near. However, she can blame that on fear as well but one would not believe her no matter she tries to say about that.
"I can be certain that may be the truth but I do know that you are incapable of poisoning me, let alone killing me" She speaks. Thomas chuckles and raises an eyebrow at her. "Is that so? Please enlighten me of your theories" He speaks. The smirk on his face as he sits down on the shell bed and gets himself rather comfortable is not difficult for the girl to spot on his face, his handsome face. That thought makes her nearly freeze but is welcomed into reality.
"An assassin tried to kill me and you stopped him. If you'd want me dead then you would have allowed it to take place yet you did not. I may not know how but you saved me, I can feel it. You also took the pain away from me before" She speaks without knowing why she was sharing those thoughts to her. Perhaps because as soon as he's in the room with her, she becomes someone else and wants to speak her thoughts. Now, Isolde would need to think before she speaks which is something that she rarely does.
The amusement comes across his eyes as he looks at her and Poseidon can truly say that she is beginning to grow on him and perhaps he is growing on her. "Now that we have established that I have no intention of having you murdered or killed, you should eat. It is not good for you since you are healing that you do not eat. Your body needs food" He tells her but the look of disgust comes across her face once more which only makes him roll his eyes. The King has faced many foes but one is as powerful or as stubborn as the girl in front of him.
"I would rather go starving than eat that. It does look rotten and the last time I ate rotten food, I was sick for weeks with no end and my parents believed that I would die" She tells him. Poseidon already know that and if she were a normal child, then she would've died from the high fever but it was because of him that she was able to get better. The ocean itself does have healing on its own and he is a creature of magic.
Isolde had been feed a rotten meat and the tasters did not notice it and therefore when she had eaten the rotten and part, she became sick. Her fever became too much for her body to handle and she was on her dead bed when she became better. Much like she has done before. To one who does not know of Poseidon's magic, it would seem that shine has escaped death for God has plans for her but to those who know that it was Poseidon that helped her get over the sickness without making her seem as if she were a creature of the Underworld.
For it would appear that humans have a habit of putting those who they believe are creatures from down below to death even when they are no different from them. Humans do not know much about their world. "I can assure you that the food that you are given is rotten. I shall eat it myself if that is what takes you to believe my words and if I were to get sick as well, then you can put all your blame on me" He speaks to her and takes the bowl from the place where she had pushed it before, much farther away from her.
That is the second bowl that was given to her and yet she refused to eat it then and pushed it away from her but the smell remained and it still is around her which doesn't make it any better. "I will and if it turns out to be poison or any nasty ingredient that can harm me, I shall personally stab you in the eyes and feed you your own eyeballs" Isolde speaks. Her eyes narrowing at him and her tone is filled with venom as she threatens him.
Thomas should know by now that she is not to be messed with and she will go far and beyond to do tricks on people. He has already been stung by bees because of a prank that she performed and she is confident that he knows that she will do it. The dark brown haired girl will live up to her words if she needs to. However, he does not look that frightened by her words or her for that matter as she glares at him with this intense eye look that Isolde is throwing at him in an attempt to scare him.
He only raises an eyebrow at her. "As appetizing as that sounds, I am rather much more interested in the actual food and I do fancy being able to see. Gives me the pleasure of looking at the most beautiful maiden I have ever laid my eyes upon" He says and winks at her. At this moment, Isolde wishes that she does have something sharp to throw at him and hopefully stab him or at least hurt him. "What if I were not a maiden? A marriage ceremony in secret is becoming" Isolde speaks with a smirk on her lips.
And this time it does manage to shock him but only for a short while as he does appear to come back into reality as he takes a bite from the food but he does not answer her question nor say anything about it. A wise choice on his behalf. However, he is aware that Isolde is unmarried as he has watched over the girl her whole life but there also have been times which he was unable to watch her. Still, the young Princess never had a lover or let alone a secret husband.
Even if that were the case he would just send that man straight to where is brother would be waiting and Isolde would be a widow and she would wed him. Still, the rules of the ocean are much different from the rules above but that are the rules that she knows and they have been fed to her from the moment that she was born. Besides, Poseidon feels pure rage whenever he thinks of another man touching what belongs to him and Isolde does belong to him and only him, she is his to cherish and to love for all eternity, none can ever prevent him to do so.
"It does taste better than it smells and looks" He tells her and it was the truth. If only she had been brave enough to taste it, she would find that she was incorrect about it, though she would never admit it and would cover it up. With a sigh she takes the bowl from him and takes one bite from it and Isolde is in pure shock when she tastes the foul smelling thing and despite the horrid look and the smell that it has overshadows the actual taste.
It tastes sweet to her and it actually has a good taste to it and the flavors are melting inside her mouth. The first bite tasted like heaven to her and it truly does confuse her on how that is possible because it does look awful and the scent is horrid to her. "That is foul" She speaks after just that one bite, of course lying through her teeth as she would not speak the words after she tried so hard to not eat that food. And she does not even know what it is. Her lie makes Poseidon burst out laughing.
"You can say it but that does not mean that it is the truth" He speaks and continues to laugh. He had been aware of this the entire time and knew that the food in the bowl is nothing dangerous, quite the opposite. "It is a kelp that is grown here" He tells her, though there are many things of that story that he does leave out. As the kelp grows from the waste of certain types of fish life but he knows how she would throw it at him if he were to tell her that so he figured that what she does not know cannot hurt her.
She does not speak a word as she begins to eat it and in the meantime tries her hardest to hide the fact that she is enjoying it very much and would gladly have more if it but her ego is far too big to ask him about it. "Why do you have sirens here?" She asks him after some time has passed and she has finished the kelp. Isolde has started to feel better but she would argue that it can be because of numerous reasons and not because of kelp.
"Sirens do not live around here. They prefer a different environment to live in, however the servant girl is a mermaid. I'm unsure if you have read about them" Poseidon says. The King had wondered when Isolde would ask him about the mermaid as it was clear that she was frightened. "I'm afraid that I'm not familiar with mermaids as I am of sirens" She tells him, he of course knew that humans knew much more about sirens than they do mermaids for humans tend to fear sirens much more than mermaids and for a good reason, they are deadly.
"They are similar in appearance, only sirens have darker skin for unlike mermaids they can breathe air and feel the sun on their skin while mermaids cannot breathe from above the water" He tells her yet it does not seem to make her understand but then again the girl has seen creatures which she doesn't understand and she has seen all sorts of things and perhaps it is all too much for a single girl to handle, even if that girl is the future Queen (despite her being unaware of that fact for the moment) of a magical kingdom.
"You forget to mention that sirens murder sailors and mermaids are quite capable of doing so even if they cannot be in the air" Isolde tells him. "That may be correct yet it is not sirens nor mermaids that are killing anything. In fact neither of those species are carnivores" Thomas says as if he were mocking her and perhaps he is and it does not make her happy. "That does not mean that they don't kill them. An animal does not necessarily need to feast on its prey" Isolde says, trying to come up with something to top him.
Isolde has always been the one to win all that she is in and even if that is a conversation, she always has to have the last word, if that is possible that is. "My dear Isolde, nothing ever seems to run past you, does it?" He asks and she shrugs but her smirk of victory is not hard to see on her face as there is this mischief inside her emerald green eyes. "Now that we have established that, I wish to know what happened to me and you will not leave this room unlit you have said that or you will yourself with a nasty headache" Isolde threatens.
Poseidon looks down at her hands too see that she is holding the empty bowl in her hands and she is ready to throw it at him if need be and she will not hesitate if that becomes the case. "The truth is much more complicated than you kn-" He begins but she looks at him with pure anger. "I will not accept that again. You either tell me the truth or I shall walk out of here and never return" She speaks as she challenges him which does work since he finally does give in.