My maths teacher in 11th grade, after I’d failed the third class test that month, had said that I was going to go down and I’ll take others down with me.
If only she knew.
The good thing was that I could breathe underwater, bless me. Not being a royal and powerful witch when I go back to being Alex will be unbearable. Adora on the other hand, was struggling just a little bit, oxygen being kind of important and all.
I didn’t have the time to analyse why she had jumped after me yet, and I honestly wasn’t looking forward to it either, so I directed my attention at getting Matsya to help her in some way. What else could I do?
I yanked my wrist to get his attention so he could help, even though it was highly unlikely.
His initial reaction was to hold my wrist tighter, which didn’t really sit well with my pride. But after the third time he turned back to look at me, with a grimace.
He had to chill for a second, really. He was getting what he wanted, what was he so fucking mad about? What was I going to do, drink all the water? Sheesh.
I held back an eye roll, and nodded towards Adora who would get very uncomfortable, to say the least, if she didn’t get some oxygen soon.
Matsya followed my line of sight and looked back at me questioningly, “What do you want me to do? And why is she holding her breath?”
Taking this as my sign that I could speak underwater too, “She’s human. She will drown.”
“Why do you think you can breathe underwater?”
“Because I’m an all-powerful witch?”
“Hah, no. I touched you. That transferred my ability to breathe underwater to you. And since Adora is touching you right now, she can breathe underwater too. This ability is particularly favourite among our people. Makes the hunt more interesting. It’s so funny to watch them trying to escape. Typical human to be too quick to attach your fragile self esteem to it.”
Well, ouch.
The moment Adora heard this, she heaved and took her first gasp of air in over a whole minute.
She spoke in between pants, “I saw a… fish with… pink sparkles… but I couldn’t call you to show you. Do you think… we might see that again?”
Matsya actually snorted and I tried to remind myself she was in this situation because of me.
Well, actually she did it herself because she chose to jump, but I had a feeling pointing out this technicality won’t win me any points.
We were still floating awkwardly behind Matsya as he swerved past clouds of marine plants, and a whole lot of fishes.
“Are you taking us to Atlantis?” I asked him, hoping he was up for a conversation. I had some time to spare before shit hit the fan, and I was determined to keep my cool, even if it was a pretence.
He scoffed, “Around 70% of the planet is water. You think there is only one city at the bottom of the ocean?”
“Fine, then tell me where are we going?”
“Well… the Queen does live in Atlantis.”
“Wow…”, Adora softly cast judging look towards him. My girl was learning.
Matsya hissed back at her, bearing his razor teeth.
“Can you go back to your pretty face? We get it. You would eat us if you could. Let’s not make the rest of this journey more unpleasant. There’s no need for you to be so… salty.” The moment I said it, I wished both my hands weren’t busy because someone really needed to give me a high-five.
Adora snickered, and I saw a hint of a smile on Matsya’s face but honestly who could tell, maybe he was just annoyed in shark. He gave it a couple seconds, but then resumed a better, friendlier face.
“So, tell me about this Queen of yours.” I started again.
“You really talk a lot, don’t you?”
“I don’t really have any other plans at the moment.” I smiled brightly.
Adora was uncharacteristically quiet, but there was literally an ocean in front of her so who could blame her for being a little distracted.
“My- our Queen rules the water. She’s reigns the five communities within the ocean. The Neridas, which are my people, half-fish and half-human, the plants, the fishes, the monsters, and the spirits.”
“You have ghosts underwater too?”
“Where else will the souls of dead sailors go?” Matsya asked with an eerie smile, and I had no doubt he had helped some cross over to the bridge of afterlife.
It suddenly hit me that we were actually in a very serious situation, lord knows how long we’d be able to breathe underwater in case we needed to escape. We were, in the purest sense of the word, a prey. For almost all the creatures here, really.
We’d passed quite a few real sharks and giant octopi but I guess it was clear that we were the property of the Neridas at the moment.
And let’s not forget the added stress of what the Queen wanted from us in the first place, if there was anything I can give her at all anyway. There was some homework left for my class on Thursday too, and it was economics dude Alex-me hates economics. Also the fact that I had to not only save myself, but also Adora.
Ugh, when had I become the kind of person to think about others?
“After nine hundred and eleven years, she’s finally conceived the heir to her throne”, Matysa continued.
I’d have choked on my spit had it been possible, “What, oh wow. That must’ve been a lot of tries.”
Adora looked at me all confused, while Matsya seemed to ponder it a bit, and then suddenly shook his head as if to clear his head of whatever image popped up in his head.
“It’s destined to take after the queen, the heir will be brimming with power. The lonely castle halls will be filled with giggles and the serenity of a tiny fin. Finally, someone that I can trust to leave our legacy to.”
Yeah, hmm, something about his intimate feelings towards this unborn child didn’t radiate the necessary boundary I would’ve assumed he should have as a servant towards the Queen’s child.
Oblivious to my doubts, he finished with, “She will need you to prove you’re worthy of meeting her, and then she will oblige you with the holiest of tasks.”
Ah, see, this? This was familiar. Only I could’ve managed to be dragged to the bottom of the ocean to be brought in front of a Queen of an ancient underwater civilisation, not on my own volition, and then be asked to prove myself worthy of being there.
Love this.
“HUH? What kind of a lunatic fucking kingdom is this, what hostage has to prove being worthy of a hostage? Why bring me down here at all if I’m not already worthy?”
“You did defeat one of the most notorious monsters known to our kind, and quite cleverly might I add. The lower ranks of our trained soldiers are mostly asked to avoid the creature altogether.”
“If it was that clever, why do I need to prove myself?”
“First time’s a fluke, the second time’s a skill.”
“Do I get to have any say in the decision of my participation in this knock-off whacko hunger games?”
“Of course, I’ll hand you a survey report to be filled in just a moment”, Matsya smirked.
Asshole.
“Get it over with then, what do I have to do?” I asked impatiently. Going with the flow wasn’t exactly easing my stress here.
“Why don’t I just show you?” The mischievous glint in his eyes made my magic twitch inside me. The power wanted to be used, I just needed a moment to figure out how to do it.
While Matsya sped up his swimming, I tried to focus on my power. I called upon it, visioning a giant beautiful snake curling up my soul. Luscious, glittering, and lethal. I thought I almost had it but the ocean refused to let me do anything, blocking any cackling I’d been beginning to feel around me.
The elements were five giant reservoirs of magic, but each of them sentient and loyal to their own beings. Magic bearing beings had their own power too, but it always helped to charge it up with your element.
Land protected witches and other powerful organisms like me, air protected anything that could fly, water was obviously going to stop me from harming her people, fire was a tricky one because only those who could conjure up fire fell in the protected list, like dragons, and the last one, spirit, held everything together and dominated the rest.
“Fucking hell”, I muttered under my breath, and automatically looked at Adora.
She had the biggest eyes latched onto my face, full of worry.
I had to save her. If only one of us survives, she’ll be the one who does. I promised her and myself in my head.
I looked ahead, as I heard Matsya chuckle with unconfined glee, and saw an entrance to a giant cave. But everything inside was bathed with a pitch black dark. I gulped a little which only made him cackle more. His eyes were glowing again and his shark teeth were back.
Adora held on tighter to me and I repeated my promise like a chant.
“All you have to do is cross over to the other side of the cave.”
“What is inside the cave?” Adora squeaked out.
“Rainbows and rivers of glitter”, he was enjoying this. Of course he was, power was intoxicating.
After floating for like 15 minutes, it took me and Adora both a second to stand straight on the floor of the ocean where Matsya dropped us, the opening looming over us, a giant archway of doom.
My magic was still writhing inside me but I decided to ignore it for now.
I looked around for an escape, but everything else was just rocks making up an underwater mountain. There was no way out except through the cave.
“Take Adora with you. You want me, right? There’s no need for her to do this.”
Adora started to protest, but Matsya answered before her. “You brought her here, you’ll be responsible. I don’t run a day-care centre”, he spat out venomously.
My fear was receding to give way to very, very potent anger.
“Fine, let’s go.” I started walking towards the entrance and didn’t need to look back to know she was already there.
Matsya was still waiting at the entrance until we couldn’t see it anymore.
We were walking in complete darkness, Adora clinging to my arm, and shrieking at the slightest contact with any surface. My instincts were on overdrive, but thankfully my powers included a version of night vision so I could faintly see the inside.
She did not need to know what she had made contact with the last time.
There were some really ugly fishes, not bothering to attack so clearly the aura of being Neridas prey was still in full swing, some very hungry looking plants, and the spirits that Matsya had mentioned before. But the spirits were dismembered, like something had been eating the parts. They all had yellow eyes, and I wondered if it was all spirits or just the ones trapped in this cave.
“Can you see anything, Maya? What are this small golden things floating?”
I tried to gulp but my mouth was dry, how ironic. “They’re underwater fireflies. Don’t focus on them, just keep walking okay?”
Adora murmured a soft ‘hmm’, and I went back trying to gauge what the fuck was coming our way.
Then I felt the current in the cave change, the spirits, who were sluggish and lazy before, suddenly started hurrying in the direction opposite us.
Adora squirmed and shrieked again, so many spirits pushing past us, and I tried to look ahead to see what was causing this.
A loud screech, most definitely inhuman, rang through the echoing walls of the giant cave. Adora immediately clung to my shoulders behind me and I instinctively took a fighting stance.
I wanted to personally torture that maths teacher for recklessly using her prophetic tongue.
My vision zeroed in on the source of the commotion, and I was really glad for the darkness because if Adora saw the giant red monster woman with three faces, white long hair, golden eyes, and chainsaw teeth (and I mean moving chainsaw like teeth, rotating in her jaw), and long torso ending with the ugliest tentacles I’d ever laid my eyes on, she’d pass out.
Like I was about to.
“What do you see, Maya? What is it?”
“It’s nothing, I’ll take care of it.” My voice sounded way more sure than my soul was capable of feeling.
The monster looked at me and smiled.
It was not a pleasant smile.
The stench coming from her was toxic enough, the visual on top of that was not doing the best to keep me optimistic.
“A witch…”, she hissed, “So powerful, I can smell the essence seeping through your soul.”
A Nosher. The only thing I’d left to experience. Long story short; soul eater, extremely powerful, not liked by anyone, lives long, trickster, but loyal to their own principles.
All tricksters needed a code of conduct, because when you’re violating everything and everyone else you needed to ground yourself in something so that you don’t end up doing the same to yourself.
My blood was too cold to think of a good response, the witty banter will have to wait in this case.
“Let us go.” I grunted out.
The Nosher paused for a moment and then spoke lyrically, “For the weapons and wishes to be granted that will set you free, you and your companion will have to solve my riddles in chances three. If you win I’ll be devoured in whole and the oceans will divide to give you way, but if you fail your spirit’s mine to claim, to dine and to abuse, a property of mine, the Divine herself won’t be able to save.”
Eyes focused, clinging onto the tiniest sliver of hope that was being dangled in front of me right now, I answered curtly, “What is the riddle?”
Giving a twisted resemblance of a cheshire cat smile, the Nosher relaxed and began, “What is a product of the purest hope and the most potent patience, promising to pour in peace, is jewelled with the best, a breeding of the finest out there in all of the water and beyond, but is an abomination that will bring in the demise of everything and everyone, specially itself?”
Well, that narrows it down.
“This isn’t fair, we don’t know anything products and breeding, how will we answer this?” Adora pouted in the dark.
“The Noshers are tricky but not unfair, it must be something we are already aware of.” I muttered back thinking deeply.
“Oh? OH I KNOW I KNOW!-” “Adora, no, don’t say it just ye-” “It is a PEARL NECKLACE!”
My body entirely was consumed by this overwhelming urge to dig a whole and collapse onto myself, but I’m pretty sure the Nosher will do the same to us both if Adora continues.
The tentacled beast cackled and seductively whispered, “Two chances to go.”
I sent the deadliest look at Adora, but of course she couldn’t see it. “Stay quiet if you want to live.” She didn’t answer which meant she clearly understood that I wasn’t playing around.
Regaining my focus, I just needed to think. ‘Product of the purest hope and the most potent patience’ could mean literally anything under the sky, everyday, everywhere, everyone is hoping and wishing for something, patiently waiting for it to come to fruition. But then again, most of them won’t lead to the demise of anything, let alone ‘everything and everyone, specially itself’.
What promises peace but is also the breeding of the finest?
Suddenly a thought struck my mind, it could be an answer, a pretty good answer. And it would make sense to ask me this riddle.
Mustering courage to use another chance, I answered, “Is it magic?”
The Nosher focused on me, smile disappearing.
I mean, it did make sense. It took a long time for us to master magic, it was intended for peace, it involved ‘breeding’ of the finest to curate the most potent version of it but the hunger that is following it would end up diminishing everything and everyone with it, and with that, of course itself too.
A sharp but tiny glimpse of Misa’s vision invaded my sense, but I quickly put it out and turned my attention towards the abomination in front of us.
After ten seconds of being quiet, she inched closer, took in a mouthful of my scent, and spoke strangled like an addict, “One more left.”
FUCK.
What could it be? My brain frantically searched for anything that could help but I kept coming up short. The tentacles had now surrounded us in the process of us answering and the looming presence of her teeth was distracting me to the point of insanity. Really, I was going to combust on the sole feeling of looking dumb.
It must be something I know, and it must be something that has to do with information that would’ve been hard to guess for all these other spirits. What could it be? Ugh, I should’ve asked Matsya to tell me more about his world-
And then it dawned on me.
It was so obvious I wanted to smack myself in the face for not thinking of the answer before she’d even asked the riddle.
It is a product of patience and hope, something that one has been waiting for a long time, a consequence of ‘breeding’, purported for peace but it will end everything.
The Nosher edged even closer, humming to itself with glee. Waiting for me to answer incorrectly, getting hungrier by the second.
She looked at my face, and seductively spoke, “Answer already darling, I need my meal before it is sunrise. All of this beauty doesn’t come genetically.”
Was I really about to use my last chance for this? The stakes were the highest they could’ve been.
The Nosher continued in a breathy voice, “…I’ll tear your soul to pieces and mix them together, it will become a new delicacy. Just give up already. Give up so I can do my jo-”
“It’s the unborn child of the Queen.”
The Nosher paused for a second and let out another screech but this one was different. This time it was in pain.
“No! Come here you little wench, I’ll end you right now!”
But you see, in the moments I’d spent trying to solve the riddle, I also realised something else. I was in contact with earth, ocean floor being the most potent connection to the core of the reservoir, and like I mentioned before, no one liked the Noshers.
My magic burst out in waves of its own, devouring my senses with the blissful release of power and control.
Ah, there it is.
I levitated, black potent veins circling the Nosher as it screeched louder than ever, being pulled apart by the ocean itself, a result of me winning the riddle, and me. The slithering magic starved for revenge.
Obsidian eyes, I spit out, “Enough”, and as if on cue, the ocean waves and magic strangled the Nosher and swallowed it whole.
Adora was by my side the second things calmed down, and all the spirits and fishes automatically made way for us to walk out.
It didn’t take long because we took two steps and a forceful wave of the water broke open the wall of the cave, allowing us both a clear out.
As soon as we exited, I saw Matsya waiting. The moment he saw us, safe and alive, he smirked in disbelief. “Fucking hell.”
A little shaken up with everything that had happened, Adora was more silent than usual and I didn’t blame her. The world can be a scary place.
Matsya assumed a posture that emanated a quiet respect, and curtly spoke, “Allow me to take you to the Queen.”
My eyes connected with his, and I felt mine glaze over with a sinking feeling.
Here was the next part of the problem, how do you tell someone that an unborn child that was even possible after over nine hundred years would bring down the entire world if it was born?
But more importantly, how do you break the news to the father of the child?
