We had not been long on our journey, when we encountered an unexpected storm. Driven on all sides by a wind that had surprised even the most seasoned sailors with its vicious abruptness, the ship tossed and lurched as if it meant to spew both man and cargo out its bowels.

Since I’d not been allowed even the companionship of a maid, I weathered this alone, while the Duke remained on deck, shouting orders and imprecations.

As if all nature’s fury had been set loose on us, the wind howled its vengeance and rage, shrieking down on the masts. It was amidst the cacophony, that I suddenly heard his call, the sweet song of the sea sung only for my ears. 

Anguine had come for me on the crest of the storm.

“My Princess!” Anguine cried through the wail of the wind. “Isa…Where are you?”

With only one chance, I stole onto the deck, creeping up out of the pitching stairwell and became fully drenched with seawater. Each droplet that hit my skin awakened the creature that had lain dormant till now. 

I ignored the screaming men and the weather-plastered Duke, my footsteps becoming even more sure despite the pitching of the deck beneath me. Like a flower that had finally awakened to spring, I attained my metamorphoses, breaking out of the chrysalis of a human form that had chained me for so long. No longer possessed of legs or feet, I could only stand in place and watch the storm break over me.

Daring as a god of old, Anguine rose out of the churning, white water and hurtled over the side of the ship, uncoiling a huge and sinuous, scaled tail. His fearsome form elicited screams of terror. I paid no heed to the chaos, too enthralled by the fantastic sight before me. To my eyes, Anguine’s beauty knew no limit. Welcoming him with a smile, I drank in the sight of him like one who was dying from thirst.

“Isa!” he cried in relief.

With his dark hair bound by a silver circlet set with sapphires and diamonds, a teardrop shaped pearl the size of a man’s thumb hung just above his brows. His chest and shoulders were draped with silver chains that attached to a pectoral necklace that otherwise left his muscular chest bare. His arms too were decorated with heavy silver arm guards, and he brandished a huge spear in his left hand. However, this was where his similarity to a human ended. Nothing could conceal the three slashes on either side of his lower ribcage, or the fact that his torso was connected to the blue and black banded tail of a sea krait where his hips should have been.

Wielding swords and pistols, the sailors attacked him, but at four times the size of a regular man, there was clearly no contest. Clearing men away with only a flick of his tail, it was over in minutes, leaving the deck abruptly silent. Even the Duke had gone over, too shocked to make a sound as he was swallowed by the sea.

Anguine slithered to my side, gathering me in his arms.

“Isa! Are you alright?” Anguine asked, concerned.

“Sir, I am well enough, but I have made my change…Do you not see it?” I asked, only vaguely curious, feeling as though I watched myself from a great distance.

Oddly enough, he frowned.

“Your sea-change? But you look no different…”

Still trapped in the cage of wooden hoops, I could not yet struggle free from the trappings of my humanity.

“Sir…” I croaked, finding my voice.

“Anguine,” he corrected gently.

“Anguine…my tail and fins are still caught,” I smiled weakly, ashamed.

Understanding then dawned, and his expression cleared as if a dazzling sunlight had burst forth across his face. Tearing at the heavy cloth and breaking apart the wood hoops with his bare hands, he released me from the things that had bound me. Only then was I finally able to wriggle out, revealing my new form.

“Isa…your flares are beautiful…” he breathed, gazing at me in a way that made me blush. “I could only guess, but it seems your sea form follows that of the male betta.”

The male…?

“Is…is that strange?” I asked.

Anguine only laughed heartily.

“Isa, the sea-kind are not bound by human concepts of gender or male versus female. We can change those things at will. No matter how you may appear to me, you will always remain you…and that will always be the most beautiful.”

I glanced down at the iridescent blue scales on my torso, and the translucent silver flares that sprouted like lace clouds from my arms and tail. I could not prevent a flush of pleasure at his praise. Overwhelmed by shyness, the gills on my ribcage flapped noisily.

“You need not be afraid,” he smiled, giving me his hand. “Shall I carry you?”

I nodded.

Sliding only one arm under me, and holding the spear in his other hand, he dove in headfirst, taking me into the water with the most terrific splash. I only just managed to swallow my scream and clung to him, eyes squeezed shut, realizing that I had flared my dorsal fin in panic.

It’s my first time in the sea…!

Forcing my eyes open, I looked around and was rewarded. Just under the storming waves, the sea teamed with life and colour, dazzling me.

Anguine grinned, savouring my wonder.

“Hold fast, Isa…for we go apace…” he cautioned, bouncing sound waves off my forehead.

I tried to mimic this and found that it came naturally, without any effort at all.

“I can speak under water!”

“Indeed…and you can say what you like too…Even if it is to scold me, speaking your mind is a right that you must learn to enjoy not fear.”

“It is not a privilege?”

“No, my Princess… Speaking your own thoughts is your right...it is also your power. Here in the deep, oaths are not made lightly. The words of the sea-kind contain magic…like our song.”

“I see,” I said, dismayed by all that had come before now. 

“Do not be ashamed of your ignorance: you’ll learn quickly.”

I absorbed this with a nod, and he took this to mean that we could continue our journey. Tightening his arm around me, he dove once more, travelling at great speed. 

“There is almost no time to explain everything, but I shall endeavour to enlighten you as best I can. The tribes here are many and take numerous forms…everything from the anemones who guard our fields, to the octopi who build our cities, all the way to warm blooded sea mammals who hunt, and the great leviathans who guard our wisdom...”

“Is every sea creature able to transform as we do?” I interrupted, using my newfound voice.

Anguine shook his head, tail whipping as he descended deeper and deeper.

“Most are ordinary and never transform, thus our numbers and the secret of our existence should not be so easily revealed to outsiders.”

“What of my mother? How did she come to be on land?”

Anguine looked troubled.

“Although we are a free people, our royals are still subject to political alliances. Your mother made the mistake of loving someone other than the partner chosen for her, and thus she was banished to land. As part of the punishment, her brother took her siren song which is why she had so much difficulty with speech. She was already carrying you when she was exiled. Most sea-kind give birth in the sand, hide their eggs, and then return to the water. Our young are often raised as foundlings amongst the land dwellers and then called back to the sea with a trigger phrase. They’re normally called back by their kin when they reach the age of nine or ten as this often marks the time of the first sea change…”

I did not hear Anguine’s next words, for my head had suddenly filled with a roaring echo and my lungs squeezed as I choked back my surprise and my tears. For ten years, I had accepted my lot and the hideous parent who had called himself my father. Torn between relief and anger, I realized how badly I had been cheated.

Anguine looked angry and regretful as my tears slid down my cheeks and formed into blue-tinted pearls. My sorrow turned to astonishment as he caught them and tucked them into his arm guard before speaking further.

“I can see your pain and surprise. The truth is your birth father is also a sea snake. He dispatched me to retrieve both you and your mother only to discover that she’d died, and that his child had been spirited away by that despicable human trash. My search for you was desperate. Your scent in the sand was so faint that I was not able to discover your whereabouts until the very night of the ball. Forgive me, Isa. If I had come sooner, you would not have suffered so much…”

I shook my head and buried my face in his neck, clutching his shoulders.

“What of my real father?” I whispered.

I could feel Anguine’s hesitation when he answered.

“I cannot take you to him as yet…for now, we must travel to the underwater Citadel in the capital…Are you angry?”

“No…not at all. I am grateful you came for me,” I said.

He sighed, patting my silver hair.

“You forgive and trust too easily. You would do well to be more cautious with your dealings in the future. Know that the sea tribes do not mingle that well. Though we have endured through alliances and other forms of cooperation, the cold bloods and the hot bloods are constantly at war. You will be in great danger, both from within and without, until the day of your ascension.”

“What is the ascension?”

“My Princess, you are to be crowned the Queen of all the sea kind. It is you who is to inherit Neptune’s trident and all its power.”

Neptune’s trident?! Great mercy, Mother, I thought to myself. Why did you tell me nothing of my origins?!

“And you…? Are the sea snakes my enemy? Am I to trust you solely on your word, Anguine?” I snapped sourly, finally showing the temper that I had held in for many years.

Anguine only looked thoughtful.

“In truth, I’ve been away from the Citadel too long…I cannot advise on its current circumstances. However, as your sworn protector, I am only loyal to you, my Isa. The promise I made to you on the day of the ball stands.”

Full of mixed feelings, I knew not whether to take his words as truth or something else. I could not forget that he had spoken to me with human words…and human words could lie.

“This is too much to take in! I cannot begin to fathom it!” I cried in frustration.

Anguine grinned ruefully, but then he snapped alert.

Out of the darkness, a silver trident hurtled towards us, and Anguine rolled sideways with me held fast against him. He avoided the deadly weapon, but another had followed close on its heels, catching him on the side of his blue and black tail.  Even though it only glanced off him, leaving the tiniest scratch, I could smell the scent of his blood.

I realized with dismay that he might have been able to avoid the second trident had he not been hampered by my weight. Once again, I had been a burden.

Anguine hissed angrily. As if he could not help it, scales rippled over his eyebrows and cheeks, and his eyes slitted with malevolence.  He hissed again, a long tongue flicking out between his lips.

“How dare you!” Anguine growled at the three newcomers who appeared. Though one arm still wrapped protectively about me, he thrust his great spear forward in challenge.

“Well met, Anguine! You are still quite agile,” observed the one who had thrown the first trident. I noticed the sharp dorsal fin on his back and the grey and white shark tail. I identified the others, a male and a female, as a black manta ray and a greenish brown eel.

They circled us with curious, covetous eyes.

“Old man, we thought you had retired long ago! Have you been with your pretty lover all this time? And a Betta at that!” chortled the eel with a flutter of her thin tail.

I blinked and then flushed…mortified by their sly insinuations and confused as to why they would call Anguine an old man.

Angered by their insolent tone, Anguine’s lips pulled back to reveal the long fangs that had descended.

“Watch your tongue if you wish to keep it! This is King Tryian’s only niece, the Princess Isabella,” he said sharply.

Startlement passed across the three faces, and they immediately bowed at the waist.

“Forgive us, your Highness, Lord Commander…we have been on patrol… and were unaware of this…” said the shark, reverting to a formal tone.

Chastened, they retrieved their weapons, and followed at a respectful distance.

“Anguine…are you well?” I asked, quietly.

“It is but a scratch. Come, my Princess, do you see the lights below us?” asked Anguine, gesturing. He released me and I instinctively flexed my tail. Then, I swept my fins, experiencing the unfamiliar buoyancy for the first time. With it, my sense of elation grew as I slowly realized that I was in my element…that I belonged in the water.

Pride flickered in Anguine’s eyes as he watched me twirl about. Revelling in my sea form, I was adapting rapidly, and dove towards the bright lights below. It only took a moment for Anguine to catch up. Hooking our arms together, he towed me further down, moving us even more rapidly until a sprawling golden city loomed up from the deep.

I heard it then, the sound that had called me home to the sea…the sound that only the sea-kind could hear.

Anguine smiled encouragingly as we came to a gate guarded by two enormous seahorses holding spears and wearing helmets. Their spikey, armoured tails curled and uncurled as they swam forward to meet us. I took a deep breath through my gills and nervously gripped Anguine’s hand.

“Lord Commander! The Citadel welcomes you back!” the guards saluted, their sound waves echoing.

“Lord Commander?” I asked archly, sliding him a sideways glance.

His blue eyes twinkled with mischief and his lips quirked as if to say that he would explain later.

Deliberately diverting my attention, he said:

“My Princess, the Citadel of the great kingdom of Atlantis welcomes you. My dear Isa…We’ve come home.”

As I swam forward with Anguine at my side, surging towards the great adventure that awaited me, I did not know then the delights and sorrows I was about to face as the sole inheritor of Neptune’s trident. I could only look ahead, naïve in my excitement for a new world, and already deeply entangled with the man who would continue to change my life.

____________________________________ 

Author’s Note:

The ‘I’ in Isa is pronounced as a long ‘E’ like Isabella from Encanto.

‘Anguine’ is an archaic word meaning ‘of, relating to, or suggestive of a snake’.

Isa’s sea form is based on the Half-Moon Butterfly Betta, a type of the Siamese fighting fish. They’re actually freshwater fish, but simply too pretty for me to pass up.

Anguine’s sea form is based on the blue sea krait. There are a few varieties, but it’s the distinctive blue and black banding that makes them so beautiful. They’re only partially aquatic as they also hunt and breed on land.

Original Prompt from the MerMay 2022 contest put on by the talesofthedeep profile: https://www.wattpad.com/1118969385-mertastic-contests-%7E-mermay-2022-%7E