Seirra: Chapter Sixteen

I was drowning.

Rushing water surrounded me everywhere and despite all my efforts to breathe, no air seemed to find its way to my lungs.

This couldn’t be. I was a merman—a creature made to live underwater. There was no reason for me to be in trouble right now. Water was like air to me. Drowning was ridiculous. My mind refused to comprehend any difficulty so I took a breath.

And I felt myself choking to my death.

In a flash, I saw everything around me. All these water. I was in Aquania—or what used to be Aquania. Panic rose to my throat. Unconscious floating mermen were everywhere and debris from what used to be our homes rushed past me. Then I saw my father. He was still fighting the water, struggling to stay alive. It sent a burst of energy within me and I did the same thing as he. I moved and resisted against the water’s obviously stronger control, trying to get away and help him.

The next thing I saw made my movements stop cold.

My father’s hands swiftly moved towards his neck, his eyes rolled backwards as his mouth opened, torrents of bubbles escaping as water took over his body.

A scream of despair broke out from my throat.

Then my eyes flew open.

The sun had not risen yet and darkness surrounded me. I was breathing hard and fast as I lay on my makeshift bed, frozen in fear.

“It’s just a dream,” I whispered into the silence of the living room. I shook my head. “No, a nightmare.”

Slowly, I lifted my body off the cushions and allowed myself to breathe more gradually.

“Seirra?” Marge’s frantic voice drifted towards me. “I heard a scream.”

I listened to the muted footsteps along the wooden floorboards as Margaret crossed the room to switch on the lights. The sudden flash of brightness rendered me momentarily blind and I raised a hand to cover my eyes. It took me several blinks before I could finally see clearly. Margaret had gone on to sit beside me on the bed. She took one of my hands and gazed at me, worry written all over her face.

“What happened?”

“Just a nightmare,” I shrugged lightly, hoping she wouldn’t be bothered any further.

“You screamed. I can’t assume that it’s ‘just’ a nightmare,” she replied indignantly as she crossed her arms across her chest.

I suddenly felt some sort of emptiness. I rather liked her holding my hand.

“Fine. I dreamt about Aquania getting destroyed and mermen drowning. My father included.” I saw her eyes widen in shock and I hurried to add, “It would never happen, Marge. I won’t let it.”

My voice might have sounded too confident because the shock in Margaret’s eyes was replaced with delight.

“You’ve thought of an alternative? You no longer need Marina?” she asked excitedly.

I gave her a snort in reply accompanied with a rather sharp “Of course not!”

“Hmph. No need to sound so scandalized,” she retorted. “I know you’re not quite that smart.”

She said it in a mocking way, complete with a little jab on my forehead. The insult, however, was ruined by a soft laugh that followed afterwards.

Her laughter was contagious and I soon found myself grinning at her. She had a sarcastic nature but she was also gentle and kind. She was even thoughtful, I’d give her that. As our laughs began to subside, the details of the horrible dream came back to me. And perceptive as she was, Margaret immediately sobered.

“We should at least try to convince her until the very last day, you know,” she said quietly, in an effort to silently persuade me to go and see Marina again.

I sighed loudly in exasperation. “Enough with it, Marge. I would’ve begged and begged but I no longer have the leisure we all call ‘time’, so no. If she doesn’t want to come then so be it.”

“You’re giving up too easily, Seirra. It’s out of character,” she observed. Her eyes found mine and even though she wasn’t condemning me, I could see that she was disappointed. “I thought you to be quite persistent the first time we met.”

It was getting harder and harder to look at her in the eyes. She had a tendency to be sensitive about the people around her and I was no exception. My head unconsciously bent down, not wanting to show Margaret just how true her statement was.

“The Seirra I know would never allow a mere ‘slip of woman’ to get all high-handed on him especially without trying out his ‘legendary charm’,” she added with a laughing snort.

That made me smile. I lifted my head but instead of looking at her eyes again, I found myself staring at her knee. For some reason, I found it rather sexy. I had known she had beautiful legs too but I guess her knees were enough distraction.

“You know pretty well that won’t work. She’s a level higher than a trained courtesan. An amateur like me doesn’t have the right tricks to actually ‘charm’ her.”

“Wait, what?” she exclaimed. “Hey, look at me.” I did as she asked and found myself meeting her disapproving look. “You call yourself an amateur? Are you trying to be funny?”

I grinned, if only because I found her attempt at being censorious quite cute. Conversations with Margaret had a tendency to be serious one minute then utterly senseless the next.

“Actually, no. I am merely trying to inform you that Marina’s definitely not the type to be charmed. Period.”

“Hmph. You use your charm all the time. What is it with Marina and you don’t think you can’t handle her?” she asked peevishly. There was a hint of jealousy in her question, probably from the idea that Marina seemed to be a better woman than most—even her.

I decided to voice out my opinion. “You’re jealous of her, aren’t you?”

“What? Of course not!” she vehemently denied.

“You are,” I declared with a satisfied smirk. “Because she’s a princess and even though she’s a bitch 95% of the time, she’s still hot as hell.” I raised a hand to touch her cheek then took hold of her gaze. “And you’re the simple, ordinary Margaret. You’re jealous, all right.”

She gave me a mere raise of an eyebrow for a reply before she stood up saying, “Go back to sleep, jerk.”

I laughed out loud at her effort to hide her hurt and I reached up to pull her back on the bed. She was so surprised that even though she was back to her original position, her face looked like she found herself in a totally different world altogether. I leaned forward closer to her face and smiled—with a hint of seductiveness. I couldn’t help it. She was fun to tease, especially when she was avoiding my digs on her feelings.

“Now, I’m a jerk?” I drawled out smoothly.

It took her two seconds to reply in a whispery voice. “Yeah.”

I gave her a lopsided grin as I ran my eyes from her eyes to her lips. “You hurt me terribly, love.”

She swallowed audibly before she said, “I seriously doubt that.” My eyes darted towards her lips and she pursed them closed, most likely trying to hide them from me. After a second however, she opened them again. “And don’t call me ‘love’.”

“I can’t help it—what with this very nice night clothes you wear,” I told her as my eyes moved downward, scrutinizing her plain, white, oversized shirt that barely reached mid-thigh while she was sitting. The soft laugh that accompanied my perusal must have brought her out of her daze and her eyes began to realize just how close our faces had gone. She abruptly stood up, averting her eyes.

“I’m thirsty.”

Wise girl. A few more seconds and I probably would have ignored all caution and kissed her.

“Okay,” I said with a nod.

She turned away, intent to dash off to the kitchen.

Before she completely disappeared however, I found myself saying something I had never told any of my previous human companions. “I’m going to miss you, Marge.”

She froze. After a few seconds, she visibly took a deep breath and I thought she would continue her way to the kitchen without saying anything.

My thoughts were wrong, however.

Her fists clenched as she said, “I’m not sure how much I’ll forget, but I think…I’ll miss you too.”

*****

“You really do look great in T-shirts. Tonight, you ought to wear mine,” I casually commented while Marge and I walked by Harbor Drive on our way home that afternoon.

My brain couldn’t seem to process any kind of information, holed up in Books and Covers as I was, so I decided to go out and wait for Margaret to finish her classes. We were discussing other possible solutions—from experimenting with King Tideus’ trident and the Crystal Key to begging other sea kingdoms to help Aquania.

The latter possibility made Marge giddy with excitement until I remembered that we were in conflict with other powerful kingdoms and our affiliates couldn’t possibly help that much as Aquania was the most powerful in the East Seas.  Experimenting seemed plausible if not for the potential risks it entailed. The jewels were powerful items and one wrong move could annihilate Aquania even faster than human discovery.

She was complaining about the hopelessness of the situation when I decided to change the topic.

“I think you’d look great in green,” I added.

Margaret rolled her eyes in disgust. “I was trying my best to be helpful and here you are making fun of your situation.”

I began to open my mouth to reply when she interrupted me, “One more T-shirt comment and I swear I’ll scream rape.”

My arm found its way around Margaret’s shoulders and I gave her a smirk. “You know, Marge, no one will believe you. As you said, I could probably charm a rock. And with this handsome face, everyone would simply think you’re just being a prude.”

“Oh shut up,” she commanded.

I allowed her to angrily march on ahead before I shouted, “Promise me you’ll wear the green one tonight, love!”

She froze for half a second then grunted a loud “Argghhh!” before hastily running back to where I was to drag me away from the onlookers.

Twenty or so steps later, we reached the entrance to the bookstore. We were still teasing and laughing when a very familiar girl stepped out of the door.

“Well, isn’t this cozy,” the princess of Aquania remarked.