Aquata Cove: Epilogue 01

Merrick clicks a very keen sound of silent lightning as his eyes give a shrill stare at her.

"How dare you..." His stomach feels a very deep dive of ravenous and profound anger, "Don't you dare lecture me on agony." His voice underlines his lethal demeanor, "As a Noita, you should see into my soul and know what I have gone through! You entitled wretch... I was cast out for something that was out of my hands."

"Hmph."

"Oh do not mock me, Noita Delja. You are deliberately taunting me at this point." Merrick is nearly shaking with anger at her smug face, "Do not tempt me, Noita Delja." Merrick warns her, "As I was taught, pain itself is a very thorough and precise teacher."

"Are you threatening me, Triton Merrick?"

"I am educating you Noita Delja, and you should pray I do not take to a practitioner's approach. I scarred and crippled the balance of my family for having found love. I lied to my Mother and Father to their faces I was a slave to my own fear as the land drained me of my life while I cowered in the sun's daily fire. I have endured torture and evil that you will NEVER see, and I was forced to watch as my own mate was mutilated from the inside and out! My very children were robbed from me by those who deemed me dangerous and unworthy of nurturing simply by existing, and nothing else! I have seen worse horrors than you will ever know! And even my SLEEP is haunted to this day of all of the persistent demons that were forced upon me! You dare harass and laugh at anyone's pain and you have the audacity to preach how it MUST ALWAYS happen?! How many more merfolk must die and writhe simply because YOUR cold stupidity refuses to see reason?! How-"

"Triton Merrick, please stop!" Lorelei's voice calls. Her voice follows a mystical sigh that blows around in the room. Merrick huffs and gasps as he feels his insides shift dramatically. He looks at his hands as they tinkle strangely. Something... That was not natural, something was wrong just now.

"Are you alright? What happened?" Yamini asks, the lights in his body flickering timidly.

"Nothing. It was nothing." Merrick says, "Noita Delja... Your ignorance is nothing short of infuriating." He says with a low glare.

"I know of merfolk like you." Ular says as she leers at Delja, "You have suffered much, so you close out anyone else so you don't have to suffer their hurts, while you endeavor to keep yours alive. Your bitterness robs you of empathy and understanding."

"It is how I survive." Delja tells them, "That is MY resolution."

"Let us move on. Much like Triton Merrick, I am beginning to feel limited to how long I can stay my trident." Aalton says, "Where were we?"

"Noita Umiato was speaking of how she..." Phorcys inhaled and exhaled, "How she banished her child."

"Yes... As I said, my Son is mated to a human man. And when given a chance, my Son chose to leave our pod." Umiato says, "For what it is worth... As much as I longed for him to be with us, I think he was wise to leave... Rather than to forsake his lover."

"He... He chose his own path then." Yamini says, "It is how..."

"Adra Triton Yamini," Umiato says, "You are still very young and have yet to have children of your own, and you have not faced the sort of trials ones must endure to know what it means to understand others. I apologize to say you are naïve to what I am saying. And Noita Delja. You have thrown away your mercy to abandon pain, and brazenly imply that all others are worse for themselves for not doing the same as you."

"Abandon pain? I live with it every single sun." Delja frowns.

"You have shut out the capacity for sympathy. Because the Sacred Laws dictated my Son to vanish from our own people, I have missed so much of his life; I have lost him so many times and known him to have endured far too much in life than he should have, I was not allowed to be with him at times when he needed me most. I could not even meet his own Daughter until now because her human blood posed an intangible threat."

"I... Yes... I agree now." Yamini nodded.

"Noita Delja. Do you still hold your harsh reservations?" Phorcys asked.

"I care not. Everything is the same to me; without point and inevitable to the grand scheme of things."

"Your generosity knows no bounds." Ular remarked.

"I understand that abolishing a Sacred Law at all is unheard of and drastic." Merrick says, "But if we do not remove the unnecessary ones, we should at least change how they are upheld. What happened to me... To so many others... It is not right."

"I second my Son's words." Umiato says, "No parent should ever be forced to mutilate their child..." Phorcys looks down with a sigh, "No parent... Should be kept from serving and protecting that which they hold most dear..." She looks to Ular, "And no one should be so young as to be abandoned."

~~~

Naomi swims along the coral-like surroundings. Her eyes take in all the wonders of just this one particular spot! It's like the coral knew exactly where and how to grow in order to resemble houses and buildings of what was left of the ruins. Did the Disciples do this? One was able to create a trident for Merrick all by himself anyway, but Atlantis has been underwater for centuries. The coral didn't just rebuild what was lost -- it just kept on growing.

The little mermaid turns around as she swims along. Many types and species of coral just kept on developing for ages, building on the replaced homes and shacks. Each little building looks like its own castle, occupied by countless fish looming and wondering around, an octopus drifting along as it propels itself, even an occasional whale coming in from large holes within the enormous walls surrounding Atlantis.

While swimming forward, Naomi frowns. There's something nearby... She feels this akin to the sensation of being watched, or one of those many times a bully confronted her... Her hands begin to emit a pair of thin mists of cold as she goes, her eyes detecting traces of distasteful auras leading to behind her.

She slows to a gradual stop, right before she whips around! Several spiral darts of ice shoot from her movement. The tiny crystalline arrows shoot to very specific directions, causing a couple of merfolk to shield themselves.

"Human cretin!" A Marlin merman shouted, "You dare strike us with your stolen blood?!"

"You know on land, we have so many names for people like you," Naomi leers as her power glows from her hands, before thrusting them forward and sending a surge of energy, "Too many names to count that I've had to deal with all my life!" The rush of power turns into a single row of ice shards growing outwards until it reached the merman. He swims up and darts for Naomi. Naomi gives an angry sigh to release an intangible power as she twirls herself while waving her warms in a smooth motion as she moves. The Marlin merman finds himself being forced into a spontaneous current before he could reach her, shoving her around.

Naomi gasps as she looks over her shoulder and swoops up before a flying spear launches to where she was. "Seriously?! You're just going to kill me just like that?!"

"The Disciples are more blind than they are!" Says a crab mermaid, "They do not see what they have allowed in our kingdom!"

"And here I thought all merfolk were more open-minded than this." Naomi says as she lets her power spiral around her in glittering shards, "You are no different than half of the humans on land!"

"How DARE you?!" Says another merfolk as they race up to her. Naomi whips around to bring another sudden current to force the attacker farther than they were trying. She loops around a mermaid coming at her with a blade. Naomi's eyes turn into solid white light as her hand grabs the blade, instantly freezing it solid. She jerks her hand up, and the weapon shatters.

"Rrrhh!" Naomi spins to shoot random lances of ice before she jets away.

"After her! We cannot allow her to continue here!" Says a hateful merfolk. Naomi swims as fast as she can as she releases her power from her arms, forcing an array of ornate and sharp ice branches to form behind her. Naomi ducks into a hidden branch of coral and speeds down it. Her eyes see the aura of a waiting merman, prompting to take a deep breath, and blows out a harsh gale of frigid water. Assuming she thwarted the waiting merman, she races forward.

'I need to find a Disciple o-or a Ningyo!' She thinks frantically, 'This is insane!' Naomi swims until several large fish swim around her. She can hear signaling from a merman as she swims up and tries to evade the auras around her.

Her hand grasps a branch of coral and breaks it off, her magic immediately racing along her hand and onto the branch to form a very fast sword. Naomi moves just as a weapon comes at her, just in time to clash with her blade, before the ice broke with the shaft of the spear. She thrusts her other hand to punch the attacking mermaid back with a force of cold. Her eyes then flash as the broken pieces of her ice sword morph into shards, and shoot out in different directions!

Naomi takes the halved weapon that was used on her, whirling very quickly as freezing energy spins and extends along the wood to turn into a spiral joust to throw at another merfolk. A grab like merman comes at her as she whips around and strikes him with an ice crescent, looping in the water to deliver an instant-current hit with her tail.

"Ahh!" Her wrist gets yanked back by a claw. She winces with anger as she flattens her other hand to form an elegant ice blade, and jabs at the claw holding her.

"Enough!" Says another merfolk as they grab her other hand.

"Stop! Let me go! I haven't done anything to you!"

"You have soiled our sacred kingdom with your presense." Says a shark mermaid; this one is a Noita, "You are not even a Coshiton. You are a filthy abomination that should never have existed."

"Shows how much you know!" Naomi snaps back, "I'm here, and the Disciples approve! You're only going to make this worse for youself!"

"The Disciples do not see enough!" The shark mermaid's hand begins to glow, "You do not belong here." Naomi's eyes see and feels the burning light forming from that hand.

"What are you doing?!" She asked frantically, "If you get ANYwhere near me-"

"In the name of the Sea Mother," The hostile Noita comes close to her, "I hereby mark you with your crime, and you will leave our kingdom..." She raises her hand, "Dead, or ali-"

-WKK-

"AH!" The Noita's arm is sliced into by a flash of white. A white blur raced around and stuck and cut at the crab mermaid.

"Ah! What is this?!"

A spade-shaped knife flies at the other merman holding Naomi and pierced his shoulder! "GAH!" A green shimmer then bolts down and strikes him down with a shark-teeth riddled arm, before the the figure turns into an emerald wheel and cut harshly into him! "Agghh!"

Naomi gasps as she sees a white Nayvn Tail and a green Navyn Bolt swim in front of her, the white one holding his trident while the other takes out another dagger. Another eel merman swoops in towards Naomi. She gasps right before a flurry of tan and cream colored arm comes in. Flaring with spikes all over her body, Noita Kalliope scrapes him away with her razor sharp barbs on her arms before flipping and slashing away with her thorn-ridden tail.

"Several pods against one mermaid?" Cotei says, "Just whom among us are akin to a true monster?"

"She is not one of us!" A merfolk says, "I don't care what the Disciples say, she should not exist!"

"She must be branded with a mark!"

"Better to end her now than to let something like her loose in our midst!"

"This is a lot more shocking and disgraceful than I thought..." Brishen says, "If you want to attack her, you will face me first!"

"I will strike all of you down, one by one!" Cotei answers.

"Wait, no!" Naomi says, "Listen, I've talked to this sort of attitude before in my life. There's no talking to them, trust me!"

"Why do you think my trident is in my hands?" Cotei snarls. Naomi looks around, and more of Cotei's pod swims over -- namely the hunters as combatants.

"Triton Cotei, stop for a moment." Brishen says, "If this escalates further, the Ningyo will have our heads."

"I agree," Noita Kalliope says, "This is starting to become chaotic..."

"Look to the malcontents." Cotei tells him, "They wish for this violence. They are not going to stop until they put an end to Naomi."

"Triton Cotei, I understand that, but this isn't how we need to continue this."

"Listen to him, Cotei," Kalliope says as she puts her hand on his shoulder, "The Ningyo are indiscriminate in their duty. They will not spare you over the convenience of circumstance."

"I don't care. They dare threaten one of my Father's legacies..." Cotei's throat rattles as he grips his trident, "I will not let them get away with making a mockery of her existence."

"Uncl- Triton Cotei, please stop," Naomi says, "I don't want this to turn into a war." She can feel more of the hunters gathering, "This isn't worth it!"

"I will not let this THING live without consequence!"

"Then you will fall to your own designed fate!" Cotei throws at him, "This mermaid is what little I have left of my Father, and I will not let you make her vanish!"

"Traitors, all of you." The merman says with seething fury as he primes his weapon, "If she will not leave-"

Cotei clicks out a loud signal, and all of his merfolk start to race and dart forth. The opposing merfolk get ready quickly for the all-out battle.

Suddenly, Cotei sees a small orb of light. A hunter sees one near his shoulder. Naomi spots several spheres of light appearing all around. She widens her eyes as the orbs start to flash, "GET DOWN!"

-KEEHHH-

-HYNNN-

-SNNGGG-

One by one, each sphere released a shockwave of cold as well as a few spires of ice on each orb. The merfolk dodge and brace from the popping crystals as they form a pseudo cage-like formation. After several of the ice spikes have halted the merfolk, look around. Naomi senses her presence first, turning to see her aunt glide smoothly to the pods.

"Blasphemy..." Savarna says as she comes, "Sheer blasphemy." She comes to them before he eyes turn to Naomi. The ice pinning her in place quickly melts and shatters gently, allowing her to swim over to her. Savarna then turns her gaze to Cotei, "Young Brother, I expected better from you."

"You should expect nothing, Sister." Cotei replies from his place in the ice cage, turning to look at her from the glowing frost, "You would let them get away with harming a child of ours?"

"Father has never displayed such rash anger." She tells him with a frown, "If he were here to witness this, he would scorn you for your lack of discipline and restraint."

"Are you seriously going to berate me for defending Brother's Daughter?"

"There is a different between defending and brawling."

"This isn't the end of this!" Says one of the prejudice merfolk, "We will never stop until-"

"And as for YOU." Savarna's eyes flash as she turns to the other half of the crowd. Each and every one of them feel sharp pokes from the ice all around them. Each point of the ice acts as a poison that spread into an external coat of harsh frost, "You all disgrace yourselves!"

"The stench of humanity is within our borders," A mermaid says, "If the Disciples will not-"

"The Disciples are what dictate the sanctity of Atlantis!" Savarna cuts him off, "They are why we all have the right to be here. They are what allows our kind to endure. And they are what they allow me to deal with you."

"What?"

"Did you truly believe the Disciples would be unaware of your assault?" She asked as the ice around them breathes an eerie hush around them, "You honestly assumed you could incite unholy war and malevolence?" As she talked, a shadow looms far above. Some merfolk look up, and see a dark yellow gleam of a single golden merfolk hovering above them. In a distance to the east, a few merfolk can make out a twin pair of gleaming lights along with a golden shimmer. In the northern direction, a mechanical rattle can be heard from another subtle metallic fish-figure...

"Your savage actions end here." Savarna tells them, "I will not tolerate your vile intentions. Open your mind and heart, and let my Brother's Daughter in peace."

A mermaid growls and sneers at Savarna and Naomi with rage as she bares her teeth, leering at Naomi with a hatred that rivals that of a Nalcious Eel, "Never!"

"Oh come now." Savarna scolds, "After all that has been,"

"Noita Savarna, stop..." Naomi tells her, "Like I said... Living on the land, and having two fathers... I have had to contend with the likes of this before... All my life..." Savarna sees glimpses of the past, outlined by sadness and damp frustration, "They will never listen, they refuse reason, and they will not change their minds... They will never stop, and I have to accept that."

"We are better than that, Naomi." Savarna tells her, "We are able to ascend,"

"No. We are..." Naomi nods towards the others, "But they are not. Arguing with them will solve nothing because they will constantly assume a higher opinion, and never listen to the contrary to a rational level. I have grown used to this sort of brunt... And it will not be the last..."

"I see..." Savarna turns her head back, and lets out a calm sigh, releasing and undoing the ice restraining Cotei and his pod, but stopped when the ice reached the offending merfolk.

"Release us, Noita!" A merman demands, "You have no right! Remove your crystal immediately!"

"You are not trustworthy. My power will fade in a short time, but I will not risk freeing you to come after my kin." Her hands place onto Naomi's shoulders. "Until then..." Savarna says as her eyes show a malicious gleam. "One sun. One sun before my power relents. I pray one sun will be all you need to ward yourself away from this child."

"Agghhh!"

More spikes and thorns form quickly from the ice, piercing into the merfolk and bringing a freezing sting to their flesh. The ice becomes more cramped and sharp as the merfolk suffer the suspended state of their positions besides the cold barbs pushing into them. They all begin to shiver as they squirm in the growing crystalline cage.

"Release us!!! This is torture!!" Yells one of them. Just then, they hear metallic moans and signals, before looking to see the three Ningyo that have gathered beforehand. Their bright eyes leer at them as the golden sentinels circle the entire cage slowly, as if waiting for one of them to break free to escape.

"No. This is mercy. MY mercy. Do not waste it, as my Father used to say." With that, Savarna turns herself and Naomi around and swim away, leaving the furious merfolk to writhe in the stinging ice cage

"Noita Savarna," Naomi hushes, "You are not really going to leave them like this for an entire sun, are you?"

"Oh they may try to fight their way out if they wish." Savarna says coldly, "But they will rip themselves apart in the process..."

"I know they are unkind, but..."

"You are too merciful, Naomi." Savarna tells her, "You do not wish punishment on them because your empathy is misplaced."

"..." Naomi looks to the side.

"Make no mistake, child." Savarna says as the water around them starts to feel a lot colder, "That was showing kindness compared to what I could bring to them..."

---Some Time Later---

"Then I believe our business is concluded, for the time being." Phorcys says.

"I must see to my Son, then." Ular says as she swims up.

"Mother, can you find my Daughter, please?" Merrick says, "I have been anxious about her safety for a while now."

"Yes, I will see to her..." Umiato says as her soul looks for Naomi's aura from where they are.

"Triton Merrick..." Lorelei's voice echoes, stopping Merrick from going anywhere, "A word, please..."