“First we dine,” said one of the heads.

I was fully prepared for them to just rip my head off and serve it to the fatso. However, I was instead seated on a table that slowly descended from the dark ceiling. Not just the table, but table cloth, lots of stuff which looked like plates and chalices and even pots?

But aren’t we underwater? I didn’t feel any pressure at all though, now that I thought about it. And it felt like I was on the surface, rather than floating.

When everything dropped, they started serving wine in a glass. Their methods were rather odd. Instead of pouring the wine into the glass, they were pouring the glass into the wine- as odd as that sounded.

How the wine and water did not mix, or water make any of the food go super soggy, was beyond me.

No, really, their food was utterly fine. The soup, good. The bread, definitely not soggy and had a hint of some weird herb. And their flatbread was pretty damn nice and chewy. Not to mention their meat- no, it was just tofu-like or maybe some sort of mushroom? Tasted bloody amazing.

“So, how do you like it here, little boy?” one of the heads said. Both heads looked similar and I couldn’t tell them apart by voice. And the voice in question was so… fake. Like he was attempting an English accent but was sounding German instead.

The meal was so good, I’d nearly forgotten I was next. “It’s amazing here…”

“I am glad. Enjoy the rest of your stay as well,” they smiled, big sharp spiky teeth. If I wasn’t scared before, I was certainly scared now.

Gulping, “I will.”

That said, the man finished up his meal and went back to his throne.

I finished mine too and the table just disappeared back into the ceiling. Amazing.

Despite how unassuming this room looked, I could have sworn there was more to it. Were people hiding in the coral, or was it just my imagination? Not just people, there was something else here… something.

“What happened to the mermaid?” I mumbled.

“Dismissed,” they said.

The scarred Fishman grabbed me and escorted me out first thing. Once out, “Unless you have a death wish, it is wise not to speak to the lord.”

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

“Bold coming from someone who clearly wanted to kill me by dragging me into the damn water.”

“What are you saying? Why would water kill you?”

“Because I’m human?”

“You’re clearly a half-breed,” The man shrugged. “Just because you’re embarrassed, you’re not fully one of us, doesn’t mean you have to lie,” the man shrugged, snorted, and then carried me like a potato sack down the west corridor, into what looked like a storeroom and threw me in. All this time, I didn’t or rather couldn’t say a single fucking word. What half-breed? “Consider this a final warning. Behave, and you’ll live a decent life.”

That said, the man locked me in and left.

My scales are from a lizard, you idiots!

The coral around me started glowing and fully illuminated my room. A two-bed room with some coral furniture, and a window leading outside. But the window was blocked with coral rails.

One of the beds was empty, the other, not so much. “So there you were,” I said.

The mermaid, Roksha was here. She’d been sleeping but woke up. “Mhhmm…”

“Do you know what’s going on? Because I have no idea.”

“They at war,” she said, albeit very slowly. “They won’t let us go.”

“At war with who?”

Alustur and the gang? Like seriously?

“Dkionbra, my country.”

Huh.

Wait, so these people were at war against the mermaids? Or something like that?

Kind of explained why they were out of their usual territory and patrolling around. But that didn’t explain why they had to capture us.

Maybe this Roksha girl is more important than I gave her credit for? I mean, they were letting her live despite being a member of the enemy nation. Or maybe I was reading too much into the damn thing.

Regardless, despite what the man had said, the first thing I needed to do right now was make an escape.

I was here on a mission.

Not to play war captive and laze around.

“By the way, how does one relive oneself in the ocean? Should I just go?” I said.

Her face turned from totally normal to vibrant pink. She actually looked pretty good underwater. I suppose she needed the water pressure to look girly?

Not that I could feel said pressure.

“There-” she said, pointing. She was pointing me to a closet?

So fishpeople just went into a closet, peed, and forgot about the water they were living in? Considering they were living in the very same water, I guess that only made sense?

It was way bigger than I thought though.

The closet was really, truly, a water closet. Not only was it filled with water, it was also filled with all sort of contraptions that looked like stuff straight out of a bondage video. They had straps, they had things that could suck on your bits and they also had stuff I had no idea what the hell they even were. Or used for….

Carefully, very carefully, I tried the one that would strap onto me. Apparently, you peed into it and forgot about it… or so I assumed. I could have been wrong. I mean, it wasn’t like I’d done this before.

Let’s see…

Yup, the stuff worked. Judging by the pipes, they had a robust plumbing system too. I suppose I shouldn’t have assumed they lived in their own stuff. Why’s that pipe so big?

Still… how come the mermaid never complained about this thing back when she was still with us on the ship?

Yeah, let’s not ask her.