The crowd in the central square continued to jeer and demand the execution of the dwarf named Alviss.
He was accused of forging weapons for the neighboring island Cravey Charybdis and supporting their cause against Sweet Scylla.
“Y-ya mermaids tricked me! Why did ya do such a thing when all I wanted-”
“Shut up! Enough of your whining!” Lamia, the current leader of the Undine Clan, stepped forward and cut off the dwarf’s attempts at sympathy. “It’s your own fault to get tricked so easily!”
“Hngh!” Alviss grinded his teeth in silence. Although he couldn’t refute her, his main frustration was stemming from the fact that his image of the females here had been shattered. And yet, he still found himself getting distracted by their looks. Why are all these mermaid and siren lasses so pretty…? This one addressing me looks especially beautiful with her long blue hair, fair smooth skin, and, no wait! What are ya thinking, Alviss?! Me life is in danger here!
“Now, make your decision!” Lamia got close and stood towering over Alivss’ short stature, looking down at him with squinted eyes and a raised chin, “Either live and help Sweet Scylla by crafting those weapons for us instead, or choose Cravey Charybdis and die!”
Although her tone was harsh, Lamia was still trying to give this dwarf a way to survive despite what the crowd was demanding for her to do. Whether he took her up on the offer or not, and saved his life, was wholly dependent on his answer.
“...” Alviss stayed silent as sweat began to run down his cheek. His face quickly twisted into a frown, “First ya trick me with yer sweet songs and now ya threaten me life If I don’t work for ya?! I only took the job ‘cause I thought t’was for a good purpose.”
The dwarf with the heavy accent, and yet an unusually high vocabulary, closed his eyes for a moment and thought back to his time on Cravey Charybdis. He had simply taken on a request posted by the Keymen, nothing more, nothing less. He did believe that forging them the weapons they needed could lead to a positive outcome, but even weeks after, nothing had changed. That’s why he had decided to quit the job and leave, but low and behold, he was caught like a fish, and with a simple song no less.
Me dwarven pride is beyond repair! He reprimanded himself once more, then he chose to voice his thoughts regardless of the outcome, “But a race that’s already endangered and persecuted is fightin’ among its kin fer no good reason? Don’t ya think it’d be better t’ find a peaceful solution instead of annihilatin’ each other completely?”
“Shut up! You don’t even know anything! The men are at fault!”
“That’s right! They just went crazy and started making plans to sell us!”
Met with Alviss’ speech, sirens from the crowds raised their voices in protest. They were just short of picking up stones and throwing them at him.
“...” Lawkey, who was still standing at a safe distance, watched in silence and tried to make heads from tails on his own. Just before he could come to any conclusions, he noticed a sudden shift in the atmosphere.
STEP!
“?!”
“Why are we at fault exactly?”
Everyone turned to face the newcomer, nay, a whole new crowd had sauntered into the central square.
The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
They were all male sirens, or better referred to as Tritons on land and as Mermen at sea. Beside their similarity to the sirens such as having ear fins and gills either on their necks or on the sides of their torsos, they were each holding some form of a steel weapon. They ranged from simple swords, to rapiers, even to katanas, and engraved on them all was both a dwarven symbol and another that represented their forger, Alviss.
The one other thing they all had in common was the faint red glow in their pupils that made them almost unrecognizable to the sirens they had considered family not so long ago.
“You blame us for everything, and yet we just want to save our race!” The triton who had spoken earlier and interrupted the commotion stepped forward and represented the entire crowd behind him. “If all we have to do is sell a few of our females so that our race can survive, shouldn’t you be grateful to save our clan?”
The triton making unreasonable demands had short hair that was light blue and needed nothing to stand up straight on its own. His ear fins and gills on his neck matched the same color too. He only wore brown pants, completely leaving his upper body exposed to the wind. The sword he was holding was a rapier-type with a golden handle, where the markings were.
This was Salil Undine, the representative of the Cravey Charybdis faction that was made up of the tritons and mermen who suddenly deflected from Sweet Scylla and abandoned them in haste. Not only did they steal all the funds with them, but they had occasionally tried to kidnap and sell some of the mermaids as well.
“Screw you!” Having held her tongue for so long, Lamia couldn’t keep her rising anger within her any longer and shouted out in protest, “Who do you think you are to decide that?! Who cares about the future if our own lives are at stake now!”
“If you won’t obey, then we’ll make you!” Salil didn’t even allow a discussion to take place. They had come here for a simple reason, and it was the only thing on their collective mind now, “Charge!!”
The sounds of cheers and weapons from behind Salil overtook the surroundings, alerting everyone around.
Lamia on the other hand, felt a bulging vein snap in her forehead. “Bring it on, shitty men!”
As much as she wanted to smooth things over, their deeds were unforgivable and they needed to be stopped. And if discussions weren’t going to do it, there was only one other way.
“N-no, wait! Stop!” Alviss, who was still seated between the two factions about to start a war, darted his head around between the two groups while trying to squeeze his arms out of the rope holding them together. Dammit! I could have just used me Sign If it weren’t fer me senses still being numb from their magically sweet songs… Ah! Stop thinking about that!
“...”
“?!” Alviss suddenly turned his head to the side where simple spectators were, he could have sworn he had just heard a long sigh amidst the raging crowd. Either that, or it was a cold chill that he still couldn’t quite feel from his numbed senses.
SHING!
Nevertheless, a katana was unsheathed, and in a mere second, it cut through the entire ground next to Alviss. The rising dust from the shockwaves forced both crowds to halt their charges and fight against being pushed back.
Ah, shit… I did it now… I really didn’t want to get involved and here we are… The culprit thought to himself as he rested his sword on his shoulder and landed back on the ground. What should I do now? Run away? Fight? I don’t want to end up as a prisoner again, they don’t even have pancakes here… Would they even serve those to prisoners if they did?
As Lawkey lampooned inwardly, the shockwave subsided and everyone looked at him with puzzled expressions. Beside Lamia, no one knew who this random person was, and why he had stuck his nose into something that didn’t concern him.
Even Lawkey didn’t know for sure why he had stepped in. He had watched as the sirens reprimanded a short man for something that he apparently did, but did not have any bad intentions of doing, according to him at least. Then, a bunch of male merfolk had shown up, reminding him of all the times he wondered why there were mostly only sirens around the island. The males he had occasionally seen were but small children that still worked hard instead of playing around.
Just when he was thinking things over to the point of ruffling his head in exhaustion, the two factions held up their weapons and charged at each other with the intent to spread each other’s blood across this central square.
Did they have no respect for the Nimue statue watching them? What about their old leader, Sana’s mother and Riana’s sister, Rania who gave her life fighting for their race and clan, only to be turned into a golden statue that was watching them now too?
Even when the short man they had captured begged them to stop their charge so they didn't involve him too, they hadn’t stopped.
At that moment, images of Sana and Riana had suddenly flashed into Lawkey’s mind. Ever since his implanted memories, he felt a nagging connection with them that he couldn’t describe.
He didn’t want to simply accuse those for what he was feeling, but he couldn’t ignore it any further either.
If I can at least stop this for now… If it meant they wouldn’t cry or have a sad expression on their faces, then…
Before he knew it, Lawkey found himself in his current situation.
Amidst the countless stares and glares from all around, the swordsman suddenly sensed a presence from behind Alviss. There was a small crater on the side of a wooden wall. Even though his slash had cut the ground and stopped right before that wall, there should have been no reason for the crater or the rising dust around it to be there. Not unless the slash hit something no one could see…
“!”
That’s when Lawkey quickly realized what it meant.
It’s that invisible voice from back on the ship! The one who implanted those memories in my head!
What the hell is it doing here?!
----------------------------------------
image [https://i.imgur.com/KQmIY8F.png]