Silver.

Bricks. Unlike everything else, this particular mansion before me was made of bricks. Shining. Like moonlight, a dull yet pleasant light.

So far, I’d seen plenty of things. Big fields of nothing but grass, elves, huge forests, Apples that tasted like peach, big fantasy cities and different types of people and animals and superpowers, and heck- even underwater cities and a huge shrimp that I ate for days.

But I hadn’t seen anything like this. I hadn’t seen a glowing mansion surrounded by a lake. Not to mention the place was underwater itself. How’s this even happening?

Swans floated around lake. It even had waves and red lilies. And there was a boat?

Huh…. “It looks like a fucking fairytale,” I said.

“I suppose,” Roksha said. “I used to live here. Well, I kind of still do, I suppose. Make yourselves at home.” She spoke colder than usual.

Well, her life’s no longer in danger.

She was home and away from danger. She no longer had any use of me. And if she wanted, she could just turn me in and make me suffer through the consequences of my actions. Though I had a feeling she wasn’t going to do that. Maybe it was naïve optimism on my part, but I didn’t think Roksha was the kind of girl who’d fuck me over like that.

“Why’re we taking a boat underwater. First of all, why’s there a lake here?”

There were some other buildings nearby. None of them were even remotely as beautiful as this one. Heck, even the crystal palace at the center of this city couldn’t hold a candle to this place. And yes, there was a palace at the center. And yes… it was made of white frigging crystals. I guess now I had a story for Nisa when I got back home.

“You ask too many questions, human,” the fishman said. “Just accept reality for what it is.”

“But this doesn’t feel real at all!”

Because. 1. We were already under water. And 2. My brain was hella confused.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

“Just get on the fucking boat.” The fishman wasn’t having my meltdown, that was for sure.

Small white boat. Typical shit you’d see lovers in a lake pretending to have fun in. How the fuck would you have fun just pedaling on a fucking lake though? And yeah, for some reason all small boats I’d ever seen were paddle boats, rather than boats with Oars or Engines.

Cramped. I got sandwiched between the two mermaids; the fishman was on the opposite side of Roksha.

Drizzle. Huh? I looked up. Up at the glistening sea surface. It was… raining.

Wow. I saw fish floating. I saw fish swimming below. And then there was rain.

What in the actual fuck was happening?

Well, fuck it.

I smiled, stared around and let out an exhale. “What a time to be alive.”

What a time to be alive, indeed.

***

If my breath wasn’t taken before, it was certainly taken now. Each and every brick of the mansion was glowing. A very dim glow, yet so pleasant. While I still thought it was similar to moonlight, I think that was a bit of a disrespectful comparison. Not to the moon, but to the mansion. Cause god damn this thing was amazing. The glowing coral from before didn’t even begin to- Wait a minute…. Yeah, I proceeded to ignore my little discovery.

Anyway-

Now this is fantasy. This is another world!

Everything else I’d seen so far were basically just Middle Ages with a bit of monster and magic. This though, fantastical as fuck.

Yeah, now I knew what I was feeling wasn’t confusion. It was excitement. With maybe just a tiny bit delirium like when you had a spiked drink your friend meant for the girl next to you by accident. Ha ha.

Mermaid guards were at the entrance to the huge double door. They wielded tridents. And wore breastplates? Not everyone’s going commando.

They opened the door without a word and we went in.

Marble striped floor. Multiple snake-like stairs erupted from the ground and spiraled everywhere up to the fourth floor. Looking at the stairs was straining my neck, so I again smiled, took a step back and exhaled.

“So, ugly face’s back?” someone said.

I turned and found a fishman. Blowfish head, wearing a suit. Clown.

“Who’s the blowhead?” I asked.

Could have sworn I caught the mermaid wincing. “That’s my brother.”

“Half,” the fish said. “Hmm… guests,” he seemed a bit irritated but didn’t seem bothered by my remark. “Show them to the guest chambers. And take the ugly face to her chambers and feed her some food; she appears uglier than usual.”

He proceeded to disappear from whence he came or something like that.

“The fuck?”

“Please refrain from speaking that way,” the fishman said. “You’ll only embarrass us further.” His face was a little red.

“Yeah, sorry. Slipped out of my mouth, without me meaning to.”

Lately, I was becoming more and more impulsive. I suppose my budding hormones were to blame but at the same time, I was probably just taking things a bit too naively. Get your act together you idiot! What if he’d been super offended and thrown you into the jail!?

[A/N]

Sol actually called him an ugly bastard the first time

Then a ugly blowhead

And now this kekw