Grim screamed her second’s name, drawing her chained scythe and flicking it towards the fishmother. It lodged in her side, hooked under the fishmother’s jaw just as she got another crew member between her teeth. With a screech of pain the fishmother flailed, ripping the chain out of Grim’s hands and flinging the remains of the crew member in another direction. Crew members were attacking the fishmother, doing their best to spar with her despite her superior range, while their comrades recovered the injured. Grim looked wildly at Viisvang, betrayal in her wide eyes. Viisvang stared back at her, horrified.

He had known something was wrong with the fishmother, had known that she hadn’t seemed right, hadn’t been right ever since Åma had been implanted in her teeth. It was all Åma’s fault. The fishmother was fierce, but she didn't have need for widespread slaughter, she preferred just the occasional kill to disrupt the monotony of eternity. This was all Åma. He could just make out the dagger’s ferocious laughter over the wails of the wounded. She was howling encouragement to the fishmother, urging her towards more bloodshed. The fishmother’s cloudy eyes were out of focus, rolling around in her head as she ramaged.

Grim had lept into action, darting perilously close to recover her scythe, rolling acrobatically under the fishmother’s flailing tail, and leaping over a pile of downed treasure. Viisvang watched in horrified fascination as she ducked beneath the fishmother’s jaw, placing her hand on her skin and wrenching her weapon out with the other, spewing the fishmother’s deep crimson blood across her own chest and face, making her look even more fierce than she already did. The fishmother cried out in rage, snaking away to get a look at who had caused her such pain. She eyed Grim, her eyes narrowing as she focused on the woman, before lunging at her, jaws clacking shut where Grim had stood a second earlier.

It was nightmarish, watching the two beings he cared most about battling each other. Who did he want to triumph? Could he bear if one slew the other? His fishmother had promised, she had sworn she just wanted to meet his devotees, just wanted to see how much he had grown up. She had lied to him. He knew it was Åma, but were the two inseparable now? Could he even save her from Åma’s thrall? Åma may have encouraged her, but it was his fishmother snapping her teeth, tearing apart his worshipers. And she would tear apart Grim if he let her. He couldn’t let her do that. Grim was too important to him, too precious to let be mauled to death. He wouldn’t let that happen. But could he take down his own fishmother?

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And what could he do against the might of the fishmother. He had no weapon, his godly abilities were weak compared to hers. A storm. That’s what he could make. Would that even be helpful here? It would just weaken all involved. Unless…he eyed the fishmother’s gaping mouth, her breath hot and fetid with the death of his devotees. He could shove it down her throat. He wasn’t sure it would have any great effect, but perhaps it would slow her down. And maybe, just maybe, that would be enough for her to see the carnage she had wrought, he hoped, futility. He desperately didn’t want to hurt her, but he couldn’t stand to see her like this either. And really, the doting fishmother he had known was already gone. He would rather see her dead than under Åma’s spell, a slave to her bloodlust, he resolved.

A scream brought him back from his internal crisis. The fishmother had managed to get her teeth into Grim, her arm up to the elbow in the fishmother’s grasp. Grim had her legs wrapped around the fishmother’s head, her other arm, scythe in hand, hacking at the fishmother’s face with brutal, desperate ferocity. Tear tracks had made their way through the fishmother’s blood on her face, clearing streaks down her cheeks, though her teeth were clenched and her eyes fierce. ‘Grim!’ he cried, terrified for her, though he was unsure if she could even hear him over the sounds of the clash. He had to make the storm now, before the fishmother swallowed her, before she was lost forever.

He concentrated in his throat, all his anguish at what he had to do, the heinousness of the act he was about to commit. Killing his own fishmother. He squashed the grief down. He would have to process it later, Grim couldn’t wait. Wind and water and heat and electricity. He constricted his throat. Tighter and tighter, compressing all his feelings for the fishmother into one point, the love and the betrayal, all of it. He opened his mouth, plucking the pearl from his tongue. It was a sublime thing, the most perfect pearl he had ever made, a mesmerizing swirl of dark and dusk purple. And it was fitting he would give this one last treasure to his fishmother. He sobbed.