The Creature
Nia's armor was made of fish leather, making it easier to swim through the saltwater with Karael, her favorite sword. Bastard mermaids didn't have a favorite sword. They weren't supposed to, but Nia liked to pretend she had. They didn't deserve anything for themselves, weren't worth it for such possession, as they were coached to believe since childhood. The only way to show their worth was in the battle. Which wasn't technically a battle. The only thing they had to do was to keep the ocean clean of Grounders, or anything associated with them.
But, the motive why Nia insisted on naming a sword and calling it hers was because she knew she deserved it. Why was she not supposed to have one? She was a mermaid like every other mermaid! The only thing that differentiated them was the Marks. Huge, dark, and awful Marks imprinted in their body. All over it. And that was why they were called Marked Bastards. Nia didn't know whether they were named like this because there were other kinds of Bastards or just because Zoult liked to name things dramatically.
Zoult was The Water Prostitute, like she was called on her back by the bastards - and the guards. The slut who commanded the Bastard Army and used to answer to the King of Vrith, who commanded all of the Ocean. And Nia, who was just one more in the Army, used to answer - reluctantly - to Zoult. Otherwise Zoult would cut open her Marks with a dagger like a fish. Again.
That night, while her mind was tired, her body was restless. Her body had been acting out these past days, refusing to wake up or sleep at the given time. But whatever. The worst that could happen was her death, and she was immortal, so the position goes to torture. Yes, torture was the worst that could happen, and she only had been tortured two times that week. That knife on Archon's chest earned her a lot of work, which meant 3 hours of sleep and no food for two days. She was glad to do it twice, the knife-on-chest part, not the punishment part. The things Nia loved most were only two: sleep and food. And Zoult, the Water Prostitute, knew it.
Well, maybe she could blame the no-sleep and no-food as an excuse for not noticing the creature storming sharp on the sea, swimming as its life depended on that. She broke on the impulse of her serpent tail to follow it. The creature went deep in the sea, and it was fast, seeming like it didn't intend to go back to the surface any time soon. A Grounder creature that didn't have lungs. Really strange. It was fast but not faster than Nia. And it didn't know the Ocean as she did. She slid through a strong stream, and she went closer, closer, so close. And then the creature vanished in the water, just like her patience, not able to take a second to think about what, for all the maritime gods, happened there. Until the creature re-appeared, and collided with her, pushing Nia more deep into the Ocean.
She struggled to break free, but the creature tightened its grip harder, almost making Nia and her armor fusion into each other. And they fell more and more, with struggles and screams and swears and metal grips.
It never happened to her before. She was attacked before, and fought with something that overpowered her more often than not, but she had never felt so useless before, like the first time she attempted to raise a sword with her less dominant hand. Something was wrong. Because there was a reason it never happened before: she was really strong. The only thing stopping Zoult from killing her. Nia was one of the best.
The worst thing about living in the Ocean was because most of it was full of nothing. Only water and bubbles. Some tiny fishes, here and there. But when you know how to swim to the deep part of the Ocean, you would find some smart forms of life. Apparently, that creature knew, because it went exactly to the opposite of the way. Nia allowed herself a second of despair. Just a second.
The creature stopped in a deep, awful, disgusting, dark cavern. It had released her, but she was frozen still. Motionless as a rock.
She fixed her gaze on the creature, finding a mess of features. It was clearly a grounder, but she couldn't pick a pattern or distinguish which kind of creature it was. She didn't have a name for it, she just saw some of those creatures a few times (they didn't reach that deep into the sea so often) and nobody bothered to tell her how they were called. Bastards didn't need to know the name of what they killed. But she could tell, that creature was the most monstrous and hideous thing she ever saw. They were as sharp as those rocks surrounding them on that cave, skin a thick leather, akin to the sea serpent, and it had a huge beige fur that floated in the water around its face. And it had undeniably human hands until the fingers, substituted for sharp claws, as sharp as its teeth. Would she die there? Without any chance to defend herself? She never thought she would die in that sort of situation. Nia always thought she would die doing something glorious like in the real war, like a soldier, when the Grounders and Boghadians were finally face-to-face, and she could see herself impaled in a long and red sword, painted with her blood, falling to the deep sea, because she had no idea about how the world would work after the War. Even if the sea people win, she didn't want to be there to see, she didn't know how to be anything else besides a warrior.
"My name is Pegan, sent by the King." the creature said with a painfully throaty voice, and stuck a dagger in her gut.