Chapter Text
"Do you want to know the story behind this war?" Chelsea asked near the end of their meal.
The food itself felt dull, it was raw fish after all, and still, somehow, after the first bitting Ruby found herself rushing through the rest, as if it was the first meal she had eaten in forever. She even swallowed the spines and scales, completely unbothered.
Chelsea, on the other hand, had barely touched her food. Alina was seated at the other end of the table, pointedly not looking at them -Not wanting to see a kraken feeding, surely.
Ruby looked at Chelsea with curiosity and nodded.
"Okay!" Chelsea said with enthusiasm. "So, mermaids and krakens, you know, the oceans used to be completely ours. In the beginning, we mostly agreed with each other. We didn't like humans in our oceans. They threw all sorts of garbage around; we even have a saying 'dirtier than a human.' They were also really scared of any magical creature and would come in entire floats to hunt us. Harassed by them, we started to fight back. Especially human men who, as soon as they saw the beauty of mermaids, wanted to kill or possess them".
Ruby swallowed a mouthful of food and sighed.
"yeah, I mean, some men are kinda Iike that. But there are lots of nice humans."
"Are they?" Chelsea inclined her head to the side.
"My friends are amazing and you have humans you get along with, right?" Ruby pointed.
Chelsea blinked, perplexed.
"Humans don't look at me for friendship, Ruby. They are besotted, want a relationship or despise me, there's always something more to it. And the only friendship I put effort into is ours, I don't care about them at all".
“Oh, they get besotted because of the mermaids' magic?”
“No, it's just because they are men,” Chelsea replied pointedly.
Ruby frowned deeply. She knew it was stupid to worry about something so trivial, but a question popped into her mind immediately.
“What about Connor?” She hadn’t thought about him in a while. The memory of her everlasting crush brought a feeling of longing. The afternoons they have spent together were so calm, surrounded by books and warm sunlight. The quiet comfort of normality. She had been ignoring him completely since she started to hang out with Chelsea. God, She had even hung up on him.
“The boy you saved?” Chelsea asked softly, her gaze fixed on her face with intense scrutiny, as if searching for something. Ruby felt herself blushing. “Oh, you have a crush on that human?”
Ruby lowered her gaze. It was difficult to admit something like that to Chelsea. After all she was absolutely gorgeous and could have any boy she wanted. She wouldn’t be like Ruby, getting all flustered, nervous and insecure about it. It came to her mind that she hadn’t told Chelsea much about her friends, Connor, or the life outside her family.
“Hmm,” she admitted.
“Interesting,” Chelsea replied and made a brief pause before continuing. “Well, is not all of them, of course,” she clarified. “You are right about that. Even in the old times there were some fishermen that worked with the mermaids, and some who fell in love together and had children and all that.”
Alina snorted in diselief. Chelsea laughed.
“Yeah, it wasn’t very common, but it happened. And your Connor was polite enough I guess. If you say your friends are good people, I believe you. Don't sweat it." Chelsea made a dismissive gesture with her hand.
“So, it’s not true that you can enchant people with your voices?”
“We can totally do it, but usually it is not necessary. And, for the record, a lot of magical creatures can do it, not only mermaids. The magical voice is often used to make them forget about us and leave us alone. Or tricking their minds to believe a seemingly innocent lie. Ruby, you used it yourself every time you said you were Canadian . No human is dumb enough to believe that when you are, well… blue. Without the magical voice the humans would have discovered you immediately. But I guess we mermaids are infamous for it.”
Ruby was shocked. She had used magic on her friends? She had thought her impression of a normal human being was good enough to pass as one of them. Somehow it didn’t sit well with her… Had she used the magic voice unknowingly other times?
Chelsea took the pause as an invitation to continue.
"Going back to the story, krakens and Mermaids were done with human bullshit. Krakens started sinking boats that went above their domains and mermaids attracted humans to dangerous rifts so their boats would sink. That lasted for a few centuries, and then, the war began.”
Chelsea was a great storyteller, compelling you to pay attention and gesticulating with her hands to illustrate what she was saying. Ruby was invested.
“A kraken from the royal family became friends with a human, and that human was killed when the Leviathan attacked his ship. The kraken was furious and convinced the queen that the Leviathan was getting out of control, defying them. Krakens are vicious creatures that enjoy fighting, so they didn’t need much convincing, and went to attack him. They killed the Leviathan and reclaimed his territory. It was a terrible battle, where lots of krakens died. But, in doing so, they discovered a dark secret; the Krakens are capable of absorbing the power of the creatures they consume, assimilating it as their own and passing it through generations. After the Leviathan, they decided to go after Umibozu as well. They called him a monster for killing innocent poor humans, and finished him off too. In the end, it was just an excuse to get rid of any other powerful creatures on the oceans, cementing their power and control, becoming these invincible creatures. The mermaids, afraid that they would be the next ones, decided to lay low and not look for troubles…. But we are mermaids after all, we aren’t good at laying low.”
“About that time another war started, this time amongst humans. Their technology has advanced so much at this point, that they would pour all kinds of chemicals on the waters, that made a lot of zones inhabitable, but nothing could compare to the atomic bomb. You know about it?”
Ruby doubted there was someone in the world who didn’t.
“Of course,” she said, nodding, “two atomic bombs were launched on Japan. It was one of the most tragic events of human history”.
Chelsea looked at her for a moment and then sighed.
“Not two, Ruby. You can’t even imagine.” She summoned the trident and drew the silhouette of a map on the air. “The atomic bomb was launched on Japan against human civilians, but it was tested before; in the oceans . One of the worst ones was here, Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands. So many creatures died. And also here in the arctic ocean, and in the pacific ocean. There’s a lot of places you shouldn’t approach, cuz radiation lives long and just by getting close you will feel the magic abandoning your body, and it will never come back. Over two thousand atomic bombs, Ruby. The humans took only two, can you even imagine the devastation?”.
Chelsea made the map disappear and looked at her with sadness. No, Ruby couldn’t even dimension something like that.
“The krakens were very rough tyrants and insisted on protecting humans even then, so, eventually, mermaids decided that it was time to change things for once, and they went to pray to the father of all mermaids for help.”
“Mermaids have a father?” Ruby asked.
“Yes, mermaids were born from the god Achelous and the nymph Deianira, and Achelous is the first born of the God of the oceans, Oceanus . I think your grandma told you that we stole the trident or something, but it’s ours . It belonged to Oceanus, and then to Achelous, and then was given to the mermaids in case we needed it sometime. Gods are long gone, maybe to other earths, maybe dead, but their legacy remains. When we prayed in despair, the trident location was revealed for some ancient magic. Sooo Narissa got it, went to fight the krakens and lost. The trident was taken, our only chance, gone, and it was, again, mermaids hunting season!” Chelsea finished quickly opening her arms at the sides, as if to say ‘the rest is history’.
“Narissa wasn’t the one that found it,” Alina added, interrupting for the first time “. It’s been with the mermaids for a long time, but the previous generations were too scared to fight, and just used it to hide us. Narissa was the first one that decided that we weren’t supposed to live in the shadows. That we are beautiful creatures made to shine, and we should stop the real water tyrants once and for all”.
There was a hint of idolatry in her voice that Ruby didn’t miss.
Chelsea laughed.
“Yeah, and she only ruined all our chances by being reckless and dumb, duh.”
“Chelsea!” Alina exclaimed, deeply offended.
“Sorry not sorry, it’s the pure truth,” Chelsea shrugged. “Narissa is not fit to have the trident. She had her chance and blew it. Suck it up.”
They continued bickering for a bit, but Ruby couldn’t really pay attention. So they were monsters after all. Krakens had turned the oceans into a cruel dictatorship that ended up eliminating magical creatures from all around. And humans had been and continued to be a terrible menace for ocean life, were creatures wrong for defending themselves?
“Ruby?” Chelsea was looking at her with pity. “Are you okay?”.
“I’m okay,” Ruby said. “But I need to think”.
“I know it’s a lot to take in, but you need something else sweetie,” Chelsea said, “you need to go home.”
“What?”
“What?”
Ruby and Alina said at the same time.
“You are gonna let me go home?”
“You are gonna let her go?!”
Chelsea smiled brightly and nodded.
“Yes and… yes,” she said, pointing first to Ruby and then to Alina.
Ruby couldn’t believe it. She had been so sure that Chelsea was gonna keep her captive for a long time, and now, the news that she will have to face her family soon didn’t make her feel any better. No, she didn’t even know how she was supposed to feel.
“It's dangerous, she’s gonna turn us in. They are going to kill us!” Alina was freaking out.
How could Ruby go back just like that? Her mother had taken her away from the oceans and hidden so many things. Then they told her they were heroes, and she had been so naive to believe it without even questioning it. But it wasn’t the whole truth. They were actual monsters. She was. Her mother was.
“It’s gonna be fine!” Chelsea answered to Alina, looking straight at Ruby. “Right?”
Ruby was trying to keep the composure -but had the terrible feeling she was going to faint.
“I’m not… I can’t go home yet” she managed to say.
Chelsea raised her hand and cupped her cheek.
“Oh, Ruby,” she pinched her cheek playfully. “You can, you can do anything.”
Why was Chelsea being so kind to her? It was unfair.
“Don’t make me go,” she pleaded.
“You have to.” Chelsea repeated. “If you don’t go back, very soon the seven oceans will be ridden with death. The Krakens will destroy everything and everyone until they find you. Even with the trident I can’t protect you, I can’t protect my people if that happens”.
Chelsea stood up and walked closer to her, and Ruby fell on her arms once again, hugging her tightly.
“I don’t want to be a monster,” She whispered.
“You are not a monster, you are a kraken, and you get to decide what to do with that. Now I need my bestie, all right?” Chelsea caressed her hair softly. “You have to go back and tell them that you have the trident and you hide it. You won’t tell them where it is. And once everything has calmed down, we will meet again. You are the only one that can calm the waters right now; they will hear you.”
Chelsea has beaten her unconscious, put a collar on her and forced her to stay. Ruby knew she should be relieved to be able to leave, but her hands surrounded Chelsea’s body and she clung to her. The truth was that she was terrified of going back and facing her mother again.
“Will you do that for me?” Chelsea said, and her voice has never sounded so soft, melodious, comforting and beautiful. It instantly made her heart feel warm inside and tears fell from her eyes. She nodded. She will. “Very good Ruby. Everything is gonna be okay, I promise. I’ll be here, waiting for you. I’m trusting you with my life”.
Ruby hugged her more tightly and shook her head.
“I won’t let them hurt you,” she promised. She may be uncertain about a lot of things, but that wasn’t one of them.
“I know, I trust you.” Chelsea said. “ You understand what you have to do, right?”
“Convince them that I have the trident, that I hid it” Ruby repeated.
“That’s right, perfect. Alina will be close if you need help. Go to school for a couple days. Show them that everything is alright.”
Ruby felt how Chelsea’s hands leave her head and reach towards her nape, softly undoing some kind of magic knot, and Ruby felt the collar loosening up on her neck. It was weird no to feel its pressure. She has gotten used to it.
“You are free” Chelsea whispered softly, only for her to hear.
When Ruby left to get ready, Alina walked to Chelsea and whispered:
“You used magic on her, how…?” A kraken shouldn’t be susceptible to the magic of mermaids. They were too powerful.
“I didn’t use magic to enchant her, I just waited until she was vulnerable and pushed, a little of persuasion , a little of confusion . She’s too young and inexperienced in magic to be able to tell. As long as I’m subtle I can do this much,” Chelsea smiled.
Alina looked at her with a renewed respect.
“You are using her shock against her.”
“I’ll use anything I can,” Chelsea said. “And that reminds me, this boy, Connor. Please take care of him; a broken heart is exactly what our princess needs.”