Mark adjusted his shackled wrists more comfortably on his lap, dryly asking no one in particular. "You talk like you know who this Kai is... Anymore secrets you want to keep to yourself." Devon lost it, whirling around to smash a lantern against the wall by his cell as he yelled out bitterly. "GO FUCK YOURSELF! We've shared everything we know with you! You're the one who could destroy EVERYTHING we stand for!" Granny sternly yelled out Devon's name in warning, but Devon ignored her. Storming forward toward the bars of the cell, Devon pointed at him and hissed out coldly. "I knew I couldn't trust you! Luka was right, wasn't he?! This was all apart of your and Nate's plan to take the throne! You're as vile and disgusting as the humans you share blood with!" Mark lunged toward the bars, causing the chain to his neck shackle to rip out of the wall without him realizing it. Grabbing the bars, Mark squeezed them, growling out inches from Devon's terrified face. "Listen to me you gutless little shit! I'm having a REALLY bad day!"

Reaching through the bars, Mark snatched Devon by the neck and yelled back at him heatedly. "And if you think that not knowing who I am I will stop me from kicking your ass, your wrong! I may not be some pampered pure strain of whatever the fuck you are, but that won't stop me from tearing out your god damn throat! And you wanna know why...? Because I'm one FUCKING PISSED OFF PIRATE!" Mark yanked Devon toward the bars to whack his face against them. Devon hit them so hard that he toppled to the ground after to groan in agony as he covered his bleeding face. Mark then glared down at Devon, hissing back just as bitterly. "I was never shown any mercy or fondness from people. Why would I expect your kind to be any fucking different?! You want someone to blame for your fucking problems like everyone else! Maybe for a change you should get off your own ass and DO SOMETHING!" From the back, Hector chuckled out with a smirk. "I knew there was something I liked about him."

Granny rolled her eyes, ordering both Devon and Hector seriously in a cool tone. "Both of you... Get out." Hector raised an eyebrow at her, but she merely lifted her head to look at him and order him again. "Go. Now." Hector uncrossed his arms, reluctantly strolling over to help Devon up. While escorting him out, Hector muttered to her grimly. "I'll take him to the nurse sharks then..." Granny waited until they had vanished up the steps, before calmly saying aloud. "It has come to my attention that we don't know each other very well." Mark lifted his shackled wrists, darkly muttering out. "You think? It's a little late to roll out the red carpet now. So, save your breath." Mark tried to stand up, but only made his long tail thrash in the water. Slumping against the cell's wooden doorframe, he banged his head back against it in frustration. He didn't know how this new body worked at all. Granny moved closer to sit casually down just outside the bars. Despite everything he knew about her... He didn't see her as a threat to him. She had a weird way of making him feel calm.

Granny rested her arms on her crossed legs, telling him in a gentle motherly voice. "I grew up cautious of humans. It's silly but I'm afraid of them. Their cruelty. But every now and again... I see them do the most beautiful things. I know you've seen it too. The human that raised you. They took you in without a second thought. I always sensed something about you... but my own fear of you kept me from seeing it. But from the looks of you... you're used to people being afraid of you. You're used to being their target of aggression. You get your strength from pain. You wear it like armor." Mark turned his head to glare at her with guarded eyes, sneering out. "Do you have a point, because I'm not in the mood for your crap. You have no idea what I'm dealing with right now." Granny didn't flinch or change her tone. She just stared back at him with those big heartwarming eyes. Eyes that without a word cut him to his core. Quickly looking away from her, he inhaled to strengthen himself back up.

He refused to let himself open up to her. He didn't need her help or anyone's. He could do this on his own. Granny's voice turned softer and more comforting as she told him. "My point is that everything that happened to you isn't a curse. It's been developing you into the person you were always meant to be. Who you were is only a small piece of who are. Each of us is a picture with all kinds of pieces from other cultures and upbringings. We grow stronger from what we are forced to endure." Mark huffed, grumbling out through his teeth. "Don't talk to me about enduring shit... I've endured more than my fair share. This isn't my fight! I came here to get my fortune and live my life away from everyone! I didn't come here to fight YOUR battles!" Granny reached out to turn his jaw with her gentle fingertips. When their eyes met, she told him seriously. "Now I see it. I see you and I hear HIM. Did you know that two days before Atlantis sank, Poseidon pleaded with Oceanus to help him?"

Mark didn't answer. She knew that he didn't know any of this. Granny's eyes teared up, but her voice was still so calm when she told him. "Oceanus said the same thing to him. I remember because his words racked Poseidon with grief. Oceanus was the only titan that could stop the Leviathon. The Leviathon was Oceanus's own creation... but when Zeus sent the beast on Atlantis... Oceanus refused to help. Why? Because Oceanus had become too accustomed to being alone. He watched his younger brother, Kronos, butcher their parents. He watched Kronos slaughter his wife. Then he watched as Kronos's own sons killed him in return. Only they didn't stop there. They butchered EVERY male titan and their EVERY child. Poseidon himself was forced by his brother to butcher Oceanus's children by the thousands, because they both feared they'd raise up against them in retaliation. Zeus didn't want to lose his reign and Poseidon feared Zeus would rally them against Atlantis."

Granny cupped Mark's face, tears streaming down her cheeks now as she told him more shakily. "But when the time came for Poseidon to kill Oceanus... He couldn't do it. Poseidon couldn't bring himself to kill his uncle. Someone so similar to himself. So, he accepted the marriage with Oceanus's last Oceanid daughter as a truce between them. Frustrated, Zeus instead ordered Oceanus to be exiled. To live his long life in isolation deep within the sea. And when Poseidon needed him most... When the world needed him most... Oceanus turned away and told us that it wasn't his fight. That he just wanted to be left alone. Now you tell me, Mark. Now that we've come so far. Now that Sean needs you most. Are you going to turn your back on us too?" Mark stayed quiet as he processed this, leaving Granny to release him and climb to her feet. Standing up with pride, she looked down at him to confidently say. "You are an Oceanid. You have the blood of a Titan and the fire of creation coursing through your veins. You are one of the strongest creatures on this earth... and you're just going to sit there as Kai torments the ones you love?!"

Mark lowered his eyes back to his lap, mumbling out through clenched teeth. "If I could get up, I would. But I can't! I don't know this body! This isn't me!" Granny opened the unlocked cell door, kneeling to ask him hopefully. "Mark, if I help you. Will you please help us in return?" Mark turned his head away. He didn't like being indebted to people. It never ended well for either of them. Clenching his fists and jaw, he stubbornly bellowed out. "I don't need your help! Just leave me alone!" Granny removed something from the wall and tossed it into the water by his hip. Then she picked up something else and tossed it in by his tail. Both items splashed into the water, but Granny said nothing as to why she had done this. Without a word, he curiously picked them up in turn. The first looked like Sean's amulet and the second was certainly Nate's katana sword. He could tell by the Atlantean writing and the grip's design. Looking at Granny with a sudden horrified expression, he watched her stare deep into his eyes and say in a serious motherly tone of voice. "The longer you wait to swallow that stubborn pride of yours... The longer you make THEM wait."

Granny set the key to the shackles in the entrance of the cell, telling him bluntly. "I'm curious, Mark. Where do you see THEM in that Pirate King dream of yours?" Without another word, Granny climbed to her feet and began to walk away. Mark's eyes fell to the items, before swallowing the knot in his throat. Thinking briefly on their smiling faces in the Lagoon and when they were dancing on the ship. Inhaling deeply, he draped the amulet around his neck and gripped the handle of Nate's sword tightly. Rolling onto his fists in the cell's doorway, he closed his eyes and focused on standing up one leg at a time. He began to groan and yell in pain as his tail split apart slowly. His tails twisted in the water, splashing wildly as they slowly turned back into human legs by his sheer will. Staggering upright on his human legs, he felt black scales fall off his legs to clatter against the wooden floor as he stepped out. Cracking his neck, he felt the fins on his arms and ears transform back.

Raising his shackled wrists, he yanked his arms apart and snapped the enchanted chain apart. Grabbing the shackle around his neck next, he yanked it off and let it fall heavily to the floor. Rolling his stiff shoulders, he glanced at the stairs to see Granny looking back at him with a proud grin. Hefting Nate's sword, he told her in a strained deep voice. "Tell me what I need to know, and I'll help you only when I get them back." Granny nodded with respect, sweetly saying. "I'm sure you have a lot of questions." Mark staggered on his feet as the ship listed a little, causing him to step back and grab the cell bars in order to keep himself upright. Leaning his shoulder on the nearest bar, he anxiously winced out. "Only two at present... One. Why I do I feel like I've been run over by a carriage? And two. Does this mean I'm related to Sean?" Granny chuckled, slowly making her way back down to him. Standing closer to him, she answered openly. "Well, you feel that way because you are using muscles that you haven't used probably since you were a child. So, your body may feel very weak the first few times. It will get easier."

Granny then took a deep breath, crossing her arms as she continued with a smirk. "As for you being related... No. Uranus and Gaia didn't conceive the titans as the mortal scholars would have you believe. Gaia was life before life. She created her own husband, Uranus, from the very air she breathed in from the void to make him of cloud and sky. A way to ease her loneliness. Their sons and daughters were made from the different materials he gathered with her from the world she had created. Together, they made their twelve children. The youngest, Kronos, from fire and stone. And the Eldest, Oceanus, from saltwater and sand. Made by the fire of creation to fill her world with giants that would teach the first human creations all their parents had taught them about the world. But... nature is wild and unpredictable. The elements used in their creation... inevitably caused them to act within its nature. Each falling in their own way. Kronos became as destructive and all-consuming as the fire within him. And Oceanus became as restless and cold as the seawater within him."

Granny let out a deep sigh, adding with just a tiny smile. "It was only from Kronos and his titan sister Rhea that the gods we know were born. Rhea was the only other titan gifted with Gaia's gift of a fertile womb like that of the humans she had made. Through their flesh came the more diluted bloodline of gods. Which is why the gods all have different abilities that stem so far from another. They come from the only small parts of what makes up creation." Mark tapped Nate's sword against his bare leg, asking through his lightheadedness. "If the lines got diluted from titans mating... How do I have titan blood that isn't?" Granny leaned back on the table, rubbing her temples a bit before trying to spell it out simpler for him. "From Kronos and Rhea, came the diluted form of gods. Poseidon being one. Poseidon made Merfolk like US, using knowledge he got from Athena. Who was studying the Oceanids. So, WE are powerful... but limited. We have to draw our power from the moon cycles."

After rubbing her temples, she lowered her hand to tell him with a lighthearted chuckle. "You are the descendant of Oceanus and Tethys. An Oceanid. A pure strain of water people born from and of two powerful water titans. One of saltwater and one of fresh water. The first generation of Merfolk. Your strain is not diluted because you are born into being a titan demi-god. Do you get it? No? Well, try and process this. Oceanids are on the same level as Poseidon! Why do you think Zeus wanted them all killed? You're basically a living breathing sea god." Mark stared at Granny completely speechless. Granny chuckled louder to break the silence, telling him with a sweet smile. "By the way. Those shackles were on to relieve your pain as the water healed the cuts you got from shards of glass that I pulled from you. The metal was conducting the power from the ship to you. Allowing you to rest and recover faster. You didn't need to break them."

Granny pushed off the table, commenting innocently over her shoulder. "You were never a prisoner... This is our medical bay. Honestly, as if we could contain you... Come on, show off. I'll get you something to wear. We've got a lot of sea to cover and only so much time to do it in." To Be Continued...