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M A R I L L A
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Sleep was a foreign friend who rarely visited me anymore.

Instead of even putting the efforts to try to sleep tonight, I was sitting at the windowsill with my knees folded upto my chest and my arms around them. My gaze was fixed out on the scenery of the massive sea as my mind rushed with a thousand thoughts all centered on a particular demon with particular grey eyes.

'I like you. I really really like you. A lot.' Zander's words echo in my ears like a broken record.

I groan burying my face in my folded knees as the tingling sensation in my stomach returns in full force.

'I could live with seeing you with someone else but I can't live with not seeing you at all.'

What was with his words? When did his inner non-existent romantic sprout out? And why did I just stare like a fool and didn't say a word the whole time he poured his heart out?

"Gods, Marilla! You're so emotionless!" I chastise myself as if there's some inner spirit that would listen and improve.

I should've atleast said something? But then what would I have possibly said. . . .

Everytime someone professes some deep feelings to me, my mind starts going blank and I start feeling overwhelmed. It's like I don't know why they would even feel like that. . . .

Not that I'm not amazing as it is but I just don't get it, alright?

Why am I fussing about this so much again?

'Because your mate just confessed to liking you and you kind of feel somewhat the same but are too much of a bitch to accept it. And then there's also the fact about Layla. . .' The annoying spirit in Valerian's form seems to speak to me.

The spirit doesn't really exist but I just made it up, by the way. And it has Valerian's face because Valerian is always right and he's also annoying and so is this non-existent spirit in my head.

Ugh, this is so messed up.

I'm pulling at my hairs in frustration thinking about the way I feel around Zander when I spot something along my sight outside the window, near the sea.

I squint my eyes trying to get a better look amidst the endless darkness and find Layla dragging something wrapped in a thick black blanket through the sandy shore-

I sprint off the windowsill in an instant the moment I notice the face jutting out from the blanket.

Dilin.

Oh, God. Dilin!

What is Layla-

My eyes widen in horror as I spot the dark patch of bloodstain around what I assume should be Dilin's chest. Layla's hands were bloodstained too. Her footsteps hurried towards the wild clashes of water.

The truth of the scene coils a fresh wave of dread and pain in me.

Layla killed Dilin.

He was like a friend to me.

And now she's dragging him to the sea. . . .

Without thinking about any consequences, I sprint out of my room barefooted and still in my sleeping robe.

The possessed nymphs and servants don't even spare me a glance as I rush past them towards the front yard that leads to the sea.

When I make it out to shore though, there's no sight of Layla or Dilin. Did she throw him in the sea and return already?

Amidst my almost blind sight due to no source of light here, I glance around desperately searching for any traces of the black blanketed figure. My eyes prick with panic when all I spot is the endless sea and it's shore.

A strong tide clatters against the shore pulling with it a huge rock into the sea. Mind still reeling, I watch the odd figure of the rock float along the wave and. . .

It isn't a rock.

It's Dilin.

His curly golden-brown locks float on the surface of the water as his blanketed form sails along the waves.

Not thinking twice, I run towards the figure.

Water splashes on my feet, on my ankles rushing up my knees over the material of my robe but I keep going trying to catch hold of Dilin before he's swept away completely into the sea.

It's so dark here I can barely make out anything but I keep my eyes focused to those golden-brown locks taking one step after another.

A strong cold wind blows sending a large wave towards the shore. I'm too busy focusing on Dilin's form to breach myself before it can hit me.

While I'm still half-immersed in the water, the wave drowns me from head to toe. I feel dirt enter my eyes making me rub at them.

But what a mistake that was.

I'm not even half as prepared for the next large wave along the wind and when it hits me, my balance slips.

Before I can register the horror of the situation, I'm being pulled into the sea with the velocity of a light.

Water enters my mouth and my voice gets lost within the waves as a scream leaves my mouth.

Trying to compose myself, I shut my eyes trying to shift into my siren form. Just seconds and I'll be able to swim through this like it's a piece of cake.

But seconds pass into minutes and nothing happens. The water starts suffocating my lungs and that's when I realize. . .

The Black Sea.

The curse.

Merfolks can't shift into their forms here.

Everything thrown into this sea gets drowned.

Oh shit.

Chilly horror swines up my spine. I flail my arms about trying to swim up in my human form but the more I try to go upwards, the more the water pulls me down.

It's like an invisible force pulling me down to the deepest pits.

My vision goes blurry as more water goes into my eyes, my nose, my mouth. I taste the blandness of the water. There's no salt in this sea. No wonder things drown in it faster.

As more minutes pass, the fight starts leaving my body. I feel my limbs go tired from moving them so much and that invisible force keeps pulling me down and down and down until. . . .

God, I don't want to die like this. I'm a creature of the sea and I'm dying from drowning? Is there something more ironic than that?

I start seeing black spots in my vision and just as my consciousness starts slipping, I feel arms wound around my waist.

That's the last I remember before darkness takes over.

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A U T H O R ' S   POV
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A figure of a man swam with an ethereal grace through the dark tunnels of water. He swam effortlessly despite the curse on the sea in his real form.

The curse could not do anything to him. It recognized its owner.

His long blue hair floated around his carved face and even in the darkness of the sea, his fishtail glowed a translucent blue as they flapped behind him while he swam upwards.

His eyes elecetric blue from the irises to the whites caught sight of Marilla drowning and her eyes falling shut as she lost her consciousness.

Without wasting a second, he swam with a speed that not even a siren could ever match and caught the girl in time before she could drown lower.

With his arms wrapping around the siren's waist holding her firmly in his grasp, he made his way in the water towards another drowning person.

The supposed person he was headed towards though wasn't the least bit unconscious or struggling. He seemed nonchalant about the fact he was drowning to begin with.

Infact, as the swimming man approached him, Dilin's eyes were wide open shining a bright gold in the dark sea.

The golden-brown haired boy's body had discarded away the blanket covering him. He was speeding downwards with every passing second but his eyes and focus was more busy scanning his chest with exagerated horror where the sharp crystal dagger was pierced into the skin.

The swimming man stopped for a moment wondering whether he should rather leave the idiot to himself but then he thought against it and swam ahead towards the fool anyways.

Dilin was too busy jutting out the dagger from his chest to pay heed to anything. And when the swimming man approached him and grabbed a fistful of his curly hair, he didn't seem the least bit surprised.

Infact Dilin seemed very much at ease as the man dragged him along by his hair like a cat dragging its kitten.

With Marilla and Dilin still in his hold, the man with the electric blue eyes swam upwards.

Not even the part of the seas encorcelled the strongest by the curse could touch his skin.

Water splashed around them as the three emerged out of the sea's liquid surface. The man holding the two people blinked and a shield of magic with blue currents covered Marilla and Dilin. This time instead of drowning, their bodies remained afloat the waves as chilly wind greeted them like a chime.

"I got stabbed in my heart!" Dilin whined instantly like a child throwing a whim, his face a mask of unbelief.

Pulling Marilla up in both his arms effortlessly now that he'd let go of Dilin's curly locks, the man passed Dilin a wry look, "Quit being dramatic. It isn't like you'd have died."

Dilin's gold eyes finally snapped up from his supposed wound and he narrowed them, "But it still hurts like a bitch! I couldn't get out of my sleepy state for good ten minutes! How could you not be considerate about my poor mortal feelings?"

"Might I remind you, I didn't stab you. And for the record, you're far from mortal." The man shook his head as if done with the creature in front of him.

"But I still feel mortal feelings. You're such an insensitive brute!" Dilin tossed away the bloodstained crystal dagger into the water, a weapon that could easily kill half the type of species thrown away as if it were a baseless pebble.

"Let me emphasize it for you," As if to fuel the already tantrum-throwing-Dilin, the blue-eyed man sent him a saint-like smile, "You're no mortal and you can't die, Apollo, God of music and dance, truth and knowledge, medicine and prophecies-"

"Stop stop, you're making me flustered!" Dilin-Apollo-waved his hand in front of his face in a swishing motion while his internal ego inflated like inferno.

The other man rolled his eyes at Dilin's antics. If it weren't for him holding the blue-haired girl in his arms, he'd have smacked the fool's head.

"On that note," Apollo began, "Can you believe, that lover boy of hers," He pointed a finger at the unconscious Marilla, "He said I suck at dancing! Me!Like duh, I'm the freaking God of music and dance-"

"If you're done with your self-praise and complaining, I suggest you take her to the castle on the isle." The man said glancing down at Marilla.

She looked pale but she'd be fine. Water wasn't lethal for merfolks. She'd just drowned but she'd be fine.

"Oh, I can't do that. I'm supposedly a 'dead man' after a certain woman stabbed me with a killing blow," Apollo pointed to his chest where the stab wound had already dissapeared to show smooth bare skin before looking back up, "If I go now, she'd doubt how I made it alive. Can't risk revealing my godly presence here. Zeus will fry me like a barbecue."

"Guessing by your bare self at this hour of night and knowing you aren't the one for having a bath after sundown, I'll assume you got stabbed while you were having sex? What did you do exactly? And who, pray tell, is this woman?" The man holding Marilla raised a brow in question at Apollo's naked form beneath the dark waves that covered his lower half of the body.

Apollo scratched the back of his neck coyly, "She's kind of. . .uh. . . you know the supposed owner of the isle we're headed to?" He rushed through the sentence but the other man caught onto it anyways,

He stared long and hard for a moment before giving the God with curly hair a look of disbelief, "You slept with the enemy?"

Apollo's mind went back to Layla sleeping soundlessly and to that moment when he'd swept off her hair from her face and she'd looked innocent.

"Ah...it kind of happened." He shrugged dismissing the topic, "Now can we just rather focus on how to leave Marilla there on the shore and signal so that lover boy can come find her? I'm sure you don't want to leave your daughter out there just like that."

The swimming man nodded, "Yeah-"

Those completely electric marine eyes widened all of a sudden as he registered the entirety of Apollo's words. He glanced at Appollo who stared back in that cunning cat-like manner of his,

"I always thought why you were so interested in Marilla. At first, I believed maybe it was for the throne since she is the queen. And maybe you kept tabs on her because you wished to take away the throne from the siren-hold and have it all to yourself without external rule like old times. I mean, power drives us all, doesn't it? But when you sent me to the isle pretending to be some immortal creature, so that I could find out about what feud Layla and Marilla had and what was the root of it, I reconsidered how it'd help you with acquiring the throne. There wasn't any need to find out about sisterly fights. There wasn't even any need to find the root of it that might actually help mend the hostility between them. You could just wait for Marilla and Layla to both end up dying in their own fued due to the curse on the crown. . . ."

Apollo's eyes flickered from the listening man's stunned expression to his blue-haired head void of any accessory, "Your crown. It was never stolen, was it? You gave it away and cursed it so that it can only be worn by the heir who has either one of your bloodline, yours or-"

"You need not mention her." The merman's voice was now deep, chilly and sinister, a warning lacing his tone.

But it didn't faze Apollo. Instead a look of confirmation took over his features.

"It's true then. She's your daughter," A slow smile pulled at his lips as he glanced from Marilla upto the man's face, "Poseidon, God of the seven seas."

Dilin is a God....

And Marilla is the daughter of another powerful God. Which makes her a half-goddess aka a demigoddess.

How did you like the bonanza revelation?

Also can you guess how Poseidon's daughter ended up as the former siren queen's second child?👀