Tanked

In some form or another, parents always seem to tell their children a story or two. The story mine used to tell me, only dutifully and never with love, comes to mind now. They told me things like not to grab anything that seems suspended in time, or not to get too close to the surface if a machine from above was near or in the waters. They told me those things were humans, trying to trap us so they could keep us as pets and slaves and make us their living entertainment. It was common sense to stay away from ships and fishing lines, unless you intended to get caught or hit. But I never really believed the part about the cruelty of the humans. I was wrong to think so naively.

They only got four of us and I happened to be one of those unfortunate four. Allow me to explain.

I was born into a technically royal family. My family was actually a proud heritage of royal servants; my bloodline bound me to the service of the court. There was no escaping my destiny to be the servant of the royal family. I, in accordance with what everyone else would say, was honored to be allowed to directly serve the prince.

Prince Synris is my master and I am his ever-loyal servant. Only death would allow me to escape that fate. So, I have been in the service of the prince since I was six. We’ve pretty much grown up together, him and I, and I would go as far as to say that we’re best friends-err as close to that as we could be in our positions. We did get along, so it wasn’t as bad as it could have been.

Well the king decided that Synris, and by extension I too, had to attend the Oceans’ meeting. There were two kingdoms, East and West, and every thirteen moon cycles the kings had a meeting.

All in all, it was a boring event. I preferred it to swimming through another dizzying event that Synris was notorious for hosting when his father left though... Synris didn’t even try to hide how bored he was and kept making faces at Salo.

Halfway through, right as the king of the Atlantic was about to say something about the trading system; these terrifying, thick shelled fish with equally strange fins came from nowhere.

We scattered, all of us panicked by the intrusion of these things. I followed Synris, out of loyalty or instinct I still don’t know.

For some, unimaginable and likely stupid tail reason, Synris stopped. I tried to push and pull him, screaming at him to move!

But he wouldn’t. He had to watch them.

And then one came up behind us… and you can guess what happened.

They turned out to be containers, the things that chased us. They were metal machines the humans rode inside and controlled. They captured me, Prince Synris, Princess Zephic, and her servant Lady Salo.

The events here get...fuzzy. I was unconscious for most of it, I think. It’s... hard to explain. Even if I could recall clearly, I don’t think I would have the words.

There were a lot of garbled noises that didn’t make sense and a lot of jostling and I remember being scared. Thrashing and then everything got really blurry and dark.

When things got clear again, I knew I wasn’t in the ocean. I thought I was alone in the space I awoke. There weren’t any other fish, just stalks of kelp growing up from the sand. I started to swim around, dizzy still. I found Synris and he didn’t understand either. He had only pieced together that we were in a big, partially clear cage.

We swam around together then. There wasn’t a whole lot in the cage with us. Just shells in the sand and kelp. When I went to the top, hoping for fresh air, I found a wide metal bar above. Humans were on it. One saw us and pointed, both smiled. They were talking about something and I couldn’t understand and didn’t care so I dove back down to get away.

I went back to Synris then. He was at the clear wall of the cage and looking out at something. I looked to see what it was.

This side showed a colored space large enough to fit dozens or more in it. Across the empty space was another clear cage. Inside that one, looking back at us, was Princess Zephic and Lady Salo.

We all looked at each other for some time before they swam away and out of view. It was another moment before Synris pulled me away.

I found a place to rest. Synris swam around on his own for a while.

One side of the cage was clear, the others were decorated to look like rock but were clearly fake. Truthfully, it was more like a neat and bright cave with the top and one side missing.

Synris came and rejoined me finally. We sat in silence for what felt like a long time before he finally spoke.

“In hindsight, I suppose I really should have listened to you. I apologize for getting you into this...” He expressed to me.

“Well... at least they didn’t separate us. It would be much harder to deal with by ourselves, right?” I tried to comfort him, but truthfully, I was still terrified, and this was his fault mostly.

“True... Thank you Ayrice.”

I nodded as I shifted a bit where I rested, pushing some sand away with my tail.

“Things are different here. This isn’t the ocean we grew up in. Also, it’s more or less just us. Even if Zephic and Salo join us it’s still just the four of us. There’s no longer a need to keep up appearances,” Synris continued a few moments later.

I looked at him a bit, puzzled by where this was going. “What do you mean?”

He smiled at me. “I mean there is no longer a reason to keep titles and to treat each other as master and servant. We need each other still but not like that. We need each other as support.”

“Alright,” I agreed.

We stayed near each other then; talking for some time. We even laughed a little at some of the memories we shared.