UNDER THE SEA
As time went by, Lia finally reached the front of the line. There she noticed that the security guy wasn't actually a merman if anything he looked like he was an odd combination of a mer and a seahorse.
On his head, he had two weird pipe-like ears coming from the sides of his forehead and stood upright. Every few minutes it would shake, and he would produce an odd neigh like voice. It was a comical scene, and Lia wondered how no one actually laughed. Her lips fought to restrain her laughter.
Oh, no if she did, it would be a disaster. She blinked a few times and decided to look downward. Lia saw that he had only one tail that was thick and long, packed with good muscles and each line was unusually prominent. It could swerve around her body and suffocate her to death, and that thought alone had caused all good humor to fly out of her mind.
When both of her and her mother stood right in front of the guard, his eyes instantly widened and his ears started flipping left and right, each in a different direction. He kept uttering weird noises and saying things even Lia couldn't understand.
An identical looking guard rushed out of the doors to help his mate and also began shaking the moment he saw them.
Lia, at that moment, almost couldn't hold her laughter in, and a small chuckle had escaped her lips before she slapped a hand onto her mouth.
Her body was begging her to let go and laugh out loud, but that would probably make her mother kill her. She held it in a few more seconds until she nearly gave up, and at the exact moment, she felt a pressure on her hand.
Looking down, there was a soft and perfectly shaped five-fingered hand, and one look at the faint golden scales, she knew it was Vanora's. She saw her hand trembling, and Lia thought that her mother was going to release her anger on her for disrespecting the guards.
Yet, the moment she looked up, she saw her mother's shoulders shake and a hand was also on her mouth. Both of their eyes clashed together, and slowly tears started to form.
No, they had to hold it in.
At that point, a third guard had come out and his body also fell into that natural response, yet this time, they were able to get them in. They swam toward a secluded area that stood higher than the rest of the seating areas, almost as if it was a room. Lia saw the destroyed walls on each side and wondered how the small 'open-room' looked like originally.
For a private and honored place, it looked really haggard and completely different than what she remembered. It looked almost haunted.
After the guard checked that they were in place and that they didn't need anything extra, he left them be. The moment they were alone in the room, both her and Vanora burst out laughing, almost doubling in on the ground.
They had made sure that their laughter and thoughts wouldn't reach anyone nearby, but it had taken them a few moments to hold their bearings back together. Lia noticed a far away mermaid snapping her gaze to look at both of them. The moment her mother saw that too, her laughter was long gone, and in her eyes was the usual coldness that everyone was used to.
But for Lia, it wasn't necessary for her to hide her emotions, so she merely smiled gently at the mermaid and looked down at the open arena. She saw how many mermaids had come from all different oceans and environments, and how their skin color and tails told from where they are from.
Because you see, mermaids were very adaptable creatures. For example. If they needed to swim deeply inside the ocean, then they could produce a chemical inside their bodies that would allow them to handle any type of pressure.
But, years of living in one environment, had made each mermaid very different, whether it was the glitter in their bodies, or the extra ears they were born with. Each family had evolved very differently.
Lia liked such moments. She could see and prove that there was so much more in the world that even mermaids didn't know of. It was only their pride and ego that stopped them from educating themselves.
As Lia was lost in her thoughts, the crowd suddenly had grown silent, and one of the guards walked inside the circle. In his hand, there was an instrument shaped like a tentacle and had two opening at each end. He only needed to take one breath in, and then direct it onto one of the ends, while holding onto the keys on the right sides.
That single breath had produced an ear-deafening voice. Well, to the normal humans it would be ear-deafening. But for the sea community, it was loud enough to capture their attention and was able to spread to every area nearby, announcing the beginning of the gathering.
The sound continued to echo for a while, and that alone had brought Lia back to reality. The seahorse-mermaid hid the instrument behind his back, in a pocket of some kind and moved his tail with a force enough to swim away from the spotlight. It was only then that Lia saw small prodding spines coming out of the tail that was incredibly thin, which was why she hadn't noticed them until now. But she knew that they were probably very sharp with the way they were standing up straight.
The moment the guard moved away, the ground starts shaking and the vibration traveled through the water and surrounded every attendee. It was such large turbulence, that everyone to onto their or the next to them. Everyone's attention was onto the stage.
The ancient ground slowly split in half, opening its mouth slowly and creating havoc in its place. What they saw underneath was a black abyss, complete emptiness. It was a place where both light and sound wouldn't be able to travel in.
Horrified, some mermaids tried to move away and escape, but all of them were quickly stopped in place and were instantly reminded that this whole event was meant to hear out what the king had to say.
Lia heard her mother grunting, "that sick man." Vanora cracked a few bones as she fisted her hands. "He always loved to make grandiose appearances."
Seeing how her mother was getting agitated again, Lia leaned in quietly. "Mom, you are letting out your true thoughts," she whispered. In an instant, her mother changed demeanor again.
In another place and time, Lia would have commented on such a thing, but for now, her eyes were still trained on the main event. As the ground finally stood still, and the stage was still open wide, they saw a figure of a merman rising from the darkness.
