“The Water Folk will be attending the final battle.” This causes the rest of the men to turn and talk. Shit! The Water Folk have stayed neutral in all human affairs. That’s a huge plot reveal in the first three minutes.
“You live in the saltwater, a land battle will kill you,” the Pirate King states in a low, gravelly voice.
The Mer King answers, in a slow and clear tone, “My daughter was captured by the fisherman and sold to the Royal alliance.” That scene was absolutely heartbreaking. I cried for two weeks every time I thought about it. The Mer King continues, “Three months ago she was rescued by a woman from the rebels.” The Mer King’s golden fins ripple, catching the light in the room and appearing more radiant as he rises higher out of the water, and the camera zooms in. “The woman sang the song of my daughter’s birth.”
“That’s not possible,” the Pirate King says. “The only woman who witnessed your daughter’s birthsong is dead.”
Then the camera shifts to show the dark cavern deep inside the Pirate King’s mind. The Demon lays on his back staring at the ceiling unfazed by this new information, and the Dragon lifts up his head from his sleep. The Dragon stretches his neck, each scale cracking as he moves. The camera shifts, and we can see the monsters’ view of the human’s world, and the mermen in the pool bob up and down. The Dragon’s eyes turn black, and the Demon finally sits up.
Behind the Mer King float his two guards. The camera flips between the younger guard and the Dragon. The Dragon gains control of the Pirate King’s hand and body. His long talons and scaling skin slide across the human’s hands. The Pirate King’s face turns more reptile, his eyes morph into a yellow hue with black slits. He stands, wobbles uneasily on two legs, and trudges towards the pool. He reaches past the king, who yells in protest but the clawed hand grabs one of the guards by the armor pulling out a necklace with a blue scale.
“Where did you get this?” he hisses.
Alana leans forward, and I pull my knees to my chest.
“I pulled it out of the hull of one of the Royal Navy boats,” the guard stammers. The scaly hand tugs on the necklace again and yanks it off. The camera zooms in as he flips the blue scale in his hands. Inside the Pirate King’s mind, the Demon stands and leans forward.
“What is it?” He growls.
“Dragon scale,” the Dragon’s voice says in a hushed whisper. The Dragon withdraws his control of the Pirate King’s body as he strokes the scale with his human fingers.
Memories and scenes from the past three seasons montage across the screen. The camera zooms in on his face and as his lips curl up. He pumps his hand in the air and dangles the scale necklace between his fingers.
“We will fight beside the Water Folk and the Rebels during the final battle,” he announces to the men. The Mer King gills flap open and shut.
“Why the change of heart?”
“Because Lady Elnona lives.”
The screen goes black, and Alana and I are on our feet cheering. For three years this character has lost hope, killed thousands of men and tortured himself, and now he’s got the first shred of evidence she’s alive. I fight back my tears. Alana is fanning herself with her hands.
“OH MY GOD!” I’m not sure which one of us yells. We’re still in our little fandom bliss when Alana yells, “Shit! The auction.”
She sits down as she grabs her phone and starts typing away. I grab my phone and while I want to scroll through the internet to watch reaction videos and see how the fandom is freaking out, I need to focus on the auction too. But Alana is still busy, her face is buried in her phone.
“What’s the bid at now?” I ask.
“One hundred thousand,” she says with a flat and annoyed tone.
“For a script?” Wow, way over my budget. Glad I backed out when I did.
She’s still typing away, scooting closer to the edge of her seat. She mumbles expletives whenever she loses a bid and curses louder when she’s a winner. Each bid adds ten seconds to the countdown. And whoever she’s battling isn’t giving up.
“You aren’t bidding, are you?” she asks but doesn’t take her attention away from her screen.
“Nope, this is too rich for my blood.”
Her lip curls at the corners and she makes one last bid at the literal last second. Winner flashes across her screen. She tosses her phone to the side as she jumps and does a victory dance. But she looks like a dying fish flopping on a pier. I see dancing is one skill she did not improve on over our time apart.
But I love seeing the joy pouring out of her. Her competitive nature is another thing that hasn’t changed over the years. She sits down and laces her fingers together, resting them on the back of her head. She used to take the same stance when we played Uno.
“I guess you won.”
“Yeah, but I had to sacrifice my birthday gift to get Hadeon’s script for Penny. It’s fine. I’ll force him to get me something else. Did you get what you wanted?” She sits perfectly there, regal, happy and stunning. The dress is not meant to be in a lean back position, and it exposed more of her cleavage. The slit up the side of the leg reveals her thighs.
More. I want more.
“Almost,” I admit. Her gaze meets mine, and my stomach flips.
