Her eyes widened and she put down her fork. She felt a little threatened and suddenly her appetite seemed to subside.
“Cease to exist?” she repeated the words slowly through gritted teeth.
Had she married a psycho?
It had only been three weeks and he was already trying to control her as if she were a little child who knew nothing.
Don’t worry. Loch Ness is all bark and no bite.
Deciding not to bite the hook, she picked her fork and leisurely stabbed at her shark steak.
Loch Ness had apparently reduced himself to using scare tactics now that he’d made himself vulnerable by giving her a skeleton key and a pearl crown. He must have felt exposed and a little frightened that he’d given someone else the power to create. She supposed he thought he was the only one who could do magic.
“That’s right. You will cease to exist.”
What a bunch of fish guts.
“Really?”
Now King Loch Ness was laughing.
“I’m just telling you the way things work, my queen. Just like I have the power to destroy anything that exists within my crown, so do you. If you see something you don’t like, you may cast it out, because it is within the circle of your imagination. It is within the circle of you crown. Everything within your crown of pearls is yours, and you may do as you wish with anyone and anything you create.”
“Anything?”
Medallia felt a little guilty for wondering, but now that she had a crown, could she put a muzzle on King Loch Ness if he continued to act creepy and possessive?
“So you’re telling me I can destroy all the Mer Folk who I don’t like by casting them out of my imagination while wearing my pearl crown? I can kill anyone I want, like the mermaids who looked down on me when I was dolphin.”
Now King Loch Ness felt uneasy.
“No Medallia. I am life because I created life. Every creature I created lives on forever. You may do whatever is in your imagination to that creature, but life that I create doesn’t die.”
Why did he get the feeling she was up to something?
With a great thump, he flicked her crown off her head and spun it around his large finger. “Within your circle of imagination, you create infinite possibilities. As you wear your crown, those possibilities become reality. The things you don’t want to become reality won’t. You are the dreamer now, and you can choose what you dream. So dream beautiful happy things that you’d never want to destroy! Trust me; there is enough happiness and wealth to go around.
I’ve now given you power over every fish in the sea to handle their fate as you will. You, my dear, are second in command, and all the treasure in the ocean belongs to us, so be good to our fish!”
From that day on, Medallia never said anything else to alert Loch Ness to her subversive thinking patterns. She was too busy darting all over the ocean barking orders from her pink tortoise.
She wasn’t worried about Loch Ness and his silly threats.
He was just mad that someone else had a go at total power.
She didn’t know what he was so worried about. She wasn’t going to really hurt anybody. It was all innocent fun – pure innocent fun.
But one two many nights spent at Sea Shell Palace and Loch Ness was beginning to lose his patience.
He found it difficult to believe that his wife was so much more interested in spending seashells than spending time with him. After all, HE was the one who had the ability to provide her with all of those things she loved so much. How could she be so ungrateful?
King Loch Ness was beginning to suspect his wife didn’t love him at all, and that suspicion was confirmed the night he popped in Sea Shell Mansion at a most inopportune time.
He sensed something was amiss from the time he walked through the elaborate ivory double doors.
He followed the sound of giggles down the long corridor and into the champagne room, and it was there he had a gut-wrenching moment of clarity.
His larger-than-life pleasure pearl floated in the center of the party room, bobbing up and down like a buoy. Clearly there was movement taking place on the inside, and Loch Ness had a sinking feeling Medallia wasn’t in there giggling all by herself.
He stood outside the entrance of the pearl for what felt like an eternity. A little something died inside with every peal of laughter that echoed off the bubbling water inside.
Loch Ness always said time stood still when a heart breaks and there was no better description for that moment.
He had absolutely no clue how long he waited at the entrance.
It could have been five minutes. It could have been five days.
Finally, he heard Medallia’s voice through the wall of the pearl.
“Another glass of champagne?”
Within seconds she merrily floated out the exit, only to run straight into King Loch Ness himself.
Still in shock, he was speechless.
“Loch Ness, I was just giving Latticus a tour of SeaShell Mansion. Didn’t he mention to you that he wanted a tour?” she rambled. She couldn’t have looked guiltier if she tried.
Latticus - best friend of Loch Ness for more than ten years and Chief Merman to the throne. He would have trusted Latticus with his very life, and now Latticus had done the unthinkable – gone after his very own wife.
That was THEIR pleasure pearl – the one he’d given her as a gift on their honeymoon. She was mating in the gift he had given her.
Loch Ness shook his head in disbelief as she tried to play it off.
“Surely you’re not mad, Loch Ness. We’re just friends. I was only giving him a tour.” But Loch Ness wasn’t listening anymore.
Her guilty voice began to blend in with the sounds of the crashing waves.
He swam to top balcony of the 22-story mansion, the part of the mansion that jutted out above the water and far into the sky.
With the first touch of air, his fins transformed into a set of muscular legs atop broad and capable feet.
He walked slowly to the edge of her ivory balcony and looked out at her line of erupting volcanoes that disappeared into the darkness.
“Loch Ness, I’m sorry!”
He heard her call from behind him, but he couldn’t hear her anymore. Her voice didn’t matter anymore. She didn’t matter anymore. And he only had one more thing to say.
“Your boobs look as fake as they are, and your volcanoes? So cliché. Anyone could have thought of that. In fact, I don’t think you have a creative bone in your whole dirty, cheating body. And as for Latticus, since you guys are so close, you can let him know he’s fired.”
With that he dove off the edge, falling 22 stories down into the first ocean, crashing through the glass sea, and diving straight through the fire to the bottom of the second ocean.
What a swordfish he had lodged in his gut. The biting air felt good to his face, the salty ocean water soothed his wounded heart, but it was the fire - it was the ocean of fire that really burned her out of his heart. And no matter what, King Loch Ness knew there was nothing more painful than having someone you loved burned out of your heart.
He lay awake for hours on his bed of pearls that night, heavy-hearted from the tough decisions he would have to make. No one ever said it was easy to be King.
Now he had to punish something he had loved with his entire soul, and that was no easy task, even for a King.
At first he considered taking her crown, but he didn’t believe in taking back a gift. He could have cast her out of his imagination, but that was so incredibly drastic, since to be cast out of his imagination was to be burned alive in the Icarus.
After an entire night of contemplation, he finally came to a just decision. He wouldn’t destroy her. He would merely make her once again a beautiful blue dolphin – a sea servant as she was before. He would let her swim with the thousands of purple dolphins she had created herself. This way she would avoid punishment, and he would avoid further heartbreak.
All he had to do was
say the words and it was so. “Medallia Merryweather, my fallen queen, again you are a dolphin – a servant of the sea.”
CHAPTER FOUR: REVENGE OF THE DOLPHIN
There had never been a shrill so loud as Medallia’s when she woke up from her sleep to find herself surrounded by dolphins with large round noses. They were the same dolphins that had pulled her heavy pink tortoise on wilds rides through the caverns, but none of that mattered to Medallia.
She couldn’t believe they were giving her commands as if she was one of them.
This is insane.
“How can you think I’m one of you? I’m the Queen!”
They laughed. “She thinks just because she’s wearing a crown that she’s not a dolphin like us.”
She reached up for her pearl crown to find it still on her dolphin head. Relieved, she quickly transformed herself into a beautiful mermaid once again and swam away from the Sea Servants.
She’d show Loch Ness. How could he think he would make her a sea servant again? He’d given her the keys to the kingdom and by his own law, he couldn’t take them back. She knew that much.
He was only mad now because she had as much power as him. She could imagine things, too, and so she did. She imagined him to be the monster he really should have been.
“King Loch Ness, you are a hideous MONSTER!”
Her curse was a success, but not being one to look in the mirror, King Loch Ness never had a clue about his new appearance.
After losing an entire night’s sleep and content with justice being served, the King was concerned with more important matters such as taking a nap and meeting new female fishes.
He felt so much better after getting some sleep he decided to take an afternoon swim in one of his pleasure pearls in the second ocean. He was single again, and although his one sleepless night had been tough, he felt he had mourned long enough. Surely it was time to move on.
With a single tap of his magic finger, King Loch Ness could have easily taken back Medallia’s pearl imagination crown, but funny thing was, he completely forgot about Medallia.
Something about swimming around in a euphoric pleasure pearl hot tub with twelve new prospects had completely erased all thoughts of Medallia Merryweather from his mind.
It was an intoxicating party with six sexy mermaids, two sweet sharks, three killer whales, and one gypsy dolphin. No one alerted the King to his new monster appearance as it was normal for the King to wear many different ocean costumes, and no one ever challenged his whimsical ideas.
The gypsy dolphin sat at the farthest seat from King Loch Ness sipping her raspberry seaweed wine cooler. She had smoked as much seaweed as the other girls, but instead of feeling more confident, it only made her more insecure.
She knew she was chubby with a big nose and she had absolutely no chance with King Loch Ness. She wasn’t even sure why he invited her. Maybe it was so the others wouldn’t think he’d rigged the interview.
With the other mermaids floating around in the hot tub pearl lying eggs and flipping their sexy tail fins, what could King Loch Ness possibly want with a fat, big-nosed gypsy dolphin? And why did he keep staring at her as if she was a circus freak? Was she that terrible to look at that he could barely look away?
“What is your name, little gypsy dolphin?” he finally broke the sound of festive music with his deep gravelly monster voice.
“Daria.”
“Daria …..?”
“Daria DolphinCakes.”
She hated telling people her last name.
“Nice meeting you Ms. DolphinCakes. I’m really glad you decided to accept my invitation.”
Daria blushed and looked down. Apparently the King pitied her, and she really didn’t like to be pitied.
She couldn’t wait to get home and back to being a sea servant. It wasn’t her style to party with a bunch of egg-laying mermaids.
She had no idea that what the King felt was far from pity, but more fascination.
That evening after his prospects left, King Loch Ness simply couldn’t get Daria DolphinCakes off his mind. Sure, she was chubby and had three ex-dolphin husbands, but there was just something about that sweet dolphin smile. She was so different from Medallia.
Medallia! The King finally remembered her as he was resting on his bed of pearls. That crazy mermaid! He had a feeling in the lower part of his fish guts she’d done something terrible with her crown of pearls.
Not being able to sleep now, he headed straight to the secret cave hidden beneath his virtual reality throne at Pleasure Palace.
As light bounced off his computer screen, his reflection caught his eye. He stopped dead in his tracks, and returned to the reflective screen for a second look.
“What in the seashells do we have here?”
For the first time in days, he laughed until he cried.
That darned old water witch had transformed him into the goofiest monster he had ever seen.
He had a neck like a giraffe, scaly green skin, dragon nostrils, and a gigantic bulbous sea monster body.
“That crazy fish!”
He couldn’t stop laughing at first, and he wondered if it was one of the funniest things he’d ever seen.
Finally, Medallia thought of something creative. He had to give her props for that. Never in his entire closet of sea costumes had he ever imagined a monster as goofy as this. It was half giraffe, half whale.
“It’s so …. Me,” he spoke to his reflection as he admired his terrifying slimy scales.
Pleased as Loch Ness was with his new image, though, he couldn’t help but to wonder what kind of other mischief that crazy sea snake was up to.
Real punishment was now long overdue, but it was nothing that couldn’t wait as a sweet feeling of sleepiness overcame him on account of being so incredibly huge. Yes, he would deal with it all the next morning, and since Medallia cared so about public opinion, he’d make sure to punish her in public.
King Loch Ness rose early the next morning after a night of sweet monster dreams. He leisurely drank his coffee, ate his oatmeal and smoked a little seaweed before traveling down to his secret cave to send royal messages calling for a Grand Assembly.
He yawned and stretched as he slowly ascended to his Virtual Reality Throne via his seashell escalator. The weight of his monster body seemed to strain the gears and this made him start up his monster chuckles again.
By the time he arrived to his throne, every mermaid and merman in the entire ocean were already there. The great monster judge plopped down in his rainbow chair as usual, but this time his gigantic monster body poured out over the sides of the rainbow.
Queen Medallia stood fuming before the Royal Throne, elders and mermaid masses. He noticed she had transformed herself back into a mermaid again. Too good to be a dolphin?
“Medallia Merryweather, I order you to return to me your pearl crown.”
She lifted her chin up disobediently. “I’ll do no such thing. By your own royal decree: A gift is a gift. No noble king would take back a gift.”
Someone shouted belligerently from the crowd, “Where’s King Loch Ness? Did you eat him, you big ugly monster?”
Medallia grinned wickedly.
The court prophet Dog Fish whispered in the King’s ear.
“Queen Medallia has been sowing discord throughout the land all night. She’s been using her crown to transform any fish into whatever they want to be if only they’ll serve her and she’s been making hot tub pearls for everybody to swim in! It’s a disgrace to the throne! Stop her, Great King!”
The King boiled with anger that singed the hairs of his monster nose. He was finally losing patience with that silly sea snake. Still he paused and took a puff off his seaweed pipe, letting the anger simmer.
Smoke filled his great monster lungs but never came back out. Instead, words of fire like a dragon rained down punishment onto Medallia.
“You dirty water witch. You can keep your crown of pearls, my evil little mermaid. But, I must tell you the se
cret catch that I locked into the clasp of the pearl crown.
I didn’t tell you, but the imagination pearls become snake eggs if the crown of pearls sits upon the circle of an evil mind, and I declare today, Queen Medallia, that you have an evil mind!”
She gasped. Before the eyes of all Mer folk, the pearls of her crown cracked and hatched tiny black snakes that slowly slithered across her brow.
With a shrill scream that traveled to the ends of the oceans she fell to her mermaid knees. The tiny snakes enveloped her beauty, slithering in and out of her ears, biting her eyes, and causing her face to hideously swell. Within seconds one eye was measurably larger than the other.
Such tiny snakes, but such venomous bites.
She cried out in pain.
Loch Ness laughed.
“Who’s the monster now?”
Furious, she wrenched the crown of snakes from her noble purple hair and slammed it into the turquoise Throne of Glass where it shattered into millions of pearls.
The pearls floated away and into the sea.
It was too late for her salvation, though. The snake eggs had already hatched in her hair.
“Shattering your crown won’t help you now, oh wicked one! The snakes came from your heart, and now they’ll hatch forever in the nest of your hair, crawling throughout your body and mind and biting you for eternity. You’ll never know peace, for my magic said from the beginning:
If there be snakes in the soul beneath the royal crown,
They shall hatch more snakes and eat all that’s around.
They’ll slither in the ocean. They’ll slither on the ground
And they’ll bite all Mer who think they’re worthy of my crown.
Before he’d even finished his judgment, slimy, black snakes bolted from Medallia’s hair and out into the sea chasing the other Mer Folk.
Still others relaxed to nest in her beautiful hair and reproduce, viciously injecting every orifice of Medallia’s mermaid body with eternal venom.
Soul Snake: Two Thrones, One Queen Page 4