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Serpentine Adventure

S hriszra left the palace in a hurry. There was a lot on her mind on the way back to her humble home. The little crevasse dug into a rocky outcrop behind the crystal farms carried so many fond memories even if it looked unkempt. The stone was too tough there to allow crystals to thrive, and the lack of sunlight bred dull corals. Still, she preferred her natural home over the lavish enclosures adored by her siblings. Wealth never agreed with Shriszra, who saw no need of servants or a crystal palace that could support hundreds of serpents, yet housed only the king’s privileged tail.

The king…her father. The more she pondered on the implications of that position, the more flaws appeared out of the darkness Shriszra willingly draped over her eyes. Ignorance was bliss, and with a deal in place, she preferred to turn her eyes to brighter waters. After she grew close to Edward, the only good thing in her long, unfortunate life, Shriszra made a vow to himself; to only see the best in others, be they serpents, humans, or even the wild dragons of the high skies. Her own family counted among the many serpents her vow applied to, and for a while this self-imposed ignorance kept her blinded to the flaws of the serpents’ way of life, where those in power amassed more for themselves and only directed it in a way that fed their ever-growing ambitions.

One thing at a time, Shriszra thought to herself. She slowly strayed away from the Path of Glory, the suave movements of her tail taking her east, away from the coral farms that grew among the fertile sands of the city. Her ceremonial armor clacked together during the steeper turns that kept her sliding upon favorable currents. Oh, how eager she was to rid herself of this useless steel. Shriszra envied dragons for their natural armor. Scales were as durable as any of the crystals grown by serpents, looked better, and never itched, for Shriszra never heard of a dragon complaining about his own hide.

“My princess! A moment, if I may.”

Shriszra found herself instinctively attracted to a mint-striped male that broke away from the dozen coral keepers working the fields below with nothing but their bare claws.

She dipped her head in acknowledgement, at which the coral keeper bowed carefully, a more respectful way of greeting than the common tail-shake.

“May I talk, brightness?”

“Of course.” Shriszra pointed towards the baskets that hung from the male’s tail. “Do you need help with those?”

The male chuckled at that. “What would Shuzek think of me if I pass my own burdens to a princess? No, my fair lord. My corals are my own, just like my problems.”

“Are there any?” Shriszra looked over the fields that seemed to be in pristine shape. “The Deepnesssss seems to have learned its lesson.”

“Oh yes. No more of those pesky coral eaters prowling around this season, Shuzek be praised. It is not corals I wish to bother you about. You see, while I was spraying crystal powder over the dusky corals I could not help but notice an armored pod of serpents swim east. Now, I might be too quick to jump to conclusions after the glorious feast we held in your brother’s honor, bless him, but…they would not happen to find something conspicuous in your home, could they?”

Shriszra gave a vehement shake of her head. “Unless a coral bed is out of the ordinary, I have nothing to hide.”

“Something…” the serpent approached further, close enough to whisper. “Or someone who shouldn’t be there at this particular moment in time…”

Shriszra’s heart sank at the implications of that dreadful word.

“Gratitude,” she pumped her tail hard, not even bidding the coral keeper a proper farewell as she sped towards her home. That rotten king! How stupid was she, to even entertain the possibility that her father could show her a sliver of understanding?

Shriszra expected to see Edward in metal chains, dragged between the squad of armored serpents like a prisoner.Instead, she found them arranged in ranks in front of the crack that split the undersea mountain of her home in two uneven halves.

“What a timely arrival. I haven’t expected the runt princess to speed herself towards her demise.” An onyx serpent that could only be the group’s leader spoke with a cool, confident voice.

“Who are you?” Shriszra asked. “Why are you here?”

The serpent said nothing. Instead, he turned his head back towards the ranks of warriors assembled behind him, who began whispering among themselves.

Shriszra had an inkling as to why. Stiff metal encased her body from head to tail, whereas the warriors enjoyed the flexibility of durable crystal-forged, full-body armor sets. The leader’s emerald set must have been particularly expensive from the way it simmered in the darkness of the deep sea, casting green hues over the dull crystals of his followers. Only three others wore the bright colors of amber, sapphire, and scarlet. Generals or lieutenants, the humans called such ranks. Serpents had but two. Brightguards and warriors. One but had to prove their worthiness before the eyes of the king to earn their colors.

A fact that Shriszra knew painfully well now that she faced an entire squad of crystal-garbed serpents. Experience was written over their stern faces, sometime in the form of scars over their scales and cracks in in their armor.

Shriszra took a deep breath to still her racing heart. “If my king will ssssee me fall, then I shall oblige him. Better to sssstare death in the eye than to turn tail back to my city and leave the ssseasss ripe for plundering.”

Shriszra didn’t like how her voice stiffened and cracked towards the end. Warriors were like a pack of sharks, able to detect the faintest trace of weakness in others, thanks to an unfortunate past filled with betrayal.

Rippling whispers traveled through the crowd again. A few females pointed at her with their tail tips, while the rank of males at the back chuckled silently behind the rows formed by their brethren.

“She sounds convincing.” The leader looked at his army. “Did she convince you too?”

He received a few faint ayes that hardly changed his stern expression. “Well then, I would have closer look at this fearless fighter. See exactly what I’m working with. After all…we are going after the sort of humans she takes not as plunder, but as consorts to warm her frigid cunt with!”

Shriszra tensed. There was no combination of words she could say to turn that onyx shark back. With a smug look on his face and his armor spewing slivers of emerald light all around, the leader encroached upon the princess, his cold snout seeking one of her ears. “One so young should know better than to offer advice to her betters. How many fights have you seen from the comfort of your bed, my princess? All the slaying and killing came from the mouth of your mother in the form of stories when your cunt was too small to even be noticeable to the naked eye.”

“Nobody is born a fighter. Not even the king.” Shriszra shot back.

“The king, is it? You ought to speak in his name now? You might’ve grown from his blood, female, but that royal rank of yours only makes you a juicier target, so you’d better batter down that pride and come to your senses, because this is war, and in war…you rarely get a happy ending.”

He was right. Everything he spoke was true. A story painted by the eyes of those who entered the thick of battle without knowing whether they will return to their families, their homes…their mates.

“I…” Shriszra bowed her head before the leader of the squad. “I sssspoke out of turn. Accept my deepest apology.”

“Deep?” the serpent snarled. “Deep, is it? That’s how you had your soft-skinned lover take you? Deep and nice?”

Shriszra fought hard to maintain her confident pose as laughter erupted all around her. The neat ranks of warriors crumbled into a swarm of disarray, with curious serpents rushing from all sides to take a closer look at the embarrassed princess. Shriszra whirled around to push them back with tail and fins, but she was alone, and they, an army.

“Sssstop wasssting time! Let ussss proceed with our mission!” she shouted amidst the claws, tails, and snouts that sought to part the armor from her body. “There is no need for…whatever thissss issss.” Shriszra flinched as she felt something touch her soft underside. The serpents were taking turns at watching the wan underside of her body, the only place where armor could not protect her.

“Where is it?” one of then asked through the ceaseless prodding.

“Can’t see no gape in her cunt. Nagash has a rotten mouth for jokes. She must still be untaken!”

“I only spoke what I’ve already heard! That human takes her every night with cunt and limbs alike. It’s like he never tires of her crack!” the onyx serpent -Nagash, as named by his fellow warriors- silenced the murmurs of companions with a slap of his tail. “You are wrong, my warriors. The brave princess that honors us with her presence, the fearless warrior who rams death in the arse, is nothing but a tail raiser for humans. She does not take our life giving seed, but their filthy aqueous cream is mooore than welcome inside her frigid cunt!”

Chaos erupted among the army of serpents. Some were angry at her, while others took pity on her and attempted to defend the honor of their princess.

Nagash parted the crowd with a flick of his flipper so he could approach the princess alone, bringing his head so close their snouts almost touched. “You swim here with a smirk braver than any fighter I’ve seen, and believe me, over my twenty years of service, I have seen many wretches trying to cover the stench of their weakness. After all…what’s in it for you? Why so eager to throw yourself into the jaws of the beast when there is every chance to die without soaking that virgin cunt of yours with the seed of a proper male?”

“That’s my choice to make.” Shriszra said, her defensive stance broadening Nagash’s terrifying grin.

“Why the concern? Thinkin’ of his warm touch slithering along your rift? Afraid he’ll find another cunt after you die?”

“If we plan this well, nobody hassss to die.” Shriszra said, trying hard to keep her mind rooted in the present, away from the trap Nagash lured her into.

“Nobody has to die you say? Not even the humans who befoul our waters with their waste? Who try to claim our seas for themselves? Do you aim for a harem now> Or is it dragons and their juicy cocks you set your eyes upon?”

At that point, Nagash turned back to his troops who began to beat each other’s armor with their tails. The resonant chant of battle carried through the water in the form of ripples that traveled in all directions to let the sea itself know that serpents feared no enemy.

“Words travel fast around these waters, my princess, but it is a fool’s ears that allow mere rumors to convince them. I myself require a closer form of persuasion.”

Shriszra stiffened as the serpent nuzzled her cheek. Nagash advanced along her side, his crystals making a strange, dull sound as they scraped along Shriszra’s metal armor. “To gauge the true measure of character, one must be felt…”

Shriszra gritted her jaws in fear. The last she expected from this hateful male were his cold claws upon the bare underside of her body. Nagash slid his spears towards the base of her tail, four long icy rods that stiffened her body. “I must…probe deeper, to find the source of real courage.”

“Don’t…” Shriszra whispered.

But it was too late. One of the bastard’s claws already sunk all too easily into the soft rift of SeaLord’s last daughter, and instead of restraining the intrusion, her shuddering slit gaped to welcome the intruder beneath cold, fleshy folds. But Nagash was not her mate, gentle and kind. He pushed and poked at the sensitive flesh with no regard for the pain he caused.

Shriszra resisted the onslaught with not as much as a whimper. Edward never touched her in such crude way. He was warm, gentle, whereas Nagash poked his sharp claw around with sinister purpose. Who would follow her, a coward broken by the simplest of touches? Shriszra had to remain strong. Needed to prove to these warriors that she was not a whimpering weakling the foul rumors portrayed her as.

The only way to do so was to embrace the pain. Shriszra pushed into the claw so that her gentle flesh slid right along the probing claws, staring at Nagash with confidence strong enough to pierce mountains.

“Are you done?” she thumped her tail against her captor’s armor. “Or do you find your ssssenses sssstirred by touching a female down there?”

The onyx leader hissed. He wrenched his claw back to swim around the princess. “What you did with that human whore of yours does not concern me as long as you have the discipline to obey my commands. Are we clear on that, your highness?”

“No,” Shriszra bared her teeth. “My father vowed on the honor of his ancestorssss to keep our arrangement hidden, but I sssee now how little a king’s promise meansss to-“

Her words dispersed into a pained groan as she found herself wrapped in Nagash’s strong coils with two claws sharp enough to grab onto rocks pressing against her throat. “Listen here, you human-loving runt. Talk is talk, but to question our obedience and the sanctity of our king is a sure way to get your crevasse scraped of everything it holds inside.”

“Our…sacred king…promised me-“

“Storms, you are a thick one.” Nagash shoved Shriszra away. “What brothers share with each other remains between us. Isn’t that right?”

The sea rang with agreements.

“As much as it pains me to say, crystal armor or not, you belong to us until we see this task to its end. Now come. It’s time you learn what we’re up against.”

The army of dull serpents remained outside the crevasse while Shriszra slithered through the rift that led inside her home, right after Nagash and his three officers. Once inside, she was displeased to see that her home had been redecorated to fit in a plethora of supplies, including two fine crystal armors that occupied her bed. Perhaps one of them could be hers, if she played her cards right.

“Here.” One of the tacticians instructed her to approach near what looked to be a floating crystal on a bed of energized corals.

Shriszra moved her eyes to the containment bubble that held a single memory crystal suspended above a pile of regular ones.

“Move closer. The crystal doesn’t bite.” Nagash told her, then looked to the sapphire serpent next. “Kinzok, let’s run over the plan again so that our princess here does not swim head-first into the enemy lines.”

With a nod of his head and a few pokes of his claws, the serpent known as Kinzok ignited the memory crystal. Light flared around the room, so bright that Shriszra closed her eyes for a second. She saw memory crystals before, yet few packed as much information as the one in front of her. After the flash ended, Shriszra opened her eyes again to gaze upon a faithful depiction of four armored ships bearing the united colors of all the Highprinces in the king’s army. And that was not all. Above the ships flew a flock of gryphons so numerous their wings cast down shadows upon the armed men on the decks. Each ship carried at least two hundred of the best the king’s navy could muster.

“Th-thisss issss…”

“Our mission,” Nagash continued over Shriszra’s stuttered concerns. “It seems an impossible task for a greenhorn who hadn’t seen real combat. Honestly, what we have to do is simpler than conquering a harbor like your brother successfully managed two days back. Have you seen him crawling, Shriszra? Was his armor splintered? His body maimed by wounds?”

“No…” Shriszra muttered, her eyes glued to the formation of gryphons and soldiers sworn to protect the ships to their dying breath. Laken was not hurt, but then again, he faced a single Highprince, not four at the same time.

“Well then, if he can do it, why not us? Our task is simple. We will arm ourselves with the correct equipment and break through the hull of this ship like an egg. Emperor’s pride is our target,” Nagash circled one of the four armored ships, particularly the one that flew the symbol of Endryn, king of all humans. “Humans call them man’o’war. What I see is a chunk of wood propped upon metal so heavy it is a wonder how the ship even moves.”

“There…there is no ssssail on these.” Shriszra pointed to a hole in the ship’s backside. “That looks like a…no…it’d take too much energy. That is not possible with a ssssuppressssor on board, is it?”

Nagash’s claws clanked against Shriszra’s helmet. She hated being treated like a joke, but more than that, loathed to find herself thrown into the deep end. What could her father think, to attack the king’s personal convoy without less than a thousand of his sea guards? Crystal armor and brightspheres hardly matched the level of human advancement. Surely Nagash was wise enough to see that.

Problem was, he wasn’t. With the same confident smile on his face, he proceeded to joke about the king’s navy, calling his ships antiques, branding the men that sailed them pampered, and their gryphons fledglings barely old enough to keep themselves straight on the winds.

“It is a thick one to puncture. Tighter than a human’s arse, but not impossible to penetrate with our arsenal. Jofmun, what’s the easiest way to pierce our way into the bowels of that beast?”

The serpent with the amber armor swam over to the pile of spheres. The crystals of his armor flared with sizzling light when he picked up a sphere from the stash. “Sunburst spheres are highly corrosive on their own, but if we fuse them together…the bigger the bundle, the larger the explosion.”

“That will work. We’ll clump them up into cannonballs and hurl them at the King’s Pride before the bastard realizes what hit him. Can’t afford to have the humans mount a counter attack before we thin their numbers.”

“I agree,” the sapphire serpent pointed around all four ships. “We have to assume the humans are prepared to deal with threats from all sides.” He tapped the flock of gryphons that flew around the convoy. “Though we won’t have to worry about any of these chasers. Fast as they are, gryphons are incapable to fight beneath the waves.”

“Not if their riders hurl electric spears at us,” Nagash formed a few coils around himself, pensive. “I want more opinions.”

The three serpents continued to talk over tactics while Shriszra too coiled around herself to avoid showing the fear that took control of her muscles. This attack…it was too foolhardy. Not only was each ship loaded with archers, mages, and serpent trappers of all kind. They also had suppression devices that rendered magic completely useless up and below the convoy, leaving any unprepared attacker to be trapped and skewered to death.

“…we’ll drown that wee bastard of a prince and make off with all the loot we can carry.”

“No. That issss not the way.”

The four serpents turned their eyes to the source of the whisper.

“No? Am I to assume there is a better plan locked in that royal head of yours?”

Shriszra nodded, approached the memory crystal, then wrenched it out of the bubble to smash it against her steel plate. “We are not going to throw our livessss needlesssssly in pursssuit of my father’s ambitionssss.”

Nagash shook his head at that. “Oh dear, such a waste of a good crystal. Jofmun, put a spare up. Nafali, make sure our princess is sitting comfortably. We would not want her back to ache from all that…swimming.”

Shriszra swerved away from the serpents to deprive them of their spheres. She made it halfway to the pile before a tail drove the vision out of her head, and the next time she blinked her eyes she was in front of the same convoy wrapped in the coils of Nafali, the crimson armored serpent.

“Comfortable?” the female nuzzled her cheek mockingly.

“Not nearly as comfortable as we’ll be in the eternal sssslumber.” Shriszra spat out. “This is ssssuicide. Attacking the king’s fleet? Murdering the heir to the throne? My father isss mad to think such thing is even possible.“

Another tail connected with her snout hard enough to send her head smacking into Nafali’s crimson armor. Nagash grabbed the dazed princess within his coils, then pressed his nose against hers, pushing and pushing until the pain stung enough to coax a whimper out of her throat.

“You may speak ill of our king, but that word is forbidden even to a princess. Understand?” Nagash’s sharp claws scraped along the metal armor that encased the back of Shriszra’s neck. “Now put mind to purpose. What’s the fastest, safest way to break down the King’s Pride? Think hard. Our lives depend on it.”

“I need time to formulate an effective ssstrategy.”

“Time is a luxury we don’t have, you stupid runt!” Two more blows followed. Shriszra forced herself to remember all the relevant information for the task at hand, if only to convince Nagash of the futility of his actions.

Her words had the opposite effect. When he heard the mission could be done -from the mouth of a cowardly princess nonetheless- Nagash set the whole plan into motion.

“See? Your father did send you to us for a reason.” Nagash collected the memory crystal and motioned for his followers to grab one for themselves. “Share every detail we discussed with the rest of the troops, and be sure to remind them of their princess’ contribution. Shriszra has the utmost confidence in the success of this mission. Let’s make sure we give her brother a reason to be envious, hmm?”

The next hour passed in a blur. The squad got strapped with tail pouches filled with brightspheres, armor check-ups were done by the officers, and emboldening speeches that sounded impressive back then rang hollow now when weaknesses stirred within her upset stomach. Shriszra wondered about a lot of things. What if her armor failed? Metal shone beautifully in the light of the crystals, but it was not a warrior’s choice, and Shriszra beat herself up for not stealing one suit for herself.

I should have put it on. Why didn’t I swim back? Am I…starting to be afraid of my own home? Maybe I am afraid…afraid that, unlike Laken, I will never make it back to Edward…

Shriszra dispelled the cloud of doubts with a fierce shake of her head. Ahead of her, tails swished left and right to propel the army serpents forward. It was not the way of a princess, to swim at the back of the army, yet if she was to face her own doom, Shriszra preferred to do it so from a position she was comfortable with.

“Afraid?” A young voice distracted her from the monotonous chant of the ocean.

“Were I a dragon, I would have shivered all the same.” Shriszra chuckled. It made it easier, knowing she wasn’t the youngest of the bunch. The serpent that addressed her barely reached her third season judging by the young ivory spikes of her spine.

“May I…join you?”

Shriszra nodded to the young female that lagged behind the group to fall at her side. She was a tawny specimen, quite rare in these parts of the sea. Shriszra had a few questions about her birth place, but she kept them to herself to avoid scaring off the little warrior.

“They couldn’t give me a crystal set…but I have this helmet to relieve myself in when we spot the convoy.” The youth cradled the spiky thing to her chest even if it hurt. It made her feel better, to have a locus for her thoughts.

“I know exactly how you feel. This is my first battle too.” Shriszra said.

“Really?” The young serpent perked her head up, only for a moment before the doubts overtook her. “I suppose it’s better this way. My brother returned alongside Laken with barely a scratch. Father trained us to master our fear, but…I think something is broken in me, because…because I…” the female looked around to make sure no eyes saw her slide into the princess ’s plate armor. “Promise to keep it a secret?”

“Of course,” Shriszra smiled as she caressed the female’s sandy neck with her snout. “What they say about me being brave…it’s all a jest because none of them sssswims behind to ssssee me shivering like a ssssnail without her conch.”

The light brown female laughed with her, then her eyes sunk back to the bottom of the sea. “Every time someone asks me about my first mission…I tell them about my brother charging into the harbor, splintering the wood of the ships into dust alongside his brave friends. He risked his life alongside Laken, while I hid amongst the piles of debris and waited for the battle to end. I…I tried to fight my fears…then I saw my pod blasted apart by the cannons of the human fort. I couldn’t move…didn’t want to die before…before I got the chance to live, you know…”

Shriszra tried to remain impassive to the young one’s fate. The more she grew attached to somebody, the more it would hurt when…when-

“It’s alright,” she whispered as she clutched the smaller female tight against her armored chest. “I’m a princess whose best friend is fear. I had to deal with it all my life.”

“That’s not very encouraging.” The smaller female whispered.

“It is…if princesses can be afraid, so can their fathers. Fear is not something to be shunned. Think of it as a teacher who reminds you to stay upon the proper path.”

“I’m trying.”

Shriszra let the serpent go. “You can stay at the rear with me. Nagash knows I’m not effective in a big battle, and they won’t risk my life needlessly.”

The young female nodded. She swam a few meters away, then quickly returned. “The rumors…about you and that human. Is it true that…you took him as a mate?”

“Edward,” Shriszra’s mouth parted without accord, yet she felt relieved when the sweet name of her mate came out in the open. “He is wise beyond his yearssss, and braver than any ssserpent I know. If he was here, he would embolden ussss long before we reach that convoy. You’d like him.”

The tawny serpent dipped her head. “I…I want to know something else.”

Shriszra bumped into her new friend. “Anything apart from what the rumors insist on. We would not want you to be sssstained by my shame now, would we?”

“Please. I…already am stained, in a weird way. I mean…I had a few weird dreams where…”

“Where?” When the young one said nothing, Shriszra continued. “These dreams…were they…warm?”

The shy female dipped her head. “My tail feels so sensitive when my male mate puts it in. Then I wake up tense, and I see my seed floating all around. I hate these dreams. They make me tired, tense, curious about things a serpent should not think of.”

“Such as?” Shriszra pressed on. “Go on. You made it this far. I can only help you if I know the nature of your ailments.”

“Well…there have been a few dreams where my brother and I… no. It’s just stupid dreams. You’ll shun me if I say.”

“I think I know what you mean,” Shriszra nuzzled her way along the female’s neck. “He mated you in the tail, has she not?”

“I want to know if it feels the same when you mate for real, so that these dreams stop coming to me every few nights. Please…tell me everything about it.”

Blushing heavily, Shriszra told the young female everything about her own experiences with Edward. Receiving a human inside was not the same as mating with a serpent or getting her other hole penetrated. It was much better than that, her insides burning with a pleasant heat that kept on building throughout the mating until it washed through her entire body in an explosion of pure ecstasy. She went over the weakness produced by her mate whenever his practiced hand caressed her nether regions, talked of the thrill that awakened in her as she felt Edward’s warm body sliding his hard, erect member along her soft, quivering lips, then insisted on the ecstatic union that coupled their bodies and minds together into an universe of indescribable pleasure.

By the end of the tale, Shriszra fought hard to turn her attention back to squad of serpents ahead, her mind tempted to remain trapped in that perfect moment where her dearest human- her mate - filled her with the warm throbs of his love and devotion.

After she learned everything she wanted, the young serpent left her with a shy lick over her cheek. She was gone, and suddenly, Shriszra felt guilty for letting her sink back into the slithering lines of the other warriors, as she had no easy way of distinguishing her friend from the rest of her brethren.

I’ll see you after the battle…my little friend, Shriszra thought. A wave of determination started to push against the fear of the upcoming battle now that she had something else to fight for: a young, nameless serpent who was just as shy and sexually deviant as her.

It took a few hours for them to trespass into the empire’s seas. The sun turned ruddy halfway through the journey, casting its auburn rays upon the reflective surface of the sea. In the cover of night’s emerging darkness, the serpent squad regrouped amidst the rocky bottom of the eastern Red Sea to rest before the battle. Nagash tasked his brightguards with raising the morale of the few struck by the tendrils of fear. Though Shriszra felt a debilitating weakness in her stomach, she was not one of them, so she remained with the rest of the braves, listening carefully to the tactics whispered between the more eager combatants. Two lines of serpents had been tasked to form a safety belt around the ships in case the king smelled the attack or worse, pirates took advantage of the ensuing chaos to plunder everything. The third line acted as a distraction for the three other ships, while the fourth made up of the bravest of fighters attacked the ship outright.

“My princess, come with me.”

Shriszra scoffed when Nagash personally placed her at the back with the rest of the cowards on account of her importance. Like anybody ever cared about her name and title before.

The attack began with the coming of the night. A flurry of projectiles lit up by the artificers and swung by the mighty tails of the warriors, their savage swipes sending the cluster of brightspheres blazing towards the human ships from the depths of the Red Sea. The clusters met the armored hull of the King’s Pride in a splintering explosion that sent metal and wood fly over the agitated surface of the water.

There were no cheers. No joy. Stern as ever, the serpents kept up the attack, lighting up sea and sky with the color of their vengeance. Shriszra felt something was odd. Any normal squad would have rejoiced such victory. Hers, however, seemed keen on finishing what they started, maintaining the attack.

“Why are they not attacking?” Shriszra turned to one of the cowards, a violet serpent who shrugged at her stupid question. “I see no spears, and the screeches…there aren’t any-“

“The humans? Who cares? To the depths with all of them,” one of the other cowards made a rude gesture at the princess.

Shriszra broke away from her group. She swam upwards, towards the wails and screams that could not possibly belong to the trained soldiers the memory crystal showed. When her head poked out of the water, Shriszra was left aghast to see the true face of her enemy. Merchants. Travelers. Desperate sailors fighting against the fires that enveloped the decks of their ships, the smoke of the burning sails creating a choking miasma of burned cloth, wood, and death. Two of the ships already succumbed to the waters, their previous inhabitants desperately clutching to any part of their sinking ship they could find.

These were not fighters. Women and children floated amidst the pile of debris and goods spilled by the sinking ships.

And Shriszra’s brave warriors took advantage of the chaos, picking up the defenseless humans like a pack of hungry sharks. There were no gryphons in the sky to stop them, and with the ships in tatters, nothing could stand between them and certain death.

“STOP!” Shriszra dived back under the churning waves to charge head-first into a serpent that aimed to end the life of a mere girl.

“What is the meaning of this?” the male snarled in her face as the two coiled around each other.

“Those are merchants we’re killing. Merchants, not warriorssss!”

“We do not question our king!” another serpent said from behind.

Shriszra groaned as two more serpents restrained her, rendering her completely immobile.

“Ssss-stop! My father would never order such massacre! I order you to stand down now!”

Nobody listened, so Shriszra took the fight to her own kin. First, she bit and clawed her way free, then swam back to the depths where she stripped as many serpents as she could of their brightspheres. At first the rouse worked. Her brethren had been too distracted to react in the heat of the moment, and those that did dared not to hurt a princess.

However, Nagash was an entirely different story. As soon as he caught sight of Shriszra’s disobedience, he ordered his warriors to restrain her all over again. It took five serpents to restrain her frantic desire to help those who could not help themselves.

“Do you feel powerful, picking on the weak and the defenseless?” Shriszra spat out. Above her, she could still hear the cries of humans asking for help that would never arrive. “What honor is there in hunting merchantsss and travelerssss who only ssssseek to live in peace?”

“Shut it, runt.” Nagash snarled in her face. “These peaceful humans of yours built the foundation of the empire that stole the seas from us. Slayed countless numbers of our kin. I am no noble, to stand at the back while others die for me. I had to bury five brothers and twelve sisters under the sands! What did you sacrifice? What did you give to our people apart from your reputation when you became a slave to your human?”

“Vengeance is not the answer, you impotent bastard!” Shriszra hissed.

“Aye. That’s what we got a leader for.” The commander rewarded the princess with a hard slap across her face, though Shriszra was grateful it was a smooth fin that connected with her face instead of the tough crystals of the attached armor.

“Warriors! Take her back home if she cannot stomach a real battle.”

“Real?” Shriszra shook powerlessly against her restraints. “You dare call this joke a battle?”

“You had a task. A simple order to stay the storms back.” Nagash ranted right in her face.

“I am sorry for not abiding to basssssic rulesssss when we sssstoop so low as to attack unarmed shipssss.”

“Release this cunt,” Nagash said to his fellow warriors. “It’s time I teach the wee princess a lesson in who towers above her.”

The fight was short and brutal. Nagash was not prepared for the huntress he unleashed. Aimed with a deep sense of compassion for the creatures that gave her so much joy throughout her long life, Shriszra came at her enemy like the storm itself, stripping Nagash off his armor piece by piece before she managed a direct tail to the slit that sent Nagash to the seabed, reeling with pain.

“I…admit…this outcome is not what I expected. Your father will hear of this, you human loving bitch.” The serpent croaked as two of the warriors inspired by Shriszra’s victory restrained him.

“I am counting on it,” Shriszra declared.

With Nagash defeated, Shriszra assumed command of all the serpents and ordered an immediate cessation of hostilities. The warriors who previously delighted in hunting down their prey now ferried the surviving humans towards the nearest island under the princess orders, who gave them a single choice. Either help the humans, or be declared outcasts. She knew that such a ploy would unravel as soon as she returned to the city, yet for the time being, Shriszra enjoyed the fleeting taste of victory, for today she saved not one, but hundreds of lives from the cold clutches of the deep, hungry sea.

To be Continued...