Chapter 13: Queen

Alurel hadn’t forgotten about her meeting with Ethan. She had said she’d meet again in the morning yesterday. She was excited to tell him the news, to let him bask the sight of the new queen.

With her practice and time, her familiarity with her powers increased to the point they were near second-nature to her. She could swim faster than ever, and felt like she didn’t even need to swim. Rather than move through currents, she could just will mighty currents to move her.

In this way, she was at the island, leaning against the clifftop early in the morning, when the sun rise neared its completion.

Ethan was already there of course, ever diligent and devoted. He had his basket with him again, with another white cloth on it. He had on a clean white shirt and white trousers this time. He still wore his brown boots. His head looked at her form, angling upwards, speechless.

“Alurel, y-you’re glowing.”

“Yes.” she said. And she saw his shock widen at hearing her new voice.

“W-what happened. Did you get the Trident? You seem so different.”

“Of course I did.”, she said. She pointed to her golden, three-pronged tiara that she wore on her head. “It’s right there. I didn’t need it for long, so I turned it into a little tiara, a crown. I’ve finally done it Ethan, I’m queen of the seas.”

“That’s fantastic.”, he said. “B-but without the Trident, how will you wield the powers of the-”

“The power of the Trident is mine now. I took it. It belongs to me, within me. I am the power of the seas and storm.”

“I-I see.” He looked to her light-purple hair, which was now much thicker with soft tapered ends.

“W-what did you do to your hair? It looks like the tentacles of a sea anemone.”

She giggled.

“Oh Ethan, you silly man, that’s exactly what I based my new hair on. Do you like it?”

Her ‘hair’ wiggled by her will, and he shivered slightly.

“I, well, it might take some getting used to, but like everything about you, I can see myself loving it with only a bit of time. Your new glow accentuates your beauty.”

She smiled. “Say, what’s in the basket.”

“Oh, I brought you another gift.”

He reached in and pulled out a colorful collection of flowers. He held them up to her, and she leaned in to see and sniff them.

“It’s a bundle of flowers, a bouquet. I figured you might like it. They are all from land, so you might’ve not seen them.”

She smiled, taking another inhale of their floral scent. He had to steady himself against the ground to avoid moving with that gust of wind.

“Oh Ethan.”, she said, staring at him with her golden-glowing, green-irised eyes. “They are lovely. It’s a very thoughtful gift. I just can’t wait to see flowers like that more often.”

She reached out and gently patted his head, as gentle as she could. With the powers she had, she found it easier to be gentle if she saw fit. Her very ability to control her body had improved--a great and impressive deal, in fact.

“It’s thanks to this my plan finally worked. I can finally unite the kingdoms of land, and of sea.”

She moved her other hand near, holding out the pad of her finger. He placed the bouquet there, and she brought it up, gave it one look, then tossed it over her shoulder.

“Hey Alurel, why’d you throw them like that?”

She laughed.

“So they might sink. Perhaps some fish will see them along the way; it’ll be a hint of what’s to come.”

“Ah,”, he said. “You mean like diplomacy, trade?”

“Oh, much more than that.”, she said. “Don’t you see Ethan, I’ll be bringing the land into the waters. All the humans, yourself included, will be part of my new queendom.”

“What? Alurel, that’s not what was discussed. You, you are going to drown The Afflelands?”

She giggled.

“No silly, not just those Afflelands of yours. I’m going to bring the whole land-world into the sea!”

Ethan was shocked, he moved away from her fingers.

“That’s not what I thought you meant, all that talk about our world being part of yours.”

“Yes.”, said Alurel. That new radiant ‘tint’ to her voice began to disturb him. “Your would will become a literal part of my world: my queendom.”

She smiled

“Don’t worry though, I’ll oversee everyone as the world’s new queen. The one queen: there are no other kings, princes, or princesses now. There are no other rulers. I’ll be able to change everyone to live under the water: to breathe and talk there like we seafolk. I’ve been practicing changing things, like my hair! And you, Ethan...”

She moved her finger down from his head to the tip of his back, pressing and rubbing there carefully.

“You will have a high ranking place in my coming harem as a reward for all your help.”

“H-h-harem!” He was shocked yet again, too much to move from that finger which dwarfed his form.

“What do you mean harem? I love you Alurel, I thought we would be together, the two of us!”

“Oh silly Ethan, of course you love me. I’m beautiful and sweet. In time, everyone in my new sea queendom will love me, their new queen. But, you can’t expect me to just be satisfied with one man right? One measly person? That’d be so selfish of you.”

“Selfish?!?!?” He pushed himself away from the finger.

“This, this isn’t what I expected. This isn’t what I wanted. You played with my heart! I thought our kingdoms would just trade with one another, we’d meet at the island, share tales of our successes. But you, you want to drown us all! To end life on land as we know it. You’re a monster, a monster!”

Alurel frowned.

“Now don’t be so short-sighted Ethan: so unimaginative. I know you’re just a human, so it might be hard to picture yourself under the sea, but I think you’ll enjoy it. You’ll enjoy being part of my queendom. Although, I’m not sure I’ll change people to be immortal: human lives being so short makes them special in a way, and it makes my own eternal life feel even more special, don’t you think?”

“No!”, he shouted. “I don’t want to be a part of your new world. I don’t want to be a part of you at all. You stay away from me, and you stay away from the Afflelands.”

Her turned to run down the cliff back towards the beach. He didn’t get far till he heard a great swish through the air, and he felt something wrap itself around his torso, holding him stopped. It was wet, rubbery.

He looked down to see the tip of dark-green tentacle wrapped around his body. He turned to see it got way thicker as a limb, and seemed to come from Alurel. Her felt suckers from it pressing against his chest through his shirt.

“W-what is this?”

Alurel giggled.

“The sea-witches had one good quality to them I think. Tentacles are rather handy. I can swim with them about as fast of my fins, but they are oh so more versatile. More flexible.”

She lifted him up towards her chest. Another tentacle moved in, patting his head while he tried in vain to push it away.

“I replaced my fish half with these nifty tentacles, not unlike a sea-witch. Now, I can hold things better, interact better. Why, it’s even better than you humans can. You can’t exactly grab anything with your feet can you? Not well I’d imagine. In any case, I’m much more than a great mermaid now. I’m my own sort of being, unique and special.”

“B-but how?”

She giggled.

“I’ve been practicing my new powers Ethan. They afford me a lot of flexibility. I experimented almost all night. I was studying some of the deeper creatures of the sea and how they are. They can be a lot more flexible, though only I have the power to transform myself like this.”

She giggled, then continued.

“You’ve been rude to me, ungrateful, but I know you’re just being silly Ethan. You can still be a part of my queendom. In fact, have you every heard of how angler fish mate Ethan?”

“A-angler fish?”

“Yes, I’m sure some might’ve washed up on your shores. They are a very deep-dwelling fish, down where sunbuds don’t grow as much, and the sun doesn’t reach. They have sharp jutting teeth, and glowing little nubs at the end of flesh that curves down from their foreheads. I think they try and lure in other fish with the light, then gobble them up. They look kind of funny to me, actually, but some find them scary. I find them tasty~”

“W-what do you mean? What about angler fish? Why does it matter how they mate?”

“Well, when a male and female angler fish want to mate, the male swims up to the female and fuses into her. His fins, eyes, stomach: they all wither away to uselessness, because once fused she provides that for him in exchange for companionship. He literally gives up everything for her, and becomes a part of her. They say they even share the same blood at that point.”

Ethan shivered in her tentacular grip. She patted her head with a finger of hers. He couldn't resist it, held so tight by her tentacle.

“I-i-is that what you’re gonna do to me? Mate with me like that.”

Alurel burst into laughter.

“Me? Mate at all? Let alone with you?”

She kept laughing.

“Oh you are so silly Ethan. No, I’ve no interest in that. I just think it’s oddly romantic, don’t you? Doesn't that sort of thing sound nice? I only brought it up so you’d have an idea of what I’m going to do to you.”

“Wait, what?”

She lifted him up to her mouth. As she spoke, her breath enveloped him. He could see her maw was lit by a golden glow. Her glow persisted inside her body.

“That’s right, I know you’re just being a silly sour sort right now Ethan, but I’m so nice I’ll still let you be a part of me.”

She opened wide.

“No!”, he shouted. “No, no I don’t want this.”

“Oh but I know you’ll enjoy it. Don’t resist my generosity, it’ll be better for you that way.”

She opened wide again after stopping to talk. The tentacle with Ethan slid into her mouth, and only the tentacle slid back out. She fondled his chest with her tongue, just a bit, before swallowing him down.

“No, don’t eat me. Don’t!”, shouted Ethan. In such little time, his expectations, his entire life had been flipped around.

His body, too, was flipped around. He headed down Alurel’s throat head first. The golden-glow of her inner body illuminated the fleshy surroundings of her throat. He saw the slime, the rippling flesh as it squeezed him down. He felt her heart beat; he heard her gut grumble.

Her throat tugged him to a turn. A fleshy gate of sorts waited for him, taking him into a chamber. It was lit in there like the rest of her body of course, and there was a single strange plant that emitted its own source of light. The fleshy ground lightly shifted, and was covered in a layer of salt-water up near his waist.

“No, I don’t want to be eaten. No!”

For whatever reason, despite what she had said, he thought that was to be his fate. The cavity certainly looked like a stomach.

Then, the wall shifted near him. The flesh quivered, and out from it shot red-pinkish tentacles, pinker than the walls of the cavity itself. These were thin, slimy. He recoiled at their touch, but they wrapped about his arms and legs with ease. They pulled him against the wall, where the flesh began to suck him in. It shifted and grew around him.

“No, it feels... slimy. No!”

As the flesh of the wall spread around him, some smaller tentacles came out. These appendages were tipped with needles. They jabbed into his chest and a side of his body. One stabbed into the side of his neck and, another, the opposite shoulder. They pumped him with something. It stung, and his body began to change. His skin grew a tad greener. Her felt a sharp pain in his neck. The skin there teared into parallel slits.

“What is happening. No! Get me out of your stomach!”, he shouted.

Across from him, the opposite wall began to twitch. A circular lump formed there, pressing out on the wall until the red flesh of it shifted away. He saw a green-irised eye formed there, roughly the same size as the normal ones Alurel had socketed into her head.

It blinked at him. Then he heard Alurel’s voice.

“You can hear me in there, I know it. My voice is powerful enough to reach through my flesh. Now, stop being so silly! I’m not going to eat you. This isn’t my normal stomach. It’s my treasure-stomach that I told you about before. You’ll be one of my best treasures, and I will treasure you forever~”

“No. Stop, what are you doing to me. I don’t wanna be like the angler fish.”

“Oh that was just an example, to get the idea across. This is so much better than their fate. You’ll like.”

“What did you do to my neck?”

“Those are gills, just a modification to your body. One of many I’m making even now.”

“No!”

He felt some stinging fluid squelched out onto him as he was stuck in the weird flesh encasement of the cavity walls. He felt his clothes melt off him, dissolve.

“W-what did you do?”, he asked.

“I just got rid of your clothes silly. You won’t need them anymore, so I went and digested those. You won’t need some other things too, like your legs.”

The fleshy wall full sucked in his legs. He screamed as he felt those limbs ‘open’, and then realized soon after he couldn’t feel them at all.

“You don’t need your arms either.”

His arms were sucked in similarly.

“And some other parts: you don’t need those either.”

His entire body was consumed by the flesh around him. Only his head was poking out, and even that sunk into the wall just a little bit..

“Alurel... no. This is... this is horror...”

His eyes rolled around. Words filled him as his body was overwhelmed with sensations. A look of intense pain and pleasure coated his face, and little more than that face of his poked out the fleshy wall he was grafted and suffused into.

Alurel saw Ethan with her inner eye. She giggled, finding him looking a tad dopey.

“There we go.”, she said. “Much better, quieter too. To think I had to let the people I liked rot to bones in my cove before. Now, I can preserve them forever~”

On the outside, Alurel shrugged her shoulders and raised her arms in a big stretch.

“Now, I think it’s time to talk to the leaders of this Afflelands, along with every other surface kingdom on this planet.”

Alurel worked her tentacles to swim away from the island. She swam due south-west.

That was the direction of the coast of The Afflelands.