“Satisfied, my dear?” Nidia swam to where her husband floated in the coral arch gracing their bedroom, watching a school of fish dance around gently weaving kelp. “I can’t say I’ll miss the utter insanity of royal wedding protocol.”
“K’shir is a fine young merrow, and he seems to make Akina very happy.” Brin wrapped his arm around her flukes and tugged her close, heedless of her trailing finery. “I’m glad it’s over. As is our staff, I’m sure.”
Nidia sighed. “I wish the Ma’crey had been less…adamant.”
The king sighed and rested his chin atop his wife’s green hair. “I warned our guards to stay vigilant.”
She twisted her head around, fluttering her tail gently as she gazed upward with wide, iridescent brown eyes. “Just because Akina choose K’shir over their son? The undersea hasn’t forced a marriage in centuries. Even the oracle advised against the match.”
“They are barons,” Brin said with a sigh. “Touchy ones, at that. For all that I’m glad not to have their brat join our family, their clan’s absence from the wedding ceremonies concerns me.”
“Brine and bread,” She wiggled in his arms, a nervous twitch in her dorsal fin. “I can’t believe I missed that.”
“Brine and bread,” he agreed. “‘The shared hearth that brings protection.’ Perhaps the moment has passed, now that the wedding’s done.”
“Perhaps.” She heard doubt in her own voice. “Still. All these years – training to be queen, not just as your queen – and I missed it.”
“And not only were you were busy with protocol and planning, I usually handle our defenses.”
This time, her tail pushed them back into their bedroom as Nidia smacked the water in annoyance. “Doesn’t mean I don’t pay attention to them, especially when a bloodthirsty clan’s claiming offense. Have you heard those hellacious stories they read to the minnows?”
“I can think of something else to pay attention to,” he murmured, and stroked a finger down her neck.
They both froze as bells rang softly in the distance. A scream drifted through the kelp, abruptly cut off. A conch blew, with more bells following, increasingly louder and cacophonic.
“So it begins,” Brin said, and kissed his frozen wife abruptly, lips already harsh with tension. He reached for the titanium spear that guarded their marriage net. “The merrow go to war, and with it, all of Undersea.”
***
This week’s prompt was from Becky Jones: In the distance, the bells rang softly.
My prompt went to Padre: Hidden within the laundry basket was…
