POV Narrator:
Diana, Akko, Marianne and Hellene are together at the bottom of the sea inside the colony of some mermaids that are adapted to that life underwater, kind of surviving to the challenges placed to be able to have some freedom, showing that they are powerful witches, after all it's a shock to the queen of the colony herself, who had no idea that ordinary people could also use magic and with great precision and moreover not being queens as in the case of the mermaid colony turns out to be and with that the girls could be free to explore the place deeper and find the last missing sound of Fluit An Near.
POV Akko:
We've eaten enough, now it's time to act, to get our hands dirty, and we go together swimming through the most hidden galleries of this huge complex of caves and it really is a lot, and these parts have no one on top, which makes it even more scary, well at least there's some light, and we look carefully at the walls to see if there's anything written on them.
"It's going to take us a long time to find anything here" Marianne said.
"I never had any idea dat mermaids made such a huge complex like dat, dey are excellent and at digging holes, I 'ave to admit" Hellene said.
"That's because they dinnae even use magic properly, if they learnt more how tae manipulate magic they would advance even more, only the queen uses it, ye can see that here the mermaids still have a very different kind of society" Diana said.
We arrived at a place, which seemed to be a tomb, and when we entered we found someone's bones stuck to a stone, it must have been one of the ancient queens, and we looked around and there was at least some writing, but it was in Luna language and I translated it, as did the girls.
"It's just about the text of one of the queens, it seems that here they mark the years differently, from what I see here she was queen from 6993 to 7056, their years are increased, it's quite bizarre this, well at least the queen lived a lot" said my Diana.
"No trace of de sounds either, dey don't seem to 'ave found any inscription on it, but we'll manage to find something" Hellene said.
And we come out of that cave, it looks like a pharaoh's tomb, I think it must be deeper, if there is a tomb like that for each queen it will take a long time to find everything, I think we will lose the new year looking so hard, so much that we swim out of it and stay thoughtful, gathered to see if we can plan a way to find it faster.
"Let's split up, sae we can find the sound faster, it's more than 7000 years of history with queen by queen, it will take us at least 150 or even 200 explorations inside the cave tae get tae all of them, it may take days, sae let's do it this way, at least we can speed up, I think we will be able tae find some trace of the sound, dinnae forget tae take a picture if ye find the sound by any chance" Diana said and I think it's a good way to organize ourselves that way.
"So let's explore everything, maybe we can find the trail in some of these various tombs" I tell my girlfriend.
"We 'ave to explore quickly so as not to worry our families, because if dey dink we are dead and come 'ere?" said Hellene.
"Ah that's less bad, if my mother stumbles across this place we know she'll make sure against Raiu," said my Cavendish.
"Oh and don't forget to mark dat you are exploring de cave by painting de entrance red with magic, so dat we don't end up crossing each other in already explored caves, dis way it will be quicker to know where to enter until we get down dere" said my sister-in-law and she is quite right.
We held hands and then stood up in celebration, who knows how many minutes we may have to explore all this, anyway let's do it, just leave everything numbered and then we'll split up, Diana went to the next cave, I went to the third, Hellene to the fourth and Marianne to the fifth.
When entering the third cave there are more inscriptions in the Luna language, which I imagine is the common language here in Arcturus, besides Draconic
"Here lies Queen Liu, one of the most brilliant queens of our colony, she was great and helped us in all the wars as well as increasing the size of the colony, a great human who brought us prosperity, 6901-6967"
"Ah yes it's more like a normal tomb anyway" I say as I look around, seeing that there's still nothing there.
I look at the walls even if I light a lantern and there is practically nothing, only the wall itself made with some stone, excavated by the mermaids, I hope that they have not really passed over the inscription where the score of the last sound of the flute is, because then it would be disastrous, anyway the exploration here was already done.
"Nothing in this Cave" I say to myself and already take advantage by leaving marked that I explored, with a red mark at the entrance.
And we're leaving the cave and going to another one, I even forgot to leave the mark at the entrance and went swimming to another one, already seeing that it has red marks, I don't even know which is the next one, I only know that I entered and I've already seen that it's another tomb as it seems and the queens will always have one reserved for themselves, I imagine that the workers shouldn't have such things.
This tomb is exactly like the other one, it only has the queen's bones buried inside the stone, as if it was part of the whole thing and an inscription in Luna
"Great Queen Yuria, had a short reign but brought incredible advancements to the colony, with many aids in expanding a peace between rival colonies she built respect with a clever way of talking and brought unity between humans, unfortunately betrayed by her own colony, 6821-6844"
Ah this one almost didn't reign, poor thing, now I'm practically learning the history lessons but it seems we've already managed to go back 200 years in history in this time, if we continue like this we'll go back all the 7000 years easily.
I go swimming around the Cave and nothing, I didn't find practically nothing inside here, just wall and more wall, it seems that finding the sound here will be more work than it seems, well we'll have to be patient.
And time went on, many minutes went by and they still had many caves to explore and meanwhileanother mermaid was appearing at the gates of the colony that had been approached by theguards...
POV Laura:
It's time to bring resources for my girls, I end up following dese mermaids bringing corals, it's been about two hours since dey got 'ere, I'm already worried and I want to communicate with dem, just to know if everything is ok.
I see dat de guards of dis colony are very strong, but let's see where dis is going, I enter and leave de corals in a common compartment, look if dey eat it my congratulations, because it doesn't look appetizing.
"Where are you going? We still have a lot of work to do" said de mermaid and I show 'er de middle finger and walk out of dere.
"What is it? Why are you showing me your finger like dat? Do you want to signal something to me?" Another one next to 'er is also wondering and it seems dat a fight is going to break out 'ere.
I go swimming like it's nothing, but den dey signal in a strange way, den de huge guards with tridents in deir hands appear and I'm already out of patience, and I just disappear in front of dem and keep swimming forward like it's nothing, I even look at dem.
"I'm sorry but I don't have time for dese dings" I say, debauching dem.
I come across other guards appearing and honestly, I dink I just found out what happened, dey must 'ave been arrested, so I already show dat I pretend to surrender and I end up following de guards.
Going to one of de rooms, where I'm being pushed by a trident and honestly dis looks like an anthill, I dedn't expect it to be like dis, when I get to de expected room dere was a queen dere, I assume, since dey are aquatic ants, or whatever dey want to be called.
"Queen we found this intruder from another anthill" said one of de guards.
"Oh by the way you look familiar, you're another one from the surface around here, as politics here in our colony you'll have to prove yourself as strong to earn your freedom" Said deir queen and I just keep rolling my eyes.
"Seriously, I just came to see my daughters, release dem dere and let's stop fooling around, get on with it, queen" I say dis with my arms crossed.
"Oh you are quite brave for an invader from another colony, you won't laugh so much when you face our champion Raiu" Said de leader of dis mermaid anthill.
"Oh de next fin ear, dat's very cool, but look 'ere, I'm a human from de surface, I'm a mother and if you don't bring my girls back I'm going to 'ave to do some damage 'ere" I say showing 'er my ears and still nothing worked.
"You look familiar, but I won't trust and my policies are my policies, now take the prisoner to the male ward until the fight starts" Said de queen and I just put my hand on my forehead.
Well anyway I can find my girls, so let's see where dey are, I'm already entering de male ward and nothing, only de siren ones, dat's very strange, dere are some dat are pregnant, I dink dey must 'ave some very different system of reproduction around 'ere, anyway I don't care, just remembering dat I only have a cloaca where everything comes out makes me sick.
"Oh we have another prisoner here, welcome, if you want something to eat before you face Raiu" If it's to eat the coral 'ere I'm out of this.
"I am calm, I will soon face dis Raiu girl and free my girls from 'ere" I say with my arms crossed.
"Oh you look familiar, I saw two others that look like you, they must be your worker sisters" said de pregnant male.
"They are my daughters" I tell them.
"Oh so you're like a male like us? How can you survive four births, we only survive three at most" How disgusting, I just keep imagining de scene of taking a child out through de cloaca, it gives me a bad feeling 'ere.
"I only had two dat came out of me and no I am not male, I am a woman, I am what you call female, it's just dat on de surface it ends up being de females and once in a while some men who were born with de typical organs of a female can gestate a child and get pregnant, you are very peculiar indeed" I say to de pregnant ones.
"The queen and the workers having to carry the children must be a lot of work in your colony, wouldn't it be better to leave this function to the males?" He really doesn't understand what de surface is like.
"You 'ave evolved very differently, haven't you? I'm just saying dat on de surface everyone is a worker, how do dings work dere, do de females reproduce too? Do you marry or whatever, explain it to me" I was curious just to pass the time.
"The queen lays an egg and spits inside our cloaca, then we fertilise inside and get pregnant, as the nymph is very big many of us die after the gestation, but it is a trait of us, it is very rare to last more than one without dying, the nature made us like this, the queen produces both the males and the females, we males only have the function of gestating and our lives are very short, we live up to 20 years usually dying after gestating, The females live up to 100 years, they can't reproduce, but they are the ones who work and do everything in the colony and there's the queen who when she's about to die she calls one of us to stick to her cloaca and fertilize it to create another queen since she always dies as soon as she gives birth to her replacement" He explained to me
"You may bring the prisoner to the arena" said one of de guards arriving.
It was an interesting conversation, disgusting at de same time, because I was curious to know how dese people reproduce, but at de same time interesting, dis 'ere really works like an anthill or a bee hive, I was soon taken to dat arena, which I get my arms crossed and I see many mermaids celebrating as if it were de biggest event of all, gee I'm just shitting and walking to all dis, I just want to find my daughters.
"And here we are, with one more human from the surface and she is going to put my theory into practice of what we heard from the other humans from the surface about them, it can't be a possibility that they are all strong as queens, they can only be bluffing, they are queens and this one is just an overweight worker, it really is a sad story that we will see when Raiu comes to test his strength, at least we will have plenty of food with this one" Now dis got personal.
"Oh you bitch, overweight worker my ass, I'm fat but not dat fat" what a cunt.
A cage falls on us and I see dat it was all broken, I wonder who broke it all, but come on, I'll face dis Raiu girl, who was appearing tied and very angry, she is huge, she must 'ave more dan 3 meters easy, de soldiers 'ere are already strong so I dink dis one must be de strongest of dem.
Dey let go of de rope and de big one takes a worker and breaks 'er in half making de most blood come out and I was shocked, dis is a lot of free violence 'ere, den let de poor girl's blood to wet and den throw de broken body in half on de floor, already staring at me getting angry.
"You again? Oh I thought I was, but you're just a chubby one anyway, you must be the chubby sister of the girl with the yellow scales on her arm, she was strong, hahahahahaha, this is going to be funny here, never thought I would laugh in a fight" I'll win dis humiliatingly, I've analysed enough, she's physically strong, but has no magic, unlike de queen.
I slowly swim towards 'er and go calmly, but already showing a calm expression, she keeps laughing at me, I get very close to 'er to de point of uncrossing my arms and den I just raise my hand and give a very concentrated jab just to understand that they are not messing with just anyone.
De big one goes flying out with everything breaking de railing and crashing against de bleachers which everyone was in shock to see de beating dat she gave to de point dat dey stopped shouting 'er name when dey saw that she hit one of de walls of de bleachers and was stuck.
"What is this? It is not enough to have a strong worker like the other one who was secretly a queen, now this overweight one too, Raiu do something go with everything, kill this one with all your strength" said de queen and up to the cage she climbed.
De big one was still detaching from where I threw 'er and I keep my eyes closed and my arms crossed, dis really will be a humiliation dat dey will not forget, I hear de giant's roar and I remain calm, she comes up and I dodge 'er calmly, just mocking de whole situation until I decide to disappear and I just give a little kick on de back of 'er head with my hand and Raiu falls fainted on de floor.
"Who's next?" I say as I open my eyes and face de queen who was upstairs trembling with fear.
"What? But that's not possible, your body, you are much stronger than the other one that appeared, are you also a queen?" she said, trembling all terrified.
"If it's my Hellene, I dink you should really let 'er go, she's my daughter, I don't dink you want to experience de same ding your strong one took" I say with my arms crossed to 'er who den comes down from de throne terrified.
"Oh a thousand pardons, you then are a queen of queens, to which I owe you such an illustrious visit, I am sorry for the inconvenience" She even said bowing to me.
"Girl where are my daughters, I don't care about being queen or anything, just tell me" I tell 'er, I'm just a concerned mother.
"They are searching one of our caves for the sound of something you guys on the surface call a flute, it's strange, I don't know why they would find something here, anyway, I should give you this, you are free to walk wherever you want the colony can even be yours" said de queen.
"Look lady, if I'm going to put my mouth in a male's cloaca I'd rather be a mere worker for de rest of my life, since you're 'ere, I ask you to give dis to my girls, it's food from de surface for dem, tell dem deir mother came by" I tell de queen.
"Yes, I do, great queen" she said awkwardly.
"Stop it, I'm just a surface mother, you don't get dat way with your daughters, do you? Oh yeah... You just saw one of dem being ripped in half by her own sister, I forget you're like dat" I say with my hand on my forehead.
"I have to admire that you must have very resilient males to bring female workers with the ability to use magic like a queen, no doubt you are the queen of a colony" Ah she has no idea.
"If I told you how dings work on de surface you wouldn't 'ave a clue, but a hint, we don't have cloacae, which is an extra victory, now I'm gone, I'll come back 'ere later to bring more food if my girls are delayed, I'm relieved to know dey are ok" I wave to de queen and swim out of de colony.
What strange people, now I will haunt myself for de rest of my life imagining de scene of de queen putting 'er tongue inside de cloaca of those sirens, I noticed dat 'er tongue has a kind of opening at de tip, dat must be where de ovary comes out, I dink I should dink less about dat too, but at least I hope de girls can find de sound.
I leave de colony and swim back, all de workers and soldiers walk towards me with fear and even respect, seriously I'm just a mother worried about my children.
Laura went back to Doras and told the news of how things were going, which even earned somegood laughs between them and their friends about the events of the fight and all the queen worship,as the hours went by and the girls had already looked in all the caves behind the trail where thesound was on the wall...
POV Akko:
And we're almost at the last one and nothing, I'm already here in the year 120, I'm already getting exhausted from so much swimming, honestly, I leave the cave and we see that there is a bigger one, what are we going to look at together gathered, I think we should have gone to the last one first, instead of exploring one by one of the normal ones, there are only dull things, what we breathe deep.
"I think really the sound is with the primordial, I hope" Said my girlfriend.
"Then let's go" I tell her.
We go swimming and the cave even gets in a dark corridor, having a light in the bottom, what we go swimming and looking apprehensive, until arriving in her room and we saw that the water even stopped, it was illuminated in the water, but it seemed to signal to a possible surface, what we take our heads out and we saw that it is an illuminated place.
It's the only one of the tombs that is on the surface, we jump out of the water and come back to the human form, what we saw a place with a lighted gate, in it I see an entrance that Diana makes a point to put the flute in the slot
"What? How did you know the flute would fit in there?" I ask my girlfriend.
"It was intuition" said my Cavendish.
Cleverly we entered the tomb room where the primordial queen is, we saw that she was practically intact inside a crystal, in a room full of gold, full of everything, we saw riches from the humanity of the past, this is really something that can be interesting and on the walls Diana can see that there is sound, now I understand why the mermaids would never find it here, it's on the surface.
"Well, finally we will 'ave something on de surface, if I had known dat I would 'ave even warmed up de food 'ere" Hellene said.
"To think that we are going to close the flute here" I say excitedly.
"Fuaim na rónta, the sound of the seals, someone came here way before us in the past, since the mermaids here are talking and write in Luna, it must be a sound about the crystal where she is, good anyway stay away from her that I will play now" Said my Diana.
And there went my beautiful girlfriend starting to play the flute, the sound was already emanating a whole energy, with lines of fire that were all around the place, which we even turned away not to be burnt by the fire and then it went to the crystal that emanated an enormous brightness and with that it was opening and it came a whole flash and that was when my Cavendish stopped playing.
When the flash stopped the woman comes out of the crystal and she goes looking around, kind of scared, she looks at her hands, looks at us and then we hold hands with her.
"No need to be afraid we'll get you out of the seal" we told her.
"You did it, you completed the Fluit An Neart, it's been over 1200 years since I sealed myself off at the request of the nine witches for when we came to have someone to change the world" How weird, what do you mean? That's pretty suspicious actually.
"Seal yourself off? Why would ye do something like that and ye are the real primordial?" Diana asks her who denies her head.
"The cave of the primordial was sealed by me, with this sound of the Fluit An Neart, only with it you can enter, I just entered this cave hoping that some mermaid that defied to return to the surface with the flute would find me, but it seems that they are human that arrived, yes, I sealed myself waiting for this moment, I was already old and about to die and as I did not want to become a tree I decided to seal myself in a crystal, becoming young again, I just have to say that I thank you very much for completing the flute" Said the strange witch taking Diana's hand that was in shock.
"And now what do we do? We still have tae complete the Claiomh Solais" said my girlfriend.
"Ah yes Claiomh Solais the other relic, you are already with the Fluit An Neart complete, find all the words and you will be able to open the triskellion of Lilith and do not forget the Réalta reatha, complete I have little time to transcend to the other reality and say goodbye to this world, I could only count the years since I was trapped here, we are in 2020 right? If my calculations are right, I hope they can solve this crisis that the world of magic can be, after all for the relics to be here can only be a sign that magic is dying, I put my faith that they can find everything, goodbye" Said the mysterious witch that was taking the flute and it was kind of shining which was affecting the flute too, we were even in shock.
"Wow, we made it... We finished the flute" I say relieved.
"A pity she dedn't say Claiomh Solais' words" Hellene said.
"Ah that's the least of it, when Akko understands her, we'll be able tae find out, now come on, we have tae tell the queen that we finished what we had tae do, and then use the first sound tae go back home" Diana said and we nodded.
We put on the mermaid necklace and jumped into the water, we are already discovering more secrets of the nine witches, we didn't even take a look at the treasures or anything, we just took off, and swam back to the queen's room, it will take a while since there were many caves, but I believe that going straight is faster than stopping.
Some time later they arrive at the Queen's chamber...
When we arrived we saw that the queen was a bit shaky, carrying one of our bags, which is strange, but at the same time it must be intriguing for her, which she then relieves herself when she sees us and hands over the bag to us.
"Thank you so much, finally you guys came, I was afraid something would happen and your queen would rip my head off or something like that" Said the queen and we were just laughing.
"Queen? Are you talking about my mother? Did she come 'ere? I hope she didn't do any damage" Hellene said.
"She is very strong, even for an overweight worker she defeated Raiu with two blows and they were not strong, she gave a jab and a slap on the back of her head, you surface workers are monsters" She was really traumatised by us.
"We are already going, we have found what we needed, we have closed the flute now" said Diana.
"Please leave soon and don't come back, I'm afraid of the humans on the surface now" She's very fucking scared.
Then Diana starts to play the first sound, but something strange happens, she keeps holding a hole in the flute and the sound goes playing normally, without needing to follow a score, which she keeps blowing and it goes perfectly as she plays normally, which ends up teleporting us to Doras and when we stop there we take off the mermaid necklaces and whew... Finally on a surface, I was already missing the dry.
"Girls!" Said Mrs McLaren going into the hug to us.
"Looks like you guys survived, what a relief to see that" Chariot said.
"We completed the Fluit An Neart, the best of all, now she only needs tae press one of the holes tae play the sounds, which means it will be easier tae play them all at once and finally open Lilith's seal, nae only that but the last sound opens seals, we can go tae Rastavan and get Lilith out of the crystal, just like the other witches" Diana said and wow it's a lot.
"Explain everything to me now" said my mother-in-law.
I had no idea that the mermaids were like that, even so it is interesting to see their evolution, to see how they were building the colonies, to see that they are more intelligent than they seem, that whole artificial island was raised queen after queen, gee, I really will miss to visit there.
We meet in the living room and it was all in the same day at least, we don't even need to sleep in the water, what already gives me a relief, even if it's already night here in Arcturus, there the schedules were even other, I even forget that the planet has
POV Narrator:
The girls are telling everything in details about how they were getting involved with the queen having that ritual to not be condemned to death involving a fight with a mermaid soldier that was 3 meters long, besides telling how they won the queen's trust and of course they were being specific when telling about how the reproduction works for the mermaids, even more when they joined Laura's conversations with the girls', which was a very relaxed moment with the whole family, in one more journey that is coming to an end.
The last sound of Fluit An Neart was found and it was exactly a sound of opening seals, what was already giving signs of one more victory that is coming in the hands of the revolutionaries that are slowly advancing to defeat the boss and Fafnir, missing only the last word of Claiomh Solais for them to conquer the Triskellion of Lilith.
See you, Fluit witches...