Chapter Four

A Chapter by Storm Lawson

“Tabby, please.” Ari swam after her frantically. “Please, I’m sorry. I’m sorry!”
She thrust herself forward, latching onto Tabby’s arm and forcing her to turn around. Her face was carved into a scowl.
“What!”
“I’m sorry for what I said to you. It was an awful thing to say to a friend as dear as you.” Ari did not let her go, afraid she would leave.
“Words and apologies are useless if you do not follow them with action.” Tabby flicked her arm angrily, releasing herself from Ari’s grip. “You still believe what you said.”
Ari felt herself become embarrassed. Tabby knew her well enough to know when she was not being entirely truthful. She looked down and ran a hand up her arm, unsure of what to say next.
“What are you afraid of?” Tabby prodded her in the chest with a tentacle, arms crossed, eyes bitter.
“I-I’m not-”
“Stop lying!” Tabby roared and pushed Ari hard, her voice raising. “You cannot even be truthful to yourself and yet you expect forgiveness for lying!”
Fables were slowing to look at them. Ari’s embarrassment was swelling, her face felt numb as she attempted to raise her eyes to meet Tabby’s.
“I’m not afraid.” her voice was louder but the timid shake remained.
“Liar! You want the world to change but you will not try to change it. You believe there is injustice yet you will not speak up against it. You see the strings that control our Kingdom but you ignore them.” Tabby grabbed Ari’s shoulders, leaning in until their faces were millimetres apart. “You do not refuse to fight because of your safety or your friends safety, you refuse because you are a coward and you are as heartless as the fiends you allow to live.”
Ari could not speak, her lips were frozen in a wounded pout. Tabby turned and left, the rest of the fables chose to do the same. Ari was alone and for the life of her, she didn’t know what to do.

Ari lay on her bed, pushing away the nauseous feeling stuck to her stomach. No one in the Water Kingdom required beds, as a species they did not sleep. But when Ari and Tabby had been young, they adventured into shallow waters, where they could spy on the shores of The City. They had seen into their homes, with their unusual furniture and strange waterless buildings.
“What do you suppose those are?” Ari had whispered to Tabby, pointing at a wooden slab being raised from the ground by four short legs.
“That’s what these fables sleep on.” Tabby had replied with pride at her knowledge.
“Sleep?”
“They have this strange habit. When night arrives, they lay upon it and become unconscious. That means they’re not aware of what’s going on.”
Ari had listened with wild fascination, eyes large and mouth open.
“They come back when the sun rises.”
“This happens every night?”
Tabby nodded and turned back to the fables on the ground, watching their extraordinary legs move.
When they had swam back to their own homes, Ari had sat for hours thinking about sleep. She yearned to learn more, but there was no one to ask and she did not enjoy the warmth of the shallow water she would have to lay in if she were to watch them again. And so she had gathered any spare rocks she could find and built herself a bed. It had been crude and sharp and vastly uncomfortable to lay upon but she had been pleased nonetheless. Over the years, the jagged edges had worn down and algae had crept along until it was smooth and restful.
She thought about these memories, her fingers trickling along the corners. That had been the last of her adventures.
When she had come of an age to work, she had hunted for employment in politics, somewhere she would possess the power to unite the regions. Ari had spent most of her childhood watching fables in The City and so she knew they were no different to her. They had families, they were required to work, they even had children like her who broke from their parent’s rules and sought adventure. She would often wonder why the two regions were so separate when she could see the likeness between them. Ari had used her youth to work and worm her way into the King’s castle until she was a needles breadth away from political power.
And then the King and Queen had died, leaving a child of ten years behind, a silver tail that shone with glee and violet eyes hard as the throne he sat upon.
Ari arrived at the castle the next day, bowing at his feet and requesting her days work. Cassius glanced at her with irritation before informing her she no long worked for the King, she was to work as a nurse. Ari remembered the way he spoke - even, calm, as though he were having a casual conversation. She had stayed where she was, unable to leave. She had worked harder than she’d worked for anything before, she had poured her life into it, into something she believed could change Eris Fable into a world together. And then it had gone.
Ari felt her fingers curl into a tight fist. When she had left, Cassius employed several others in her place. They had no place in politics, they were incompetent and blindly obedient to their King.
Ari sighed heavily and closed her eyes. Life as a nurse was akin to a punishment. During her first day, she had rushed to the bathroom to heave up her stomach contents.
“You will become used to it,” an aging nurse had told her with a lying smile when she felt well enough to return. Nobody became used to it. It would grow on you like an infection, warping you into a machine that refused to feel and feeding the hate inside your mind. Hate towards the creatures who could bring such torture onto a fable. Ari would suffer under the weight of her hate, an inky black ooze creeping over her body until she could feel it in her very fingertips, a sharp tingle that would occur whenever she saw new victims.
Even now, she could feel it. She flexed her fingers, attempting to shake it away. You are not welcome here, she urged. Not that it would ever listen.
Ari’s thoughts drifted to Tabby and the anger she had seen etched across her face. She brought a hand up to her chest, feeling the spot that Tabby had prodded.
“What are you afraid of?” she breathed.
What are you afraid of, Ari?
“I’m afraid of…”
What are you afraid of, Ari?
“I’m…”
What are you afraid of, Ari?
“Them. I’m afraid of them.”
She paused, becoming aware of the words she had spoken, and curled herself into a ball, hands pressed tight against her face. She felt a pressure in her chest ease away as if it were tricking through her skin. He head felt lighter, almost dizzying but not quite. She slowly took her hands away and wrapped her arms around herself.
As a nurse, her hate had grown for Darks, as did her fear of them. The wounds and deaths she saw would bring her terror as she wondered when this would happen to her, when would she confuse a Siren for a Mermaid, when would she be caught out during an attack, when would her tail be torn from her hips and feasted upon in front of her as the water ran red and her life bled out. She knew this death could not be avoided, it was rarely ever known for a fable in this Kingdom to die naturally. They were being slaughtered, their feeble attempts at populating their region were dead in the water.
But what else could they do? Ari thought of Tabby and a fond smile followed. Tabby would do what she thought was right regardless of who was standing with her.
Will I?