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Annabelle sits behind her desk, Thanos across from her on the other side.
Annabelle sighs. "I have told you everything I told her Thanos. There is nothing more."
Thanos slams his fist on the table. "I want to know where she will give birth to Kreios!"
"I don't know, I cannot see it. I only know she has come back to this area to deliver the child, but where, I know not."
Thanos raises his eyebrows. "Must I give you some encouragement?" He turns to the large aquarium, points to it and rolls his finger. Two seahorses float to the surface.
Annabelle, frantic, pleads, "No Thanos, not them...I beg of you."
Thanos smiles. "Then I shall give you until tomorrow to tell me what I need to know. Otherwise," he pauses, stretches and flexes his fingers. "I will not be as kind as I was today." He gets up, ambles to the door, smiles and leaves.
Annabelle jumps up and rushes to the aquarium. The other seahorses circle around the two dead ones.
Annabelle's eyes tear up as she reaches into the water and gently cups the two dead seahorses. She pulls her hand out, stares at them as her eyes well with tears.
"I am so sorry my children...so sorry I could not protect you."
She saunters to the desk, opens a drawer, pulls out a silk handkerchief. She gently places the seahorses into the hanky, folds it up.
She then pulls out a small wooden box, slides the top open. She places the hanky into the box, slides the top closed and sets it on the desk.
She shuffles back to the aquarium, stands in front, then opens her arms wide. She stares into the aquarium and closes her eyes.
"Et aperi mihi aquas, Ego aperiam oculos meos', I open my waters, Et aperi mihi aquas, Ego aperiam oculos meos".
A cloud of mist engulfs Annabelle as her chants fade away. When the mist disappears, so has Annabelle.
Annabelle has turned into a mermaid twice the size of the seahorses and other fish. A seahorse approaches her, she rubs his head, pulls him close. She communicates with her thoughts.
"This shall never happen again my children. Never again. He will pay for what he has done." she pauses, stares at her group. "He has already destroyed my life one time and I shall not allow him to do it again."
The seahorses gather around, stare at her, eager to hear her story.
Annabelle begins. "My name was Belladine then...I was in love. It was many hundreds of moons ago...the humans called it the fifteenth century."
Belladine is a young woman, quite beautiful, in her late thirties, maybe early forties. She has long, dark, flowing hair. She and Peter walk lazily, hand in hand, strolling the gently sloped hills where the waves crash below them.
Peter is in his early forties with dark, shoulder length hair and dressed in peasant rags of the fifteenth century.
Peter tries to explain. "But I am just a fisherman, I barely make enough to support myself yet support another person."
Belladine calmly responds, "And I am but a mermaid but if I am willing to marry you, to change my life, can you not be willing to do the same...for me?"
"You know I love you Bell, but...it just seems so complicated."
"Why Peter? Because I must swim in the ocean at least every five days? This is what you call complicated?" she pauses, folds her arms. "Or are you just making excuses to not be with me?"
Peter stops, turns to Belladine and kisses her passionately.
"I kissed my heart goodbye when I met you. I knew then, as I do now, that I have never been in love like this."
"That's very sweet Peter, very sweet. Worry not, we shall work this out, we shall make our dreams come true."
Belladine hums a tune as she cleans her hut and dusts her furniture. She stops at the small kitchen table with two chairs, rubs the back of a chair.
"And this is where you shall sit my love. This is where we will dine together, where we shall share our bread and drink our wine."
A knock on the door startles her. She ambles over, opens it. Thanos stands there, arms crossed, smiling.
Belladine folds her arms. "There is nothing for you here, go away."
Thanos insists. "We must talk." He bullies his way in, walks over and sits in the same chair Belladine had just rubbed.
"Tea please...just a drop of honey."
Belladine ladles hot water into a cup from a kettle warming in the fireplace. She goes to a cabinet, opens the tea jar, fills the holder and slides it into the tea. She grabs a jar of honey and drops it in front of him.
Thanos stares at the cup defiantly. "I asked for honey."
Belladine, defiant back to him, grabs a spoon off the table, opens the jar, dips the spoon and stirs it into Thanos' tea.
She sits. "What evil have you brought to me?"
"I bring no evil, I come to tell you what must be done."
"And what is it that must be done?"
"You must not marry this peasant fisherman...Peter. The Gods have plans for you and they do not include him."
"The Gods will have to accept Peter as my husband...we are very much in love and, we will marry."
"I cannot let that happen. You are a mermaid, a goddess of the sea and he is a mere mortal. He will never be one of us."
"But this has happened with our kind many times in the past. Why can we not do the same thing?"
"Because the Gods believe you are the vessel who will bear the man child who will lead us to freedom." He pauses, stares deep in her eyes. "And Peter is not the man who will plant the seed. Sooo, you must go."
"Go? Go where?"
"To a new land, a great distance away. There, you will wait to meet the right human who will plant the seed."
Belladine defiantly answers, "Then I shall destroy that which is inside me which would hold this child."
Thanos stands, angry, as he leans toward Belladine. "No...you will not. You will gather your things and leave tonight, never to return, never to see Peter again."
"And if I do not?"
"Then he shall be dead by the time the sun rises."
Belladine drops her head as tears slide down her cheeks.
"So you see my children, I was never with a man all these years. I would never have given them the pleasure of a man child after they ruined my life. And Thanos, he will pay for what he has done to me back then...and for what he does to me now."