She couldn’t remember how she escaped the palace.

Livia just swam with all her might and burst up above the sea. Though she didn’t feel out of breath, when she emerged from the water, she habitually took a breath. Seawater entered between her gasping lips, but perhaps she had grown used to it as she didn’t even think it tasted salty.

“Haa, haa…”

The hastily drawn breaths repeatedly inflated and deflated Livia’s lungs. Having popped out above the surface, Livia unconsciously looked around at the vast ocean. The afternoon sunlight, broken into fine particles like golden sand across the calm blue waters, painfully pierced her retinas.

“Not knowing your place…”

“Echidna or whatever, if my mood turns foul I can kill someone like you on the spot anytime, Livia.”

Unlike the tempest raging in her heart, the ocean scene was nothing but peaceful.

The man who resembled the sea, no, who was the sea itself, must be the same. He choked her throat, played with her casually, but she alone was the one being shaken.

Was this the fate of a weak human facing a god? Thinking that way, her heart that had been swaying like a small boat on rough seas slowly settled.

Like an afterglow, the sorrow that made her nose sting wetted her eyes, but she tried to ignore it by squeezing them shut. But inevitably, a few lukewarm drops rolled down her cheeks. They fell from her chin, catching the sunlight before mixing into the seawater, but Livia paid no attention.

She had long ago thrown all her emotions into the fire that burned down her home.

From the moment the witch’s golden dagger was placed in her hand and she pointed it at Triton, there was no future in her life. Her soul was already dead, leaving only an empty shell for revenge.

So small sorrows don’t matter. After all, this is all just the process of heading toward eternal death as punishment for deceiving a god. She must bundle up these useless sentiments and bury them deep in her heart to carry away.

‘These feelings are nothing. Nothing at all…’

She wiped her eyes firmly with the back of her cold hand. Though she had erased the sorrow, right now she didn’t want to be in the sea. Just as she was about to move her body in search of land to stand on, something brushed past her feet and burst out of the water. Squinting as she looked, she saw a pair of pointed shark dorsal fins.

“…Sympho? Could it be Neo too?”

A black shark and a white shark circled around Livia as if drawing a circle. Though she was used to Sympho who had been following behind her for some time now, the white shark was unfamiliar.

As if responding to being called, the white shark approached Livia and politely offered its back. Then the black shark pushed the white one aside and presented its own back to Livia.

Grrrr!

With foam, no, shark foam at the corners of its mouth…

“……”

Not sure how to take this, she stared incredulously as the white shark and black shark began fighting, ramming their bodies against each other.

‘I know Sympho has that kind of personality, but I thought Neo was more dignified…’

Looking carefully, the white shark was just as formidable as the black one. When the black shark charged, it bared its teeth without hesitation and rammed back with its body, showing it wasn’t the type to back down.

After pushing away the charging black shark with its body, the white shark spun around once in place and struck the black shark’s head with a powerful tail swipe.

Splash!

With tremendous spray, Livia’s body was suddenly pushed deep under the surface.

“Gasp! Blub!”

Perhaps because they were such large and powerful creatures, the waves kept creating small ripples endlessly. Like a shrimp caught in a shark fight, Livia’s small body repeatedly plunged under and emerged from the waves.

“Stop!”

Unable to take it anymore, Livia shouted, and both sharks’ movements stopped at once. Pushing back her wet hair, she climbed onto Neo’s back while panting.

“Neo for going, Sympho for returning! Got it?”

At Livia’s firm words, the sharks wagged their tails as if nodding. Whether they understood human speech as divine messengers or were just randomly wagging their tails was unclear, but either way, the commotion settled down. Thanks to these rowdy sharks, her welling tears had also retreated.

“Take me to land. I want to feel ground beneath my feet.”

At Livia’s whisper, the white shark undulated its body greatly and powerfully cut across the sea. The speed was amazing every time she experienced it.

***

“This is…”

Livia stared blankly at the island before her. She already knew this island. It was because she had been here before.

The place she had arrived after saving the children who were being taken by pirates. The island said to have Triton’s temple…

She wanted to leave the sea to get away from Triton’s domain, but the place she arrived at was his island.

Livia, who had been staring at the coastal cliff where she had encountered him, shook her head.

“I don’t like it here. Let’s go somewhere else.”

At her words, Sympho and Neo looked at each other before carrying Livia on their backs again and headed somewhere. She thought they were leaving this island to go somewhere far, but where the sharks arrived was just the opposite side of the island.

“No, I said I don’t like this island. Ugh, never mind. I’ll just swim myself.”

The moment Livia tried to get off Neo’s back, the shark cut through the water again.

Because it moved so fast, she couldn’t easily jump off its back. With no choice but to hold tightly onto the shark’s fin, the sharks swam up a river connected to the sea on the island. It seemed they were determined to put her on that island.

Well, even if they circled around her, they were Triton’s sharks after all, so they wouldn’t listen to her. But.

‘…Even though you acted like you were on my side. You’re just like your master.’

Feeling an inexplicable sense of betrayal rising up, Livia kicked the side of the black shark swimming beside her. It was possible because they had been gradually slowing down. The shark just shook its fin as if her kick merely tickled, but at some point it stopped.

“Where is this? Why did you come all the way here?”

The river continued upward, but the sharks stopped moving and just circled around. When she licked the water droplets on her lips, she noticed the salt content had significantly decreased. It seemed they couldn’t move easily further up as it was purely river territory rather than an estuary (where river meets sea).

After pondering briefly, Livia jumped off Neo’s back and swam out of the river. Since she had come this far anyway, it didn’t make sense to go somewhere else right now. It could have been quick if the sharks took her, but they didn’t seem likely to take her anywhere else.

‘I’ll kill some time here and then go somewhere else.’

When she stepped out of the water onto land, the cold she hadn’t felt while in the water hit her. As she was wringing out the water from her hair and clothes while looking around for a place to make fire, that’s when it happened.

“Myamya…?”

Startled by a child’s voice coming out of nowhere, she whirled around to see a small child swimming toward her from upstream. And also two beautiful women following that child.

“Doris!”

The women who were hurriedly swimming after the baby while calling “Doris” stopped when they spotted the sharks and Livia. Only when they got closer did Livia realize these women were river nymphs. And the face of the baby they called Doris was familiar too.

‘…Where have I seen that child before?’

The small baby swam hard toward Livia, ignoring the restraining nymphs. As the baby came closer, suddenly as if struck by a hammer, a light flashed in her mind and the memory came back.

“You…!”

As she pointed at the baby in surprise, the baby who had come right up to the water’s edge reached out both hands toward Livia and called out:

“Myamya!”

The small fish tail below the baby’s navel, the cute ears with gill-like membranes, the maple leaf-like hands that still couldn’t hide the webbing between fingers…

It was the baby siren that Triton had saved when it was being kidnapped by the pirate ship before.

***

“You’re taking care of it here?”

“Yes, the siren race needs to expand their respiratory organs by going in and out of water. They need to know how to breathe air to sing outside water too.”

The nymphs saw Triton’s sharks and welcomed Livia.

It seemed they thought of Livia as one of Triton’s attendants. She was about to explain that wasn’t the case, but thinking about it, she didn’t really have any way to explain herself, so she gave up.

Triton’s plaything? A human challenging Triton? A toy for Triton to play with as he pleased? Bitter self-mockery welled up.

Instead of thinking more about it, Livia asked about the baby clinging to her and acting spoiled.

The nymphs taking care of Doris were estuary nymphs, and they said they had been looking after the child for several days now.

They said during the day they play near this riverbank, and at night they sleep in the shallow sea near the island’s rocks. The nearby sirens had died out, so the estuary nymphs were taking care of it instead, they said.

The river nymph looked warmly at Doris clinging to Livia’s arms, then added:

“You were there when Doris was saved, weren’t you? It seems Doris recognized Livia from remembering that time. Sirens remember their surroundings from birth. They grow quickly too.”