Phillip Graves3

Philip was a young prince in his kingdom. He was about to be crowned in honor of his coming of age. In anticipation of this event, he decided to spend his last "carefree" days. Day and night, he walked around the kingdom with his friends and scared the local children with fairy tales from his own library. The inhabitants only rolled their eyes when, for the umpteenth time, the children swarmed him from all sides, begging him to tell them another fairy tale.

But there was one place he visited exclusively at night or at dawn. It was the embankment by the ocean. There were legends about different creatures that lived in the water, but these were just fairy tales that were used to scare children so that they would not swim far without supervision. Philippe had long since stopped believing in these stories and believed that even if something did appear, he would definitely win - after all, he was the king, he was the ruler.

Once again, it was approaching midnight, and Graves escaped from his chambers, heading for the beach. As always, he walked and tossed a pebble into the air, as if thinking about something important. But his attention was drawn not to the pebble or the crab that crawled onto the land, but to a silhouette. A silhouette sitting on a rock in the middle of the ocean. It seemed to be a young girl - her figure glowed against the moon. "Hey! You shouldn't swim at night!" he shouted and came a little closer.

Before he could come to his senses, he saw the girl disappear into the depths of the ocean. His hand automatically reached for the belt on which the dagger hung. The guy's gaze darted around the entire perimeter, and as soon as he noticed the shine, he immediately recoiled. She was already here. Her eyes, like stars in the darkness, sparkled. Only these eyes were visible from the water, directed straight at him. "Do... do you need help?" he asked, as if he already knew the answer. His gaze slid briefly to her gills just below her ribs.