#come out. but only the richest families can afford them and its somehow carried in the living body. strange rituals. blood becomes something

[theskyexists]

Ok looked at all the vampire f/f books listed on sappfic.com or whatever and. Thats not a lot comparatively and also I had an idea! Who wants to read the one scene i already wrote for it

[mobscene-london]

LONDON AWARDS 2023 AFTER PARTY:

Location: Westminster Pier. Hosts: Alexis Larsson & Yvonne Rutherford. Date: Friday 31st March, 2023. (roleplaying will start when awards complete.) Dress Code: Formal. Dress to impress. Short dresses are fine.

EVENT SUMMARY:

If you're asking why the Rutherfords would own a giant ass yacht that's too big for them to use, then you must be a poor. It's because they can, and the only reason you're able to breathe in its vicinity, let alone step on it, is because you're invited to the exclusive after-party to dance, drink and celebrate with London's biggest winners and losers no one will even remember tomorrow. All on a fucking super yacht along the Thames.

Make sure to thank Yvonne Rutherford for acknowledging your existence.

The party will kick off with a fireworks show greeting the guests over the open deck where the main party is. Just be careful not to trip into the swimming pool—yes, there is a swimming pool—as you dance the night away to the raging beat courtesy of the in-yacht DJ Tiësto. Worry not, there's a bar at the three main levels (of the available five) to quench even the thirstiest socialites London has to offer.

If you're looking for a more chill vibe, the party carries on in the interior living spaces, littered with plush chairs and comfy couches for you to vibe off your feet or perhaps partake in illegal substances in relative privacy. Hors d'oeuvres prepared by the staff of The Empire's Michelin star restaurant will also be served.

Meanwhile, those who seek further privacy, wish to rendezvous with someone they maybe shouldn't be seen with, or are willing to partake in some mystery may venture into the theatre room—because of course this yacht has one. The seats are cleared out to convert this cozy room into a dark dance hall, barely illuminated by colorful laser lights and underscored by the richest bass beats afforded by the cinematic sound system.

Despite the size of the yacht itself, the guest bedrooms do come in limited number, thus their occupancy is at a first come, first serve basis, aka be sure to knock before you enter and lock the door behind you. By the request of the Rutherford family, their respective bedrooms are locked and will not be accessible for privacy and sanitary reasons.

Safety is of utmost importance, with a small medical staff and helicopter on board for emergencies. That said, your RSVP comes with a waiver clearing the organizers of any legal responsibility over whatever shenanigans may occur during the event itself.

The jet ski somehow arrived with the yacht itself. It shouldn't have, but it did, so that's off-limits, too. 

ATTENDANCE & IMPORTANT NOTES:

Everyone can attend this event, regardless of their affiliation or whether they attended the ceremony itself. That said, if you feel you character wouldn’t participate, then there’s no pressure to. Take note that there will canonically be a lot of important members of London’s social scene present, so the party will be pretty jam-packed with the city’s self-proclaimed finest and most famous. This will be considered a monumental social event this year, so people will be looking to go wild and make the most of it.

TWI will be paying attention. It is not a private event.

There will be no mob drama. Can people fight and have verbal spats? Absolutely. Encouraged. Given that everyone from all of the mobs should be in attendance, this will be inevitable. I don’t mind a bit of physical fighting if you want to go that way. There will be nothing large scale, though, or anything to derail the party as a whole. No stabbing, shooting, casual murder until you’re on the way home.

PERKS FOR THE AWARD WINNERS:

For all of those who walked away from the ceremony with an award in their hands, your fortunes do not end with a golden statue. Thank God because that ain’t real gold fam. You will be entitled to some complementary treats as an added bonus, courtesy of Amir Dawar. These cannot be exchanged, nor gifted to non-winners, though winners are permitted to invite guests to their suites.

All winners will enjoy free drinks for the entirety of the evening. This will include bottle service so the peasants can feel special.

All winners will be offered access to a hotel suite at The Kingdom Hotel in Westminster for the entirety of the weekend. Winners for Best Couple and Should-Be couple will get presidential suites. Enjoy them.

Winner of both Man of the Year and Woman of the Year will win an all expenses paid trip, transfers included, to any of the Khan-Dawar hotels (* with the exception of the Belize location.) A private jet will take them and a guest of their choosing whenever they wish to redeem the prize.

Winner of Best Dressed Man and Best Dressed Woman (awards that will be announced at the after party, rather than the ceremony itself) will both win £15k of credit to spend at Harrods in Knightsbridge.

Winners of the Best Dates award (also announced at the after party) will win an all inclusive spa day at the hotel, at a time of their choosing.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Dead, broke

Of all the moving, wrenching accounts of death during the pandemic, Molly McGhee’s “America’s Dead Souls,” for The Paris Review stands out: haunting, furious and sad, an rude awakening of the status quo that denies any possibility of inaction.

https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2021/05/17/americas-dead-souls/

I’ve known McGhee a long time, since she worked on my book INFORMATION DOESN’T WANT TO BE FREE from McSweeneys, a professional association we renewed when she landed at Tor.

During the pandemic crisis, I’ve had two different connections to her: on the one hand, the consummate professionalism of her emails as we published my novel ATTACK SURFACE in the middle of the lockdown.

On the other hand, I knew her through her wrenching and deeply personal Twitter account of the personal tragedies she’s endured over the same period. Her Paris Review essay brings those tragedies into sharp focus and uses them to pin a huge and heretofore ill-defined feeling.

McGhee’s mother died during the crisis, but the death was the culmination of years of hardship: “[earning] less than $10,000 a year. Suffering from debilitating depression while caring for her aging parents…chronically unemployed, undermedicated, and overstressed.”

Her mother’s debts were on public display through searchable databases, and her life was haunted by both con artists and bill collectors who carpet-bombed her with calls, letters and emails.

She was too poor to fight back: her wages were garnished by the IRS “for back taxes calculated from a years-old misfiling they refused to correct.” McGhee sent her months of her salary, but it wasn’t enough.

She had no answer for her mother’s rhetorical questions, “Why are these people harassing me? What good does it do them?”

Because the answer is obvious and insufficient: “The people in power don’t care if we live or die, as long as they get paid.”

It only took two days after McGhee’s mother died for her creditors to begin harassing her for her mother’s debts. The state of Tennessee seized the house, but Wells Fargo expected her to make good on the mortgage.

The hospital where McGhee’s mother died wanted a quarter of a million dollars. McGhee, not even 26, was staring down the barrel of the weapon that had been trained on her mother, the inheritor of nothing but debt.

The debt-machine is efficient. Bill collectors found out about McGhee’s mother’s death before McGhee’s own family got word. And they’re remorseless, immune to McGhee’s “pleading, bargaining, reasoning, denying, uploading, scanning, begging, faxing, and crying.”

McGhee compares it to Gogol’s “Dead Souls,” a surreal tale of a grifter named Chichikov who buys dead serfs’ souls to sell for profit.

It’s only surreal if you’ve never been in the debt system’s crosshairs, “where one day of lost wages can compound into houselessness.”

We live in a system of winners and losers. The winners’ winnings come from debt, shielded from the system’s cruelty by “professionalism and bureaucracy” that insulate them — and their functionaries — from “feelings of culpability, not to mention empathy or curiosity.”

Poor people have less money, but the system is firmly focused poor people, because people with money can defend themselves. When McGhee went into debt to hire a lawyer, a single letter on official letterhead instantly reduced all that debt by 90% — more than $250k, poof.

It’s expensive to be poor. Take Community Health Systems, one of the largest hospital chains in America. It sues the shit out of poor people. When those people can afford lawyers, CHS loses, because it is chasing debts it is not entitled to collect.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/18/unhealthy-balance-sheet/#health-usury

CHS itself owes $7.6 billion. It turned its first profit in 2020, thanks to hundreds of millions of dollars in state and federal subsidies, and its executives pocketed millions in “performance bonuses” for a performance that consisted of getting bailed out by the public.

The Trump stimulus handed trillions to the richest people and biggest companies in America. Those companies “leveraged up” their handouts to raise trillions more and went on spending sprees, buying up struggling businesses.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/17/divi-recaps/#graebers-ghost

They loaded these companies up with debt, declared “divi recaps” (where you take out a loan on a company you bought on credit and put that money in your own pocket as a “special dividend”) and crashed the companies, destroying jobs and communities.

Plutes know there are three kinds of debt: workers’ debts (which must be repaid), owners’ debts (to be “restructured” away) and government debt (not debt at all, but still handy for terrifying normies with stories of “mortgaging our kids’ futures”).

https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/17/disgracenote/#false-consciousness

Forty years of this approach has turned the economy into a shambling zombie, dependent on the fiction that “consumer” debts — repackaged as bonds through financialization — will be repaid, somehow.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/02/innovation-unlocks-markets/#digital-arm-breakers

As an ever-larger share of the world’s wealth has shifted from the workers’ side of the balance sheet to the owners’, the ability of workers to buy things to keep businesses afloat as vehicles for debt-leveraging has only declined.

Wage-theft and stagnation, unions in retreat, monopoly, monopsony, tax-preferencing for home-owners over renters, for capital gains over wages, spiraling housing, health and education costs, worker misclassification — wages are annihilated before they’re even deposited.

With no wages left over to fund consumption, there’s only debt, and as Michael Hudson says, “Debts that can’t be repaid, won’t be repaid.” CHS can comfortably carry billions in debts, but the sick people it sues for $201 have to choose between rent and medical debt.

Every loan-shark knows how this works. The chump with $500 who owes you $500 and owes the bank $500 needs an incentive to pay you ahead of the bank. To assert the primacy of your claims, you need an arm-breaker.

The digital world has given us all kinds of fantastic new arm-breakers: digital repo men who can brick your car or your phone. It’s automated the once rare practice of evictions, creating eviction mills that run with devastating efficiency.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/02/innovation-unlocks-markets/#digital-arm-breakers

Creating a debt-instrument — a bond grounded in the payments from other peoples’ debts — requires that you convince investors and bond-rating agencies that your arm-breaker will terrorize the debtors into paying you instead of child-support or grocery bills.

“The cruelty is the point” isn’t ideology, it’s pure description. The system — an artificial life-form constituted as immortal colony organism that uses us as gut flora — runs on competing claims to your debt, and victory consists of terrorizing you more than any rival.

The financiers who practice leveraged buyouts destroy real businesses, ruin lives and hollow out communities. They are feted as “job creators.” The workers who must borrow to close the gap they leave are “deadbeats.” Leveraged buyouts are back, baby.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/14/billionaire-class-solidarity/#club-deals

If you fret that forgiving student loans and making college free will “saddle our kids with debt,” then you’ve been suckered.

Look. Replacing a system that starts all but the richest children with unserviceable debt with one that doesn’t is liberation, not bondage.

Since Reagan, we’ve been hiking tuition, killing deductions for interest, and shielding student debt from bankruptcy.That’s how you can borrow $79k, pay $190k, still owe $236k, and have 25% taken from every paycheck AND Social Security until you die.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/12/04/kawaski-trawick/#strike-debt

Debts that can’t be paid, won’t be paid. Student debts do get forgiven, but only for those highly educated, (potentially) highly productive people who can prove that they have been so thoroughly destroyed by debt that they have no future.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/11/20/sovkitsch/#student-debt

And as McGhee reminds us, the tragedy isn’t merely that we educate people on the pretense of betting on America’s future, but really, the principle use that the system makes of the educated is as collateral for securitized loans.

If the arm-breakers who chased her mother wanted to understand that woman’s humanity, McGhee says they should start here:

“Her humor and her rage were unmatched. In the evenings, against the setting Tennessee sun, she liked to drink red can Cokes in the garden while snuffing cigarettes out against the yard’s ant colonies. She could reckon with anyone just by looking them in the eye. Men were terrified of her, rightfully so. She was sweet. In the last week of her life, when she couldn’t understand where she was or who she was talking to, she greeted everyone the same: ‘Hi, pal. Hope you’re doing okay. When can you come pick me up?’”

Take a second. Re-read that.

[ajoy3fanfics]

A/N: I’m going to apologize for this upfront. I have NO idea what I was thinking as I wrote this. I just kept thinking about how Hades got a bad rep. He was so much more than the leader of the underworld- a position he did not even ask for. I was considering writing a piece solely on Hades and Persephone, but then of course my Inuyasha brain kicked into gear and here we are. This story is told from Rins (Persephone’s) point of view. It’s a take on her love story, one where she wasn’t kidnapped.

No one asked for an Inuyasha/Greek God mash up, but here it is.

ETA: This has been sitting in my unfinished work  for so long. Lens drawings totally gave me the inspiration to get on this and finish it! I decided to make this a multi-part story :)

Also psted on FF

~.~

Persephone

The legends say that I was kidnapped.

The story tellers still spin the tales of my abduction- if you could call what reallyhappened an abduction- their stories striking fear in the heart of mortals- a warning to all young women. Never set foot outside alone. Keep your wits about you. Be prepared for anything, even the ground swallowing you whole. If you don’t, if you are careless, you might end up like Persephone.

Humans and Gods, mortals and immortals alike pity me, pity the waste of my beauty in such a desolate place. How could someone so full of life be condemned to live below the Earths surface, where not even a ray of light breaks through? Persephone, bringer of spring, goddess of grain, Queen of the underworld. They have given me as many titles as they have names; it still surprises me that Rin, my true name, never stuck. Humans are like that though- they will cut away at bits that displease them, at parts that do not fit their stories. Details become less important than the message they are trying to weave.

If I had heard the stories the poets tell of me, I too would feel sadness for the poor young maiden. Forced to marry her captor, forced to spend the better part of her life hidden away, far from the comfort the living world of friends and family. Doomed to spend eternity locked in an unhappy union with the God of death himself.

Of course, my husband is not the God of death. He does not torture the poor souls that make their way here. No, those are jobs best left to someone else. My dear husband does not have that in him- he finds the details of mortals lives far too tedious. Legends, as they so often do, have gotten him completely wrong. An injustice- one he does not deserve. Had the bards knew him better, they could have never accused him of taking me against my will.

In truth, I met him long before he approached my father, respecting the old ways and asking for my hand. Proper. It’s not a word that people associate with my husband, the king of the underworld. Then again, there are many aspects of him that are simply overlooked.

No, I had not met him in the underworld when the Earth swallowed me whole. Instead, I had met him in an almost unremarkable way. How strange the story spinners got that part right.

I met him while picking flowers.

~.~

It had been a splendid morning; the sun was high in the sky, warming the world and all those in it. There was a gentle breeze that with it carried the fragrance of wildflowers in the distance. It was the sort of day I loved; it made me want to run into the open fields, to feel the freedom I craved and go where the wind would scatter me. A fantasy, only that. My mother would never have allowed me to go off on my own, to act in such an unbecoming way. So, on days like this, I would settle on picking flowers.

I liked to do that- to capture bits of the spring that I could plant in places that nature did not bloom- in my room by the stone windows, in the kitchens as the servants cooked. I wanted to bring the beauty of spring inside where It did not belong.

“May I go out today, mother?” I tried my best to get her approval, doing my best to make my voice not sound desperate. Mother sheltered me, even in the best of times. I was her precious daughter- one that she found beautiful, powerful. Long before it was appropriate men would leer at me and without fail mother took notice. She did her best to keep me safe. And while I understood her reasoning- truly, I was lucky to have such a devoted mother- I also craved the freedom she denied me. I wanted time to be amongst my creations. “Please?” I added in for good measure, putting on my brightest smile.

She did not even so much as consider my request. “No, not today Rin. I have too much work to do to keep you company.” She brought a cup of water to her lips, taking a deep sip.

“You do not need to accompany me!” I quickly said. “I am old enough to go on my own.” My mother rolled her eyes. She did not think 16 was old enough for anything. “I just want to go down to the fields to see the flowers, maybe the river bank. Please?”

“Rin, could you not find-“

I  leaned on the table, trying to plead with her once more. “Mother, its so nice out today! I cannot be kept locked up inside all day! I need fresh air, and- and- fresh flowers! Mother-“

“You do hear the ridiculousness of your request, right?” she said, raising a disapproving brow, “A goddess of spring complaining that she needs to go outin order to see flowers?”

“Please?” I ended my begging by sticking out my lower lip, looking every bit the part of a begging puppy. Mother threw up her hands in the air, utterly defeated.

“Fine!” She sighed, exasperated. “Take the attendants with you.” I expected that, she was always reluctant to let me  go. I gave her a smile as I hugged her from behind.

“I will bring you a beautiful bouquet!” I said, “As thanks!” And with that, I took off before she could change her mind.

Mother was lovely; she was good for mankind, did humans a great deed as the Goddess of wheat. Mother was life itself. But she also had dreams for me, ones which I did not necessarily share. I often thought about how she would like to dictate my life, plan out every minute of it if she had her way. I was constantly torn between playing the part of the good daughter and wanting to rebel.

But when I felt the warm sun on my face, felt the cool breeze on my skin, my mother and her plans were the last thing on my mind. In that moment I was free. Kicking of my sandals I let my bare feet touch the grassy Earth, sprinting ahead, leaving my attendance to trail behind me.

I spent my day like that; basking in the sun, picking flowers and making crowns, frolicking by myself with people just far away enough to remind me that I wasn’t alone, not really. Sure, I had friends. But they were ones that mother approved of, and secretly, I wondered if they were spies for her, telling her little snippets of my feelings and whereabouts. I never felt completely alone, complete autonomous from her. My mother was a lovely woman, and my admiration for her is still strong to this day; but so much control can be stifling, leaving me gasping for freedom. Letting out a sigh, I sank down into the green meadow to relax, flowers beside me as the sun slowly began to lower. The day was winding down and soon mother would want me back in the nest.

That was the first time I saw him. A god on Earth, resting just across the river.

He looked every bit the divinity he was, his back against the dark brown trunk, a sharp contrast to his long silvery hair. Fair skin, so pale it looked porcelain and robes far more elegant than the richest mortal could hope to afford. He was resting, eyes closed, breathing even; I wondered how many people had seen him in this state, and suddenly became uncomfortable with a twinge of guilt, looking in on a private moment. I was struck by his beauty at once, but a handsome God was hardly a rarity. I had heard gossip of Ares and his build, of Hercules and Apollo. I counted Hermes as a personal friend, and he alone was enough to make women swoon. No, it wasn’t his hauntingly good looks that held my attention, but rather the expression on his face; he somehow looked completely at ease, but also supremely pained. It was not a look that showed easily, one had to truly search to find it. But as I stared, longer than anyone would deem polite, I found a deep loneliness, and it troubled me.

I wish I could say I was feeling bold when I made my small jumps on the slippery rocks, making way across the narrow stream, but I was far too intrigued to feel boldness or shame. I was focused on the supernatural entity before me. As I stepped onto the opposite grassy bank, he made no sign of acknowledgement that I was near. He still rested, head reclined at ease. I moved towards him in a crawl, still on my knees from when I raised myself out of the water . For a moment, I was sure that I would get close without him waking. I had no specific plan in mind, only that I needed to be near him; I was drawn and had no idea why.

“Do not come near.” He said, voice steady, eyes still closed. “Not if you value your life.”

The last part took me off guard, making me freeze on all fours, although there hardly seemed to be bite in his bark. Of course I valued my life; I felt ridiculous and ashamed, but unable to move forward or retreat. I was stuck. Biting my bottom lip, I debated what to do.

“S-Sorry.” I stammered, nervousness making my stomach drop. “I didn’t mean to disturb you.”

“If you’re sorry, then leave.” He bit out, finally opening his amber eyes, piercing me in place. I couldn’t have move if Zeus himself commanded me. Never in my life had I seen a being more beautiful. True, I had lead a sheltered existence until this point, but I was sure I could travel the world twice over and still be awed by his magnificence.

In the days since, when my husband and I talked with fondness of our first encounter, we like to bicker over who was more stricken my whom. Was it I, a mere girl laying eyes upon a sleeping sin, or the God of the underworld, captivated by the look of me on all fours, black hair falling over my shoulder, pale pink dress falling off my shoulder? He even jokes that my flower chain of daises was a sign that I would soon be his wife, the spring crown upon my head.

I’ve heard the version where the Earth swallowed me whole, a fine symbolism for his great lust for me, eating the fair maiden alive. I’ve also heard the rather unsavory take of a kidnapping, an act anyone would reject if they knew my husband. Instead, at our first meeting, we stared each other down, a spark between us so strong it could light a fire. We would have stayed like that, spellbound in a trance, if my attendants were not calling for me. Looking over my shoulder I frowned, unhappy that this encounter was soon to be over. I needed to get back, but more than that, I wanted to know this stranger. He raised his finely arched brows, a silent signal that others were coming. I moved closer, a breath away from him. I could practically feel his body tense, as if being in close proximity to another was a foreign thing to him. Reaching up, I removed the flower crown and boldly placed it on his head.

“Cheer up.” I gave him a smile, toothy and genuine. The nymphs called once more and reluctantly, with a heavy sigh, I leaned back and turned to retreat, quickly jumping across the rocks, back towards the sprites that had lost track of me. Looking over my shoulder, I gave him one last long glance, a smile of wanting on my lips, before I cleared the area. My last look was a bewildered God, a chain of daisies around his silver crown.

No, the lord of the underworld did not kidnap as I picked flowers as the stories go. It was the day learned his true name that I found myself in the land of the dead.

[pangaea-writes-shit]

My Merman Bride [1/?]

Probably the cheesiest title ever, but I couldn’t come up with a better one. Please note that I’m not the best at English, so if you find any mistakes, feel free to tell me and I will change it immediatley. 

The fic is based on this picture a friend sent me and I hope my writing can somehow match the amazingness of it. Go follow the artist if you haven’t already.

The chandeliers sparkled in the light of the many candles littered around the whole dining hall, the floor was polished to the point where it shined, the finest and whitest cloths covered the tables, the most exquisite wine had been brought out, the most delicious food to accompany it, all of it to please the guests, and especially him.

Boring.

"Madame Winsley, I heard your daughter is coming of age soon?" Side glances at him.

Boring.

"Master Jones, have you tried the duck yet? The orange sauce really brings out its flavour!" A fake smile.

Boring.

"I must say, I really admire how you always work hard." A not very subtle cleavage pressing against his arm.

Boring. And annoying.

"Have you heard of the new trend yet? More and more people are getting a mermaid to keep at home."

Bor- no, wait. Interesting.

Alfred tried to catch more of the conversation a few of the countesses were having not too far from him.

"Really? They finally managed to catch them?"

"Only a few ones so far, so they're still expensive."

One of them sighed. "Oh, I wish I could afford one. Maybe even a hunky merman!"

A few gasps and giggles. "Miss Elswood!"

"Don't be fooled by mermen!" One of them butted in. "They also have these 'breeding types'. Males that can bear children!" Her face scrunched up. "It's so weird. And they're not even well built, no muscles, just soft and slender."

"But aren't these the most expensive? Isn't it kind of interesting how they're different from us?"

"Only to someone like you, Madame Caldwell. It's just weird how they're able to get pregnant, if you ask me."

No one asked you.

A collective sigh erupted from the group of gossiping women.

"I wish I could afford one."

"Master Jones probably could. He can afford everything."

"That's true."

Another sigh.

Alfred leaned back in his seat and allowed himself a slight grin. He heard something interesting today. Mermaids, huh. Or mermen. And even rumored 'bearing types'. He wasn't particularly keen on getting one, but he probably had to either way. It was a new trend and only the richest could afford it, he would be looked down upon and gossiped about if he didn't get one. Not that he paid it much mind, but his trading partners did and it would worsen his business. He would have to contact Baldwin about a tank soon.

--

"... that being said, I trust you to find me the most expensive mermaid or merman that's worth their price."

Alfred's head butler and old friend Henry nodded.

"Yes, Master Jones. I will not disappoint you."

--

Two weeks later, Henry knocked on the door to Alfred's study.

"I believe I have found the perfect specimen to buy."

Alfred looked up from his paperwork and allowed a smile to slip on his features.

"Well done Henry. Thank you."

Henry bowed.

"If you allow, I will show you my pick tomorrow. The merchant also praised him a lot. I think you'll be satisfied."

Alfred slighty raised one eyebrow.

"So it's a male then?"

Henry bowed again.

"Yes. A breeding type. They're rare and therefore more expensive."

"Well then." Alfred closed a book and clapped his hands together. "I look forward to seeing him tomorrow."

--

Alfred leaned forward and adjusted his glasses a bit. "Hmm... not bad." He straightened himself again. "How much did you again say he was?"

The merchant coughed discreetly before flashing his thought of a winning smile.

"8000 gold coins, Master Jones. A special price only for you."

Alfred only cocked his head slightly. He knew merchants like that.

"3000 at most. He is pleasing to the eyes, but nothing else. A bit plain if you ask me. Not to mention the eyebrows."

"3-" The merchant choked, "3000?! You must be joking! This specimen can-"

"I don't care." Alfred dismissed him with a wave of his hand. "3000 and no coin more."

"Master Jones, you have to think of me! My family! 7000 is the lowest I can go."

"3500. He may be nice and all, but have you seen his dull eyes? Like a dead fish."

"6000 gold coins, Master Jones, please, that's the lowest I can go. My children-"

"You don't have any children, nor a wife, good sir. 4000 gold coins."

"Fine. 5000! But no lower than that!"

"Deal." Alfred handed him a bag full of coins. He had readied this amount beforehand, knowing that's the lowest price he could get out of the merchant. The merchant opened the bag and gave it one good look over before closing it again. He smiled and stepped aside.

"He's all yours, Master Jones."

Alfred gestured for the workers to lower the net into the tank. The merchant stuffed the bag full of coins in his jacket pocket, his people pleasing attitude had vanished now that the deal had been made.

"So, will you take him as wife or as a slave? I need it for the contract."

Alfred frowned, confused.

"Excuse you?"

"Aah, Master Jones, didn't you know? When buying a mermaid or a merman, you either take them in as a slave or marry them. He may be a male, but since he is a breeding type, it's completely legal to marry him."

Alfred's frown deepened as he thought about it. He didn't really need a slave, his servants did their work and he doubted that dull-eyed merman could do anything he needed. Not to mention, if he married him, all those young girls of noble blood swarming around him, trying to get his attention to marry into a rich family, would finally leave him alone. He didn't dislike girls, nor their attention, but only if it came for the right reasons and not because of the reputation that came with the name 'Jones'.

"I'll take him as my wife." He decided. It was only a ring around his finger. No big deal. He would continue his life as usual.

The merchant pulled a scroll out of the depths of his bag, together with ink and a quill. He unrolled it and read the contents of it once more, before writing down the agreed price of 5000 gold coins and the status of a wife the merman would take as soon as sold. He handed the scroll and the quill to Alfred.

"Here, Master Jones. This is the contract. I need your signature here and also a signature on the copy of it I have here," he pulled out another scroll, "and then we're done."

Alfred took scroll and quill and read the contents of the contract.

CONTRACT

With this, the ownership of the merman Arthur Kirkland , a bearing type male, transfers to Alfred Foster Jones . The agreed price is 5000 gold coins. The purchaser takes the merman as wife . The merman bears the following values:

- fair skin

- bright green eyes

- slender and femine body and face

- green scales mixed with gold

- high birthing ability

- high fertility

- singer at the royal mermen court

- dancer at the royal mermen court

- high artistic talent

- well educated

Alfred raised an eyebrow and internally noted that if he ever were to sell the merman again, he could get a high price for him, even higher than the one he had paid. He signed at the bottom of the scroll, then signed the copy and handed it to the merchant. The merchant gave the workers a sign and they pulled the net with the merman inside out of the tank and carried him over. The merchant put shackles around his wrists, locked them and handed the key to Alfred with a sly grin.

"He's all yours now, Master Jones."

Alfred motioned for the staff he brought with him and they took the merman and carried him to the trailer, placing him in a tub filled with water and strapping him in so he stayed in place. Alfred watched the whole procedure before giving another sign. He got into his personal carriage, the workers in another one that was pulling the trailer. The coachman flicked the whip and they set off, back to the manor.