Trinket (Reverse Harem)

Sir HorseyFish

The hippocamps let the waves bring them mostly to shore. I'm stuck staring at the one in the center. Then they shift into human form. Each one is male, with long hair plastered around their shoulders and chests, and wearing clingy, diagonally-shaped skirts of woven sea grasses that... yeah. Modesty. Not really. They're all male.

The one in the center has jet-black hair shot through with red. He has five large ridges of flesh that run down his neck and onto his shoulders on each sides, and tangled, inked patterns that follow the lines of his muscles like little scales. You know, just to make him seem more of the piece of artwork than he was. Because he was glorious.

Itek gets to his feet and growls in his throat, jealous.

I blush, but I also can't really help that Sir HorseyFish there is just...so... Sir HorseyFish-y.

I open my mouth to say something, then realize anything I could have said would have been very stupid, so I shut up.

Itek, however, can't speak a language the horse-fish can speak, so....

The lead hippocamp (stallion? man? male?) came onto the beach and strode up to me, his lantern-bearers maintaining a respectful distance. He glanced at Itek. Itek raised his wings and nodded gravely. The hippocamp nodded in return, then looked at me, eyes questioning.

"I am Orrmis," the hippocamp told me.

"Theia," I replied, snapping out of my stupor. "There are two dragons and a wolf-shifter drifting out there." I pointed to the ocean. "Can you help?"

His brow furrowed. He looked in the direction I pointed while the two lantern-bearers exchanged confused looks.

"I'm not much of a diplomat," I told Itek under my breath.

Itek sighed.

"Please?" I added. "They've been out there for a day. They're injured."

Itek folded his wings against his side and rested his weight on his uninjured hind leg.

Orrmis said, "I am not here for them. I am here for you."

Wait, it had worked? I'd summoned some hippocamps?

That was great, but this hippocamp needed to understand I wasn't asking for fun. "They're my consorts. All three of them." I looked at Itek. "Four."

"Four?" Orrmis said.

"I know it sounds insane, but it's true, and I'll be happy to explain it later. I um... braided some rope?" I grabbed my rope from the ocean waves and shoved it at him.

He was trying his best not to smile. His lips were twitching. The lantern-bearers were struggling too.

"You can laugh all you want at me on your way to go find them and bring them in." I shoved the rope at Orrmis. He was gloriously hot, but I had a lot of hotness in my life already, and I didn't need Sir HorseyFish there thinking he was the hottest thing in my life. Because he wasn't. He was the biggest asshole in my life unless he went and got my dragons.

I even liked Asund better than him right then.

Orrmis actually took the rope. His fingertips grazed my palm as he gathered it out of my grip. He seemed to hesitate, expecting something. When I didn't react, he took the rope. "Who are you, Theia?"

"Just Theia," I said. "I mean, if it matters, this is Ambassador Itek of the Gryphons, and the two dragons are Ambassador Korr and Ambassador Ethat of the Dragon clan, and the wolf shifter is the Captain of Lord Perron's guard at the Everfell Enclave. They aren't nobodies drifting out in your ocean."