This book is for the howling wolf awards hosted by mxdnight_owl /OwlWolf22091 word count (not counting this part): 2202
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         The world is full of beings that can change their form at will. The ones on then call them shifters and they can change into any animal ranging from a mouse to a dragon. We under the sea have similar beings we call morphers. Morphers have as wide a variety as shifters do. The major difference between a shifter in a morpher is their original form. Shifters are humans that can turn into animals, while morphers are merpeople who can turn into different animals. There are some who change between human and merfolk from either side, but those are rare.

      I am a morpher. I can change into the Kraken. I am not the first Kraken morpher and hopefully I won't be the last, my whole family has been able to change into a Kraken.

       Every Kraken is different from the last in looks and in philosophy. Some of my family traded safe passage for favors from sailors, some destroyed every ship that came into their area, some sunk only the ships of enemies to the pirate lovers. Some controlled the merpeople with fear while others were allies with them.

       I protect the kingdom of the merpeople from threats, fishers, and poachers alike.

       The merpeople do have an army, but they can only fight threats that come from the ocean itself. I can defend against threats to come from land or sea.

       Today the queen of the merpeople called me for a meeting.

      "Your Majesty," I greet with a bow as I enter.

       "Ezili, we've known each other since we were kids, please stop with the formalities," chastises me.

        "Sorry Cordelia, but you are the queen and I am despite my high-ranking one of your subjects," I counter.

       "Ezi, you were my friend long before I was the queen, my only true friend, because even when we were young everyone was intimidated by what we would become," she sighs.

      "Well, I think they feared me because they feared my father and they were intimidated by you because you were the princess," I say as she gestures for me to take a seat.

       I sit on one of the rock chairs she has around the room my purple tail only slightly bent and my back straight only letting my shoulders slump slightly. Cordelia sits across from me on one of the rock chairs with a seaweed throw, her gold tail curled on the chair as she leans on the armrest. Very few got to see her this relaxed.

       Cordelia sighs, "You're probably right about that. Now the reason I called you was, unfortunately, not to chit chat. There's been reports of pirates heading towards us looking for mermaid treasure. They even have a map."

       If they have a map it probably originated from a previous Kraken. It seems like half my life is undoing what my family did.

      "Well, it sounds like I'll be getting a new shirt then," I declare.

      I'm the only mermaid to wear clothing made out human materials, most merpeople wear clothing made of kelp or other materials found under the sea or what humans think is normal mermaid wear, shell bras. Even Cordelia wears a shirt made of kelp with pearls laced in it. I, on the other hand, wear shirts made from the sails of ships I've sunk.

       "Hopefully, just be careful human technology is getting more advanced by the day, I don't want to lose you, my friend, " Cordelia replies.

      "I won't fail this kingdom," I state with confidence.

     "I hope you're right. My sources say they should be here in 2 days. If this goes like it normally does then I'll see you in 3 days, wearing your new shirt, for the victory dinner - oh and if you can save a piece of the ship for Cari, you know how she loves those," Cordelia asks me for her daughter.

      "I'll be sure to and I'll see you and your family in 3 days," I say as I get up.

      "See you then," she says as she nods dismissing me.

      As I leave the room I can't help but be a little envious of Cordelia not because she's the queen, but because she has a family. When we were young very few would swim near us, which is how we became friends - we weren't afraid of each other.

      My father was one of the Krakens who controlled the merpeople with fear; only serving his own wants, making deals with pirates, morphing whenever someone upset him and nearly killing them. Every single merperson feared him, even Cordelia's dad.

      Everyone saw me as his daughter and feared me, all except Cordelia - who everyone treated as if she was made of sand: ready to fade away at any second - she saw me as a friendless girl like her. When everyone
feared to go near the princess in case of in endangering her somehow, she befriended the merperson everyone thought was the second biggest danger, the next Kraken: me.

       Eventually she found someone who treated her like everyone else, a boy in royal army, and they fell in love. Now he's the captain of the royal army and they're married with their twins, Cari and Nix, who will one day co-rule the kingdom.

       Cari and Nix are both able to morph into humans, the first merpeople in awhile to be able to so. They plan to use their ability to settle matters with the humans, but have different views on how. Cari wants fight, part of the reason she collects ship pieces from me is that she wants to have a record of all of the oceans enemies defeated in her life by her people (not sure if I should be proud or what about that), Nix on the other hand is more diplomatic than his sister, and wants to settle things by negotiating. Thankfully they've agreed to talk first then fight if need be.

       While they have a family and a plan for the future I still have almost everyone cowering away from me in fear of the Kraken's power, and I envy them.

        As I get to my home and prepare for the bed I imagine a family of my own.

🌊🌊🌊

       I'm stocking up on food as part of my pre-battle prep, when I hear it - the emergency ship alarm.

       I immediately drop what I'm doing and head to the sound. No ship gets this close without being noticed so this must be that we were expecting tomorrow, it must be a war ship.

       They're still far enough away for them to turn around, so I swim to the surface to issue a warning.

"Turn around
Or faced the Kraken's wrath
And never be found."

       I sing my warning, which works a lot more than one would expect either the sailors hear the song a turn away in fear of sirens or hear the words and turn around in fear of the Kraken. This ship keeps coming so I sing the warning twice more before they pass the point of no turning back.

        I swim down, quickly take off my shirt, lay it out, and morph. My tail and arms change into multiple powerful tentacles and the rest of my body grows and becomes rounded. Soon I'm a gigant creature, bigger than any ship, with some characteristics of an octopus and some characteristics of a squid.

        As I morph a few tentacles pop out of the water, just enough to cause them to cut their engines and prepare for a fight.

        I send up a couple tentacles to draw their fire as I move to the other side of the ship and start to grab hold.

        My tentacle starts to creep up the side of the ship, but something feels off about this ship it isn't rough like other ships, it's smooth.

        As I get closer to the surface the sun flashes in my eyes reflecting off something on the ship. That's strange, I can't help but think because there's nothing that low that should be reflecting the sun.

      I push the thought aside as grab the side and pull, slightly enjoying their terror as the cling to the railings and some fall into the water. It's heavier than other ships.

      I move to the bottom center of the ship where I can reach both the stern and bow at once or both the port and star port side.

      I wrap my tentacles around the ship from the port and star port sides and apply just enough pressure to crack the haul, but it didn't work. I squeeze harder still nothing. I squeeze with an amount of force that usually tears ships in half and finally I feel the ship start to cave and hear a satisfying crunch.

       Crunch? Usually ships crack.

       At this point they start dropping anchors and refiring cannons to try to hit me. I squeeze the center for a bit longer than normal, before I shift grabbing a hold of the bow and stern pulling them together.

CREAK!!!

        Creak?! Something is extremely different about this ship!

       The ship bends but doesn't break. WHAT IS THIS SHIP MADE OF!!

        I get an idea that hopefully will break this ship. I wrap half my tentacles around from the port side stern and the other half around the star port side bow and twist the bow and stern in opposite directions.

        A large gash finally started to form in the ship. I kept twisting until the hole torn open the entire ship. One of my tentacles brushes against an edge of the hole, it feels like when pirates fight back with their swords but much worse. The edge isn't rough and splintering, it's jagged and sharp.

        My blood fills the water as I finish off the ship. The ship is now completely torn open in the center and it's time for me to drag it down to the ship graveyard below us. I grab the ship with all my tentacles and pull it down to the depths of the trench.

        Most of the sailors died in some way or another during the battle those who didn't will drown before they can get close to land or be taken out by our army. The strange ship is finally sunk and I can rest.

        I swim back to where I left my shirt and morph back putting on my shirt again. I have a large wound on one of my arms and a few nicks on my tail. Normally I have some small cuts or scrapes from battle, but the wound on my arm is the biggest injury I've gotten from battle.

         I find some nearby seaweed and wrap the wound, which goes from my wrist to my elbow and is pretty deep.

         I dive down to the strange ship, grabbing a sword from a previous battle along the way. I cut a large section from the red and blue sail to make my shirt out of. I set the sail down on a cliff and go to explore the strange ship.

         The ship is a gray color instead of the usual brown. It looks like someone made a ship out of swords. Remembering how painful the ship was when it cut me, I grab a rock and break off a sliver of the jagged ships edge for Cari.

        Carefully I hold the piece and explore the wreck.I end up taking the map and some thread from the captain's cabin before grabbing the sail piece and heading to my home.

🌊🌊🌊

        As I arrive at the palace in my new shirt, holding the seaweed wrapped ship piece, Cordelia greets me.

       "Congratulations, Ezi! I'm so glad we have you to protect us. Wait what happened to your arm," she asks pointing to my seaweed wrapped arm.

      "Your Majesty, I have some rather disturbing news about the recent ship battle," I say in a serious tone.

       "What is it?" She questions as her eyebrows meet in concern.

      "They started building ships out of the stuff they make swords out of. That was the hardest battle I've ever fought," I tell her.

      She grave look came on to her face, "These humans always find new ways to surprise us, I hope my children will be able to come up with a way to settle things with them."

       She looks over to her children with a proud, yet slightly worried expression. Cari looks over and sees us and her face lights up as she rushes over.

       "Aunt Ezili," both of the twins call me Aunt Ezili, "Did you bring me anything?"

       I laugh at her enthusiasm and hand her the package, "Here, a piece of the ship as usual."

       She unwraps the piece and a look somewhere between confusion and awe crosses her face.

       "It looks like a sword," she says in a tone that matches the look on her face.

       "That's what this new ship was made out of," I state.

        A scary gleam enters Cari's eyes, "It's good to know that no matter how strong our enemies get, we will always defeat them."

      Nodding in agreement we all head to the celebratory feast.