Marrying the Better Beastman

"Celie, you must listen to us. Only by marrying Gideon, the giant shark, will you ever know true happiness."

My parents clutched my younger sister's hands, their voices coaxing and insistent.

The moment I heard those words, I knew—my biased parents had been reborn as well.

For generations, the women of our family had been bound to orc marriages. In our generation now, only my sister and I remained.

In our previous life, two suitors came forward: Gideon, the giant shark beastman, and Felix, the hawk beastman.

Gideon was rugged, his appearance fierce. His world was deep beneath the waves. Marrying him meant abandoning the land and dwelling in the vast sea.

Felix, in contrast, was refined, dignified, his presence commanding. He even vowed to remain in the human city for the sake of his bride.

Unwilling to see my frail sister suffer, my parents chose Felix for her. And so I was given to Gideon, bound to the ocean's depths.

Day after day, my parents and sister flaunted the bliss of their city life before me. But scarcely half a month later, the rains came without end. Floods surged, swallowing nearly every human city.

They clung desperately to a rotting plank, adrift at sea, waiting for Felix to scour the skies for food.

But the endless labor wore him down. His wings gave out, torn and broken. Seeing no hope in him, my parents and sister tossed him into the waves like refuse.

Unable to endure their suffering, they begged me for help.

I relented. Pity stirred in me, and I brought them into the deep sea.

Yet as I stayed at home, awaiting Gideon's return from the hunt, my parents decided I lived too well—better than their beloved Celie. So they laced our fish with poison.

"Why?"

The question tore from me as the venom burned through my veins.

Why, when I was their child too, would they betray me for Celie's sake?

They looked at me with nothing but disgust.

"Celie is frail. She deserves this life of comfort. You stole the good life that was hers."