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"I must be the most beautiful woman in the world," chalked up in the elegant hand of a queen on the wall of a pita parlor above a drawing of her, looking radiant and lovely indeed, with her husband holding a great ceremonial scimitar and a frayed rope in the background. "The most beautiful?!" says one of the Nereids, Arethusa, who is visiting the humble eatery in the company of her father Nereus (head buried in a scroll when he isn't taking a bite of his cheese fries) and Poseidon himself, who seems to have something of a thing for the cute young chef. One of her sisters, Beroe, snorts delicately and then takes a hefty bite of her kotopita. Poseidon had been lecturing just that morning on how unattractive and even immoral it was for women to brag of their beauty, and yet he was always telling the Nereids how lovely they were, at least when not in earshot of their father. Even then, though, any conversation was peppered with physical compliments."What were you saying?" Poseidon asks. He has been ignoring the conversation but also the fact that demanding everything on the menu be made to perfect specifications and rushed to his table was a terrible way to show his interest in the chef. (The man was smart enough not to show it when Poseidon was looking, but he was glaring at the sea god behind his back even as he cooked.)"The uh, local royalty. The queen thinks she's beautiful," Beroe says impishly, hoping that will keep Poseidon focused on that subject alone and not give him a chance to object to some other minor imperfection.Poseidon looks at the wall (which tacitly invites people to write on it, with the chalk tray) for a solid minute, and then turns back around huffily and picks up the jumbo no. 3 pita with extra yogurt as if to attack it."Aren't you going to punish her?" he asks, before stuffing the wrap into his mouth.The Nereids stay quiet, not sure who he's addressing. A few of them follow his gaze to their father, Nereus.Nereus briskly rolls up Melville (with commentary!), picks up a stray chunk of feta from the tablecloth, and assesses the wall, and Poseidon (now dappled with yogurt), and asks "You want me to punish Queen Cassiopeia?""For insulting your daughters, the most lovely beings in the world, as a mere mortal woman? Does that not make you furious?" Dero, the closest to their father of the present sisters, coughs and mutters mockingly into her pita "no one else can hold bees.""Hmmm," says Nereus, a god with a dad's sense of humor. "I suppose I could have Triton send a monster of the deep to their kingdom. Would that satisfy you?"Poseidon only grunts, because the chef has emerged from the kitchen, bearing six large plates stacked over his muscular arms and the grimace on his face is not deterring Poseidon's interest.Predictably, he has a shouting match with the chef, but only Dero notices that, on the way back from the little merman's room, Nereus has chalked, in tiny, meticulous copperplate, the text "[cetacean needed]" as a superscript after the queen's note."Don't you have any tact?" hisses Callianeira, when they are alone again outside the cafe. "You'll get her punished. And I mean punished."Arethusa stares vacantly at the ailing olive tree bordering the chariot ride-thru. "It would be obnoxious if he said it," she mutters, not explaining who. "Why is she allowed to feel beautiful?" ..."We're being targeted by the gods," says Cepheus, who is from the highlands, little studied in the pantheon of the sea, especially that of seafarers from distant isles. He's come to the conclusion from the vaguely menacing note in a bottle that turned up at the same time that the monster overturned the boats. He is also a king who adores his wife, and even though he might be prepared to allow that his wife, and their daughter, are only among the most beautiful women, rather than being singularly the absolute most beautiful, he would not think of punishing someone for bragging, believing as he does that disproof of it is enough of a comeuppance."What can a sea monster do?" says Cassiopeia worriedly. She is no great sailor either; though she has been to the sea shore and even on boats, the sea seems to hold untold horrors. And she feels responsible, since the note says "be careful who you tell you're beautiful." The signature might read Ishmael, and they have no idea who that would be."Sacrifice me. I should not mind being a wife of Nereus; they say he is gentle and kind," says Andromeda, still marking down the features of the best plant for greens they have in the garden with her charcoal. Her drawing of a leopard lies neglected at her side, interrupted first when a servant came to ask how strict the gardening orders were that could have destroyed the plant, and a second time by the message in a bottle. "He shouldn't refuse a princess.""But this is my fault--" the queen protests, though weakly."You are a queen, mother. And I should like to study the ocean, I think. There are so many things we do not know about its depths."The sea monster is a menace of uncertain nature, but if allying themselves through marriage to a god of the sea will give them power enough to get rid of it, it seems a fair trade for the sake of the kingdom. "We will miss you," Cepheus quietly announces, implicitly assenting. A few quiet tears trickle from his eyes. Cassiopeia nods, with a mournful sigh. Andromeda puts down the charcoal and thoughtfully adds, "But--chain me to a great boulder on the shore, and have me tuck the key into my bosom, where no one will take it. That way the monster cannot drag me into the sea, and Poseidon, almost as keen for women as that fiend Zeus, will not easily take me. I will unlock it only for Nereus. Leave a chest of food and good water skins above the tide line where I can reach it, and I shall withstand this attack on our kingdom.""My brave, brave beautiful daughter," says the queen, now weeping. "Let me have one last hug, and then we'll organise it," the king requests, extending his arms.tbc...