QT: I hijacked a harem system and now I'm ruining every plot(GL)
Chapter 197: Visitation rights

Chapter 197: Visitation rights

197 –

Daphne POV

What a genuine surprise.

The dragon actually won.

Over Prince Gallant.

I guess it really was true love.

There’s a wedding invitation on my desk. Scented, enchanted, and possibly self-aware—it keeps scooting to the center every time I push it aside. Gilded with little embossed roses. The RSVP line is sparkling.

"Princess Floribella & Sir Drake, Defender of Hearts, Cordially Invite You to Their Union."

Sir Drake. Of course he got knighted.

I sip my tea and stare at it.

After a hundred days of competitive courting—ballads, duels, magical gift baskets, and an unfortunate skywriting incident involving glitter—Princess Floribella chose the seven-foot fire-breathing poetry-writing dragon over the golden-haired prince who probably moisturizes with moonlight.

Honestly?

Good for her.

Prince Gallant did not take it well. He cried. Then yelled. Then tried to sword fight Drake in a moment of desperation and singed his eyebrows off.

He’s now been gently redirected to "quest sabbatical." I hear he’s currently in a cave trying to romance a cursed sword. Best of luck.

I take a sip of tea, lean back in my teacup chair, and—

WEEEOOOO—WEEEOOOO—WEEEOOOO—

Code red.

My cup clinks against the saucer.

I exhale through my nose. That’s never good.

The wand on my desk lights up, glowing crimson. A notification chimes:

[ALERT: Narrative Collapse Imminent – Category: War.]

I open a portal and step through it without even finishing my tea.

---

Salt hits my face instantly.

I blink.

I’m on a beach. A beautiful one—golden sand, turquoise waves, shimmering sunlight—and somehow the vibes are tense.

On one side, the humans are fully armored and fully fuming, weapons drawn and egos bruised.

On the other, the merfolk are just as furious, tridents raised and fins twitching like they’re ready to riot.

Yeah, okay. That’s enough.

I raise my wand and send a bolt of lightning into the sky—loud, bright, dramatic. It works like a charm.

Both sides freeze. One guy even drops his sword.

**

Twenty minutes later, I’m seated in what appears to be a tent—if you can call it that. It’s made of translucent fabric stretched between beach rocks, partially in the water, partially on land. Very symbolic.

On the water side: a stunning red-haired woman with sea-glass green eyes (clearly the famous mermaid), and beside her, a regal older merman with long white hair, a trident, and a crown made of coral. Definitely the Sea King.

On the land side: a tall, dark-haired man with noble features (probably the Prince), sitting beside a striking, silver-haired human Queen with cheekbones sharp enough to slice through tension—and there’s a lot of it.

I’m flipping through my enchanted ledger, mentally asking the system why I’m here and wondering when this became a custody war instead of a fairy tale.

"What happened to the happy ending?" I mutter.

"So," I begin, voice flat, eyes tired, "why are both your kingdoms on the verge of war?"

The prince practically growls, "Ask them. They took my daughter away from me!"

The red-haired mermaid (yes, that mermaid—singing voice, dinglehopper collection, the works) sighs

. "It’s not my fault. My daughter chose the ocean."

"She was brainwashed!" the human queen hisses, every syllable sharp.

"You will not speak about to daughter like that," the Sea King cuts in, voice rumbling like a tidal wave.

"And as my granddaughter, she belongs to the sea."

It delves into an argument. A loud, messy, chaotic, absolutely soap-operatic argument.

Turns out, this isn’t just a diplomatic dispute. Oh no. This is a full-on, barnacle-clinging, kraken-sized divorce between the beloved fairytale prince and his formerly-singing mermaid bride.

I watch the four royals screech over one another like banshees on caffeine, and I do what any rational therapist-lawyer-cop-magical-interventionist would do:

I raise a hand, and zap the grandma and mer-grandpa out of the tent with a flick of my wand.

"Alright," I say, calm, steely, and deeply, deeply exhausted.

"Let’s try this again—with just the two of you. The ex-lovebirds."

The silence doesn’t last.

"Didn’t you two go through, I don’t know, trialsandtribulations to be together?" I ask.

"What happened to happily ever after

The mermaid princess scoffs and dramatically flips her crimson hair as she hoists herself out of the water and perches on a rock. Her tail flops behind her, sparkling like someone dunked a disco ball in seawater.

The splash hits the prince right in the face.

He wipes it off like it’s acid.

"I was young," she says icily.

"Naive. I had a dream. Now I have eyes."

"Oh, so everything’s my fault now?" the prince fires back, indignant. "I didn’t force you to marry me. You chose this life!"

"Yeah, well, false advertising, sweetie. You kissed well at seventeen and turned into a royal disappointment at twenty-five."

This is why teens shouldn’t get married, look at them, I shake my head.

"Ocean brat."

"Land cockroach."

I sip my tea.

"I should’ve known when I literally lost my voice and you almost married a sea witch! That was sign number one!"

"She looked like you! I was confused!" the prince shouts.

"She had raven hair and octopuslegs! We look nothing alike!"

"You both sing!"

"She stole my voice!"

"You were quieter back then!"

"Oh, bite me, Tristan!"

Another screaming match ensues.

It turns out he’s cheated on her. Several times.

"I told you nobles throw themselves at me—"

"I was stuck in a castle with no sea, no friends, no job! Your mother wouldn’t even let me host a luncheon! I was supposed to smile, sing, and breed, apparently!"

"Oh please, you had maids! You had jewelry! I built you a pond

"A pond! I am royalty! I had to share it with fucking swans!"

"They were imported!"

"They were rude!"

Apparently, she had no real duties in the court. He kept her locked away under the guise of protection. His mother constantly insulted her kelp-based skincare routine. The kingdom’s chefs refused to cook her seaweed dishes because it was "too ocean-y." They fought about furniture (she wanted coral; he wanted gold). Parenting beliefs. Holiday traditions. Whether or not swimming counted as exercise.

"And you know what, I should’ve listened to my dad. Humans are a disappointment."

"And mine said I was an idiot for marrying a fish!"

He says the word like it’s a slur. I flinch. So does she.

Her gaze sharpens like a blade.

"Wow," she breathes. "And there it is."

They stare each other down. Murder in their eyes. Saltwater in the air. And a century’s worth of mutual resentment hanging so thick, I could carve it into a chair and still have enough leftovers for a full dining set.

And I... sip my tea. Again. Rose hibiscus with a hint of lemon balm. Calming. Grounding. Magical.

Because at this point, what else can I do? Honestly, I don’t think they’ll ever get along.

I set my teacup down with a graceful clink and clasp my hands neatly in my lap.

"So," I say brightly, in the same tone one might use to suggest a walk after dinner. "Now that we’ve gotten the emotions out of our systems—"

"I haven’t—" she starts.

"I wasn’t done—" he snaps.

"—Let’s talk about visitation rights," I continue smoothly, with the firm smile of a woman one syllable away from casting a muting spell.

They both shut up. Good.

It takes forty-two minutes, three emotional outbursts, two threats of magical combat, and one moment where I genuinely thought the prince was about to throw a seashell at her—before we even get to the negotiation table.

Honestly, it’s like pulling teeth.

Wet, sparkly, emotionally unstable teeth.

Convincing the mermaid princess that—despite the fact that her baby daddy is an emotionally stunted, surface-world racist with the maturity of a barnacle—he is still her child’s father? Practically a war crime in itself.

"You don’t understand, Resolutionist," she fumes, scales flashing indignantly. "He taught her that mermaid songs are ’aggressive shrieking.’ Aggressive shrieking!"

The prince, lounging with all the grace of a disgruntled peacock, shrugs. "I mean, it is high-pitched and weaponized—"

"LIKE YOUR MOTHER’S OPINIONS?"

"At least she has taste—"

"You slept with her!"

"THAT’S A RUMOR!"

"From you!"

Meanwhile, I’m very calmly fantasizing about turning them both into kelp.

The prince isn’t helping, by the way. Actively sabotaging every inch of progress I try to make. Every time I ask him to consider compromise, he just starts listing reasons why the sea is "emotionally unstable" and why land-based parenting produces "stronger calves." (Yes. He said calves. As if their daughter is livestock.)

But eventually—eventually—we come to an agreement:

Weekdays underwater, with magical breathing charms.

Weekends on land, with mandatory etiquette training and no condescending songs about fish hygiene.

One neutral third-party transport turtle to handle pickups and drop-offs.

The child, thank the gods, is ecstatic. She apparently just wanted to spend time with both parents and ride her pony across the shallows.

Children really do deserve better than their parents sometimes.