(For Mermay 2022). Princess Poppy's life is turned upside down when she learns she has been promised to a noble from a neighbouring kingdom. Heartbroken, she wanders the rocky shores about her father's kingdom and happens upon a sad curious creatur...
Princess Poppy had wandered down to the beaches shortly after being led outside by Rosiepuff. Valuing her privacy, her old nanny let her go, telling her to be careful. Promising that she would Poppy hugged her and carried on.
That had been a couple of hours ago. Poppy had wandered away from the palace a while back, it was now only a small blip in the distance behind her. During the time that she walked, she briefly cast her eyes to the seas, seas that her father had been too afraid to let her sail upon since her accident as a child.
Suddenly in the distance, a sea creature breached the surface of the waves. It was far away but it was enough to catch her attention. A seal maybe? Brown glimmered briefly as the water droplets sparkled in its wake as it splashed back into the water. Poppy paused for a moment. How pretty she mused. The girl sighed and carried on her coastal walk.
Her dainty slippers were not suited for the rocky beach and in the end she removed them and carried on in bare feet. It was a few minutes later that Poppy thought she heard something. She tilted an ear to the skies and listened. What was that? Was, was someone singing? Way out here? It was hauntingly beautiful and Poppy honestly couldn't resist the lilting sweet tones. She carried on down the beach, briefly noting that the tide was slipping away, leaving gaping rock pools full of aquatic treasures as she passed by them.
It took a while following that alluring voice. So much so that when she looked back she'd lost sight of her home. Poppy frowned. It didn't matter. It's not like she wanted to go back anytime soon. Not with her future already pre planned for her. She couldn't believe her father could betray her like that. True it seemed like he thought that he was doing the right thing but that's what made it worse. She really should have paid closer attention to her studies pertaining to a girl of her station, then she wouldn't have been so utterly blindsided. Hair, she might have been able to have done something about it, however it was all woulda, coulda, shoulda now. She would never know...
Poppy brushed beading tears from her eyes and carried on toward the voice, which got stronger and louder the closer she got. Her mind was starting to get hazy for some unfathomable reason. There was an outcropping of rocks that had previously jutted into the water and without a thought she clambered up, closer, closer still, the song was beautiful, that voice was beautiful and she couldn't stop herself.
But as Poppy clambered to the brink of the rocks about to look out at the source of the song below the voice suddenly faltered, gasped and finally broke. The spell Poppy had been under abruptly snapped as a desperate sobbing now filled her ears.
She looked around herself for a moment, shocked at how far she had come without even realising. However that curiosity would have to wait, some troll (she assumed) was crying very close by and she couldn't just ignore it. Poppy bobbed her head up over the rocky brink and glanced down toward the lower end of the needle where a large stone jutted out of the middle of what was now a very large rock pool. The tide long since gone but that was not what made her eyes widened in disbelief.
She had to be dreaming. Someone was crying but it wasn't a troll, well, not entirely a troll...
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Curled about the smooth stone, with its back toward her was a creature that she had long been told was a myth, a legend. Pure fantasy.
It was quite obvious this wasn't fantasy unless of course she'd bumped her head back there and was hallucinating. Did she even hear a voice singing? Was this even real? She wanted it to be real, with every drop of her soul. Poppy held her breath and pinched her arm. She winced, stifling her utterance of pain and looked back up. Still awake and that mertroll was still there.
This was real. It had to be!
For a moment she regarded the creature half in and half out of the water, head buried in its folded arms as it wept almost inconsolably. It was such a heartbreaking sound, the saddest noise that she had ever heard.
A grand mane of indigo hair streaked with varying stripes of black, purples and dark blues, shone in the sunlight long since dried by the sun telling her that the mertroll had probably been here a good while. Four dark olive green spines anchored together by a sheer pale green membrane that sparkled with its very own iridescence, rose from its back which seemed to involuntarily flex up and down as it continued to sob. It was hard to tell the colour of its skin but it could've been a faded teal maybe? Most of it was currently hidden by the impressive amount of hair. Its ears were beautifully scalloped and somewhat fragile looking, however it was the long and curling tail that remained wrapped around the rock that sparked a flash of recognition. It was a rich chocolate brown, scattered with random patches of varying shades of green which seemed to glitter. Poppy couldn't see the veil like tail fins as they were submerged beneath the water but the longer she looked the more convinced she became.
Was this the same creature that her father had almost convinced her was a dream after the accident when she almost drowned?
"I, I don't want to be alone," it then whimpered.
Poppy couldn't hold back any longer. She brought her feet underneath her and swung them over the ridge so she was perched on the edge. She summoned her breath, her heart pounding in her breast and spoke.
