The Mermaid's Reckoning | ONC 2024

Chapter 7

Swimming for minutes at a time was nothing compared to the trip that lay before them. Pretie wasn't sure how long the group had been swimming, but her whole body ached, including a whole new set of muscles that she hadn't previously known existed—and might not have before her transformation. Every sweep of her tail seemed to take more and more effort as she fought around the building cramps.

Her abdomen felt like it was crumpled into a ball. It certainly didn't help that her stomach had started to rumble. She was hungry—that much was obvious—but she refused to eat the fishy mush the others seemed so keen on passing around.

"This is so stupid." Pretie grumbled as they continued to swim. It was hard to determine what time it was exactly, but the sunlight seemed more direct than it had been earlier, streaming down nearly vertically from the water's surface—sometime in the late afternoon, she guessed. While their scenery had shifted the longer they swam, it was all variations of the same rocks, same coral, same kelp. Even the blues of the water, while pretty to a human on the shore, seemed boring and repetitive as time went on.

"Aw, is Princess Prettypants throwing a tantrum?" Ephyra snorted, slowing to swim beside her. The other two remained ahead, Krill keeping them moving in the right direction with the help of his compass. "Are you cranky, Your Highness?"

"Shut up," she hissed, looking fixedly ahead. "This is far from my ideal scenario, you know."

"Right," she drawled in response, letting out a soft bark of a laugh. "You've got a pretty terrible view, huh? Staring up my fins all afternoon. That must really suck."

"It has nothing to do with you."

While Pretie refused to meet her eyes, she could practically hear Ephyra raise an eyebrow at the response. Pretie shook her head and forced herself to swim faster, putting some distance between them. A swirl of ripples beside her indicated that Ephyra had caught right back up—but at least Pretie no longer had to talk with her one on one, with Krill and Melody just ahead.

"I just hate my father for putting me here," she growled under her breath. "Because, let's face it: he's the real reason behind all of this. First, trying to marry me off to some stranger, and then having his advisors put a curse on me when I got in the way of his plan..." 

Out of the corner of her eye, Pretie saw Krill and Melody share a look, but she barely paid them any attention. With her mind fixated on her predicament, her frustration only grew. Her emotions swelled inside her, threatening to bubble over the longer her thoughts lingered on it.

"And how could I forget Virid Stickman, His Royal Asshole, who decided to blab about me to save his own skin? I swear, the only reason I even care about going back to Aecora is to shove him off a balcony."

The others remained silent. Pretie balled her hands into fists.

"I don't even know what's worse at this point: being forced to marry someone I have no interest in marrying, or having my legs torn away and being tossed into the ocean," she groaned. "No, actually—it doesn't even matter. If I could have just escaped when I had the chance, then none of this would have happened. I wouldn't have to worry about marriage, or this stupid trip.

"And it feels like my legs are going to fall off, but I can't even say that, because I don't have legs. So, what, am I supposed to say that it feels like my tail is going to fall off? Because it does and this is stupid and it hurts, and why couldn't I have just outran the guards or something?"

Pretie was faintly aware of the fact that she was being dramatic, but the words continued to flow before she could gather them up. It was like she was feeling everything all at once—the frustration and hurt and longing—blown up to an almost unbearable level.