The Sea Princess and The Storyteller

Chapter Ten: DERIN AND JEWEL

In conservative Reddia, it was considered improper for a respectable, young mermaid and an unmarried merman to be alone together, at least for an extended amount of time, without a chaperone. Derin and Crown Princess Jewel found themselves spending oodles of time in the royal palace's splendid library, for the next couple of days, a situation Mistress Aysu's usual presence conveniently facilitated.

Derin felt like the proverbial mer-child in an undersea candy shop in the vast library. He loved books as much as Jewel did, but the selection of reading materials at the Sisters of Amphitrite Home for Orphaned Mer-children had been pretty small, as books were astronomically expensive in the merfolk world. Treating seaweed parchment so it would not disintegrate was a complex and labor-intensive process.

The former Cave Urchin and the Crown Princess of Reddia floated all over the library, browsing the practically endless bookshelves and just getting to know each other. She told him how, since her father, King Bahr, did not allow her to leave the palace grounds, books had been her only window into the wider underwater world outside the golden gates. Their laughter echoed softly amongst the towering tomes as they passionately discussed their favorite stories.

With perhaps the exception of some of the kind-hearted Sisters of Amphitrite, Derin had never felt as comfortable around anyone as he increasingly felt around Jewel. He acknowledged that he really hadn't known her for very long, yet it was as if he had known the smart and beautiful Crown Princess for a thousand and one tides.

Derin had pointed to a set of four old novels, bound in navy blue sea-leather, in the Young Adult Literature section of the library. "The Chronicles of Marmara..." Jewel read the title of the series of books out loud. "Is that where you...?" she whispered.

"Yes" Derin admitted. "There were my favorite books as a merboy. They're about a poor, orphaned mermaid who enrolls in an elite academy in a dystopian undersea kingdom, and her forbidden romance with a human boy whose best friend is a dragon...".

"That does sound very interesting" said Jewel.

They perused the Humanology section together, on their second afternoon exploring the library. Jewel gestured toward a bulky, dogfish-eared textbook on the lowest coral shelf, entitled "An Introduction to Humanology" by Professor Gillis Yellowtail. "I read this cover to cover a few months ago...". The information contained in that book about the human world intrigued the mermaid princess, but Prof. Yellowtail despised humans and staunchly believed that merfolk and Civilized sea creatures were strongly superior to leg-walkers in every conceivable way. She couldn't say for sure whether or not the renowned Pacifican professor's biased perspective was accurate, but Jewel knew that the merfolk of Reddia definitely had their fair share of problems, for a supposedly "superior" race...!

"I assume that you've never actually seen the surface yourself..." Derin uttered.

"Of course not. Are you over the Age of Ascension?" inquired Jewel.

"Technically not, according to the laws of Reddia..." Derin disclosed, in a low whisper. "But most of us former residents of the Sisters of Amphitrite Home think of ourselves as over the Age of Ascension, once we age out of the orphanage, and have to fend for ourselves, at fifteen years old...so, I've been up to the surface about a dozen times, over the past three years". He paused thoughtfully for a moment. "It's a whole new world up there, Jewel". The former Cave Urchin's dark, almond-shaped eyes clouded over dreamily.

All of a sudden, coral-colored fins briskly swished into the library. "Up where...?" questioned Kamilah, tilting her head in curiosity. Jewel's Tailmaiden greatly preferred athletic activities, and trying out new hairstyles on both herself and others, to reading books, so Kamilah visiting the library was about as likely as finding a starfish with perfect posture.