A Tail of Two Mermaids

Chapter One: LORELEI

"Pearl, pearl, coral bead...". Lorelei, the youngest princess of Baltica, a small merfolk kingdom far beneath the waves of the cool, brackish Northeastern Ocean, whispered rhythmically to herself under her breath. She was seated on her driftwood bed, meticulously stringing shiny, powder blue pearls and imported coral beads onto a wiry strand of seaweed, in a neat A-A-B pattern. Crafting lovely bracelets, and other kinds of handmade jewelry, with her own two pale, delicate hands always helped relieve her frequent pangs of anxiety, although it could certainly be a challenging task underwater.

"The Sea Turtle Express finally came!". The merfolk world's long-distance postal service was actually called the Sea Pony Express, but it was so notoriously slow that some merfolk disparagingly called it the Sea Turtle Express, or even worse, the Sea Snail Express.

Lorelei had been concentrating so intently on her handiwork that she did not hear her sister, Aldine, swim into her bedchamber. 19-year-old Aldine, who was only a year older than Lorelei, was such a fast swimmer that she had the tiresome habit of seemingly appearing out of thin water. Startled out of her wits, Lorelei dropped the unfinished bracelet. The petite mermaid princess's bright blue eyes grew as round as the pearls and beads that were now floating around her cozy bedroom.

Aldine briefly rolled her eyes, and then flashed a playful grin in her sister's direction. "Sheesh, Lorelei, if you were any jumpier, you'd be a dolphin!".

Lorelei felt very much like the black sheepshead wrasse of the Baltican royal clan, for so many reasons, including the fact that she was the only member of her immediate family whose name did not start with the letter A. She was named after her favorite aunt, Lady Lorelei, a tall, talkative brunette mermaid who ran Gilmore Inn, a prosperous bed and breakfast establishment that catered to out-of-kingdom tourists, alongside her husband, Lord Gilmore.

While Lorelei had the same wavy, golden blonde hair, ivory skin tone, striking cerulean eyes, and beautiful turquoise fishtail as the rest of her family, she was less than five feet long from the top of her head to the tips of her fins, practically the size of a tiny sardine compared to her powerfully built brother, Crown Prince Aalto. Aldine was a bold and adventurous mermaid who loved to explore shipwrecks and, ever since her Ascension ceremony on her sixteenth birthday three years ago, breached the surface of the Northeastern Ocean at least once a week...even though their father, the late King Adrius, had been caught in a human's fishing net, just a few months after Lorelei was born, and was never seen again! The extremely timid and fearful Lorelei, on the other fin, merely poked her head above the water line for a split second, right after she had turned sixteen, and had zero desire to ever break the surface again.

After handing Lorelei an envelope, made of green seaweed parchment, Aldine quickly darted around the room, picking up all the scattered pearls and beads. "I bet my bottom sand dollar that it's a love letter from Crown Prince Delmore!" uttered Aldine, wiggling her eyebrows suggestively. Lorelei's cheeks turned as red as a lobster. Like most merfolk in the Northwestern Ocean, Lorelei was so pale that she blushed quite easily.

Crown Prince Delmore of Atlantis had been Lorelei's pen pal for several years. Operation Squid Ink was a pen pal program founded by King Poseidon and Queen Melinda of Pacifica, a faraway merfolk kingdom, which was intended to strengthen diplomatic relations between the dozens of kingdoms all over the seven seas. Merfolk royalty and nobility were matched up with their peers in other undersea kingdoms.

"It is..." Lorelei murmured, once she had gently opened the envelope.

"I'll leave you and Crown Prince Delmore alone, little sis!" declared Aldine with a wink. She then swiftly swam out of Lorelei's bedchamber.

"Dear Lor..." Lorelei read out loud. Crown Prince Delmore had nicknamed her "Lor" for short, and she called him "Del". Her heart hammered against her ribs as she continued reading the letter.

How she adored Delmore's distinctive handwriting! The loopy letters on the green seaweed parchment revealed the Crown Prince of Atlantis's artistic sensibilities. Lorelei and Delmore, who was currently majoring in Arts and Mermanities at the prestigious University of Atlantis, had bonded over their shared interest in the arts. His wonderful watercolor painting of Amphitrite, the majestic, pink-haired Goddess of the Sea, blowing into a conch shell, flanked on each side by her noble dolphin companions, that he had sent her for the Feast of Amphitrite, the biggest merfolk holiday of the year, was hanging over Lorelei's bed, and she had sent him one of her handcrafted bracelets.

"For years, your letters have been a beacon of pure light in the vast ocean of my life" Lorelei read. "The unwavering kindness, gentle humor, and great intelligence in your words have left an impression on me even deeper than the deep blue sea that we call home. Lor, it is with a heart overflowing with admiration that I extend this most sincere invitation. As Atlantean tradition dictates, courtship cannot transpire from afar. I yearn to unveil the wonders of Atlantis to you, and to introduce you to my parents, King Piscine and Queen Delphine. Imagine, Lor, the two of us exploring the Atlantean Royal Library together...".

Lorelei's pulse quickened. For a moment, her gaze drifted to the unfinished bracelet on her bed, the scattered pearls and coral beads a reflection of her swirling emotions. Her siblings had mercilessly teased her countless times about Delmore wanting to be more than just her platonic pen pal, but it was still a shock to her system that he was truly asking to officially court her, even though they had only met in the flesh and scales when they both seven years old, when the whole royal family of Atlantis had come to the Baltican palace for the Northeastern Ocean Monarchs Summit, also known as N.O.M.S. for short, which was held every ten years. Last year, she had been overcome with profound disappointment when Crown Prince Delmore could not attend the Summit with his parents, as he had suddenly come down with the Seagull Pox, a usually non-fatal but nonetheless unpleasant merfolk virus.

The idea of leaving everything she knew behind in Baltica frightened Lorelei, but she had longed to see Crown Prince Delmore of Atlantis in person once again, and of course she realized it would be a very politically advantageous match that would surely please her mother, Queen Alda, who successfully had ruled the kingdom since her husband's tragic disappearance. In ancient times, Atlantis and Baltica had both once been part of the legendary Tritonian Empire, which spanned the entire Northeastern Ocean, but it had eventually split into two separate kingdoms, which over time evolved to have vastly different cultures. Atlantis was a much larger and far more technologically advanced merfolk kingdom than Baltica, which prided itself on its old-fashioned, small-town feel. As a matter of fact, the Baltican economy heavily depended on the hundreds of Atlantean tourists visiting every year in order to get away from all the hustle and bustle of their kingdom. In spite of their shared history, it had been over three hundred years since the royal families of Baltica and Atlantis were allied through marriage.

All of a sudden, Nixie, Lorelei's Tailmaiden(or handmaiden, in human terms), floated into the princess's bedchamber. "Another letter, Your Highness, from Prince Delmore of Atlantis?" she inquired, arching a perfectly manicured eyebrow. "You mustn't strain those pretty eyes of yours, with all that reading. Don't you know that too much reading causes wrinkles...?".