A Tail of Two Mermaids

Chapter Four: NIXIE

Nixie could not resist rolling her pretty blue eyes when Princess Lorelei grabbed a thick, sea leather-bound book out of her large shell-case. "Your Highness, I've heard that reading in a moving Sea-Carriage can give one such a splitting headache". The Tailmaiden felt a flicker of bitterness whenever Lorelei's nose was stuck in a book. She crossed her arms, her lovely blue mermaid tail flicking restlessly as she gazed out the porthole window.

Her mind wandered back to her mother's outlandish scheme, which she had dubbed "Operation Princess Switcheroo". Nixie and Evelyn had spent several hours going over each and every minute detail of their tricky plan. If she became the future Queen of Atlantis, she would finally gain the love and respect of her father, right? Her jaw clenched as Dr. Finnean Undine's cruelly dismissive words to her replayed in her mind: "You'll never amount to anything at all, Nixie. You're just not smart like me. The only thing you have going for you is your good looks!". The traumatic memories made Nixie's stomach twist into knots.

After the two mermaids had been traveling through the Wilderness for a little while, a sunken Viking longship came into view. The wooden, barnacle-encrusted ship was seventy-five feet in length, and ten feet wide. A tattered sail clung desperately to the longship's broken mast, like a dying breath on the lips of a mighty warrior.

All of a sudden, Nixie flashed back to a lecture by one of her father's colleagues, Dr. Leira Manash, who was a professor at the University of Baltica who specialized in the controversial yet fascinating field of Humanology, that Dr. Undine had dragged her to, practically kicking and screaming. She had honestly expected to be bored out of her scales, but listening to the redheaded mermaid professor describe the downright bizarre gadgets and gizmos that leg-walkers used, such as umbrellas, tobacco pipes, magnifying glasses, and music boxes, as well as a variety of deadly weapons, had actually turned out to be quite engrossing.

"Look, your Highness!" exclaimed Nixie, pointing to the window. "Let's explore that shipwreck over there! We might find some really fintastic treasures inside!"

Lorelei flinched, nearly dropping her book, at her Tailmaiden's suggestion. Her pale shoulders hunched forward, making the petite princess appear to be even smaller than usual. "I don't know, Nixie..." she breathed, glancing back and forth between the window and the book on her lap.

Nixie let out a derisive snort, and once again rolled her eyes. "Your Highness, you have gotta get over being such a scaredy catfish, if you're going to be the Queen of Atlantis someday!"

Princess Lorelei's face flushed as pink as tropical coral in embarrassment. "Um, okay..." she sighed. "I suppose it wouldn't hurt to take a quick peek...but let's be careful...".

Both mermaids got out of the Sea-Carriage. Nixie eagerly swam through a cramped hole in the ship's hull, and Lorelei followed close behind her Tailmaiden.

"NO ONE INTRUDES INTO MY DOMAIN, AND LIVES TO TELL THE TALE, LITTLE MERMAIDS!". That deep, guttural voice belonged to exactly the sort of fearsome sea monster that haunted the worst nightmares of so many young mermaids and merboys all over the seven seas. The dark, musty interior of the sunken Viking longship was just barely big enough to contain the enormous Kraken, who had a distinctly male, humanoid upper body, with purple skin, beady black eyes, a shiny bald head, and razor-sharp teeth reminiscent of a Wild great white shark, and the lower body of an oversized octopus, with eight huge, flexible, jet black tentacles that were covered in suction cups. The bulging muscles on the Kraken's massive arms and broad chest would make even the most well-built merman positively green with envy.

In a flash, the Kraken wrapped his powerful tentacles around the two mermaids' delicate tails with a bone-crushing grip. Lorelei and Nixie struggled to break free, but, alas, their resistance was futile. Apparently even the normally quiet Lorelei was capable of blood-curdling screams under certain circumstances.

Nixie suddenly had an idea that she thought just might end up being crazy enough to work. "You're very handsome for a Kraken, you know", she cooed, smiling flirtatiously and batting her long eyelashes. Her mother had said that she was so beautiful that no merman could ever resist her charms. Krakens evidently spoke the same language as merfolk, so how different could the two species truly be from each other...?

"NICE TRY, LITTLE MERMAID!'' bellowed the Kraken. "SORRY, BUT I'M NOT INTO GIRLS WITH ONLY TWO ARMS!". The creature tightened his already snug grip around both mermaids' tails, his suckers digging into their sensitive scales.