A Tail of Two Mermaids

Chapter Seven: LORELEI

Are you okay, Lorelei? A telepathic message from Felipe, who was pulling the Sea-Carriage, popped into Lorelei's head. A mermaid or merman's bonded giant seahorse is usually able to magically sense when they are in danger.

The truth was that, at the moment, the youngest princess of Baltica was even more shocked and scared than she had been when the monstrous Kraken had captured her with his enormous tentacles in the sunken Viking longship. Lorelei's heart raced at seemingly a million beats per minute, as she cowered away from Nixie's menacing gaze.

The princess tried to process the intense betrayal she felt. She had sincerely considered Nixie to be her friend, even though she frequently made petty remarks about her. But now, she realized that her Tailmaiden had been manipulating her all along.

"Nixie, please...!" begged Lorelei, her voice trembling like a sea fan in the current. "Don't hurt me...!".

Nixie smiled unpleasantly, continuing to point her human seax in Lorelei's direction. "Oh, I won't hurt you, as long as you do as I say...".

"You want...to switch identities, with me...?" Princess Lorelei stammered. "But why...? I mean, how...?".

Lorelei's Tailmaiden looked thoughtful for a split second. "You and Crown Prince Delmore haven't seen each other in the flesh and scales since you were practically hatchlings, right?".

"Yeah, that's right..." sighed Lorelei.

Nixie was now holding her rust-covered knife just a couple centimeters from Lorelei's light-skinned throat. "So, we'll trade places. From now on, I am Princess Lorelei of Baltica, and you're my faithful Tailmaiden, Nixie. Crown Prince Delmore will never know the difference...! You must solemnly swear to Amphitrite, the Goddess of the Sea, that you will never, ever tell anyone in Atlantis our true identities!"

"Okay...". Lorelei felt as if she had no choice but to submissively go along with Nixie's nefarious scheme, for the sake of sparing her own life. She was smart enough to know that there were more holes in her Tailmaiden's plan than a sunken ship. Surely, her mother, Queen Alda, would eventually find out, one way or another, about Nixie's dastardly scheme, and put a stop to it, wouldn't she? Although Lorelei hadn't seen Crown Prince Delmore of Atlantis in person for many years, she had briefly seen his parents, King Piscine and Queen Delphine, when they visited the Baltican royal palace for the Northeastern Ocean Monarchs Summit last summer. They would probably remember what Princess Lorelei looked like, right? The fact that Nixie and Lorelei were both blonde mermaids with bright blue eyes, pale skin, and shimmering bluish fish tails might help make the conspiracy feasible, at least initially, though...

"I'll take your royal jewelry!" Nixie exclaimed.

Lorelei felt like her heart was being ripped out as Nixie began to eagerly rummage through the princess's shell-case. She watched in horror and disbelief as the Tailmaiden pulled out Lorelei's favorite tiara, which was made of pure silver and covered with sparkly aquamarines and shiny, powder blue pearls. It was a priceless heirloom that had been passed down in the Baltican royal family for countless generations, but Nixie handled it with a carelessness that made Princess Lorelei shudder. She quickly threw it into her own shell-case, as if the stunning tiara was nothing more than a cheap, mass-produced trinket that Nixie had purchased at the Baltican marketplace for a few sand dollars.

After she had fished two necklaces and three bracelets out of Lorelei's shell-case, and tossed them into her satchel, Nixie took out one of the princess's seashell bra tops and held it up to her ample chest. "You can keep your shells, though", the Tailmaiden stated, with a smirk on her gorgeous face. "I have a so much more, shall we say, voluptuous figure than you!"

As Lorelei gazed out the round window, her heart still heavy with the weight of Nixie's heinous betrayal, the Sea-Carriage had finally arrived in Atlantis. The awe-inspiring undersea metropolis was by far the most technologically advanced merfolk kingdom in all of the seven seas.

Atlantis was filled with tall, sleek buildings constructed of transparent coral and farmed crystals called surface-scrapers, which were quite different from the simple driftwood and stone structures in Baltica. Brightly colored artificial lights, cleanly and sustainably powered by hydrothermal vents, were everywhere Lorelei looked. The AquaRail, an efficient, monorail-like public transportation network, made giant seahorse-drawn Sea-Carriages seem downright primitive indeed.

But, of course, Princess Lorelei's mind was still reeling from the incredibly shocking turn of events. She could not bring herself to care one bit about the scores of interesting sights right outside the window of the Sea-Carriage.