Born By The Sea

Normality Is Not At All What Its Cracked Up To Be

Sometimes I wish I was normal. Being a mermaid princess isn't necessarily all its cracked up to be, it hurts; also you can only imagine that it's the complete opposite of normal. Imagine being able to turn into a human and a fish every day! It takes a toll on your body but I wouldn't dare change it for anything.....right?

I stare at my handmaiden rushed to and fro around the room, straitening, fixing, dusting. If I wasn't a princess of Serpentianax I certainly would have yelled at her to leave my room right then. But sadly I wasn't allowed to, another one of the pains of being what I was.

Instead, I glared at her until I can literally feel the water heating up with my gaze, or maybe that's just my imagination. I toss the thought out the window (if only I could) and relax my back into soft cushy clamshell chair underneath me. I sigh, watching the bubbles escape my mouth. I practice breathing them back in again. Doesn't work. I flip over, and smiling I say,

"I'm very much okay miss...." trailing off, waiting for her response I sit up and beat the tips of my sparkling tail against the rough edge of the clam chair. The handmaiden looks at me sheepishly and says:

"Sorry Miss Sapphire, King Alat told me to clean this room up for when the guests see it." She looks down again and swims to the dresser, opening it and prodding to straighten my silk gowns, exasperated I lay back down and slip off into a daydream, the sound of the living coral around me making ripples in the water. In my head, I saw something different, very different. A boy. A land boy. He transformed in front of my eyes into a merman, slipping into the waves.

Who was he?

I was tired, too tired. After attending dinner with the annoying guests, my brain felt like it was going to explode, and I surely wasn't going to let some stupid daydream get in the way of getting to bed as soon as possible. No need to worry about things that are impossible right? The one major thing I hated about being a princess of Sepentaniax was the fact that no matter what I had to be nice to everybody which was especially infuriating when the person I was talking to was obviously testing my limits to see if I would crack. I wouldn't though, I couldn't. Years of overly harsh mental and physical training had prepared me to meet my foes straight-faced, or on the contrary really; I had to learn to meet them with a smile. I stopped looked around at the palace gardens that I had absentmindedly escaped to. 

I loved this garden, it reminded me of Mother. my mom had died from a stingray attack four years ago. I was seventeen now, and apparently, I was marriage material. Oh! another thing I hated about being a future queen. Here in Serpentaniax there were only arranged marriages for those who were royal, and sometimes for people who weren't. People did it here a lot, trading their children like goods to get better things in return, property, marketing. I sighed and sank into a bunch of beautiful pink coral as I returned my mind to thinking about my daydream, even though I knew I shouldn't. It had been almost too real to be a daydream, almost a vision. A boy (obviously a human but also a merman.)

I also could transform from fish to human. This man was gorgeous, short hair and blue eyes that searched your soul. I briefly wondered who it is that he could be. Instead, I got up and swam to my bed, relaxing into the dark abyss of sleep before I could let myself wonder about anything else.