Once Upon a Fairy Tail {A Fairy Tail Fanfiction}

Chapter Nine: The Little Mermaid Part I

It smelled like sushi.

To be more precise, it smelled like a whole, stinkin' heap of fish. Lucy inhaled deeply without opening her eyes, vaguely aware of an odd sensation reminiscent of being underwater... except without the wet.

Curious, Lucy dared to open a single eye, and was instantly overwhelmed by a beautiful, bright collage of colors that sprang out from the scenery and into her mind. It was amazing, it was wondrous, it was-

- slightly familiar.

Lucy sprang up (dimly noting the spongy, almost moist feeling of the... whatever-it-was that she had been lying on), looked wildly around, and felt her entire body grow woozy.

"I'm underwater," she murmured breathlessly. A chain of small bubbles trailed out of her lips and floated upwards, drifting slowly towards the marble ceiling of the building she had awoken in. Another thought occurred to her- she squashed her anticipation, gathering her nerves and glancing down.

Her mouth dropped open, and from it came a garbled sound; her vision swam in front of her (and the irony of it was not lost on her. At. ALL). The blonde flailed about rather ungracefully and smacked aside several seaweed-pillows in the process.

Instead of her long, sexy, gorgeous legs, she had a fish tail.

A freakin' tail.

A floppy, green, scaly much-too-fish-like-for-her-own-sanity tail.

A high-pitched keening noise escaped Lucy's throat, and were she not underwater, she might have foamed at the mouth a bit. Her first thought went to her favorite pair of jeans (which were probably gathering dust in her apartment, all perfectly folded and lonely without her) and how they would never fit this monstrosity, but then-

"This tail!" She wailed. "This flippin' tail makes my butt look huge!"

"No, really?" A medium-sized fluorescent fish glided up to her, huffing exasperatedly. Lucy gave a high-pitched yelp and slowly turned her head to face the fish. "You just noticed?" He looked at her with disdain and made an odd sort of noise that she guessed was the fish equivalent of a snort.

Shocked, Lucy didn't even register the insult, instead jabbing a finger at the fish and trembling. "Y-You just spoke to me! A f-fish just spoke to me!" Sure, this stuff was in all the fairy tales (and quite frankly, she shouldn't have been surprised to see it happen now), but to see it was just so... "So surreal," Lucy breathed out.

"Blondie," the fish snorted, "you've been living in this palace for eighteen years, six of which I have been your attendant, and you're still as dumb as a-"

Lucy twitched.

Several moments later found her humming happily to herself, swimming about the bright, glamorous underwater bedroom as the poor fish (who was buried under a pile of seaweed pillows) gasped out muffled pleas for freedom. It was so much easier to slice through the water with her tail than she would have thought, and the movement was so effortless that she was pretty sure she'd never feel quite the same about walking on land again...

For a moment, she allowed herself to be lost in the feeling of the warm, caressing water on her skin; for a split second Natsu, magical books, and the mystery of which fairy tale she was imprisoned within were the farthest things from her mind. (Okay, maybe less than that, because heaven knew Natsu was always first and foremost in that godforsaken mind of hers.)

The blonde girl grew agitated as the thought of pink-haired fire-breathing morons and twisted fairy tales grew more and more pressing, until finally she turned with a flick of her tail (oh, it was so fun!) and pulled a pillow away from the large stack that was piled in the corner of the room. With a gasp of relief, the neon-colored fish burst free and shot Lucy an irritated glance.