TMNT: a mermaid tale

Breaking the Rules

Rose swam in the water, heading home from the turtles lair. She enjoyed being with them, they were teaching her how to speak their language, one she's been wanting to try and learn for a long time, but her father forbade it saying how knowing the enemy's language could cause bad things like disagreement or worse... war.

Rose didn't mind as much since she knew only two humans who were nice to her, and the turtles? They walked on two legs and weren't technically human.

Rose swam deeper into the ocean, it began to get darker the further she went. She wondered about what Mikey had said about... legs? Then she remembered the picture from the thing Donnie had showed of a human, and a weird one at that, only made of lines and flat color, what an interesting thing it was to Rose.

She wondered if there was anything in the library about human legs, or even humans at all, the only issue to getting there is having to sneak past her father to go into the forbidden section of the library, there has to be something in there on humans and how to make legs.

Rose swam even deeper into the depths of the ocean and reached a cave. Once in she stopped in front of a wall, coral, shells and seaweed grew on to the dead end. Rose studied it and pushed a hand against the wall, the wall glowed sending a wave of color around it, pushing the seaweed away at a rough force.

Then the wall began to fade from the middle out revealing a golden light shining in Rose's eyes, she blinked a few times and quickly swam in as the wall faded back to the black dead end it was before.

Rose swam down the big corridor, it's pillars holding spaces between the statues of merman and mermaids who were known for some heroism or royalty. At the end of the corridor was the City of Galianth, the buildings of shining shells and gold lit up the city.

Rose made her way into her bedroom window, careful not to get caught by the guards or worse, her father.

She opened the glass and swam in, soon making her way into the halls, as glowing as it was outside, not much light was inside the building.

This was a good thing for Rose. Everyone was asleep and she could sneak into the library without getting caught.

Rose slowly opened one of the double doors, looking around her surroundings as not to get caught. She swam in in one swift movement and slowly closed the door, she awoke an angler fish and it's light lit up, she pulled it with her to a section of the bookcases where she remembered her father told her multiple times not to go.

Well she was now. Rose grinned to herself and emitted the light around, studying and trying to find the H section. Soon seeing in her language the term "Human" and she carefully pulled the book out, brushing away her floating hair and pulling the light closer to the book, the angler fish made a slight yelp and Rose held her finger to her lips, the angler fish just floated and shook.

Rose looked at the book, studying the front cover, a human anatomy...with legs. She smiled to herself again and flipped to the first page and began to read. Soon it went from one book, to a stack of the so-called "forbidden" books.

Rose smiles to herself as she found and read a spell about how mermaids can turn into a human, she read and studied the pages closer.

"For a mermaids wish to have legs.

1. Sit on dry land.

2. Bind three hairs around the ankle just above the fin as tight as possible (never the actual fin or the body and scales, never attempt to use any other form of body part.) 

3. Wait for a small sting and they will grow apart. 

Failure to follow these instructions would result in indescribable and long lasting pain (sometimes lasting forever), never having the option of getting your tail back, the threat of turning to sand, and death."

Rose looked and held her hair, thinking about the transfiguration spell and how she would be able to do it. A bang was heard and Rose looked up, worried at who it could be.

She waved her hand at the angler fish and it turned it's light off, it began to swim away. Rose ducked under the table and peaked her head over the chair to see a guard, then her father enter, waving to the other angler fish to brighten the room. It wasn't much, but you could still see in front of you.

He pointed and instructed the guard to go do a duty and the guard swam away to one of the opposite ends of the library, her father swam towards the other end of the library until he abruptly stopped, his long white beard and hair floating in front of him, he turned and saw the desk with the pile of books. He slowly swam over focusing on the open book in the middle.

Rose sat hunched under the desk, holding her mouth and breath and sitting perfectly still as to not cause any bubbles. Her father was almost to the desk until.

"Your highness" the guard called out, her father turned his glaring face to the guard, "she is not here, may I suggest we check the kitchen again?" He bowed to the king, he thought for a moment looking up at the angler fish floating above, it noticed his hard stare and yelped again swimming away behind a bookcase.

"Yes," her father said "Find her and bring her to me as soon as possible."  and with that they both left the room the angler fish turning their bright orbs off in the process.  Rose moved from her hiding spot, the angler fish that hid swam to her, lighting its little orb for her to see. She then went to the door and slowly opened it, looking out to see the guards and her father was gone, she patted the little angler fish and went out, swimming as fast as possible to her room. she looked behind her and grinned to herself at escaping her father, until she hit a hard bump.

She looked up to see her father, broad chested, beard and hair floating majestically, and staff in hand, his face with the deepest scowl a shark would wince. Rose looked nervously at the ground, speaking in her native tongue. 

AN: Yes, I decided to give her a voice and a language, but I'm also not Tolkien and create my own language, so just pretend here. Thanks...

"Hello, father" Rose said nervously, 

Her father held his glare, "Where have you been?"  he asked, bending down to get to her level, Rose stayed looking at the ground, her hands held together in front of her, "I was just checking on the reef," she lied, hoping that her father would believe it, "they seemed like they were losing color so I sang to them," Rose's father looked at her with suspicion and took a deep breath in and sighed, looking at his daughter with now calm eyes.

"You know I trust you," he said, gently lifting her head by her chin, "I know you are curious about the world, but you know how dangerous it can be, especially around the humans," her father explained. Rose looked back at the ground and thought to herself, well they're not technically human, except two I guess. She looked back up at her father, his worried expression emitted off to her, her guilt began to grow. "I won't go out without you knowing, I promise" she said, her father smiled and hugged her.

"One day you will have to take my place, you know that, and I believe that if you are anything like your mother you would make a wonderful queen." her father explained, Rose hugged her father back and smiled to herself. She was a lot like her mother, in a different way though, her curiosity, determination, sometimes cunning, and especially stubbornness all came from her mother, if only her father saw that and understood that, maybe he will one day, just not now. 

they broke apart and looked into each others eyes one more time, her father smiled and held her cheek before swimming in the other direction, Rose sighed of relief and went back to her room, sitting at her mirror and brushing her hair with a shell comb and thinking about the spell that would make her dream come true. It sounded risky, but it was a risk she was willing to take. 

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Hey, ya'll! I'm (somewhat) back, I'm only taking two classes, so if I'm not bombarded with work and get back in the creative mode and out of writers block, this story should be getting some good stuff going down, I have a lot planned for this story. Oh! and thank you for over 3k reads! that's insane. You guys are the best.

I'm still open to suggestions and ideas, plus I've been thinking of giving Rose a new name, so those are good, too (I may have an idea on one, but again open to suggestions). Thanks, you guys!