Secretly Mermaid

chapter 1

Thank you @Lady-Emerald for the beautiful cover <3

Normally I'd come straight back to the palace to complete my princess lessons for the day, but after an hour of nerve wracking code cracking what I needed, was, well, not princess lessons, that's for sure. Being the Mer-Realms' princess was more stress than glamour. No. What I needed, was, a good swim.

Especially after not five days ago I was told that I am only the realm's Second choice for the throne, because the crown legally belongs to my Sister,  who is supposedly two years older than me, and who I had no idea even existed. After my parents decided to reveal a sum total of Nothing  I decided to take matters into my own hands and...well...hack the official government files in an attempt to find a trace that might link someone I don't know to me. I came up with absolutely nothing. Minus the fear of a life imprisonment if the Merpolice found out I'd been snooping. Nope, the royals are no exception. 

"Ruby!" I stopped mid-stroke to the sound of my mother's voice in my head. She never summons me to her head. 

"Come to palace this instant!" She sounded angry and that was enough to make me do one swift black flip and head home. So not my day. 

Once I reached the orange coral gardens on the palace grounds I was greeted tartly by my father. His Majesty, the King of Mermaidia, on his routine swim across the perimeter of our space. Normally, he doesn't carry his trident. Today however, he was. This was getting serious.

"Father!" his expression was hard to read. He sounded neither angry nor happy. He just looked, worried and every stunt that I've ever pulled that I would never in my 500 years of life span wish for anyone apart from my best friend to know, skimmed through my mind at top speed. 

"Just get inside. Quick. Go to your mother." I didn't waste time in that, curiosity was eating up my insides.

.....

"They are looking for you Ruby. You can't stay here for long!" My mom swam around me in circles, a concerned look on her face.  

"Well what did I doo!" She obviously can't know that I exchanged Mara's pearl-oil tail serum for goldfish blood and her tail erupted in ugly acne. Nor could she know that I fully put a love spell on Aspen just to spite Mara, which by the way, is a punishable offence. 

"You hacked into the official system Ruby! How could you do that! what were you thinking!" She screamed, her green eyes burning a hole in my deep blue ones. 

"Well..." I gulped.

By now she was used to having the MerForces after me but I do admit, maybe hacking into the official government documents was going too far, but HEY! you can't blame me! it's stupid of anyone to assume that all be shot with the knowledge that I have an older sister somewhere in the water that no one wants to talk about and I don't seem to remember a thing about her.

My mom popped up in front of me, she knows I hate sudden movements and she makes sure that she startles the wits out of me every time shes stressed. "This is serious! You are looking at a life-time in prison if they find you!" Her soft, mint green hair glowed like crazy, I swear they were so bright I couldn't see her face, and on top of that, she insists on wearing her crown at all times, also her bejeweled shell top, the get up was seriously intimidating.

"Maa. All I did was 'look' for, I don't even know what her name is!" I rolled my eyes, I noticed I've started doing that a lot since Aspen told me that he thinks my eyes are pretty. 

"Ruby..." she let out a sigh. "You need to go. I don't want to lose you too." her tone fell lighter and she turned away from me, avoiding my face. 

"Do I not deserve to even remember her? Know her name? What did she ever do for us to become like this! I need answers, your majesty! and i'll keep looking for them until I find them!" Rage tore through my body as my I felt my hair burn from the intensity of light my body was channeling to it. 

The channeling of emotion, was the most beautiful phenomenon I learnt in Marine Biology. As compared to other sea creatures, It's harder for Mer-folk to control their emotions. If we attempt to keep extreme emotion inside, we last out in the most gruesome ways. If that is done for a long time, we go from being known to be the most loving of creatures, to the most evil of them. To stop the chances of that happening, our body takes care of letting out our emotions. So in high energy emotions like anger, our hair glows beautifully. We can light up a whole party if we are angry enough. And in deep frequency emotions like when we feel happy, or when we feel love, our magical power intensifies, and beautiful things start happening. Flowers of exotic colors grow in the dullest of reefs. So does our attraction hormone gets released. The mermone. So we appear more alluring and attractive to others. 

This doesn't come without it's conns. Like for example right now I felt like my head was on fire with the all the glowing and heat. Too much heat can also damage mermaid hair. 

"Sapphira." My mother spoke after a long pause. 

"What?" I swam to her smoothly, being this low wasn't like my mom. The corals were going dull with the amount of sadness she was shedding off. 

"Her name was Sapphira." Her eyes brimmed with tears my favorite flower, the mermaid's lair flower, died. 

"Oh..." I had no idea what else to say. And then the dolphins started their warning calls.  

"Enough discussion about your sister! You have to go or they will take you too! Now!" she shoved me, just in time for sirens to start blaring at a distance of two kilometers. 

Take you too? Did the police take Sapphira?

The Dolphins started crying outside the palace gates, and my heart sank to the depths of the rythematic gush of the merpolice sharks.

and this is when I started loosing my shit.

I swam...

and swam...

until...

I couldn't swim anymore...