The Little Sorceress

Chapter 1

Holding a seaweed basket full of ingredients, Anka swam to the other side of her new home to put them away.  Her streamlined body gracefully swept across the cave, careful not to sweep against the jagged rocks at the edges.  The new place wasn't exactly optimum, but Anka hadn't exactly had a choice.

Krista swam in, accidentally scraping her tail fin against the wall.  The delicate green edges frayed and gave off a spot of blood before quickly healing back, all happening quickly enough to deny her the annoyance of pain.  Brushing off the minor irritation of a wound, she looked around.  There wasn't much to see.  Except for a few shelves and the basket near Anka, the dimly lit cave was bare.

"Anka."

Anka flinched.  She turned around, realizing for the first time that she had company.

 "What are you doing here?"

Krista gave her a saccharine smile and swam over.

"I just came to see how you were doing."

Anka laughed quietly.

"You.  See how I'm doing.  Yeah, that's believable."

Krista's face held a pained smile, but Anka wasn't sure how much of it was real.

"We're sisters.  It should be believable.  And if it isn't, then we should change that."

"Why now?  You didn't want to change that earlier, when you calmly watched at the side of the room as I was banished.  Banished!"

Krista's smile disappeared, and the room strained with tension for a few minutes.

"You weren't banished, per se.  You are allowed back, you know.  As long as you agree to the guidelines Grandmother set."

Anka turned back to the shelf, folding two endless ribbons of green kelp into a manageable size.  There was no arguing with Krista, nor was there an answer to that statement that wouldn't get her in trouble.

Krista peered around her and watched as Anka placed the kelp on the shelf.  Then, she caught a mere glimpse of an iridescent flask before Anka slipped it into the bundle of kelp.

"I saw that."

Anka's hand twitched for but a fragment of a second, but it was enough for Krista to know what was going on.

"You've started that again.  I thought you were going to stop.  We care about you, Anka, and this isn't a healthy lifestyle.  Your little experiments won't get you anywhere.  Just live like us, feed like us –"

"You mean murder like you.  I can't do that.  I can't look at those sailors in the eye and curse them with a condemning kiss, knowing all along that they're going to die.  That I'm going to drag them down to the depths of the sea; that it will all be my fault.  I'm trying to do things my way.  I'm trying to live as long as you my way.  Can't you just try to understand?"

Krista's eyes turned to steel.

"We're doing this because we care.  Because we don't want to see you die, all because you wouldn't borrow some energy from a measly human.  Why do you care so much anyway?  Humans don't matter.  They're silly little creatures.  Nothing compared to the greatness of we merfolk.  They live but a hundred years anyway, and the last of those are full of misery and aches.  Isn't it better, more merciful, to cut them down before they feel the pain of old age?  You must agree, Anka, that this is the right way to do things."

Krista stared Anka in the eyes, and Anka knew she couldn't disagree.  She had already been banished to the far edges of the kingdom.  With Krista's testimony, she could be exiled – or far worse – executed.  In the kingdom's eyes, Anka was nothing more than a witch.  She had been trying to find a way to live longer without "borrowing" energy, but the empress, her grandmother, had simply found them unnatural.  Why, she had said, would you feel bad about borrowing?  At the end of a mermaid's five hundred years, it would all be returned to the heavens anyways.  Anka still thought there were other ways.  She called herself a humanist, but they just called her the sea witch.

Krista reached into the kelp and pulled out the flask.

"What does it do?" she asked, closely observing the pearly fluid.

Anka stayed silent.  Krista looked back at her, and Anka knew that Krista wasn't going to let the point go.

 "It – it can, in theory of course, give someone a little bit of human.  I was trying to make a potion that merfolk could take instead of taking the souls of the innocents."

Krista raised an eyebrow and eyed the flask once again.

"Isn't this exactly what Grandmother warned you never to do again?  The exact sort of unnatural witchcraft that we cast you out for?  Goodness, Anka.  You never do learn."

Anka stared at Krista intently.  What was her purpose? 

"Are you planning to tell her?"  Krista asked.  "If you don't, I might have to say it for you."

She smirked.

"What do you want?" Anka said.

"Oh, nothing big.  Just a small favor."

"What sort of favor?"

"Just an enhancement of this here potion."  She tapped the glass.  "Something strong enough to turn me human – but only for a little while."

Anka furrowed her brows.

"Why would you need that?"

A frightening smile took over Krista's face.

"Well, you know me.  I don't have any of your love for those insignificant people.  I like the hunt – I like the chase.  And what better chase is there than being able to reach your prey?  Being able to follow them on land and take them back down with you?  Plus, I have my sights set on one.  One very handsome, very cunning, very unreachable prince."

Anka was at a loss for words.

"So, can you do it?" 

"Well – I mean—I suppose."

There was no real choice. 

"Great.  Well, I'm just going to keep this with me.  In case I decide to show it to Grandmother."

It was blackmail, clear as day.  Though she had never directly said it, Anka knew very well what she was capable of.  This, the small act of being an informant, was nothing to Krista. 

 Krista slipped the flask into her satchel and made their sign for goodbye – a tap over her heart and a tap over Anka's.  It was a simple gesture of love – my heart is with yours 'til the next time we meet.  In this case, though, it seemed to mean something else.