A little story about some pretty tails and malady of malcontent.
"I must be a mermaid, Ringo. I have no fear of depths and a great fear of shallow living." - Anais Nin
"I found another seashell!" A small chubby hand thrusts a sandy shell up into the air and waves it around with gleeful abandon. The motion combined with the light breeze knocks some of the sand back down to the beach. "I wanna keep this one too, okay?"
There's no answer to the young child's words, but she doesn't seem to notice or even care. The breeze tosses her red-blonde hair around, perpetuating its disheveled appearance. The shell that the 4 year old had picked up disappears into a small cloth bag, and then she's running back down towards the edge of the ocean to find more shells. Up on the hill her father and older brother keep a careful watch; she's too young to understand that they aren't at the beach for just a fun day in the sun.
"Collect all the shells you can carry, Nat. I'll help you make a necklace out of them that you can put on the headstone."
Natalie doesn't hear her father; she's found another shell right at the edge of the water that she just has to have. When she goes to grab it though, she sees a boy in the water. He stares at her from the shallows, wet black hair stuck to his scalp with the bangs falling in his face. His bangs aren't long enough to hide his bright yellow eyes, and that's what entrances Natalie the most. They stare at each other for a few minutes, and then the boy dives back under the water.
All she sees is a flash of a red fish tail before he's gone from her childhood. As fate would have it though, this is not the last time Natalie will meet that yellow-eyed boy with the red tail.
(there's a time/scene skip here but it's not letting me put a fucking line)
Down below the surface of the water, deep deep down into the depths of the ocean far beyond the diving range of humans, lies a sprawling city carved into the living coral and stone. Fish swim over paved streets, dart in and out of gardens of seaweed, and smack into the invisible barriers of windows in small stone houses. It's a scene out of a story book, this peaceful sunken city, decorated brightly with coral, scales, and seashells of all colours.
Worked right into the side of an underwater cliff is a large and glorious castle, carved and inlaid with gems and shells. It glows with its own magic, bright and shimmering in the gloomy dark water. Large round orbs, overgrown pearls the size of basketballs, stand atop stone pillars all around the metropolis and give off a bright light, illuminating the streets.
No human can reach these depths, but this place is far from deserted. There's a flash of bright red as a young boy hastily dives down towards the castle, crimson tail catching the light of the pearls and giving its own glow. He doesn't stop until he's returned to his room, the gills on his ribs flared wide open as he gulps in breaths.
"Were you at the surface?" A round face, framed by sandy brown hair, pokes around the door. Bright blue eyes are narrowed accusingly at the red-tailed merboy. "That's not allowed, Luce. You're going to get in trouble!"
A shell is thrown haphazardly at the new merboy's face. "Oh let go of my fins, Michael. No one saw me."
Michael swims further into the room, still giving his brother an accusatory look. His tail is the same intense blue as his eyes, the longer and narrower fins seeming to refract any light that hits them. "I saw you! I should tell Dad and have you thrown out. You can't go where the humans are."
"Who said anything about humans?" Lucifer thinks back to the little human girl who saw him in the water. She hadn't seemed dangerous. "Humans are stupid."
"You totally went to see the humans again."
"I did not!"
"Did too!"
"Did not!"
"Did too!"
"Did not!"
"Shut UP!" A larger merboy with dark red-brown hair, dark skin and a tail that looks like it's carved out of a million pieces of emerald, shoulders his way into the room. "I can hear you arguing across the entire floor," He stares between Lucifer and Michael with a tired expression. "Lucifer, did you go to the surface?"
Lucifer glares his hardest, but it wavers under Gabriel's stare. "No, I was just going for a swim."
"He's LYING, GABR-" Michael is cut off by a single gesture of Gabriel's hand.
"Lucifer, you know we are forbidden from going to the surface. The land is for the humans and the air-breathing beasts. The seas belong to us." Gabriel's tone is calm with a hint of exasperation, like he's had this conversation a thousand times.
"I know, I didn't go to the surface!" Lucifer lies, and ignores Michael sticking his tongue out at him. When Gabriel turns to stare at Michael, Lucifer takes this chance to stick his tongue out.
Gabriel sighs. "Honestly, you two." He reaches out and grabs both of his brothers by the shoulder, and then smacks their heads together. "Smarten up, both of you. Stop fighting. Come now, Raphael has made dinner." He steers both of them out of Lucifer's room and down the hall, but he can't help but worry.
What will happen if his brothers can't learn to get along?