"How about Danny? Then, if it's a girl, we could call her Danielle, and if it's a boy, we could call him Daniel."
"Eric, honey...'Prince Danny'? 'Princess Danny'? You have to think about how it would sound to everyone else."
The redheaded queen was lounging on the sofa in her and the king's private chambers, her hand over her slightly bulging belly. The king was sitting in a chair near her, hastily writing down any and every name he could think of for his future heir and child. "Well, how about Alex? Then, if it's a girl, we could call her Alexandra or Alexandria, and if it's a boy, we could call him Alexande--"
His wife of two months interrupted softly. "How about we try to think of a name for if it's a girl, or if it's a boy instead of trying to get unisex names?" To her, at least, this seemed to make much more sense; and besides, she already had quite a few names for a girl picked out.
"But...that's how we've always done it. For instance, if I was a girl, I was going to be called Erica," Eric said. It was much easier, and the nickname could be the same no matter which gender, and neither parent would feel upset about their name not getting picked. Just like everything else in the kingdom, names were considered to be something that needed to be chosen fairly.
Ariel bit her lip; were all humans like this, or was it just this kingdom? Just as she did at least twenty times a day now, it seemed, she felt like she had been missing out on so much as she swam around under the sea. She glanced down at her bare feet, wiggling her toes; even that was still new to her. How could she be expected to remember every law, rule, and tradition in the kingdom when she was so new, not only to this kingdom, but to land in general? "Well, in my family, if it's a boy, we name it after the mother's father, and if it's a girl, we name it after the father's mother. Well, with the firstborn child, anyways." There. Maybe, for once, something she knew about could actually be used.
Eric, however, seemed hesitant to reply. "Well, um...my mother's name was Walburga," he said after a few moments. After which, he could have sworn that that sneeze of Ariel's was really a snort of laughter.
"Wait," Ariel said after a moment, still doing her best not to let her laughter be too evident. "What was your mother's name going to be if she was a boy?"
"Walter," Eric said with a shrug. It seemed perfectly normal for his family; why was Ariel laughing so much?
After a few further moments of trying to recover from the hilarity of the name, Ariel was finally calm again. "I'm sorry. It really wasn't that funny."
"Well, it won't be much better if it's a boy, will it?" Eric said, somewhat hurt by how funny she found his mother's name. "Your father's name is Triton. That's not really something that's too normal up here on land, you know..."
Ariel laughed again and shook her head. "His name isn't Triton. Don't be ridiculous. That's just a nickname he's acquired over the years because of the triton he carries around, see?" She broke off in peals of laughter again. "His real name is--" A look of horror coming over her face, she pressed her hand against her mouth and flew off the couch and over to a chamber pot that had been placed nearby, just for times like this. She really wouldn't be upset when the morning sickness was gone, that was for sure.
"I'm sorry," she said with a groan as she slowly made her way back over to the sofa. "That's the fifth time today; I'm starting to think that our little heir already is way too picky about what food she eats for her own good."
"How can you be so sure it's a 'she'?" Eric asked, looking dead serious. "It would be much better for the kingdom if the firstborn child was a boy."
Ariel stared at her husband in shock. He had to be joking, right? "Well, where I come from, it doesn't matter if the firstborn is a boy or a girl; we treat mermaids with the same respect as we do mermen. In fact, the oldest doesn't even have to take the throne if they don't wish to; if they don't, then the next one in line gets to choose if they want to or not, and so on and so forth." This land was so odd, thinking that only men had the brains to rule a kingdom, and yet they claimed to have equality throughout the land.
Eric sighed and opened his mouth to reply, thought better of it, then closed it again. After taking a few deep breaths, he looked back up at his queen with a rather forced smile on his face. "Well, it doesn't matter, anyways. There have been rumors that the people refuse to accept this child as an heir, considering the, ah...circumstances, if you will." He had thought that Ariel had already realized this, but it soon became apparent that she didn't, as one hand flew to her mouth as she gasped, and the other hand flew protectively to her belly.
"Won't...won't accept our child as an heir?" She managed to whisper after a few moments. "How...how can they just decide such a thing?"
"They have a right to have some decision in who their ruler is, don't you think?" The forced smile was still in place upon Eric's face, as though he didn't think he could hold in his exasperation for too much longer.
"Oh, so they can decide that they won't let a girl take the throne, and they can decide that it would be indecent for a child conceived out of the wedlock to take the throne, but the child itself can't choose whether or not they want to have that kind of responsibility?" Ariel's voice was full of rage and fury. This was simply ridiculous; if these people would just pay attention to her suggestions every now and then, instead of politely explaining how they wouldn't fit in with the pre-designed policies, then this kingdom would be a much happier place. As would her family. "And they--"
The smile was now gone from Eric's face, and was replaced by anger. "Damn it all, Ariel, that's just how things are, and you'd best learn to live by that or you're never going to make it up here! You might as well just go back to your airhead days under the sea!" He didn't dare look her in the eye, so he instead started muttering as he looked at the ground. "You've been nothing but a nuisance since you came here; first, that thing at the dinner party with the forks, then we find out that you got pregnant before we were even married--"
Up until this point, Ariel had been sitting quietly as she listened to Eric rant; it always seemed to be easier that way. At, this, though, she couldn't sit and take without some form of retaliation. "What do you mean, 'we find out that you got pregnant before we were married'? That is just as much your fault as it was mine, so don't try and blame everything on me! It isn't entirely my fault that I am carrying your child--"
"We can't even really be sure it's mine, can we?"
To Ariel, these were the cruelest words she had ever heard. She tried her best to keep her angry tone, but shock at being accused of such a thing weakened her voice. "What...what exactly are you implying?"
"I am implying that it happened before we were married. It might not even be mine, for all we know."
Ariel glared at her husband for a moment. He was being completely ridiculous; he should know by now that she would never, ever dream of doing such a thing as cheating on him. "Well, if you're so sure about that, then I guess you don't need me or the child here with you," she said coldly as she stood up and stormed out of the room, not giving him a backwards glance.