(A/N- It's official. I've bitten off more than I can chew. I still have Discoveries of a Little Mermaid to finish, which I know I just started, but this story idea has been jumping around in my head for the past month and I just had to start it. What I think I'm gonna do is try and work on both at the same time with this being my priority because it doesn't take much to write a one-shot and get it out in a day every now and then. I have no idea how fast I'll be able to update anything since school starts back up next week which means craziness, but anyway enjoy the prologue! I hope for the actual chapters to be longer than this.)

Prologue

I seemed so young back then. I was so young and selfish for sixteen. I wouldn't have been if only I knew the things I know now. Perhaps then I wouldn't have been so selfish, although, I guess I wasn't actually selfish until recently. Back then I was just afraid.

After my grandfather's death I always looked back onto this memory and wondered how life could be so unfair. It wasn't until later that I realized that it wasn't being unfair; it was being helpful, just not in the nicest way.

"All things happen for a reason," my grandfather once told me. It had been during this memory that he uttered those words that I could never understand until later, but I guess no one ever understands them till the moment is right.

We were at the cove, a place that still holds painful memories of my grandmother's death, but everyone tries to only think of the good ones before her death, but no one tried harder than my grandfather. It took a lot of strength for him to come back after the cove was once again deemed a place for merpeople to visit shortly after my parents' marriage.

My grandfather and I, still in my human form, were sitting on the rocks, casually talking. It was just me and him that day with no other family members. Of course there were other merpeople there, but I remember none of them and only the conversation between us because it was one that I held in my heart, and forever will, for the rest of my life.

"How are you and Elliot doing?" my grandfather casually asked. Elliot was the boy I was courting at the time and who I married not even a year later.

"We're good. I think things are going to end well with us. I really love him, grandfather," I said and meant it.

"Good. I'm glad to see you're finally settling down with a nice, young boy," he commented. "Not long after this will you become queen, and it helps to have someone by your side when ruling."

I remember frowning at this moment. "I don't know if he'll be able to help me other than politically."

"Why not?" he asked, although I'm pretty sure he knew why.

"I just don't have it in me to be a good queen, grandfather. I mean, how can I when I barely can be a good princess? I don't know if the people even like me. Sometimes I wonder if they only put up with the idea of me as becoming queen because they hope they'll get Elliot as prince consort to the kingdom."

"Melody, I highly doubt that's the case. Every kingdom has their doubts about each new ruler they get because they're afraid of change. They don't know how the new ruler will be. Give them a year after you become queen and I'm sure they'll like you then. They just have to adjust. They don't hate you," he said, but I was sure that wasn't true.

"But I'll never make a good queen!" I protest.

"It's not about being a good queen. It's about being a good ruler. Etiquette and royalty doesn't matter. You only have to make sure you lead your people and do whatever they need, and I know you're not fond of balls and perfect etiquette, but I know you have what it takes to lead your people well. They don't need a queen. They need someone pure hearted and self-sacrificing," he explained.

At that moment, I didn't understand what he was saying, probably because I didn't want to, but even if I did, I'd never understand the deeper meaning behind it I only found out five years later.

However, I always knew that my grandfather was one of the greatest rulers of Atlantica, so I was wise enough to ask him for help—help with how to become a perfect ruler.

"Do you promise that you'll be there for me when I become queen to support me? I need your advice along with my parents'. I want you to help me through it, step by step. Promise?" I asked.

He sighed, but I took no notice of it. It wouldn't have meant anything to me then anyway. At that moment I had no idea what was going through his mind and the sorrow that he must have felt. All I wanted was help because I was afraid.

"I promise," he finally said, and even though years later I spent months hating him for promising, I thank him now because now I know that life isn't meant to be fair.