Disclaimer: I own neither "K-On!" nor Disney's "The Little Mermaid."
Watched this the other day and, well, it's not even close to being my favorite animated movie. But, it's fresh in my mind, and I figured it would be fun to read and write. I will likely invent theories to the story that make sense to me. Since no one is really "evil" in K-On!—which makes the show all the more enjoyable—I just had to pick a character for Ursula and go with it.
-.-
"The Little Mio"
Chapter I: Hidden Treasure
King Akiyama had a lot going for him, the undisputed God of the Sea. He led a somewhat feared and most respected reign among his kingdom with almost as many wives as daughters. His magical prowess was as great as his anger, and he wielded his trident with pride. He had a shrewd yet mermanistic—not to be mistaken with humanistic—eye for delegations and diplomacy, and nothing slipped past his political radar. For these things, he was beloved among his merfolk, but not quite as sensational as his eccentric and youngest, pearl of his heart, daughter.
He was impatiently swatting his tail fin at the base of his throne, the grip on his trident turning his knuckles white. The debutante concert was running on schedule, but that did nothing to alleviate his fears. After all, this was the coming out of his final daughter, the beautiful and evasive, Mio.
He could hear his wives and daughters chattering endlessly about her, how she was far too shy, humble, a little misguided and showing signs of unrest. King Akiyama was not one to involve himself in womanly banter, but he could mildly agree on some counts. On the one hand, all of them were envious of his disproportionate attention towards Mio and the fact that her beauty could drown even human men in despairing love. Of course, King Akiyama would forever forbid his daughter contact with filthy, violent humans. On the other hand, Mio would never pay King Akiyama much mind when he began a lecture on the dangers of humans. For everything else, she would demurely nod her head to her father, but she seemed all too reticent on that topic. He would catch a flicker in her iridescent grey eyes, and he knew she was processing something. Princesses were meant to sing and swim as prettily as they could, not waste their energy on thinking. King Akiyama and his advisors were the only merfolk who needed to think.
Speaking of whom, his newest but most ardent advisor was being introduced in the ceremony.
"And let's please give it up for the conductor of the show…Nodoka!" A scant amount of claps could be heard followed by bored coughs.
Nodoka, the crab, showed no sign that she was affected by her unpopular receiving, and she struck a dramatic pose with her baton pinched high in the air. The quiet audience bated their breath, anticipating the glamorous coming out of their awkward, blooming princess—
Bursts of light, reflected from metallic shells of all different colors, came into play, while daughters of the King gracefully magically floated out of a giant clam. The princesses sang in harmony with the underwater winds, undoubtedly a haunting sound for human ears.
The audience roared in apprehension, mermen butting chests exuberantly, mermaids throwing pebbles in celebration. The music was leading up to it, the entrance of their funny little princess and her ethereal voice.
"And who we've all been waiting for—" the announcer bellowed through his megashell, "—Princess Mio!"
"…"
"…"
Nodoka's eyes shot out an inch. Her promotion was losing momentum.
Nothing.
Mio was not in her spot. The other princesses choked on their notes, unladylike bubbles surfacing from their mouths.
A random, chaotic bolt of lighting struck down one of the King's high advisors. King Akiyama's silvered hairs were on end from static electricity.
"MI-O! ! !"
-.-
Mio hovered over the seafloor, humming to herself. It was her favorite spot to search for sunken treasure, because it was close to the human shore. Of course, this location was unknown to all other merfolk, and her cherished cave was only a whale's length outland. These waters were still under the jurisdiction of her father, but he forbade his citizens to trespass. They obeyed; Mio did not. She didn't have as real a threat of being bolted by his trident. She wasn't truly a daddy's girl, but she was certainly spoiled.
She found a yellow plastic article, half buried in the sand. It was thin and in the shape of an egg, wider at one end than the other. However, the oval did not close, so she could easily place her slender neck through the opening. It was neither loose nor tight, but it made for a rather plain necklace. She would have to consult Yui about this.
"Mugi! Mugi-chan!" Mio called out for her trusty fish companion. The flounder was nowhere in sight, so Mio weaved in and out of some reefs. She caught her companion, nipping and trying to pull at something trapped underneath a sizeable rock. "There you are."
Mio swam over and assisted her small friend by picking up the rock with two hands and moving it to the side. The little packet of treasure began to speedily fly up through the water, but not before Mugi caught it with her mouth. The flounder fish looked quite satisfied with her catch. The two friends' determined looks sent them to their next location: Yui's perch.
-.-
"Well, well..." Yui the seagull clucked in seeming thought, "—what have we here?" Yui was haphazardly inspecting the yellow plastic necklace. The bird looked deep in concentration, holding the item at all angles and testing its elasticity. In reality, Yui just looked perpetually confused, but Mio knew no one else more in contact with the human world. Mugi tended to be just as oblivious as Yui. "Ah-hah!"
"You know what it is ! ?" Mio couldn't help herself. Mugi was twirling energetically in the water.
"Of course! There is not a bird of sea more worldly than me! This gadget here…hoho, it's a relaxative."
"A relaxative?" Mio tried it out on her tongue. It came out surprisingly smooth.
"Yes, a relaxative!"
"Ara ara! What does a relaxative do?" Mugi chanted, completely eating up the information.
"Uh…why…it…uh…as its name implies, it relaxes!" Yui shot a feathered wing in the air. "Give it a try here, Mio. Pick up the relaxative with two hands, one on each end."
Mio did as she was told. Since the ends nearly touched, her hands were brought together in fisted prayer with her thumbs gripping it.
"Okay, now slowly pull them apart," Yui instructed.
Mio pulled at both sides until she felt pressure from the relaxative. "It feels like it's going to break," Mio said a little worriedly.
"Does it now? Well yeah, keep pulling then, keep pulling. Mio-chan, keep pulling!" Yui flapped.
Mio started cowering from the relaxative, not really wanting to pull it anymore.
"MIO, DO IT!" Yui shrieked, some feathers popping off.
Mio broke the plastic into two pieces, and she looked up in surprise at Yui.
"And there you have it. The relaxative. One-time use, but it's highly satisfying. It can get quite expensive, so only the wealthy humans can afford them," Yui nodded sagely over the broken hairband.
"I guess it was sort of satisfying. Scary though…" Mio murmured, oddly contented with the broken device.
"Okay, what next?" Yui said.
"We found this shining square under a rock! Though the rock was difficult for me, I'm thankful for it. Otherwise, it wouldn't have stayed underwater; it floats!" Mugi informed enthusiastically.
Yui pecked at the packet labeled "Trojan Magnum" before tearing the top off. Both Mio and Mugi gasped. "It's alright girls…all apart of the contraption." With her beak and webbed feet, Yui pulled out the latex treasure. "Okay Mio-chan, I want you to blow as much air as you can into this hole."
Mio took hold of the item and blew it up easily, trained from years of singing. The item took the shape of a pipe with a small tip. Mio subconsciously grimaced, but she was still impressed by the sudden change.
"This incredible device is a vertebral tube. You see, humans stick it in between their legs, yeah, their legs," Yui repeated dramatically at Mio's peak of interest at that word, "while they're sleeping. It's supposed to help their spine or something."
Mio held the vertebral tube gingerly in her hands, in awe of holding something that was made for human legs. She had only heard about the legs of humans by word of mouth, so it was very much like a unicorn's horn to her, a buffalo's wings.
"This one is especially large, so two people can share it at once if they're on their sides, facing each other when they sleep," Yui rattled on. "Today's been a real success with your findings. I think we should have a party of sorts, a celebration!"
As Mio was studiously committing Yui's knowledge to memory, her eyes bulged at Yui's last words. "My coming out ceremony, oh no!"
"Ah, Mio-chan, I completely forgot too!" Mugi reprimanded herself guiltily.
"No no, it's my fault, Mugi-chan. Yui, thank you for your help. Since the vertebral tube can't stay underwater, can I entrust it to you?"
"Certainly, m'lady!" Yui saluted.
The two underwater creatures dove under for the palace.
-.-
"Ohohohohohhooo…Akiyama's concert was a dud, after all, just like his useless daughter." A black film clouded the owner of the sultry voice. A globe of swirling colours was being perused and only successfully interpreted by the owner.
"The merman can raise a kingdom, but Poseidon no, he can't raise children. Akiyama could never understand anything with a heart—only cold laws and traditions!" The cloud spread momentarily to reveal the owner's emaciated midsection, once nourished and supple. The darkness settled in again.
"He's entirely unaware of his precious daughter, and she seems to have inherited his social disgrace. Her best friends are a loopy flounder and a crackpot seagull. This daughter even seems to have a farfetched obsession with land conventions. I have a feeling," a gnarled hand—French-tipped in black ink—came out to grab at a crab, successful for the first time in a week from a burst of energy, "—that this peculiar interest," desperate cracking and dismantling of the crab could be heard, the owner steadily losing strength over the years in its form, "—will be my coup d'état! Fwahahahaha! !"
-.-
"Ritsuuuuu…"
"Sawaaaaa…"
Both girls lied slothfully in the lush carpet, not even moving enough to make living room angels.
"Just go on one date with Nakano. And be obnoxiously public about it. Kiss her, grope her, make her cry until the paparazzi flashes blind you," Sawako whined.
"But she's so serious, Sawa," Ritsu whined back.
"She's in a band. You love music," Sawako reasoned.
"Yeah, but she plays like a robot, mad-skilled robot, but a robot's a robot. Okay, that was bitchy on my part, but I dunno, Sawa. I'm not attracted to her. If I could join her band, rock on, but I don't wanna date the chick."
"Be realistic Ritsu. You haven't been since you were twelve. You're not a musician. You were an actor," Ritsu shrugged at Sawako's ineffectively biting remark, "a bloody brilliant, genius child actor who had the world at her FEET!" Sawako tried to emphasize to the blasé teenager. "But you hit a stumbling block, refused to get back up, and now all you do are pathetic, surfing goods' ads."
"I like surfing," Ritsu said petulantly.
"But you love acting—"
"No. I don't. I love music," Ritsu said truthfully.
"Well I can't do my job if you don't put yourself out there. If you love music, date and dump the popstar and get an in. Directors don't want you anymore, but miraculously, up and coming stars want in your pants. Once you've built newsworthy credibility up again, directors will beg for you."
"That's mean. I have enough money. Premature retirement," Ritsu rolled onto her side away from Sawako. The calmness of their beachfront mansion only bolstered Ritsu's argument.
Sawako lunged atop Ritsu, sending the younger girl again to her back. She grabbed Ritsu's cheeks roughly, "I did not fight for you in court against your greedy parents so that you could retire early! As your guardian agent, I refuse to see you waste your life away! !"
"Mou, okay, okay! Get off me!" Ritsu batted Sawako's hands away, and shoved her off. They returned to their comatose states. Their days often passed like this.
Satoshi, Ritsu's sheepdog, suddenly bounded into the room to lick them both in the face.
"Haha, blegh Satoshi…Sawa-nee-chan?"
"Mm?"
"Why can't you just find a famous boyfriend?" Ritsu asked not so innocently.
"ARGHHHHH, YOU PUNK! ! IF I COULD, I WOUUUUUUUUULD!" Sawako howled at the ceiling, Satoshi joining in with her. "Why don't you realize how impossibly lucky you are to have famous, God knows why, women, want you? Aren't you supposed to be a hormonal teenager right now?"
"Heh, I dunno. There are so many interesting things in the world. Never really thought about it. Actually, I don't think I've ever liked anyone before…"
-.-
I'm already starting to forget the time of events in the movie. Sorry if I mix it up.
King Akiyama – King Triton
Nodoka – Sebastian
Mio – Ariel
Mugi – Flounder
Yui – er, that bird
Ritsu – Eric
Sawako – Grimsby
Satoshi – that dog
Nakano Azusa – random suitor
? – Ursula (but c'mon, use those powers of deduction…)
-.-
I know the ending is predictable, but have fun with it anyway.