Okay so I've had this idea in my head since Big Time Beach Party and I just had to write it last night. I hope you all enjoy it because it's probably my favorite to write. I love mermaids and when I was little always pretended I was one when we lived at the lake. You know the drill, REVIEW!
BEAU'S POV
"Isn't this perfection?" I asked stepping up on the bow of my yacht, "Out on the open sea, surrounded by nothing but water?" There is absolutely nothing I loved more than being out on the water, the seamiest spraying in my face. It was freeing, it was like you could just sail to the ends of the earth and then beyond the horizon. I had taken my yacht all over the world and everyday was an adventure. I had been to the Antarctic Sea and helped save the whales from whale hunters, fought off pirates in the Indies, battled through fierce storms in the Bahamas, and even gotten a killer tan in the Mediterranean. Sailing was the last connection to my parents who died in a car accident two years ago. When I was on the open waters it was like they were here with me and I most of all I didn't have to deal with their deaths.
Here life was an adventure, like you read about in fairytales. It was so magical that real life didn't exist. It was a living, breathing dream. I didn't have to be responsible or an adult, I could just be the careless, self-centered, selfish, vain playboy the tabloids depicted me as. I got so much pussy on my travels a preteen couldn't even dream off. Sex, that's what fairytales should really be about. Not love. Yes, the life of a dream. But like all dreams they have to end.
My dad's good friend and beneficiary, Gustavo Rocque, had been running my dad's multibillion corporation for the past five years. Now that I am twenty-two he is making me return to Los Angles and "take my rightful place as CEO of RCM CBT Globalnet Sanyoid Corporation," just as my dad wanted. I didn't want to be a CEO, at least not now. I was too young! I was supposed to be young and crazy. Being tied down to my dad's company is like being married, which is something else he mentioned. Well not so much mentioned, more as making his disapproval for my playboy lifestyle very much clear and told me it was time I grew up and settled down. WTF?!
"Oh yes, it's simply, delightful," Gustavo's assistant Kelly Wainwright replied. She had met us in the Bahamas' and spent the last two weeks on the trip to L.A. grooming me for what to expect. "Now when we get to port we will go right away to the office so you can meet the Board and then there will be a press conference where you will make a public announcement of your decision to step up as CEO. Are you listening?" She asked noticing I was staring off to the ocean.
"Yeah," I replied automatically kneeling down to pet my husky Fox, "meet the Board, talk to the press. Sounds fun. Smell that air Kelly! Feel the salt on your skin, the wind in your hair and the waves as they ebb and they flow!"
"Beau you need to be thinking of what you're going to say," she said standing next to me against the railing, "You haven't really been discrete the past few years with your transgressions and everyone is going to be hounding you to make sure you're up for the job."
"Have you heard the Captain's story of the King of the Sea?" I asked ignoring her, just wanting this freedom to last a little longer.
"King of the Sea?" She asked skeptically, "Please. That's nothing but complete nonsense Beau."
"They say he controls all the waters of the sea and when he gets pissed," I continued, "look out!"
"Beau," Kelly snapped, "No one is going to take you seriously if you don't grow up and stop behaving like a child. I know you think I'm being a pain in the ass but I'm not being as big a one as you! Gustavo and I are only trying to help because if you keep acting like this the Board will vote you out faster than you can imagine. You'll lose everything!" I sighed inwardly, knowing she was right. But I can't help that I can't resist the call of freedom, and a pretty face.
I listened halfheartedly as she went on and on when I heard something in the distance muffled by the wind and the waves breaking on the hull. Strained to listen, blocking out all other sounds. It sounded like an angel singing, the most heavenly voice I had ever heard. "What is that?" I interrupted, "Do you hear that?"
"Beau, please. Enough sea-faring!" Kelly begged, "You've got to get back to L.A. to honor your father's dying wish and take over the company."
"That's not the life for me, Kelly," I finally said what I had kept inside my entire life. She was opening her mouth to reply when I heard that voice again. So mesmerizing and beautiful.
"There it is again!" I exclaimed, holding up a hand to silence her so I could listen. Following the voice I ran to the stern to look for the cause of the voice but there was nothing but ocean.
"We'll be arriving in L.A. in about twenty minutes," the Captain informed walking towards us.
"Finally," Kelly sighed in relief. She wouldn't show it but I had been at sea long enough to know when someone was battling seasickness.
"No! I saw when we get to L.A." I said abruptly, knowing that if I don't discover the source of that voice it will haunt me for the rest of my life. Kelly groaned in frustration, "Now follow that voice! To the ends of the earth if we have to!"
KENDALL'S POV
I swam around the perimeter of the Concert Hall one last time to make sure all was well for the arrival of King Griffin. I was the Captain of the Tritons, the official royal guards, and the tension in the water was felt by all my men and I. Half the kingdom had come for the concert to celebrate the anniversary of King Griffin defeating the Sea Witch, banishing her forever. So needless to say security was doubled and everyone was on high alert. Seeing all was clear I swam over to one of Griffin's advisors and court composer Logan
"Everything all clear?" he asked me mockingly like he had done since my promotion. Being the Captain of the Royal Guard had been my dream since childhood. My father had been Captain until his death fighting the Sea Witch with Griffin. It was a day of remembering the great loss in the fight just as much as it was a celebration.
"Yup," I replied, "Are their highnesses here yet?"
"All present and accounted for except for…"
"Prince Jamez," I said cutting him off. Jamez was one of our oldest and best friends but he was a handful where security came. He was impossible to keep track of, always swimming off whenever you weren't looking. He was highly adventurous and high-spirited and just as bullheaded as his father, probably the reason why they were always butting heads. Yet he was still Griffin's favorite child, though he would never admit it. Out of all seven children he looked the most like the late queen and his voice was mesmerizing to anyone within earshot. Even the smallest of his smiles seemed to light up the ocean. "Let's hope he snuck in when we weren't looking."
"You know it isn't good for the Captain of the Tritons to say that," he laughed and I just rolled my eyes. The trumpeters swam in sounding their horns to signal the Griffins arrival. The hall went silent except for the man announcing, "Presenting His Royal Majesty, King of the Seven Seas, Duke of the Barrier Reef, King Griffin!" The hall was filled with tremendous cheers at this great merman as King Griffin swam majestically to his throne.
He was a large and muscle toned merman with a dark blue tail with a silver strip bordered with gold scales. The spines on his forearms were long but worn from age and battle. He was clad in his ceremonial armor made of horseshoe crabs, polished for the occasion. A coral crown sat on top his snowy white hair and on his waist he wore a sharpened sword made from a swordfish like myself and my men. In his hand he carried his magic triton which he waved over the crowed sending sparks of color over his subjects. I swam to my place beside him at this throne and Logan swam up to him and bowed.
"Aw your majesty," he said excitedly, "you are in for a treat today. This song was written for your most talented child."
"And who might that be," he smiled, pretending not to know whom Logan was referring.
"Why your youngest!" Logan said, "Prince Jamez. I swear to you Your Majesty the kingdom has not heard such a lovely voice since, since."
"Her Majesty the Queen," Griffin finished for him, "May she rest in peace. I am sure you will do well in honoring me Logan."
"Yes Your Majesty," Logan bowed and I heard him mutter, "If only he would show up for a rehearsal once in awhile."
"My loyal subjects," Griffin's voice booms throughout the hall, "Welcome! Today we celebrate peace being brought to our kingdom! Let the celebrations begin!" He shouts, shooting an array of beautiful sparks from his triton. The music starts up and six of his seven children swim in from above and circle their father.
"Ah, we are the children of Griffin," they sang, "Great father who loves us and named us well. Jett, Mercedes, Beck, Dak, Tori, Kat, and Jamez!" They swim out, doing all sorts of elegant twists and elaborate loops over the crowd, "In concert we hope to enlighten the heart of the merfolk with music's swell. Jett!"
"Ahhh," Jett sang in a deep masculine voice.
"Mercedes!" The siblings harmonized.
"Ahhh," Mercedes sang in a high soprano.
"Beck!"
"Ahhh," Beck sang.
"Dak!"
"Ahhh!"
"Tori."
"Ahhh."
"Kat."
"Ahhh," she sang in one of the sweetest, cutest voices you had ever heard.
"And then there is the youngest in his musical debut," they harmonized perfectly, "Our seventh little sibling we're presenting him to you! To sing a song Logan wrote, his voice is like a bell. It's our brother Jamez!" They motioned to the ceiling above Griffin where Jamez was to swim down and sing his solo but nothing.
"Oh no!" Logan gasp, "Where is he? Once more…" he instructed the royal siblings.
"Brother, Jamez!" They complied singing the cue again but nothing. Griffin's face grew red with anger and Logan and I looked to each other knowing it was never good when the King of the Sea got angry.
"Not again," Logan moaned right before Griffin yells out, "JAMEZ!" Sparks flying out of his triton causing the merfolk scream and swim away before he fully exploded. Griffin shoots up and swims at lightning speed from the hall with Logan and I in tow, knowing our friend had really done it this time.
JAMEZ' POV
This is where I belong I thought to myself as I broke the surface. I loved the world above, it was all so mysterious and foreign. I had been enticed with it since I was little when Kendall, Logan, Carols and I had ventured up, gaining a fierce reprimand from my father. He had forbidden the merfolk to interact with the human world but I couldn't resist the allure of it. My infatuation with everything to do with humans caused a rift between my father and me that kept growing each time I snuck off and went exploring. I wish he could just except me for who I am and not expect me to be as well behaved as my brothers and sisters.
"Yaaaahoooo!" Carlos shouted shooting up from the water and doing a back flip before splashing into the water. I laughed at my friends crazy antics. Out of all my friends Carlos is the only one who refused to grow up, an eternal kid at heart. Kendall had joined the tritons and Logan studied accidemics and became an advisor to my father. They both took their responsibilities very seriously and I didn't understand why they wanted to be all grown up, it wasn't any fun. I would rather play and enjoy being young and Carlos was the same.
Carlos emerged next to me also laughing at his trick and splashed me with water. "Find anything cool?" He asked knowing I was searching for human stuff again. Apart from Kendall and Logan he was the only one who knew of my collection hidden away in a cave in the kelp forest.
"Yup," I smiled, "I can't wait to talk to Buddha about them." Buddha was our human friend that we had met him when we were young and the four of us had been playing with the dolphins and he saw us from his boat while fishing. I couldn't resist getting a closer look at the first human I have ever seen and ignoring the guys swam closer when he saw me. Apparently he knew about merpeople and there was something about him that I trusted. Carlos and the guys always thought he was crazy, saying no sane person would ever carry on entire conversations with inanimate objects. I thought he was brilliant, he was a library of everything human and I could easily spend all day talking to him and asking questions of his world. "Look at this!" I said taking out my favorite discovery of the day from the bag tied to my seashell belt. It was a long slender silver object with four teeth on the end.
"You're obsessed," he joked.
"You know it," I said putting the object back in my bag, "I feel completely new here in the here! It's like my life was wrong and somehow I'm in my own skin up here." Even though he always came adventuring with me I know he didn't truly understand my love for this world. There's so much light here. The sun's so bright here upon my face! It feels so right, just as warm as love. Life seems to be almost calling to me. "Come on!" I said splashing down into the water.
We swam to the island the humans named Saint Catalina where Buddha lived on an isolated side of the island. Carlos and I emerged in the cove where he lived and saw him fishing on a rock near his rundown boat house. "Hey Buddha!" I called to him causing him to jump. He looked around frantically and he smiled when he saw us.
"Merboys!" He said waddling over to us, jumping down a small fish in the process, "To what do I owe this immense pleasure?" We pulled ourselves up unto the rocks next to him and our tails shimmered in the sunlight. That was one of the things I loved most about being on the surface, how the sun made the silver streak down the front of my blue-ish green tail and the golden specs on Carlos' red one sparkle. Because of our youth the spines on our forearms we still rather small in comparison to older mermen, not like Kendall whose spines were oddly large for his age.
"Jamez found some things," Carlos told him.
"Let us see! Let us see!" Buddha basically squawked and I pulled out the object I had previously showed to Carlos. He eagerly took it from me and held it up in admiration, "It's a dinglehopper!"
"A dinglehopper?" Carlos questioned skeptically but I ignored him.
"What's a dinglehopper?"
"Oh, these babies are fantabulous. Absolutely indispensary. When it comes to dinglehoppers, I'm a regular encyclopoodia!" Buddha said proudly, "Say thatcha wanna have a nifty new hairdo, just pick up the dinglehopper, twirl it into your hair! Give it a little yank, and there ya go! You're what they call "the dog's meow"!"
"Oh," I said taking it back and running it threw my hair. So it was like a comb, I get it now. I put it back in my bag and pull out the other odd object. It was a wooden curved piece that was smaller on one side and much larger on the other, "And what's this one?"
"Oh my gawd," he gasped coming closer to get better look, "I haven't seen one of these in a long, long time! These are very rare! It's a snarffblatt!"
"What does it do?" I asked turning it over in my hand thinking of all the wonderful things it could possibly do.
"Back when the world was all prehistoral, people sat around all day, flat upon their bumps, just staring at each other," he said getting right in Carlos' face and staring him in the eyes, "It was very boring. Then they invented snarfblatts, just by chance. Suddenly life was la-di-da! Snarfblatts' are what you use to make folks dance! Give it a blow, and then voilà!" I did as he said but instead of a lovely musical sound just a bunch of gunk and grim from lying on the ocean floor for who knows how long.
Music! I thought with horror remembering what I had forgotten. I looked at Carlos and he had just remembered to. The concert!" we yelled in unison. I stuffed the snarffblatt in my bag and said, "Thank you Buddha but we have to go." We jumped back into the water and swam as fast as we could towards the city. The city lays beyond the Channel Islands down the canyon. The city was a large stone city that spread out on the canyon floor with my father's palace in the center of it. Where no doubt my father would be waiting for me to return and extremely pissed.
SEA WITCH
Oh what has become of me? I was once a powerful noblewoman ruling over a small section of the kingdom. I had a beautiful palace and was surrounded by servants who complied with my every whim. Now I'm living, no hiding, on the outskirts of society in a dark, dreary lair made of bones, it not suitable for merlife, with only had my lovely sirens for company. Unfortunately they were as dumb as they were beautiful, not exactly good for intelligent conversation. My perfect life was ruined thanks to King Griffin who banished me for my "crimes."
My reign was blissfully delicious and glamour, glitz and style were au courante!
Did I use some black magic? Well, oopsie, my bad! Did I mutilate, maim and destroy? Haha, just a tad! And would you believe for that I get banished! But I'm not mad. There's just one little thing that I want.
I want the good times back! I want those grand old days! I want the twisted nights, the sick delights, and the wild soireé. I want those trembling crowds of shellfish cracked and peeled for me to eat. Not because I'm mean or selfish I just want what is rightfully mine! I want disgusting wealth and exquisite sin! I want the entire sea to worship me on bended fin! I want to greet my loving subjects and then have them as a snack!
"Picture it my pretties," I said to my sirens who were lounging idly on sponge couches eating tiny pathetic morsels they scrounge off the ocean floor. "Pretty soon, I'll be back on top! Sipping bubbly and eating caviar before it hatches! King Griffin is the only thing that is standing in my way," the twisted hated in my gut flared whenever I think of that bastard. "If only I can find his Achilles heel," I thought out loud, "the soft quivering underbelly beneath all that armor." When I dethrone him I'll make the merfolk cower just like they did in days of yore. Sure, it's sheer abuse of power but isn't that what powers for? Oh how I want to taste Griffin's tears and hear the merfolks screams as they realize I am their queen! How I long for that special rush you get from crushing hopes and dreams. It's an aphrodisiac you know. "Oh god! Were they good times!" I said out load. "Think my lovelies. I need to think of a way to make him pay! Something absolutely, perfectly evil."
"Poison?" One of them suggested
"Sure," another agreed but I shook my head. I need something better. Not only do I want to destroy him I want him to suffer greatly. "Blackmail?"
"Or," said another in thought, "His children?"
"Maybe…"
"Wait!" I said, an idea forming in my head, "Why didn't we think of it before? His youngest!" I swam over to my cauldron and waved my hands over it making a large bubble to form. An image of the boy swimming with a friend appeared in it. They both looked nervous but I didn't pay much attention to it.
"The one with the beautiful voice?" The blond asked as they circled around and smiled with delight at where this was going.
"Which he takes for granted," I told them, "No one knows how precious their voice is until they've been silenced." I began laughing at how perfect my plan was, "Perhaps we could teach them both a lesson. I want that little boy," I instructed them.
"Ooh," they said in unison.
"And boys, I want him bad!" I shouted in excitement, "I want her sitting here to lure his dear devoted dad!"
"Mmmm."
"I want that goody-goody king to come rescue him and then one way or another, surprise! I'll spring the trap! And get the good times back I do mean with all the perks! The trident, crown, and the throne! All mine alone! The whole damn works but most of all, I want old Griffin pinned and wriggling on the rack. Then, girls, it's my time!" Our laughter filled the room and I was already imagining sitting on the throne with Griffin bowing before me. Oh yes, the good times are coming back better then before!