AN: Welcome to my fic! I'm so happy to have you here :) For your reading pleasure, I present the Little Mermaid: Hetalia version! Pairings present in this fic include: GerIta, Spamano, AusHun, implied PruHun, one-sided Russia and Belarus, and Grandpa Rome and Ancient Greece.
Please be aware in advance that I use accents. If anything sounds unintelligible, say it out loud and you should get it right away.
I appreciate reviews very very much! Please let me know what you thought!
The sky was beautiful to Feliciana.
She loved how big it was, how wide, deeper than the ocean but plunging up instead of down, infinite. She loved how colorful it was, with its deep blues and fiery reds and velvety blacks. She loved the shapes in the clouds and the pinpricks of the stars, and she loved the warmth of sunrays and the sweet salted breezes that made the sky its own sea, with currents and waves and sweeping tides, only more temperamental.
But seeing the sky blurred by the waves wasn't enough. She had to see for herself, feel the breezes and smell the icy wind blown off the stars by night. The sky was a wide mantle that made her feel free.
Her father hated the sky, though, because of who lived underneath it.
Romulus was the king of Atlantica, and he hated humans. Only merfolk were safe, he said. The humans, the people who breathed in that beautiful sky that Feliciana loved, were killers.
Even though it had been ten years now, Feliciana could remember her mother's body being brought home. There had been a wickedly hooked harpoon sticking out from between her breasts, and her blood had been spiraling out of her into the water to nourish the sea, a sick parody of the gently flowing waves of dark hair that Feliciana had so admired. Sightless hazel eyes had stared from a face frozen in eternal terror—a sight Feliciana could never forget as long as she lived. It had crippled her, that face. Her mother had come home, but she had come empty. Her hands would never hold Feliciana's, or brush her hair, and her lips would never kiss Feliciana's forehead or form the words "I love you."
Romulus had cried over the body for a whole night. Then he had risen, and he had ordered the guards to dispose of the body. Merpeople had no special rites—as the sea had given life to its inhabitants, so would they, in turn, give life to the sea. Her body would feed the algae and the fishes, and the merpeople would eat the algae and the fishes, and she would give life to her people even in her death. It was a noble end, but for weeks Feliciana and Romulus refused to eat any more than they had to in order to avoid starving. They couldn't bear the idea that they were consuming her. Lovina was not like her sister and father, and she mourned in her own way. She ate. She wanted to make her mother's essence a part of herself. As her mother fed the sea, so the sea would feed her. That was the way it was. The sea took, and the sea gave back, never more and never less than was owed.
The people dwelling under the sky had killed Feliciana's mother. But she loved the sky anyway, and even more, she loved the people who lived under its wide ever-shifting mantle.
"We shourd not be here," said Kiku nervously. "This is dangerous. Your father wourd be angry."
"Aw, c'mon, lighten up!" Feliciana said cheerfully, tilting her chin up so the sunrays could caress it. "It's so pretty today!"
Kiku fluttered his fins nervously. The black-speckled koi fish was always nervous, especially when he had to accompany Feliciana on her illegal forays to the surface. "Your father wirr make us very sorry that we did this."
"We don't have to tell him," Feliciana said with a wink. She splashed her dusky blue tail in the sea, laughing at the drops of water she tossed up. "We'll go back down in a minute," she allowed when Kiku looked at her dubiously. "Silly Kiku. Don't get your tail in a twist!"
"My tail is not twisted!" he cried indignantly. "I just do not think this is a good idea."
Feliciana sighed. The sky tasted better than the sea too—it was so sweet, and carried scents, which the ocean did not have. She loved breathing through her lungs and not her gills. Father forbade it, though. She was not supposed to be here, within sight of the land upon which his most hated enemies dwelled. But she just couldn't help it.
"Fine, we can go," she said sadly, sliding her scaled lower half back into the sea and dropping back into the embrace of the waves. "I'm getting hungry anyway."
Kiku was waiting for her. "Thank you," he said gratefully.
"No problem." She grinned impishly at him. "Let's have a race back home! Ready, go!"
With that she shot off, leaving Kiku and his protests in the trail of bubbles she left behind. Her red hair streamed behind her as she swam as quickly as her fins could propel her through the water back towards Atlantica.
The ocean was a blue-green blur dotted with bright spots of color as she sped past. Fleshy pink coral and curls of emerald seaweed flashed by, and the vibrant colors of the fish nearby. A few called a greeting to the mermaid princess, and she acknowledged those with a cheerful wave. Kiku followed in her wake, trying to keep up, but his fins were just too small to keep up with her mighty tail. Soon he fell far behind, and Feliciana pulled ahead, laughing.
As she swam, something caught her eye, and she slowed to a stop so that she could get a better look. Kiku nearly ran into her back, but he managed to come to a halt at the very last second. "Feliciana, what was that for?" he asked, panting.
"What is that?" she asked, pointing at the thing that had given her pause.
Kiku squinted. "I don't know," he said. "It looks like… A stick?"
"A tree," Feliciana gasped, eyes wide. She'd never seen a tree, only heard of them from a friendly seagull named Alfred who told her stories of all the lands he'd flown over and the people who lived there. "Kiku, it's a tree! It must be!" Before the koi could speak, the mermaid had already shot off towards the tip of the faraway tree.
"Fericiana!" he cried, chasing after her. "Fericiana! What do you think you are doing?"
"I have to see it," Feliciana cried. Desperate longing filled her. She was in love with humans. She wanted to know their world—everything that was in it, everything that the humans used or even knew about. Trees were very important to the human world, she knew; Alfred had told her. She had to see a tree.
However, the closer she got, the less she was sure that the strange sticklike thing was a tree. According to Alfred, trees were supposed to have other sticks growing off of the main stick, and it was supposed to have seaweed-like fringe across the protruding sticks. This one was smooth and bare, but it had cloth hangings laying across it. And it was attached to a very large base, a huge thing made of the same hard, splintery material as the not-tree thing.
Curiously, Feliciana swam around to the bottom of the base to inspect it. Only then did comprehension dawn on her. "It's a boat, Kiku!" she cried excitedly. She'd only ever seen a boat from the bottom—she'd had no idea what it looked like from the top. "A boat! What if it has human things inside?"
"We shourd rearry get back to the parace…" Kiku tried weakly.
"No way! We can't pass up a chance to see inside!" Grinning widely, the princess wriggled her way into a circular opening in the side. She had a little trouble fitting her hips through, but she managed to slide her way in despite the squeeze. "Are you coming?"
"Must I?" Kiku looked pained.
Feliciana stuck her head back out of the circle. "You don't have to, but I don't wanna go alone." She pouted, hoping Kiku would change his mind and decide to come out of pity.
The fish gave an exasperated groan. "Arr right, arr right."
"Yay! That's happy!" Feliciana backed out of the way and Kiku swam into the ship.
It was dark inside the ship, but Feliciana's eyes adjusted quickly to the gloom. She wanted to burst into tears of joy once she could see.
Everything inside—it was human. She could almost see the fingerprints of human hands on every detail of the interior. She had to lay hands on everything, just to touch something a human had touched.
Some things, she recognized, like the chair and the desk and the bed. Others she didn't understand. What was that cloth covering the bed? And that strange glass globe next to the bed, with a waxy stick inside? What purpose could those strange cloth things on the floor at the end of the bed serve? It took her a long time to realize that they were made to be worn on feet.
"Look at this, Kiku!" she cried, touching the feet-clothes reverently. "I would love to have feet…"
Kiku snorted. "So you courd farr and trip arr the time rike crumsy humans do? That does not sound very preasant."
"I think it sounds amazing…" Feliciana opened a drawer of the dresser. Inside were many things, like more feet-clothes and torso-clothes and leg-clothes. The next drawer down held some strange little sticks with red heads in a tidy little box, and a stick with a small bowl at the end. She picked that one up—it was small enough to carry away, and looked fascinating. There was also a strangely hard silver stick with three shorter and thinner sticks protruding from the end. She took that too, and a circle that fit into the palm of her hand with a cracked white glass face on one side and a gold face on the other suspended on a golden chain. The white glass face had strange markings at regular intervals around the circle, with little black lines pointing to the markings. She put the chain around her neck and held the silver stick and the bowl-stick in one hand.
"Let's go check out the other rooms!" she cried excitedly.
"Uhh…" Kiku's voice was suddenly more nervous than usual. "I do not think that is such a good idea…"
"Why not?" Feliciana turned towards where his voice was coming from and froze.
A shark drifted lazily into the room, as though he had not a care in the world and not a single intention of snapping up a juicy little koi fish and a tasty mermaid princess for dinner. Kiku was frozen, staring into its gaping maw lined with jagged, terrible teeth.
"Kiku, swim awaaaaaay!" Feliciana cried, her voice high with terror. That snapped her friend out of his stupor, and he had vanished out of the circular exit before the shark knew what had happened. Irate at losing its easy meal, the shark lunged forward, jaws snapping. Feliciana was hot on Kiku's tailfin to the exit, but her hips were still a tight squeeze. Desperately she wriggled to escape, but the milliseconds it took to shimmy free were too much to spare.
Hot pain exploded in Feliciana's tail, making her cry out. Wrenching free of the shark's tooth-hold, she left a chunk of her tail fin in its jaws and swam for her life, crying and clutching her prizes from the ship as though they were a lifeline.
Kiku swam at her side just as desperately—and for once, he could keep up. Feliciana hadn't lost much of her tail, just a small rip out of the fan of membrane at the end, but it was enough to throw off her swimming pattern. And Feliciana did not deal well with pain. Though it should have been bearable, Feliciana was almost crippled by the waves of hurt that rolled through her. She left a trail of blood in her wake, and that made her panic—sharks liked blood, and it would leave a trail to follow. She knew that it was her destiny to nourish the sea one day, but she had hoped it would not be soon.
"Swim!" Kiku urged her as she began to slow. "Hurry! Prease, keep swimming!"
"I… I can't," Feliciana panted. "It hurts!"
"The shark's right behind us!" he cried.
A gush of fear lent speed to Feliciana's tail, and suddenly she and Kiku were rocketing forward in a rush that sent bubbles exploding from her path. She had to grab him and hold onto him so that he could keep up. As they swam, she bawled out, "Help me! Help me!" over and over and over again and so quickly that the words blurred together almost unrecognizably.
By the time Atlantica appeared over a ridge in the ocean floor, she had slowed again and could no longer scream for help because her gills had enough on their hands trying to make sure she didn't suffocate. Her tail was still bleeding, but she was pretty sure they had lost the shark by now.
Kiku was gasping too, but he nudged her arm gently with his nose. "Ret's get you to a doctor," he said breathlessly. He squirmed under her arm for support and helped her swim towards the city.
"Wait," Feliciana gasped. She paused next to a rocky outcropping and tucked her prizes from the ship in between two craggy boulders. When she was convinced that they were hidden, she said, "Okay. Now we can go."
Kiku gaped at her. "You must be insane. You are about to breed to death and that is what you are worried about?"
"Daddy will be upset if I bring those home," she said, starting off towards the glowing coral city. "You know how he is."
"Yes, I am aware." Kiku shook his head wonderingly. "You are something erse, Fericiana."
She giggled tiredly. "Yeah, I guess so." After a moment, as the city drew nearer and nearer, she asked, "How close was that shark anyway? When you told me he was right behind us?"
"Not crose at all," Kiku said without a trace of shame. "But you arways seem to swim faster in retreat."
"Kiku!" she cried indignantly. "That wasn't nice!"
He rolled his eyes. "Oh prease. You give me high brood pressure arr the time with your surface stunts!"
"What?" A very familiar, commanding voice cracked like a whip.
"Uh-oh…" Feliciana looked guiltily into the eyes of her father.
King Romulus of Atlantica was a very handsome man despite his age, with not a trace of white winging his dark curls. He had a stubbly beard on his chin and had caramel skin, with large amber eyes that seemed very inattentive most of the time—except when it came to food, liquor, women, and his daughters. His tail was deep red, darker than the blood still leaking out of Feliciana's fin, and he wore a bronze breastplate embossed with intricate designs over his muscular chest.
At his shoulder was Princess Lovina, Feliciana's older sister and heir apparent to the throne of Atlantica. Her hair was reddish brown as opposed to Feliciana's bright copper, and her tail was dark purple, but they were nearly identical otherwise. They had the same burnished gold eyes as their father, their mother's pale skin, and identical unruly curls of hair protruding from the sides of their heads. But the similarities stopped at the surface level. Where Feliciana was cheerful, Lovina was sullen. Lovina was intelligent where Feliciana was ditzy. Feliciana dealt better with people; Lovina could put the ruling of her head above the demands of her heart. Lovina would be a cold ruler, but a good one. If Feliciana had to take the throne, her people would love her until she led them to ruin—which is why she was grateful to be the younger out of the pair of them.
That also meant, however, that Romulus' heavy hand of protection fell the hardest on Feliciana. Sure, she needed it more than Lovina, but that was because Lovina followed the rules. She had no interest in humans, and no desire to learn about them. Her waterlogged kingdom was all that mattered to her. Unlike Feliciana, she had no dreams for something more.
Which is why she doesn't get her tail bitten off, Feliciana thought bitterly.
"Did he say something about the surface?" Romulus demanded angrily.
Feliciana squirmed under his gaze and hurriedly evaded the question. "Daddy, my tail's hurt!"
Romulus' eyes traveled down to her tail and widened. "My little one!" he gasped. "How did this happen?"
"Well… A shark," Feliciana responded unwillingly.
"Idiot," Lovina sniffed. "Are you really so slow that a shark can outswim you?"
"No, I…" Then Feliciana caught herself. She couldn't tell Romulus and Lovina that she'd been trapped in a confined space. Sharks never came close to Atlantica, and there were few other merfolk settlements nearby—the only place she could have been confined would be a shipwreck. So she looked down at her nibbled fin and responded, trying her best to sound morose, "Well… Yeah… But he was really fast!"
Romulus and Lovina looked at her questioningly. They could tell that she was lying, but they also had no reason to refute her story. Romulus put an arm around Feliciana gently and lifted her into his big, strong embrace. "Let's get you to a doctor," he said kindly.
Feliciana put her cheek to his big bronze-plated chest and felt the familiar comfort of her daddy's arms. Romulus was a good man, and a good father. She loved him, and he was good to her. They got along just fine most of the time—but his rules regarding humans and the surface were just not acceptable to Feliciana. She had never broken a rule in her life before discovering the sky, but now she broke one of his most strict and personal rules almost every day. And the one made for the best reason, she had to admit.
But she just didn't care. Her daddy could make all the rules he wanted—she would never stop going to the surface as long as she could swim. Even if it wasn't safe. Some of the best things in life had to be bought with a price, as Romulus had always taught her and Lovina in their training to become queen one day. Just as the sea took and gave back, so must they. The push and pull of the tides governed all life in the sea—and when the tide swelled on one side of the ocean, it fell at the other. Nothing was ever wasted. Never more and never less than was owed.
If she owed punishment for this, she would take it. But she was willing to pay any price to live beneath the sky.
AN: In case you were curious, the things Feliciana encountered in the ship were (in order): shoes, clothes, matches, a pipe, a fork, and a pocket watch.
Reviews are very much appreciated! Thanks for reading!