I got this idea while staying on the Sunshine Coast (It's a place in Australia) for a few days these holidays. I visited a beach called Mooloolaba and when I was standing on a plane of rock, I stared out at sea and imagined that it was speaking to me. Like Annabeth describes in this story, I am in awe of the sea. Of its power, and beauty and plain brilliance.
I wanted to convey my own thoughts into a story, and here we have THE LITTLE MERMAID!
I hope you like it. I put a lot of effort into writing it.
It was drummed into Percy every single day of his childhood: never, ever mingle with humans. They are selfish, single- minded creatures, inhumane for all the humanity they claim. If you ever have an encounter with one, wipe its mind and best you wipe yours too. An encounter with a human will leave you changed in ways one cannot describe.
Percy broke the first rule very early in his life. And he broke the second one pretty soon after.
He once had a close encounter with a human. A human girl, younger than him but age had never mattered in the least.
Because what was a year compared to an emotion?
Compared to love?
March, 2001
He had been seven. She was smaller, and she was caught in a rip. Her tiny body struggling against the strong current; struggling for oxygen, struggling to survive.
Any other Mer would have let her drown. But Percy was too compassionate to let her die in cold blood. So he saved her. He swam as close to shore as he dared, and let go of her. She bobbed in the water for a few seconds, and then gracefully sank, her golden hair fanning out around her slack face, a portrait of complete and utter helpless vulnerability. It was then Percy realised that she was not conscious. Her delicate hands fluttered by her sides as she sank to the sandy sea bed, exotic fish darting excitedly between her legs. She seemed to be a shining angel fallen from the Kingdom in the skies, the glorified Olympus.
He didn't dare call for help. The Mer would kill her on sight, and lecture Percy for all eternity.
So, using the powers over water he'd inherited from his father, the notorious God of the Sea, Poseidon, the young Merboy created an air bubble around the little human girl so that she could breathe, and stayed with her. He studied her face, and spoke to her about the most random things: the fish nibbling curiously at her toes were guppies, and they were really very friendly, if a bit vague. He never really talked to girls, but she seemed different to other girls; she looked very calm and quiet, not at all scary or intimidating.
She never responded, of course, but it was nice to speak to someone without worrying about whether what he said would somehow be offensive. The Mer were a very sensitive, proud species, easily offended and prone to boasting. As only a half- blood, Percy had inherited some of his mother's human traits, such as an open frankness.
Percy chatted for hours. The girl would sometimes stir, and Percy would cease his incessant chatter and dart behind a rock close by. She moaned once or twice, and her eyelids fluttered, delicate as a butterfly's wings. She did not wake, lost deep in the abyss of sleep.
So he fell asleep as well.
He slept, and woke to find the girl staring at him with wide, frightened grey eyes.
He was lost in her pretty eyes for a moment, before he blinked and remembered that she was a human. But how could such a pretty creature be bad? He thought.
When Percy swam forward to try and speak to her, the girl squirmed back, her eyes widening from the size of coins to saucepans. With a pang, Percy understood that he had to let her go, and then wipe her memory. But she just looks so innocent and beautiful, staring at me with those pretty eyes, he thought. I don't want her to forget me.
He swam to her again, slowly this time, palms forward in a placating gesture. She paused, hesitant.
Percy reached through the bubble and touched her cheek. Her skin was warm, much warmer than his. It was also silky and smooth and soft. Like the inside of an oyster shell. Her long blond hair drifted in silken curls to touch his hand.
He was ice under the sun; he was melting.
He reached for her hand and she gave it to him. He squeezed it once, then let go. He beckoned, and she came through the bubble, blindly trusting the boy who had saved her life. The boy who had two legs like a human, and two sea green eyes and two hands and a nose and the most gorgeous ebony hair, but who could breathe underwater and make air bubbles with his mind.
Startled at the sudden cold of the water, she let out all her breath. Percy swam to her and stroked her cheek, then gently cradled her in his arms and swam to the surface where he let go of her. Her head broke the skin of the water and she took a deep breath, then ducked back under again. She grabbed his hand and brought it to her face, kissed his palm. Percy smiled goofily at her, and the girl smiled back.
Then she was gone, swimming away, her little legs kicking and little arms flapping.
Probably gone forever.
Little did Percy know how wrong he was.
January, 2009
Annabeth had always loved and hated the sea in equal amounts. The vast stretch of water frightened her. Its majestic power terrified her. Its capacity to take a life in a microsecond petrified her to no end. But its serene beauty at night when the full moon was shining down, lighting the water up was so moving to her. It sparked a memory deep inside of her; a memory that made her feel warm and safe and loved, and a memory that had been with her since she was six years old.
Love was something that she craved. It was also something that she had been greatly deprived of. Her mother had left her when she was a young child. Her father married a woman who had no time for a lonely, lost little girl who cried when no one was looking and glared at anyone who got too close.
Annabeth held tight to this memory when it came. For the life of her, she couldn't remember what made her feel so. She just knew that it was somehow connected to the ocean. She would sneak out at night and go and sit in the secluded cove a short hike away from her house's back door, through the reeds and down the sandy, over grown path. There was a long stretch of rock that she would sit on, either cross- legged, or with her feet dangling over the ledge above the five foot drop into the ravenous waves below that would rise to lap hungrily at her toes when the tide was high, and stare out into the ocean, thinking.
Sometimes she imagined that there was a friend out in the ocean, someone who would listen to her worries and her fears. To the good news in her life, or even just everyday annoyances like her little half- brothers who would sometimes steal her homework books and dump them in the toilet after someone had been for a number two (and sometimes not even flushed).
She would chat to no one in particular, just imagining that there was a person sitting next to her. Perhaps a boy a mite older than her with dark hair and eyes the colour of the sea. He would laugh at her lame jokes and make an effort to cheer her up when she was down. He would lend her his shoulder to lean on when she cried, and smile lovingly at her when she wanted to feel loved.
He was her dream boy.
Sometimes she even thought that the sea listened to her. If she was crying, the cool, refreshing breeze would wrap her in its comforting embrace. The waves would calm, and the majestic crashing fortissimo would become a soothing lullaby.
If she was yelling and raging about being bullied at school, about a kid who had stolen her lunch or gotten her in trouble with the principal, the wind would howl and the waves would become almost like mini tsunamis as they crashed into the sand banks again and again. It was almost as comforting as having a friend who had her back.
Then she would go to lean on him and remember that there was no one there.
She was alone.
March, 2002
"Daddy!" seven year old Annabeth called out in delight. "Daddy! Come quickly!"
Frederick Chase sighed and walked over to see what his errant daughter had found now. What she had found was a dead clam. She was clutching it in her hands, trying to open it. "Annabeth, darling," he said tiredly. "Please put that down. If you handle it the wrong way, it could slice the skin from your fingers."
"Just wait a minute, daddy!" Annabeth frowned in concentration as she wrestled with the clam, trying to pry it open.
"Annabeth—"
"I got it!" Annabeth straightened up, looking proud of herself as she held the open clam up to Frederick's astonished face. "Is it a pearl, daddy? Is it? Is it?"
"Why don't you take a look, darling," he said, making an effort to liven up his voice for his excited daughter.
Annabeth held it in her two tiny hands and grinned fiercely. "It's a pearl, daddy! There's a pearl in my clam! Isn't it pretty? And I didn't hurt myself!" Annabeth showed him her hands. "See?"
Frederick gently moved her hands away from his face. "Yes, darling. I see."
Annabeth cradled the clam and pearl to her chest protectively. She turned to face the blue- green expanse of water before her. "Thank you, ocean," she whispered.
The waves didn't respond. The breeze didn't cease in its motion. But perhaps the reflection of the sun on the turquoise expanse of water glinted just a tad brighter at the seven year old's words?
2006
Percy was now twelve, and young and naïve as it sounds, he was hopelessly in love with the girl. Annabeth, he recalled her name was. He had once heard a man (her father, he presumed) call her Annabeth. A very fitting name for an angel like her.
He knew was that she loved the beach. She liked to chat to no one, and he loved listening to her soft, melodic voice. It was like music to his ears, the pianissimo of her voice a balm to the invisible wounds that bled the red blood of mortals beneath the hide of his skin, the wounds products of his being half human in a kingdom where humans were shunned and the Mer bled blue.
He hated that she felt so alone in life. He had heard her talk once or twice about taking her own life. Hurling herself off the rocks and ending it once and for all. If it came to that, Percy would save her. He had saved her once before and he would do it again and again, if only to steal one more one- sided conversation, one more forbidden interaction with the little girl who had stolen his heart and hidden it for safe keeping in a place where he would never find it to wrestle it back.
June, 2007
Thirteen year old Percy was scouring the ocean floor with a few of his friends. They were competing in a treasure hunt for Percy's half- brother Triton's five hundred and fortieth birthday, which Triton scoffed at, saying that he had had enough of birthday parties after his tenth, but handed off to Percy, saying that Percy was juvenile enough to enjoy something as childish as a clam hunting competition.
That's when he saw it. He saw the necklace that changed everything. It had a thin silver chain, and a heart shaped locket. He swam down to inspect it and discovered that the locket opened. Engraved inside were the words: yours forever.
It did not occur to the thirteen year old how coincidental it seemed, finding this locket. He did not pay any mind to the faint pink aura it emanated, nor the way he immediately thought of the human girl he was so engrossed with.
He did not suspect that he was a pawn in a game composed by his infamous Aunt Aphrodite, the goddess of love, beauty and meddling.
Percy ended up losing the game miserably. But that was okay, even if Triton would hold it against him forever (as immortal siblings did). He had found something of much more use to him than a clam with a pearl inside.
He would give the locket to Annabeth. Then maybe she would finally figure out that her 'dream boy' was just at infatuated with her as she was with him.
He swam to the skin of the ocean, but he didn't dare break the surface. He'd heard horrible tales of Mer dying gruesome deaths, scorched by the deadly beams from what humans called 'the sun'.
Percy didn't want to die before he got to meet Annabeth. He let go of the locket and closed his eyes. He imagined the waves washing the locket ashore. He imagined Annabeth walking along the beach and finding it. Power surged through his body, and the ocean responded to his commands. Percy opened his eyes and smiled in satisfaction.
June, 2007
Twelve year old Annabeth was walking along the beach with a book in her hand when she found it. A locket. It was heart shaped. Excitement brewed inside of her. Was it a sign from her imaginary friend who lived in the ocean?
Or was she going crazy?
Annabeth lovingly placed her book inside her jacket, where one of her greatest treasures was protected from the wind and the brine, and dropped to her knees in the sand, digging the locket out and shaking the excess sand off.
It flipped open and she gasped. Inside, it read: forever yours.
Her head snapped up and she scanned the cove. He was here. He had to be here.
No movement whatsoever.
But she didn't want to give up. She stood, her knees shaking in the slightest, and slipped the necklace over her head. It sat nestled comfortably in the hollow of her throat.
A sharp, pointed wind shot through the cove. It seemed to have a presence, an intention, a personality.
Sand blew into Annabeth's eyes and she couldn't see anything as she ran up to the sand dunes to escape the sudden draft.
A wave crashed onto shore, straight from the Deep of the ocean, the water cold and dark blue and mysterious and lovely.
It receded in the manner of a person backing away slowly, mouthing I'm watching you.
The sea glistened an enchanting, innocent turquoise. A cool breeze sighed, twisting mischievously around Annabeth, who lay huddled in the sand. Her hair danced in tandem with the breeze, the steps that of which no human could comprehend.
The wind, it seemed to be tugging at her. Silken strands of blond hair coiled and pirouetted to the symphony of the wind, wistfully falling back into place on her shoulders as the wind died down.
Again, the silent orchestra swelled like the wave, fluent and graceful.
Annabeth could take a hint. The sea was calling to her, it was finally greeting her after all these years of begging for acknowledgment.
She clumsily staggered down the sand dune towards the line of gently lapping waves.
On the shoreline, written in seaweed, were two words.
She stepped back to read it.
And gasped.
Not two words.
A name.
Percy Jackson
"So you do have a name," she said out loud. Then she started laughing. "You're real! Percy Jackson, you can't hide forever! I am going to find you!"
The breeze whistled and the sea heaved and Annabeth swore she saw a black haired boy darting playfully under the waves.
August, 2009
For once, there was silence in the cove. It wasn't a peaceful silence. More like the calm before a storm. Annabeth sat quietly, staring moodily out at sea. She didn't speak. Just stared.
The silence built until it could build no more, and the well overflowed in a surge of anger and hatred, the product of years of neglect and loneliness. "I hate my dad!" she cried, tears running marathons down her cheeks. She sniffed loudly and wetly.
"I hate my dad, and my step mother, and my little brothers Bobby and Matthew. I hate school, and all the people in it." She was crying harder now, the sobs ripping through her chest, her agony profoundly bone deep.
"I wish the whole world would just go away and leave me alone for once!" Her tears could have filled a jug. Her sobs were the pounding percussion to the endless wind symphony that resounded silently throughout the cove, ceaselessly, day after day.
"Sometimes I think that you're the only good thing in my life, Percy, even though I've never seen you. At least you listen. You don't talk, or crowd my problems with your own. You let me be myself, and you don't judge me." Then she lifted her tearstained face and stared out to sea. "Or do you? Am I pretty enough for you to accept me? Smart enough?" She stood up and rubbed her eyes. "That's why you're silent tonight, isn't it? You're not there. You're not listening. You don't care anymore."
The breeze didn't blow. The waves didn't crash. All was silent.
Annabeth buried her face in her hands, her small cries of anguish echoing eerily around the cove, haunting the beautiful night with melancholy and wist.
The symphony had ended. But the audience didn't applause. There would be no encore.
Her dream boy had deserted her.
She was truly alone.
August, 2009
It was the biggest and grandest event of the year to mark the youngest Son of Poseidon's birthday.
Percy had now spent fifteen years as a half human toiling beneath the sea with the Mer, and he loathed the attention, not all of it being friendly. The Mer had always gazed at him with barely concealed animosity, hidden behind the respect warranted for the Sea God's offspring. There was an ongoing feud between humans and the Mer, and Percy was caught in the middle of it, pulled in one direction by the briny blood that flowed in his veins, and in the opposite direction by his human figure.
He would have preferred to be up near the surface, listening to Annabeth talk to him. What if she came and he missed her? What if she was crying and he wasn't there to comfort her? What if— and he was loathe to think of it— but what if she was in a miserable state of mind and decided that tonight was the night to take her life, the one night that Percy couldn't be there to save her?
What if she thought he didn't care anymore and stopped coming? It wasn't like he could leave the water to go and search for her.
He didn't enjoy his party at all; the only thing on his mind was Annabeth. He received lavish gifts, and an exquisite concert was performed in his honour, and a banquet of ocean delicacies was served, but Percy didn't remember a thing.
The moment he wasn't in the vicinity of his father's keen eye, Percy was off like an underwater missile, slowed only by the hindrance of his puny human legs.
He would go to the surface. He would brace himself. He would poke his head above the water and finally gaze upon the face of the angel he had met so long ago—
But no.
He wanted to break the surface so bad, to actually see Annabeth's face clearly. But he was terrified. Terrified of the harsh, biting wind; the rough dry sand that would chafe his delicate skin and grind it to dust.
Percy paused when he reached the shallows. No sunlight graced the so called sun water, though; Phoebus, the Chariot of Apollo, had retired for the day, and Selene, the Orb of Artemis, rode high in the night skies, lighting up an otherwise dark world.
Sand swirled in flurries around his gently kicking feet.
I have to see if Annabeth's alright, he said to himself. He closed his eyes. Clenched his fists.
Pain like nothing you've ever imagined, the voices of his elders echoed in his mind.
The sound of the wind shrieking and the birds singing will deafen you. The glare of light on the water will blind you. The sun will burn the skin from your very bones.
You're human blood will protect you. Never forget that, Percy, a strangely familiar female voice whispered in his ear, sad and warm at the same time.
As he hesitated once more, his inner grit gave him a comforting pep talk: Just do it.
He kicked off the sea floor and his head broke the surface.
He froze, his whole body locking in paralysing fear as he waited for sudden pain.
For blindness, deafness.
For death.
For something other than the biting cold he was starting to feel in all parts of his body that were not submerged in water. He thought his nose might just fall off his face and dive back into the warm water to escape from the cruel cold.
He treaded water for a few seconds, tense and ready to duck back under if the pain became too much. The air whistling down his throat was rough and dry as sandpaper, and it wasn't exactly the most comfortable feeling in the world, but it was bearable.
A trait inherited from my mother, he thought, his brain momentarily ruminating a new tangent, as demigods' hyperactive brains tended to do. I'm not pure Mer, so the human world doesn't affect me in the same way. Percy didn't know much about his mother. He knew she had two legs, and lungs, not gills, and… that was about all. His human side certainly wasn't his father's favourite topic of conversation.
Percy blinked rapidly, paranoid about his eyelashes freezing together, and shook his wet hair. Water droplets were flung every which way.
He began the short swim to shore, and for the first time, Percy experienced swimming to shore as a human would. He could see the calm surface of the water, and it was disorientating that a skin of water hid the mysteries that lay beneath. The full moon shone beautifully on the serene surface of the ocean, and for the first time in his life, Percy saw the stars.
They were everything he'd ever dreamt of— white pinpoints against a midnight blue back drop, thousands of them dotting the night sky. The above- water experience was unlike anything he'd imagined.
The Prince of the Sea waded to shore and felt the sand beneath his feet. He walked unsteadily, the soles of his feet unaccustomed to bearing his full weight, unaccustomed to the roughness of dry sand.
He scanned the cove for Annabeth, marvelling at the brilliant, haunting light the moon cast, the stark contrast of the colours and textures without a shroud of bubbles casting a murky curtain over his eyes.
Percy couldn't see anything. He could just sense that Annabeth wasn't in the cove. He walked dejectedly back to the water, and sat in the surf, staring out across the vast expanse of water. His home.
Something cold nudged his leg, and when he glanced down, he choked on a cry. It was the locket he had given to Annabeth so long ago. The one that he had wanted her to have as a show of his devotion to her.
He picked it up gingerly and studied it. The clasp was undone, which meant that she had undone it herself.
Percy's heart felt like lead. What had happened? Why would she have taken it off?
At a loss, he squinted at the sea, trying to discern which way the current was running; he realised this endeavour was extremely difficult in the human world, without feeling the water running smoothly over one's skin.
No wonder so many humans drown in the ocean, he thought. They just have to jump in blindly and hope they're not in my father's path of fury.
At a loss, he intently studied the breaks in the waves and was able to perceive that the rip was running south. The locket must have come from the north.
Percy clenched his fist around the precious necklace, dove into the surf, and swam with all he had in him.
August, 2003
As eight year old Annabeth stared out at sea, she sighed wistfully. How she wished she could be a mermaid. To dart and play beneath the waves without a care in the world. To have a pretty mermaid tail, and long golden blond hair that could be tamed and brushed through easily.
If she were a mermaid, she would have a pet dolphin that she would ride every day. She would have a mum and a dad that loved her, and they would be one big happy family. She would be the princess of the sea; she would wear a tiara adorned with pretty gems, and have a whole wardrobe full of lovely party wear.
Annabeth directed her gaze sadly down to the ratty jeans, worn sneakers and stained sweater she wore. In her hands was an old, tattered Yankees Baseball Cap. It was the only thing she owned that her mother had possessed. Annabeth's father Frederick had wanted to throw cap hat out— "Annabeth, it's old and disgusting, the colour's faded, we live in San Francisco, not New York, and besides, your mother left us! Why should you want to keep that old thing? I'll buy you a new hat in a colour that's not bland with age, with a San Franciscan team on it!"— but Annabeth had refused profusely. She could hardly remember her mother, so it was alright to pretend that maybe she had loved Annabeth, right? That maybe she hadn't left by choice, but by circumstances that couldn't be helped? No matter how badly Frederick spoke of Annabeth's mother, Annabeth refused to believe that her mother had left her. She was coming back one day. She had to. She wouldn't just abandon them; she couldn't leave Annabeth to fend for herself in a world that was against her.
Annabeth was suddenly startled back to the present when an opaque object caused a disturbance to the silky surface of the water.
Annabeth squinted against the sun and gasped in delight when she saw it was a dolphin. She could almost imagine that the dolphin was waving at her when it leaped high in a graceful arc. And— was that a smile? A spark of mischief in the marine mammal's eye?
Annabeth's sullen face broke into a delighted grin, and she waved animatedly at the dolphin. Then it glided smoothly back into the water, leaving only a series of ripples that told of its existence. The grin slid off Annabeth's face, and she started shuffling dejectedly back to her house.
And then a splash caught her attention. She whipped around and gasped in wonder, clapping her hands together and squealing when she saw the dolphin again. And it had brought friends. There were at least five other adult dolphins, and Annabeth's eyesight was too keen to miss the calf hidden discretely behind one of the females.
The little eight year old lost control of her limbs; she let her heart guide her as she waded out into the water. She reached out a timid hand, not actually expecting a dolphin to come to her, but when the baby itself cautiously approached her, Annabeth paused and stared in awe at its delicate beauty; at its gleaming silver skin, its small intelligent eyes and the cute fins that were curled and still slightly pink from birth.
Annabeth gently placed her hand on the calf's flank and felt herself melting. Its skin was hard and smooth and cold and leathery, but somehow warm and soft and like jelly at the same time. Even now, Annabeth found it hard to describe.
As she examined her fourteen year old hands in wonder, the realisation of what she was doing struck Annabeth.
What had happened to that little girl who was obsessed with mermaids and parties and sunshine and happiness? Where had she gone?
No, Annabeth mentally corrected. Not where has she gone. Because I'm still right here. The real question is: What did that eight year old turn into? What made her change so drastically?
"It was everything," Annabeth whispered into the night sky, toes curled over the sharp, cutting edge of a rocky cliff, the more dangerous part of her cove that she had never dared to explore.
Far below, a dizzying drop away, the sea prowled, a predator on the hunt for prey. This was not the ocean she had frolicked in as a young girl, and confided her deepest secrets to. This was the callous Mr Hyde to the familiar Dr Jekyll.
The freezing gale stole away her words, so even if Percy had been down there in that black, cold, relentless sea, listening to her, watching her, waiting for her to make her move, the wind kept him from hearing her. "Her mother left her," she continued, her voice rising in pitch. "Her father ignored her for years and remarried a witch that hated her and pushed her to the side, where she stayed until she was long forgotten!" Annabeth stood, now screaming. "Her best friend isn't even real!" The wind screamed right back. "Do you hear me now, Percy?" she howled. "Do you? Do you hear me dad? What about you, Susan? Matthew? Bobby? Do you hear what I'm saying? Listen closely because these are the last words you'll ever hear from me!"
The wind seemed to die down then, and Annabeth smiled. But there was no humour in it. It was cold and full of grim purpose.
Annabeth opened her mouth to utter her last sentence, and then a miracle that had only ever been a faraway dream occurred.
Dun dun DUN! TO BE CONTINUED. I HOPE. AND I'M SURE YOU DO TOO.
- MSPB