The Broken Mermaid
Rina sat of the rocks that bordered the water and held her light green pearl in her scarred hand. She looked at it in disgust. "If I'm such a powerful princess," she asked, "then why couldn't I protect my love?"
One year ago, the Arctic Ocean's palace was attacked and destroyed. Noelle, the princess of said ocean, was able to escape with only some cuts and bruises. She fled to the neighboring North Atlantic Ocean to seek medical care and refuge. When she arrived at the city's gates, the guards immediately brought her to the palace infirmary. There she was treated for her wounds and told to rest and recover.
News traveled quickly and Rina heard about Noelle's arrival. She immediately swam to the medical wing of the palace to see her injured friend. Wait... friend? That's wrong, Rina saw Noelle as something different. Ever since the green mermaid laid eyes on Noelle, she had always felt something more than friendship. Did she love the indigo mermaid?
Well, why wouldn't she? Her long, wavy, deep blue hair shown like the waves under the twilight sky. Her tail shimmered in the moonlight in the most alluring way. Her skin shined like the heavenly stars. And her eyes... her eyes were simply magical. Her navy blue gaze could soothe any soul, put a smile on any face. Rina could continue to give reasons why to love Noelle, but she had more important matters to attend to.
As soon as she found Noelle's room, Rina didn't hesitate. She exploded through the door, giving everyone a little jump; the doctor, the nurses, the guards, and even Noelle. The green princess caught her breath as she took in her surroundings. The doctor and three nurses surrounded Noelle's sponge bed and five guards leaned back against the wall, ready to deal with trespassers. Noelle laid in her spongy hospital bed with an IV stuck in her left hand, a white sheet over most of her body, and bandages attached to various cuts. Once Noelle had realized that the green that burst through her door was Rina and not some delusional fan girl, her eyes softened and she gave her friend a warm smile. Wait... friend?
"Noelle! Are you okay? Are you in any pain? Who did this to you? How can I help? What-" the indigo princess cut off the panicking green mermaid with a small chuckle.
"I'm feeling much better now, thank you." Rina didn't buy it. Although Noelle's face showed joy, she could sense grief pulsating from her fellow princess.
Rina turned to everyone else. "May we have a moment, please?"
"Of course, your majesty." a nurse replied. Everyone bowed and started pouring out of the room. When the last mermaid had left the room and closed the door, tears started welling up in Noelle's eyes.
"The Panthalessa! They a-attacked out of nowhere! My guards fought and fought, b-but they were slaughtered like sardines! I just sat back and watch my kingdom crumble. So many civilians were killed... I wanted to help, but my caretakers drove me away! They said the meanest things t-to me. I just swam and swam until I found this place! Oh Rina, w-what am I going to do?" Noelle cupped her face in her hands and sobbed.
Rina floated in place, eyes wide in shock. Her crush had seen horrible things, and what is seen cannot be un-seen. She clenched her fist and bowed her head, letting her bangs hide her face.
"I'm... I'm so sorry." she sniffed, "I couldn't, no, I didn't help you. I should have helped. But, I was useless!" Rina struggled to fight back her tears. Noelle took her hands away from her face and looked up to Rina sympathetically.
She shook her head. "It's not your fault, Rina. You didn't know about it. You can't fix an unknown problem, unfortunately. I know that if you knew about what was happening back then, you would've saved me. Although, you had no way of knowing." Noelle clenched the bed sheets that covered her tail and looked down with sorrow. "What's done is done."
Suddenly, Rina scooped Noelle into her arms, lifted her out of bed, and started hugging the distraught mermaid princess. The IV slipped off of Noelle's hand and the sheets slowly sank to the ground. Before Noelle could react, Rina placed her face in front of her's and leaned her head forward.
Their lips interlocked.
At first, Noelle was shocked, but she relaxed when she discovered that she enjoyed it. She let her eyes close as she hugged the back of Rina's neck. Her lips were so soft, and the passion sent pleasuring shivers down her spine. Noelle had always loved Rina, and it seems that she has returned those feelings.
After what felt like an eternity, the couple broke from their kiss. Rina looked deeply into Noelle's eyes. "Noelle, I promise that I will help find you find the Panthalessa clan and punish them for their crimes. I will always be there for you, my love, no matter what happens."
Not even a week passed before the Panthalessa attacked the North Atlantic kingdom. The guards fought bravely, but they were no match for the awesome power of the deep sea. Rina was able to evacuate and save most of the civilians, but a few refused to leave their homes. They didn't last long. But, thanks to Noelle's warning, many lives were saved.
Rina wanted to stay and fight with her comrades, but her caretakers drove her away. They said unimaginable things to her to make her leave, but she didn't hold it against them. She knew that they had good intentions. She grabbed Noelle's hand and swam for her life.
As Rina fled with her new girlfriend, she looked back at her home one last time. She could only watch as her castle crumbled and hundreds of screams were instantly silenced. Tears grew in her eyes and she tried to hide them with her bangs.
Her teeth clenched tightly. "Dammit! How could the kingdom of the North Atlantic fall so quickly and easily?" She sniffled a little.
Noelle looked at her distressed lover with pure sympathy. "I know how you feel, but we can't do much about your kingdom, now. What we should do is warn the South Atlantic mermaids about this. Maybe we can save them the torment." Rina wiped away her tears and gave a forced smile in agreement.
After a mere ten minutes, the couple heard a deep voice in their mind. "And where do you think you're going, Green Pearl Princess and Indigo Pearl Princess?" The mermaids stopped dead in their tracks. Rina let go of Noelle's hand and put her fists up in defense.
"Who's there!?" she demanded. About ten feet in front of her, a dark mist covered the waters. After a few seconds, it dispersed and left two figures in its wake. One was a tall, thin man with silver hair and deep purple eyes. He wore a black cloak, black pants, and lightning-shaped earrings. Next to this man stood a young girl, maybe twelve years old, with long, wavy light green hair and piercing green eyes. She wore a red Victorian dress and a smirk on her face, revealing her fangs.
The man took a step forward and bowed. "Allow me to introduce ourselves. I am Gaito, prince of the Panthalessa clan, and this is my loyal servant, Yuri." The mermaids looked at the pair in shock and disgust.
"You're responsible for the attacks!" Noelle yelled, "What do want, you dirty bastards!?" Gaito gave a small, devilish smirk.
"Yes, I am responsible for destroying your kingdoms, but you two are also to blame." Rina's face turned to bitter hatred while Noelle tried to stay calm. Although, she was giving a mean death glare to the attackers. "If you had just turned yourselves in and given me your pearls, then you might have been able to save your subjects." He put on a fake sad face. "Those poor, innocent lives... Wasted because of your selfishness." At this point, Rina was ready to kill something, and Noelle had lost all of her calmness.
Gaito's expression suddenly turned to anger. "I do NOT plan to leave empty handed today. Loosing the Indigo Pearl Princess in the Arctic was bad enough, I just can't stand loosing again!" He snapped his fingers and Yuri swam in front of Gaito. She held up her hand and muttered some sort of incantation. Suddenly, the water around each finger started to pressurize, almost to a point where it was a solid.
After a few seconds of summoning, Yuri lashed her hand forward and shot out five pressurized jets of water from each finger. All of them headed toward Rina. The mermaid's eyes widened in fear as she realized what the attack was. It was an attack that only her strongest mages could successfully cast: water bolt. The pressurized water bolts are so powerful that they can easily cut through two feet of steel. Rina knew all too well how destructive this spell was, and she knew she would be killed if those hit her. Paralyzed in fear, Rina prepared herself for the worst and prayed that Aqua Regina would provide a suitable successor.
Then came the scream. "RINA!" Noelle swam up to Rina and pushed her aside. At first, Rina was happy knowing that she was safe, but that happiness was shattered when she turned to see where Noelle was. She was exactly where Rina was originally. The world went into slow motion for the green princess. She could only watch as her lover twisted to the side to fully face the enemy. Noelle's deep blue eyes widened to the point where they covered half her face. Tears already started to develop in Rina's emerald eyes. She knew what was coming.
Squish, crunch, snap, crunch, squirt.
The bolts hit Noelle at five points in her torso and proceeded to go through to her back. Her mouth opened as though she were about to scream, but the pain was so excruciating that she could not produce any sound. Yuri flicked her wrist and broke her fingers away from the water bolts, leaving them inside Noelle like arrows. She let out a high-pitched, maniacal cackle while Gaito simply smirked in approval.
There was so much blood. It gushed out of each wound and enveloped Noelle in a crimson haze. She struggled to keep consciousness as she coughed up the metallic liquid. She swore that she was going to choke to death. Who knew a mermaid could drown in her own blood? She curled up into a ball to try and hug away the pain from her belly, but it only led to stabbing her tail with the back of each bolt. Tears started forming in her eyes and produced a silver river down her bloodstained cheeks. Everything hurt, and there was nothing to dull the agony that bolted through her nerves.
Rina couldn't believe what she was witnessing. Was her first love... dying? No, that can't happen! They need to defeat Gaito together and avenge the indigo kingdom! She simply cannot die here! Rina swam over to Noelle as fast as she could and reached out her right hand to her. The shove that she gave the green mermaid sent her relatively far away. "NOEEEELLLLEEE!" she yelled out, praying to hear a response. Yuri didn't like this. She sent out another water bolt, shaving off some of the flesh in Rina's palm. She made a double take and grunted in pain. She clenched her teeth to reduce the suffering and proceeded to grab Noelle's shoulders.
"Noelle, can you hear me?" The indigo mermaid looked up to her grief-stricken girlfriend. Noelle's face turned into fear. She didn't want Rina to meet the same fate.
"Get away!" she yelled with all of her remaining strength, "Are you an idiot? Go before you're hurt!" Rina was heart-broken. How could she say such things?
"W-Wha-?"
"Get out of here you stupid bitch!" Noelle desperately wanted Rina to save herself, and she knew that only harsh words could drive her away. She knew all too well that Rina would have her heart and soul crushed by leaving, but at least she could live. She did one last thing that she knew would get her point across.
She slapped Rina.
Her weakened, yet still powerful hand hit Rina square in the face leaving a bright red mark. She was shocked. She couldn't accept what was going on. But deep down, she knew she had to save herself. With great sorrow and a sniffle, Rina turned and swam away as fast as she could. Her tears of ultimate sadness obscured her vision and threw her off track. She was headed to the Mediterranean Sea. Of course, Rina didn't know that considering she had never been there, or anywhere other that near her home and Noelle's kingdom in that matter. Noelle knew that she wasn't headed to the South Atlantic like she was supposed to, but the massive loss of blood weakened her to the point of collapse. Her eyes slowly closed as she watched Gaito and Yuri menacingly approaching her.
Gaito and Yuri swam forward to claim their prize. They were one step closer to world domination. More importantly, they were one step closer to revenge. Gaito scooped up the half-dead mermaid and threw her over his shoulder like a sack. The water bolts had lost their physical form and returned to regular water, leaving five gaping holes in Noelle's once beautiful figure. Just as he was about to teleport back to the castle, Yuri quickly stopped him.
"Gaito-sama, what about the Green Pearl Princess? Should I chase her down?" Gaito shook his head.
"No need. She is a waste of energy at this point, plus we already have one pearl here." Yuri still seemed a bit confused.
"What if we loose her again? What if we never see her again?"
"She'll be back one day, and when she is, we won't loose her. You see, we've done something just as effective as capturing her today." Gaito gave an evil smirk, "We've taken her spirit."
Rina swam for days on end without a single break. Her hand continued to bleed, but she was filled with far too much sorrow to notice. She swam across the Mediterranean, through the Black Sea, past the Indian Ocean, then up north to Japan's southern islands. She didn't stop for anything. No food, no sleep, no help. It took her until the East China Sea to realize that she was hopelessly lost and that there was no way she could make it to the South Atlantic. She knew that the ocean was no longer safe. She knew that she would be hunted in the sea. She had to go to the forbidden human world.
When she made it to what appeared to be a safe area, she dragged herself onto the secluded beach. She doesn't know much about land, but the last thing she wants is to be spotted by a human. Luckily, it was nighttime, and she knew for a fact that everyone was asleep at this time of night, even humans. Her tail was much heavier on land, and the sand digging into her wound was not helping. Even though it had closed up a couple days ago, it was still very sore and delicate. When she finally made it out of the water, she tried to figure out what to do. She had never been on land before, nor had she planned on doing before in the past. Although, she did hear stories about humans. They have something called legs instead of a tail. They were like two long, muscular flippers used for things like standing and walking... right? She tried to imagine legs and prayed for her pearl to give her some. After a few seconds, a green light engulfed her and replaced her beautiful emerald tail with a pair of long, elegant legs. The light also stripped her of her jewelry and top, leaving her naked except for the pendant that contained her precious pearl. Her hair also turned shorter and dark green and her eyes were now silver.
Rina examined her new body with curiosity. Legs looked much different than she imagined. Did she do it right? She reached out a hand and touched them. They were made of skin, apparently.
Next, she moved her legs to figure out how her joints worked. Rina was disappointed to find that they were not very flexible compared to a tail. Lastly, she tried to stand. Some of her people that had seen humans described what standing and walking looked like. When she tried to stand, she found it tremendously awkward. She wasn't used to commanding legs to move, and not being able to float in water made her feel like she was twice her normal weight. Her knees were very wobbly, but she was eventually able to stand upright. After she got used to it, she tried walking. It worked, but she needed to use her arms for balance most of the time. She spent a good half-hour learning how to use her legs. She learned to walk, jog, run, jump, kick, and hop on one leg.
Once she was confident in her abilities to use her legs, she started devising a plan. She looked up past the beach and saw what looked like a huge plank of wood with high-quality pictures on it. It showed some humans walking on a black path, smiling and holding something that was filled with water. According to what she saw, Rina's outfit, or rather lack of an outfit, was unacceptable in this world. Humans wore much more clothing than mermaids. Rina scanned the beach's sand and found a large abandon piece of cloth. She's heard of these... maybe these were towels? She wrapped the towel around her body to cover the areas that she suspected to be inappropriate to show. She climbed a set of stairs to reach the mainland. What she found was marvelous. Lining the black pathways were thousands of lights on large metal poles that reflected onto the windows of the many structures that lined the paths. Rina ran across the pathway and cautiously peered into the window of one of the structures.
"Looks like a clothing storage area." Rina thought. Hundreds of clothes were hanging on poles and racks all around the inside. She was able to distinguish the men's and women's clothing thanks to the advertisement she saw from the beach. She tried to open a door. Locked? Why would a public place be locked? Rina looked around vigorously. She needed to get human clothes, and she needed them now! She found a rock on the ground. "This should break the glass." She threw it at the window with all her might. It shattered, allowing her to get inside, but a loud noise started to go off. "What is that horrible noise?" she thought while covering her ears, "Is it an alarm?! Oh no, that means that guards will be coming! I have to be quick!" She leaped inside and grabbed handfuls of shirts, pants, socks, and underwear. She then grabbed a jumbo plastic bag and stuffed in all of the clothing. She could hear more alarms in the distance coming closer, so she fled the building and made it back to the secluded beach. She sighed when she knew when she was safe and put on her new clothes. She put on her panties and bra, a white, short-sleeved shirt and a pair of jeans. She was happy that she got good clothes during that panic. They looked nice on her.
She plopped herself onto the sand, releasing a huge amount of pain in her injured hand. She checked it and found that it reopened on impact. Her eyes started to sting as tears formed. "Noelle..." Rina cried and cried, all by herself, on the beach, with a bloody hand, and a broken spirit.
After a year, Rina was able to learn everything about humans including anatomy, history, psychology, language, geography, and everything else there is to know about the world on land. Mermaids are very fast and flexible in education. Rina visited the library for hours every day to gain all the knowledge she needed. She had a tutor for some time teaching her how to read, but she only needed him for a week. She managed to find a part-time job and a cheap, small apartment to live in. Her landlady was very nice after hearing Rina's cover-up story, about how she was orphaned at a young age and she ran away from her abusive step-family, and didn't hesitate to give her a place to stay while she recovered her emotional trauma. Not a day went by when she didn't have a flashback of the most miserable day of her life. In fact, she cried in her room every night to put herself to sleep, only to be filled with nightmares corrupted with despair and guilt. One day she went out on the beach where she had first set foot, or tail, on land. She found a set of rocks that bordered the sea and took a seat. She stared out at the ocean for a while and took off her seashell pendant. She placed her pearl into her right hand and stared at it. Her hand was now fully healed, but it left a very big scar that was never going to heal. She looked at it in disgust as she recalled the day that she was broken. Once again, tears fell, and Rina sat on the rocks and cried. She was a broken mermaid.