Dawn skimmed the surface as I awoke, just a pale wisp among the icy
black waters. Not a ripple ushered from the deep silent placidity. Not a bubble
arose from a single home, not a fin twitched on a single barren, sandy street. Not
a single light penetrated the black water except for that crispy light of a new
dawn that glided only upon the shallow surface. The entire town of Atlantica
snoozed in the deep, dark, watery slumber.
The only sound to meet my ears as I groggily awoke was the soft bubbly
snore of my sisters, nestled slowly in each foamy shell bed. I pushed my own
foamy covers aside and sat up, peering blindly at the bed opposite mine. In the
low light it was an amorphous lump of shell and covers, and I couldn't see if she
was there. But somehow I knew she wasn't.
When the waters are completely silent like this even the tiniest ripple can tickle a nose and awaken even the soundest sleeping sister. It takes much concentration and patience, as well as a lot of practice, to master the art of not disturbing an entire room of sleeping mergirls. Ariel had become a master at this art. I was still learning.
As carefully as I knew how I arose from my bed and glided to my little sister's. It was true-- Ariel was missing again.
I hardly flapped my peachy tail as I exited the castle, gliding through the window at a creeping pace. Then, once I was defiantly out, freedom overpowered my conscience. I breezed through the dim waters, gliding and spinning and twirling. The top layer just at the surface began to gleam with morning light, a faint layer of sparkle on the desolate ocean.
My hair swirled around me in a poofy tangle of blond around my head. It drove me practically insane, I wished I had remembered a comb. I pushed it from my face a myriad of times and it only tangled more and more. But I felt like Ariel with my hair flowing so freely. It had often puzzled me how she could possibly stand to have her hair flowing around her head like she always did. She was the only mergirl I've ever known who could tolerate it. The rest of us, especially the princesses, enjoyed fixing our hair, piling and twisting and braiding it in all kinds of concotions, but not Ariel. Her hair was always down, always sprawled out around her face in all directions so most of the time she couldn't even see. The water was its only guide, leading the red fire anywhere and everywhere it could.
What truly annoyed me was how perfect it always seemed to look, nomatter what, a bright ball of red in a blue, banal world. It was distinctly unique, I had always been slightly jealous of it.
She was combing that incredible bright red hair when I found her,
sprawled out on a flat rock, watching the human castle and singing. She had been coming here more and more frequently, always to the same spot, always to do nothing but sit and sing and gaze at that human palace with a fiery passion of longing, of an intense interest in all things human. Her bright lips smiled in disgraceful happiness as she studied it, her stubborn slef will and dreams consuming her own common sense. I sat a ways away on another set of rocks, watching my little sister,
listening to her beautiful voice as it reverberated over the horizon. She's always had the most beautiful voice of anyone I know.
When the waters are completely silent like this even the tiniest ripple can tickle a nose and awaken even the soundest sleeping sister. It takes much concentration and patience, as well as a lot of practice, to master the art of not disturbing an entire room of sleeping mergirls. Ariel had become a master at this art. I was still learning.
As carefully as I knew how I arose from my bed and glided to my little sister's. It was true-- Ariel was missing again.
I hardly flapped my peachy tail as I exited the castle, gliding through the window at a creeping pace. Then, once I was defiantly out, freedom overpowered my conscience. I breezed through the dim waters, gliding and spinning and twirling. The top layer just at the surface began to gleam with morning light, a faint layer of sparkle on the desolate ocean.
My hair swirled around me in a poofy tangle of blond around my head. It drove me practically insane, I wished I had remembered a comb. I pushed it from my face a myriad of times and it only tangled more and more. But I felt like Ariel with my hair flowing so freely. It had often puzzled me how she could possibly stand to have her hair flowing around her head like she always did. She was the only mergirl I've ever known who could tolerate it. The rest of us, especially the princesses, enjoyed fixing our hair, piling and twisting and braiding it in all kinds of concotions, but not Ariel. Her hair was always down, always sprawled out around her face in all directions so most of the time she couldn't even see. The water was its only guide, leading the red fire anywhere and everywhere it could.
What truly annoyed me was how perfect it always seemed to look, nomatter what, a bright ball of red in a blue, banal world. It was distinctly unique, I had always been slightly jealous of it.
She was combing that incredible bright red hair when I found her,
sprawled out on a flat rock, watching the human castle and singing. She had been coming here more and more frequently, always to the same spot, always to do nothing but sit and sing and gaze at that human palace with a fiery passion of longing, of an intense interest in all things human. Her bright lips smiled in disgraceful happiness as she studied it, her stubborn slef will and dreams consuming her own common sense. I sat a ways away on another set of rocks, watching my little sister,
listening to her beautiful voice as it reverberated over the horizon. She's always had the most beautiful voice of anyone I know.