AN: Merry Christmas to everyone! Here's the next fairy tale for all those good kids out there, this one obviously based around the Little Mermaid. I had a lot of ideas for how I would carry this one out, but I think I really like the idea that I ended up with- although hopefully the implications of the ending are fairly obvious. I didn't want to bash anyone over the head with it, so hopefully nobody misunderstands what it's supposed to mean, ahahah. I hope everyone really enjoys this one- there's two more fairy tales remaining after this one!
Until next time!
Mermaid Waters
Once, not very long ago at all, two people from two very different worlds met each other- as most stories go. One lived on the land, and had a smile that shone as bright as the sun. The other, deep in the ocean, her tail covered in scales glittering in sunlit waters. When the two first met each other, they were still very much children, as of yet unaware of the depth of the gap that separated them, only bemoaning the fact that it meant that they couldn't see each other quite as often.
It was by pure chance that the two of them crossed paths, in a way that they never should have. But perhaps it was fate that they did- for surely if the girl had not been there when she had been, the boy surely would have perished, claimed by the same sea that she called her home. And although she didn't understand much about humans, the one thing that she did know about them was the fact that they could not survive underwater- and although her mother had always warned her to stay away from them, her heart was too kind to allow one to perish before her very eyes, not when she had the power to do something about it.
She had never meant it to end up this way, not really. At first, she had only just lingered to make sure that he was really alright- it seemed as if he had swallowed a fair bit of water, and she couldn't help but linger around the docks, wondering if she had made it in time, wondering what she should do next. Just as she was thinking of contacting her mother, and seeing what she thought she should do, the young boy woke up, coughing out a great deal of water. She had started at first, of course- but in the end, she didn't vanish underneath the waves.
Naturally as two so divided between land and sea, they didn't understand each other at first. The girl had no words of her own, for the spoken word wasn't used deep in the ocean. And the boy couldn't hear her thoughts either, nor could she hear his, as he was simply a human, and not equipped to do such things. But still, the two of them managed to understand each other in a way that only children really can, managing to speak with each other even without the use of a shared language.
Every day that summer, he would come down to the water's edge to look for her, in the place that they had first met. And every day, she would return to that place, wondering if the young boy that she had rescued was looking for her. Although they didn't understand each others words, she came to learn his name nevertheless that first summer, a bright smile crossing his face like the very sun itself, as she seemed to understand. When she had written her name down for him in the sand, he had tilted his head, puzzling over it for a few minutes.
The name he ended up with wasn't quite right- but she guessed that perhaps her writing had ended up looking like a different word in his own language. She didn't really mind, though. It was something like a nickname, she thought to herself, splashing her tail happily after a moment of thought- which was something that made him smile all the more. Although the two of them lived in different worlds, a bond nevertheless formed between the two of them, refusing to let something that minor bother them.
That first summer was the shortest of them all- and when he came down to the water's edge one day with a forlorn look on his face, she didn't need to understand his words to know what he was saying. He would be leaving, she knew, just from the expression on his face, from the way he was acting- but at the very end of his words, she felt a surge of hope come through her, as she saw that smile on his face, and came to understand that he would one day come back. She wasn't sure when that day would be, but through gestures, he managed to convey that he would return after the cold season passed by.
Even with the distance put between them, the boy never forgot the mermaid that he had met at the beach. Even though anyone he told about it quickly laughed it off as a child's imagination, he knew what he had seen, what he had experienced, knew that the girl that he had managed to communicate with in spite of the barriers was real, and was waiting for him to return. When he did, he would have a surprise for her- he would definitely find a way that the two of them could communicate with one another, sharing words between them in a way that they hadn't been able to do so before. He had seen it sometimes before- people using their hands to communicate. Sign language, he had heard it been called. Surely if he could learn that, and teach it to her, the two of them could share words between them.
And so too, did the mermaid never forgot the human boy who had visited her day by day, who she had saved from a harsh fate. Sometimes she would head towards where the humans made their merry during the warm seasons, watching them carefully in secret. Humans could swim, though in a rather odd manner, she knew that much- but the boy didn't know how to, not yet. Humans couldn't swim in the same way that her own people could, not graceful and elegant like those who called the sea their home, and if she tried to teach him in the way she had learned from her mother, she doubted it would work. But there were so many things that she wanted to show him- and for that, he needed to know how to swim. He could only go s far with that strange floating ring he had sometimes brought with him, after all.
Once the cold season had passed, and it started to get warmer again, the mermaid would wait by the water's edge where they had met ever day. In that secluded spot, where no one ever disturbed them, she waited for him to come, wondering each time if today was going to be the day. And as each day passed, with no sign of him coming, she did not lose heart- for she had faith in the promise that he had made to her.
And one day, as she trailed a hand lazily through the water that lapped around the rock she had perched on, she heard a voice that had her heart surging like the waves around her. With bright eyes, she looked up at once, a bright smile of her own crossing her face as she wasted no time diving back into the water, quickly swimming across the divide that separated the two of them. In the shallows of the water, which splashed up against the boy's chest, the two of them reunited.
And for many summers after that, the same thing continued, over and over. The boy taught the girl how to speak with her hands, with her body and overtime, she came to learn his language. The girl taught him how to swim, showing her as much as she could of her world. He would bring with him trinkets from the human world that had caught his eyes- figures of animals that the mermaid would never be able to see, hairpins that he couldn't help but feel looked better and better on her as the years went by, cute things that he felt a girl would like. Once, he bought her a ribbon, and felt his cheeks heat up like they never had before when he saw her wear it for the first time.
From out of the deep, she would bring him gifts as well- shells that she had seen many a human comb the beaches for, glittering pieces of things that came from the wreckage of old human ships. The amount of precious treasures that they received from each other seemed to double every summer in this fashion, to the point where sometimes, they didn't know where to put it all.
It wasn't long before the mermaid's mother caught wind of what she was doing- she knew that she couldn't possibly hide it from her forever. It was on the third summer that her mother confronted her, expressing worry about her meetings with the human. He was only a child now, to be sure, but what if he told an adult about her- and that adult listened? What if he one day grew to be no different than those humans who had caused the merfolk to sink deep into the waters in the first place, concealing their existence from humanity until they thought of them as nothing more than a myth. There was danger there, and it was for the best that they end this right now- but she refused to listen.
"He's not like that!" She insisted, vehemently shaking her head, her tone laid bare for what it was within her mother's mind. There was no lying in one's thoughts, after all, and only through half-truths and evasions had she kept it from her for this long. But how could her mother say something like that? Surely, it was because she had never met him for herself, had never seen that smile cross his face. "He'll never become someone like that, mom! He definitely won't!"
She had been sulking when she met the boy next, she knew, having broken away from her mother, hiding from her so that she wouldn't have to hear another word of it. When he asked her what was wrong, she conveyed as best she could that her mother had found out about their meetings, and was mad about her. When she had told him what it was that her mother said to her, he head let out a loud laugh, a bright smile crossing her face as he assured her that would never be the case.
"That's impossible!" The boy had told her, a firm look in his eyes. "After all, one of these days, I'm going to become a detective, you know! That's someone who catches bad guys! There's no way I'd become a bad guy myself!"
"You can tell your mother that if there's any bad folk who come around and try and do anything to any of you, you can leave it to me to make sure they get what's due to them!" He told her, pounding his chest, looking pleased as could be. In that moment, too, he vowed to never again speak a word about the mermaid that he had befriended here- not even to his own parents, nor anyone else he knew. "That's a promise!"
When she returned home that evening, she held fast to her words from before, refusing to back down in the face of her mother. In the end, she could do nothing but accept her daughter's resolve for what it was, and hope that nothing bad would come out of it. None of the legends told among their kind of merfolk who got involved with humans ever ended well for the merfolk in question.
Sometimes, they didn't even end well for the humans.
She could only hope that the only reason those legends were told was because the ones with peaceful endings just weren't interesting enough to be passed down from parent to child, generation after generation. It was all she could do to watch over her child in the meantime, and pray that this wouldn't lead her to an ending where she might never be able to see her again.
And so, their meetings continued. Every summer, without fail, the boy would come down to the water's edge, and call out for her. And every summer, without fail, the mermaid would come in response to his calls, the two of them enjoying spending time together. His mother's family had a villa on the beach close to here, he had told her when she was finally able to understand, and they came there for a month every summer. As he grew older, sometimes he would come to the beach by himself, seeking her out in hopes that she was there. Over time, she learned to keep her ears sharp and her eyes open for any signs that he was there. After awhile, they ended up arranging a set time of the day in which he would come to see her if he was here out of season, although sometimes the two of them still ended up missing each other. Still, that only made the times when they were able to see each other again all that more memorable.
He had asked her about it once before, if there was no way for her to leave the ocean, to come with him for a day. When she had told him no, she didn't think so, his smile had dampened. She had shown him so much of her own world over the years- all it took to expand what he could see was something as simple as scuba gear, expanding the time that he could spend with her underneath the ocean's waves. He might have once died in it, but he carried no fear with him from such a time- after all, in the end, such a event had lead to him meeting someone that he had come to hold very dear to his heart. He wanted to repay her for all of that, to show her his own world in kind if he could, show her what wonderful things lay within it- but it seemed that wasn't meant to be.
Sometimes he didn't fully understand how close she was to him, really. As time passed, certainly, some part of him noticed that something about her was seeming to change, he had always just assumed it was because she was growing up, just the same as he was. Even if his heart stirred when she looked back towards him, that smile of hers on her face as she pointed out something that she wanted to show him, and even if it stirred when she felt her hand taking his own, the scales that lined the back of her hand feeling cool to his touch, he didn't have any reason to think that what he felt for her was anything deeper than a strong bond of friendship.
Even if his mother would tease him sometimes about his 'secret beach girlfriend', he always just rolled his eyes, telling her that it wasn't like that, seriously! It didn't help that she would tell anyone who listened to her about her theory that her son had a mysterious girlfriend who lived at the beach they went to every summer, that he refused to introduce to her. It definitely didn't help that she always seemed to tell people he'd rather she not- like his friends, for example.
When he had vented about it to the mermaid one day, she had given him a small laugh in response. Grumbling about how it was no laughing matter, he couldn't keep the disgruntled expression on his face for very long, instead cracking a smile. With his legs dangling off the rock he had perched on, he discussed many things with her- things that he had seen, people that he had met, cases that he had worked on, all of which she listened to with great interest. When she interjected with questions about the friends that he had brought with him, he smiled, and had been more than happy to tell her about them.
There was a glitter in her eyes when he told her stories, no matter what they were about. He couldn't get enough of seeing it, and so he was always filled with stories to tell her, about anything and everything. His stories would grow and change over the years, involving new and different things. Stories about his friends, stories about his family, stories about his classmates. Stories about his cases too, eagerly relating to her the story of the very first case that he had solved. Her eyes practically glittered as he spoke of it, and he always made sure to tell her of them whenever he saw her next, purely to see that look in her eyes once more.
Not all of them, though. There were some cases that he didn't speak about, some cases he didn't give her the full details about. He didn't want her to worry about him, didn't want her to know just how dangerous the work he was involved in sometimes could be. She didn't have to know- he was the one telling her about the human world in the first place- if he didn't say anything, she wouldn't come to understand that the scar on his torso that appeared one summer wasn't from a simple bad fall. He didn't want to see her face twist with worry, didn't want to see that smile of hers dampen with sorrow- so he never told her about such things.
His one fear was what he would do if something happened to him- if one day, he couldn't come here anymore, would she understand?
Her mother, on the other hand, seemed to understand. He had met her all of once, and spoken to her only once- one late evening when he visited the water's edge, even though he knew that the mermaid was long gone for the night. She had been there, floating just a distance away, carefully watching the small beach there. When he'd spotted her, he had nearly thought her to be an illusion- until she closed the gap between them, the resemblance between the two of them making it crystal clear that they were mother and daughter. And unlike her daughter, who had at first not understood a single word he had said, she did seem to understand.
Her message was clear- that he was never, under any circumstances, to do anything that would bring harm or sorrow to her daughter. Even if she didn't have words with which to speak it, the ferocity contained within her gaze was more than enough to send the message home in a way that spoken words perhaps never could. If he ever did, she would never forgive him. Nor would she forgive him if she ever did anything to take her precious daughter away from her- a fear which had grown as she had watched her daughter's feelings for him grow.
A fear which grew all the more when she actually met the young man for the first time, and saw the look his eyes held in them as he spoke of her. As she came to understand that what they held in their hearts for each other was mutual. And as she came to understand what deeply rooted ill luck the young human man her foolish daughter had foolishly fallen in love with had, this too, gave credence to the fears that she had bee holding all this time.
Perhaps it would have been better if she had just let him drown.
But she didn't need to warn him- he would never do anything to hurt her daughter, never let anything hurt her, not on purpose. It wasn't just that he owed her his life, although that might have played into a part of it. But rather, it was something more than that- the strength of their bonds, forged across land and sea, between two worlds, that made him never want to see a look of sadness on her face. When his heart tightened in his chest from the mere thought of such a thing, he once again, didn't fully understand the depth of his own feelings, which perhaps were even deeper than the very ocean itself.
"I'll always come here, you know." It was unmistakably that encounter that had brought such words on, as the young man peered over towards the mermaid who had perched herself on the rock next to him, her scales glittering underneath the sunlight. It was a lovely sight- and for a moment, he almost felt as if he understood what it was that sent his heart racing upon seeing it. It was fleeting however, passing in the next instant. "To see you. Every year, till I'm an old man, and you're a shriveled up old fish."
She'd smiled at him, reaching over to lightly flick his forehead, before telling him through sign language that she already knew something that obvious, idiot. Perhaps it was simply because her cheeks did not redden like that of a human girl, but the flustered expression that crossed her face upon hearing his words was somehow something that he managed to miss.
Never once did she have any cause to doubt those words- stretching as far back as to the first time they had parted, back when she couldn't understand them. He would always come here, to see her, without fail- and she believed that nothing would ever change that. She always looked forward to it- for she had grown curious about the human world herself. Never enough to leave the ocean to go see it for herself- for she had been lying when she had told him there was no way for her to.
It certainly wasn't impossible, but her mother had long ago since told her that such a thing was a one way trip. A mermaid that left the sea to become human could never return to it, no matter how badly they wanted it. The cost, too, was higher than most were willing to pay. And even though her heart had come to quicken in her chest whenever she thought about the young man, it wasn't enough to make her leave the ocean, to leave her mother behind. He would come here, without fail, every year- and she had faith in that promise.
As long as she had that, she didn't need anything else.
Sometimes, there were days when he didn't come, to be sure- but they were days when he simply couldn't, no matter how much he wanted to. Sometimes it was the weather- when a typhoon blew through the area, or a powerful storm raged overheard, it was far too dangerous for the both of them, really. Sometimes, he would get sick, and come back a few days later, still not completely recovered, apologies on his lips. Once, he had been delayed by a case, which he had regaled with details about afterwards, and she had watched with rapt attention. He definitely shone the brightest when he was speaking of such things- not that she was ever able to admit that much.
Even before she could understand what he was saying, she had understood that he was someone who loved to talk. He was someone who was filled with stories- stories about the simple things, stories of daily life, things that were mundane to him, but not to one such as herself. Stories about his family, and stories about his friends, stories about everyone he knew, everyone he loved and cared for. And of course, stories about the cases that he worked on. She came to understand over the years that sometimes he would leave things out- came to understand that he didn't want him to worry about what he was doing. This too, she came to accept.
Every time he returned, she always couldn't wait to hear what it was that he had been doing in his absence- to hear everything that was going on. She treasured them- the stories that he told her and the things that he brought her- but most of all, the thing she treasured the most was the time spent with him. Some days, she never wanted it to end- even if they did spend some of said time bickering with each other. Still, at the end of the day, she understood that the two of them lived in different worlds- and just like she couldn't cross into his world without leaving her own behind, he could only visit hers- he could never really enter it.
That would be how it was forever. Or at least, that's how she had always thought it would be.
Then one day, he didn't come. Even though it sometimes happened, there was something about that day that caused her stomach to twist into a knot, a sense of dread washing over her like a wave. Something was wrong- it was as if she could sense that something was fundamentally wrong. As the days passed, and still there was no sign of him, she began to feel the knot in her stomach twist and tighten, wondering what could have happened. Why wasn't he coming? There was no way that he would have ever forgotten, so something must have been keeping him from coming to her.
It wasn't the weather- the almost brilliantly blue sky almost seemed to mock her fears. It could have been a sickness- but it was one that seemed to last far longer than the simple colds that he had caught in the past. Surely a case wouldn't take him this long to solve. And surely, surely, he would never forget.
Perhaps her fears that caused the truth to finally blossom inside her chest- the meaning of her feelings for him, the reality of their bond. They were friends, that much was to be sure- but there was something more beyond that, something which she never quite fully understood. But as she considered the possibility that something might have happened to him far out of her reach, the chance that she might never be able to see him again, she came to understand what that feeling was.
Love. She was in love with him. Perhaps from the very first time they had met, the very first time she had seen him smile, she had been in love with him.
It was a realization that the mermaid came to far too late. On the third week, she still found herself once more coming to the water's edge, watching, waiting. On that day, someone finally did appear- but it wasn't the person that she had been waiting for all this time. The salt water that she felt sting her eyes as she watched them gaze around the empty stretch of beach, seeing a face that had been described to her so many times that she knew him without ever having met him, she came to understand that he would never again appear before her.
Even as he heard the young man that she knew only from his stories call out the name he had always called her by, the mermaid didn't appear. It was only after he left, placing something down on the rock that the human boy had always liked to sit on, that she finally emerged, swimming to see what it was. It wasn't the site of the small ceramic dog figure that tugged at her heartstrings- but rather, the site of a dried red color that stained it, a color that she knew wasn't supposed to be there. Clutching it close to her chest, she knew that the salt water that she felt sting her eyes wasn't from the ocean, but was coming from her own eyes.
Somewhere, far out of her reach, that one with the smile like sunshine had vanished from the world. Not just her world- but his own world as well, that vast world that extended just out past her reach. A world that she would never hear him tell her anything about again. A world that now seemed so empty and pointless, without him there.
Though she was strong enough to swim against any current, no matter how strong, the mermaid still found herself sinking down deep into the ocean's waters, the tears streaming down her face the only thing hot as her surroundings began to get colder and colder. Her heart felt as if it were being crushed- to think that she had realized something like this so late, when the one that she felt such things for was no longer here- would no longer be here ever again.
And it was in that deep darkness that she heard a voice call out- a voice that her mother had once told her that she should never listen to if she should one day hear it. For if she did, she would never be able to return home. The voice of the witch that lived deep within the abyss, who silently ruled the vast seas, only calling out to the merfolk who lived there when there was a despair in their hearts deeper than the ocean itself. Her magic was powerful- but it came at a high cost, one that most weren't willing to pay.
Do you want to see him again?
Of course she did. But it wasn't as if the witch, in all of her power, could bring back the dead.
Do you want to be with him?
Of course she did. But he didn't exist in any world any longer- not in this one, nor in his own.
What will you give me in exchange for your wish?
If the witch really could bring him back somehow, she would give her anything. Even her own life, if she needed it. Anything that she asked for would be hers, and more.
Then I will accept everything you offer, child. May fate be kinder to you in your next breath.
As cold as the mermaid had been, she felt warmth wash over her. As she slowly closed her eyes, her grip still tight on the small dog figure, she felt what could only be described as a sense of peace wash through her. In the deep darkness of the ocean, she felt herself uttering an apology to her mother, for somewhere in her heart, it would appear that what she had always feared had finally come true.
A mermaid who wanted to become human could never return to the sea.
There were no stories of mermaids and humans that had happy endings.
But there were stories between humans that did.
But that's a story for another time.
"Hey, Heiji, don't ya get the feelin' that we've been here before?"