Despite what my friends stated, mermaids were not green skinned creatures who fed on sailors. That was not even close to the truth, as they were much more frightening.

I sat on the top of the mast, looking at my sword and wondering why it had the Morgan insignia. And if it could really change destiny, then could it possibly change mine?

"The sword is not going to tell you anything," Bex's voice made me jump and almost fall down to the deck. I looked down at her. "You never know," I answered cryptically.

She laughed, then came to sit beside me. Looking out into the never-ending waters, she nudged me. "You getting used to us yet?''

I shrugged. "Nick creeps me out."

Bex laughed, then replied, "Probably the only reason he did that is cause a princess rejected his marriage proposal a year ago."

I rolled my eyes. "Which haughty princess from which haughty kingdom do you speak of?"

She scoffed. "The haughtiest of all: Princess Macey from the Kingdom of Gallagher. She had the kidnapping coming to her from the way she acted."

I blinked and turned towards the female pirate. "Why do you assume she is the worst? Have you ever met the oldest Princess of Gallagher?'

She laughed again, loudly. "Have you? In fact, would you want to meet her? What I mean to say is, would you want to meet anyone living in Gallagher after what they did?"

I must have looked confused, because Bex stared at me. "You are joking, you are joking, right? Everyone knows what happened after their last king died."

Shaking my head, she sighed and began to explain. "When the Morgan king died, the entire kingdom severed their connections with everyone else, in a feeble attempt to make everyone feel sorry for them. They did this even thought they knew that only their soldiers could handle the ruthlessness and cunning of the rising COC force."

Bex leaned closer to me. "They left us when the rest of us needed them most."

I shook my head again. It is true that I was not aware of this, but I do know that our kingdom's motto was always, 'Learn Our Skills, Honor Our Sword, Keep Our Secrets'. Apparently, this meant keeping to ourselves when people needed us most. Yet, isn't what I am doing now is right? Or was it wrong according to our standards?

Opening my mouth to speak, the ship suddenly lurched to the side. I grabbed Bex before she could fall off the tall mast. She looked at me in annoyance. "I could have handled that myself," she grumbled.

Again, the ship lurched, this time to the opposite side. My hands gave way, and it was my friend's turn to catch me before I could fall. Looking up, I realized the only thing anchoring us was Bex's fingers, desperately holding on for dear life. Unfortunately, the ship unexpectedly turned upside down, and we plunged into the piercing cold water.

When I came to, my eyes refused to open, With my fingers, I felt that I was lying on a bed made of...kelp? This made my blue eyes pop open, and I sat up to fully comprehend the fact that I was underwater.

Sea creatures floated by, which frightened by common sense quite a bit, because it wasn't used to animals flying as they pleased. I stared after an eel calmly surfing through the water, stopping to stare at me, then went along its way, before noticing that I was also breathing.

Thoughts for that explanation would come later, though, because at that moment, a man walked into my room. Only it was really a man, considering he had a tail. That was the moment this all dawned on me: I was underwater, I was breathing, and a merman swam into the room. Immediately, my grip on the bed tightened, for what the crew said about mermaids stuck in my mind, but it was evident that this merman was an exception.

He reminded me of boring, professors that put a class to sleep with in five minutes of simply standing there. he looked at me through his bead-like eyes and pronounced, "You are awake."

I slowly nodded, as I did not want to make any sudden movements. You may never know where a weapon is cleverly concealed, then I remembered: my sword. "Where is my sword?"

The merman smiled in a way that made students nervous about their exam results. "Why does the sword mean so much to you, Princess Cameron?"

My heart nearly stopped as I quickly answered, "Who?"

He laughed and replied, "You know very well what I speak of, your Highness." He beckoned me to follow him outside.

Swimming outside, I marveled at the number of turtles, dolphins, even sharks, and the colorful variety of fish swimming with me. Along with them were more mermaids, and the more I passed, the more I realized that the statements made about the mermaids did not look too true

Each and every one looked different, although some looked more similar to each other than others, such as a few had green tales with pink streaks, and others had black tales with silver fins. The females were whispering to each other as I passed by, while the males merely looked on with interest.

After a few minutes, he held out a hand to stop me abruptly. I looked up and my mouth dropped open. A tall man with the biggest pitchfork I had ever seen stood high above me, with Captain Zachary and his crew standing behind him.

The abnormally large merman pointed at me. "She will suffice."

I had no idea what they were initially speaking about, but it must have not benefited Zachary's desires, because he widened his eyes and replied, "She is not for barter."

Barter?

I put my hands on my hips and jutted out my chin as I retorted, "Excuse me, but I am a human being, who is breathing underwater, yes, but still a being. I am not an object for sale."

The merman turned towards me with his glowing lightning blue eyes in anger, but I refused to shrink back. After a while, his eyes died down. "You are more spoiled than I first thought you to be. You do realize that there is no one to protect you in our realm?"

I rolled my eyes in an exaggerated manner. "I do realize that, and I choose to ignore your attempt at intimidation because frankly, it is getting quite old."

His bushy white eyebrows flew up, and at that moment, Bex called out, "What, did you think that she would be spoiled because she was a princess or something? She can defend herself better than any Gallagher guard!"

My breath began to quicken, which went unnoticed by most except the merman, whose eyebrows went up further. He opened his mouth to say something, and I feared it may have been to reveal who I was, seeing as the merman who brought me knew, but thankfully,a shrill scream rang through the ocean.

He looked behind him, and a teenage looking mermaid swam up to hug him. When she released him, she began talking faster than the guns at training sessions. "Oh, daddy, I just met the most perfect guy, he's human, but a mermaid promised me I can get legs to meet him. Can I go meet him Daddy,oh can I can I!"

The older man seemed overwhelmed by his daughter's requests. "Sweetheart, Daddy's busy dealing with pirate trespassers, and is trying to make a deal with the captain..."

He would have continued, but the young, red-haired mermaid wandered over to the crew, more specifically, Zachary. "Oh, who's this?"

She fingered his collar while he tried in vain to slowly edge away from her. The mermaid's father said, "That is the pirate captain trespasser, Ariel, now please go back to your room..."

Again, she interrupted his request by turning toward him and blurting, "I got an idea! What if you make the captain marry me and we let the rest of them go?"

Zachary cut in, saying, "Sorry, but I'm already betrothed."

Something fell inside me when he said that, which made my mind chide my heart because obviously, no feelings were held for the cocky man, right?

Ariel pouted and asked, "Really? To who?"

Zachary shrugged, and said, "You don't know her. She's just a commoner."

The mermaid bubbly demeanor changed suddenly to furious. "Tell him to marry me or I'll cry for DAYS."

The father looked as if he was ready to give in to whatever his daughter asked, until I blurted, "Wait. I have a deal that could satisfy us all."

Every eye turned towards me, and I gulped involuntarily. Honestly, I did not have a deal in mind, but I think that if I find a problem with the mermaid kingdom, I could fix it, seeing as I was to be the next heir to the throne. The merman motioned with his hands for me to continue. I shook my head and said, "I will only make this deal with the king."

The large merman came toward me and steered my body to swim towards a room behind us. He closed the door and faced me. "Being the kind king I am, you should feel fortunate that I did not reveal who you were to your friends."

I slumped my body against the wall. "What was more obvious, the fact that I wanted to hide who I was, or who I actually was?"

He thumped his trident on the floor, creating a loud boom that shook the room. "What deal did you speak of?"

I wrung my hands together as I spoke. "First of all, allow me to provide an explanation for our trespassing. We only came here to look for one of the pieces to the map to the COC base." As I paused, he took the opportunity to laugh.

"The COC base?"

I nodded. "We already have two pieces, we just need three more."

He shook his head. "My kingdom was promised riches by the COC leader if we kept the map's location to ourselves." He shifted his weight and leaned on the wall. "We were promised freedom from the Gallagher Kingdom Navy."

Blinking, I replied, "The Gallagher Navy? What are you doing for them?"

He sighed. "We are forced to send our finest merman to protect the armada ships out on sea for them to stop capturing mermaids for their fins. The fins that make up fifty percent of the kingdom's profit."

I stood as motionless as a statue as I took this fact in. Taking a deep breath, I answered, "Well, being the future queen, I can change that."

The king turned toward me with suspicious eyes. "How do I know you are not simply lying in order to free your captain from getting married?"

My mouth open and closed, not unlike a fish. "He is betrothed," I finally managed to reply.

He raised an eyebrow. "Yet you have feelings for him."

I waved my hands around. "He is not the subject at hand. What is, though, is if you will exchange my friend's freedom for your freedom."

He stood there, pondering the decision at hand. After a while, he looked at me, saying, "Why are you with them, Princess Cameron?"

I scoffed. "Have you not heard? My sister and mother were kidnapped by the COC. Obviously, I need to bring them back for the good of the kingdom."

"For the good of the kingdom, or for the fact that you cannot bear with the thought that you must remain anchored to Gallagher if they do not come back?"

I stayed silent. What was I really doing this for? "I...do not know."

The old king chuckled. "Well, I know now you are certainly a Morgan."

Turning towards him, I asked, "What do you mean?"

"Your father came here once, and we assumed he wanted the map, but he simply wanted to tell us he was going to change the conditions we lived under as soon as he got back." He paused a second before adding, "Of course, he never made it..."

A brief silence visited again before he continued. "Just like you, he challenged my anger, and I was met with the audacity of the man." He looked at me. "Not just because you will fulfill his promise, but because you remind me so much of your father, I will give you the map piece."

Trying to look happy, I smiled with my teeth and clapped my hands, with no avail. My father was here, and apparently, I reminded the merman king about him. Well, you do learn new things every day.