This is an alteration to the story of "Turn the Tides" in anticipation of season 3. "Turn the tides" set in after season 1. "All'Aqua" sets in at season 2, episode 10 – but it's not just in Ben's imagination.
Introduction
Hi!
My name is Lele, and I'm a mermaid. My people live in the Mediterranean. We're not too many in numbers, but several families live in the waters between what humans call Gibraltar and the Levante. You may know us from literal classics like the saga of that Greek guy named Odysseus. Like most interesting stories, people call it a myth, and that is what protects us so far. Humans are more interested in the stars than what's going on in the oceans. Maybe they are frightened about what is down there, but humans are always frightened about the unknown.
My ancestors have made contact with humans. So part of my family live on dry land, generations away from their oceanic heritage. With time, people forgot about us, too many things happened in the meantime. Only a few, very few knew, and even that number has been recently reduced to just on person.
Consequently, Andrea has become a marine biologist. He is married to Chiara, and he has a very sweet and charming six year old daughter, Maria. I was the only one from the water visiting him on a regular basis. The water tribe has several families living in their respective parts of the sea, avoiding conflicts about territory and hunting grounds. I belonged to the Adriatic family, but more than that, I was a kind of empress. My role was to moderate, but my word had always the last authority. I was there to keep them safe, from each other, but also from the dangers that humans posed.
So, there wasn't anybody on land besides Andrea who knew who I really was. For his small family, especially for Maria, I was just the aunt who came to visit from time to time. They lived in a small house on top of a hill above the Gulf of Trieste, in a small village overseeing the sea. There were no beaches in that area, but many small coves in the area where I could get in and out of the water without someone seeing me. A little boathouse helps me with storing some clothes and things that humans have on land. I try to blend in as perfectly as I can.
Humans, on the other hand, don't have the courtesy to take any consideration when they used the sea for dumping their stuff. Their constant noise drives us even further away from the shores, and the water often tasted funny. Fishermen are not the problem. They have been out there for centuries, and we avoided them.
But of course, even they have to tell one or another story about their encounters. In the end, we were protected by the myth. Occasional "mermaid sightings" with unfocused and shaky videos or photos didn't do any damage. People like their stories, and of course Maria was all into Arielle. She even liked her more than Anna & Elsa.
So everything was good then.