Disclaimer: I do not own Hetalia.

A/n1: The Little Mermaid is probably one of the best-known fairy tales all over the world. It's a very sad, depressing little story that was made into a happy-ending story by Disney (I understand, but still, the original tale was so much more interesting and beautiful) and it's one of my favorite fairy tales. So forgive me for writing an entire chapter that's only about The Little Mermaid. ^^;;; I rambled, I'm sorry.
Did you know that the silent mermaid in the story probably is Hans Christian Andersen's author avatar? He was apparently in love with a man that was getting married, and he wrote many letters to him in order to confess. But in the end, he didn't dare to actually post the letters. This was because Andersen "could not speak" of his love for the man. Many people think he linked his desire but failure to talk about his feelings to this man to the poor mermaid, whose voice was taken. Aww. :-(

A/n2: The quote for this chapter belongs to Shakespeare! Yay!
Too bad I've never read anything by Shakespeare. *grins nervously* Sure, I know enough about the stories, I guess, but I never read a single word of his works. It's a shame, really, but I'm afraid I won't understand the old English that he's written. Also, I don't know how I should read plays.
Does anyone have any experience with reading Shakespeare? Is it recommendable to read his works?

~~ And Three Makes Five ~~

Chapter 38:

It is a wise father that knows his own child.
William Shakespeare
(English poet and playwright)

'The fourth sister's birthday came along, and so off she went, to the surface of the sea. Understandably, even less folks showed up on her birthday party, but the fourth princess couldn't hear their rightful complains over all the fun she was having above the surface. So what if her grandma was having problems patching things up with the guests by feeding them fat and happy - she didn't give a crap.

When the princess returned to her exhausted grandmother and five skeptic sisters, they noticed she was missing an arm. "Shit girl, where the fuck is your arm at!" they cried. The wounded sister understood their surprise – duh – and started telling them about her adventures right away:

"Well, I have spend my day above the surface playing around with motherfucking sharks! I raced against them and totally beat them, too, so I laughed them in the face for being so lame. Then they kind of got mad and tried to kill me, but whatever – I might have lost an arm, but I'm still the fastest pretty thing in the ocean! Boo yeah!"

She obviously was very happy with a day well-spend, but her sisters, and especially the youngest, didn't share that thought.

"Whoa, Valentinatasiasta. Good job losing your arm by being a stupid reckless whore. I wonder what Albert will say if he sees that his beloved fiancée has lost one of her arms by fucking around with sharks. I mean, god, you already freaked him out more than enough by constantly challenging him to dangerous, fucked-up games, and you already ARE a pretty massive piece of trash because of your cheating on him with that dipshit Frank, but now you've really gone and outdone yourself."

Valentinatasiasta gasped. "I shouldn't have listened to Frank – of course there was somebody in the humping cave!"

"Aw, don't worry, sis, I won't tell Albert," the youngest princess comforted her elder sister. "Instead, I shall, how should I put it, lend you an arm. LOL!"

And in case you were wondering: yes, the youngest princess had a very dark and twisted sense of humor.'

'Awesome,' Alejo commented when I paused, 'she raced against a shark! And won! And she lost an arm, too! Coooooooool!'

Bas frowned critically, just like his father always did when he had to spend money. 'Hey, when do the singing fishies come?'

'Never. They were killed.' I revealed. 'By hunter-mermaids.'

Bas blinked with his eyes, severely impressed, while Matteo went 'ohhhhhhhhh' again.

'Lovino,' Antonio carefully and yet very foolishly started, 'you do realize the fourth princess is just a fifteen year old girl in your story, right? Is she really that… active yet?'

I gave him this soothing, almost shushing look. 'Antonio, Antonio, Antonio. Do you ever realize how fucking young princesses and girls in fairytales actually are? I wouldn't be surprised if they were some huge sluts in-between them. And the fourth sister clearly is a skanky, danger-seeking, ridiculous-name-having, cheating idiot.'

'But why?'

'Because I say so.' I put on some sunglasses and snorted. 'Deal with it.'

'Now why did I even bother saying this,' Antonio muttered to himself, sighing.

Meanwhile, I happily continued my awesome fairytale remake.

'When the fifth princess turned fifteen, there were only three guests attending her party. They came to the castle, noticed the birthday bitch wasn't there, flunked a few second-handed gifts on the ground and left, swearing that they'd never come to a Sweet Fifteen birthday party of one of the princesses, ever again. The elder princesses didn't give a flying fuck – they had gotten older anyway – but the youngest princess did give one, naturally. However, because everybody was always mad at her since she was such a douchebaggette (get it, because she's female), her opinion was positively ignored.

The fifth sister returned from her surface experience early in the evening, and after she had finished bawling and blaming her grandmother over the fact she barely had gotten any gifts, she told her sisters about the most beautiful thing she had seen.

"Because I like things and places that are as cold as my heart, I went to the North Pole, sat my fine ass down on a piece of ice and gazed at all nature's beauty. All that ice… so breathtaking and captivating… and the sky was so black and mysterious… oh my…"

She gave her sisters very detailed descriptions of just how beautiful everything around her was. Most of her sisters had no choice but admit that it indeed sounded like this sister had seen the most beautiful, most magical, most wonderful thing of all, but the youngest sister refused to do so.

"Hold your seahorses, sisters," she said with a descending look on her slightly older sister. "Just because Hortense has a nice way with words and can describe pretty imageries, doesn't mean that she's seen the best thing ever! I mean, what the crap, I haven't been above the surface yet, so cut out your slimy praising and at least wait until I've seen some shit above the surface, too!"

"Tsssssk," Hortense said, "as if you're able to beat my experiences. Admit it, sis, you better get used to this Supreme Bitch Princess, because you sure as hell ain't gonna be one. Now suck it."

But the youngest princess didn't want to suck it. "No! I won't! You'll just have to wait until I turn fifteen, and that's that!"

She angrily swam away from her laughing sisters and sulked in her little private garden for the rest of the day.'

France, who had finally recovered from the Disney-shock, had listened just as closely as the other childish people around me and plucked at his beard with a thoughtful expression.

'I do wonder where this story is going to. I always thought "The Little Mermaid" was about a mermaid princess that hoarded too much stuff inside a cave, got scolded by her dad because of that and vengefully decided to fall in love with a human, just to pester her human-hating father.'

'Well, as you probably realize by now, that's wrong,' I simply said, feeling strangely victorious.

'So you're really telling me this story is only about six quarreling sisters that wanted to be the best at checking things out on the surface?' He made a face. 'With all due respect, Romano, but I think I'll stick to the Disney version if this story really is only about a sibling fight.'

'Of course there's more to the story – a whole lot more. But just in case you forgot, I'm telling the story differently than Andersen. This is the Romano-version of "The Little Mermaid". But sure, stick to your smelly Disney version, see if I care.' I brushed his comment away like I'd brush a stray strand of French hair off my shoulder.

France furrowed his brows and looked at Antonio. 'Does he always gets this cocky whenever he's telling stories?'

'Pretty much,' Antonio admitted.

'And you're okay with that?'

'I think it's… it's kind of cute.' Antonio blushed. 'Lovi looks so handsome whenever he's radiating with confidence and arrogance…'

France wasn't convinced. 'Cute. You think that your husband acting like a giant arrogant asshole is… cute.'

'So what?' Antonio, who felt he had to defend himself, pointed a firm finger at his lame friend. 'You think putting cat ears on your head and sticking a rose in front of your private parts is cute! Well, it isn't! But do you hear me complain about it?'

'…I think I just did, yes.'

I rolled my eyes at them, before giving my mini crowd a questioning look.

'Should I wait for them to stop fighting, or should I just go on with the story?'

Wrong move – all of the other countries' kids started yelling and cheering something I couldn't comprehend, but when I looked at Alejo for some assistance, he gave me a comforting shrug of the shoulders and a smug "it's okay" -grin.

'Just carry on, Papa Lovi. If they get too loud, I'll just kick their face in.'

'Like a pancakes!' Matteo laughed.

'Yea, fuck them,' Luisa agreed.

…

Seriously, my kids were so very strange.

But I digressed.

And carried on telling my story.

\0o0/

'Finally, the legendary morning of the sixth sister's birthday arrived, and just like her sisters, the youngest sister was very quick in abandoning everybody just to get to the surface as fast as her fish-flipper could take her. But nobody took notice of that, because not a single guest attended her birthday party and her sisters, father and grandmother decided to take advantage of that and go shopping instead.

"Scoring new clothes with my ungrateful daughters and neglected mother-in-law is fabulous," or so the trendy King Merman said, and off he and his hysterical family went, while the youngest princess was off adventuring above the surface.

And boy, adventuring she did!

She watched the city lights early in the morning, she went swimming with kids (there were no attractive men around at the moment), she watched swans fly over (and sparrows, and mosquitoes, and airplanes), she raced against dolphins (because she actually wanted to keep her arm) and yes, she even went to the North Pole and very literally chilled out there for a while.

Then it was seven o'clock in the evening. She had done all the things her sisters had done in less than a day and she didn't feel like going back yet, because one: she knew she would find an empty castle, two: she didn't get any presents anyway, and three: she hadn't seen anything wonderful yet, and she'd rather die than admit Hortense had had a better surface experience than her.

So she swam around for a while, bored out of her skull and wondering what kind of lie she would have to make up to trick her sisters into thinking she had a way more awesome fifteenth birthday than that the fifteenth birthdays of her sisters had been, combined – when all of a sudden… a big ship came forth, out of the fog!'

'Yay! It's the ship of the prince!' Anya cried. 'Now she's gonna fall in love with the prince and go to the sea witch and lose her voice and tail and go visit a French place with lots of bread!'

'Ahh, the part where Ariel goes to visit a town. Yes, that felt rather French, indeed. Best part of the movie,' France agreed with a smile. 'Too bad she wore a pink dress in the beginning. It looked hideous on her, since she was redhead.'

'Not so fast,' I destroyed France's hopes and dreams, 'the little mermaid had way bigger plans with the prince in mind than simply falling in love with him!'

'Oh?' Pouting lips and disappointed looks on all of the girls' (and France's, oh, and Matteo's) faces, everywhere.

But the boys, who looked pretty grossed out by the regular version of the story ('falling in love – icky!'), lightened up instantly.

'What's gonna happen, Roma?' Wolfgang (rudely) asked me, pulling on my leg's pants.

'Tell us, tell us!' Bas wanted to know as well.

I grinned. 'Well, the princess went to the ship to take a look what was going on aboard of it. It seemed like there was a huge party happening, because a prince from a far country was celebrating his sixteenth birthday. The little mermaid sneaked a good look of him and decided that he was indeed very handsome, handsome enough to convince her sisters that she had seen something way more beautiful than they had.'

'I don't think I like where this is going,' Antonio mumbled, alarmed.

'So the youngest sister began to chant magical weather-songs, wishing that the ship would go down in a terrible storm. That way, she could grab the prince and pull him down, to her Kingdom. Man, her sisters would be soooooo pissed if they saw what a hunk she would bring from the world above!'

'No way, mermaids can do that?' Wolfgang gasped.

'Ever heard of sirens?' I said with a dark smile. 'They're somewhat related to mermaids, I think. And they sing to lure innocent sailors into their claws, so they can devour them!'

'That,' Alejo said with a thoughtful frown on his face, 'is awesome.'

'And that,' France said, pointing at Alejo, 'is terrifying. The child reminds me of one of those stranded boys on that one island from that one book. Isn't that right, Antoine?'

Antonio, who probably knew what France was vaguely blabbering about, didn't know what he could bring in as a decent answer to his foul friend's rhetorical question. So he just shook his head and wordlessly told me to hurry up telling my story.

\0o0/

'The little mermaid started chanting. And chanting. And chanting. And you know what, she even fucking did it, too, because soon after she finished the last few sentences of her evil demon song, a dark, horrid storm started to brew. It wasn't before long when huge bolts of lightning and ear-deafening claps of thunder filled the air above the now steadily growing more restless sea.

"I fucking rule," the mermaid celebrated, and swam over to a rock to lean on it as she watched those silly human beings stop the party and flock around on the ship in blind panic.

She had hoped to be the witness of something so awful it would be wonderful – her sisters were still in the back of her mind, after all – but alas, there appeared to be enough life boats on board of the ship, unlike the Titanic, and so everybody appeared to evacuate the ship without too much of a hassle.

The youngest princess was not amused. Everybody sat in a boat, safe and sound and everything! How the hell was she supposed to drag the human prince down to her Kingdom now, dammit? Furthermore, she was kind of scared of the humans, who were looking around themselves pretty determinedly – and that was no wonder, because one of the prince's servants had seen her chanting evilly as the storm had started to get worse and she had a gut feeling they would probably club her to death with those huge peddles they carried if they noticed her – so what was a fishgirl supposed to do?

But!

She all of a sudden saw some of the expressions of the people in the life boats. They weren't looking around in the water to see if there was a bratty mermaid swimming around that they could beat to a pulp – no, they were looking for somebody else. And then it finally clicked into the mermaid's mind, when she observed that the prince himself wasn't saved out of the water yet!

"Score!" she grinned and dove into the sea, looking for the young man. As the life boats helplessly drifted away further and further from the sinking ship, the little mermaid was the one who eventually found the prince, who was holding on to a piece of wood from the ship. He was stunningly handsome, or so she could tell from his petrified, ash-grey, slightly brushed face, and she was taken aback for a moment. She knew the man was hot, but damn.

"Mermaid! I see a mermaid!" the prince gasped, almost passing out. "I knew I shouldn't have smoked so much pot!"

"Shush, babe," the mermaid tried to comfort him, "everything's going to be alright. I'll bring you to my Kingdom, introduce you to my grandmother, my bitchy sisters and my even bitchier father, and we'll get married in a beautiful watery ceremony. We even have fish playing trumpets and shit. Trust me, you'll love it."

Well, the prince hesitated for a minute – after all, the mermaid was very beautiful and the pot had been very heavy – but then he remembered something crucial.

"My dear, pretty hallucination, I'd love to come with you. But I'll drown. I'm a human, and I can't live underwater."

"Shit, are you kidding me? After everything I've done to get you, you'll just fucking drown on me if I take you with me?"

"I'm afraid so, Miss Hallucination."

"Well that sucks."

"Sorry. I fear that this is it. It's time to say goodbye. You know, before I cannot hold on to this piece of wood any longer and sink away in the darkness of the sea like Leonardo DiCaprio."

The mermaid felt like somebody had just enclosed her throat with iron hands. He couldn't die on her, not after discovering he was such a handsome and even nice man!

"I'll save you," she told the prince instantly – but the prince couldn't hear that anymore, as he lost his consciousness and glided into the water after a final sigh.'

When I paused, I saw that the kids around me were as silent as a brick.

Yeah, I know that sounds stupid, but think about it: have you ever heard a noisy brick? Don't think so. So silent as a brick it was.

'She…' Matteo suddenly started, gulping comically loud, 'she'll shave the princy, wright?'

I nodded. 'Of course she saved the prince. She brought him to a nearby beach – they very conveniently happened to be close to a beach – and left him there, on the sand, wondering what to do.'

'Didn't she sing for him?' Mimi asked – and I had found out by now that Mimi was the most critical listener of all. She'd make a great blogger if she happened to grow up.

I sighed. 'No, Mimi, she didn't sing for him. She wanted to, and she was even starting to hum a little already, but right at that moment, a human girl of her age was approaching the beach – and the mermaid instantly decide to get the heck away from the beach. After all, the girl could be one of the servants that wanted her fishtail boiled!

The prince was slowly waking up as the bewildered human girl approached him, and the last thing the mermaid saw before she felt forced to go back home, was the girl shouting for help as she flopped down next to the prince.'

'I thought a servant found the prince?' France mused out loud.

'In the American Disney version, it was,' I nodded wisely. 'But in the original tale, it was a girl that found him. It's an important plot point. You'll figure out later why.'

'I don't like that girl,' Luisa huffed, folding her arms. 'She's stealing the prince!'

Anya and Mimi gasped simultaneously. 'No, not the prince!'

'I'm bored. This is a stupid story, Papa Lovi,' Alejo said.

Normally, I would be fucking insulted and hurt, dammit, like every creative artist would be, but now, I just shrugged. It was a rather girly story, after all.

'Well, then why don't you, Wolfgang and Bas just go play your stupid games again? The story's too sad for you three boys anyway,' I suggested.

'Sad sucks,' Alejo stuck out his tongue at me – but stopped doing that immediately when Antonio's voice calmly but urgently told him to behave.

'You heard your father – if you don't like it, you can go do something else. But don't ruin it for the rest!'

Alejo groaned, but complied and went back to his own seat, followed by Wolfgang (apparently, boys that wanted to hurt each other very badly are meant to be best friends). Bas, however, stayed.

'It is very sad?' he asked expressionlessly.

'Yep,' I admitted.

'Epic sad?'

'Uhm,' I thought about the strange wording for a sec, 'yeah, sure. I guess it's epically sad.'

'Cool.' Bas sat down and casually signaled me to go on.

…

Okay then.

'The little mermaid swam back to her Kingdom. Her sisters where waiting for her in the garden and they all started shooting questions at her. Not because they were interested in her stories, but because they still carried a grudge against their baby sister, since she had always chewed them out. And man, they sure smelled that their time for revenge had come, now that said sister swam into the garden with such a depressed look on her face.

"Well?" Nadia nagged at her. "What did you see, sis? Hm? Anything we should know?"

"I saw a handsome human prince who was partying hard aboard of a majestic ship," the little mermaid answered.

All five of her sisters stared at her in envy, because shit, her story already was waaaaaaay better than anything the other sisters had seen above the surface.

"Oh, so you just saw him? That's lame," Ethel then said.

"I talked to him as well."

Ethel was defeated and muttered something I'd better not repeat, but Irene wasn't sure about her sister's story.

"Now why would a human prince interrupt his partying to talk to a mermaid! As if he even saw you in the first place. I call bullshit. Who's with me?"

But the little mermaid explained to her cynical sisters that she had "made" a storm, which had destroyed the party – oh, and the ship as well – and that same storm had caused the prince and his guests to evacuate the crap out of the ship. Most people were able to get into life boats, but not the prince. Afterwards, or so she told her sisters, she had a little chat with the drowning prince, because that's a very normal thing to do in such a situation, and she told her sisters that she eventually decided to save his life upon finding out she couldn't take him with her.

"Did you still manage to tap that ass, though?" Valentinatasiasta wanted to know.

The youngest princess sobbed and shook her head.

"My god," Valentinatasiasta realized, shocked, "she's actually telling the truth, girls."

"And furthermore, adding all those things up… you know what, her wonderful experience above the surface wasn't a wonderful experience at all! Which means I win! Yay!" Hortense reasoned.

"Wow Hortense, you're such an insensitive bitch," Irene said.

"That's Supreme Bitch Princess Hortense for you, Irene. Geesh. Why don't you buzz off and find some stupid birds to gape at?"

And as the older sisters started fighting and snarling and pulling each other's hair, the little mermaid went to her grandmother, to tell her the sad story and ask for her advice.

"Because I think I've fallen for his sweet butt – I mean smile, grandmother. And I'm starting to realize that the idea of living my life as a human being sounds a lot more appealing to me than being a mermaid."

"You could always go visit the Sea Witch," Grandma informed her youngest granddaughter. "I mean, most people can't afford her services because she's supposed to be very expensive, but you can, since you're an obscenely rich princess."

"But wasn't she evil, grandmother?" the mermaid asked. "You always told me and my sisters to avoid coming near her."

The old merlady snorted. "Yes, but that was before I found out what ungrateful plagues you and your sisters are. So please, go to that witch, become a human and send her my kindest regards for giving me a good reason to erase you from my will."

And so, off the dumb little mermaid went, on route to the Sea Witch.'

'Nooooooo!' Desiree cried out, pouting. 'She's mean! She'll rip off her fishy tail!'

'Gah!' Matteo stammered.

I tried to ease their minds. 'Now now, the Sea Witch wasn't that evil – but she sure was one hell of a businesswoman. When the little mermaid came to her place and asked her if she could help her out, she instantly grabbed her calculator and started smoking some underwater cigarettes, because businesswomen always smoke.

"Let's see," the Sea Witch said, puffing out some non-existent smoke, "so, you want to become a human and capture the heart of that prince you're talking about. Am I right?"

"I guess," the princess said.

"Okay, that's a fairly nice wish. I can make you a human, you know, no prob. But the question is, my dear… are you willing to pay me?"

The little mermaid smiled and pulled out a huge bag of merfolk-money from under her… hair.

"It's almost a million Danish sea-kroner. I think this will be more than enough."

"Heavens, dear, where did you get that much money from?"

"I stole it from my jackass father. That'll teach him to leave all his moneybags lying around the house like an asshole."

"Right," the Sea Witch said, "I like the bitchy attitude, but I'm afraid I can't accept that as a payment. Don't fuss, however, because you're still able to pay me."

"How do I have to pay you, then?" the princess asked.

"I want your voice."

"That's it?" The princess was surprised. "Just my voice? That's awesome! Hell, you can take my voice – if that's all, then sure, why not!"

"There is a catch, though," the Sea Witch warned.

"A catch?"

"Actually, there are several catches."

"That's just my luck, dammit" the mermaid grumbled. "What are these catches you're talking about? Are they… bad?"

"Kind of."

"Oh."

"The first catch is that every step you'll make will feel like you're walking over pointy shreds of glass. Your feet will always ache – and as an extra bonus, your feet will actually bleed, too."

"Holy shit," the mermaid said.

"You think that's bad? The second catch is even worse! You see, after you've become a human being, it's your job to find that prince and make him fall in love with you. If that fails and he marries another girl, you'll change into sea foam the very next morning after the wedding."

"But I'm allergic to sea foam," the little mermaid pointed out.

"Then it sucks to be you." The Sea Witch cackled.'

'Sea foam?' the kids around me echoed as well, with panicked looks on their faces. I even noticed that Wolfgang and Alejo had crawled back to my little storytelling-club again, now that the story was getting slightly scary.

France laughed in an attempt to reassure the kids it wasn't that bad.

'Come on, Romano, you're clearly pulling our leg here. There's no way that the Sea Witch would change her into sea foam! I mean, what in the world is that about? Sea foam, my god. Some kind of ending that would be!'

'It's still written like that in the original tale, though,' I remarked. 'If she fails to make the price hers, she'll change into the foam that floats on the water. Very depressing.'

'But she succeeds, right?' France now looked at Antonio. 'Right?'

Antonio grinned sheepishly. 'Ah, I… I don't dare spoiling the story, Francis… you'll have to listen to Lovi to find out, I'm afraid…'

'So anyway – you can just go sit next to Bas, boys,' I started, winking at Alejo's apologetic face, 'the little mermaid had to think about this wicked deal for a little while. Losing her angelic voice was one thing, but suffering from tremendous pains and maybe even changing into sea foam after her prince would marry another? Not exactly a dream of every little princess. However, she felt it was her destiny to become a human… and so, she agreed.

The Sea Witch knew enough and gave her a potion that she should drink after she had reached a beach where she could sit and wait for help, after she had changed into a human girl. The little mermaid thought that was a pretty swell plan as well, because she didn't feel like drowning shortly after becoming a human, and she swam to a nearby beach.

It's a different beach than the one she brought the prince to, by the way. This beach was actually located a lot closer.

Having that said, the princess swam to the beach, sat on the sand and hugged her fishy tail one last time, before she took in the purple potion with one big gulp.

Immediately, she felt like her tail was being cut by a knife. Not a sharp knife – no, a blunt knife, a knife that had to be pressed down to her lower body very harshly and painfully before it was able to split her tail. She wasn't bleeding during this process – but she hurt, she hurt so much, she didn't think she had ever experienced this much pain before. She even passed out.

But when she came to, she saw she didn't had a fish tail anymore. She had legs – two wonderful, beautiful human, female legs, and dang if they didn't make her even sexier than she already knew she was.

She grinned, raised up from the sand and wanted to sing "I'm Sexy and I Know It" just for the fucking hell of it, but she instantly fell down again upon feeling this intense pain shooting through her feet. It was like she was walking on swords… or… pointy shreds of glass… And she couldn't utter a single word anymore. Slowly, the princess was beginning to think this could have been a pretty lousy trade.

But luckily, the beach she was lying on happened to be the private beach of – indeed – the prince! The handsome, kind prince she had saved from drowning! And you know what, he even came walking just around the corner, upon noticing something strange from out of his window.'

'What a relief,' France commented, 'he at least finds her. Now everything's going to be alright with her.'

I pursed my lips. 'Wellllll, sure, he found her alright. And he thought she was very pretty. She reminded him of the little sister he never actually had.'

France's face grew even longer than it already was. 'He… thought of her as if she were his sister?'

'Yes.'

'That's not good.'

'No, it wasn't,' I agreed, 'and what's even worse: for some twisted reason, the prince thought it would be perfectly normal to take this strange, mute girl to his castle and keep her. Like some sort of pretty pet. He even asked his parents if that was alright with them.'

'And then he fell in love with her,' Mimi urgently butted in. 'Right, uncle Lovi?'

I was silent for a few seconds.

'He did get very attached to his Pretty Pet Princess and he spent every day of the week with her. He even took her to balls, were she could dance with him – or alone. And she was happy to do so.'

'B-but her footies…' Matteo mumbled.

'Her feet hurt, yes. Her feet felt like she was walking over pointy shreds of glass, like the Sea Witch had told her. But she was with the man of her dreams and she was more than happy to bite through the pain and dance to amuse him and all of his friends and guests. She was pretty happy to live with him like this, and for a year or so, all was well. She even lost her bad manners and bitchiness – but then again, if this kind of curse doesn't cure you of your foulness, nothing does – and vowed to dedicate her life to her prince, whatever his name could be.'

'The end,' Anya said, and wanted to stand up.

'After a year,' I just continued, 'the prince's parents thought he should get married already. He was almost eighteen years old, so yeah, it was about time. You see, every fairytale parent seems to think it's not good to wait with marriage until your kid at least reaches adulthood. Think of all the trauma's it might miss! So they send him to a befriended kingdom that had a just as young daughter forcibly waiting for marriage as well.

"Aw, Pretty Pet Princess," the prince sighed as he and the ex-mermaid walked through the huge hallway of the other kingdom's castle, "I don't want to marry at all. I just want to smoke pot with my bad friends and get laid with lots of shady girls. Is that too much to ask?'

The princess, who was by the way bleeding like a maniac again, managed to smile at him, thinking how wonderful he looked whenever he was acting like a sexually frustrated teenager. She really had changed completely. One could only wonder when her transformation into a total pushover had been completed, but man, you bet she had changed into a huge doormat now. She had become kind and sweet, yes, but at what fucking prize? Now all she had was this prince that didn't even tried to feel her up every now and then. It had only been a matter of time before she was morphed into such a damn saint and if her sisters could see her now, they'd be ashamed.

And it became even worse.'

'…worse that that?' Wolfgang muttered.

'You remember the girl, that had found the prince after the mermaid had brought him to the beach?' I asked.

Wolfgang and the other kids nodded, looking so very tense that a few of them even stopped blinking, while Luisa was the first that clasped her hands in front of her mouth in shock.

'That's right – the girl that had found the prince and tended his wounds, was the very princess the prince had to marry,' I revealed.

'But that's insane! That's just too convenient! It's unreal!'

'Fairytales spit on reality, France!' I dramatically reminded him.

'But did the prince remember her?' Antonio asked, leaning towards me.

'He did,' I said. 'He remembered her. He thought she was the pretty hallucination that had saved him that day and he fell in love with her right away.'

'No…' Mimi stammered.

'He wanted to marry this girl as soon as possible – what the girl herself wanted was never made clear, by the way, but I suppose nobody gave a crap about her opinion – and so, they planned the wedding to take place aboard of a big ship. Since the prince has such nice memories about parties on ships, I guess. And all the little ex-mermaid could do, was cry and be happy for him, for he was getting married to the girl he "really" loved, or whatever, and that was good.'

'But… but she's going to die!' Anya shrieked. 'She can't die!'

'She's allergic to sea foam!' Alejo added with a shriek – and for the first time, I saw something like fear and worry flashing in his eyes. In his eyes, off all the kids, I had to see it firstly in his.

But I quickly realized it wasn't only his eyes – it were the eyes of all the kids, that were all showing how scared, worried and anxious they were about the little mermaid – and about how this story could end.

I suddenly thought Andersen was a huge, massive bastard, for making up such a sad story like this one, and I was beginning to stress out a bit.

Should I end this story like it was meant to end? With the sisters of the mermaid giving her a knife and the message to kill the prince, drip his blood of her feet and change back into a mermaid? With the mermaid refusing to do that, resulting in her jumping off the ship and changing into sea foam?

But… but she was allergic to sea foam.

'Lovi?' Antonio put a hand on my shoulder as he watched me gnaw my lower lip. 'It's alright – you can tell the kids that the little mermaid eventually went to duel the other princess for the prince's hand in marriage, beat the crap out of her and made the prince fall in love with her thanks to that victory.'

'Huh?' I stupidly said.

The children's eyes grew to gigantic proportions.

'No way! The mermaid went to duel the princess?' Mimi giggled. 'Sweet!~'

'And she won, too! With bleeding feet!' Alejo grinned.

'Did she get married to him?' Bas stared at me.

'Uh, sure,' I hastily said, not sure what else to say. 'She and the prince eventually got married, and he found a cure for her bleeding feet, and they got lots of beautiful babies. And a stable filled with lawnmowers, because the prince and ex-mermaid liked to race each other on those.'

'Weird,' Wolfgang said. 'But now I wanna race on a lawnmower too!'

'I like grass!' Matteo yelled.

Anya smiled. 'I liked that they got babies. I wanna have babies, too.'

'I have a baby – papa bought it for me,' Desiree boasted.

As the kids started babbling to each other, finally rid of all the tension that had been built up inside their little bodies during the story, I sat back and let out a long, deep sigh of relief.

I felt a light squeeze in my arm and I looked up, to watch Antonio's content face.

'That was a nice story, sweetie.'

'It didn't end like it was supposed to end,' I groaned softly, as I watched Luisa and Matteo chatting about how beautiful the mermaid's wedding would have been. 'I'm a lousy storyteller. I pulled a damn Disney on the little mermaid.'

But the Spaniard shook his head and squeezed my arm some more.

'No, my love. You pulled a Lovino on the little mermaid. And I have a gut feeling that the original little mermaid was more than happy that you did.'

I blinked, blushed and turned my face away from him, muttering he was talking crap, dammit, and that I still was a coward that didn't dare to tell real, brute fairytales to children.

…

I-I still felt a bit better now, though.