Under the sea lies a world filled with mystical creatures that we've only met in legends, folklore and fairytales. So magnificent were the stories that they would often capture the imaginations of the young and the old. Many would go looking for them and sometimes these creatures would visit the shores of man. It was a time of magic and the world lived in harmony for a while, until that fateful day when everything changed. A little mermaid with fiery red hair would be the reason the two worlds would be separated forever.
The little mermaid loved her life under the sea. She had a beautiful family and some wonderful friends. They would sing and swim and spend their days in peace. She never wanted to leave. Her best friend however was completely different. He was heir apparent to the seas and wanted nothing to do with the throne. He wanted to travel the ocean and look for adventure on the surface. Like the sea-men on the ships, he too wanted to see strange new worlds. As the prince however, he had duties to attend. As his best friend, it was the little mermaid's duty to ensure he had fun! She would often help him sneak out of the palace and the two would go to the surface. They would speak with seagulls, turtles and crabs and ask them about their time on the sand.
Far from this magical kingdom under the sea was a prosperous one on land. Led by a benevolent king, this kingdom respected the age of Magic. The apple of the King's eye was his gentle and kind daughter. He showered her with affection and never let her feel the absence of a mother. She would accompany her father on the many surveys and often help the royal physician with ailing patients from all across the land. She loved to read and play musical instruments and would often be found listening to the fantastical tales from the travelling bards. Every year on the Princess's birthday, her father would hold a feast for the kingdom under the starry skies. The celebrations would go on into the wee hours of the morning. The king would tell his darling daughter the stories of the constellations including the one she was named after. The two kingdoms were the same and yet worlds apart. The one on land had a ready and willing heir, waiting to take her place. While the one under the sea, had an heir who was always missing. The destines of these two kingdoms collided in the eye of a storm.
What began as a beautiful sunny day had transformed into cyclonic vortex that was intent on destroying everything in its path. Unaware of dangers of the weather, the little mermaid had taken her Prince to the surface to cheer him up. They had even joked about how the sky seemed as gloomy as he did. What chance, did teenagers have against a hurricane? It was upon them before they could blink. The waves turned into walls of water. The currents separated the two friends dragging them in different directions. The Prince was pulled into the depths and the little mermaid was thrown ashore far from home.
The kingdom on land was also being ravaged by the storm. The rain lashed against the windows of the castle that overlooked the sea, the Princess stood mesmerised by the raw fury of nature. There was a glittering flash and she saw a figure wash up on the shore. She summoned her guards and asked them to assist the poor soul. The soldiers had never been to sea. They had only heard legends of the beauty of merpeople, but seeing one in real life left them stunned. They carried the young mermaid to the palace and placed her in the private pool in the Princess quarters. The Princess called the royal physician to see to the mermaid's injuries. Once the mermaid was out of immediate danger, the Princess tended to the mermaid herself.
Somewhere in the depths of the ocean the little mermaids family lamented her loss. Unable to live with the guilt, the Prince took a contingent of his father's finest soldiers and set out to look for this friend. Meanwhile on land, in the span of a few weeks the Princess and the mermaid had become fast friends. Almost like sisters they shared everything. Together they discovered many things about each others worlds. The Princess showed the mermaid dance and played many instruments for her. The mermaid in return sang the songs of her people and told the princess about her life under the sea. So lost were they in having fun and learning about each other's world that they almost forgot the tragedy that had brought them together.
Weeks turned into months and the mermaid began to miss home. The Princess didn't want to lose her best friend just yet, so it was decided that they would go out to sea in her father's ship to return her home. The girls could spend more time with each other and also have a way of finding each other in the future. The mermaid swam alongside the ship by day & by night a comfortable harness kept her on course with them. They set sail and had barely been at sea for a week when, another terrible storm struck the Ocean. Despite the crew's best efforts, the ship's mast came crashing down and the Princess fell into the sea.
The Princess was struggling to the get to the surface, her dress and the currents were dragging her down. The debris was all around her and she was sure she was going to drown. Suddenly a strong pair of hands grabbed the her dragging her to the depths. It was the prince of mermen! His search party had finally found its destination. As the Princess struggled and began to drown, the young mer-prince cast a spell on her to help her breath underwater. As she struggled with the water and the magic a flash of familiar red hair calmed her. The mermaid had swum out of the wreckage to help her friend. Happy that her friend the mermaid was okay, the Princess collapsed. As her world turned to black her last thought was of her father.
A little while later, when the Princess came to, she was being carried towards Atlantis in a chariot pulled by dolphins. But when the Princess tried to speak, she couldn't make a sound! She being to panic. The mermaid calmed her and told her all would soon be revealed. In a magnificent palace under the sea, the innocent Princess was given her life sentence. The Prince had cast a forbidden spell on her so that she could breath underwater. The shock of the magic had taken away her voice. The worst part however was that now she could never go back home. The crew was lost, the mermen made sure that any survivors held no memory of the Princess and were left adrift in the ocean. The Princess and the mermaid held each other and wept as they lamented the young girl's fate. This however, was only the beginning, of the trials of the young Princess.
When they arrived, the little mermaid's family was overjoyed to have their little girl back. When she told them of her friend the Princess and how she had been saved, they thanked her profusely and insisted she live with them. The only person unhappy with this arrangement was the mermaid's mother. She often spoke about how she didn't need another daughter in the family. She was quite harsh in the way she taught the young Princess about their world. The other youngster's were not friendly either. They would often tease her or whisper about her weird appendages. Her lack of tail meant she couldn't swim fast enough to keep up with the others. Some took pity on her and helped her out with chores but, most of them just left her behind. Time passed and the Princess made her home under the sea, but, she never truly felt at home. The once tranquil waters of the ocean had become the ones suffocating her soul. The merfolk looked at her, like one would observe an animal in a zoo. Her lack of fins and of speech made it even harder for her to connect with anyone. Her only friend, the red haired mermaid, was around to help cheer her up, however, she couldn't be there all the time. Most days the Princess would stay marooned in her corner of the house. She resented the merfolk as much as they resented her. She resented the prince the most. He'd stolen her life, her voice and even her best friend. What she hated most about the Prince was that he didn't care that he was the heir. He was willing to shirk responsibility of everything. As one groomed for the throne since her brith, she found him ungrateful and spoilt. But, she literally couldn't say a thing.
As months turned to years, she found getting away into the unprotected waters, was the best way to calm her mind. She found a way to fashion clothing out of larger fish that she would hunt. Octopuses and squids were her favourite. Her eccentric choices in fashion only made her a bigger eyesore to the merfolk. Listening in silence, she learnt many things, one of them was that eels were disliked by the Atlanteans. She had seen a few eels near her sanctuaries but never tried to make contact. The bubbling resentment had the rebel in her rising. One day after a fresh slew of slurs, she swam out to unprotected waters and headed straight towards the forbidden reef. The eels saw her coming and began to hide away in the sand and rocks. Desperate to meet them she grabbed on to one. Unfortunately or fortunately, it was an electric eel. The jolt that passed through her body returned her speech! She screamed out in agony but was thrilled to hear her voice. The joy however was short lived as she realised there was no way she could tell the Atlanteans how this happy accident had occurred. She decided it was a secret she would keep to herself. Soon the eels became her only source of conversation. Their resentment for being left out of the protected waters of Atlantis only fulled her rage towards this elitist civilisation. The only one safe from her wrath was her friend.
The mermaid often worried about her friend from the land. The once effervescent Princess she remembered had become quite a recluse. She even tried to take her to the surface once however, they barely lasted an hour before the Princess was gasping and had to get back underwater. The mermaid would sing to her sometimes to cheer her up but she found that it only made the Princess sad. She even once tried to get an instrument from the surface back but found that her friend didn't much care for music anymore, in-fact she didn't seem to care for much of anything anymore. No matter how hard she tried she couldn't seem to get her friend back. It's as if the storm had ripped their bond ever so slightly.
Many years passed, the age of magic was disappearing from the surface. The Prince was going to ascend to the throne and the mermaid was to be his Queen. The Princess was happy for her friend, however, a friendship between the queen and the freak was not something the court condoned. The Princess was left more alone than even before. On her wedding day the Mermaid gave the Princess a nautilus shell pendent. The Princess cherished the gift and held onto it as her most prized possession. Soon the Queen gave brith to a baby girl and the royal family began to grow. The Queen never forgot her friend. She insisted with the court that the Princess help her with her daughter from time to time. In this, the Princess seemed to have found her calling. Despite everyone's protests, the Queen brought her friend to live with her in the castle. As part of the palace, the Princess would even help the Queen out with her duties from time to time. She had been raised to rule. Even though her kingdom was lost to her, she strove to make a better Queen of her friend. The Princess always felt guilty that she was not sharing her secret friendship with the eels, but, she feared the truth might make her lose the one person that cared about her.
The Queen was happy to see her friend getting a little bit of her old self back. She was also happy to have the guidance and wisdom of a real Princess. As she gave brith to her 7th little mermaid her mute friend stood by her side and was the first to hold baby Aerial. The Queen knew the Princess missed seeing the sky. As a present for Aerial's birth, she asked the King to build a lagoon in the middle of the ocean for her and her friend so that they could see the constellation her friend was named after. That was the first time the cursed Princess witnessed the power of Poseidon's trident. She knew in that moment it was the answer to her troubles! She went to the young king and begged him as best she could with gestures to use the power of the Trident to revert her to her human self, to give her back her speech, to allow her to be able to breath in air. However, she didn't get the answer she was looking for. Enraged she finally used her voice and told everyone her truth. With a final proclamation of leaving the palace forever she stormed out!
When Queen Atlanta heard of what had happened in court, she was shocked and hurt. While she felt betrayed, she was the only one who understood her friends pain. The kindhearted Queen owed so much to the Princess. She insisted that the Princess be found. The King however, decided her departure was for the best. Even though it was his fascination with the surface that had landed them in this predicament, he chose to lay blame on the Princess and the nature of mankind. Queen Atlanta finally saw the man the Triton had become. Everything word her friend had said in her anger was true. He was selfish and arrogant and refused to take responsibility for his actions. She was shocked that Triton would deny her friend and saviour a safe passage home.
Atlanta went looking for her friend and found her by the lagoon. She apologised for her husband and asked her to return. The Princess, had had enough. She was done being a specimen and a mute bystander. The Princess was blinded by anger and Atlanta was weighed down by her grief. Neither of them saw the pirate ship crash through the lagoon. Neither of them saw Triton use the trident to blast it. Triton refused to believe that they were too close. He blamed the Princess as he lamented the loss of Atlanta. He there sat holding his Queen's lifeless form as her friend fell to the depths of the ocean.
The blast had battered her, but the magic had kept her alive. The magic from the trident had fused her body with the skin of the Octopus she was wearing and little of it had got stuck in the nautilus shell pendent that Atlanta had gifted her. In the darkness of the depth, crushed by the weight of the water, she was carried away by the eels. As she lay healing she had the eels, watch Atlantis. The cursed Princess waited and watched the reign of Triton from the depths of the ocean. She began to learn the secrets of the deep and became a sea witch. Ursula swore by the pendant she wore, she'd rid Atlantis from the unfit rule of their irresponsible king.