VIOLET

He leaned over the boat and peered down into the deep, searching for me. His dark eyes almost made me take him home and put him on a shelf to stare at forever. I sank lower into the protective darkness, knowing full well the extent of the consequences that would lie ahead of me when I returned home… 

Agh, my beautiful, magical home. 

It was forbidden to help a human. I didn’t know what possessed me to do it… perhaps it was curiosity, or my lust for adventure before I was laden with the responsibilities that I would face as the next queen of the Emerald City of Islanda, or perhaps it was just my soft heart and pity for this beautiful boy. Whichever the reason, I was sure to hear about its consequences from my cousin Esmeralda. That was, if my father didn’t know by now, and had already sent his army to retrieve me and bring me back to the city covered in diamonds, rubies, and pearls. 

I ended my return home with a pitstop to an abandoned shipwreck that lay only a kilometre from my home. It was both mine and Esmeralda’s place of solitude when the kingdom got to be too much. 

I let out a sigh as I leaned against a stool, picking up a shard of glass and glancing at my reflection. “Why did I do it?” I wondered out loud, knowing I was alone.

“Why did you do what?” A voice echoed behind me. I fleeted sideways, letting out a startled scream.

“Esmeralda!” I scolded, turning to hush her before someone heard my discretions. I was surprised to see her here as she had been pulling away a bit lately and didn’t usually show up to this particular spot. I wasn’t sure why she had been pulling away since we had always been so close.

“Well? What was it that you did?” she gasped.

“Just... Never mind, okay?” I attempted to deter her from the current conversation by showing her trinkets, picking up different items as I swam along the ship. 

“Oh, come on…” she begged, staying close to ensure she didn’t miss any word that may slip from my mouth.

“I went to shore again.” I barely let the words escape my slightly parted lips. 

“We said we wouldn’t do that anymore… It’s too risky.” She swam alongside me. “We aren't children anymore, Violet. We are future queens of the Emerald City… Well, one of us is… and at this rate, it won’t be you,” she scoffed, looking at her manicured nails, stretching out each finger and swiping her hand through the water. She was always one for beauty--always combing her hair and sticking baby starfish to her fingernails.

“You said that,” I mumbled.

“What-- Oh, you are unbelievable,” she scoffed. “We both said that!” 

“Well, maybe I changed my mind…” I muttered, almost only to myself, starting to feel foolish.

“What were you doing up there this time, anyway? Collecting shells again?” Her words were spoken with such contempt. I felt myself drift further into a pool of foolishness, with a hint of stress seeping in. She was getting closer to guessing my reasoning for once again visiting the shore. “You know your sisters have been nagging me about where you were again. They are relentless, but they do have a point.”

“I-- Never mind.” I toyed with the idea of continuously giving her short replies until she stopped asking me questions altogether.

“Oh, you have to tell me. Whatever it was, I’m sure it wasn’t worse than the act of going to shore in the first place.” She crossed her arms and raised a perfectly sculpted auburn brow in my direction.

“Someone needed my help…” I offered as little information as I could to hide the shame of what I had done. 

“Someone? Like who?” She was pushing for more, and it was making me feel incredibly uneasy. I felt myself crumbling under her words. I wished she would stop, but I knew she wouldn’t.

“Just a boy…” Her persuasive nature was pulling my words out faster than I hoped to give them away.

“A boy? Was it Aalton or one of the others? I thought you didn’t like them... Or someone from the neighbouring city?” She hit me with her tail. “Violet… what is going on with you?” she asked in a seductively teasing tone, bordering on condescending, which was adding to my stress levels. 

“I shouldn’t have said anything…” I needed to quit while I was ahead.

“So, it was someone from the neighbouring city… How scandalous!” she screeched, overly excited, letting the words curl on her tongue.

I looked away in an attempt to avoid her guesses. “Your attempts of dancing around the issue just tell me I should insist some more…” She swam around me with haste so we were eye to eye, hers narrowing.

“Perhaps it was someone close to the shore… A human, perhaps?” She laughed at the suggestion. “Just joking! Not even you would be that stupid…” She moved onto the next conclusion, and I let out a sigh of relief. She whirled back around, glaring at me. “Why did you sigh?” She pointed a long finger at me, her voice rising in pitch. 

“Wait, tell me you didn’t… A human?!” she boomed. The water vibrated and everything around it began to fall to the ground. A plate fell and shattered, hitting wooden panels on the ship’s floor. I felt my eyebrows knit together at the centre of my forehead, while my eyes squeezed tightly shut, my fists tightening into balls beside me.

“I-I,” I stammered. Esmeralda’s voice alone could send a shark running. She could be very intimidating when she wanted to, and I was no exception to those at the receiving end of her rage.

She calmed suddenly. This was not a good sign. “You went to the shore... and helped a human…” she said slowly, processing, before she fell silent. Anyone would have thought her silence meant the end of it, but I knew better. She was simply building up to her final meltdown. I recoiled, waiting for the final show.

“Are you insane?!” Her voice echoed throughout the kingdom.

“Hush!” I hissed. “Do you want us to get slaughtered?!” 

“Do you?” she hissed in return. Silence hung in the air around us. 

I didn’t speak. Esmeralda swam closer, before she whispered, “You are going to bring our kingdom to its knees, and I’m not going to be by your side when you do it.”

Before I could finish deciphering the meaning of her words, she continued, “If it comes to defending you or our kingdom, I choose our home.” Her words stung as they hit my ears, and then my heart. 

1 week later

I toyed with the idea of not going back to the surface again, but I had always longed for legs. My curiosity finally took over and encouraged me to save this human in order to receive a pair. 

I swam around my home, where hundreds of Mermaids occupied. Its structure dripped in jewels, reflecting off the water. Shades of green, blue, pink, and other colours only belonging to the ocean sparkled from them. Once upon a time, my home consisted of thousands, but creatures attacked as they do, leaving our home the small community that it is now. Many moons ago, my mother ruled as the queen of the Emerald City, Islanda. 

She was attacked and killed by a giant squid, along with multiple other members of my family. It was in the midst of the last war of sea, land, and sky. Evil Mermaids named Merrows watched and taunted, snickering. Merrows were dark blue in colour and had rough scales, disgusting faces, and sharp teeth. Their hands were webbed and the only hair that occupied their bodies were chunks of matted hair on their mostly bald heads. In Islanda, we would call someone a Merrow if we really wanted to hurt their feelings. The human was attacked by a Merrow, but something deterred it before I could intervene, and it threw him back up against the ship. A lot of us had been children at the time of the war--all three of my sisters, as well as my cousin Essy and myself. There hadn’t been many children in our city since the attack, as people were too afraid to bring new life into it and have it be destroyed, so we five were the youngest in the city. There was only one pregnant Mer right now--Isla--and everyone catered to her like she was a goddess for bringing precious new life into our kingdom. 

Now the kingdom was under the thumb of my father, which was quite uncommon for a man to be on the Mermaid throne. I had heard it was common in the human kingdoms, but in ours? Never had it happened before. My father gave strict rules on never, ever going to land. The only exception would be to defend our people during a war, but he had already forbidden all Mermaids from taking part in any war with other kingdoms, so unless it was a surprise attack, there wouldn’t be any fighting. We Merpeople kept to ourselves and avoided the subtle power struggles that simmered among the other kingdoms. My father valued peace, and during his reign, he created a utopian existence for the Mer. He would not tolerate any threat to the current equilibrium.

Esmeralda and I were next in line for the throne. At birth, we were chosen by the gods, which naturally drove my sisters wild with jealousy. When we were born, we were each given a glow--mine was golden, and Essy’s was red. The glow meant we had superior powers that the others didn’t have; that also meant that one day, Essy and I would have to battle for the throne. The gods were cruel like that. Until her words one week ago, we had always agreed that we would never fight, and the higher-ups would just need to agree to let us rule side by side. Now that I had broken several of our most sacred rules, though… I wasn’t so sure she would honour our bond.