[story] seafoam
author: mellish (scratchmist)
email: scratchmist [at] yahoo.com
Mermaids shed no tears.
It is only the spittle of a violent wave that you see upon her face, then, streaking down her cheeks - only the remnants of a storm, or the last few drops of rain, shining upon her brow. She sits on that rock all evening, singing sad songs, unaware that you are watching her. You keep yourself hidden in a tangle of seaweed, afraid to ask why, afraid to know. Her song is more like a sob. There is a melody but no words, and you fear the worst.
She does not know how to cry; none of you do.
But that does not make her pain any less pronounced when at last she presses her lips together and dives back down, the wetness on her cheeks just another pinch of salt in the ocean.
Grandmother takes you to a shipwreck site one day.
There are many beautiful things scattered about the seabed and inside the battered ship - your second sister finds a set of pearls, while your third sister digs out a beautiful mirror. Your youngest sister does not appear interested, swimming idly through the ruined planks without much care. She is always aloof like that, tucked away in her own corner of the sea. The only time she ever comes out of her quiet shell is when someone speaks of the world above the waters - then her face lights up and she listens with such attentiveness, speaks with such enthusiasm.
She disappears for a while behind a great mass of wood and rotting sails. There is an inch of algae over everything, and strange mushrooms growing on the wreckage.
“Sister! Lend me a hand!” Her voice is frantic when it reaches you.
It takes not only you, but all of your sisters, and grandmother as well, to haul her strange find out of where it is buried in debris and sand. It is a marble statue of a man, dressed in elaborate clothing, with a sword at his side and a hat on his head. Most striking, however, is his beautiful face. If his eyes were not so vacant, he would be perfectly attractive. You watch her peel starfishes and barnacles off it, while your eldest sister asks, “You don’t intend to take that home, do you?”
“Oh, but if I don’t, he’d be lonely!” she answers, as if he is not a statue at all.
“What did you see, sister?”
Always the same eager question, asked always in the same breathless tone. Her eyes are shining with anticipation and her tail is swishing about with excitement - she has been waiting all day for your fourth sister’s return. The palace maids wonder at her strange behavior; but grandmother has told her so many stories, she cannot help it. She finds the surface enchanting, a greater mystery than even the deepest whirlpool. None of you can understand it.
“I mostly stayed in the middle of the sea,” the birthday celebrant is saying.
Your younger sister droops in disappointment.
Noticing this, your fourth sister changes her tone. “But the sky was certainly enchanting, like a very great bell, and the ships from far away looked like beautiful air-fishes - birds, I think they’re called?” She spreads her arms and glides about in a circle. “And there were dolphin and whales all about, spouting so much water, I felt I was in the middle of a great fountain!” She blows a course of bubbles at your younger sister’s nose, and she giggles as they burst against her cheeks.
“Oh, only two more years!” She blinks happily. “Then I shall see the forests and the cities and the air-fishes and the children in the water without tails, and the ships, and the people!” She laughs, a high, tinkly-bell laugh. Your other sisters laugh as well, at her innocence, and, perhaps, her immaturity. You smile, but there is a strange worry rising in your heart.
Only two more years.
And then it is her turn. She cannot sleep the night before. She cannot eat her breakfast, or tend to her flowerbed. Even grandmother’s ceremonies cannot distract her - she struggles when the oysters are placed on her tail, being the smallest princess, and her head bows a little underneath the weight of the pearl-and-lily-wreath, but her smile cannot be contained. “I shall see you all tonight,” she announces smartly, and with a swiftness you did not know she possessed, swims upwards and away.
A storm breaks out that evening.
You all feel it - the tremor in the sea bed, the fish hiding in their corals, the raging of the waves overhead. “What fun,” says your second sister. “Shall we swim up to the surface and enjoy it?”
“Oh, but the youngest shall be there,” mutters your third sister, sleepily. “She will think we are spoiling her special day.”
"She should have been back by now,” whispers your fourth sister, in her gentle timbre. "Did she not say she would be?"
You all sit up then, alerted by that fact. “The storm cannot hurt her,” answers your first sister, with the authority that her age affords. “Besides, she is fifteen now. We should not spoil her so.”
Your other sisters nod their assent, and slowly drift off to sleep, one by one. You alone stay awake, as troubled as the waters, listening for the sound of her return.
She comes back the following noon, but she has no tales to tell.
In fact, she hardly speaks at all. She drifts about the palace, listless, whispering to herself. Most of all she spends her time near the marble statue, stroking its face, tracing her fingers over its eyes and lips. She cups its chin in her hands, and blows kisses into its ears. Her behavior frightens you all. Your sisters speak of madness, of a violent storm breeze that must have addled her thoughts; or perhaps she stayed out of the water too long, or strayed too far away, and saw things she dares not speak of.
You all treat her very gently, but your treatment does nothing to soothe her misery. Or break her silence.
Her flowerbed grows tangled and violent and poor, twining into yours, growing thorns all over the place. She swims to the surface more often than even the turtles and the dolphins, and each time she descends, she is unhappier still.
What could she have seen?
“A prince.” Her words are small and strange when she finally tells you, many moons later - she is skinny and tiny and curled up into a ball in the corner of your den. “More handsome than even the statue, and so much more alive - oh, if you had seen him!” Her voice shakes with the effort of speech, or perhaps with feeling. “And he was going to drown, but I saved him, and I dragged him to shore. I let his head rest on my lap for as long as I could.” She blushes, and puts a hand to her lips, for a very brief moment. “But the sun came up, and I had to dive back down; but I stayed and watched him, fearing for his life. I stayed hidden, of course.” Her tone grows slightly bitter. “Some priestesses eventually found him and took him away. I have not seen him since - but how I long to!” There is a note of pleading in her voice.
“We may ask around,” you answer kindly, but with some doubt.
It is a silly thing to say.
So you do ask around. And as luck would have it, many people have actually heard of the handsome human prince. In this manner she finds him, eventually. She finds his palace, and she finds the river running near it, with a large rock right under his balcony. She sits on this rock and watches him every evening, with her hands clasped over her breast, singing her heartbroken songs. Instead of healing her aches, you have made them worse.
She disappears one day, after weeks of her moonlit vigilance. None of you know what to think. Grandmother angrily declares that you will all pay a visit to the sea witch, for if anyone has too much information in these waters, it is that wicked sorceress. You are trembling from head to tail, but are too worried about your sister not to go.
The witch’s den is horrible. It is littered with skeletons and snakes and eels and strange, sticky plants. The woman herself, with a toad clinging to her face, and frightening creatures running all over her bosom, is beyond your worst imaginings. Your little sister could not have come here, alone. It is unthinkable.
“Yes, the little fool came.” Her laugh bounces off the walls in a cruel echo. “She wants an immortal soul. She thinks she can marry the prince. She wants legs!” The word is menacing in your ears. “But do not think I cheated the dear little princess. We had a fair agreement. I gave her the draught which would make her human - a very tricky potion it is, with my own blood in it, and several rare ingredients. It was a proper deal.” She pries the toad off from where it is sucking on her lip, and glares at you all. “There is nothing you can do.”
Your whole body is frigid, but you manage to speak. “And what did she pay you with?”
The sorceress smiles, eerily. She talks a jar from her shelf of potions, and places an oddly-shaped, pink object into her mouth. When she speaks, it is with the exact voice of your little sister.
“Perhaps you should not have asked.”
Once you learn that she has gone to the surface, it is not difficult to find her. The prince goes sailing often, and just as often, your sister sits on the steps of the palace closest to the ocean, her tiny feet submerged in the water. She is quite as beautiful as she always was, but her face is tired and her mouth is useless, and her legs - such ungainly things! You do not quite realize the pain they cost her until you see her dancing upon his ship deck, one day.
Her feet are skipping in fairy steps, and her arms rise and fall with a true dancer’s grace; her movements conjure the ease with which she once drifted through the sea. But her smile, although genuine, is tapering off at the edges, and her eyes are blazing with concentration. There is too much sweat on her face for it to be the effort of dancing. Every time her feet touch the wood, there appear strange tracks, but no one else seems to see.
Then the sun sinks and the boat is outlined in its rays, as if it is set aflame, and you realize that the strange tracks are the imprints of her foot, stamped in blood.
The prince laughs. He is delighted with her dance.
You turn your head, unable to watch any longer. You imagine how she must feel - as if she is treading upon a million serrated shark teeth, a thousand knives and needles. If she had her tongue, she might have been laughing for her love’s sake, but in your heart, all you hear is screaming.
Why does she look so happy?
The prince’s boat is drifting along to a neighboring kingdom. Your sister is upon the deck, her face radiant. If the prince truly loved her as a man loves his bride, they would be married by now. You know this. Is she still fooling herself, or is she truly so happy to suffer for another’s sake?
There is much trumpeting and feasting in this land over the water, and she revels in it, dancing in the middle of a cheering crowd, torturing herself with every step. And they know none of it!
If this is the price for a soul, you are happy to die as seafoam.
News travels faster under sea than on the shores, because of the currents, and the whispers, and the great, rushing waves. Your father calls you all, even grandmother, tired and drawn and sunken in her regal old age. By now the whole underwater kingdom knows the story of the ambitious princess who rose above the waters; they wish her well as you all did, and have listened very hard for word of her situation.
The messenger is trembling as he shares the news.
The prince is getting married to another woman, a human princess. He loves her dearly. They shall be married as soon as possible.
Our little mermaid is going to die.
The sea witch is terribly amused by your visit.
“We beg of you,” your eldest sister says. “Please. There isn’t any time left.”
The hag smiles, showing all of her rotten teeth - her tongue is like a sea slug as it slides over her fat, purple lips. “Well, my dears. It isn’t every day I give such a thing away.” She gestures to the only answer available to enough of you - a deadly blade, with an edge that could cut clean through any fins or flesh or bone. “What can you offer me?”
You step forward, bravely. “Name your price.”
Your fourth sister is swooning with fear in the background, and your second and third sisters are attempting to comfort her, but all of you have stiffened your resolve, long ago. You cannot let your youngest sister die. You will not.
Still, you are filled with sadness as the witch’s scissors cut through your hair haphazardly. Your sisters have kept from crying aloud, afraid to aggravate her. Your golden locks fall on the floor, stretching for several feet, sparkling amidst the slime and the gore that the sorceress has accumulated over the years.
You do not want to look at her face as you raise your head above the waters and offer the knife up to her. Her eyes are wide with horror at your appearance. The brilliant moon can only highlight the loss of your hair, but you speak bravely, trying to make her understand the weight of your sacrifice. Your heart is pounding in your chest as you persuade her.
“We love you, sister, and do not want you to die. Please, listen to reason. If you take this sword and plunge it into the heart of the prince you loved so, and allow his blood to fall on your feet, you will become a mermaid once more.”
“You can join us,” your eldest sister says. “And live out your remaining years under the sea.”
“We can have good times, like we did before!” adds your second sister.
“It is only fair,” declares your third sister resolutely.
“And besides, grandmother worries over you every day.” Even your fourth sister has a sturdier tone than usual.
“You must do it before the sun rises. Hurry!” You throw it up, high enough so that she can catch it - her fingers tremble as they close about the gilded hilt. She stares long and hard at each of your faces in turn. You do not know if it is with love, or gratitude, or sorrow. If only she had her voice. The sky has lightened considerably in these past hours. She has only minutes to complete her task.
You cannot remain on the surface any longer. You link arms with your sisters and sink down into the sea, one great chain of sadness and fear. You are all thinking the same thing.
Will she be able to do it?
She does not.
You know this because she does not follow you into the waters.
You know this because you see the prince, alive and well, having a very noisy wedding on the little veranda close to the shore. The festivities in the land above the waters lasts for days. Below the sea, the mourning stretches just as long.
Mermaids shed no tears. Perhaps this is because your bodies disperse into seafoam when you die, and that is all the crying you will need for eternity, every inch of your being bleeding into the sobs you were unable to muster in your life. Sometimes you imagine her frail body dancing upon the million invisible knives. Sometimes you imagine her falling into the waves, melting away into nothing. Just another pinch of salt in the ocean.
But sometimes, when you raise your head above the surface, and stare up at the sky, you imagine her smiling there - in a place even higher than the one she loved, in a place none of you have ever even dreamed of. Would she be happier there than she was under the sea, with you? Or even on land, with her precious prince?
The cool wind blows a kiss upon your cheek, and a breaking wave rains spittle upon your brow, and upon the short hairs that have started to grow on your head; you back dive into the ocean, and try not to wonder why.
the end
A/N: This is based on Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Mermaid, but certain details were not exactly followed to the letter, so if there are inconsistencies with the actual text, they're probably being made with my knowledge. ^^ If you would like to point them out for comparison reasons, though, you're very much welcome.
email: scratchmist [at] yahoo.com
Mermaids shed no tears.
It is only the spittle of a violent wave that you see upon her face, then, streaking down her cheeks - only the remnants of a storm, or the last few drops of rain, shining upon her brow. She sits on that rock all evening, singing sad songs, unaware that you are watching her. You keep yourself hidden in a tangle of seaweed, afraid to ask why, afraid to know. Her song is more like a sob. There is a melody but no words, and you fear the worst.
She does not know how to cry; none of you do.
But that does not make her pain any less pronounced when at last she presses her lips together and dives back down, the wetness on her cheeks just another pinch of salt in the ocean.
Grandmother takes you to a shipwreck site one day.
There are many beautiful things scattered about the seabed and inside the battered ship - your second sister finds a set of pearls, while your third sister digs out a beautiful mirror. Your youngest sister does not appear interested, swimming idly through the ruined planks without much care. She is always aloof like that, tucked away in her own corner of the sea. The only time she ever comes out of her quiet shell is when someone speaks of the world above the waters - then her face lights up and she listens with such attentiveness, speaks with such enthusiasm.
She disappears for a while behind a great mass of wood and rotting sails. There is an inch of algae over everything, and strange mushrooms growing on the wreckage.
“Sister! Lend me a hand!” Her voice is frantic when it reaches you.
It takes not only you, but all of your sisters, and grandmother as well, to haul her strange find out of where it is buried in debris and sand. It is a marble statue of a man, dressed in elaborate clothing, with a sword at his side and a hat on his head. Most striking, however, is his beautiful face. If his eyes were not so vacant, he would be perfectly attractive. You watch her peel starfishes and barnacles off it, while your eldest sister asks, “You don’t intend to take that home, do you?”
“Oh, but if I don’t, he’d be lonely!” she answers, as if he is not a statue at all.
“What did you see, sister?”
Always the same eager question, asked always in the same breathless tone. Her eyes are shining with anticipation and her tail is swishing about with excitement - she has been waiting all day for your fourth sister’s return. The palace maids wonder at her strange behavior; but grandmother has told her so many stories, she cannot help it. She finds the surface enchanting, a greater mystery than even the deepest whirlpool. None of you can understand it.
“I mostly stayed in the middle of the sea,” the birthday celebrant is saying.
Your younger sister droops in disappointment.
Noticing this, your fourth sister changes her tone. “But the sky was certainly enchanting, like a very great bell, and the ships from far away looked like beautiful air-fishes - birds, I think they’re called?” She spreads her arms and glides about in a circle. “And there were dolphin and whales all about, spouting so much water, I felt I was in the middle of a great fountain!” She blows a course of bubbles at your younger sister’s nose, and she giggles as they burst against her cheeks.
“Oh, only two more years!” She blinks happily. “Then I shall see the forests and the cities and the air-fishes and the children in the water without tails, and the ships, and the people!” She laughs, a high, tinkly-bell laugh. Your other sisters laugh as well, at her innocence, and, perhaps, her immaturity. You smile, but there is a strange worry rising in your heart.
Only two more years.
And then it is her turn. She cannot sleep the night before. She cannot eat her breakfast, or tend to her flowerbed. Even grandmother’s ceremonies cannot distract her - she struggles when the oysters are placed on her tail, being the smallest princess, and her head bows a little underneath the weight of the pearl-and-lily-wreath, but her smile cannot be contained. “I shall see you all tonight,” she announces smartly, and with a swiftness you did not know she possessed, swims upwards and away.
A storm breaks out that evening.
You all feel it - the tremor in the sea bed, the fish hiding in their corals, the raging of the waves overhead. “What fun,” says your second sister. “Shall we swim up to the surface and enjoy it?”
“Oh, but the youngest shall be there,” mutters your third sister, sleepily. “She will think we are spoiling her special day.”
"She should have been back by now,” whispers your fourth sister, in her gentle timbre. "Did she not say she would be?"
You all sit up then, alerted by that fact. “The storm cannot hurt her,” answers your first sister, with the authority that her age affords. “Besides, she is fifteen now. We should not spoil her so.”
Your other sisters nod their assent, and slowly drift off to sleep, one by one. You alone stay awake, as troubled as the waters, listening for the sound of her return.
She comes back the following noon, but she has no tales to tell.
In fact, she hardly speaks at all. She drifts about the palace, listless, whispering to herself. Most of all she spends her time near the marble statue, stroking its face, tracing her fingers over its eyes and lips. She cups its chin in her hands, and blows kisses into its ears. Her behavior frightens you all. Your sisters speak of madness, of a violent storm breeze that must have addled her thoughts; or perhaps she stayed out of the water too long, or strayed too far away, and saw things she dares not speak of.
You all treat her very gently, but your treatment does nothing to soothe her misery. Or break her silence.
Her flowerbed grows tangled and violent and poor, twining into yours, growing thorns all over the place. She swims to the surface more often than even the turtles and the dolphins, and each time she descends, she is unhappier still.
What could she have seen?
“A prince.” Her words are small and strange when she finally tells you, many moons later - she is skinny and tiny and curled up into a ball in the corner of your den. “More handsome than even the statue, and so much more alive - oh, if you had seen him!” Her voice shakes with the effort of speech, or perhaps with feeling. “And he was going to drown, but I saved him, and I dragged him to shore. I let his head rest on my lap for as long as I could.” She blushes, and puts a hand to her lips, for a very brief moment. “But the sun came up, and I had to dive back down; but I stayed and watched him, fearing for his life. I stayed hidden, of course.” Her tone grows slightly bitter. “Some priestesses eventually found him and took him away. I have not seen him since - but how I long to!” There is a note of pleading in her voice.
“We may ask around,” you answer kindly, but with some doubt.
It is a silly thing to say.
So you do ask around. And as luck would have it, many people have actually heard of the handsome human prince. In this manner she finds him, eventually. She finds his palace, and she finds the river running near it, with a large rock right under his balcony. She sits on this rock and watches him every evening, with her hands clasped over her breast, singing her heartbroken songs. Instead of healing her aches, you have made them worse.
She disappears one day, after weeks of her moonlit vigilance. None of you know what to think. Grandmother angrily declares that you will all pay a visit to the sea witch, for if anyone has too much information in these waters, it is that wicked sorceress. You are trembling from head to tail, but are too worried about your sister not to go.
The witch’s den is horrible. It is littered with skeletons and snakes and eels and strange, sticky plants. The woman herself, with a toad clinging to her face, and frightening creatures running all over her bosom, is beyond your worst imaginings. Your little sister could not have come here, alone. It is unthinkable.
“Yes, the little fool came.” Her laugh bounces off the walls in a cruel echo. “She wants an immortal soul. She thinks she can marry the prince. She wants legs!” The word is menacing in your ears. “But do not think I cheated the dear little princess. We had a fair agreement. I gave her the draught which would make her human - a very tricky potion it is, with my own blood in it, and several rare ingredients. It was a proper deal.” She pries the toad off from where it is sucking on her lip, and glares at you all. “There is nothing you can do.”
Your whole body is frigid, but you manage to speak. “And what did she pay you with?”
The sorceress smiles, eerily. She talks a jar from her shelf of potions, and places an oddly-shaped, pink object into her mouth. When she speaks, it is with the exact voice of your little sister.
“Perhaps you should not have asked.”
Once you learn that she has gone to the surface, it is not difficult to find her. The prince goes sailing often, and just as often, your sister sits on the steps of the palace closest to the ocean, her tiny feet submerged in the water. She is quite as beautiful as she always was, but her face is tired and her mouth is useless, and her legs - such ungainly things! You do not quite realize the pain they cost her until you see her dancing upon his ship deck, one day.
Her feet are skipping in fairy steps, and her arms rise and fall with a true dancer’s grace; her movements conjure the ease with which she once drifted through the sea. But her smile, although genuine, is tapering off at the edges, and her eyes are blazing with concentration. There is too much sweat on her face for it to be the effort of dancing. Every time her feet touch the wood, there appear strange tracks, but no one else seems to see.
Then the sun sinks and the boat is outlined in its rays, as if it is set aflame, and you realize that the strange tracks are the imprints of her foot, stamped in blood.
The prince laughs. He is delighted with her dance.
You turn your head, unable to watch any longer. You imagine how she must feel - as if she is treading upon a million serrated shark teeth, a thousand knives and needles. If she had her tongue, she might have been laughing for her love’s sake, but in your heart, all you hear is screaming.
Why does she look so happy?
The prince’s boat is drifting along to a neighboring kingdom. Your sister is upon the deck, her face radiant. If the prince truly loved her as a man loves his bride, they would be married by now. You know this. Is she still fooling herself, or is she truly so happy to suffer for another’s sake?
There is much trumpeting and feasting in this land over the water, and she revels in it, dancing in the middle of a cheering crowd, torturing herself with every step. And they know none of it!
If this is the price for a soul, you are happy to die as seafoam.
News travels faster under sea than on the shores, because of the currents, and the whispers, and the great, rushing waves. Your father calls you all, even grandmother, tired and drawn and sunken in her regal old age. By now the whole underwater kingdom knows the story of the ambitious princess who rose above the waters; they wish her well as you all did, and have listened very hard for word of her situation.
The messenger is trembling as he shares the news.
The prince is getting married to another woman, a human princess. He loves her dearly. They shall be married as soon as possible.
Our little mermaid is going to die.
The sea witch is terribly amused by your visit.
“We beg of you,” your eldest sister says. “Please. There isn’t any time left.”
The hag smiles, showing all of her rotten teeth - her tongue is like a sea slug as it slides over her fat, purple lips. “Well, my dears. It isn’t every day I give such a thing away.” She gestures to the only answer available to enough of you - a deadly blade, with an edge that could cut clean through any fins or flesh or bone. “What can you offer me?”
You step forward, bravely. “Name your price.”
Your fourth sister is swooning with fear in the background, and your second and third sisters are attempting to comfort her, but all of you have stiffened your resolve, long ago. You cannot let your youngest sister die. You will not.
Still, you are filled with sadness as the witch’s scissors cut through your hair haphazardly. Your sisters have kept from crying aloud, afraid to aggravate her. Your golden locks fall on the floor, stretching for several feet, sparkling amidst the slime and the gore that the sorceress has accumulated over the years.
You do not want to look at her face as you raise your head above the waters and offer the knife up to her. Her eyes are wide with horror at your appearance. The brilliant moon can only highlight the loss of your hair, but you speak bravely, trying to make her understand the weight of your sacrifice. Your heart is pounding in your chest as you persuade her.
“We love you, sister, and do not want you to die. Please, listen to reason. If you take this sword and plunge it into the heart of the prince you loved so, and allow his blood to fall on your feet, you will become a mermaid once more.”
“You can join us,” your eldest sister says. “And live out your remaining years under the sea.”
“We can have good times, like we did before!” adds your second sister.
“It is only fair,” declares your third sister resolutely.
“And besides, grandmother worries over you every day.” Even your fourth sister has a sturdier tone than usual.
“You must do it before the sun rises. Hurry!” You throw it up, high enough so that she can catch it - her fingers tremble as they close about the gilded hilt. She stares long and hard at each of your faces in turn. You do not know if it is with love, or gratitude, or sorrow. If only she had her voice. The sky has lightened considerably in these past hours. She has only minutes to complete her task.
You cannot remain on the surface any longer. You link arms with your sisters and sink down into the sea, one great chain of sadness and fear. You are all thinking the same thing.
Will she be able to do it?
She does not.
You know this because she does not follow you into the waters.
You know this because you see the prince, alive and well, having a very noisy wedding on the little veranda close to the shore. The festivities in the land above the waters lasts for days. Below the sea, the mourning stretches just as long.
Mermaids shed no tears. Perhaps this is because your bodies disperse into seafoam when you die, and that is all the crying you will need for eternity, every inch of your being bleeding into the sobs you were unable to muster in your life. Sometimes you imagine her frail body dancing upon the million invisible knives. Sometimes you imagine her falling into the waves, melting away into nothing. Just another pinch of salt in the ocean.
But sometimes, when you raise your head above the surface, and stare up at the sky, you imagine her smiling there - in a place even higher than the one she loved, in a place none of you have ever even dreamed of. Would she be happier there than she was under the sea, with you? Or even on land, with her precious prince?
The cool wind blows a kiss upon your cheek, and a breaking wave rains spittle upon your brow, and upon the short hairs that have started to grow on your head; you back dive into the ocean, and try not to wonder why.
the end
A/N: This is based on Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Mermaid, but certain details were not exactly followed to the letter, so if there are inconsistencies with the actual text, they're probably being made with my knowledge. ^^ If you would like to point them out for comparison reasons, though, you're very much welcome.