The Servant Girl and The Sea Prince

Chapter Six: POSEIDON

By the time Crown Prince Poseidon of Pacifica arrived home in the wondrous undersea kingdom, all five of his younger sisters, as well as King Neptune, were already sleeping. He had to wait until the following morning to present Oceana with the shoe.

Poseidon swam into his 12-year-old, Autistic sister in one of the royal palace's many coral corridors on the way to breakfast. He handed her the weird human item.

Oceana's gray-blue eyes became as round as pearls. She swished her pretty purple tail up and down, as she tended to do when she was excited. "Thanks, Poseidon...! It's so awesome! Is it some kind of hat, or a weapon that humans use to fight each other...?"

Poseidon chuckled and shook his head. "No...I learned in Humanology class that humans cover their feet with these things..."

"Why...?" asked Oceana. "We don't wear anything on our tails...". She fingered the brown shoe. The soft yet firm texture of the leather was completely foreign to her, but not entirely unpleasant. "What's this thing made out of, anyway...?"

"The skin of a dead four-legged land animal..." Poseidon explained. "It's pretty gross, I know, but not that different from how we merfolk harvest shells and pearls from clams and oysters for clothing and accessories, if you think about it..."

The Crown Prince of Pacifica hoped that today's "Humanology 101" class at the University of Pacifica would offer more insight into why human beings felt the need to cover their odd-looking appendages with such peculiar objects, but he knew that was quite unlikely. More than ninety percent of the course was just Prof. Yellowtail screeching about how dangerous the leg-walkers were.

"Now, pay close attention, young hatchlings!" Prof. Yellowtail shrieked. "The topic of today's lecture is human deception and trickery...".

Poseidon let out a barely audible sigh. The Civilized California yellowtail fish's unwavering prejudice against humans had always made him uncomfortable, but now more than ever, he figured there had to more to landlubbers than the incessant and unnuanced fear-mongering of Prof. Yellowtail's impassioned lectures implied. Admittedly, he didn't truly know Melinda that well, but the girl certainly had not come across as a particularly mean or barbaric creature.

As Prof. Yellowtail launched into an angry tirade about a crew of bloodthirsty human pirates who supposedly lured a pod of unsuspecting Civilized dolphins to their doom, the Crown Prince of Pacifica raised his hand tentatively.

"Yes, Your Highness...?"

"Professor, with all due respect...is it really fair to demonize an entire species...?" questioned Poseidon. "I mean, there are good and bad merfolk, good and bad fishes, good and bad crabs, good and bad dolphins...why should humans be any different...?"

For a moment, it seemed that all eyes in the lecture hall were on Poseidon. The Crown Prince was generally a pretty quiet and polite young merman. This was the first time all semester he had challenged the Professor like this.

Prof. Yellowtail scoffed, as he swam around the front of the large classroom. His students were well aware that the more irritable and irate he was, the less likely the teacher was to be still.

"Your Highness..." uttered the Civilized fish. "Perhaps you've become too...enamored with these landlubbers to see them for the monsters they truly are...! I swear to Amphitrite, the Goddess of the Sea that I get a starfish-eyed student like you every year...and for some reason, they usually have red hair, like you...! Let me guess, Your Highness...next you're going to argue that you don't see how a world that makes such wonderful things could be bad...?!"

Poseidon understood that nothing he could say would ever come even remotely close to changing Prof. Yellowtail's mind about humans. But he kept thinking about Melinda's innocent, sincere eyes, the color of fresh seaweed. They were not the eyes of a horrible monster. He suddenly was overcome with a desire to stare into those beautiful green eyes once again...but could he...?