The Siren Queen

Chapter Two

"Gooooood moooorrrnnnniiiinnnggg, mmmyyyyy deeeaaarrr!". After breakfast, Crown Princess Nerissa had private singing lessons with Miss Shelley, an elderly sea turtle who had a distinct, slurred way of speaking that always made one syllable sound like three syllables.

"Good morning, Miss Shelley" Nerissa said politely as she took her seat on a stool carved out of driftwood.

"Mare Pacificum, pleeeassee". For the past several weeks, Nerissa had been practicing singing "Mare Pacificum", an old Pacifican folk song. It was customary for a mermaid to sing a song at her Ascension ceremony, and Miss Shelley selected "Mare Pacificum" for Nerissa because it had a simple melody that seemed more suitable for the Princess's mediocre voice than the powerful ballads most mermaids favored.

"Myyyy deeeeaaarrrr, your pronunciation of Archaic Pacifican is quite good!". "Mare Pacificum" was sung in an ancient language that was currently only used for ceremonial purposes in Pacifica.

Nerissa sighed. Every time Miss Shelley called her "my dear" and gave her a compliment, she always followed it up with criticism.

"Trrryyyy supporting yoooourrrr breath from youuuurrr diaphragm! Opppeennn yooourr mouuutthhh a little wider to project yooourrr voooiiicceee better!"

The Crown Princess of Pacifica wasn't even sure where exactly her diaphragm was located in her body, but she opened her mouth wider and ran through the song again.

"Weeellll...I suppose iiittttt'sss faaaiirrrr toooo saaaay thaaatt yooouuu haaavee improved somewhat siiiinnnnccceee yooouurrrr fiiiirrrst lesson, myyyy deeeaarrr"

Once her lesson was finished, Nerissa leisurely swam to a certain part of the local coral reef that she liked to go to whenever she wanted to be alone with her thoughts.

"What's the current, Birthday Mermaid?". Lord Zale appeared seemingly out of thin water, as he tended to do. "What's the current?" was an informal way to ask "How are you?" in Pacifica.

Nerissa smiled at her longtime best friend. "At singing practice, I think I hit a note that doesn't even exist"

A good-natured smirk formed on Zale's lips. "Oh, so you're an intrepid pioneer, exploring uncharted musical territory...?"

Nerissa couldn't help but giggle in response. Nobody else in the entire undersea kingdom of Pacifica could make her laugh like Lord Zale could. That was what she liked best about him.

"I hope I don't make too much of a clownfish of myself tonight at my Ascension ceremony. It sure would be nice if swimming and singing came as naturally to me as it does to just about every other mermaid". As Zale's tan hand briefly brushed against her own ivory hand, Nerissa recalled watching his green and silver tail swiftly race toward the ocean's surface, like it was the finish line at the Olympic Sea Games, during his Ascension several months ago. Ever since they were little merchildren, she wished that her and Lord Zale shared a birthday, so that they could Ascend for the first time together, but he always promised that he would accompany her to her Ascension, so that he could "show her the way", as he liked to put it.

"Swimmers and singers are a sand dollar a dozen in Pacifica, Rissie. You're something so much more extraordinary than that...a unique, one-of-a-kind mermaid princess, the likes of which the seven seas have never seen before". Zale's soulful, chocolate brown eyes gazed into Nerissa's bright, blue-green orbs for a moment that felt like an eternity to her. The princess's heart suddenly palpitated and her cheeks turned the same warm shade of pink as the nearby coral.

"Shall I escort you back to the palace before the current changes, Princess?" Lord Zale proposed with a playful bow.

"Yes, you may, my noble knight in shining scales!" replied Nerissa, putting on a pretentious Archaic Pacifican accent. Her delicate, billowy fins struggled to keep up with the rapid, graceful undulations of Zale's sleek yet muscular tail. "Hey, slow down!" she called after him, slightly out of breath.

As Nerissa and Zale passed by Catalina Hall, his family's estate, on the way back to the royal palace, the Crown Princess of Pacifica suddenly had an idea. "Zale...I know this kind of breaks with hundreds of years of Pacifican tradition, but...". Her lovely tail twitched nervously.

Lord Zale raised an eyebrow, clearly intrigued. "Break with tradition, huh...? I know that I, for one, sometimes prefer to make waves rather than swimming along with the current"

"What if we...ride Stormer...for at least part of our trip up to the surface?". Stormer was Zale's majestic giant seahorse steed. The jet-black sea-stallion matched the young merman's long, dark hair perfectly. As his bonded seahorse, Lord Zale could communicate telepathically with Stormer. "That way, I could..." Nerissa trailed off hesitantly.

Zale nodded in understanding, and then grinned from ear to ear. "With Stormer's help, your Ascension will be smooth sailing indeed!"