WARNING! Fairy Tales

01. The Fishy Little Mermaid

The prince looked grave then, for he had terrible, terrible news to impart, and he did not know how to tell his wise and loyal minister. It also happened that the terrible, terrible news was enormously embarrassing.

"Well..." With royal discomfort, he shifted his crown on his handsome head. "I don't know how to say this, but..."

"Yes?"

"It may be a bit difficult for you to understand, but..."

"Yes? Yes?"

"Well, I..."

"Yes?"

Straightening himself, the prince looked his advisor directly into the eye. He took a deep breath and began:

"I have wanted to tell you this for a very, very long time. In the time since my parents died, you have become like a father to me, and I have always wanted you to know who I really am inside. I realize it is not the thing you would probably want for me. I realize that you might not understand, or that you might even be angry. But please understand that this is who I am. I was born this way and cannot help it. I could have kept it a secret from you forever, but I hate lying to you. I want you to accept me for the real me, not a façade I put up."

The minister was a very wise minister. But no matter how wise he was, he had no clue what to say to that.

"You see, I am...I like..." The prince was breathing heavily, as if he had run a long distance. Looking hurriedly from left to right, he leaned forward and whispered into the minister's ear. The minister's jaw dropped.

"Your Highness—you can't be serious!"

The prince's mouth twitched in a humorless smile. "I'm afraid so."

"But...but...that's just not possible! Girls have legs! All girls! There's just no female on this earth who has a...a..." Unable to say the word, he made a swishing movement in the air. "There's just no female on this earth who has that instead of legs!"

"Well, I really hope there is, because otherwise I'm screwed."

"And you honestly find that, um...appealing?"

"Yes."

"What about the scales? The smell of seaweed? The..."

The minister stopped when he saw the prince's eyes becoming misty.

"Ah..." the prince sighed. "My dream girl..."

With a groan, the minister buried his face in his hands. "Why couldn't you have been bisexual like your dear father? Or at least gay!"

*********

Also long, long ago, in another enchanted kingdom—one considerably wetter, because it was situated underwater—lived a little mermaid. She was the child of Triton, King of the Sea, and the most beautiful of all his daughters. That didn't say much, because she also happened to be the only one still alive, the others having been eaten by sharks long ago and not being in a condition to win a beauty contest, but still, it was something.

The little mermaid was a lively girl and intensely curious about everything around and above her.

"Father," she said one day to the King while he was sitting in his throne room, on his golden throne with built-in hot tub. "I am lonely in this big palace with only seaweed for company. May I go up to the surface and see the world?"

"No," the king replied with his customary loquaciousness.

"Thank you for your time, father," the little mermaid said, bowed, and swam out of the throne room. And then, because she was a hard-headed little thing who never did what she was told, she swam straight up to the surface.