One Year ✔️

1

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The night was dark and the water was cold, but that did not bother Neris, a darker and colder determination pushed her onwards. Powerful currents pulled at her auburn hair, twisting it around behind her and creating the illusion of her very own cerith shell as if she was simply a hermit crab scuttling along the seabed and not a powerful mermaid fleeing destiny. The thinly framed mermaid was a foreboding sight, with her dark expression and clenched fists, frightened fish darted out of her way hurriedly, hiding behind the coral and inside small crevices in the ocean floor.

As Neris swam on her insides started to burn uncomfortably as the faces of the underwater court flashed into her mind. It was not guilt, but left over anger at her father that spurned her forward through the dark ocean and past the coral reefs that bordered her home. She frowned as she remembered her father's awful request.

It had been ridiculous. Neither of her sisters had needed to marry at her age! Then again, after both of them had stubbornly refused the throne her father had become worried that their kingdom would become monarch-less. Maybe that was what was impacting on his otherwise just judgment. Perhaps in another's eyes it could seem a just request to make of one's last remaining possible heir, but as Neris thought of the arranged marriage she involuntarily sighed, creating small bubbles in the dark water. 

The proposed husband was the prince of the neighbouring sea kingdom, one her father wanted to make an alliance with. Neris couldn't even blame him, she knew that the palace coffers had been low during her father's reign. It wasn't his fault, his father had entered into the wrong side of a war and left Neris's father with a broke kingdom and a dejected people to boot. Considering this, it was a little miracle that the neighbouring kingdom had agreed to an alliance with them in the first place. They'd fought on the opposite side, and come out of it victorious, Neris was sure their coffers were plenty full and they never had to worry about how to support their elderly or how to feed the hungry or how to keep everybody happy.

Her father had expected her to say yes, this Neris knew with a growing certainty.

So why had she refused him?

It was simple, she did not want to marry. She did not want to rule. She wanted to...she did not know.

Frustrated Neris swam faster, an orange and blue blur. She barely saw the coral reefs or the fish anymore, all she saw was ocean, trapping her, confining her, caging her. She felt as though she was being pushed in a direction she did not want to go in and began to panic, in an attempt to rid herself of the feeling she stopped on the seabed and closed her eyes. She knew that if she could cry, she would.

She lay there for an undetermined amount of time, until the feeling of entrapment began to go. As the water flowed around her Neris studied the currents as her father had taught her to do so many years before. The tides pulled her in a direction and in a moment of reckless abandon Neris swam in the same direction.

She knew that it was the one of the first rules she been taught when she was younger, never follow a current. Rumours told that humans lay at the end, but all Neris wanted was an escape and as she reasoned there was no way to know if the rumours were true. It could all be a ruse to keep the young mer out of trouble. Deep down in her gut instinct told Neris that she should head back. The waters had grown dark and her father would be worried.

But she pushed that instinct away and swam onwards. Towards who knew what.

Even though it was unlikely, Neris felt as though the more she swam, the darker and colder it got. Deciding it was only the night growing old she pushed her tail muscles harder, all of a sudden finding that she felt a desperate need to find out what was at the end of the tide. To prove the rumours wrong. To show them that they were wrong, Neris knew that all she was really doing was delaying her time of her return but she did not care. Or at least Neris told herself she didn't.

The current came to a stop with a sudden drop. It was like there was a hole in the earth, a jagged crack heading straight down to who knows where. Peering down towards the depths Neris contemplated what to do. On one hand she could swim down to the cavern, she guessed that it was only about a hundred or so metres deep. She could be in and out of there in half an hour at most. On the other hand she knew humans had devices that could reach that depth and with the darkness there would be no way to tell what she was heading into.

The depths called to her, it had been so long since she had been on an adventure.

When she was a young princess, it had been so easy to sneak off in the middle of a lesson and go explore. Unlike her sisters, Neris never cared to explore shipwrecks or human damage, instead longing to discover the secrets of the ocean. To Neris, an underwater cave was much more fascinating than wood and human trinkets.

Neris couldn't remember the last time she had felt adrenaline coursing through her veins, felt the muscles of her tail strain. She longed for excitement. With a last look back in the direction she'd come from, Neris dived down into the dark cavern without a second thought.

Her eyesight was not the best in the darkness and Neris had to hold her hands out in front of her to stop herself from running into anything in the cavern. As she pushed her thin body forward she considered her decision to descend. Was it really that smart? No. But she did not regret the rash choice. It had been her choice. Perhaps one of the last ones she would ever have. Once she returned to her kingdom, all control would be wrenched from her hands and placed into her husbands.

The young mermaid ventured further down.

Neris contemplated closing her eyes, it would make no difference really, and instead of focusing on straining her poor eyesight she might instead awaken some other senses. Closing her eyes was a relief in itself, her eyes hurt from trying to see in the dark. However it was disconcerting to close her eyes in the darkness, she felt like she was walking into a trap. Just as the thought occurred to her her arms hit something solid.

A chain.

Before she could register what it meant she had already swum deeper into the trap. The coil of chains twisted around her, trapping Neris. Flailing her arms desperately she attempted to free herself of the chain with no success. In her panic she opened her eyes and almost wished she hadn't, while she had felt trapped in the chains, seeing the rope practically glowing in the dark made her curse at herself. If she hadn't closed her eyes she would never have been caught.

Suddenly the chain began to pull her upwards, slowly at first but then speeding up until she was panicking. What was up there? Neris could see glowing lights, and her stomach dropped to her fins. Humans. An entire kingdom of them judging by the multitude of lights. Neris truly began to struggle against her chains now.

At the place where the chains came from, was there a monster awaiting her? Or maybe she was imagining it and was pulling herself up, but if that had been the truth she would not have swum so close to the surface, especially not when she was trapped. She might disobey her fathers rules of not breaking the surface, but never in a place she could not quickly swim away from.

Here, there was no escape.