After eating my wonderful royal Breakfast, I invited the others to the Andros Courtyard. An ancient place, stored with nature magic. Specifically, the nature mermaids and mermens crafted this place. An off-limit place in my castle. (As you can guess why...Or maybe not.).
I had to ask my father's permission to allow the other heirs into this place. He approved, so the others could enjoy the Kingdom's wonders.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
All of us gathered out of the Royal Dining Room.
I was the last one, still stuffing fried seaweed sushi rolls in my mouth. (And man, the flavors was delicious!) Wiping my mouth as I finished the last rolls, I make my way towards the front.
"Today, we are visiting the Heart of this Kingdom!" I announced.
There were some small murmurs in the back of the pack, so I waited until it was absolute silence. Just until a hand flew up into the air.
"What are we going to do at the Heart?" Marina asked.
"I was actually getting to that." I told her, in my usual tone of voice.
"All of us are needed to experience and learn the Ocean's power of nature. But now, let's get moving." I finished as I waved the others to follow.
We swam for one minute and thirty seconds of silence. And yes, I counted that. Why? Because my sister Aisha and my brother Daniel started a new conversation. It was about the new book. Which was titled, "Loving the Winged Ones" a fairy and mermaid love story was what I've heard.
A mermaid wrote it. And she better did not get that inspiration from my parents, or she's dead. And....she did not. My father put her in a trial, with him being the Jury. She was tested and she wasn't.
I turned right, into a dark cave. I shivered, darkness was my fear. I stopped.
The mers behind me bumped into me, making me fall.
My face crashed onto the cold floor of the cave. The others on top of me, groaned.
Brandon who was the very last, had seen the others falls, halted and rushed around the pile to help. He pulled the others one by one away from each other, and sat next to me.
"What was that sudden stop for?!?!" Demanded Rhea.
I didn't reply, letting them know my weakness wasn't safe, so I just shrugged.
The Prince (A.K.A. King in training) helped me up, I thanked him and summon the light. Now, my glowing hand shall lead the way to one of the greatest part in the whole entire sea dimension. (Whoopee?)
We all passed some dark seaweed, fluttering leaves, with guards behind them. And onto the best part of the path. The Hall Of Flowers and Creatures. Well, as you can imagine, if it's the Princess's favorite part, all the others seemed to enjoy it's beauty as well.
I smiled as I introduced this site to my companions. All of them were interested, from the the palace's beauty. Something I've expected.
But Brandon...looked absolutely bored. Almost like, my home was something he had seen before or had been to on an occasion. My feelings were slightly broken since this is the Garden I valued most of all my life. But these feelings, I pushed them away. Not wanting these weak emotions to take control over me.
Seeing his boredom, I made my ways into describing the stories and legends of this area. It was quite some time ago that this place was created. As I said before, this place was made by nature mermaids. Which holds something magical that the Nature mermaids had in stored to this powerful nature area.
You can tell by the algae, sticking to the dark cavern walls of this nature-made cave. To me it was fascinating! Walking through this place with my friends makes me feel like I'm a 2 years old in my mother's arm again!
It took awhile 'till we got to our destination. To the others, it didn't seemed to take long to them. On the way they was enjoying and chattering happily about the palace. None of the looks on their faces never looked disappointed (But still that face of Brandon's....-Oh my goodness just ignore it!)
When we finally arrived at the grand entrance, I could hear Marina gasped in surprise. As usual, the door was sparkling in the ocean blue waves, radiating powerful magic from the inside door.
I smiled and stopped.
"This," I pointed at a large door with green decorated vines. "Is the Entrance of the Heart Courtyard."
"Oh! That thing!" Brandon suddenly said. I flinched. Jeez, such disrespect!
As I was about to ask what did Brandon meant by 'That thing.' my brother beat me to it. But only phrasing it in a dumb way. (No offense bro).
My brother Daniel raised an eyebrow at him, "What 'thing'?" My brother asked. Apparently the boy isn't so bright.
As they started their own conversation, the rest of the girls groaned in irritation. I watched them, glaring. Wondering when will they even look back at me. Annoyed, I did the only thing I always had done to get people's attention.
Snap. Snap. Snap. One of my fingers cracked in pain when I did the second snap, I did my best to hide it. Both of the boys looked at me and rolled their eyes. They weren't hard to get their attention focused on me, which is the good thing.
I sighed, shaking my head. Turning my head back to the Entrance, the door was wide open. My eyes wild and fearful, I scanned the crowd. As if physically doing that would let them know what I want. They were shocked but not scared, just suspicious.
We glanced around for some time until we noticed that one is missing. Lux. She's the one! Furious at her ridiculous action, I began the scream at the top of my lungs for her name. The others, backed up from me a little. I was gifted with a loud voice. Apparently.
Once my voice was cut. Lux swam out of the entrance with wide eyes. Her arms swaying, keeping her balanced in the currents that I've created while screaming.
She looked at me with a apologetic facial expression," I'm sorry."
Feeling not so well with my hurt voice, I decided to let that pass. Just hoping the girl would understand safety at first. I nodded to let her understand that it was fine.
I sighed. When it comes to be a leader, is it really this difficult? I thought silently to myself.
"Guys come on! I want to show you the best part!" I shouted, my emotions changed completely when I passed through the Entrance of the Royal Courtyard. I spread both of my arms and grinned. "Guys, welcome to the doors of the Ocean Nature's beauty."
"It looks like the courtyard I have at home back in Atlantic." Brandon said with no feeling.
"Then welcome back to your home Courtyard." I replied, hoping that sounded clever enough to shut him up.
It felt like he had more to say, but my announcements are always first. "Our job in this place is to have built a strong connection to the nature powers of all the Oceans."
They rose their eyebrows as if-confused. Rhea was the only one poking around playing with some sea flowers. Great idea. One way to become best friends with those flowers. Which makes sense, a Princess from the Mediterranean has lots of lost statues of the Ancient Atlantis treasures in their Kingdom. In fact, that is what their kingdom is practically made of. It would be understandable if this girl is curious and wise.
I swam closer to the center of the garden where I knew by heart all the corals are. Also home to some small fish and sea horse, only the baby ones. The tiny cute little kind creatures of the ocean. And the great figures of Poseidon and Amphitrite . Not Rhea's parents...the old ones. The ones who had created our kind. They are made of gold, smooth and fragile, standing on the smooth cool white marble below them.
Since this was built centuries ago, it's now covered in vines. And it had some of those slimy stuff on it like some other old stuff in our place was left untouched for a long time.
Turning around, I saw the other mers exploring the place. Hanging out with Brandyn, as if he's her brother. They were laughing as Lux gave the poor plant a sneezing spell. Brandyn pulling her away from the plant, readying for it's reaction.
As he was doing so, I heard Lux say, " What? It's not like the thing is going to squeeze me to death like the grip you're putting on my shoulders."
"Guess what?" Brandyn started back," You'll never know."
"Looks safe to me." The young princess said, waving her delicate white hands in front of him.
I giggled quietly as I watched them. Though, my eyes searched for Anahi, who was also watching the both of them talk.
She was sitting down on the ceramic bench, where most of the flowers are located. Her eyes glinting with small hurt, watching Brandyn hold Lux made her look uneasy. She likes Brandyn? I wondered curiously. But-bu...Ugh, forget about it. Only Aisha would understand about these relationship stuff, not me.
Just a moment of thinking about my girly older sister, she was right at my side. Literally poking me in the ribs. Feeling the sharpness from her fingernails I hugged my stomach as if that really took affect on me. Though, from that short second of reacting, I heard her giggle when another pair of arms went around me.
Somehow, that made me tickle uncomfortably. I fought my way out of the arms to gain my freedom of space again. It wasn't that difficult to break through, since they weren't actually fully around me to grip the fingers together.
"Sorry for the pokie." Aisha said, with small humor in her voice. She looked at me, her eyes reflecting me. Narrowed eyes, irritated expression and my arms crossed in front of my chest.
"It's fine." I told her, as I slowly loosen the expression I'm wearing on my face. Though, Brandon swam into view, which made me tighten my expression harder. My lips pressed into a thin line.
"Having fun?" He asked.
I rose an eyebrow at him. "I think I should be asking you that question."
"Why?"
"This is my Kingdom, it is my responsibility to ensure my guests stay with all their wishes granted."
He stared at me, wrinkling his tan forehead as he did so. "I wasn't expecting that." He said, leaning back, "Then if so, if I wish of anything you will give it to me won't you?"
"That would depends on what you ask for." I said, suppressing my laughter for some weird reason, this doesn't sound to make me laugh but my heart somehow takes this as something funny.
"You look like you're holding back your laughter." He noted. My stomach gave a little lurch.
I swallowed uneasily, and pointed in the direction of Rhea, Marine, Aisha and Daniel, "Let's go join them?" I suggested.
He nodded. Thank you oh good lord of the sea.
Rhea had her arm over Marina shoulders chatting happily, starting to erupt the plant's magic and feeling. Swimming closer to them, I let my arm fall over Marina's other free shoulder.
"Yay! You guys almost did it! You almost summon the Magical Heart of the plant!"
Rhea grinned, "Almost, though some plants are too sleepy to accept my invitation of Nature bonding." she grumbled.
"I mean hey, these plants haven't been touched in seven years."
"Seven years?" Rhea clarified. "Wow, that makes our job so much easier." She smiled with sarcasm.
"Guys, there's always something called trying." Marina called out.
"Exactly." Daniel put in.
"Shut up." I told the guy.
"Whenever you two are around why do you guys argue all the time?" Marina questioned us.
"I find it fun." Daniel replied.
I just shrugged, knowing that if I gave an answer it would be pretty long. Another one? I would make Marina uncomfortable by pointing out that he has the biggest crush on the princess.
Brandon who was still beside me, let out a long huff. " Can't we do something else instead of summoning some random plant magic, this is incredibly boring."
"Ah, good to know." I replied to him, darkening my eyes. "I shall prepare something more surprising next time for you. Though, so far I haven't seen you summon any type of magic from any of the plants."
"Sorry then Princess Layla, then I shall demonstrate it for you then." He grinned, dripping mock and irritation in his tone.
I nodded. "Go ahead."
He did the summon with little difficulties. Holding the flower petals it started to glow dark blue. The flower itself was green, with sharp edges and it's rough skin. For a short second we were covered by a dark green allusion. And it stank.
My eyelids started to drop, until the dark green fog disappeared. I gasped for air, scrunching my nose.
"I think I shouldn't next time." I mumbled to myself.
" Yeah, you have a new plan?" Brandon asked.
"Yep, in this place we have a training arena. We can do that to finish up some duels." I said glinting a dangerous spark at my brother, Daniel.
"Really?" Daniel asked, putting his hands on his hips.
I smiled confidently.
Waving both of my arms I yelled for Lux, Anahi, Brandyn, Ariella and Undine. "Come guys! We are going!"
Hearing that, they swam toward us. I started to leave with Marina and Rhea by my side. It was still beautiful swimming to the Training Arena.
On the way, I pointed above us, where the waves are rushing gently. "Right above us, lies a lagoon. Shielding us with magic to keep it away from mortals."
Once we were there, the place still had looked like before when my mother and I did a little magic duel. Though it was covered in moss, the cool stone of the area looked kind of broken.
It was a circle platform. Around it was a carved in a ancient design, the sharpness of ups and downs of the circular design was light up with an aqua-ish glow. Around the circular design, on five of the even equal corners there's a piece of a green piece shell. And above the shell, stood a rocky stand.
Above the platform, the sunlight lit the arena with a welcoming glow.
On both sides of the Arena, are the supplies of weapons. Small, big, weak, powerful, tricky? Yep, we got it all in this rack.
"I volunteer to go first and my opponent is Daniel." I declared, speeding to the weapon rack.
He snorted but agreed anyways.
Once we were finish with our weaponry, we faced each other at the arena.
My weapon was simple. Just a bare stick with nothing too fancy for it's abilities. But Daniel, took a trident, which I'm not too confident of to go up against.
I assigned Rhea to be the judge, also the one who to call out the starting duel. She wasn't happy about it, but obliged. She separated us by her arm and started off the counting.
"One, two, and THREE!" She flew back with so much force Brandon and Marina had to catch her from falling to the hard stones.
Daniel charged, I did not. That was the first impact, and it was like concrete. He slammed me to the platform, forcing me to retreat, bringing out my useless weapon. I put it out in front of me to keep him from any further of abdomen attacks.
He again went into a dive for another attack, though knowing his patterns I got out of the passage before I could endure the fork-like trident he's trying to dangerously poke at me. Honestly, I can even tell you his weakness in dueling, diving and trying to stab things at the wrong time. Always, I tell you. It's like that always.
Rising my body as quick as I can, I gave him a whack on the back. That slowed him down just slightly, so I decided to charge at him. Now that he was facing me, during my short charge, he caught the long wand and wrestled it out of me. Angered flared inside of me. Using my strength, kicked the trident out of his arms and started to come back with bare hands.
His muscles were humongous. He pushed me toward one of the stone pillars while I had to fight back. Over working my arms to have the equal strength of a man's. Though, my brother's pushes were stronger than mine's so I felt the stone pillar came in contact with my back. Using that as an advantage, I pushed back. Knocking him to the ground.
A sharp whistle finally came, telling us that the duel is officially over. I inhaled quickly, gaining my breathe back. I exit the dueling platform, worried that Daniel decided to do another round of the duel.
"Layla." Rhea announced.
I smiled. "Thanks." I managed to whisper.
I went over to the large bleachers, which was made of stone. [Like duh]. Sitting next to Marina, Ariella and Undine, regaining my strength. But Brandon is of course, sitting behind me. Just for a moment, after I've sat, Undine stood up and walked over to Rhea, whispering something.
Rhea nodded, and pointed at the weapon stationary where opponents choose their weapons for the duel. But Undine shook her head, heading to the dueling center.
"Undine has requested for the Princess of The Seven Seas to duel!" Rhea announced.
Lazily, I straighten myself. "Seriously? But I just was selected for my brother's duel, but now this?"
"It's a magic duel." Clarified Undine, looking quite confident.
"Still, can I get a break?" I asked, "I mean, I was wrestling a second ago, now you guys expect me to summon magic?"
Everyone giggled. "Such skills for fighting." I heard Brandon say.
Having a sting in my stomach, I stood up from the bleachers, taking soft waves with my tail. Taking my time to regain my energy.
When I've reached the middle of the platform, I called for my power, the Ocean's depths. Undine summoned hers, a red coral. Symbolism for strength and plants.
It was an intense battle. Undine was actually a pretty worthy opponent! By her skills, I could tell that she had been practicing how to control the ocean's power as a young child- like me.
I lowered by level of magic slightly to see what Undine decides to do. Taking a deep breathe and relaxing my arms, I let her win. Knowing how a young child would react after losing, I would just let this be.
I felt her magic touching my skin, it was actually really stronger than I've thought! The feeling was ridiculously terrible! Like a strong large heat wave wiping you off. I smiled as I let the magic come into me.
Finally, the whistle came. "Undine, Princess of The Red Sea."
Thank you AnnabethC for this amazing picture!
For those who also wants to contribute, please send me it in messages. That would very much appreciated. :)