Long, long ago, in an enchanted kingdom very far away, there lived a handsome prince. And in that kingdom, there also lived a first minister, whose job was to run the kingdom and who was fed up to here with the handsome prince.
"Your Highness," he sighed, taking a deep breath and bowing in front of the prince, who was just sitting down to an opulent breakfast. "I must once more strongly convey my severe dissatisfaction with your lack of interest in initiating a matrimonial arrangement."
The prince nodded gravely, for he was a good prince and always lent an ear to his wise first minister. Thus, he spoke, "Okay...can you say that again, maybe so that I can actually understand what you're talking about?"
"I want you to get off your ass and get married!"
Once again, the prince nodded gravely. For he was a good prince and very talented at nodding gravely.
"I see. And why exactly?"
"Because, Your Highness, considering the recent demise of your forbearers, the populace might suffer from increasing anxiety due to your lack of issue."
"English, please."
"The people are worried because your parents kicked the bucket and you have no heir yet!"
"Ah, I see."
This was indeed a mighty problem that had weighed on the minister's mind for a long, long time. Since he was such a wise man, filled with knowledge of both the heart and mind, he approached it with his customary, unparalleled tact.
"I mean, honestly! What is the problem?" he demanded. "There are over one million, five hundred seventy-one thousand three hundred and forty-five women in this enchanted kingdom! Five thousand more if you count the ones that have been turned into deer and various kinds of frogs. It shouldn't be too hard to get one of them knocked up, and, after that, it'll be easy-peasy! I mean, what girl wouldn't want to marry a prince? The I-want-to-marry-a-prince instinct is practically tattooed on female brains!"
"You think so?"
"I know so! There was a poll on that only last week! Look!"
Withdrawing a brightly colored publication from his robes of state, the minister held it up for the prince to examine. The prince did so with due diligence. Then he directed his princely gaze to the minister, raising a royal eyebrow.
"You read teen magazines for girls?"
The minister's venerable face turned as red as the roses on a rose bush enchanted by an evil fairy godmother to be a particularly beautiful red.
"That is beside the point! The point is, Your Highness, that you seem to be, as the young people would put it, a 'hot commodity.' I quote—" Leafing through the magazine, he found the page he wanted. "OMG!!!! The prince is so freaking hot! Is the opinion of a young lady called Maggy from Fairywood. Whereas a young lady from Pixyburg declares that she is endlessly and eternally in love with him, and I know people say it is impossible, but someday I'm sure we will meet and he will fall in love with me on the spot. A young lady from Twinkle-Twinkle-by-the-Sea proclaims I want him! OMG!! I just want to rip his clothes off and..."
The minister cleared his throat, cutting off. As mentioned before, he was not only a very wise and venerable minister, but also a very tactful one.
"What does 'OMG' mean?" the prince inquired.
"I believe it is some sort of acronym, Your Highness. I have put together a research team to discover what the letters stand for and will inform you as soon as we shall have any results. However," he cleared his throat once more, "I believe it is clear that the young ladies are generally enthusiastic about you. Why not pick one of them?"
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.
When she broke the surface, the first thing she saw was a mighty palace, standing upon something that looked somewhat like the bottom of the sea but, strangely, had no water on it.
"This must be the place my mother told me of," the little mermaid said to herself. "The place called 'mainland,' where people are dry, and where there are no sharks that eat your sisters, and where you don't have to force down seaweed for breakfast every morning. What a wondrous place it must be."
Now, the little mermaid pondered what to do.
"Oh, what the heck!" she exclaimed. "I'm not going to sit on my fins for the rest of my days! Let's have an adventure!"
And she ventured forth towards the mainland.
It just so happened that, at this very moment, the handsome prince was strolling along the cliffs beneath his palace. A romantically helpful gust of wind suddenly gripped him and threw him down, down into the sea, and he thought his days were numbered. But, actually, they were only being alphabetized.
"Oh no!" the little mermaid cried, seeing the lone figure fall from the cliff. "He's going to get wet! And he was so wonderfully dry before!"
With a loud splash, the prince hit the waves and disappeared into the ocean. Diving down, the little mermaid managed to grab one flailing boot and pulled. The boot came off. Muttering a curse she had learned from a very nasty old sea snake, she dived down again and grabbed the young man around the waist, pulling him upwards until they broke the surface of the sea.
The moment they were up in the sunlight, the little mermaid's eyes went wide. Diving down, she hadn't really been able to stop to think or look. Now, for the first time, she realized that not only did the strange boy have legs instead of fins, but that the rest of him was most wondrously formed: strong arms, broad shoulders, and a bold, square-jawed face that was so handsome, she could have fainted on the spot. He was the most beautiful creature she had ever seen! Suddenly, the little mermaid became very aware that his body was pressing tightly against hers and that she was wearing nothing but the customary sea-shell bikini of all little mermaids.
The prince, for his part, was staring at the little mermaid just as awed. "Your fins..." he murmured, his eyes blazing. "The seaweed in your hair..."
The little mermaid turned her face away, ashamed. She knew she should have combed out her hair that morning!
"You're so beautiful!"
Surprised, the little mermaid peeked up at him. "What?"
"You're beautiful! The most beautiful girl I've ever seen in my life!"
The little mermaid felt herself turn blue, as all sea creatures do when they blush. "You...you're just saying that."
And then the prince took her face in both hands and lifted her chin, so she had to look into his deep, deep, deep blue eyes. Before, the little mermaid had thought that the Mariana Trench, where the ocean floor was ten thousand nine hundred ninety-four meters from the surface, was deep. She had been wrong.
"I am not," the prince said, "just saying that."
And then he kissed her.
Later that day, the prince strode into his minister's chambers, wet from head to toe, a radiant smile on his face.
"I'm in love!" he announced. "I'm going to marry!"
"Finally!" Breathing a sigh of relief, the minister sagged into his ministerial chair. "I'm so relieved that at last you've gotten this mermaid nonsense out of your system! Who is she?"
*********
Several months of intense aquatic romance and ministerial debates passed. The young couple were as happy as ever a couple in love were. Still, they were from two different worlds, and often, the little mermaid sighed, knowing that there were barriers between them that could never be crossed.
"You are a human," she said to the prince. "I am a mermaid. I have no legs, only a tail and fins. How can you not become disgusted with me? How can you not one day want to leave me for another?"
Leaning towards her, the prince cupped her face in her hands. "Do not worry about that. I love you just as you are."
"Really?"
"Yes. Really. If you want, I'll have a big pool installed in my palace. Once we are married, you can stay there and spend all day with me."
Hearing this, the little mermaid became sad. "Alas," she sighed, "I cannot. For it is a curse upon us mermen and women that we have no souls, like humans do. As soon as we leave the sea, which is the source of our life, we would be turned to dust and scattered by the wind—just like humans, because they have a soul, cannot live under the sea."
Hearing this, the prince became very sad, too. He had many plans for the girl he loved—her disintegrating into dust and being scattered by the wind was not one of them.
"And is there no way for you to get a soul?" he asked.
"No. They're impossible to get! I tried once. I went to the soul shop at the shores of Italy to have one custom-made. You wouldn't believe the prices they ask! And it takes three years to even get on the waiting list!"
The little mermaid gazed up at him, agony in her eyes. She couldn't imagine being parted from him. What could she do? She could ask her father to get her a soul for her birthday, but she doubted he would ever agree. And her birthday was still months off! She loved the prince with an immense, all-consuming, shark-like, submarine volcano-like passion. She couldn't wait months and months and months to be with him! She had to be united with him now!
"What shall we do?" she demanded.
The prince nodded gravely, acknowledging the seriousness of the problem. But then his face brightened.
"I've got it!"
"What? You know how I can get a soul?"
"No."
"But then I can never come to live at your palace!"
"No problem!" the prince proclaimed. "I'll just get rid of my soul! Then I can come into the ocean and live with you under the sea!"
The little mermaid stared at him for a moment—then threw her arms around him and kissed him!
"You would do that for me?" she whispered.
"For you, my love, I would do anything."
Having taken his leave of the little mermaid, with a promise to return soon, the wet prince climbed out of the bay where he and his girlfriend usually met and went straight to a wicked witch whose evil magic he had seen advertised on billboards in town.
"I want to get rid of my soul, so I can live with my love under the sea," said he to her.
"You're bat-shit crazy," the old witch told him.
"Do my will, old hag, or I shall have thee burned at the stake!" said he to her.
"Of course, My Lord! Certainly, My Lord. Come this way, please, and we'll get rid of that soul in no time!"
Thus, the wicked witch purchased the prince's soul for $3.99 and gave it to the devil, who could make much better use of it, anyway. The prince, blessedly soulless, returned to the little mermaid and jumped into the bay, not caring how wet he got.
"You did it?" the little mermaid asked, her eyes shining with love and adoration. "You really did it?"
The prince grinned at her with a wicked, soulless, and entirely lovable grin. "What do you think?" He beckoned to her and opened his arms. "Come here."
The little mermaid threw herself into his arms, and they kissed in a way that was illegal in thirty-two countries. But then, they were in the ocean, and the sea has no laws on kissing.
Still embracing her prince, the little mermaid dived into the water, down, down towards the deepest depths of the ocean, past where even whales dared to venture, to her father's palace to introduce her boyfriend to the King of the Sea. And there they stayed and lived happily ever after. As for the prince's minister—he moved to a neighboring country, ruled by a much more sensible prince.
And the moral of the story is: wait until you find someone who loves you for who you really are.
Or, another moral is: your soul is worth at least $3.99.
Or, yet another alternative moral: fishtails are cool!
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Hello and welcome to my newest book, my dear Lords, Ladies & Mermaids!
Did you enjoy chapter one of WARNING! Fairy Tales?
If so you can continue to tale #13 in this fairy tale collection, "Fishy Freedom", which contains more fabulous mermaid adventures. Or you can go straight on to tale #2 and find out what happens in dark, dank forests full of child-munching witches ;-)
In case you'd like to support my semi-professional writing career & at the same time simultaneously get to read more fabulously mad fairy tales from me, you can purchase the PUBLISHED EDITION of this fairy tale collection, available in three separate volumes with 10 stories each, including THREE EXTRA TALES EACH that you will not find on Wattpad. The three volumes can be purchased via Amazon as well as just about any other online / offline shops!
Thank you for your awesome support! :) It's because of great fans like you that I've been able to build my dream of a professional writing career.
Here is a little bit more information on how to get your hands the published versions:
The titles are quite simple to remember ;-)
Book 1: "WARNING! Fairy Tales"
Book 2: "WARNING! Fairy Tales 2"
Book 3 "WARNING! Fairy Tales 3"
All 3 volumes can be purchased either in ebook or paperback format. The printed edition of the three books can be purchased either at a number of big online book stores like Amazon or Barnes & Noble, or at your local bookstore via the general book trade.
The ebooks can be purchased at every single one of the big online ebook shops, including Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple iBooks and Kobo.
Just google the titles of the three volumes, and I'm quite certain you'll find the book you want. :-)
Last but certainly not least, if you would like to find out some more background info about the above story: The Fishy Little Mermaid is mostly based on two famous fairy tales, The Fisherman and His Soul, by American writer Oscar Wilde, and The Little Mermaid, by Danish author Hans Christian Andersen. Now I shall once again more resume writing my next story for your entertainment. If all goes as I expect, it will be ready by next Friday! :-)
Yours Truly
Sir Rob, Official Chronicler of the Enchanted Kingdom