I'm in Love with a Fairy Tale
*Just a little boyxboy little mermaid AU, rated PG, English Class “rewrite a Fairy Tale” assignment. I know its bad, Don’t hate me please!*
I lay on the warm rock, basking in the sunlight. My arms stretching out far towards the sandy beach that lays not that far in front of me. My turquoise blue fin stretched out, the end just barely dipping in the water. The ocean rushing back and forth from the currents deep below the transparent surface. Suddenly, there he is. The boy I saved from the hurricane a few days ago. His ship was completely demolished from the 50 foot waves, the harsh rainstorm was no help either. Lucky for him, I was there to help out. It was too chaotic for him to realize I was a merman. If my father ever found out I’d be banished from the kingdom for the rest of my life.
“Prince Levi, please you mustn’t wander so far off.” Someone spoke, running up to him. His shoes kept slipping off his feet due to the sand.
“So that’s his name.” I say. He kept walking though, ignoring the man behind him.
“Sire please you mustn’t-”
“Will you please just leave me alone? I wanna be alone!” He shouted, even I flinched. The man simply turned around and walked back the way he came from. Levi walked along the boardwalk, heading towards the docks. He was wearing a white, long sleeved collared shirt with the sleeves rolled up, blue trousers with a red sash, and black boots. His shirt collar was open to the point that it reveals his clavicles. His hair was short, straight black styled in an undercut. I slid off the rock and quietly swam towards the pier. Sailors were everywhere dancing, singing, drinking, laughing but he just ignored them. Soon enough, we were at the lagoon. This is where I brought him to rest after the hurricane.
What are you doing all the way out here?
I hid behind the tall grass so he wouldn’t see me. He walked up to the giant willow tree, not far from where I was hiding. The wind blowing ever so gently, the sunset shone in his steel grey, emotionless eyes.
What are you doing now? He pulled something out of his pocket, a flower? I gasp loudly.
“A Eichhornia crassipes!”
“Whose there?” He yelped, dropping the flower. His head snapped in my direction, I jumped out of the water onto the edge of the sandbank and stared him dead in the eyes.
“What are you doing, don’t drop it!” My arm flails out in front, gesturing to the fallen object. Confusion and fear were written all over his face. He quickly picked up the flower, and stepped back.
“Who are you, what do you want with this?” His pampering questions kept him so distracted he tripped over a rock, causing him to topple over into the piranha infested part of the lagoon. I jumped back into the sea, swimming as fast as my fin could get me to the other side of the willow tree. I quickly see his body thrashing around trying to scare off the piranhas from biting him. I spring into action, maneuvering myself through the shoal. I clutch onto his arms, front to back, and speak lowly in his ear.
“Stop thrashing, they think you’re trying to steal their eggs,” he slowed down his movement and turned around, meeting my gaze. “Take a deep breath we’re going under.” Quick flip of the tail and we were off to the caves, a trail of bubbles behind us.
--
“How are you feeling?” We
“Better, now that I’m not surrounded by flesh eating piranha’s.”
“Those are Tambaqui. They are relative’s of the piranha. Fortunately, it doesn’t share its cousin’s flesh-eating lifestyle.”
“Non flesh eating piranha?” I stared at him. Do human’s not know about Tambaqui?
“Oh, I guess you learn something new everyday, I’m sorry but what are you exactly, a mermaid?”
“Technically I’m a merman.” He looked at me strangely but nodded along. Droplets of water slide down his body, landing on the rocks below him, he didn’t say anything, he only stared deeply into my turquoise-golden eyes.
His steel eyes expanded widely, “You’re the one who saved me from the shipwreck,” I sighed, lifted myself out of the the water, and placed myself in a sitting position by his feet nodding my head slowly. “Why?”
“I couldn’t just let you and those men die!”
“Who are you?”
“My name is Jaskier, I live in the underwater Kingdom Oceana with the rest of the Merpeople and my family.” He nodded.
“And you’re the prince.” I’m sorry what?
“How do you know that?”
“There’s a photo of a mermaid and her son in my mother’s journal, your eyes match the little boy's.” He pulled a photo out of his pocket, showing it to me.
“Huh, I’ll be damned,” I took the photo and examined it closely, it definitely was my mother and I in the photo, it had a date on the back. “this photo was taken the day my mother was killed by your family.” His face fell with sadness.
“How old were you?”
“Well, its dated ten years ago so I was about eleven.”
“I’m so sorry,” His eyes welled up with tears, a couple cascading down his face. Those beautiful steel gray eyes I’ve grown to love oh so much. “If you don’t mind me asking, why did you want this flower?” My eyes darted to his pocket to see the down crushed flower, I shook my head sighing.
“It’s not important, they are just rare and I’m kind of a collector of rare and odd items found in the sea. My friends call me a hoarder but I don’t mind.” He laughed.
“What about your family?” I could hear the hesitancy in his voice when he asked.
“Well, it’s just my father and I, we use to be so close. But, when mother past, he became unpleasant. If he found out about the trove, or you, or even me saving you, I’d be in big trouble.”
“I think it’s a little too late for that.” Levi spoke, lifting his hand and pointing towards the setting sun. There he floated, the king of the sea, the ruler of all oceans, my father.
“Oh crap.”
--
“I consider myself a reasonable merman. I set certain rules and I expect those rules to be obeyed!”
I stare dead straight into his eyes, not daring to blink, “Father please listen to me-”
“Is it true you rescued a human from drowning?!”
“Father I had to!” The guards held onto my shoulders with grips of steel, making sure I don’t swim away.
“Contact between the human world and the mer world is strictly forbidden! Jaskier, you know that! Everyone knows that!”
“He would have died!”
“One less human to worry about.”
“You don’t even know him.”
“Know him? I don’t have to know him! They’re all the same: Spineless, savage, harpooning fish-eaters, incapable of any feeling.” That’s it, I have to say something.
“Father I love him!” I slap my hands over my mouth, but it was to late. All the merfolk around us gasped aloud.
“No. Have you lost your senses completely?! He’s a human! You’re a merman! As long as you live under my ocean, you’ll obey my rules.”
“I don’t care, I am nearly 21 years of age. I do not have to listen to you anymore!” Father’s eyes were wide with rage.
“So help me, Jaskier, I am going to get through to you. And if this is the only way, so be it!”
--
I slowly pull myself onto the sandy white beach, legs and feet all cut and caught in seaweed, hair tangled with sand in it. Hacking as much water as I could out of my lungs so I could breathe properly. I stop to catch my breath, when a shadow lays ahead of me not to far. I look up to see Levi standing in front of me with a sad look on his face and a wrapping of some sort in his arms.
“His only son, only child, confesses his love for a human and the king himself banishes the prince to the surface.”
“It’s okay, I never belonged there anyways. I figured that out when I first met you, 11 years ago, with our mothers conversing about how to get the sea and the land to become friends. Unfortunately, that dream died alongside with my mother that day.” He bent down, locked the wrapping around my waist, lifted me up onto my knees? Is that what they’re called? Then continued to carry me bridal style towards the castle.
“Meeting you all those years ago was the best day of my life, and I swear to protect you, love you, cherish you, and all else for the rest of our lives.”
“I’d like that very much.”
