the middle mermaid

Look, when your father's King Triton, you have little say in your life. You performed for the fishes, pretended you don't eat half of them whenever you're not on display, dealt with the brunt of Dad's rage towards Ariel until the disfavored daughter finally deigned to appear, then swim off with your sisters to gossip about Pisces' new fin-building routine and whether eating snails truly did make your skin clearer. You've always been a side character, fourth-born of seven, and at first, Ariel's drama remains just that, drama.

You were angry with her for ruining yet another event, as Dad's fury makes the entire area tense, scuttling creatures forever attempting to avoid the path of his wrath. You and your sisters were among those scuttling creatures. Ariel was unaware, off in her own little world, but each of you had places you'd swim off to when the chaotic currents overwhelmed you.

Your sisters gossip about who might have her singing, whereas you keep an eye out for Dad's crustacean colleague, who often listens in on girl talk because government business is extremely boring. You'd empathize, but Sebastian chose this life, whereas you merely had the misfortune of being born to royal parents. Unlike Andrina and Ariel, you had memories of that happier time when Dad rarely used his trident and Mom was alive. But that time was over. You tried not to think about your childhood, about how Mom would respond if she knew the way Dad ran the ocean, the waves his rage enabled.

When Ariel ran away to the human world, your own life didn’t change much. She was often out exploring while your sisters and you tended to more practical matters. The scuttlebutt around the sea was that she had visited aunt Ursula, which was never a good idea. When Dad exiled someone, he had good reason to, and from what Attina remembered, Ursula’s crime involved de-finning live dolphins. There had been blood, Mom was still alive and had been the one to convince Dad Ursula couldn’t be saved, it had been a scandal even before whispers about black magic floated around.

Ariel’s trip to the surface meant Sebastian was no longer around spying on the rest of the family, so your other sisters took full advantage. You snacked on the sea sponges, content at having the area to yourself as your sisters were out partying. They’d regret the anemone highs in the morning, even if Dad didn’t yell when he noticed all of his daughters were disobedient. Even though you hadn't left home with the rest of them, you'd be blamed for not stopping them, for knowing and not preventing. Triton expected his daughters to parent each other while he ran the kingdom. Still, Arista had her first kiss with Pisces at the party, so you had missed out on witnessing that. If she was as bad at kissing as she was dancing, it would have been a hilarious sight to see.

In time, fish and merfolk alike shared more scuttlebutt about your youngest sister. Ursula’s contract with Ariel required her to have her first kiss, with the human prince she had fallen for, without the ability to communicate with bubbles or electromagnetic pulses you all used underwater. Apparently electricity worked differently on land, almost as though mermaids and humans were different species! You didn’t understand Ariel, why she wanted a human man, but you hoped she succeeded. 

She did. Ursula was banished again, this time for trying to steal Ariel and Triton's souls via magic, and in the chaos, you and your sisters never had an opportunity to truly tell Ariel goodbye, or that you loved her, would miss her. You hoped she knew that. She swam in the sea near the shore sometimes, with her human prince, and you would watch with your sisters and Dad, unable to break the barrier between her new world and your oceanic one.

Flounder swam around still, an Ariel-sized hole in his life too, and you let him accompany you when you gathered kelp and sea snails for dinner, Flounder feeding on any polycheates you swam past. He also accompanied you and your sisters as you swam towards the whale falls in search of blubber to help your kingdom through the cold currents. Unbeknownst to you, Prince Eric, now King in his own right, would be doing similar work to aid his people, with Ariel by his side.

Time continued to move - whales migrated, salmon spawned, the ocean's cycles turned and turned, waves forever crashing on the shore, and eventually Ariel was no longer the little girl she once was. A new young teenager, Melody, would eventually make her way back to the ocean, curious about the water. She would swim by the mermaids, at first unaware she had aunts below the surface that would be thrilled to meet her.

That’s not to say your other sisters hadn’t had babies of their own, because they did. You never fell in love yourself, nor found it in you to lay eggs and wait for a passing merman to fertilize them just so you could be a mother. No, you were content with your role as the aunt who brought food over to your nieces and nephews. As a younger child, you had no legacy to live up to, and Dad cared more for his granddaughters and grandsons than he had his own daughters, leaving you often forgotten. The curse of not reproducing was not being noticed, no longer being put on display the way you had been as teenagers.

But the blessing of not being noticed? When you befriended a mermaid from waters a ways inland, not in Ariel's kingdom but a river that connected to your sea from the other side, nobody noticed. While your sisters struggled to raise their baby merlings, you were out exploring these rivers with your new friend, Meribella. You began to understand Ariel more, what had drawn her to the surface. You were still swimming, just in shallower waters.

Meribella was unlike anyone you had ever known. Her smile, the flick of her fins when she was excited, the way the sun reflected off her scales when you two explored dangerously near the surface, being around Meribella was akin to how you imagined anemone-highs felt. Eventually you realized what that feeling was - you, like your sisters but a bit later, had fallen in love.