“Those who small-talk for a year
won’t then leave those who they hold dear”.
One day, after her sister’s death, the fifth princess’s betrothed came to call. As usual, they retired to an isolated chamber, one with a breathtaking view of the kingdom, which usually helped inspire topics of conversation. But today was a particularly dry day, as the merman had run out of previously-planned comments within the first hour. As the pair gazed at each other, the fifth princess found that her gaze was not so blank, after all. She began to study her betrothed in great detail. She noted his noble forehead and clear eyes. He had a strong jaw and a head full of gloriously long hair. His tail was strong and muscular, and gleamed green. His torso was well-defined and he had large pectorals with very smooth, very pink nipples. He was a handsome specimen as was expected, for he was very rich. If she had always known that he was beautiful, then why had she never noticed? Why he was suddenly so attractive to her?
The fifth princess was filled with an unfamiliar feeling of curiosity. She wondered what would happen if she touched his skin. The thought of it brought tingles to her spine and gingerly, she edged closer to her betrothed. The merman sensed her advance and began to grow alarmed. This was certainly odd behaviour. What on earth was she doing? Instinctively, he began to back away, trying to maintain the same proximity between their bodies. But the fifth princess was surprised at the pleasure she felt in pursuit of him, so she accelerated her pace and soon she had cornered him.
His eyes swung wildly in their sockets as he sought escape. But the princess was strong and slowly, she drew out her hands and placed them softly on the merman’s chest. The merman calmed a little, and watched in wonder as the mermaid began to stroke his body slowly and deliberately. A slaving of goose-pimples erupted all over his flesh. He was mesmerised. She, on the other hand, was astonished that his skin felt just like her own. She wondered why she had not thought to do this earlier. It was so much more interesting than small-talk.
The streak of humanity that had been ignited in the princess burned quickly as she found her face drawn toward his own. He had an engaging mouth, she realised, and was insatiably curious to taste it. Without further hesitation, she gripped his forearms and placed her mouth gently over his own. Not knowing how to proceed, she held it there.
The merman, who had seen his fair share of predators and was an avid hunter, was absolutely frozen with perplexity. In the mere seconds it took for his betrothed to advance, his mind had formed an intricate escape plan, which he was now strangely reluctant to act upon. There he remained, attached to the mermaid at the mouth, and suddenly his stomach twisted inside him and he felt rather curious. She was not going to eat him, he decided, and she was not going to attack further. Odd as it was, there was something pleasant in this act, this simple brushing of the lips, and before the merman realised what he was doing, old human instinct erupted.
He moved his lips beneath hers and opened his mouth. She tasted the smooth saline of octopus ink, and a hint of something metallic, like barnacles scraped from the hull of a sunken ship. Heat filled her body as she understood there was more of his mouth to taste, to explore, and time stood still. Her dead heart began to burn inside of her, and suddenly, it lurched and began to beat.
The next day, the merman arrived at the palace earlier than usual, and he and the fifth princess retired to their chamber where they immediately resumed their bodily exploration of the other. There was more to discover this time, and soon it became habitual. The merman would stay long into the night, and sometimes would not bother to leave the palace at all. He would sleep with his tail entwined around his betrothed, and wake to resume their feverish rubbing. A deadly, throbbing sound filled the chamber and no one would dare enter. It terrified all inhabitants of the palace.
One day, the fifth princess turned toward her betrothed and asked, “Do you love me?”
As soon as the word left her lips, the merman greedily breathed it into his nostrils, and it smelled like perfume. There the word lodged itself into the wide, gaping pores of the virus, lying dormant and peaceful in his bloodstream, and he became feverish with infection. “Of course I do,” the merman replied, and he meant it.
Their remaining days were spent in that chamber, which became a blessed sanctuary to them. They refrained from eating and sleeping, utterly consumed with love for the other, understanding that every moment not spent in exploration of the other was a moment wasted. The remaining four princesses became aware of their deaths only when the fateful beating in the chamber ceased. When they carefully entered the room to survey the damage, they held their noses, for the sickening smell of flowers pervaded everything. The room was empty. There was an imprint on the floor, of two bodies entwined like they were one flesh.
When the Sea King realised that his daughters were dying, a paralysing fear captured him. He avoided contact with them in the hopes of preserving his life, and did not wish to know further information about the virus that was sweeping the kingdom. He was resentful of the rumours that the disease originated within his very walls, and did not believe it, as everyone knew that disease and all manner of foul things came from close fraternization with sea-gypsies. Strange sensations seemed to follow him, the taste of an expensive potion, the silk of black hair against his cheek, the icy, beautiful reflection in the looking-glass. Sometimes, it seemed as if an animal had taken residence inside his ribcage, a small, feathered creature that would stretch its wings and flutter within him. It was a horrifying sensation.
Occasionally, these occurrences would remind him of the youngest princess. He vaguely recalled that she had disappeared sometime previously, but tried not to dwell on it. Thoughts about the youngest were always rimmed with black ooze, and the Sea King was loathe to recall her origins. However, there was a link that forged his youngest daughter indistinctly to the disease, but he did not know what.
The nanny in vain sought audience with the Sea King, who refused her admittance. She was old and wise, and committed herself to isolating the disease and discovering its cure, in her own small way. But the princesses would not hear talk of it and shunned her, suspecting her to be a carrier. The fourth sister had recently taken ill, and took to muttering numbers and lying in her back with her fingers prodding the thing hammering within. The nanny knew her time had come when the layers of ice that had stilled her own heart suddenly cracked and it began to beat.
As the forth princess and the nanny lay together dying, the remaining sisters called a meeting. Clearly there was a contagious disease present in the palace, but unlike scale-rot and leprosy of the gills, there seemed no immediate cure nor apparent prevention. Rumours had reached the palace that the disease had puckered within the noble community and had even reached the sanctuary of the commoners. Several people had confined themselves to their homes and it seemed that everyone was debating the forbidden word, this new idea, with a passion they never knew they had.
And so the remaining three princesses, each with the virus curled passively inside them, talked and talked, pooling their memories, until at last they realised that their very youngest sister, the strange one who had forsaken their species, was their only hope. She had defied the boundaries of their existence. She had been brave enough to consult the sea-witch, and who knows what powers had been granted to her there? There had always been a strange essence stirring within her. Perhaps there was a cure in the human world that she could bring to them.