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“Will you tell me a story?” the little girl asked, her blue eyes wide and far-too-excited, considering that she was meant to be going to bed.
Her mother laughed lightly, smoothing a hand over the girl’s blonde ringlets, her own blonde hair pulled up into a messy ponytail. “What story do you want me to tell you?” she asked.
The little girl looked thoughtful for a moment. “Something about the sea,” she said finally, clutching her blanket in her little fists. “Because we went and saw Moana, and I want to know more about the fishies and stuff.”
Her mother sat down on the edge of her bed. “Well, did you know that there are people who live under the sea?”
The girl’s eyes went even wider. “No!”
“Mmhmm,” her mother said. “They’re called merpeople - mermaids and mermen and all the other merfolk. They have the heads and arms and stomachs of people-” She tickled her daughter’s tummy and the girl giggled. “And they have fish tails instead of legs. And once upon a time, there was a beautiful mermaid who was a princess under the sea. Her name-”
“Can we call her Cosette?” the girl interrupted, something in her grin impish.
The mother laughed again, though this time her laugh was gentle. “Very well. We’ll call her Cosette.”
Cosette lived in an underwater palace with her father, King Valjean, and all varieties of fish and sea creatures and many other merpeople. And for the most part, Cosette was happy.
But Cosette was also curious, and one day, her curiosity got the better of her. She snuck up to the surface of the sea and stuck her head out of the water to see what lay beyond the water she called home.
And do you know what she saw?
“A giraffe,” the little girl answered confidently.
Her mother paused for a moment. “Well, I suppose she could have seen a giraffe,” she allowed. “Maybe she saw a zoo in the distance, with a giraffe’s head sticking over the fence. But more importantly than that…”
She saw a man.
He was tall, and a little gangly, with freckles on his nose. And Cosette was fascinated by the way his legs moved, and his feet held him upright, and his toes curled in the sand. She had never seen a human before.
The guards with the man called him, “Prince Marius”, and Cosette mouthed the words to herself, feeling like they held a certain power, that they captured this strange knowledge of what lay beyond.”
“Did she fall in love with Marius, mommy?” the girl asked.
For a moment, her mom was quiet. Then she smiled slightly and stroked her daughter’s hair. “She did,” she said softly. “In a way. There are many kinds of love in this world, and she loved Marius, and probably always would. Just as she fell in love with the idea of being free on her own two feet.”
Now, King Valjean had forbidden the merpeople from swimming up to the surface. Not because he didn’t want them to know about the human world, but because in those days, there was a ravenous shark on the loose in the ocean who wanted revenge on Valjean and the other merfolk, and Valjean knew that the way they could stay safe was by staying together.
As Cosette swam back down from the surface, her father saw her, and he became furious in his fear for her safety. “I told you not to go up there!” he shouted, and the entire ocean seemed to tremble. “Javert the shark is looking for you and for me!”
“But Papa-” she pleaded, but it was no use.
Valjean forbid Cosette to go to the surface and that was the end of the matter.
But while Cosette loved her papa, she also longed for freedom. And so late one night she snuck out of the palace and swam away, far past the boundaries of her father’s kingdom, past where the warm currents flowed and into the dark and mysterious deeps.
For there lived the sea-witch, Éponine.
“Ooh,” the little girl breathed, clearly excited, and her mother smiled at her before continuing.
Éponine had been known to grant wishes to merpeople, if they came and asked politely and sometimes offered something in return, and when Cosette swam into her cave, Éponine floated over to meet her, her dark, curling tentacles matching her dark, curling hair. “Cosette,” she said, greeting her like a sister.
Cosette’s lip trembled as she looked at Éponine. “You must help me,” she begged. “Papa...he has forbidden me. But I must go, surely you must see that!”
And she told Éponine everything, how she had seen Marius and how she desired to walk on land and be a human, how she desired most of all the freedom that it offered.
Éponine nodded slowly, her dark eyes alight with some kind of inner understanding. “Of course,” she soothed Cosette. “I will do what I can to help you get to your Marius.”
And with that, she snapped her fingers, and where once Cosette had had a beautiful fish tail, now she had legs.
The girl struggled to sit up. “But mommy, didn’t she have to give something to Éponine? Something in return for making her human?”
“Ah, but she did give something to Éponine,” her mother told her. “She just didn’t know it.”
You see, Éponine was once a human, a maid who worked in the castle. And one day, while fetching a pail of water from the sea, she saw the prince floundering out in the ocean. Now, Éponine had always been a little in love with Prince Marius, and so without thinking, she flung her pail aside and swam out to rescue him, pulling him back to shore.
But the sea was angry. It was robbed of a victim, and even as Marius stirred on the sand, Éponine was dragged back out to the sea. But the water spirits were gentle, and in exchange for taking her, she was granted extraordinary powers. Of course, since her powers belonged to the sea, she could never leave the ocean again.
Éponine was glad to have survived, but she expected Marius to come looking for her, the girl who had saved his life. But he never did, and so Éponine turned bitter and angry, cursing the human world and vowing to destroy their happiness.
So she granted Cosette her wish. But what she didn’t tell her was that the spell would only last for three days. It was the ultimate revenge -- allow Marius and Cosette to fall in love and then yank Cosette away at the last moment. That way, Prince Marius would feel the same pain of loss that Éponine did when he never came looking for her.
Cosette swam with her new legs to the surface of the ocean, barely making it before the waves swept her this way and that. She was practically unconscious by the time the tide carried her to shore, and she surely would have died there in the shallows if it wasn’t for Marius, who stumbled upon her. “Are you alright?” Marius exclaimed, reaching down to help her stand up. “You’re -- you’re naked.”
Marius blushed bright pink and Cosette smiled shyly. “I’m alright now,” she told him, her voice low. “Now that you’re here.”
In a show of gentlemanly conduct, Marius removed his coat and draped it around Cosette’s shoulders before leading her up towards the castle. “It’s very nice to meet you,” he told her as they went. “My name is Marius. What’s your name?”
“My name is Cosette,” she told him.
“Cosette,” he repeated, smiling. “I like the sound of that.”
So Cosette had seemingly all she wanted, but the next morning, she quickly realized that human life was nothing like what she imagined. She was forced to wear an uncomfortable dress that restrained her arms and made it impossible to run and jump and do all she had imagined. She couldn’t wander about freely but had to escorted by a guard. And she barely even saw Marius, as he spent most of the day in a café in town with his friends.
Most of all, Cosette missed the sea. She missed the water swirling around her, all of her friends the fish. She missed her powerful tail propelling wherever she wished to go. Her human legs were hardly a comparison to that.
For her part, Éponine, who was a close watch on what was happening, was surprised to see that Cosette and Marius weren’t exactly falling in love as quickly as she had planned, and so she intervened. It took little enough magic to convince Marius to take Cosette on a boat ride down the river, and hardly more to arrange the perfect setting in a lagoon almost completely ensconced by willow trees.
And for a moment, it went perfectly, Marius gazing into Cosette’s eyes as the canoe they shared lingered in the soft light of the lagoon. But then, as Marius leaned forward to kiss her-
“Eww!” the little girl exclaimed, hiding her eyes behind her hands.
-the canoe tipped over and Marius and Cosette tumbled out into the water. “My boat!” Marius cried, splashing after it as the canoe floated off downstream, seeming to forget about Cosette, who stared after him.
It was hardly the romantic moment Cosette had imagined, but honestly, as she floated in the water, Cosette couldn’t find it in herself to mind. Instead, she threw her head back and laughed, spinning around in a circle, not caring that the water had drenched her dress and soaked her hair.
Éponine, having swum upstream from where the river met the sea and hidden behind one of the willow trees, was surprised to find herself smiling as she watched Cosette splash around with the ducks and fish.
Her smile disappeared when Cosette spotted her, but Cosette just grinned and beckoned her over. “Éponine!” Cosette exclaimed. “What are you doing here?”
“I just wanted to check on you,” Éponine said quickly. “How are you finding life on the land?”
Cosette’s smile disappeared as well and she shrugged, looking down at the water. “It’s not what I thought it would be,” she said honestly.
Éponine cocked her head. “But isn’t this everything you wanted?” she pressed.
Cosette shrugged again. “It is,” she said, though without conviction. “Or at least, it was. What I thought I wanted, anyway. But now…” She shook her head. “Now I’m not sure.”
Éponine’s heart seemed to break a little at the sight of Cosette looking so downtrodden, and without warning, she reached out and dunked Cosette’s head under the water. Cosette spluttered as she reemerged, wiping her hair out of her eyes. “No fair!” she said, but she was grinning once more and launched herself at Éponine, who darted away, laughing.
They spent the next few minutes splashing and dunking each other, both shrieking with laughter as they did. Then, when they were too tired to continue, they lay next to each other, floating on their backs and staring up at the sky, Éponine tentacles just brushing against Cosette’s legs.
Éponine looked over at Cosette, whose expression was content, her eyes filled with stars, and for a moment, she considered telling Cosette the truth, that the spell wasn’t permanent, that she could still return to the sea.
But then, a guard from the shore shouted for Cosette and the moment between them was broken. Éponine sank back under water, watching as Cosette reluctantly made her way back to shore where Marius and the guards were waiting for her.
The next day was the final day that Cosette would be human, and Éponine’s heart was sick at the thought of Cosette’s betrayal. She had meant to hurt Marius, but realized now the only person she would hurt was Cosette, and what a terrible mistake that would be.
So she did the only thing she could: she swam to shore to find Cosette and warn her. For many hours she swam up and down the coast, unable the leave the water. But then, finally, she spotted her, and Éponine called out, afraid that Cosette would not notice.
Cosette did notice, a small smile shaping her mouth as she waved at Éponine. Her smile faded as Éponine gestured emphatically for Cosette to follow her down the shoreline, away from Marius and the guards. “Éponine, what is it?” Cosette asked urgently when finally they were alone.
“There is something I must tell you,” Éponine said, and she told Cosette everything, of Marius, of the spell, and of Éponine’s fear that the only person she would hurt was Cosette. “That is the last thing I would want,” she told Cosette, her dark eyes full of tears. “You must believe me. And…” Here, she took a deep, shuddering breath before squaring her shoulders and looking up at Cosette, “I am here to offer to make you human permanently. If that is still what you want.”
Cosette was quiet for a long moment, sitting there on the shoreline, the waves just lapping her feet, her toes curled in the wet sand. “What about you?” she asked finally.
Éponine was surprised. “What about me?” she asked.
“What will you do after this?”
Éponine shrugged, still confused by the question. “I cannot leave the sea,” she told Cosette. “I am bound to it. But--”
Cosette cut off her question by leaning in and kissing her. “Well,” Cosette said, smiling. “Then that makes my choice easy.”
When Marius and the guards realized Cosette was missing, they raced down the shore, but they were too late. Where Cosette had been was now only sea foam on the sand.
And under the waves, Éponine and Cosette sped off hand-in-hand, Cosette’s fish tail keeping perfect time with Éponine’s tentacles.
The mother ended the story and smiled down at her daughter, who was fast asleep, her little mouth half-open. Slowly and carefully, she got out the of the bed, bending to kiss the girl on the temple before tucking her blanket in around her. She turned around to find her wife leaning against the door, watching them both and smiling. “How come I always have to be the witch?” Éponine complained, her dark eyes gleaming with laughter as she kissed Cosette.
Cosette smiled innocently at her. “Well, if the boot fits…” Éponine pouted until Cosette laughed and kissed her. “Next time you can be the princess, I promise. Princess Éponine.”
Éponine wrinkled her nose. “No, I don’t like that.” She considered it for a moment, her expression thoughtful. “Maybe Revolutionary Éponine. I like the sound of that.”
“Oh, so do I,” Cosette said, lacing her fingers with Éponine’s and squeezing them. “But I think I’ll let Enjolras tell that story the next time he babysits.”
And hand-in-hand they walked together down the hall toward their own bedroom, leaving their daughter to her dreams of merpeople, princesses and, most importantly, true love.