Chapter Text
Off of the coast of the gulf, where the sun never stopped shining and the waves were always gentle, two princesses lived, though they weren't aware of each other until they were into adulthood. One was a princess of the sea, half a person and half a fish, with a glittering green tail that sparkled a different color each time the sun struck it with its rays. Her long black hair was struck with the same coloration across her bangs, her body covered in the same gleaming scales. While the sea itself contested her beautiful rainbow scales, the other merfolk gazed upon her and could not help their jealousy.
The other was a princess of the land, a young woman with long locks coiled from her tight hair who tore her dresses for years before they let her wear pants like a prince. She was beautiful, her full lips painted green as the treetops, her lashes fanning her cheeks every time she blinked.
Despite their beauty and bloodline, both princesses found themselves wishing for life beyond what they knew. How did the people on land get around if they had no water? Were there really people down below the sea's depths? Both of them wondered in the backs of their minds, every time the mermaid princess looked at the sun's rays or the princess on land looked out to the beach. However, the two of them met when the mystery of another world was at the back of their minds.
The mermaid princess, Jolyne, was perched up on a rock, lounging about in the sun, bathing in its rays. She spent her days underwater until the sun was high, when she swam up to the surface and sprawled out above water to relax. However, on this warm spring day, the sound of hurried footsteps against the beach's sands interrupted the easy noise of the crashing waves, causing her to lift up her head.
Approaching the shore was a young woman in ornate clothes, her boots shifting down against the sand, her face weary with distress and tears threatening to spill down her cheeks. She looked out at the shore and caught sight of Jolyne, halting in her tracks and staring at her. Likewise, Jolyne held her gaze, hiding her tail behind the rock.
“Young lady, are you hurt?” called the woman on land, reaching toward a blade at her side. She ran out toward the dock leading out to shore, a small fishing boat bobbing next to it. “Can you hear me?”
“Yeah, I can hear you,” Jolyne responded. “You don't have to holler or anything. I can hear you just fine.” She held up a finger, imploring the woman to wait before she dove into the water and hopped up to prop her arms on the dock. As she lifted herself a bit higher, the woman knelt down to meet her face to face. “You look like you're feeling out of sorts, and you still wanted to make sure I was okay? What a sweetheart.”
The other woman's face turned a bit ruddy, her lips turning up toward a tiny smile. “It's what a princess is supposed to do, isn't it?”
“Is it? I mean, I'm a princess, and I just go around and do as I please. Drives my dad wild when I come up to the surface like this, but I'm an adult and he can't really boss me around much.”
“A princess? Of what, exactly?”
Jolyne pulled herself up onto the dock and slapped her tail against the wood, leaning forward toward the other woman and grinning. “Of the sea. Don't worry, I'm not trying to encroach on your sovereignty.”
At the sight of the mermaid's tail, the woman started to reel, pointing to the tail before pointing to the mermaid again. “B-But you, you're a woman up top, but down under, you're, you're,”
“Y'know, it's my first time seeing a human too and I'm not freaking out like you are. Staring and pointing like that's a little rude, don't you think?” Jolyne let out a laugh and placed a damp hand on the other woman's shoulder. “I'm kidding. My dad told me this might happen if I ran into a human. It's cool though, just take in a deep breath! My name's Jolyne.”
“I-I don't, I don't understand how you could--” The woman stopped before looking up at Jolyne, noting the way her green hair sparkled in the light, same as her tail. “...Jolyne?”
“Jolyne. Don't call me 'Princess' or whatever. What about you? What's your name?”
“...Hermes,” came the response, to which Jolyne clapped her hands together.
“It's nice to meet you, Hermes. See, that wasn't so hard! Now, I assume you're princess of that nice fancy castle up there. There's that pretty little window up there that faces the beach, but nobody ever comes out here. You and I are probably the same age, give or take, and I've never moved. So why am I only seeing you for the first time?”
Hermes sighed, looking down away from Jolyne while she spoke. “My older sister Gloria used to love to go out swimming, boating, fishing, anything as long as it involved the water. She died out at sea a few years back, and I haven't been able to come out here since. I thought maybe today, if I came here, she could offer me some guidance. Maybe some of her spirit's still part of the water.”
Jolyne looked behind her at the glittering sea, the waves lapping at the base of the rocks. “You never joined her?”
“Was always more of a runner myself.”
“I've got no idea what that is,” Jolyne said, making a bit of a face, “but if your sister's soul was attached to the sea, you made a good choice in coming here. I'm not your sister, but I can at least offer you some advice.”
Hermes paused for a moment, letting out a small laugh before running a hand through her thick locks. “I'm engaged to be married once spring comes by again. A week after next year's Equinox Festival, I'm supposed to marry a powerful noble. He was to be my sister's betrothed, but...”
“That's a bunch of bullshit!” Hermes's head snapped toward Jolyne again, who had her arms folded over her chest. “Listen, you've got to take a lesson in princessing from yours truly. Don't marry that fuck, whoever he is. You can do whatever you want, can't you? Go off and marry for love!”
“I'd love to,” Hermes said, smiling a bit sadly at Jolyne. “But it's been arranged for years. The only thing I could do to annul the marriage is to marry someone else of equal or higher nobility. So I couldn't just grab a commoner off the street and marry them to make a mess of the whole thing. I have a duty to my people to marry Max, even if there are a thousand people I'd rather end up with than him.”
Jolyne blew a puff of air upward, shifting her bangs aside. “Wow. That's really a crock of shit, huh?” Noticing Hermes had turned away from her again, she reached out and touched the other princess's face, tilting it upward toward her. “Hey, listen. Don't worry about it too much. You've got a whole year to fuss about it, and getting a furrow in that pretty brow of yours would be a crime.” She poked Hermes's forehead, letting out a laugh as Hermes stared up at her in surprise. “For now, all you can do is think of a way to get out of this mess and keep it at the back of your mind.”
“...Yeah. I suppose there isn't much I can do about it now, huh?” Hermes let out a small laugh, standing up only to have Jolyne grab onto her arm and stop her.
“Now, I think some advice earns something in return, right? Can you show me what makes you a 'runner'?” Something in Hermes's eyes lit up, causing Jolyne's grin to stretch out from ear to ear. She watched as Hermes took off down the dock, bolting as quickly as her legs would take her.
Jolyne gasped and pushed herself back down into the water, dunking herself under before she popped back out. “It's like you're swimming on land? That's incredible!” She swam as fast as Hermes ran, the two of them trying to race each other until Hermes ran out of steam. When she stopped, Jolyne stopped and swam up to her, the two of them talking while they went back to the docks.
In the months that followed, Hermes was out on the beach every day to find Jolyne out on her sunbathing rock. Once she caught sight of the other princess, Jolyne swam out to the dock to greet Hermes and talk with her about whatever she liked. Her kingdom, Jolyne's family, what being a mermaid was like, what being a human was like...the two of them never tired of the other's company. Even when they ran out of things to talk about, Jolyne would simply hoist herself up onto the dock and the two of them would admire what was different about them and what was the same.
Spring turned to summer, summer to fall and Hermes still made her way out to the beach to see Jolyne. The kingdom's harvest festival came about in the middle of fall when even the warm waters of the sea turned a bit frigid, and Hermes came to Jolyne with a gift.
“What the hell is this?” Jolyne asked, pulling the box open.
“...I-It's an earring set. Don't laugh or anything, okay? It's just, you always talk about how much you love the stars and the bugs up top, right? So I thought maybe you'd want a little piece of up here for when you go back down underwater.” Hermes paused as Jolyne looked down into the box. “I hope it's not too much.”
“Too much? No, no, I love them so much! They're so pretty, the way they sparkle and change color like that. Oh, Hermes...” Jolyne grinned from ear to ear, swapping out her current pair of shell earrings for a pair of stars, though there were also a pair of butterflies and bees in the box.
“I wanted to find something that matches your scales. Nothing's really that pretty, but I think I got kind of close--”
Jolyne splashed up and wrapped her arms around Hermes's shoulders, pulling the other princess down into a kiss as Hermes effortlessly lifted her up out of the water. Somehow, Hermes's arms weren't shaking in the slightest, even with the weight of Jolyne's fish tail.
“Man, all that running does you good,” Jolyne murmured, grinning against Hermes's lips. “You're pretty strong. Don't think I could lift you up like this. Anyway, I didn't know that people gave out gifts for your fancy festival, so consider this mine to you.”
Hermes went red in the face, her green lipstick leaving a mark behind on Jolyne's mouth. “This is a hell of a gift, you know that?”
“Oh, I know. You can spend some time trying to think of how to pay me back for it, alright?” She kissed Hermes's cheek quickly, grinning against her skin. “Though it really pales in comparison to what you've given me.”
“What, the earrings?” Hermes asked, and Jolyne laughed as she shook her head.
“Your time. Every day, even after I gave you that shitty advice, you still came to see me, right?”
“And I'll keep coming back to see you, of course. Every single day.”
Jolyne, overwhelmed with love, pushed Hermes down onto the dock and peppered her face with kisses as the festival carried on back in the kingdom proper.
Jolyne and Hermes were happily in love with each other as fall turned to winter, with Jolyne doing her best not to soak Hermes and chill her through to the bone. On the beach, it truthfully wasn't that cold, but nobody wanted to come out and relax on the sand in the middle of winter. The two of them huddled up in a blanket or a coat together, holding onto one another to keep warm.
One day in the middle of winter, Hermes looked down at the little fishing boat tied to the side of the dock before helping Jolyne out of the water. “Jolyne...you're a good swimmer, right?”
Jolyne's tail smacked against the docks, her brow raised incredulously. “I'm about as good a swimmer as you are a walker. Or an air-breather. Yes, I think I'm a good swimmer.”
“That was...” Hermes closed her eyes for a moment, taking in a deep breath before slowly exhaling. “That's not what I meant. What I wanted to ask is...if you've been to the bottom of the sea floor.”
“Plenty of times. Further out than just here too, y'know, where I can stand up straight and have my whole head covered. Hermes, are you okay? You don't seem like yourself.”
“I-I just...was wondering if you've...seen my sister down there. Her in her little boat. It's been four years now and none of her belongings have washed up on shore. I don't know if she traveled with much, but it's a little strange that the water took everything, isn't it?” She said this pointedly, almost as if she were asking Jolyne directly, like she had any control over the waves themselves. An obvious tension settled in her shoulders, her brilliant green eyes shimmering.
Jolyne looked up at Hermes, caressing her face with a damp hand and wiping away the tears threatening to spill down her cheeks. “It is. I’ll take a look, I’ll swim down to the bottom of the ocean and find something of hers for you to keep.” The mermaid spoke quietly, feeling Hermes’s lashes brush against her thumb.
Hermes pulled Jolyne close to her, squeezing her tight and kissing the top of her head. “As much as I’d like that...I don’t know what lurks at the bottom of the sea floor. I don’t want you to get hurt down there. Please, just stay safe instead. I...don’t want to lose you either.”
As much as Jolyne wanted to tell Hermes that she would be fine, she realized Hermes's protectiveness only came from love. She smiled and kissed Hermes, touching the crease in her forehead. “Now, you know I don't go looking for trouble. If anything, I run away from trouble, yeah? That's why I'm up here, sitting with you. Don't you worry either, Hermes, or you'll start to get that furrow back up in your brow. You're way too young to start getting gray hairs too, so I don't want to see any of that either, okay?” She pulled Hermes closer and looked down to the sea, making note to herself to go down to the sea floor and check on the wreckage from the boat.
The worry on Hermes's face put that thought out of her mind, and she forgot to go down and look as winter melted into spring. Jolyne was ecstatic with the thought of spending the spring festival with Hermes as well, since she'd actually prepared a gift this time around. Once night fell and fireworks started to soar through the sky, Hermes came running out to the beach to find Jolyne already sitting up at the dock.
“Jolyne! Jolyne, I think I've found the answer to my problem.”
“Which one?” Jolyne asked, counting off on her fingers. “I thought you already solved your being single problem, but did you figure out your whole 'unable to stand up to your parents' problem?”
“Yeah, actually. I think so.” Hermes knelt down and reached behind her, pulling a small box out of her pocket and opening it up, revealing a ring. “You're a princess too, right? Equal or greater nobility. And I can't think of anyone I'd rather marry than the woman I love.”
Jolyne placed her hand down on the docks behind her back, feeling around before pulling out a ring of her own. “Isn't that weird that we both got each other the same thing? I learned from the last Equinox Festival that I'm supposed to give you a gift this time. But yes, yes, Hermes. I would love nothing more than to marry you.”
The two of them exchanged their rings, sliding them on each other's hands and embracing one another afterward. As Jolyne pulled back to give her fiancee a kiss, her tail flopped against the dock behind her.
“Shit. I forgot about that. The whole...me being a mermaid thing. You didn't tell your family that we were getting married, did you?”
“Well, no....”
“And you can't very well just disappear, right? Oh, boy.” Jolyne looked back at her tail, running a hand through her hair before she let out a sigh. “...I think I know what I can do to fix this.”
“Really?” Hermes asked as Jolyne grimaced in lieu of a smile.
“There's this sea witch who lives around my kingdom. He's kind of a scary guy who keeps to himself, and I've never personally talked to him, but I'm sure I can ask him to turn me human, to give me legs. So you and I can be together. I've got proof of my royal heritage and everything too, so that's not a problem.” Jolyne placed her hands on Hermes's shoulders, grinning before kissing her on the forehead. “I'll come back tomorrow and we can get married right away, okay? Kick that Max asshole to the curb and it'll just be you and me.”
“It'll be you and me right now too,” Hermes said, pulling Jolyne in and kissing her cheek. “Let me spend the rest of the night with you here. It's warming up out here, the fireworks really make your scales light up...and I'm going to marry you tomorrow. I'm so happy, I feel like I could cry.”
After Hermes had to go back to the castle, Jolyne dove down underwater and swam through her father's domain, out on the edge of the gulf. The witch kept himself isolated away from the other denizens of Jolyne's kingdom, and as she came closer, she could see why.
The witch's home looked like a temple that had been claimed by the tide, an entire algae-covered building toppled over and dragged underwater – no doubt the work of the witch himself. Slowly, Jolyne made her way inside to find the witch at the altar of the temple, the interior decorated with hundreds of stone tablets and vials in varying colors. He turned to face her, a slithering white sea snake draping itself across his arms and leaning into his touch as he pet its chin.
The witch was a man who, instead of legs, had a number of inky dark tentacles that helped push him from one side of the room to the other, should he decide not to simply slither across the surface. His textured hair was cut strangely and as white as the snake at his side, his brow arching as he looked Jolyne over.
“And what brings the Princess to my humble dwelling?” He asked slowly, his low voice sending a shiver down Jolyne's spine.
“You're...Pucci, the witch?” She asked, looking around at the stone tablets before fixing his eyes back on him. “Can you give me legs?”
“Of course,” he said, though he didn't move. “Forever, I'm assuming. I can do that much,” and he held up a hand before Jolyne could open his mouth to thank him. “For a price. Nothing in this world comes for free, Princess.”
“What do you need, Pucci? Money, a nicer place than this? Whatever it is, I'll pay up, as long as you can get me a set of legs before tomorrow morning.”
“I don't want anything from you that I couldn't get from anybody else.” Pucci sauntered over to his rack of stone tablets, pulling out a blank one. “What I want from you is a deal.”
“A deal?”
“You want to get married to your sweetheart, Princess Hermes Costello, right? Whitesnake told me so.” Jolyne took a moment to wrinkle her nose at the snake's name, but she nodded regardless. “If you and her are in love, this should be easy enough for you. I'll give you legs, but in return, I'll take Lady Costello's memories. Of you, and you alone.”
Jolyne's eyes widened and she opened her mouth to speak, only to be silenced by another hand. “Lady Costello is to be married in a week's time to a nobleman, yes? If she marries you, she's free from this burden. So I get her memories of you and the two of you essentially start from scratch. You get your legs, you get her to love you again in a week's time, and you'll be home free. I'm sure you and Lady Costello will be a beautiful married couple.”
“A-A-A week?! Pucci, Hermes and I fell in love after months of spending time together! There's no way, I couldn't make her fall in love with me in a goddamn week's time!”
“Then she'll marry a miserable man who she could never love, especially when she finds out the truth about him.” When Jolyne's face blanched, Pucci raised an eyebrow. “It's your call.”
“Truth? What truth? What do you know that I don't?” Jolyne asked, hurrying up to Pucci, only to be halted by the sea snake lunging at her with its fangs bared.
“Now, I wouldn't advise that course of action. There are two other snakes around here as well, you know.” He held up the blank tablet and extended his hand toward her. “I know many things, Princess. I wouldn't worry yourself with what exactly I know, for I'm sure it's nothing less than what you know. What I need to know, however, is if we have a deal.”
Jolyne stared down at Pucci's hand before looking down at her own, the gemstone of the ring catching what little light trickled down. “...All I need to do is make her fall in love with me in a week? I get the legs the whole time?”
“All you need to do is make her love you. I'll give you the legs once the sun rises, lest I drown you on accident. I take her memories once the transaction is dealt. If you succeed and she loves you before she has to be married to the nobleman, I'll give her back the memories and let you keep your legs. If you fail, that's that, I suppose. I'll wipe whatever she learned of you in the week to come, she'll marry Max, and you'll come right back down here to explain yourself to your father without anything to show for it.” He gave a crooked smile, his full lips tugging up a bit awkwardly, as if he wasn't used to the notion. “Do you understand?”
Jolyne let out a deep sigh, grabbing onto Pucci's hand and clasping it tightly. “Fuck, yes, I understand. This is really shitty of you, you know that? Do you realize how awful this is?”
“On the contrary, Princess, I feel as if I've been nothing but fair to you. As an added bonus, I'll let you have your tail back whenever you come down under the water after the first day. How unfair is that?”
Jolyne raised her eyebrows and made a little humming noise as Pucci moved over to his shelf of vials and plucked one off of the shelf, helpfully labeled with a drawing of two human legs. He passed it into her hands, where she looked it over and swirled the strange liquid around in the bottle.
“Now, wait a minute. Will that happen every time I go down under the water?”
“...Drink up, Princess.”
Jolyne uncapped the vial and hurriedly drank the liquid down, handing the empty vial back toward the witch with a shudder. Once he took it back, the stone tablet in his arms started to fill up with tiny script. She squinted, trying to make out as much as she could.
“...Met Jolyne...in the spring...she gave me...advice...about marrying...Max...”
Just like that, Pucci turned the tablet toward his chest, shaking his head and tucking it away on his other shelf. “Now, it's not polite to peek at a man's belongings, is it? I suggest you head home and pack your things, Princess. It might be good to say your goodbyes to your father, right?”
“Yeah, as if,” Jolyne scoffed, turning back and swimming out the door. “If you messed anything up, I'll come back and kick your ass, got it?”
Pucci only chuckled softly to himself, pulling Hermes's memories back off of the shelf and reading them as Jolyne made her way back home.
Jolyne didn't even bother packing, instead just going right to sleep without telling her father where she was going. It wasn't as if he would understand, anyway. If anything, he'd probably try to stop her from going to the surface, but if this witch was the real deal, there really wouldn't be much he could do for her.
She woke up in the morning to the feeling of her body changing, her tail starting to split apart. She bit her lip and swam up to the surface as quickly as she could, paddling with her arms up to the shore. Jolyne clasped her hands over her mouth and screamed, her eyes wrenched shut as her tail finally formed into long legs.
“That son of a bitch, fucking terrible crock of an octopus! I swear, when I get back down there tomorrow, I'll wring his neck!” She looked down at her legs, lifting one up curiously and setting it back down again. Slowly, she flopped onto her stomach and tried to wiggle forward onto the sand, moving her legs awkwardly.
“Didn't say anything about this hurting like a bitch...didn't tell me I wouldn't know how to fucking walk....” Jolyne sighed as she dragged herself through the sand over to the docks. “Didn't tell me I would be ass naked...slithering on the beach like one of those piece of shit snakes...” She grumbled and pulled herself up into the fishing boat, taking a seat and digging around for the sail.
Once she pulled it out, she set it down on her lap and started to tear at it, shortening it to a reasonable size. She reached up for the ribbons holding her braids in place and tugged them loose, instead using them to tie the sail around her body like a crude dress. At the very least, she was covered, and she was going to walk on up to the castle and go make Hermes fall in love with her.
She stood up and her legs immediately started to wobble. She tried to remember how Hermes had done it, taking one step at a time across the boat. Jolyne raised her leg and set it down a bit in front of her before trying the same with the other, bringing her knees up to about her chest before setting them back down on the wooden boat.
This was going to be a long week.