What Would I Give

“And you,” Ariel gasped in amazement. “Have so much hair!”

 Should she have at least attempted to dive back under the waves before being spotted? Probably. But she couldn’t really say she regretted being found, not if it meant getting to see a real, live human up close! The mermaid leaned forward on the rocks, admiring the human girl’s seemingly endless tresses.

“I almost drowned.”

Details weren’t exactly needed when conversing with royals about his history. Even though it had been at least a year since his last encounter with the mermaids of Merroway Cove, Cedric still held a grudge against the creatures for butchering one of his more creative schemes. There was more to the whole ordeal than he’d like to remember, but nobody would want to remember such an embarrassment. All he could let off was a cringe as he attempted to mask his humiliation.

He almost drowned? Because of mermaids? Ariel was stunned. It couldn’t have been anyone from Atlantica...could it? He hadn’t said when this had happened, for all she knew it was before there was peace between land and sea. If that was the case, if it had been someone from her undersea home, she felt she had to do...something...to try to make it up to the man.

“That’s awful! It...it wasn’t around here...was it?”