Princess Marina

He realized then that the heat he was giving off… the residual energy of the fire still coursing through his veins… she must have felt unnatural, almost hostile… a sense of guilt assailed him.

Without thinking too much and without wanting to offend her, he concentrated briefly and exhaled. A small cloud of steam rose into the cool evening air as he slowly cooled with controlled breaths, lowering his temperature.

"It's okay. You don't scare me," she answered. "But how exactly are you doing that? You've ... what's the word - dried out. You felt like the sun!"

@waywardhearted said: My feet are killing me, can we please take a five minute break? (she wrote a note) (travel starters)

The note that she’d passed over to him made the young Fire Lord lift a brow. He was used to travel by now, granted he hadn’t done it since the war had ended but still, he wasn’t tired yet. However, he understood that she hadn’t been a normal human for very long and there was no doubt in his mind that she wouldn’t be able to keep up if they didn’t take breaks. The palace was another days journey by foot and Tui he wished he had an ostrich horse with him.

The campfire was actually something she hadn't seen on land yet, and she was taken by surprise. She had seen small flames in lanterns even on ships at sea, but she was unprepared for the larger fire. Of course they didn't have anything like that underwater. Mesmerized by the orange flickering hues with sky-blue flames at the center licking the firewood, she watched it dance, unexplainable to her. She could instantly feel its heat like the warm sunlight at the ocean's surface she remembered, so different from the coolness of the sea and the night. If Fritz the dolphin was here, he might have said it looked like what the sun was made out of. It made her wonder if humans carried something like a fire inside of them, in their hearts.

She had heard of firebending, but not seen it before, and certainly not seen someone hold a flame in his hand. She pointed questioningly at Zuko's hand, to ask if he could make a fire from nothing. She hadn't heard of the ability before. Then again, he was the Fire Lord.

❝  Humans  need  to  mind  their  own  business  sometimes...  ❞

Yes  they  had  to...  sometimes  it  was  better  to  ignore  them  and  don't  let  the  others  find  that  they  are  not  humans...  for  that  she  was  holding  back  her  hisses,  to  not  scare  them  and  create  comflict...  Marina  called  her  attention  again  as  she  looked  at  the  humans  again,  the  sailors  didn't  know  they  were  mermaids,  nor  did  they  recognize  their  hairs...  well  this  will  be  funny  that  is  for  sure!.

❝  I  will  rest  for  a  bit  and  try  to  find  some  human  that  doesn't  look  at  us  like  we  are  weirdos...  I  don't  want  to  deal  with  those  scrumble  noses  nonsense.  ❞

She  was  being  honest,  she  didn't  want  to  deal  with  those  humans  that  wanted  to  look  superior  to  them,  if  they  knew  that  they  were  looking  bad  to  mermaids  she  was  sure  thattheir  faces  will  change.

A  Marina  went  to  dance  with  the  prince,  Naida  was  just  enjoying  the  food,  she  has  to  admit  that  the  human  food  is  very  tasty!,  and  luckily  she  didn't  eat  nothing  with  shrimps...  she  asked  the  waiters  if  there  were  any  shrimps  for  her  almost  death  once  that  she  ate  one  some  time  ago.  Allergy  to  them.

❝  You  enjoy  the  dance!  I  will  enjoy  the  food!  ❞

After dancing some time, Marina suddenly re-joined Naida at the banquet table, grabbing her by the arm and explaining quickly what had occurred. "Quickly, Naida, we have to get out of here and escape! The prince recognized me from sailing out at sea. The others said things like, throw a bucket of water on her and her friend and see if they have tails! The prince and his friend stood up for us and they're fighting them... I think we'd better call it a night and return to the sea."

@waywardhearted: liked.

He watched her carefully as she spoke: her voice was calm and gentle, not laced with malice or deceit as the legends about mermaids warned. That… confused him more than anything else.

His golden eyes softened slightly, the scar now reflecting the light filtering through the clouds, but he was still protected by an instinctive caution.

"…Thank you," he finally said again, more quietly this time but with a sincerity that went beyond words. "You’re… really different."

"You don't have to thank me. I'll take it as a compliment that you think I'm different," she said light-heartedly. "You seem a bit different as well, unfortunate, but lucky to be alive after all that."

Concept Art of Marina + Her Sisters from "Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Mermaid"-(1975) 🩵