Author's Notes: This is a fic I've honestly wanted to write since before I started writing Hellsing fics. When I first started my Peter Pan/Hellsing crossover "Alucard and Integra of Neverland," I wanted a Little Mermaid/Hellsing crossover to be a sister fic. I just couldn't decide whether to base it on the Hans Christian Andersen or Disney version. The H.C. Andersen version is dark and sad, so it fits the dark themes of Hellsing. However, the Disney version is not depressing, and it also has many great scenes. I finally decided to go for a middle ground and base it on a bit of both.

Disclaimer: I do not own or make money off of Hellsing, H.C. Andersen's short story or Disney's movie. However, I will borrow text directly from translations of H.C. Andersen's short story for the first couple of chapters. I'm not trying to plagiarize, I just honestly like his setting more than the Disney version. Moreover, I strongly encourage you to read H.C. Andersen's "The Little Mermaid" to see how much is mine and how much is his for yourself.

Far out in the ocean, where the water is blue as the loveliest cornflower and clear as the purest glass, the sea folk live. From the deepest spot in the ocean rises the palace of the Sea King. Its walls are made of coral and its high pointed windows of the clearest amber, but the roof is made of mussel shells that open and close with the tide. This is a wonderful sight to see, for every shell holds glistening pearls, any one of which would be the pride of a queen's crown.

Now, the Sea King had been a widower for years, so his old mother kept house for him. She was a clever woman, but exceedingly proud of her noble birth, so she flaunted twelve oysters on her tail while the other ladies of the court were only allowed to wear six. She was an admirable woman though, particularly because she was extremely fond of her granddaughters. They were six lovely girls, but the youngest was the most beautiful of them all. Her skin was as soft and tender as a rose petal, and her eyes were as blue as the deep sea, and like all the others her body ended in a glimmering fish tail.

Every day they would play all day in the palace, down in the great halls where live shells and sea flowers grew on the walls. Whenever the high amber windows were opened the fish would swim in, just as swallows dart in our rooms when we open the windows. However, these fish would swim right up to the little princesses to eat out of their hands and be petted.

Outside the palace was a huge garden, with deep green kelp trees. Their fruits swelled like succulent peaches, and their blossoms flamed like emerald fire on their constantly waving stalks. A strange blue veil lay over everything down in the sea floor. You would have thought yourself aloft in the air with only the blue sky above and beneath you, rather than down at the bottom of the sea. When there was a dead calm, you could just see the sun far up in the distance, like a golden flower with light streaming from its calyx.

Seras Victoria often felt ill at ease floating along the endless blue that seemed to go on forever, with nothing but the dark blue to make her fear the creatures of the deep that might be hidden below, and endless light blue above. Whenever she went out, she would inevitably hover near the ocean floor or the palace walls, but not before looking up at the golden sun far above. At such times, she would wish to reach out to it like a beacon in the dark, or a sort of anchor to steady herself in the endless abyss.

"Mein Gott, Seras Victoria," Schrödinger would say, "You would think the wide ocean was trying to suck you out, the way you cling to the rocks!"

"Sh-shut up!" she would retort, but still cling to the rocks or duck into the palace just the same.

As for the surface, nothing gave the princesses as much pleasure as hearing about the world of humans above. The old grandmother would tell them all she knew about ships and cities, people and animals. What seemed nicest to her were the flowers a fragrant and the "fish" floating among their trees singing loudly and sweetly. The old grandmother had to call the little birds "fish," for the princesses would not have known what she was talking about, for they had never seen a bird.

"When you turn fifteen," the grandmother often said to the little princesses, "you will be allowed to rise up out of the ocean and sit on the rocks in the moonlight, and watch the great ships sailing by. You will see forests and towns beyond the shore as well."

Seras Victoria would lean against the royal pillars and listen in rapture to the old grandmother's tales about the surface world. A poor orphan that worked as a chamber maid for the Sea King's royal daughters since her own parents had died in her early childhood, Seras felt she had little to live for beyond the hope that one day she could visit the beautiful surface world that her own mother used to tell her about.

Young Seras could still remember a time when she and her mother and father lived in a great colorful reef near the surface, where the water was bright blue and the surface water sparkled gold during the day and silver at night. She remembered how her beautiful, smiling mother would go on and on about how wonderful the world above. Seras remembered how her mother used to sit her down on a rock and comb her hair with a piece of coral and try to put live shells and starfish in it as she told her about the surface; but Seras always used to shake them off and dart around like a squid. She used to love how the water felt running through her wild hair, and how her father used to catch her and spin her around as they played together. She remembered how her mother would smile wryly but hold Seras' hands and rub her nose just the same, and how they would all lay among the colorful reef plants (as we surface folk would lay among the grass in our fields) and watch fish, turtles, and dolphins swim overhead. Seras would often grow giddy with excitement and swim around her parents as they laughed and smiled, and told her of the surface animals above.

That was until the day that the bottomless fathoms came to claim her parents. Seras remembered how they always went in as the waters grew dark since fearsome sea monsters came out to hunt from the deep. But one day the large toothy creatures came out early and invaded their reef sanctuary, and how they had devoured her parents in water red with blood. Seras shuddered to remember how she had tried to defend her parents by stabbing the creatures in the eye with a sharp rock, and how she had been bitten through the stomach by jagged rows of sharp monstrous teeth. As she floated there stunned, she had then been knocked aside by a giant fin, and heard nothing but a monstrous roar as her world went black. She had fought to stay awake, but passed out as the waters around her looked and tasted red with her parents' blood, and how the last thing she saw was her mother being devoured by sea monsters.

She had woken alone and afraid, with all traces of her parents gone. She searched desperately, but saw only the dark and empty ocean at night, with nothing but reef plants that swayed with the tide. This brought the little mermaid more despair than anyone could know. After she had cried herself to sleep the first night she had drifted aimlessly along, not knowing what to do or how to get on without them. The whimpering child had been calmed by the hiss of little eels, and she had followed them as they migrated along a warm ocean current until they drifted into waters enchanted into beauty by the living god known as the Sea King. His sea palace truly was a wonder, yet its beauty was lost on young Seras. She cared for nothing but her own colorful reef and her smiling parents, who were now gone. Yet, a servant had taken pity on the poor orphan and arranged for her to get a job working as a chamber maid for the Sea King's youngest daughter, and there she remained.

Seras felt like the world was dark and bleak when she thought of the abyss below, and bright and happy when she thought of the waters above. One of her mother's greatest wishes was to be there when Seras came of age so they could sit together on the rocks above the surface, and feel the waves licking at their fins. She wished to comb her daughter's hair above water as they pointed to the clouds in the sky, and watched the gulls as they flew by. Seras held an image in her mind of her and her mother and father sitting together on a rock above the surface, watching the sun and the clouds and the gulls, with her mother's arms around her waist and her father's strong arms strung protectively around them both.

For years, Seras held this image in her heart the way you or I would hold the picture of a loved one in a locket.

Despite this, Seras remained dour and unpleasant. She rarely smiled or talked with anyone, and turned away from the royal princesses when they tried to coax her to play. It was not long before they stopped asking her altogether, for she looked just as dark and demonic as the creatures of the deep, with her eyes glowing with hate. However, she did not seek out to hurt anyone, and only tried to be by herself when she was not engaged in some task or another. To that end, she often lashed out at others.

"Has the chamber maid been causing some problems again?" the Sea King asked one day.

"Yes, Your Majesty," one of the servants answered, "It appears one of the fish that come in from the windows tried to take a toy she was playing with, and she thrashed it with a rock."

"What was she doing playing, when she should be working?" the Dowager Queen demanded.

"T'was her meal time," a servant answered, "I suppose she wanted to pass time before the royal princesses returned from their outing."

"Yes!" said another, "and now all the other fish are afraid to come into the princesses' chambers since she is here!"

The Sea King sighed. "None of the other servants have taken to her either," he agreed. "Had she anywhere else to go, I would push her out in an instant. However, if the little maid continues to cause problems, she will no longer be welcome in our Sea Palace."

For many years, Seras had held onto her job by a mere thread. Despite her dour attitude, she was a diligent little maid that tended to the youngest princess's royal bedchamber better than even most adults. She was not distracted by play or chatter the way other servants were. She preferred instead to do her work until it was done, and then retire to a shaded place where she could play alone.

Her only friend in the world was a little sea devil by the name of Schrödinger, who showed up in her life quite suddenly and refused to leave. She did not fully know how they became friends, or even why he liked to be around her, but he seemed quite taken with her from the moment they first met, and never quite decided he wanted to go away.

It was by chance that Seras had been in the room when he broke into the Sea Palace just to show he could. He had turned up quite suddenly in the throne room while all the nobles were gathered to have a serious discussion about governing, and he had laughed at their cries of consternation.

"A Sea Devil? Here?" the Dowager Queen barked.

"How did he get in?" the Sea King cried.

"My deepest apologies, majesties!" the captain of the guard had cried, "There did not seem to be any breech in security!"

"You are wasting your time," the little boy had gloated, "for no guards can catch me! I am everywhere und nowhere!"

As the Sea King and Dowager Queen simultaneously balked and sneered down on him with contempt, the royal guards scrambled into the throne room and pointed their tridents at him, Seras had been swimming through the room. She was off to the side, under the pillars that held up the mussel ceiling, with her arms full with the princesses' royal toys. She did not fully understand what was going on, and so looked at him with blank curiosity.

'He's only a child,' Seras thought, clutching the toys to her chest, 'just like me.'

He looked to be a few years younger than her, and looked remarkably like her except that he was also much more animalistic in appearance. While you and I would think of merpeople as looking completely human except for the fish tail instead of legs and small slivers of gills under their jaws, this boy was almost completely fishlike all over his body. His scales began under his arms instead of his hips, his fingers were webbed and clawed, and his teeth were long and sharp. He also had some sort of fins for ears sticking out of his short blond hair, and he had long barbels (or whiskers for fish) sticking out of his hair and cheeks.

'What is he?' Seras thought, 'What is he after?'

At that moment, the little fin ears and barbels twitched, and he looked right at her. He then stared at her very intently for a very long time, without moving or blinking. Seras balked at first, but then glared right back. She was very competitive even at her mellowest moments, and did not like to lose staring contests. His eyes were large and silver-green, and glowed in the dark, which seemed to brighten the longer he stared at her. It creeped Seras out.

"Stop it!" she finally growled.

Without breaking eye contact, he bowed his head slightly and said, "Guten tag."

Seras gasped. She didn't know how to respond. What did he say? Was he being polite? Rude? Should she be polite back or tell him to bugger off?

After a bit of an internal debate, Seras finally sighed and bowed her head. "Guten tag…" she murmured back.

The boy closed his eyes and chuckled. He then looked at her with that same strange, unreadable expression, and then turned away.

Being a child at the time, Seras blew a raspberry and swam away.

This did not matter though, because he later turned up in the royal gardens after Seras had put away the little princesses' toys and the guards had chased him out of the royal palace. Seras gasped when she saw him floating overhead.

"What are you doing here?!"

"Just came to see the sights," he said carelessly, "What are you doing here?"

"I work here!"

"So I can see!" he said carelessly, rolling over so that he hung upside down in the water, "It looks so boring!"

"What do you care? You aren't even supposed to be here!" Seras snapped.

"Please!" he scoffed, "no one can make me leave," he swirled around so that he was right side up, "I am everywhere und nowhere."

"So I see!" Seras snapped.

She was not the brightest girl, and so it took a few minutes for her to think to say, "Maybe you should be 'everywhere und nowhere' somewhere else!"

He laughed at this little display of wit, and hovered closer.

"The guards are going to catch you if you stay around here!"

"Let them come," he said, "I will just come back if they take me away."

Sure enough, the guards soon came to chase him away, and he was indeed back to bother Seras not long after that. She did not fully understand why he was forbidden to be in the seal palace, but she knew she did not like him because he was cocky and arrogant.

However, this did little good.

No matter how Seras would snap or snarl at him, no matter how much she tried to hit him or thrash him, Schrödinger would always laugh her off and come back for more. Sometimes he would go away for a while, especially if Seras sent him away in a particularly nasty huff, but inevitably he came back. And when he did come back, he always hovered close to Seras. She did not understand why he chose to hang around her when there were so many better children or fish to bother, and she often tried to make him want to leave by being rude and unpleasant.

However, Schrödinger was immune to Seras' hostility. He was not at all bothered by her dour attitude or her hostile disposition. If anything, he seemed to like her all the more for it. He did not set out to annoy her per se, but he always teased her for some reaction or another, and was glad for any kind he got. Seras was annoyed by his constant pestering, but she would have been lying if she had said she completely despised his company.

"Why are you always following me?" she demanded one day.

"Isn't it obvious?" he asked, smiling that same unreadable smile.

It was not, but Seras softened toward him over time. Eventually, she resigned herself to being followed by him as a shark is followed by a pilot fish.

In fact, a strange symbiosis formed between the two. While he would never admit to it, Seras suspected that Schrödinger floated carelessly from place to place because he was searching for something, perhaps some sort of amusement, and whatever it was he was looking for, he found it in Seras. While she would never admit it to anyone, least of all herself, Seras was very lonely and found a companion in the persistent Schrödinger.

"We are like two sharks in a single egg," Schrödinger would grin, and try to cuddle up to Seras.

"Get away!" she would say, and dart off.

Even the guards eventually realized the futility of trying to keep him out of the sea palace completely, and so they forbade him from going inside the royal palace but not the royal grounds. This was apparently a compromise that Schrödinger could live with, and so he stayed away from the palace and came to play with Seras only when she went out into the gardens.

"You took so looooooong, Seras!" he complained once, "In the entire time it took you to tidy the little princess's bedchamber, I went all the way to the deepest trench, found some sunken treasure, got chased by a glowing monster, got my head chomped off, und came back. Maybe you should think about hiring some help, mein Schatzi."

"You better stop making fun of my parents right now!" Seras shouted angrily.

"I'm serious…"

But Seras smacked him and swam away.

This is not to say Schrödinger was a bad friend. On the contrary, he often remembered things about Seras that others forgot or never knew to begin with, and he often encouraged her interests and hobbies, like her love of the surface world and all connected to it.

Despite her fear of the endless abyss, Seras would often come out into the royal grounds when she was not cleaning the royal bedchambers.

Out in the royal grounds, each little princess had her own small garden plot where she could dig and plant whatever she liked. One of them made her little flower bed in the shape of a whale, another shaped hers like a little mermaid, but the youngest of them made hers as round and golden as the sun. Seras was not a royal princess and so did not have a plot of her own, but she often tended to the youngest princess's garden since she was often off exploring sunken ships, and she often ran her fingers over the flowers that were golden as the sun.

Seras was an unusual child, quiet and wistful when she was not dour and glaring, so when the royal sisters decorated their gardens with all kinds of odd things they had found in sunken ships, Seras would moon over them and contrast their appearance to the sun flowers. Sometimes, Seras would borrow the little treasures just for a moment, and lie in the sun flowers and look up at the real sun above, and pretend she was a human being lying in a bed of flowers beneath the golden sun in the surface above.

Schrödinger alone noticed these little peculiarities and often made fun of her for it. However, he also began to bring back little treasures that he claimed to have also found in sunken ships as well.

One day, as Seras tended the youngest princess's flowers, she looked up to see Schrödinger hovering near her with his hands behind his back and a mischievous grin on his face.

"… What's all this about?" Seras glared skeptically.

"I haf brought you a present, mein Schatzi," he gloated.

"Stop calling me Schatzi," Seras said automatically.

"Fine," he shrugged, "I guess you don't want your present."

"No, wait! I do! Just tell me what it is!"

"I will only tell you after you pick a hand!"

"You must be joking!" Seras cried.

"I am not, just pick a hand!"

"What if it's a trick?"

"Now, would I do such a thing?"

"Yes! All the time!"

"Well then, I guess I should take my present elsewhere."

"Schrödinger!"

"All right, which hand do you want it from?"

Seras growled in frustration, and then pointed to the left hand. Her glare promised that if this was a trick, she would slug him.

Schrödinger presented her with a silver dinner fork that you or I would eat our meals with.

However, Seras gasped in awe, and then reached out to hold it like it was a priceless treasure.

"How did you ever find something so wonderful?"

"I found it in a sunken ship not too far from here," Schrödinger gloated, "You could haf found it too, if you had come with me."

"I'm not going out there!" Seras cried, "There are sharks in those waters!"

"Please, I would never let a shark eat you."

"As if you could do anything about it," Seras grimaced, thinking of her failed rescue of her parents.

However, she smiled slightly as she examined the fork more closely.

"What is it?" she finally asked.

Schrödinger closed his eyes, puffed up his chest and placed his hands on his hips like he was a real authority.

"It's a dinglehopper!" he exclaimed.

Seras frowned. "No, it's not!"

"Yes it is."

"That's such a stupid name!"

"Well, it's what it's called."

"Yeah right!"

"It is!"

"Like I believe that! Every time you say something has a stupid-sounding name, it always turns out to be a lie!"

How could she forget the Snarflat Incident of '29? Seras had gone around thinking that a little brown, bulbous pipe that Schrödinger had given her was called a snarflat, until the royal court composure had corrected her… it was really a small saxophone, used to make fine music by blowing into it. Seras had then chucked it at Schrö's head.

In spite of his mischief, Seras continued to receive and collect little gifts until she no longer had room in her tiny toy chest. She thought that was the end of her collection of human trinkets, until Schrödinger surprised her one day by finding a little grotto near the palace to hide her possessions, far away from the little princess's grabbing hands.

With a loyal (if mocking) companion to pass the time and a secret trove to store her treasures, Seras slowly mellowed enough that adults and children alike were not unnerved by the mere sight of her.

However, the only adult that really took to Seras was the aforementioned royal court composer. He was an old, fat, balding merman that was about as thick as a porpoise, with the negative buoyancy of a shark. He often floated along with his giant pot belly hanging out and his tiny fish fin perfectly still, and stayed afloat by flapping his hands. He often grew tired from this minimal effort though, and often panted from exhaustion.

Regardless, he was a genius composer and a rather kindhearted fellow, and took a shining to the little maid.

"Seras… Wake up, Seras…"

Seras woke to the sound of his deep baritone, not realizing she had fallen asleep after escorting the youngest princess to rehearsal and running errands for her. She would have panicked on being late with her work had she not being creeped out by the fat, smelly, panting merman floating before her.

"... Who are you?" she demanded.

"I am the royal court composer! The Great Baron Vladimir Harkonnen!"

"AH!" Seras screamed and fled outright. Nobles never talked to her unless she had done something wrong!

"Ah! Don't flee! Don't flee! Just wait! Come back! That is, don't swim away!"

Seras stopped to look at him.

"Seras, I want to give you my support! You are always working so hard. Now, go ahead and ask me anything you want! And don't hold back!"

"Um… Well… it's just…" If he had asked her several years later, she would have been earnest in her question. Now? She was an angry and skeptical child that did not see the good in anything, and questioned the sincerity of his offer. However, maybe…?

Seras sighed. "Everything's in the pits. My mum and dad are dead, I'm stuck on the ocean floor, I can't leave because of the dark waters and sea monsters that live on the ocean floor around this magic city, I can't visit the surface for a very long time, I always get in trouble when my mistress does something bad or skips out on rehearsals, everybody hates me, and every time I try to do something right, it falls back in my face! Oh, and the royal grandmother wants to push me out. Will the rest of my life be this unhappy?"

Harkonnen just stared blankly. "Uh…"

"I KNEW IT!" Seras screamed, and swam off to cry.

"WAIT! WAIT!" he called frantically after her, "THAT DOESN'T COUNT! COME BACK! I LIED! IT'S NOT THAT BAD! WAIT!"

Seras whimpered unhappily and looked back at him.

"Listen, Seras, I cannot control what has happened in your life so far," he said, "But I can offer you some consolation."

"What do you mean?" she sniffed.

"Why don't you come and work as a stage hand for my royal concerts?" he said. "You have to escort the youngest princess to rehearsals anyway (since she is always skipping out), so this way you can stay, sing, and dance with other mermaids that are interested in music just as you are, rather than swimming all the way back to the palace to work some more before swimming back here to escort the youngest princess home."

"I'm not interested in music, Harkonnen," Seras said.

"Really? But you sing so beautifully," he said.

"I don't sing," she frowned.

"Then you have such a lovely voice."

"What do you care, anyway?"

"I just want to see you foster your talents just as your dear mother did—"

"You knew my mother?!"

"Of course!" he cried, "She was one of the finest sopranos I ever had the pleasure of training! It's a shame she was not of noble blood, or she would have been the crown jewel of my professional achievement!"

Seras remembered how beautifully her mother had sung. Her voice filled her heart and mind with melodies and lullabies, which Seras recalled in her mind and wept over every night before she slept.

She accepted Harkonnen's offer without another word.

At first, Seras only did small things like bring tools to help decorate the stage, then she started helping with curtains and props, but with more coaxing from Harkonnen she eventually joined the chorus, where they did indeed foster some of her singing talent. Seras was convinced that her voice was like metal scraping against rocks compared to her mother, but Harkonnen would not let her give up because of it.

Working for Harkonnen brought Seras only small joy though, not just because helping with the stage gave her more work and less time to play and explore, but because the Sea King and Dowager Queen would not hear of a commoner taking any role that might be filled by their infinitely worthier royal princesses. Harkonnen had tried to give Seras larger singing roles, but the monarchs rebuked him so savagely that Seras was convinced there was no future for her there.

Despite her secret home in the grotto, her companionship with Schrödinger, and her part time job working as a stage hand for Harkonnen, Seras remained quite taken with the surface world and all connected to it.

As Seras grew up serving the royal princesses, she often listened eagerly as the little princesses grew old enough to visit the surface and tell each other of what they encountered.

When the eldest princess had her fifteenth birthday, she came back with a hundred things to tell her sisters about. The most marvelous thing of all, she said, was to lie on a sand bar in the moonlight, when the sea was calm, and to gaze at the large city on the shore, where the lights twinkled like hundreds of stars; to listen to music; to hear the chatter and clamor of carriages and people; to see so many church towers and spires; and to hear the ringing bells. Because she could not enter the city, it was just what she most dearly longed to do.

Oh, how intently Seras listened. After this, whenever she looked out the open window at night and looked up through the dark blue waters, she thought of that great city with all of its clatter and clamor, and even fancied that in these depths she could hear the church bells ring.

The next year, the second sister had permission to rise up to the surface and swim wherever she pleased. She came up just at sunset, and she said that it was the most marvelous sight she had ever seen. The heavens had a golden glow, and as for the clouds - she could not find words to describe their beauty. Splashed with red and tinted with violet, they sailed over her head. But much faster than the sailing clouds were wild swans in a flock. Like a long white veil trailing above the sea, they flew toward the setting sun. She too swam toward it, but down it went, and all the rose-colored glow faded from the sea and sky.

The following year, the third sister ascended, and as she was the boldest of them all she swam up a broad river that flowed into the ocean. She saw gloriously green, vine-colored hills. Palaces and manor houses could be glimpsed through the splendid woods. She heard all the birds sing, and the sun shone so brightly that often she had to dive under the water to cool her burning face. In a small cove she found a whole school of mortal children, paddling about in the water quite naked. She wanted to play with them, but they took fright and ran away. Then along came a little black animal (it was a dog, but she had never seen a dog before) that barked ferociously that she took fright and fled to the open sea. But never could she forget the splendid woods, the green hills, and the nice children who could swim in the water without fish tails.

The fourth sister was not so venturesome. She stayed far out among the rough waves, which she said was a marvelous place. You could see all around you for miles and miles, and the heavens up above you were like a vast dome of glass. She had seen ships, but they were so far away that they looked like sea gulls. Playful dolphins had turned somersaults, and monstrous whales had spouted water through their nostrils so that it looked as if hundreds of fountains were playing all around them.

The fifth sister's birthday came in the wintertime, so she saw things that none of the others had seen. The sea was a deep green color, and enormous icebergs drifted about. Each one glistened like a pearl, she said, but they were loftier than any church steeple built by man. They assumed the most fantastic shapes, and sparkled like diamonds. She had seated herself on the largest one, and all the ships that came sailing by sped away as soon as the frightened sailors saw her there with her long hair blowing in the wind.

In the late evening clouds filled the sky, thunder cracked and lightning darted across the heavens. Black waves lifted those great bergs of ice on high, where they flashed when the lightning struck. On all the ships the sails were reefed and there was fear and trembling. But quietly she sat there, upon her drifting iceberg, and watched the blue forked lightning strike the sea.

Seras grew up hearing such stories as she went from a sour-faced child to a pretty young maiden. Though she grew quite buxom and her hair remained short and wild (which was against the mer standard of beauty), she often combed the sea princesses' long hair and decked their slim bodies in pretty shells and pearls so she could listen to their stories as they told each other of the surface around their joint coral vanity and mother of pearl mirrors.

Each of the sisters took delight in the lovely new sights when she first rose up to the surface of the sea at first, but when they became grown-up girls allowed to go wherever they liked, they became indifferent to it. They would become homesick, and in a month they said that there was no place like the bottom of the sea, where they felt so completely at home.

On many an evening the older sisters would rise to the surface, arm in arm, all five in a circle. On the evenings when the mermaids rose through the water like this, their youngest sister stayed behind all alone, looking after them with her bottom lip a quivering.

"Oh, how I do wish I were fifteen!" she said. "I know I shall love that world up there and all the people who live in it."

Seras frowned at this, for she was a year younger than the youngest princess and so had that much longer to wait. She often looked wistfully up as she did her chores alone in the dark, and might have grown even more dour had Schrödinger not often come to pester her, or Harkonnen kept her busy working as a stage hand for the royal opera house.

Over the years, Seras slowly regained her cheerful nature from before her parents' demise, and she took more chances going closer and closer to the surface. Her fear of open water lessened and her desire to explore sunken ships increased. In fact, one day when she was sent to collect fishing nets to decorate the stage for a royal concert in honor of the youngest princess's birthday, Seras had trailed close to a ship above.

From below the water, she could vaguely hear the mariners singing words that sounded like:

I'll tell you a tale of the bottomless blue

And it's hey to the starboard, heave ho!

Look out, lad, a mermaid be waiting for you

In mysterious fathoms below!

Little did they dream a pretty young mermaid was down below, stretching her white arms up toward the keel of their ship!

Or that she cut off part of their net to take with her in the mysterious fathoms below.

Seras wrapped the net around her shoulders like a coil of rope and looked again upon the ship above. She felt she could vaguely hear them talking and see them looking out over the edge, yet she could not get close enough. Oh, how she wished to break through the surface to see their faces and hear their chatter!

From beneath the water, she almost thought she could see one of the humans looking down at her.

Seras gasped and darted further down in the fathoms below, looked back up worriedly, and then sighed with relief. Not wanting to get in trouble with the authorities again (for she often came too close to the surface for their comfort), Seras darted back down to the sea floor and drifted along, passing reef plants and sea mammals resting at the bottom, until once again she drifted into the magical waters of the Sea Capital along with the other merfolk.

As they all gathered to be seated in the royal concert hall, Seras drifted backstage with the net to help set up.

"Oh, thank Neptune you have returned in time," one of the stage hands exclaimed. "You found the sea net in the sunken ship I told you about?"

"No," Seras said, "but I found some off a ship that was passing by."

This was met with a mixture of disapproval and admiration.

"You took this from a ship still inhabited by humans?"

"Seras, you're too young for that!"

"Don't worry, I did not break through the surface or let them see me," Seras said.

They would have argued further, but the lead stage hand reminded them that the curtain would draw in less than ten minutes and they had to hurry.

Outside, Seras could hear the announcer welcome the royal highnesses, the Sea King and Dowager Queen, with much pomp and circumstance, and the royal court composer Baron Harkonnen with considerably less celebration. Seras felt it hardly fair since he wrote and composed the concert, but figured she was not the one in charge.

As Harkonnen took his place, Seras could hear him exchange a few words with the king.

"I am so looking forward to this performance, Harkonnen," the Sea King said enthusiastically.

"Of course, Your Majesty!" Harkonnen cried, "This will be the finest symphony I have ever conducted! Your daughters will be spectacular!"

"Yes! And especially my youngest!"

"Yes… Yes, Sire. She has the most beautiful voice…" in a much quieter tone, he grumbled, "If only she would show up to rehearsals every once in a while."

Seras furrowed her brows. Show up to rehearsals…

Right on cue, the stage hands in charge of handling the princesses were beginning to panic. The elder princesses had long come out of makeup and taken their places in their stage shells. The youngest princess was not here. This was to be expected. The audience was full and she had not yet arrived. This was normal. The curtain was about to pull and she was not here… this was bad.

Most of them panicked and scrambled over what to do. Should they claim technical malfunctions and try to stall for time? No, the concert was already starting and they could not hold it back. Should they announce that the youngest princess was late and hold the concert? No, they would all get in trouble and it could mean their jobs. Should they…? Should they…? Should they…?

Amidst the panic, one of them spotted Seras.

"You were the princess's double during rehearsals!"

"Well, yes, because she was often absent and did not know her own lines…"

"Most of the audience has never seen the youngest princess! They will never know the difference!"

"But their royal majesties will never allow it!" Seras cried.

Before she could object further, they pushed her into makeup and threw the ceremonial garments on her.

Out on stage, the music started. It was too late to turn back now.

Ah, we are the daughters and granddaughters of Triton and Amphitrite!

Great father and grandmother who love us and named us well!

Aquata, Arista, Atina, Adella, Allana!

"Please, this will never work!" Seras cried.

"Too late now!" and they shut the clam.

"And then there is the youngest in her musical debut

Our final little sister, we're presenting her to you

To sing a song Harkonnen wrote, her voice is like a bell

She's our sister, Arie-"

When the giant ceremonial clam opened, the sisters all gasped in horror.

Harkonnen gasped as well, and looked back fearfully at the royal majesties.

They might have been able to save the show, had the Sea King and Dowager Queen not been livid.

"SERAS VICTORIA!"

Seras' eyes snapped open almost a year later. She was slumped over a large rock on the outskirts of the Sea Palace grounds, where the water was colder and darker thanks to the weaker magic. She pulled herself up with difficulty, and felt the weight of the sea net filled with large clams pulling her down.

After the debacle of the youngest princess's musical debut, Seras had been punished more thoroughly than she had ever been punished in her life. The Sea King and Dowager Queen had called her to the royal throne room after their subjects had been sent home, where they gave her the verbal thrashing of her life.

The lifelong threat of pushing her out finally came true when they stripped her job as a chamber maid and forbid her from ever working for royalty ever again, since she had shamelessly used her connection to try to impersonate one of the royal princesses. To that end, she was forbidden from ever working or performing for Harkonnen, or singing to the public ever again. She was never to sing before their royal subjects, even if it was within the chorus.

Harkonnen himself received a not insignificant slap on the wrist, but he was still a baron and a court composer, and so his penalty was not so severe.

Seras fell into another depression following the Sea King and Dowager Queen's punishment, and resigned herself to a life of labor in the ocean floor. She continued to indirectly help as a stage hand because she liked Harkonnen, but took a second job harvesting bundles of clams to bring to the Sea Palace (so city merfolk would not have to scavenge for their food, just as human farmers grow food to sell to people in the city) since she often went out to explore sunken ships with Schrödinger anyway. It was not such a grueling job since there was not such an overwhelming demand for clams, but it was tedious and disheartening.

To go from a chamber maid in the beautiful and sparkling palace, whose only duty was to straighten the royal princesses' many toys and later baubles, to a laborer who went around the dark outskirts of the glittering city with a large net slung over her shoulders, collecting large clams and lugging them back to the sea capital where everyone sang and danced all day but she was forbidden to sing or dance among them… this was not the life she had ever wanted.

Harkonnen looked on her with pity when she dropped a net full of clams and star fish for his stage.

"Seras… Miss Seras…" she heard the familiar baritone murmur behind her.

"What is it, Harkonnen?" she sighed.

"Seras, I just came to see how you were doing. You seem so down lately."

"Wouldn't you be?" Seras asked.

"Come, Seras, it is not that bad. Soon you will be able to rise to the surface just as you have always dreamed!"

"But my birthday is not for many days yet, and it just seems to take forever! The closer it gets, the longer I have to wait!"

Harkonnen blinked, and Schrödinger laughed in the background.

"Seras, your birthday is tomorrow."

Her eyes widened.

This was Seras' life before she finally turned fifteen, when she was allowed to explore the surface above.

I'll admit my classism came out in this chapter. I'm not a fan of the idea that people from wealthy families are inherently more worthwhile than those from poor families, or even that "royal/noble/pure blood" means anything since financial situations are circumstantial; socially gained, socially maintained, socially lost.

Also, I dislike Ariel. Not because she "sold her voice to get a man" (which I think is asinine since the film makes it clear she already wanted to live on the surface long before she ever set eyes on the guy), but because I think she is selfish and inconsiderate. She does whatever she wants, whenever she wants, without any regard for how her actions affect others. I would not mind if she ever showed any remorse when called out on it, but she just blows people off when they try to tell her how her actions affect them. (Especially Sebastian.) I really have no patience for people like that, so I kind of wanted to portray how much it sucks being the person who has to clean up after her.