I taste - The Little Mermaid

Today's #afewwordsaday #KAFWAD submission

Why not join me? Today's prompts are below. Prompts for the rest of the week are in a separate post just below.

11th September 2015

I didn't get 'I taste' into my writing, but I suppose the mermaid got a taste of human life when she sat on the rocks.

I did this for an illustration challenge prompt. She is the Mermaid of Zennor.

Prompts / date	11th September 2015
FMS Photo a day	I taste
Text type	Altered characters
Sentence type	Double ly ending
Story	The little mermaid

Altered characters	Altered characters: all character traits are inverted. Good becomes evil and vice versa
Double ly ending	Adds detail and describes action: end sentence with 2 adverbs linked with and

Far out in the ocean, in the deepest depths, deeper than the clouds are high, was the palace of the Sea King.  

The looming walls of the palace were made of dark, solid rock with Gothic arches topping the narrow windows.

The Sea King had been a widower for many years, and his aged mother kept house for him. She was a foolish woman, and cared nothing for her high birth; taking no care with her appearance or that of her six granddaughters.  Each a year younger than the next; each more vain, spiteful and selfish than the next. All were without feet as their bodies ended in a fish’s tale.

Over everything lay a peculiar blue radiance, as if it were surrounded by the air from above, through which the blue sky shone, instead of the dark depths of the sea. In calm weather the sun could be seen, looking like a purple flower, with the light streaming from the calyx.

Each of the princesses had a small garden to tend, the youngest had nothing but a marble statue in hers. It was the representation of a handsome boy, carved out of pure white stone, which had fallen to the bottom of the sea from a wreck. It was like a warning about the world above the sea, she feared the time when she would have to go the surface; something that all mermaids had to do as they grew up.

“When you have reached your fifteenth year,” said the grand-mother, “you have to rise up out of the sea, to sit on the rocks in the moonlight, while the great ships are sailing by; and then you will sing and lure a ship onto the rocks.”

When first the sisters took their turn to rise to the surface, they were each delighted to be able to complete their gruesome tasks. In time it became routine and were happy for their younger sisters to take their turns.

Yet often, in the evening hours, the five sisters would twine their arms round each other, and rise to the surface, in a row. They had more haunting voices than any human being could bear; and before the approach of a storm, and when they expected a ship would be lost, they swam before the vessel, and tempt them into the depths of the sea. Whenever a ship sank, the men were drowned, and their dead bodies reached the palace of the Sea King.

At last she reached her fifteenth year. “Well, now, you are grown up,” said the old dowager, her grandmother; “so you must also lure the sailors.”

The little mermaid went reluctantly to the surface and saw a ship, becalmed. Very quickly she realised the lavish party on board was for a prince – now she was interested! It had given her a taste of the luxury her own life was lacking. It mattered not to her that he was the most unappealing creature she had ever seen. He was rich, so rich she was determined to bewitch him into giving her all his gold and jewels.

A storm picked up. The ship was wrecked. The little mermaid watched it sink along with its passengers. She thought how lucky she was that she hadn’t even had to try to sink this ship, but she was a little disappointed she’d missed her chance at gaining the prince’s riches.

She swam close to the shore to see which rocks would offer the best wrecking opportunities in future. At that moment she saw the vile looking prince in the breaking waves. He would have died had not a brave young Princess come to his assistance. She ran into the water, frantically, fearfully. She held his head above the water, and dragged him to shore, slowly, carefully.

Without wasting a moment the mermaid showed herself to the girl and screeched as loud as she could. The poor girl ran away, terrified. When the prince woke, he was convinced the little mermaid had saved his life and declared his love for her and wished they could marry.

The little mermaid sought help from the witch; “think carefully - when once your shape has become like a human being, you can no more be a mermaid. You will never return through the water to your sisters, or to your father’s palace again.”

It was a risk the greedy sea princess was willing to take. The prince and the mermaid were married but neither was happy. The prince quickly realised she was only after his riches, and she in her turn wanted nothing more than to return to the sea.

One day her sisters came to her with a solution. They had visited the witch: “She has given us a knife: here it is, see it is very sharp. Before the sun rises you must plunge it into the heart of the prince; when the warm blood falls upon your feet they will grow together again, and form into a fish’s tail, and you will be once more a mermaid, and return to us to live out your three hundred years before you die and change into the salt sea foam.” And then they cackled more wickedly than any witch, and sank down beneath the waves.

The little mermaid drew back the crimson curtain of the tent. She bent down and kissed his brow for the first and last time; she glanced at the sharp knife, it trembled in her hand and she did as her sisters told her.’  Drops of blood spurted from his chest looked and his body began dissolving into foam. The sun rose above the waves, and his warm rays fell on the cold hearted little mermaid, who did not feel as if she were dying.

“Once again, after another three hundred years, I will become foam,” said she. “Not three score years.” With a flick of her tail she swam back to her palace which was now gleaming in gold and jewels from the human prince’s palace.