M
Marina had made the deal. She had legs. She had feet. And she hated them.
"Ouch," she muttered, hobbling down the beach. "Sharp rocks. Hot sand. Why do humans do this?"
She had done it for Prince Eric, of course. He was handsome, in a land-mammal sort of way. But he was also... dense. He spent all day talking about taxes and fox hunting.
"The sea is so wet," he had complained once.
Marina missed the wet. She missed the weightlessness. She missed not having to buy shoes.
She walked to the edge of the pier. Her sisters bobbed in the water below.
"How is it?" they called up.
"Terrible!" Marina shouted. "Gravity is a tyrant! And my feet smell!"
"Come back!" they sang.
"I can't. The witch said no refunds."
But Marina was resourceful. She went to the royal library. She read books on biology and alchemy. If a witch could splice magic, maybe science could splice genetics.
She built a lab in the bathtub. She mixed potions. Eric thought she was making soup.
One night, she drank the concoction. It tasted like kelp and hope. Her legs tingled. They fused. Scales appeared.
She flopped out of the window and into the moat. She swam fast, her tail powerful and strong. She reached the ocean.
But she didn't stop there. The potion kept working. She grew gills. Then she grew wings. Then she grew claws.
She wasn't a mermaid anymore. She was a Sea-Dragon.
She breached the water, roaring with joy. She flew over the castle. Prince Eric looked up from his fox hunt.
"My word," he said. "That fish looks familiar."
Marina laughed, a sound like crashing waves. She had wanted to be part of his world, but she realized she preferred being the apex predator of her own.