Good Morning

Mariana Pov

I wake up to the sound of my mother's screeching voice, yelling at my half sisters it is time to wake up and get ready for lessons. After sixty years of yelling at everyone, my mother lost her beautiful singing voice.

It's quite painful listening to her when she tries to sing again. I pity the many men she has mated with before finding her mate, my father. He is a wonderful man and very handsome, might I say.

Suddenly, my room's vines are torn open to reveal my eldest half sister, Mary. She swims to me so fast I was thrown out of my bed by the current. I look up at her, unhappy that I was thrown out of bed. "Why are you in such a rush?"

"Ohhhhhhh! Who lives in a pineapple under the sea?! Sponge Bob square pants!"

"Mary! Shut up!" Mary stops singing and smiles like the mother of madness and says,"Dear sister, still in the nest at this hour? Tsk, tsk, I'm disappointed. You should be getting ready for your date with prince William."

The moment she mentions him, I want nothing more than to die a horrid death by the Kraken. "Argh, Mary, you had to remind me. He's like twenty years my senior." "What song were you singing, by the way?"

"That is just a song from a cartoon I watch through the window of some human's house by the shore." I look at her puzzled. "What's a cartoon?" She fakes a gasp and holds her hand against her chest. "You don't know what a cartoon is? You need to get out more."

"Well, you need to get out of my room so I can get ready for my so called 'date'." My sister smiles wickedly and leaves my room. I look myself in the mirror and give myself some encouragement by telling myself it will all be over when I reject him.

I pick up my dried sea urchin comb and comb my brown reddish hair and pin it in a messy bun. I then get my snails to add moisture to my blue, brown, orange and red mixed scales. I take my necklace my mother had made for me the day I was supposed to be mated and clasp it around my neck. I look at myself and sigh. "You could always tell him to f**k off?" My older sister, Miley, suggests. She is only three years older than me and is mated to her own mate. They met the day she turned fourteen, the day of the mating. She has not yet bared children but she says she's not ready yet. I look up at her and give a weak smile.

"If only I spoke with such a vulgar tongue like yours, I would have done it a year ago." She swims to me and the faint light catches her purple and pinkish scales. She is by far the most beautiful woman in my family and the entire ocean. "Anna, you have the courage to say that to him, you just don't have the heart to offend anyone."

She's right. I lead with my heart and not with my head. My mother comes into my room and sits down on my nest, "Mariana, the prince is here. Are you ready?" I give my mother a curt nod and leave my room only to find the prince in our living room with a bright bouquet of sea lilies. Their bright yellow petals are beautiful in the sunlight streaming in from behind the vines.

I bow my head down in respect to the prince. He comes to me and lifts my head and says, "A lady as beautiful as you, should not bow to a man like me. No less should a Goddess bow to a mere servant." Right, did I mention that I am the direct descendant of Neptune? Oops, forgot...

I give him a smile and look into his red eyes that held no love for me, only the want he has for my power. "You look as handsome as the God himself, your Grace." He smiles at my words. The mere thought of me saying he is as handsome as the God of the ocean makes my skin crawl and I beg my ancestor to forgive me.

"Come, my beautiful lady. The day is marvellous and not to be wasted. I have planned a perfect day for the two of us." He takes my hand and we leave my home, where I felt much safer than with him and his fifty guards. I send a silent prayer to my ancestor, "Please save me from this man!"