Chapter One: The Seaweed is Always Greener

To anyone else, the ocean may come across as intimidating and filled with the secrets that only time has had the pleasure of knowing.

The waves that rolled down to the shore without a care of the lives of the people on the shore... At times they were gentle and soothing, and other times they were angry and foreboding. No one dared against the sea whenever it was in a terrible mood, waves smashing against the shore with a fury that nobody could explain.

There was a side of the blue water that not all of the people on land have experienced.

Not every one felt the waves curl around them in comfort, nor had everyone felt that the waves were home. They most certainly did not feel that the reason why the ocean was so deep was to protect those that lived in it from the persons that lived above ground.

No, they certainly didn't know this and the King of Atlantica made sure that it was kept that way. After a horrible incident that involved the Queen and a harpoon one day when they decided to go up to the surface, there had been a royal decree that no merfolk was allowed to go to the surface without the expressed permission from the king.

This was why the truth of merfolk became a myth until they simply became a fairy tale when the people knew about their existence left the world, one by one.

Unknown to the people on land, the civilization under the sea continued to thrive even after the loss of their beloved Queen.

Despite the Queen's death, she left behind seven daughters, each cherished deeply by King Beom Soo, but no one could deny that the youngest was his favorite. The youngest who was the spitting image of her mother... but had the headstrong qualities of her father. This really didn't have the best results oftentimes.

 

"Nayeon!"

The king's voice boomed across the underwater palace as several palace maids scurried across the halls, trying not to come across the king's path.

"Nayeon, I demand you open this door this instant." The king of the sea was outside the door of his youngest daughter, bristling with anger as his royal advisor stayed behind him, keeping quiet in front of the king's rage.

"Yes, daddy?" 

The door opened to reveal the teenager, her brown orbs lifting to meet her father's gray ones. Fear didn't flit across the young royal's face. She was used to her father's overprotectiveness that she inwardly sighed instead of jumping through hoops to contain her father's fury. Anyways, what had she done know?

"Is it true that you, my daughter, went to the shallows, when I explicitly forbade anyone from going up to surface, or anywhere near possible human interactions?"

Beom Soo's anger was fueled by fear. He'd already lost his wife to the humans -- he'd be damned before he let them take any one of his daughters. His fear almost always doubled when it came to his youngest. He knew that if he lost her, it would have been losing his wife all over again. It was this fear that kept him up at night when he came to his empty room at the end of the day. The years hadn't made anything better. They just made things bearable.

The question had the young mermaid drawing up short, her eyes flashing wide for a moment with surprise before glossing over. Her father wasn't allowed to find out where she spent her time. Besides, no one could fault her. The water in the shallows was lighter and warmer, a huge difference from the coldness that dominated the depths of the water below.

"No, I didn't. Who tells you these things anyway?" Nayeon raised an eyebrow, letting her fins keep her level as she looked at her father. 

"That's none of your business, young lady. And you know why I don't like any of you girls running into humans. They're good for nothing and they only pollute the waters. You stay away from them, you understand?" Her father's voice was firm as he looked at her sternly, his advisor all but forgotten beside him. Funny how the king could break his schedule to scold or confront his daughters but not allow any random meetings from foreign nobles. "And please, for the life of me, listen to what I'm saying."

Nayeon had to stop herself from rolling her eyes. She loved her father, truly, but he was too paranoid with her safety that it sometimes was a little bit... too much. "Yes, daddy. I'll keep safe." All the while she was uttering the words, she crossed her fingers behind her, far from her father's eyes. "Before you go, daddy. Momo invited me to hangout. I promise, Jeongyeon's going to be there." 

Jeongyeon's name had the king exhaling. Although he may have been skeptical about Nayeon's friendship with Momo, a commoner, he trusted Jeongyeon completely. It was funny how he got everything wrong.

Jeongyeon was the troublemaker while Momo was the angel.

"Be back before dark, you hear me?"

Without another word, the monarch turned and swam away, the advisor who was silent moments before now flipping through the papers as he tried to organize the king's day ahead after the break in the meticulously planned schedule.

"Of course daddy. Love you!"

Those were Nayeon's last words as her fins went into ac