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Once upon a time, in the small island queendom of Preservation, there was a great to-do. Queen Ayda Mensah had just learned that the Prince and Princess of another island would arrive in three days' time and would be staying a week. She had thus called her advisors to the throne room to plan and discuss.
“We have no time to organize anything to welcome them properly,” the Royal Treasurer, Gurathin, declared from his spot in the central pool. He flicked his tail back and forth, a habit Ayda knew came from his nerves, but he continued anyways. “Across the island, food storage is close to full, but by all predictions this winter will be a hard one and we will need the stored food. We have enough to feed the castle in our personal storage, of course, and we can add a few more people easily, but we can’t organize an elaborate feast every night and still keep ourselves fed in winter.”
“So we don’t,” Ayda said. She held the letter up. “They are on their honeymoon, exploring as many kingdoms as they can reach. I don’t believe they intended to join us, and they can hardly blame us for being unprepared. We don’t need a feast to be welcoming.”
Ayda sighed. This would be fine. Preservation was isolated by its geography, but they had hosted visitors before, especially in trading season. It was simply… so few of those visitors who weren’t regular traders took the island’s irregularities in stride. Establishing a community where all were welcome was a hard task at the beginning, and maintaining it was even harder. She’d been hoping to spend most of the next week in the fields helping with the harvest, but now it seemed she’d be handling a state visit.
That was the thing about being queen, however. Sometimes the demands of the state as a whole came before the needs of the people you were sworn to help.
She belatedly realized that nobody was talking now, which meant they were probably awaiting her response. “I’m sorry, I must have been distracted. Could you repeat that, please?”
Pin-Lee was definitely glaring at Ratthi, but she couldn’t be too upset, since she was still rubbing his belly as she said, “Ratthi thinks we should get the entire mer and creature population to agree to hide for the week of the visit. First of all, that’s–”
“Enough,” Mensah said. “Ratthi, explain your reasoning.”
The Court Wizard in question rolled over so he looked at least vaguely professional. (Pin-Lee grunted as he squashed her fingers, but let him.) “I just mean that it would be easier if we didn’t have to explain ourselves.”
“We will not hide,” Ayda said with finality. “The Corporate Kingdom is one country and their ambassador’s reaction represented an outlier. I cannot ask my people to hide for a week.”
A loose chorus of assents followed, some more reluctant than others. And so Ayda dismissed them to return to their duties, and went to consult her consorts, worried about her decision.
She found Farai in the kitchens, making a tray of food for Mara the cook and her wife Silas (they had just born their first child today; Ayda remembered that Overse was currently attending to the birth, and she would need to update Overse before the visit). Farai agreed that not hiding would be the best option, and (once the tray was properly delivered and quiet congratulations had been given to the new mothers) held Ayda in her arms for a moment, reassuring her.
“Shh, shh, my love,” Farai said. “You don’t have to be the perfect queen. You make the best choices with the knowledge you have and the values you hold dear, and we value openness. Ratthi and you want the same thing, to protect Preservation from war, you’re just going about it differently.”
“I hate arguing with the people I trust,” Ayda said. Her voice was shaky, but she wasn’t crying yet.
“I know, love, I know. Do you want to go for a walk?”
Ayda nodded into Farai’s warm shoulder. “Let’s go find Tano.”
“They went to the market this morning, I think. Something about fabric and traders. I’d bet they’re not back yet.”
Together, they walked to the market. Ayda held Farai’s hand and tried not to worry she’d made the wrong decision to overrule Ratthi. She was a human. He was a dog, even if he was her court wizard. He knew what it was like when traders came and assumed he was non-sapient like about half of the island dogs. She didn’t have that experience. She didn’t have the experience of a mer, either. She didn’t know what it was like to live like Tano did, or like any of the other mer in her country.
Was it right to expose them like this? To leave everyone bare to the stereotypes and fear that had almost led to an invasion?
But at the same time, was it right to force her people to hide who they were, to keep one group off the streets and out of sight and another group pretending to be domesticated and silent? Was it right to bow to human sensibilities, even if it might lessen the risk of invasion?
It would be impossible, too, to hide the accessibility built into every area, from the perches and steps sized for the intelligent creatures of the land to the waterways and pools that made it possible for the mer to navigate and live on land as well as just in the ocean.
Was she right to make the choice either way?
From the depths of the ocean, a sea-witch saw all this in her cauldron, and frowned. The visitors' arrival would change things, she could see, but she saw not what would change as a result.
She looked again, but try she might, she still couldn’t tell what would happen.
The witch glared at the cauldron and threw yet more ingredients in.
Still nothing.
The future was murky, and Arada hated that.
However, she was soon distracted by several thumps and a green light, the result of a spell designed to tell her when a visitor approached from above. With a flick of her tentacles, her cauldron emptied itself and she propelled herself to the surface to meet the visitor.
A human stood on the outcropping, dropping rocks into the depths. That must have caused the thumping.
The sea-witch rose from the depths amid choppy waves, dark clothing emerging from dark water and white foam. She brought a tentacle up to surround the intruder, making clear to them the consequences of their foolish decision, and rumbled, “Who dares to interrupt my–”
The intruder planted a kiss on the tentacle, startling the witch into stopping mid-sentence. “Hey, babe. Scrying again?”
Arada swam to the edge of the rock so she could hug Overse. “Yeah. The future’s all murky today, though. How was the birth?”
“Stressful,” her wife said, leaning in. “I don’t want to talk about it yet. Want to go for dinner in town?”
“Ugh, please,” Arada said, breaking the hug in favor of swimming towards the dock. She did not live particularly far from the island, but she did live fairly deep underwater. It was the unfortunate downside of her particular magic.
One of the first things Arada had done for Overse when they’d gotten serious with each other, just like she’d done for members of most of the interspecies partnerships on Preservation, was to make a safe passage charm for Overse, allowing her to safely live and breathe underwater indefinitely without needing to constantly turn her into a mer and back all the time. (Although Arada could and had transformed people’s bodies before, that was mostly for the trans people who wanted their bodies to be permanently different. It was really hard to undo a transformation if it was done properly, even if there was an exit condition. For people like Pin-Lee or Farai, that was good. For people who just wanted to be in their partners' environments for a short time, Arada usually suggested some kind of charm that would be just as good.) She didn’t need one to breathe on land, of course; she wasn’t as familiar with the ways mer bodies worked as Overse was, but she did know that mer could breathe in air just as well as in water, and in most ways she was a mer… just one with tentacles instead of a proper tail.
The point was, Arada was perfectly capable of going out to dinner in town and going back to the palace with Overse instead of staying down here and trying to scry again, and right now, she couldn’t think of anything better to do than that.
Upon the day of the visitors' arrival, Queen Mensah was busy with the palace cleaners, until the chief custodian kicked her out and told her, “Ayda, if you’re going to help, you need to calm down. You’re too anxious to get things properly cleaned.”
And so Ayda found her way to the kitchens, where Farai, who was filling in as chief cook while Mara the cook was recovering, gave her a bowl of dough to knead. That helped, at the very least.
So that was where she was when she felt a sharp tug on her caftan. Looking down, she sighed. “What’s the matter, Ratthi?”
He spit out her skirt to answer. “The prince and princess arrived early, and Bharadwaj sent me to find you since she can’t swim as fast as I can run. They seem to be taking things fine, but Princess Ariel’s asking about everything and Prince Eric seems fascinated by the canals.”
“I’ll meet them at the gate of the castle, I suppose. Let me get cleaned up here. Farai, where do you want your bread?”
Within half an hour, Ayda had a much more charitable opinion of the royal visitors. They seemed polite, and after the initial shock wore off, they had taken the existence of nonhuman citizens entirely in stride. She wasn’t sure why, but at dinner that night, Princess Ariel casually mentioned that the pools dotting the island reminded her of home.
Bharadwaj had politely asked why, and Ariel had smiled and said, “My father is King Triton, and I grew up swimming instead of walking.”
Ayda caught Pin-Lee’s eye — she remembered when Pin-Lee had transitioned, back when she was just Ayda’s best friend and not the High Chancellor. It had been wonderful for Pin-Lee, afterwards, but the spell Arada had cast had been painful, she’d said.
Pin-Lee’s expression was neutral, but she responded, “It must have been a frustrating childhood. I transitioned as soon as my body could handle the spell, and it wasn’t easy to wait that long.”
“Did you have to go to…” Ariel paused and glanced around. (Behind Ayda, Rin checked for threats as unsubtly as possible.) “Ursula?” She hissed the name, as if it was painful to say. “What did you have to give up?”
Pin-Lee shot Ayda a confused look, and Ayda smiled, hoping to reassure her friend. “No?” Pin-Lee said, drawing out her words. “I had to make a deal, yeah, but I think it was like the tail brushes I wouldn’t need any more in trade for legs and no gills.”
“That’s about what Arada trades,” Overse affirmed from the far end of the table. “We talked about this… oh wow, it was a long time ago. She can’t do that kind of transformation without a trade and a chance to back out, but we figured out years ago that she could ask for something they wouldn’t need again and say the spell would become permanent if within three days they came back and told her that they were sure.”
“Arada?” Ariel seemed confused. “Are there other sea-witches?”
“My wife,” Overse said. “She’s scrying us, probably, she didn’t want to come because she was watching a worrisome current and trying to figure out if it’s turning into a storm.” She tapped the pendant Ayda remembered was Arada’s engagement gift to her and smiled down at it. “Babe, if you’re paying attention, I think I figured out why Triton’s people were scared of you.”
The dining room windows faced the ocean, and if one were to step out that way, there was only a small ledge of cliff to keep them from falling nearly five yards down to the water. Ayda was pretty sure that Arada was listening in, and sure enough, a moment later, a large dark shape rose from the waves and resolved into Arada at her full height.
Ariel and Eric both flinched and grabbed for their knives.
Ayda tried to reassure them, but was interrupted by a tentacle knocking at the window and Overse opening it.
Arada poked her head in and waved. “I wasn’t listening until you called me. Babe, what’s going on? What’s this about Triton’s people?”
“Princess Ariel is Triton’s daughter,” Ayda said. “I believe there was simply a misunderstanding. It’s good to see you.”
“Good to see you too,” Arada said, but most of her attention seemed focused on whatever Overse was whispering to her.
Ayda left them alone and attempted to mend the situation with the visitors. And in the end, thankfully, the situation was mended and good relations restored. The week passed quickly, and on the day the foreign prince and princess were to leave, Ayda saw them off with a genuine smile.
Perhaps she had been right not to hide Preservation away.