Floating above the world with her new sisters, searching for good deeds to perform and pure-hearted children, the daughter of the air heard disconsolate sobbing from the rocky shoreline of a quiet bay.
She glided, unseen, towards a large smooth rock where a little mermaid sat, her green and gold tail curled beneath her as her large blue eyes, wet with tears, gazed longingly towards a distant city and its bright palace of white marble. The daughter of the air felt a stab of pain at the memories rising within her, seeing herself as she had once been in this young maiden of fifteen.
Her lovely voice whispered in the little mermaid’s ear, soft and melodious, more like the calling of faraway birds than human sounds.
“Enjoy being young,” the daughter of the air whispered to this little mermaid. “Return to your loved ones beneath the waves, and if you seek an immortal soul, earn one by doing good and find a place in your old age with me and my kind.”
And with a kiss on the mermaid’s forehead, the daughter of the air flew away with her companions.
Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Mermaid Ficlet, Post-Canon, Gen
She glided, unseen, towards a large smooth rock where a little mermaid sat, her green and gold tail curled beneath her as her large blue eyes, wet with tears, gazed longingly towards a distant city and its bright palace of white marble. The daughter of the air felt a stab of pain at the memories rising within her, seeing herself as she had once been in this young maiden of fifteen.
Her lovely voice whispered in the little mermaid’s ear, soft and melodious, more like the calling of faraway birds than human sounds.
“Enjoy being young,” the daughter of the air whispered to this little mermaid. “Return to your loved ones beneath the waves, and if you seek an immortal soul, earn one by doing good and find a place in your old age with me and my kind.”
And with a kiss on the mermaid’s forehead, the daughter of the air flew away with her companions.