Beautiful to Me

by E. L. Tenenbaum

  Sienna would usually flit about the garden while we conversed, her slender bare feet caressing freshly cut blades of grass, balancing on low fountain walls, raising her up on marble benches to peek over a hedge. She appeared to all the world a butterfly, a beautifully colored creature whose every delight lit up the world around her. Even my heart warmed to see her then, and I often wondered why the prince sought me out if he could converse with Sienna through paper and pen, or even gestures. Didn’t he want to know the inner thoughts of such a happy creature?

  Often though, for all her charm and all her beauty, I wanted to grab her shoulders and shake until all nonsense of being human fell right out of her head. What are you doing to procure the soul you so desperately craved? I silently shouted. Why must you obsess over a prince who often forgets you’re there, to shun everything you were raised to be? Why sacrifice what your life was to seek what you surely already have? Do you not see how plain this life is compared to what you had?

  At first, I figured the prince visited me because he was as lonely as I was without his sister around. Perhaps he thought our mutual regard for her bonded us in a way that was different from the others at the palace.

  On further thought, I realized how ridiculous such a notion was. I had known the princess barely a year; her family and friends had grown up with her, knew her far better, had been with her all her life. I was but a small sliver in that circle. I also firmly dismissed any further consideration of those thoughts with the simple fact that a prince doesn’t need a gardener for company. That he chose to sit out in the garden was probably a reflection of the warming weather, cool ocean breezes, and days that were blossoming under the gentle caress of spring. That he often chose to visit the exact part of the garden I was working in, be it while trimming hedges, weeding vegetable patches, or overseeing activities in any of the greenhouses, wasn’t notable. He was probably bored of throwing sticks to Castellano and was simply glad to have anyone to converse with. Conversations with Sienna, as he must have had considering all the time she was around him, were probably silent.

  One night, during the week the prince was away attending Prince Rainn’s coronation, I took a small rowboat out to sea and sat quietly in the gentle lulling of the waves. I hadn’t been out much since the sailboat ride with the two princes, and I sorely missed the feeling of the water around me. Truth is, it was difficult to always see the sea without being embraced by it, and I would never quite shake the feeling. Even now, almost three hundred years later, there are still days my skin itches to be immersed in water.

  I lazily dropped a hand over the side of the boat and called softly to my friends. I wasn’t certain if it was too late, too far, or too quiet for them to hear me, but I tried anyway. I waited a while, and had almost given up, when I caught sight of two very familiar dorsal fins cutting through the reflected moonlight. They popped up on either side of me, standing upright in the water so the tops of their heads fully cleared the surface.

  “You called?” Cigny joked.

  “When are you coming back?” Callan asked.

  “I hope very soon,” I replied.

  “Haven’t yet managed to hook a prince yourself?” Cigny teased.

  I splashed some water at her, meaningless as the gesture was. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  Cigny shrugged in response.

  “What?” I asked looking from her to Callan, who’d suddenly grown quiet. “What is it?”

  The siblings glanced at each other, each silently pushing the other to speak first. That night, Callan was braver. “You’ve been away a very long time,” he pointed out.

  “Almost a year,” I agreed. “But it’s not really that long, considering.”

  “So many things happen in a year,” Cigny piped in.

  I studied her suspiciously. “What aren’t you telling me?” I pressed.

  “The squids don’t think you’re coming very soon,” Callan blurted out.

  So that was the nature of their concern. “Why would they say that?”

  I had quite successfully convinced myself that it was only a matter of days before I would speed through the water with my tail again.

  “Tatiana’s scrying pearl,” Cigny explained. “They see a lot of different things in it.”

  I sighed. “I admit I’ve run out of ideas for how to convince Sienna to return to the sea, but once the prince proposes to her…”

  My sentence trailed off as both dolphins shook their heads at me. Callan forced a small smile. “The prince doesn’t really think about Sienna much, does he?” he asked carefully, though it seemed he already knew the answer.

  “How am I to know what goes on in his head?” I deflected.

  “Well, he seems to talk to you rather frequently,” Cigny pointed out.

  “That’s nothing,” I said quickly, dismissing her unspoken accusation and any wayward thoughts that might crop up in my head because of it.

  “He doesn’t talk as much to Sienna,” Callan commented. “He barely talks to her at all.”

  Until now, I’d always been rather optimistic in our few late night meetings, reassuring them time and again that I was close to achieving my goal one way or the other. This was the first night we were all confronting reality, or rather, my good friends, loyal as always, were making me confront it.

  “He doesn’t seem very interested in marrying her, either,” Cigny added.

  “Well, I don’t always see them when they’re together,” I began, but the excuse sounded weak to my own ears, and I stopped before I said anything more pathetic.

  “He seeks you out quite a lot,” Callan said.

  “He’s just bored,” I insisted. Rainn will straighten him out, I silently assured myself.

  “Sure,” Cigny and Callan said together, though their tone indicated that neither believed me.

  “He’s just a friend.”

  “How easy would it be to tell him goodbye?”

  I thought about it a moment, thought about the moment when I’d say goodbye, or goodnight, or good day, and know that it was forever. I realized I’d need a few days to prepare myself for it, but I naively thought then I’d still be able to.

  “Would…you…would you be very upset if I stayed here much longer?” I gathered the courage to ask. I didn’t look at them as I did, however, I didn’t want to see the hurt in their eyes.

  I had to look when Cigny bumped my hand affectionately. “As long as you’re happy,” she said.

  I nodded, not quite able to speak.

  “How’re my mother and father?” I tried to change the subject. “King Trident, the rest of Merdom?”

  Cigny and Callan shared a shrug-glance.

  “King Trident hasn’t declared war yet,” Cigny offered.

  “Everything’s pretty much the same as always,” Callan cut in. “Enchanted, harmonious, beautifully blue.”

  I smiled appreciatively at his description. It was nice to hear that Merdom remained constant, steady and unchanging, the anchor in the life that was really mine. I didn’t bother to think then about how anchors hold a ship at bay so it cannot venture forth. How anchors can be lifted so a ship can be free to sail the winds, to the ends of the earth if so desired.

  “My parents?” I pressed.

  “They’re just proud of you,” Callan said kindly.

  Too kindly, perhaps, because I knew that meant they hadn’t been asking after me. Not that I didn’t think they cared—I never once felt they didn’t love me as parents should—but they were also confident and reassured in what I’d been sent to do for the king’s daughter, no matter what the outcome would be. Still, just once I would have liked to hear that they were worried about their only child. That they missed me, even a little.

  I drifted with my friends a little longer before heading back. I asked them to listen out for me, as I would visit with them again, and soon. I rowed back to shore, glad of the force needed to push against the waves, glad of the distraction the motion provided.

  Later, howeve
r, when I was lying awake in my room there was no escaping our conversation. If even my best friends didn’t believe I’d soon be successful, then what hope could I possibly have of becoming a mermaid again anytime soon?

  A few days after his return, the prince stopped me on my way out to the gardens, making his presence known by suddenly plucking my shears right out of my hands.

  “You’ll be pleased to know,” his highness announced, “that you have been relieved of your duties for today.”

  “Does His Highness intend to take my place?” I politely inquired, gesturing at my plundered shears.

  The prince shook his head merrily, sending the dark waves of his hair to tumble over each other like a stormy sea. “Today,” he elaborated, “you will be accompanying your esteemed monarch for a hike and a picnic.”

  “Your father?”

  “Me!”

  “So I must work twice as hard today?” I asked, biting my tongue after the cheeky words slipped out.

  The prince grinned. “Surely, it’s not too difficult to spend some time in the company of something that isn’t a plant,” he teased.

  “Frogs—”

  “Or a frog.”

  “I find my plants to be quite affable, Highness,” I rejoined. “And rather pleasant to look at, too.”

  I didn’t mean for the last part to sound like any kind of affront to the prince, and I was about to apologize, but his expression said it wasn’t necessary. Either he was in an uncharacteristically good mood—even for himself—or he was actually enjoying the exchange. After the conversation with my friends, I was very much hoping for the first rather than give any sort of credence to the latter.

  “Withhold judgement until you see what I have to show you,” the prince replied confidently, waving me to follow him to the stables.

  The horses were already saddled, the prince’s regal chestnut mare overshadowing the small and good-natured lighter brown horse he’d gifted me for our lessons. The prince took the reins from the stable boy and held my horse steady, his hand ready to lift me up, though I was quite efficient at mounting up at that point. He waited until I was comfortably seated before gracefully swinging onto his own horse.

  I wondered how he’d managed to evade Sienna.

  “I sent Sienna ahead with the picnic,” he said, reading my mind. “There was no getting a moment alone otherwise.”

  I didn’t bother asking why he’d want to get away from her. Having a shadow was a natural part of being human, but having a human shadow was not. Anyone would need time to catch a breath if there was always someone constantly lurking in the peripheral. I stopped that line of thought before I could think any more about how that was once my life, how in some ways Sienna had become what I once was.

  Prince Arlando turned his horse away from the palace and I followed, matching his steady clip, but staying a respectful step behind. Soon, he was steering us into the woods, where the trill of birds and the sweet scent of wildflowers filled the senses enough to make the roar of the ocean fade. We rode away from the ocean’s salty reach in comfortable silence, wading deeper through the trees than I’d ever been before. Finally, we pulled up in a small clearing at the base of a hill, the horse tied to the low limb of a nearby tree indication that Sienna was already there. It seemed she had learned how to ride a horse after all. I told myself I wasn’t bothered in thinking of how that came to be.

  We tied up our horses, and the prince unnecessarily took my hand to lead me to the start of the trail, really just a foot worn indentation at the bottom of the hill. He reluctantly dropped it once there, then led the way up the path which was soon lost in the untamed grass. The hill didn’t seem very steep at first, but as we hiked higher, I quickly learned I was mistaken in my estimation. The hill was really the first step that would eventually grow into the mountains on the horizon, so the smooth, soft dirt soon gave way to a trickier, rockier path, much to the protest of my lungs. I wasn’t about to back down, however, considering Sienna had somehow managed the trek with her burning feet, that and the enthusiastically climbing prince just ahead of me was enough to push me onward.

  We climbed higher and higher, the prince stopping now and then to make sure I was keeping up or to help me climb over a boulder he seemed not to trust. Most of the way we took was clear if sometimes uneven, though farther up trees began to crowd in on either side of us, offering much welcome shade from the sun that grew stronger as we got closer to it. Here and there, we had to scramble over clusters of rocks much grayer and smoother than the ones I was used to by the sea, the prince always ready with a hand out to me.

  We must’ve hiked nearly two hours, maybe more, so by the time we reached the summit, my hands were grimy and cut in odd places. If they were any indication of my overall condition, I shuddered to think of what my sweaty, dirt-streaked face looked like.

  The prince was much better for the wear, possibly because he was more used to the rigorous exercise, or because he was a prince and that’s just how they must be. He waited for me at the end of the trail, and, when I finally caught up, once more reached for my dirty hand and pulled me up beside him at the mountain’s edge.

  Before us was one of the most magnificent views I ever had the pleasure to see. It wasn’t just the climb up that made it worth it; rather, it was the all-encompassing glimpse of a carefully crafted world, beginning from the mountain we stood upon, including the forest we’d ridden through, and stretching all the way out to the glistening sea that merrily winked at us beyond the tree line. Dots of white sails were visible against the glittering waters, mirroring the white puffs of clouds in the blue, blue sky above.

  I stared numbly at the vastness of all I was able to see from up there. How could such a comparatively plain land boast so wondrous a view? How could so much land fit into so limited a view? How could so limited a view make someone feel so small, yet so powerful, too? And why did it tug at something deep within me to see it? Underwater, I could see for vast distances no matter the light, but the effects of height and the rush it brought on land did not exist at any depth when floating in the sea.

  “Far more pleasant than a row of hedges,” the prince murmured beside me.

  I nodded as I tried to find my voice again. “It’s beautiful,” I breathed.

  The prince studied me for many long moments before turning his gaze back to the view. “Very beautiful,” he agreed, half under his breath.

  We ate our small picnic lunch near a darling alpine lake set further into the mountain. It was a short hike in, though we didn’t have to climb any higher to get to it. Sienna had set everything out quite nicely and I almost felt guilty knowing it wasn’t just for a romantic afternoon with her prince, but for me as well. My thoughts caused me to glance down at her feet, sure I would see them scratched and bleeding from the pain the upward climb must have caused. What state of mind allowed someone who felt like she was walking with knives in her heels to keep going forward, upward, beyond what anyone should have to endure, just for a chance at the life she dreamed of, despite it never fully being hers? Was it her heart, her soul, or just her blind, bullheaded determination that pushed her incessantly onward?

  Before making our way back down, I insisted on seeing the view one more time. Again, my breath caught at the sweeping panorama of this human world laid out so frankly before us, the colors, the sounds, the textures of the changing terrain, each harmonizing the next, each unabashedly demanding my full attention. It was grand enough to stir a man’s soul, I realized, the agelessness of so beautiful a view enough to prove that there was such a thing as infinity, that there was a place here for immortality.

  I don’t know how long I stood lost in the marvels and perspective of this land before the prince interrupted my thoughts.

  “Would you be opposed to setting down your shears to go hiking again?” he asked quietly.

  “I would enjoy it very much, Your Highness,” I honestly replied, without consideration for what my answer might imply.

  “G
ood. Though we do have to head down before dark.”

  I nodded, but it was several minutes more before I was finally able to pull myself away. The way down was much easier, if only because I felt more comfortable using my feet to hike. That didn’t mean I could be careless, however, so I had to force aside my wonder to focus on the trail. As such, I couldn’t quite allow my mind to return to that spot on the mountainside until I was tucked away in the secluded confines of my room, bone-tired but happy from the day’s excursion. For the first time since faltering on the shores of this land, I looked at the world on my ceiling without really seeing it.

  A soft knock at the door roused me, and I opened it to find the prince with an oversized book in hand.

  “Your Highness!” I exclaimed.

  I wanted to say more, something, anything about what the day had meant to me. In my excitement, I floundered to piece together words into something coherent, but the prince didn’t give me time to finish.

  “I thought you might enjoy this,” he said simply, carefully placing the large book in my hands.

  “Thank you,” I managed to reply.

  He nodded and turned back down the hall. I wanted to call after him but was still struggling to clearly form the rush of my thoughts, the length of my gratitude, into words. Instead, I took the book into my room and sat with it on the bed, spreading out its large pages across the coverlet. From the moment I opened to the front page, my breath hiccupped and my eyes stung with tears that wouldn’t come.

  The prince had brought me a book of landscapes, and aside from a few words to mark the locations, the double spread of pages was largely taken over by rich paintings of views that could only be seen in this human world.

  There were quite a few views like the ones we’d seen that day, but there were other, equally magnificent ones as well. Plummeting waterfalls into rivers framed with bright pink, yellow, and orange flowers; placid alpine lakes that perfectly mirrored bordering snowcapped mountaintops; white sandy beaches littered with sun-bleached driftwood; wide rolling fields with head-high stalks of golden grain swaying from an unseen breeze beneath a sapphire blue sky; verdant hills and silver streams snaking through forested valleys; huge expanses of land covered with traipsing dunes of orange sand.