From the Sea Beneath You

Chapter 1

This is gonna be a multi chapter book instead. Hope you like it :)

"You know, Nigel. You are right. A day on the boat with the salty sea air is definitely what I needed," Eugene said.

"Oh, yes. delightful," Nigel mumbled, trying not to vomit with sea sickness.

"A fine strong wind and the following sea. King Triton must be in a friendly-type mood," one of the guards, Stan, said.

"King Triton?" Eugene raised a brow.

"Why, ruler of the merpeople," Pete explained. "You see, the king of the merfolk always has a Trident, so everyone calls all the kings of them Trident. Mainly because we don't know his name."

"Merpeople! Your highness, pay no attention to this nautical nonsense," Nigel scoffed.

"But it isn't nonsense, it's the truth! I'm telling you, down in the depths of the ocean they live," Pete persisted.

"Yes, I'm sure they do in fairytales," Nigel nodded.

Eugene shrugged and looked over the ocean. Ever since the recent, untimely death of his parents, he felt alone, like he was missing someone. Nigel was basically running the show while he prepared to become king. He had one year before he was legally old enough to gain his father's crown.

◇◇◇◇◇◇

Rapunzel peeked out from behind a rock, looking at a sunken ship. She bit her lip with excitement as she slowly flapped her tail fin to keep a float.

"Rapunzel! Wait for me," a boy panted as he skimmed up next to her. "You know I can't swim as fast as you."

"Sorry, Varian," she apologized to her younger brother. "But look at it! Isn't it fantastic?"

"All the human things we could gather from it, it has to be!" Varian whispered in exclamation. "But..." he bit his lower lip. "Something doesn't feel right. Maybe we should swim back to the castle and come back some other time..." he turned around to swim away.

"You're not getting cold fins now, are you?" Rapunzel grabbed his blue tail before he could swim off.

"Who me? Pfft! When have I backed down from a challenge? I'm surprised at you, Raps! Have you not known me my whole life?"

"Good point. So what's holding you back then?" Rapunzel teased.

"Nothing!" Varian answered with a somewhat fake confidence.

"Then Let's go!" Rapunzel exclaimed.

Varian sighed. "Fine..."

"Or you can stay out here and watch for sharks," she taunted before swimming in through the window.

Her younger brother scoffed. "Pfft, yeah right..."

"Hey! Look at all this cool stuff!" Rapunzel cried with excitement.

Varian's eyes lit up. "Oh, wow!"

"There's more of these!" She held up a chipped teacup.

"Hey... Raps... you don't think that there's actually sharks here, do you?"

"Oh, Vari, don't be such a guppy! I'm sure we're fine! I'm sure you can find more cool things here to learn about!"

"I wonder how they make these things..." Varian admitted, his attention finally grasping all the objects. "Oh, my gosh! Rapunzel! Look at this!" He held up a fork. "Have you ever seen anything like it?"

"No..." Rapunzel breathed.

"We gotta figure out what this is!" Varian cried.

"I bet Calliope will know!" Rapunzel said.

"That's right! She always can give us the answer to all these neat gadgets. Let's go!" He grinned brightly.

"Wait... did you hear something?" Rapunzel asked cautiously.

Varian snorts. "Who's the guppy now? It's probably just your imagina-ahhh!" He yelped as a shark stuck its head in one of the boat's windows. "We're gonna die!"

"Run!" Rapunzel snatched her brother's arm and began swimming as fast as her find would let her. Where was Hector or Adira when they needed them? In their bodyguards' defense, they did kind of leave without notifying anyone.

As soon as the thought crossed her mind, Rapunzel saw Adira zip past them, swimming with her sword ready for attack. She sliced it's sides with mild gashes until it swam away.

"Thanks Adira!" Varian exclaimed.

"Next time, I'd appreciate it if you at least left a note." Adira frowned at them.

"Sorry. We were so excited that we didn't really give it the time if thought," Rapunzel explained.

"Yes, well, explain it to your father," Adira sighed.

"But we did nothing wrong," Varian pointed out.

"Yet," Adira retorted. "Don't you want to go to the surface?"

"Yes, but-" Varian began.

"I'll go with you. It'll be our secret. It's been a while since I've seen the sun myself," Adira admitted.

"Thank you, Adira," Varian smiled.