Mermaids adorned with gold and pearls swimming through the water, schools of fish darting about in clusters, leisurely turtles and busy crabs, jellyfish and starfish, dolphins and clams.

A beautiful and mysterious sea where a diverse kingdom of creatures lived, and nestled within it in a particularly safe and secluded spot, the kingdom of the mermaids was always peaceful.

Today was no different. Yesterday, the day before, and probably tomorrow too. The kingdom was far too peaceful.

‘I’m bored.’

Blub.

Right in the middle of that serene and peaceful kingdom, in a corner of the lavish royal palace, a mermaid stretched out long and limp let out a sigh, and tiny clear bubbles rose from it.

‘Boring, boring, boring, boring.’

Atop a long chair carved from crystal, a lengthy tail that shimmered with shifting colors in the current draped carelessly over the edge and flicked every now and then.

The one sprawled out in that slovenly pose, the kind that would have sent the butler sprinting over with fire in his eyes to scoop up that tail and give it a firm pat, was none other than the kingdom’s proudest royalty, the one who held the beloved title of youngest among them, the fifteenth princess.

All mermaids were strong and beautiful, but the youngest princess was among the most exceptional of them all.

When the princess had completed her growth within the water droplet and torn through the membrane that had turned cloudy, everyone present momentarily forgot to even flutter their gills, so remarkable was the sight.

Anyone who had known her in the days when she was so small and fragile that even the molting process from fry to adult seemed cause for worry felt moved by her growth. Countless eyes and expectations turned toward the future of the princess, who had shown such a dramatic transformation from the youngest and slowest fry among the royals.

Unfortunately, however, the princess had no ambition. No, she had no drive for anything at all. This was, in truth, a fact that had long been known, but the public, who had hoped ‘maybe this time,’ soon enough thought ‘just as expected,’ and their interest fizzled out.

Forced to sit down and study, she would doze off or let her mind wander, and at every opportunity she would slip away and wedge herself into some unexpected corner to sleep belly-up. She was much the same even after she grew up.

The princess showed no interest in music, art, dance, or martial arts. She was equally indifferent to cooking, grooming, and entertainment. Occasionally her eyes would light up at an acrobatic performance at a party or at one of the octopus clan’s inventions, but that was the extent of it. 

She never showed interest in the ‘royalty-appropriate’ pursuits everyone hoped she would.

If that had been all, they would have tried to put her abilities to use in royal affairs regardless, but the princess also lacked any sense of responsibility. Burden her with a heavy load and she would simply flatten under its weight and idle away, slowly withering, that was the princess.

The reigning monarch, in other words the princess’s third older sister, looked at her youngest sibling and lamented that her nature was that of a jellyfish, one that simply drifted along with the current.

She ate what she was given, wore what she was given, and met every assigned task with indifference, yet there were times when even this princess showed enthusiasm.

It would have been wonderful if she had channeled that energy into something that benefited the kingdom, but of course that never happened. Instead, from her days as a fry, she had a particular curiosity for things that were forbidden, things deemed bad.

Why were the Taboos taboo, and if something was bad, why was it bad. These were the questions the usually quiet princess most often asked, and while the royal family was busy putting off difficult questions under the pretense of state affairs, the servants were left to rack their brains in their place.

But that was all in the past. After completing her molt, the princess no longer troubled the innocent servants. The thrill she once got from asking questions that put adults in a difficult spot had by now become even less stimulating than a single scale snagging and falling off on a piece of coral.

Now the princess preferred to experience things firsthand. Only the time she spent ignoring the clusters of warning signs and diving in headfirst, tumbling around, getting herself blown up, and figuring out for herself why everyone tried so hard to stop her gave the princess a fresh sense of pleasure.

Of course, doing all this openly was out of the question. If those around her found out, they would bubble and froth between their gills, so it was better to do it in secret whenever possible.

Getting caught would mean a harsher punishment, but great pleasures come with great consequences, so there was nothing to be done.

Without these little escapes, there would not even be a moment’s worth of laughter. The current swept gently through the space between her split tail fin.

The princess blinked against eyes that kept threatening to grow heavy. On any other day she would have simply gone to sleep, but right now she did not want to. Perhaps because she was under house arrest, falling obediently asleep felt like losing for no reason.

The house arrest order she had received more times than she could count felt particularly irksome today. To think she had to be cooped up like this just for rolling a ball around in a deserted palace corridor.

The fact that the ball was one of the royal treasures, and that the game had resulted in three or four handcrafted decorations getting smashed to pieces, was not a big deal to the princess. 

Treasures were something they had in abundance, and broken things could always be fixed.

The princess squirmed and rolled onto her side. Just then, a plump squid passing by outside the window locked eyes with her and startled, shooting out a jet of ink. It almost certainly knew of the princess’s track record, that time she had lured dozens of squid into the palace and left a dark, artistic impression all over it.

Watching the squid boldly make a run for it, the princess stared blankly and thought. Come to think of it, she had heard that a new game was trending among the orcas lately. What was it again, something about attacking the ships that humans sailed around on. Did that sound fun……

By the time the murky view outside the window had cleared, the princess had made up her mind. Her full tail fin, which had been swaying just barely above the floor, sent a vigorous current through the water.

The palace forbade anyone from even mentioning that humans were dangerous, but if she transformed into an orca and just watched from a distance, no one would ever know.

The princess, who had already slipped out and back in secret several times this way, grabbed the transformation potion she had received from her skilled inventor friend for exactly these occasions and quietly opened the secret passage in her room. Naturally, it was one she had made without anyone’s knowledge.

* * * *

Every mermaid, growing up, hears the warning that the land and alcohol are dangerous. The land is the domain of cunning, repulsive humans, and the alcohol they make plunges mermaids into debauchery. The royals, however, heard one warning even more often than that.

‘Do not live like the Fifth Prince.’

It was a lament, or rather a grumble, warning them not to live like the Fifth Prince, recorded in the kingdom’s history as its greatest rebel.

‘He’ had once been a strong and beautiful mermaid who overcame his young age to rise to first in line for the throne. 

Though he had fallen in love with a human and vanished to the land after raiding the kingdom’s treasures. Even so, he apparently had some conscience as a prince, because he left the national treasures behind and only made off with a modest selection of secondary items.

Even so, the royal family was thrown into complete uproar all the same. Faced with an unprecedented crisis, the former king and queen, who had been the ruling heads at the time, frothed and bubbled with rage. 

Of all times, this happened less than two days after the prince had returned from solving the greatest mermaid disappearance case in history and received an admiring welcome from everyone.

And then, before a commemoration ceremony could even be held, the man himself had bolted.

The heir they had praised as a prince for the ages had thrown away his status, his honor, and his magnificent tail, plundered the nation’s treasures, and chosen to run away for love! There had never been a greater disgrace.

Fortunately, the assets were quickly recovered, but mermaids born after that unprecedented incident grew up hearing the warning not to live like that scoundrel even more than they heard that the land and alcohol were dangerous. The youngest princess heard it more than anyone.

The princess grew up listening to the same nagging from all sides throughout her days as a fry, and still heard it occasionally even after her molt. It was all nagging born from the affection and grief of those around her who had instinctively grasped the princess’s nature.

Unfortunately, however, they simultaneously overlooked that very ‘nature.’

It was a natural outcome that the princess, born with a rebellious streak that made her want to do exactly what she was told not to, who had grown into a sensation-seeking mermaid, developed a strong fascination with the very things everyone treated as taboo.

Thanks to that, the princess had always lived with a curiosity about humans, the land, and the Fifth Prince who had fallen in love with a human and disappeared to the land. Just how enjoyable did loving a human have to be, for someone to turn their back on all that glory and wealth at the most triumphant moment of their life and leave? 

She could not even begin to fathom it.

But the path to satisfying that curiosity remained distant.

Every word connected to those questions fell under a uniquely powerful category of Taboos, so even the more soft-hearted servants held firm and pretended not to know when it came to this, and the butler and her parents, of course, as well as the older siblings who usually indulged the youngest, all acted as though their telepathy had cut out the moment the topic came up.

But the princess was no longer at an age where she had to rely on others to learn anything. If she set her mind to it, she could slip out to the surface in secret and see the bright blue sky, or get a look at the massive ships that humans sailed around on.

Just like right now.

‘This is fun!’

If the princess had been able to use her voice, she would have struggled to hold back a burst of hearty laughter, but fortunately mermaids had no vocal cords.

Instead, the princess, born with the ability to communicate with every species beyond just mermaids, drank the transformation potion her friend had made for her, transformed into an orca, and slipped into the pod without any difficulty.

As luck would have it, the orcas were on their way to do exactly the ‘game’ the princess had been hoping for, and they gave a reasonably warm welcome to a new friend who had shown up out of nowhere, though they were not quite sure where she had come from.

‘I like this body. It would be nice if mermaids could be this big too.’

The princess moved her now-massive body with the ease of someone born to it and chatted here and there with the other orcas. 

Most of the orcas, who fell on the younger side, felt the same boredom with the calm and quiet life at sea that the princess did. The princess shared feelings that no one back at the palace had ever understood with the whales, and looked up at the ship drawing steadily closer.

The sailing vessel, which would have felt even more enormous in her original body, crossed the surface of the sea without a care in the world. The orcas, who already knew exactly which routes humans used most often, let out wild cries in excitement over the fun that was about to come.