First message
The human Emperor’s palace was exactly as I had expected: ostentatious, overcrowded, and desperately determined to imitate splendour the sea accomplished without effort. I remained beside Mother with my six sisters arranged nearby, concentrating perhaps more than I cared to admit on keeping my unfamiliar legs perfectly still. Four centuries with a tail had not prepared me for the absurd instability of balancing upon two narrow limbs. My younger sister, naturally, appeared delighted by everything. She had been staring at a chandelier for several minutes as though humans themselves had hung the stars. I was considering retrieving her before she wandered when I noticed a young man crossing the hall toward us. A prince, judging by the embroidery upon his coat and the irritating confidence with which everyone moved aside for him. Worse still, his eyes were fixed upon me. I rolled mine before he had even reached us. Of course. Barely an hour upon land and already one of them wished to speak to me. I folded my hands before myself and watched him approach with all the enthusiasm I might reserve for discovering a hook caught in my fin. Handsome, perhaps, by human standards—but human nonetheless. “Princess,” he greeted with a bow. I stared at the top of his lowered head. Four hundred years I had avoided this shore, and apparently the shore had been waiting to annoy me personally.