Part I: The Little Mermaid Fanfic
“Margarete!” yelled the prince as he entered the room. That’s not her name, and he knows that, but that’s what he calls her since she can’t tell him her real name. The prince’s coat and hair were wet from the drizzle pouring down outside. The hall was small but cozy and the walls were white. Against the left-hand wall, there was a small wooden sideboard, perfectly polished, with books and a single vase holding blue alliums. “Margarete!” he yelled again.
As he received no answer from his wife, he stumped into the dining room, where he found her very busy setting up the table.
“Are we expecting anyone?” he asked innocently.
The former mermaid turned quickly, scared by that unexpected noise. She realized her husband was standing in the middle of the room and rushed to take off his coat and pull up a chair for him. “Yeah, I think... Your parents mentioned something about coming down here but forgot to specify what day exactly and maybe, I don’t know, like they did a month ago. Was it a month ago? I can’t recall.” Said she in sign language. She had to learn it after she couldn’t communicate with her husband and he couldn’t understand her facial expressions. He sat down at the table where napkins and silverware were scattered in a chaotic order.
“Why don’t you let the servants organize everything?” said the prince sounding bad-tempered. ‘She always tries to do everything by herself instead of using the help, it’s so irritating,’ he thought.
“I had a lot of energy this morning,” she smiled while using her hands, “you know, as I do every once in a while.” She lowered her hands. 'Nothing to do... I can get slightly bored sometimes in this big castle,' she thought. She turned to him again, scared to look at his eyes directly. “Anyways, I thought about trying to clean everything myself while they prepare the food.” He nodded skeptically while his eyes followed her as she walked around the room, carefully and nervously.
The man got up from his chair and walked toward the woman, who was now folding the last napkin. He wrapped his arms around her waist, she gulped, and slowly pressed his lips against her bare neck, making the hairs on her arm bristle. She got away from him, saying that she forgot the cups as an excuse.
“Could you please go up to the attic and get those dishes your mother gave us? The wedding gift? It’s in a wooden box, easily recognizable because of the carvings on the top, very pretty,” expressed with her nervous hands.
“Of course.” His voice sounded slightly annoyed and left the room without further comments.
The woman sat down at the table, hiding her face behind her hands. ‘I shouldn’t have been so disrespectful.' She could almost feel the bruises on her arms and legs and stomach screaming for mercy. She could feel them burning. ‘He’s what I’ve always wanted,’ she reminded herself and stood up to continue setting up everything.
Suddenly, a glass shattered against the floor. It was her fault, her nervous hands can’t hold anything anymore. The little mermaid knew he was going to scream at her, so she had to clean the mess before he would be back.
“What did you do? Look at this mess!” said the prince as he walked into the room screaming, “You can’t ever do anything right, you can’t even talk, you’re completely useless, Margaret.”
She hated every time he would call her that, but she couldn’t say anything. Tears were the only thing sliding down her cheeks. She looked at the glass she was holding in her right hand and thought about setting herself free and end all the suffering, mistreatment, pain, but she couldn’t. He grabbed her arm with such strength that anyone who saw it could swear that he would tear her apart, and she dropped the piece of glass. He dragged her to their bedroom and tossed her to the dresser, where she hit and fell. He then slapped her in the face, leaving a giant, red mark. “Why can’t you do anything right?” Tears and sobs came from her while the repeated kicks, punches, and slaps hit her face, arms, legs, stomach, and back. When he finally stopped, the woman was an amalgam of blood and bruises.
“Clean yourself and get dressed for my parents, Margaret,” he added. He then walked up to the door and closed it with conviction, leaving the world and the freedom away from her.
She couldn’t sleep that night, she kept thinking about everything that happened that day. She put on her best smile to welcome her husband’s parents and acted like her body wasn’t under utter pain, but now she was alone with him, and she couldn’t fake it anymore. She made the decision that has been following her for a long time. ‘Tonight is the night,’ she thought. She got up, changed her clothes, packed a couple more dresses and jewelry to sell and walked out of the room. She knew she couldn’t go back to the sea with her sisters, she didn’t have her fishtail anymore. But she can’t stay with her prince anymore either. She’ll walk to the town and find a job somewhere. She’ll figure it out for herself.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I decided to do a fanfic about the original fairytale of The Little Mermaid because it’s a story that we didn’t discuss in detail, so I thought it would be interesting to explore the story by myself. I got the inspiration from one of Saint Hoax’s digital campaigns called “Happy Never After.” For this, he edited princess’ pictures to show them being abused in order to create awareness about domestic violence and encourage the victims to report their cases. One of his pieces had Ariel being abused by Eric.
My story occurs in an alternate universe where the prince does marry the little mermaid, and in consequence, she doesn’t die. I did leave the fact that she is mute to be a symbol of the silence that abused victims have to maintain due to the fear they have in their own homes. Because of this, the prince never knew the mermaid’s true name and so he chose to call her "Margaret," removing her from her real identity. Hans Christian Andersen, the author of the tale, was Danish, same as the name “Margaret”, which means “pearl,” therefore from the ocean, where the prince met the mermaid.
I wanted to leave as a moral that not everyone is what they seem, and so it’s better to meet that person before rushing into things. But I also wanted to maintain Hoax’s campaign and give hope to abused victims by showing that they can escape their abusers and that there’s also light where there only seems to be darkness.
