Once upon a time, in a land far, far away (and farther away for some of us than others), there lived a merman. He actually didn't really live on the land, since he had these lovely gills, and he was fairly wary of it, what with all those nasty polar bears running around up top on the ice. He lived right below the ice, right next door to the Kingdom of Bob.

The merman, and I suppose I'd better give him a name, so we'll call him Fraser, was the son of a great hero of the mer people, and was a very handsome merman with a lovely red tail. He was fairly lonely, as the mer people were few, and their kingdom large, and Fraser lived up in the coldest reaches of the mer kingdom.

Fraser spent his days avoiding polar bears and playing with passing pods of narwhal, and watched the land-dwellers through holes in the ice. Sometimes he would swim out to the open ocean and watch passing ships go by, and wonder at the small fishing trawlers and the giant iron beasts that groaned and creaked their way across the surface.

He took it upon himself to free any dolphins caught in the fishermen's nets, but kept away from the larger ships, except for one. It was a cruise ship from the Kingdom of Bob (not that Fraser knew that), and always filled with parties and laughter and the occasional drunk guy who was always leaning over the railing and puking into the sea. That ship Fraser always followed (although he tended to avoid the side of the ship with the drunk guy), and watched the people of the ship avidly.

Then, one dark and cloudy day, there was a great storm on the surface (well, it wasn't likely to storm on a clear day, now was it?). The cruise ship that Fraser had been following was caught in the rising swells. The parties ceased, and the people ran inside to stay out of the weather. All except for one.

A prince, with a crown of dark blond hair darkened further by the rain, stood out by the railing where the drunk guy usually stood, and watched the waves driven higher by the lashing winds. Fraser watched him for the longest time, watched his slim form get wetter with every flurry of rain, watched him shudder in the face of the cold winds, and finally watched him get tossed overboard just as he turned to go into the shelter of the ship.

Fraser stopped watching, and flung himself after the man, who struggled briefly at the surface before starting to sink beneath the waves. A quick tail-flip, and Fraser had the man safely in his arms, and was gazing raptly into the storm-grey eyes of the prince.

In his haste to rescue the sexy man now pressed against him, he'd forgotten that said man would probably need to breathe, and the storm-grey eyes of his prince were wide with panic and fear. Oh dear. Fraser immediately remedied the situation by applying the buddy-breathing techniques of the mer-people which he'd learned by studying with the Nez-Masters of the Marinara Trench, commonly called a lip-lock.

Fraser laid his lip-lock on the handsome prince (it's a life-saving technique, honest!), and wrapped his arms around him to keep him warm. Then, breathing through his gills (nifty things, eh?) for both of them, he swum them both to the nearest bit of shoreline that wasn't completely covered with ice. Which happened to be quite a ways away. In fact, it was a rather long time before Fraser and his prince reached the shore. Much, muchmuch longer than it would have taken to return him to the ship. But who am I to question the ways of the mer?

A long, thoroughly enjoyed (by both parties) time later, they arrived on shore, and Fraser pulled the exhausted prince onto the shore, then dragged himself back to a nearby cave to rest and recover. (It was the swim that tired him so. Really.)

The prince, quite rightly disoriented, passed out. He came to not a little while later, still enervated, and thoroughly confused. He certainly hadn't swum to shore, as he'd been a few miles out, and he didn't know how to swim in any case. He had these odd visions, too... but they'd included a sea turtle along with the swimming Mountie, so he marked it all down to a really good wet dream and set out in search of civilization again. (No, not that kind of dream. Well, maybe....)

Alas, when Fraser awoke and looked again for the shore, he found his beloved prince gone! Woebegone, (and woebegone mermen are very sad critters. Worse than donut-deprived wolves!) he swam slowly home.

On his way home, he was waylaid by a Witch. This Witch, the third cousin of the one who'd been kicked out of the guild for newt-toe eating, was not a newt-toe eater. She couldn't have been - there are no newts under the sea (and no, I'm not turning this into a songfic!), no, instead, this Witch liked Eels. Raw eels. Big, long, hard eels that she loved to nibble and suck and... Well, you get the idea.

So to make a short story shorter, the Witch tried to waylay poor Fraser (he really was - not a Canadian dollar to his name), give him legs (all the better to... no, I won't go there, I promise), and carry him off to her lair to do all those things I won't mention here.

Two out of three ain't bad. Fraser swam away, saved in the nick of time. The Witch cursed him as he swam, but they didn't work - a passing walrus had eaten her spell book.

Unfortunately, in the encounter with the Witch, Fraser had somehow lost his lovely tail, and couldn't swim very well at all. He bloom-closed until he reached the shore (he still wasn't very good at the kicking part), and dragged himself onto the shore and fell asleep, tired and tail-less.

He had not been sleeping very long when along came the prince, all nice and scruffy-looking, still searching for civilization. He didn't find civilization, but he certainly found Fraser. Recognizing the sleeping former-merman, the prince (fine, I'll name him - it's Ray. Ray of the Kingdom of Bob. Prince Ray of Bob. How's that for a moniker?) Where was I?

Right. Prince Ray of Bob found Fraser, asleep and angelic (no relation, no matter what Andersen says) and recognized him from his wet dr-, er, damp vision. He fell upon Fraser and set his own lip-lock on Fraser to wake him (hey, it worked for Charming, right?). Fraser instantly recognized Ray's lips and awoke, and proceeded to teach him the proper procedure for buddy-breathing.

They progressed to Sex on the Beach, and had a long talk about their future together over those shockingly pink drinks. (Ha! Gotcha! They knew better than to involve sand and certain sensitive body parts) Prince Ray of Bob decided to ditch his fiancee, Stella (there was another prince, also named Ray, ready and willing to sweep her off to the far away land of Flo-rida) and get close and personal with Fraser's eel, and Fraser decided to leave his native waters and play personal bodyguard and worshipper to Ray's body.

And Ray found that he really liked sushi and nibbling on eels, and Fraser found that he could kick, and the leg thing wasn't nearly so bad when Ray was between them, and they lived happily ever after.

The End

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