There was a lady on the beach.

That in itself was already highly unusual, taking into account the fact that it was a blistering cold winter morn, a time when the preferred activity would be to cuddle up snug-as-a-bug at home. But the lady didn't seem to care about the temperature or the time, unless for some reason it seemed to suit her own preferences.

So she stood there, dressed in a simple silver-white gown and a thin frock over her slender arms, looking like something out of a fairytale. Indeed, she was beautiful. But beautiful in the way that a unicorn is beautiful: ageless, flawless, untouchable and somehow belonging to something greater and more divine than any dream can conjure. There was a slight weariness in the way she stood, as though she was waiting for something – not exactly impatiently, but as though she had never had to wait for anything before.

Slowly, her perfect lips parted, and a song flowed out.

Some dreams are in the night time
And some seem like yesterday
But leaves turn brown and fade
Ships sail away
You long to say a thousand words
But seasons change

Her voice was like a reflection of something old and great. It seemed to hold within it the music of the sea, a calm front to incredible depth and mystery. It didn't seem to matter what words she sang, as long a she did, and when her voice spilt out into the open air the waves themselves appeared to lift up in greeting, as though hungrily devouring her song.

She didn't notice the waves, or for that matter, notice anything at all. She just stood there, looking out into nothingness, and not acknowledging the sea nor the sun whose majestic beauty could hardly outdo her own.

Forever seems so far away
There's time for love and for play
You dream about today
Feeling slips away
The winds that blow they go away
And seasons change

Slowly, like the careful turning of fragile pages of a book, her face started to change. Little and briefly some desperately human emotions were revealed: longing, sorrow, wistfulness... But not regret. There was not a trace of regret, even after her face shuttered itself back into the marble sculpture it had been earlier.

And then a foreign voice broke the peace, and a few waves jostled in annoyance.

"Milady! Milady!" A young girl dressed in a simple pinafore came running from the palace, her clumsy feet digging grooves into the sand.

The lady at the beach slowly turned her head, but said nothing.

Once arriving at the seafront the girl shrunk under the gaze of the lady, but any behaviour otherwise would have been blasphemous. The girl managed an awkward cursty. "Milady... It's the Queen Mother."

There was an awful silence. It seemed to drag on forever, and the girl who could stand it no longer finally raised her eyes to look at the lady, and then immediately wished she hadn't.

The lady's eyes. Her face was expressionless and perfect, but her eyes betrayed everything within. They were torn in agony, a storm of such rage and sadness and pain that no mortal should be forced to endure; the girl could barely look at it for a few seconds before tears spilt from her own eyes to mar the sand around her. The girl sobbed once, loudly, before dropping to her knees at the lady's feet.

Then the lady's crystal voice flowed out again.

It seems like it is forever
No reason for emptiness
But time just runs away
No more day by day
You dream again
It seems in vain
When seasons change

Then the voice stopped, as did the girl's crying.

There was another sort of silence, a quieter one like an echo in an abandoned house. The lady brushed her pale fingers against the girl's dark hair as she whispered, "Princess, dear princess... What news of your great-grandmother, the Queen Mother Melody?"

"She is almost... gone, Milady," the girl choked.

The lady moved swiftly to her knees, drawing the girl into a tight embrace that said everything mere words could not. They sat there on the sand for a long while in each other's comfort before the lady finally drew away and pulled the girl to her feet.

"You musn't cry so much," the lady whispered. "Your great-grandmother wouldn't want to see you suffer so."

"She sees you," the girl bit out, forgetting her sorrow as the anger hit her right in the heart. "They all see you." She looked at the lady, naked desperation within her eyes. "I love great-grandmother so much, but when I see you I..." She sobbed once more, although not as loud. Then she drew herself together and said in a voice far more befitting a princess, "I know who you are."

The lady blinked slowly, but the movement did nothing to reveal any other sort of emotion in her eyes. "Do you?"

"Yes," the girl said. "You're Queen Ariel. My great-grandmother's mother."

Then it was there again, the excruciating pain within her flawless eyes. The lady clutched a fist to her heart as though it would break, then parted her lips and whispered hoarsely, "No one has called me by that name for... for so long..."

The girl started to cry again. "So it's true.... The stories, all of them. That you sacrificed your life for a prince, and ended up outliving him, and soon outliving your own daughter eventhough you've barely aged a day–"

"I have no regrets, child," the lady said, her voice stern. "No regrets. Even if outlive the sea itself, I do not one day regret my choice. Do you hear me, child? Not one day!"

The girl bit her lower lip. "You're so beautiful. So... so beautiful I wish I... I wish you'd never have to suffer the pain you do everyday. I watched you, you know. I think, I think I knew who you were from the moment I first saw you walking on the beach. They told me you were just a common lady-in-waiting, but I knew. Your legs, your movement – they were too smooth, too liquid, too perfect! As though you belonged on something not as crude as mere ground."

The lady exhaled softly. "You will mention this to no one."

"What? Why? They need to know who you are! Everyone thinks that you're dead, that you died not long after King Eric did, and even more believe that your love story is nothing more than a folktale!"

"Let them believe that," the lady whispered. "Let me be nothing more than the mysterious lady-in-waiting that lives alone in a cottage near the palace and sometimes wanders to the beach doing nothing more than stare at the sea. Let them think our love story was nothing more than folktale."

"Why?!" the girl asked desperately.

"Our story, and the magic it came with, no longer has any place in this world," the lady whispered. "You must understand, child, that I am not human. I am a mermaid with legs, a creature of myth and magic. People who know but do not believe serve only to increase my pain."

The girl drew her chin up, but still the tears rolled down her cheeks. "I will know who you are, Milady. I believe."

"And that is good enough for me." The lady's face looked for a brief moment as though it were about to smile, but then as quickly as it appeared, the almost-smile was gone. "I think I shall go and see my Melody one last time, will you take me to her?"

"Yes, of course," the girl said quickly.

And so they walked almost side-by-side toward the palace, a rare physical clash of different times and different stories: a princess of the present and the princess of the past; a child of flesh and blood and flaw and future, alongside a perfect and timeless legend in human form.

Fallen by choice and fallen for love – but thus is always the fate of the angel.

FIN

Author's Notes:
(1) This is a merger of sorts between the Disney-style little mermaid and the original HCAndersen-style little mermaid. (Hence the non-Ariel-ish dialogue.)
(2) The song is "Seasons Change" by Expose, just in case you wanted to know.

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