The sun stung the underside of Alycia's eyelids, slowly waking her up. Her eyes remained closed, not wanting to embrace the reflective light, swimming it's way through the various layers of ocean, being absorbed by the coral gardens in front of the mansion. There was a faint bustling of other creatures, all going about their busy Mondays. There must have been hundreds of them, all not the least bit concerned about Alycia or her life. With this comforting thought, she lifted the tightly woven kelp blanket off of her, revealing the elongated fish tail that sprung from her hips and tapered down before two large fins emerged from the scaly surface. Her fins were rather thin and sheer, indicating her status as quite wealthy and upper class, perhaps even belonging to a long history of fishmaids of the same class.
She begrudgingly rolled off of her soft anemone bed, and swam towards her restoring room. She opened the door, revealing the alluringly decorated walls, all adorned with mirrors of all sizes, bordered with various gold and silver frames. At the back of the small room, there was a hose, wound up in a circular metal case. One end stuck out of the hole in the container, the other directly connected to the wall. Slightly above it, there were two knobs to control the temperature. Although it was more common among the higher class to use warmer water, Alycia always opted for cold. She thought it was quite refreshing.
Once Alycia was done with her shower, she swam back into her room, feeling the warm water once more. Her webbed hands reached out to open her closet, full to the brim with fancy clothes. However, Alycia had her eye on a simple kelp top, the same one she constantly wore around. Although not as expensive as the others, Alycia loved it anyways. After slipping it on, she looked for her tie. She couldn't be seen without it. The tie was a red kelp strand with enlarged seashells stitched into the end of it. Slipping it over her head, Alycia remembered when she could still tie it around her hair. Now, there were way too many seashells to do that. With a sigh, she swam downstairs to breakfast.
The smell of crab and shrimp was rather overwhelming, but also mixed with something foreign. It was sweet, like a strange food she had tasted before. When she got downstairs, she saw what it was.
"Fruit?" Alycia questioned the staff.
"Yes, your father had some imported from some satyrs," Maria responded, shooting Alycia a shaky smile. The staff was dressed in a bleached coral dress, their long hair of different shades of brown up in a hair cap.
"I thought the satyrs were, 'Terrible, greedy people.'" Alycia narrowed her eyebrows, making the staff even more uneasy. She recalled back to all the other times she had heard these inconsistencies. When the satyrs wouldn't sell to him, her father called them evil and suddenly all who had legs deserved death. But, when they had no excuse to withhold the products, suddenly he loved land creatures, and was only just kidding before.
"Well...um..." Another staff, named Marco, was fidgeting with his tie. It only had 6 medium seashells, so it was tightly wrapped around his waist. Alycia could see his mind struggling to find an answer.
"That doesn't matter! Just eat your breakfast!"
She turned her head towards the strange voice. The remark had come from a sharkmaid. She must be new to the staff, Alycia thought. She hadn't recalled seeing a sharkmaid in the staff in quite a while. Glancing down towards her tie, she saw the sharkmaid had only 4 seashells. Suddenly, the young sharkmaid swam up and thrusted a handful of shrimp in one hand, and a bright red fruit in the other. She began to swim off, but Alycia's voice caught her before she could get too far.
"As I see you are not wearing your name stone, as is customary for the first week, now I have to ask you what your name is."
The girl turned around, and Alycia could see her struggling to work out what the words ment. She couldn't have been older than Alycia, and was probably even a year or two younger.
"I-I'm Nova. But you can just call me N, everyone else seems too..." her voice trailed off at the end of her statement. Alycia took a bite out of the fruit. After gulping it down, she simply responded, "That seems unnecessary. You have a name, so I shall call you by that name. Now, go put on your name stone before someone less caring sees you." At those words, Nova quickly swam off into the staff's quarters.
"Oooooooh Alyyyyciaaaaa," the song-like call came from the living room. Well, speak of the devil, Alycia thought, unsurprised. Her mother swam into the room, her hair glistening in the sunlight streaming in through the open windows. She greeted Alycia with a smile.
"You're up early," Alycia remarked.
"More like you're up late," her mother corrected her. "You know you have class today, right?" Her dark brown eyes flickered with a bit of worry as they turned to look at Alycia.
Alycia quickened her eating pace, saying in between bites, "Of course I do. I'm not an idiot." As she swallowed her last bit of food, she turned to look at her mother.
She was wearing a smug look. "Sure you do," she teased. "Now go off before it's too late!" With a sigh, Alycia swam off towards the study.
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