A Thousand Words: Mermaid’s Legend

            “If you wander out of the village without permission, something bad will happen to you.”

All mermaids and mermen told this to their children as soon as they were old enough to swim. And like all tales meant to frighten children, as the children grew older, the nameless fear of a bogeyman became a feeling of healthy skepticism.

Umiko didn’t believe the tales at all. But there was a difference between scoffing at a legend and actually proving it to be a fairy tale. So Umiko swam alone to the tunnel that led out of the underwater cave where the merpeople lived. At first she had been nervous, but as nothing remotely close to scary approached, she grew bolder. In fact, all she saw during her trip were small octopi and seaweed. As Umiko got closer to the exit, the seaweed grew thicker. Umiko felt a small chill as she reached out to part the seaweed, but it gave way easily, and Umiko burst out into the light. Spreading the last swath of seaweed aside, Umiko grinned and swam forward.

Or tried to. Umiko stumbled back, stuck against the face of the rock. Her heart went into her throat and she only relaxed slightly upon seeing that it was seaweed which had tangled around her wrists. Slightly relaxed, because her arms were held apart, and Umiko couldn’t get free.

Umiko forced herself to remain calm. Her panicked struggles had only tangled her worse. She was trying to think of what to do when she saw one of the tiny octopi from before. Umiko would have ignored it except for the fact that it swam over to her and started prying at her clamshell bra.

“What the h-hell!” Umiko shouted, wriggling and pulling at her seaweed shackles. Why an octopus would have an interest in her breasts was beyond Umiko, but there was little she could do as the clamshells fell away. The tiny octopus latched onto her ribs just below the breast and started to wiggle several of its tentacles towards her underarm.

Umiko started to giggle immediately. Even among her people, who were very sensitive to begin with, Umiko was very ticklish. Immediately she started wriggling back and forth and swimming as hard as she could to break free or throw the softly wiggling octopus off of her.

Umiko thrashed and laughed girlishly for awhile, even though the octopus wasn’t really tickling her that hard. When her fins finally stopped swishing through the water and relaxed, she felt another tickling sensation. With a startled giggle she realized that a second tiny octopus had latched onto her side just above the armpit. Umiko’s giggles redoubled but she was unable to thrash as before. Another strand of seaweed had wrapped around her tail, as well as a larger octopus.

As Umiko struggled helplessly with her underarms being tickled, she was vaguely aware that there were more octopi coming for her. Why were the octopi tickling her? She’d never heard that they would do such things. Nevertheless it didn’t stop the third octopus from settling onto her right breast and curling its tentacles out over her body so that it too could add to her ticklish torment. Umiko arched her back as much as she could, giggling harder and more helplessly than ever.

As if her laughter drew octopi the way blood drew sharks, yet more started to come and explore, curious at first it seemed, then wanting to join in on teasing the helpless mermaid. The line between her bottom half, which was her tail and her top half, which was a humanoid body, was easily felt, at least for Umiko. The tentacles of the octopus crawling up her tail were felt, but not contributing to the ticklish feeling assaulting her body. As soon as it laid the first tentacle on her waist, that changed, with her hips swaying to the side accompanied by yet another ticklish shriek. The octopus made itself comfortable on Umiko’s lower back, and used its tentacles to tickle her ribs and sides.

Now there were four octopi wriggling their small tentacles against Umiko’s sensitive body. Two octopi had their tentacles wriggling under her arms. One of them had its feelers on her right breast, which was especially driving her nuts with ticklish laughter.  One more had a tentacle on her ribs right below the breast and another at her side, wiggling and stroking the skin softly. All of this was enough to drive the mermaid crazy with laugter. But worst of all was the octopus which had its tentacles teasing her stomach and navel. That one she hadn’t even noticed and had no time to prepare for, and it seemed to make its tickling worst of all. Tied as she was, Umiko was totally helpless to stop any of the maddening tickling.

Umiko had never thought she could be tickled so badly. Too late she realized that in this case, the tale to frighten children was a genuine warning. Umiko had just resigned herself to being an octopus tickle toy forever when suddenly the seaweed loosened its grip. Taking her opportunity, Umiko swam furiously for the cave entrance and her village.

Umiko thanked her lucky stars that she got back home and dressed without being noticed. She had no way of knowing that due to the agreement between the mermaids and the octopi that the elders of her village already knew about the whole thing. Some of them ruefully recalled their own adventures with the seaweed and octopi…