Noticing your apparent distress, and how you look at your body, the Empress ask if you are okay. You’re about to lie about it, when a commotion divert the attention of both the Empress and yourself. The screaming voice suggest it’s a dispute between a mermaid and a merman, and something in the back of your head tell you you know that masculine voice rather well, even though you only became a mermaid a few second prior, and never met any merman.
As you arrive, you see an hysteric mermaid with what look like some sort of spear, maybe a naginata, but somehow know is called the "sacred scepter" by your new kin. She clearly intend to cut a merman you can’t help but find handsome, with his defined muscles, clearly born of necessity for whatever job he has rather than work in the gym, his dark brown skin, long black hairs in dreadlocks and his just-as long-tressed beard, his green eyes, and is strangely feminine tail, with its long veil like fins and glistening pink scales. You instantly recognize him as Liorc, a childhood friend of your new life, and its crush. Someone you never could stop thinking about while on your mission, regardless of the humans of both gender you dated. You also instantly know he used to be your girlfriend when you were human. But you don’t think much about all those informations, and simply come to his rescue.
You deviate the scepter before its blade could cut Liorc, and take it out of the hands of your distant cousin, the crown princess. You don’t realise the enormity of the fact you’re holding the sacred scepter in your hands without any backlash from said magical artifact. Only the Empress and the Crown Princess can hold it without consequences. Normally, to become the Crown Princess, the next Empress, one need to go through a mystical ceremony that give them tremendous magical powers, a "gift from the goddess" according to the empire’s religion, but at the cost of not only their ability to turn their tail into legs, but even the one to breath above water. There is one exception, obviously. If the chosen Crown Princess try to kill someone without having a good reason and is still unmarried, and someone stop them, they loose their powers and title, without regaining their abilities to visit the surface. And if the person stopping them is a girl related by blood to the imperial family, regardless of how distantly, she will inherit the position and powers "without loosing anything", at least according to the religious texts, you don’t agree with them on that point.
You know that your newfound magic will force you to speak using the imperial "we"; that nobody will ever use your name to speak of you, calling you "her highness" or "the Crown Princess" for now, the second tittle being replaced by "the Empress" in a future you hope distant; that all your subjects will be legally bound to address you as "your highness", even your parents and eventual husband, your name unused until your death, where its only utility will be to differentiate you from your predecessors. All this because a long dead empress once said, while still a crown princess "Someone as high as us in our empire’s hierarchy doesn’t need a name. Our rank is unique. After all, there only one of us at a time. Same goes for our Empress."
Your new position isn’t something you can accept, making you enter denial. When Liorc thanked you, saying "Thank you for rescuing me, your highness", you asked what he was speaking about. "It’s just me, your childhood friend." Then the current Empress hugged you, reminding you it was customary for an Empress and her Crown Princess to call each other "mother" and "daughter", regardless of their actual relationship, but it just increase your panic.
Totally disoriented, you search for your parents, the one you have in this life as a mermaid, not realising you still have the sacred scepter in hand. As you find them, you take them in a hug. The link your magic should have made with the Empress end up being made with your actual parents instead. They will be the ones able to call you "daughter" instead of "your highness", like the Empress should have. Being with your parents, sharing a hug with them, help you calm down, and finally realise the situation. You sent back your weapon to the throne room, which confirm your worst fear. After all, beside the Empress, the only person able to summon and dismiss that artifact is the Crown Princess.
You suggest "With luck we might find a way to make someone else take the title of Crown Princess before we get married", knowing that, once married, there would be no way of getting rid of the title or its accompanying powers. Your hope got immediately dashed by your mom. "Sorry daughter, but the Empress had already organised for the Crown Princess’ wedding, which make it your wedding now, to happen just after this party in your honor. You see, your old friend Liorc found himself at the right place at the right time, saving lot of people by killing a seamonster. He was erected as a national hero, making him famous and extremely popular. In a bid to reinforce her chosen heir’s legitimacy, our Empress did everything in her power to marry him as soon as possible to the Crown Princess. But her violent brat of a daughter lost that tittle to you trying to kill him, and now he’s become your husband." The prospect of being Liorc’s wife make you blush. It could have been a dream come true, if it wasn’t for the circumstances.
— – - – —
The wedding happened, Liorc’s and you are now husband and wife. A merfolks’ wedding ceremony is something very different from a human one, especially for an imperial marriage, but there is one thing in common: the kiss at the end. It is customarily a chaste thing, but yours was far hotter and needier than necessary, which will probably cause a huge scandal, but you don’t care, and it seem Liorc don’t either.
Speaking of, as you and your husband kissed, you felt your newfound magic encroaching itself into your body and your soul. It was official, you’ll never be able to foster your powers and title onto someone else. Like it or not, you’ll be the next ruller of the North-Pacifean empire!
There is lot of things you would like to say. About your current situations, about your shared childhood, about your feelings for each others, about what you both did while separated for so long, about the human lives you remember but will never be able to return to. But even if it look like you’re alone, you know it’s far from the case, and must watch what you say and how. You can see Liorc feel guilty for what he added to your shared backstory in that so called "avatar creator", while he was still your human girlfriend. You try to convey you don’t blame him, (neither of you could have suspected the true nature of that thing after all) with a reassuring smile and squeeze of his hand.
After a moment he say "Your highness? I’m glad you’re the one I married. I… I loved you for a long time."
"We too, are glad you’re our husband, Liorc. Even while in the human world, we couldn’t stop but thinking about you."