He shook his head, his trident spearing the discarded clothing. It appeared to be a woman's frock of some kind and had been a purple at one time; now, however, the sea had drained the dye and it was now a muddled grey. One could only guess how long it had been lazing about on the ocean floor.
King Triton raised his head and gazed at the waste that spread out before him. Garments, broken pottery, statues, and human excrement…It all could be found here, brought to him via the canals of Paris.
This spot had once been home to Athena's mother, a time-worn mermaid who had one of the kindest smiles Triton had ever seen. She always had music playing in her grotto and the shelves were filled with fantastical items: a war-horn from the mer-city of Lyati; a rare purple scale said to belong to the world's last sea serpent; the fossils of sea creatures long since passed.
They used to bring the girls here every summer and Triton remembered how their eyes would light up at the prospect of seeing Grandma again. Attina would race to the exotic book collection; Aquata and Arista would fight each other to get to their grandmother's jewelry cabinet, filled with sparkling rubies and giant emeralds; Adrina, Adella, and Alana would whirl through the door and dance to the music; and his little Ariel would drift lazily through the grotto, examining everything with a critical eye.
Now, he could see the entrance to the old place and he shuttered at the entrance's disrepair. Trash of every imaginable sort covered the door; if he had not known the grotto was there, he would have dismissed it as a pile of garbage and continued on.
"What have they done to you?" he whispered, swimming carefully over the waste.
It took some work, but he finally managed to clear the entrance. Taking a deep breath, he shouldered his way inside.
All of the treasures were still there, but they were in horrible disrepair. They had reacted badly to the refuse that had drifted in through the sky-light. Mermish pottery had been cracked and filled to the brim with the humans' foul stench; more than a few items had been knocked to the floor. No music emanated from the walls of the place; his daughters' giggles and his mother-in-law's ancient tones did not fill the cave with life.
Only the jewelry, locked away tight in their cabinet, remained untouched. Triton stopped for a moment, his eyes locked on the tiara Athena had worn at their wedding, the bright stones still shining as much as they did on their wedding day.
He missed her. He missed this place. He missed his mother-in-law.
And these humans, he reflected angrily, are the ones who caused this.
Not only was his wife murdered by the barbarians, but his mother-in-law, too, had been captured by their nets. His informants told him that she had not lasted long; the way they treated her expedited her demise.
And now that he had lost both of them, those humans tainted his happy memories and had no issue turning his mother-in-law's abode into a disposal factory!
He clenched his teeth and gripped his trident. He did not appreciate the way they mocked his pain and tore his people apart; he did not like that more and more of their waters were becoming polluted and had to be evacuated.
Something had to be done.
Ariel shut the grotto door behind her, giggling at Flounder's impersonation of a shark.
"He was just like—GRRRR!—" Flounder gnashed his teeth. "And then I was like, "You big bully!" and then—well, Scuttle he—"
"Scuttle!" Ariel interrupted, clapping a hand to her forehead. "We forgot to see Scuttle! Maybe if we hurry, we can get to him before he goes fishing in the shallows—"
"Uh-uh." Flounder said, shaking his head. "Your dad will be home soon and if he catches us—"
"Alright, alright!" Ariel said, tickling Flounder's fins. "We'll see him tomorrow."
Flounder sighed in relief before saying good night and swimming away. Ariel smiled and waved. She had one last errand before she could go to bed, too.
Her father was swimming back and forth in the throne room, the trident buzzing an angry red in his hands.
That was never a good sign.
"Daddy?" Ariel called softly, swimming cautiously towards her father. "Is everything alright? How did the visit go?"
"They destroyed her! They mutilated her!" Triton growled, seemingly unaware of Ariel's presence. She hesitated, wanting to put her hand on his shoulder and comfort him, but she withdrew. It was best, she reasoned, not to chance anything while he was in this mood.
"Those humans! Those barbarians!" he growled.
Ariel couldn't help herself.
"Daddy, they're not barbarians!" she protested; at last, her father turned towards her, finally registering her presence.
"They're filthy: the lot of them!" he yelled. "Most of your grandmother's treasures were ruined and decaying when I got there and it's their fault! All of this toxicity they have dumped into our oceans! I've had it! It's time they paid for their actions!"
The trident was an unholy red now and Ariel knew that that meant that her father had entered a point of no return. Desperate for any chance to stop him from resorting to violence, she leapt forward and tried to tear the trident from his hands.
"You can't hurt them!" Ariel shrieked, her hands burning against the heat of the trident.
Her father's eyes flashed red.
"They're barbarians!" he yelled. "They poison our waters with their waste and they ensnare our own! How can you still defend them?"
"Because not all of them are doing this!" Ariel screeched, her eyes wide in fear. "Even though some of them poison our waters, others try to negate it and make our home clean again!"
With a forceful grunt, King Triton shook Ariel off of his trident. She hit the grotto wall hard, her head snapping against one of the shelves.
This wasn't how this argument was supposed to go, Ariel thought to herself. She was supposed to be able to calm him down and they could work on a more rational plan to get rid of the waste. Now, it just seemed that he was hell-bent on all-out war.
"I didn't want to do this," he said, his voice dangerously low. "but if this is the only way they'll understand…then so be it."
"What are you doing?" Ariel asked hazily.
"Giving them back their toxins." He grumbled.
Ariel's head pounded from the hit and her vision was blurred. She struggled to get up off of the floor and to keep fighting, but she knew that all was lost. She watched, her heart beating slowly and painfully, as her father left her and headed towards Paris.
Everything went black.
Jim stood in front of a booth, eyeing the fruit hungrily.
"How much for three apples?" he asked.
"Quatorze guilders." The merchant, a rather large man with an equally large boil on his eyebrow, replied.
"You can't be serious." Jim said exasperatedly. "They aren't even ripe! They're worth four guilders, at the most."
"You insult me, boy! My pommes are the sweetest and best in the land!"
"Well, you can take your precious pommes and shove them up your—" Jim muttered, but before he could finish his thought, Quasimodo bumped into him, his shirt pulled over his head.
"Oh, are you here to insult my fruit as well?" the merchant roared; Quasimodo lowered his head bashfully.
"No, sir, of course not, sir. How much did you say it was again?"
"Fourteen guilders for two pommes." The merchant said smugly.
"You just said that that was the price for three apples!" Jim exclaimed.
"I take away one product for rude little boy." The merchant replied nonchalantly.
"You can't—" Jim began, but once again, Quasimodo cut him off.
"Of course, sir, here's the money."
Jim shot Quasimodo a glare as they walked away. Quasimodo, on the other hand, kept his gaze fixed on the cobblestones beneath his feet. He was mumbling something under his breath that Jim couldn't quite catch. Sighing, Jim handed him one of the apples.
"Here," Jim said. "Tell me if this is worth seven guilders."
Quasi smiled as he took the fruit and bit into it. When he offered up no complaint, Jim let out a little "humph" and began to study his surroundings. He loved the architecture here in Paris; the gothic rises and the moody stone spirals fascinated him. He looked back down after he caught sight of a gargoyle with its fangs bared, however. He wasn't much of a fan of those.
People bustled all around them, one brunette girl accidentally bumping into Quasimodo because her face was buried in a book.
"Sorry!" She called over her shoulder; Quasimodo smiled in reply.
"She was pretty." He told Jim, his gaze fixated on her retreating figure.
Jim nodded.
"She's not really my type, though." He said, shrugging.
"You live in a bell tower, you can't afford a type." Quasimodo joked. Jim snorted in agreement.
All of a sudden, the ground began to tremble. The merchants' fare fell into the streets and Jim hurriedly scooped up two bouncing apples, grinning widely.
"You do exist." He said, looking up at the clouds.
"Jim! This is serious!" Quasimodo yelled, his eyes fixed on the horizon.
"The canals!" A rather obese woman screamed next to them. "The canals are flooding Paris!"
Water rose from the canals, causing people to scream and run in all directions. Quasimodo gripped Jim's arm in fear. Jim flinched slightly from his touch, but he didn't shove Quasi away, as he normally would have.
"This is the end." Quasimodo whispered.
The waves had risen to impossible heights now, but they weren't falling down on the people. It was as if they had frozen or merely been seeking to form a wall.
"We've got to get to high ground." Jim said, his eyes not leaving the suspended tidal waves.
But as he and Quasimodo began to run back to their bell tower, a beautiful voice pierced the air:
Unto death, life has sprung,
Bringing with it the morning sun,
All arise and all awake,
You shall see another day.
The waves, so impossibly high before, began to dwindle and collapse in on themselves. Jim stopped and looked at the waves and thought he saw glimmers of red and green at their height. Whoever—or whatever—was made of those colors was what the voice was coming from. Before he could even think, Jim reversed his direction and ran towards the waves.
It wasn't until Quasimodo made it back to the bell tower that he realized his friend was no longer with him. Frightened, Quasimodo called out Jim's name, knowing full well that he wouldn't be able to hear him. He hung his head, believing in his heart that his friend was doomed.
Jim's boots slipped on the cobblestones as a soft mist emanated from the waves and fell over Paris. He could make out the green glimmer—it was some sort of tail—but he still could not quite figure out the red one. But as he grew closer, he began to realize exactly what he was seeing. Soft pigments of skin began to appear and when he got to within fifteen feet of the wave, he was sure he was seeing things.
A mermaid.
Not just any mermaid: a beautiful one, with bright red hair that fell just past the small of her back. Her voice was ringing in his ears and he watched in amazement as the waves receded back another five feet.
"Take away her voice! Quickly!" A voice yelled from the middle of the wave. A brand of yellow light shot from the center and illuminated briefly what the water concealed: a merman and some sort of half-octopus, half-woman. The light was coming from the octopus' hands and it soon enveloped the pretty mermaid.
"No!" Jim found himself yelling. "Leave her alone!"
He darted into the water, only to rise to the mermaid's level because of the waves' momentum. He put his arm fearlessly into the light and grabbed what he hoped was the poor girl's shoulder. He could hear the merman's deep roar of anger.
"Let her go, human!"
"NO!" Jim yelled back, jets of water beating against his skin. "I won't let you hurt her!"
There was silence as Jim pulled the mermaid from the light. Her eyes were closing and her entire body was beginning to go limp. The light that had surrounded her vanished back into the octopus' hands.
"Well this will raise the value of this old necklace." The octopus said, her voice harsh yet oddly…seductive.
"Don't sell the seashell, Ursula." The merman said. Using his trident, he collapsed the water the rest of the way, forcing Jim and the unconscious mermaid deep into the canal. Jim's eyes widened as he swam to the surface, laboriously carrying the little mermaid with him.
When he pulled her onto the bank, an old man with a golden crown raised his head from the depths. He pointed his trident at the mermaid and ignored Jim's feeble protests.
"I didn't mean to hurt her." He said sadly. "Just to make her understand. Perhaps she is safer here than with me."
Jim watched as bright yellow light spilled from the tip of the trident and turned the mermaid's fins into legs. Jim turned his head in embarrassment.
"Hey buddy, you forgot to give her—" he began, but the merman had already disappeared.
"—clothes." He finished, blushing. He glanced once more at Ariel before realizing what he was going to have to do.
"You're lucky you're pretty." Jim snarled.
Jim tore off his shirt and pants, wearing nothing but his boxers. Growling and cursing under his breath, he haphazardly clothed the girl before picking her up.
"Let's hope everyone's still hiding." He muttered to himself.
He ran as fast as he could through Paris and he was indeed lucky: everyone was still hiding in their homes.
"You're lucky I'm not mean and just gave you the shirt." Jim spat at the unconscious girl, unsure of why he was being so rude, but unable to stop himself. "They still would have seen EVERYTHING."
The street was littered with the day's fare: apples, cabbages, and homemade goods that had been trampled on and practically demolished by the panicked crowds. Jim stopped to catch his breath near a clothing stand and was surprised to find two dresses completely untouched. One was pink with a frilly collar and cuffs and the other was a beautiful blue day dress that came with a blue bow. He swiped them, dumped them unceremoniously on the girl in his arms, and kept running.
Twenty minutes later, he was bounding up the last steps to the tower. He stopped at the top, panting heavily.
"Never again," he muttered under his breath, glaring back down at the stone steps.
After a couple more moments, he entered the bell tower and made a beeline straight for his cot.
The girl stirred as Jim placed her gently in his bed.
"Hey," he said, putting a hand on her shoulder. "It's okay; you're safe now. You can sleep here."
The girl nodded and pointed at her throat.
"I couldn't get your voice." Jim bowed his head. "I was more focused on getting you out of there."
The girl nodded again before mouthing:
'Can you read lips?'
"Believe it or not, yes." Jim said, giving her a rare smile. "I knew a kid once who couldn't speak, but over the years I began to understand what he was trying to say. So I can understand you just fine."
'Will you tell me what happened tomorrow?' she asked, her eyes beginning to close again. 'I feel…weak.'
Jim grabbed her hand and held it to his heart.
"I promise."
"So what's the story behind this?" Quasimodo asked.
The boys were sitting at a pockmarked wooden table, looking worriedly at the resting Ariel.
Jim ran his fingers through his hair.
"Man, I don't know." He said. "I-I found her during the—whatever the hell you call it—and I brought her back here. She can't speak and she doesn't have anywhere to go. She has to stay here."
"She can't stay here!" Quasimodo argued, a hint of panic creeping into his voice. "If Master finds her—"
"He won't." Jim interjected. "We'll stash her somewhere he can't find her."
"'Stash her'?" Quasimodo repeated incredulously. "This is a human being we're talking about, Jim, not one of your inventions!"
"You know what I meant!" Jim hissed.
"Yeah, yeah…" Quasimodo said, his head resting on one hand while he gestured grandly with the other. "But we have to move her soon, Master is coming in today—"
"—he comes in every day—"
"Don't get sassy with me." Quasimodo huffed. He put his hands on the table and pushed himself to his feet.
"Where are you going?" Jim asked, his expression blank.
"I'm getting the table ready." Quasimodo said. "He'll be here soon. Hide her somewhere."