Title: Under the Sea

Author: Digimon Empress Yaten (de yaten)

Notes: Written for the springkink community. Some mentions of male bits, not much else. Uhh. Bad humor?

Disclaimer: I don't own Kingdom Hearts or its characters. I don't claim to own them.

Eric buried his face in his hands and tried to block out the sound of her usually soothing melodic voice that was trying very (very) hard to be comforting—but was failing. Miserably. He didn't want to deal with this right now, or in a few minutes, or one he had "calmed down" - really, he didn't wanted to deal with this at all and he hoped that in a second he would wake up and it would all turn out to be a horrible, ocean-themed dream.

The second quickly passed and—nope, it wasn't a dream!

In between the Little Eric In His Head telling him to scream his lungs out and somehow get away from her and here, he heard Ariel reminding him that she told her father that they wanted to be together, and he said he would use his magic trident to do that, so why was he so upset? Didn't he want to be with her, didn't he love her, and didn't he say he would do anything to be with her?

Well.

It wasn't that he didn't want to be with Ariel. He loved her, he did!

And it wasn't that he wouldn't do anything so that they could be together. I mean, for crying out loud - he fought with a giant sea-octopus-witch-thing a hundred times his size just to save her! (And the witch was singing, which definitely wasn't making the situation any less odd.)

And even that was after he found out that she was a mermaid. Most guys would've run away the second they saw the scales! But Eric loved her, truly, and nothing as silly as an interspecies relationship or scaled fishy fin was going to stand in his way.

It was just that, well… Eric never expected, in his entire life, to wake up with a fish tail instead of legs.

The entire idea of it was beyond even his wildest dreams. He had assumed, of course, that the king would give Ariel back the legs that the sea-witch took. They would marry on the ship, her family could see her off from the ocean, and then they would return to his kingdom for a happily ever after. With legs - that was the most important part.

"Eric," she pleaded, drawing him out of his thoughts, "Eric, please talk to me. Tell me what's wrong! I thought you wanted to be with me!"

"Well I didn't want to be turned into a... a… a fish!" His voice cracked an unfortunate note at fish and he mentally cringed. Now was not the time to raise his - actually, no, Little Eric In His Head reasoned. Waking up on the beach with a scaley appendage replacing his legs was a perfect time to raise his voice.

"I thought your father would give you legs again! I didn't think he would do... this!" He gestured wildly to the freaky-fish-tail currently growing from his waist. (And no, he was not currently up to pondering where exactly his other appendage was at the moment.)

She drew back from him, looking confused and hurt. "But I don't understand..."

Eric sighed, instantly regretting listening to that little voice. "Listen," he said, as soft as he could manage. "Ariel, I... I want to be with you. I love you." She smiled at that, and he returned the gesture, albeit it was tinged with an edge of I Am Completely Freaking Out Right Now.

"I just... well, in the human world, it's custom for the bride to leave her family and live with the husband, not the other way around, and I figured since you already had legs once, you'd get the back and we'd - you know - live with me in my castle."

Now, if Eric had been feeling ill before, Ariel's slow and deliberate raising of her eyebrow did absolutely nothing to ease the feeling that the situation was not going to end in his favor. He had hoped Ariel would offer to fetch her father by now, but the look she had on her face, that 'I am trying so very, very hard not to laugh at you at the moment' arch in her eyebrow was definitely not the look of someone about to apologize, admit and fix the mistake, then skip back to his castle (with legs!) ringing wedding bells.

And if his stomach had been in his throat at her strange lack of compassion towards his plight, her sudden giggles - no, now they were more like straight-out, hard, 'I can't breathe' belly laughs - made it leap out of his throat, onto the sand, and wash away into the deep waves he was very, very afraid he would soon be swimming in.

"Ariel!" He said, finally, indignant and honestly just wanting to know just what the heck she was laughing about. (Other than that, maybe, she had never seen his eyes quite so wide or face quite so pink. Er, well - one time he accidentally walked in on her getting helped into the bath by one of his maids, but it was definitely an accident and he was more embarrassed for the lost mute girl than himself!)

"Just what is so funny?"

"E-Eric, I, I--" she covered her mouth with her hand, a habit Eric noticed she picked up from ladies in court, "I-I'm sorry! It's just... it's just... I, oh, hold on a minute!" She took a few deep breaths, holding a hand over her chest... before bursting into another round of giggles.

The Tiny Little Eric In His Head was currently shaking his enraged mini-fist. This was not funny! In the slightest! Just a few hours ago he was the proud, upright-walking prince of this kingdom, and now he was a fish! An honest to goodness fish with scales and fins and who-knows-what-other actual fish anatomy!

Ariel, however, was still laughing - although it had slowed to a small trickle of giggling. Eric frowned the deepest he dared without possibly upsetting her - no, he did not want to lose his only lifeline because of anger - and felt a small relief when she finally stopped giggling and looked up at him.

"Eric, it's - I'm not laughing at you..."

It was Eric's turn to quirk an eyebrow.

"It's just... human customs are so strange!" Seeing his confusion (er, what customs?), she continued, "well, I've never heard of the bride leaving her family for marriage... where I come from, it's the opposite! And not to mention, the man is the one who carries the... well, never mind that part, actually."

Though half of his mind wanting to ask Ariel just what he was supposed to be carrying, the other half was simply ecstatic that this was all just a big misunderstanding! A clash of cultures (species?) that resulted in a hilarious, temporary situation that they would look back on and laugh and laugh and laugh about... of course, if they were going to laugh and laugh and laugh about it, and King Triton was going to give him his legs back, then Ariel needing to stop worrying her bottom lip with her teeth and looking so... oh.

"Ariel," he began, almost afraid of the answer. "What's wrong?"

Her mouth did a funny little O before she suddenly became very, very interested in a small crab crawling along the tide-soaked and below them.

"... Eric?"

Tiny Little Eric was covering his ears and humming a little la-la-la-he-didn't-want-to-hear-this because it was bound to be very bad. Very, very bad.

"My father is away on official business right now, so... he won't be able to turn you back right away."

"Oh," he said, simply. Was that all? I mean, he could last a few more hours with his new scaley appendage. I mean, it was mid-morning, so the king would probably be back by that evening and –

"... he'll be gone for a month."

Eric's mouth did the same funny little O Ariel had a minute before. "Oh... I... see..."

Ariel offered her sweetest smile, before tugging on Eric's hand, beckoning him further into the water. He let himself be led into the deeper waters, still clinging to Ariel because while he was an excellent swimmer with two legs, his mermaid-swimming needing a little help.

"C'mon, Eric! It isn't so bad! I'll teach you to swim and we can eat fish - you like fish, right? I mean, it's raw of course, but it's just as good! And later on," she drew her face close, as if whispering a profound, deep, dark, forbidden secret, "we can talk about our wedding night."

In any other situation, that sentence might have mad Eric very happy in his... uhh... well. No time like the present, he supposed.

"Ariel, I've been meaning to ask you about one of my, ah, limbs that's gone missing..."

It was going to be a very long month.