Your Voice is Sweet, but Revenge is Sweeter
Only a few miles from the shore was a small, rugged shack. Old boat buoys hung from the side of it and an old, broken lantern hung by the front door. The only source of light that came from the lantern was the reflection of the moon from the night sky. Every now and then, a gust of wind would blow and practically lift the pieces of wood off of the roof, then forcefully slam them down—as if a giant hand were clumsily rearranging the roof of the shack.
Inside, a stocky woman with pale purple skin and adorned in a black dress that draped the floor shuffled through the drawers of her vanity that she had found washed upon the seashore.
"Where's my pearl?!" she roared.
Two short, skinny men came barging in in a hurry.
"Ursula! Ursula! What's the commotion all about?" he said in a hissy tone.
"My pearl. Where is it? I need it to find my dreadful sister immediately. I hear her song and I feel that she's near," she continued shuffling through various drawers.
"A headache? I think she has a really nice—" one of the men, Flotsam, started to say until he was cut off by the look that Ursula shot him. The other man, Jetsam, elbowed him. Flotsam put his head down and retreated as he realized what he had said.
Ursula's sister, Giordes, was the queen of all Atlantica Beach. Her royalty was gained after the king had held a festival to find the woman with the fairest voice and then take her hand in marriage. Ursula's sister was chosen. Ursula, humiliated that she didn't win, made sure to move to where she could never hear her sister sing again.
"Ah, here it is," Ursula held an opalescent white ball that was the size of the palm of her hand.
She gently stroked the pearl in a circular motion and it started glowing. Flotsam and Jetsam's eyes widened and let out some "ooh's" and "ah's." The pearl let out such a powerful glow that Ursula was almost sure the light shone through the cracks in her roof, so she hovered over it.
"Show me, pearl: where is Giordes?"
Ursula, Jetsam, and Flotsam leaned in closer—so close that Flotsam and Jetsam banged heads.
"You buffoons!" scolded Ursula as she pushed them aside. An image appeared through the cloudiness of the pearl, "Sleeping?...How could she be sleeping? I hear her."
Another image consumed that of the last one and shone brightly in Ursula, Jetsam, and Flotsam's shocked faces. There was a young girl. She was petite with fair skin and rose petal red hair. A green and purple dress hugged her body. Her wide, blue eyes shone brightly with innocence. She was picking shells along the shore as she effortlessly sang a beautiful melody that seemed to make everything around her go still and listen. The waves no longer crashed against the beach sand, seagulls stopped squawking and grew quiet, and it seemed the stars twinkled a little brighter.
"Ariel? Ariel can sing? Flotsam. Jetsam. Get the spell book. We are going somewhere," Ursula demanded. She swung the door open and headed toward the shoreline as Jetsam and Flotsam quickly found the spell book and scurried after her.