Ariel and Eric belong to Hans Christian Anderson and the Disney Screenwriters.
Ariel swam with the current, allowing the storm winds to lead her along with the boat. It would capsize, any moment, she knew. And when it did, she'd save who she could. Her father's words meant nothing. Be it a human or mermaid, she was not one to stand by and watch as they hopelessly die.
----
Aboard his father's sail boat, Eric pulled fiercely at ropes and pulled at knotted ties. He was not going to let the boat capsize. Not if he could help it.
"James! James, grab that rope!" Eric yelled at his cousin who stood at the Captain's wheel, holding it so tight his figures looked as ghostly as his face. When he heard Eric's yell, he gave him a blank stare as if he didn't hear him correctly.
"There! Grab that rope!" Eric repeated.
After another shocked second, James left the wheel and ran as quickly as the slippery deck would allow him to and took hold of the rope opposite Eric's.
"Pull on three!" Eric called over the wind. On James' nod, Eric counted, "One…two…thr-"
----
Ariel watched as the boat leaned too far on its left side and its weight dragged it under. Sails snapped, loose objects bobbed to the top of the water as the heavier ones dropped further under until they couldn't be seen. Ariel shot forward when she saw a figure of a human pushing towards the surface. He wrapped his arms tightly around a floating plank.
Ariel broke to the surface of the water, only to feel the hard patter of rain against her face. She shielded her face and began to swim for the human. When she reached him, he was looking fiercely around himself, calling out something.
"Eric! ERIC!"
He was just a small boy, his face too young to hold so much horror. When he saw her, his eyes widened, "Eric!" then they narrowed, "You...who-!"
"Was there another?" Ariel interrupted. "Another human aboard."
The boat was in complete pieces now, thrown into a large group of rocks.
The boy watched her, confused of where she came from.
"Hurry! Tell me!" Ariel begged.
"Eric." He finally said, looking at Ariel with panicked eyes. "My cousin, Eric! He was with me on the boat."
Ariel nodded. "I will find your cousin. Float to those rocks," She pointed to a smaller bluff by a strip of land, away from the worst of the storm, "and stay there. The storm is calming, you will be safe. I will bring your Eric to you."
The boy's chin wobbled, but he nodded, and began to kick his feet to the rocks.
Ariel dove back into the sea and into the wreckage of the boat. She searched thoroughly, around, over, and inside broken slivers that were only moments ago that beautiful sail boat.
The other human was no where to be seen.
Ariel began to swim lower. Maybe he's further down, she thought. Maybe he's already begun to sink!
"Eric!" She yelled, the name unfamiliar but desperate on her tongue.
She was nearly surrounded in the darkness of the oceans depths when a quick flash of something caught her eye.
A rope was attached, on one end, to the heavy end of a broken sail. And on the other end was Eric. His arm was wrapped around the rope, his body motionless as he was dragged further under. Soon the darkness swallowed him.
Ariel didn't remember swimming after him, but she did remember the flash of his necklace leading her, like Hansel and Gretel's bread crumbs in that small story novel Skully had brought her from land.
She felt him before she saw him. And though she was relieved, it scared Ariel that her eyes had not adjusted to the sea's depth yet.
Blindly, Ariel reached for the rope's grip on Eric's arm. She pulled with all her might, but there was no budge. The weight of the sail falling was too heavy. Ariel was amazed that Eric's arm hadn't broken off.
Knowing she only had one more option, Ariel closed her eyes and held on to Eric tightly.
"Please." She whispered to the sea. "Let me save him. Please. Your princess begs you."
The flow of the water changed.
When Ariel allowed her eyes back open, she could see through the dark water. They were still floating along swiftly, but in the opposite direction. The sea became lighter, warmer. The rope around Eric's arm was still there, but it had been torn and now was dragged along after them.
Ariel smiled and blessed the sea for her gift.
As they came closer to the surface, the sea slowed and Ariel began to swim, toeing Eric along with an arm around his waist.
"Almost there, human. Hold on. You're cousin is waiting."
----
Eric was floating somewhere between Neverland and over the rainbow. He was sure his dream's had never seemed so vibrant. So colorful. But this had to be a dream. There was a city below him that shined in the sunlight, every color imaginable bouncing from its windows. Each color was alive and floating along with him like he was in the middle of a color load in the washing machine. Fish with fins the span of an eagle's wing swam around him, laughing and flicking their fins at him. He laughed, too, and the fish began to sing.
He had no idea how long he floated there listening to the music, but he didn't want to leave. Didn't want it to stop.
It was so sweet, beautiful in a way he'd never known. He felt his breath leave him, but wasn't in the frame of mind to care.
Eventually, the song died.
"NO!" Eric tried to say, but there was no air.
He gagged.
Salt. Salt water.
It burned his throat, stung at his eyes.
"No." he said, weaker this time.
"Eric?" Someone said. Did he know that voice? "You're alright, Eric. It's me, James. Wake up."
"James." Eric sighed. James was waiting.
----
"Is he-e gonna be o-hic-kay?" James asked, his hiccups causing his voice to break and the salt making his eyes water.
"Yes, I think so. He's breathing…" Ariel watched as Eric's chest heaved, then let her gaze drift up to his parted lips, past is closed eyes, and to his dark, dark hair. It was so black, the color of the depths she saved him from. The wind blew it into his face and Ariel slowly lifted her hand and shifted the hair away from his eyes. She wondered what color they were, but knew she wouldn't stay long enough to find out.
He was…very handsome. For a human.
From all her father's stories, she assumed all humans were horrid in and out. She should've known better, of course. Every portrait and picture book she has in her hidden cavern shows humans in beauty. Glorious clothing in color's only seen in the more exotic reefs. Although she's always stuck up her nose at her sisters shrieking of human stories, Ariel would be lying if she said she wasn't the least bit scared.
But how could these humans hurt anyone?
James, the cousin, the little boy, had thrown his arms around Ariel the moment she emerged to the bluffs with Eric, completely ignoring her fin until they had Eric safely on the beach.
"You're -hic- a mermaid." He said now. Not as a question, since it was quite obvious.
Ariel nodded anyways. "My name is Ariel."
"Ariel the mermaid." James whispered, then frowned. "Eric will never believe-hic-me."
"Not many would, I think."
"No…My mom used to tell me-hic-stories...not bad ones. She said all merpeople where pretty. You're pretty…"
"Oh. Thank you." Ariel said, and James blushed.
" I used to want to be a mermaid. Can I be one?"
Ariel gaped. "NO!" She all but screamed, scaring the hiccups out of James. "Why? Why would you ever want to be a mermaid when you can be human?"
Frowning, James shrugged a shoulder. "Dunno. Thought it'd be cool to swim all the time."
"It most certainly is not, i assure you." Ariel huffed.
"Oh..." James let the matter drop. " By the way, where are we?"
"Umm…" Ariel took a look around, tested the wind, then the water. James made a weird face and Ariel laughed quietly. "It's how I figure directions, the sea and wind help beautifully. We're in…Port Hanes? Is that what you call it?"
"Oh, yeah. We're not too far from Eric's house. A couple miles south." He looked down at Eric then. "Are you gonna stay until he wakes up?" He asked Ariel.
"No, I should go back now." She answered." My father will be looking for me."
James nodded. "You'll be in trouble, wont you Ariel? For helping us."
Ariel watched James closely. He was very bright, this little human boy. It should've unnerved her that he could read her so easily, but it didn't upset her in the least. She'd known him all but fifteen minutes and yet she trusted him as if he were her kind.
She smiled a small, sad smile. "Yes, I'm afraid so." When he looked like he might cry, Ariel put a hand on his cheek. He did not flinch away like she expected. "I do not regret it, saving you. Now be strong for your cousin, James. Your family is searching for you already, but he'll need you when he wakes up."
James let his cheek rest in her palm. "Thanks, Miss Ariel. I will never forget you, even if Eric doesn't believe me about you. Will you forget me?"
Ariel shook her head. "Not even if they try to make me." She said fiercely.
"He's waking up now." James said, and Ariel watched as Eric began to shift.
Leaning down, she brushed her lips across his forehead, then across James'.
Without meaning to, Ariel began to sing. It was a her favorite, a sweet song her mother would sing about a sailor who fell in love with the sea.
----
James watched Ariel push herself into the ocean and drift further out into the calming waves, her voice soft a sweet and more beautiful than anything James had ever heard. She kept singing until she was too far away for him to hear. When it died, James felt Eric heave.
"No." Eric said, faintly, water dripping from his mouth onto the sand.
"Eric." James said, lifting Eric's head into his small lap as he coughed out more water. "You're alright. It's me, James. Wake up."
"James." Eric said, relaxing immediately. Slowly, he sat up. His head was throbbing, his eyes and throat stung. And his arm! Man, it hurt! It must've been pulled out of socket, nearly broken! He unwrapped a torn piece of rope from around his wrist. He remembered now the blinding pain that stabbed through him when the sail snapped and threw him overboard with it. He must've passed out from it.
Truthfully, He didn't even want to know what happened. The important thing was James was safe. Battered, but safe.
"Oh, God, James. I'm so sorry!" Eric threw his good arm around his cousin, still managing a bear hug. "I was stupid."
James held Eric tightly. "No way. It wasn't your fault."
"How can you say that? It was. Totally my fault. God, you could've been killed! I could've killed you! This was-"
"Shut up, Eric. Just be quiet. I'm fine. No one died!"
Slowly, Eric breathed, holding on to James still, just not so desperately. "You're right. We're okay…Everything's…okay."
With a little balancing help from James, Eric stood up and surveyed the damage. Well…that wasn't okay. What was left of the sail boat was nothing but wood planks and a few floaters: ice cooler, life jackets, a hat…things like that. It was a disaster.
"How are we going to get home? I have no idea where we are." Eric said hopelessly.
"No problemo." James picked up a stick and began to draw in the sand. "Ariel said people were already searching. They're not far. We're outside of Port Hanes."
Eric watched as James drew a figure into the sand. "Ari-Who? And how can you tell where we are?" He asked, looking for a landmark.
James added long, long curly hair to his figure, then moved on the make her fin. "She's the girl who saved you. She swam down and brought you back up. And then she asked the sea and wind where we were."
He was drawing a mermaid, Eric realized. Since when did he read fairy tales? He's nearly nine, baseball and hot rod car age. "The wind and sea, huh?"
James didn't answer. He added swirls in the mermaid's tail and gave her a small smile with dimples. Where was he getting this?
"Where is…what's her name, now?"
"Ariel." James repeated as he wrote the name above the mermaid drawing's head. "She had to leave. She's going to be in a lot of trouble for saving you."
Eric's eye brows drew together. "Why?"
"She had to ask the water for help. I guess that means her…people know that she used it to help us so they're gonna be mad."
"Her people?"
James sighed, threw down his stick, then finally looked back at Eric. "You're not going to believe me, I know, but I'll tell you anyways. A mermaid rescued you. A pretty, totally real mermaid promised me she'd find you and she did. She had long curly hair like a red-yellowy color and she had pretty silver eyes like my dog Pogo did, except hers had little purple flake things in them that was cool and her tail was green and blue and gold like hazel eyes, kinda like yours, and she sang really, really pretty, too, and she was real and I don't care if you call me a crazy, stupid kid because I'm not, and I'm not a liar!"
His face had turned red and his chest heaved in and out from all the run on sentences, but Eric barely registered.
A mermaid? He was…telling him that a mermaid with red-yellow hair and dog eyes and a hazel fin had fished him out of the water using her fish powers and, with those same powers found out where they were? And that she was in deep sea trouble because of saving him? Now Eric knew James wasn't a liar, but this…was too much.
"Jamie, man, that sounds-"
"CRAZY! I know. But deal with it, because you were knocked out, so it's my word against yours!" And with that, he threw himself to the ground and picked back up his stick.
"James, d-"
"Be quiet, I'm concentrating." James pouted.
Eric rolled his eyes and sat a few feet away from where James lay, drawing a smaller, James looking figure holding the Ariel mermaids hand. Shaking his head, Eric turned towards the mainland. Or, what he hoped the direction on the mainland would be. He really did hope they were near Port Hanes, though he had no idea how James could possibly know that. And he did pray that his dad and mom where looking for them, that they were close. Eric looked to the sun, already beginning its dive into the horizon. Maybe he should make a fire, though he didn't know how easy it would be with one dinky arm. It wouldn't hurt to try though. It would get cold as soon as it got dark…and a fire will attract whoever's looking for them. Eric glanced over his shoulder at Jamie. James hated the dark, though he'd never admit it. Eric's mom had to sing him to sleep, most of the time. He loved one of her songs, the same one she would sing to Eric when he was-
"Wait…did you say she sang?" Eric asked, suddenly remembering James' earlier words. "The mermaid, Ariel. She sang to you while she was here?"
Sighing, James answered, "Yes. She sunged a-"
"She sang." Eric corrected automatically.
"She sang a really pretty song when she was leaving. I think it was to calm us down…or wake you up. As soon as she stopped, you started coughin' and stuff and that's when you woke up."
Eric tried to rub the ache from his head.
Oh. Ohhh…
His freaky dream. The one he was in right before he woke up. All the colors, the fish, and the music.
That song…what was that song? It was the last thing he recalled before seeing Jamie. The song dying.
It couldn't have…no way it-
Over by his sand sketch, James began to hum.
God, it was…it was the same song.
"No. Freaking. Way…" Eric said.
"Hey! You know what Aunt Hannah said! That 'F' word is just as bad as the real one!"
But Eric wasn't paying any attention. "That song you're humming, that was her song? Before she left? That was it?"
James nodded. "Yeah. I knew you heard it. You calmed down like, right when she started singing, then freaked when she stopped."
"This is insane."
"Yeah. Don't mean it's not true, though!"
Eric slid over by James and his drawing, careful with his arm. "You…I can't believe I'm saying this." He took a deep breath. "Jamie, do you promise you're telling me the truth? Swear to it. Because I'm starting to…God, I'm starting to believe you."
James lifted his hand and crossed his finger twice over his chest, right above his heart. "She was real. Super, duper real."