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"You have to tell us what you and Eric have been up to." Adella insisted, flopping onto Ariel's bed.
The night had wrapped up, and Ariel knew she was going to be tired, so she told Eric she would just crash with her sisters, and return the next morning. Ariel had brushed all the curls out of her hair and laid sprawled across the bed, holding her thin fins in her hands. They felt foreign to her now. It was always a strange reminder how warm the water felt to her when she wasn't in human form.
"Well, what do you want to know?" she asked, rolling to her stomach and dropping her fins.
"Ariel, you're the first one to get married! We want know everything!" Alana sighed.
"Is it romantic all the time?"
"Do you guys fight?"
"What do you do?"
Ariel laughed. "I've already told you all that – I've been back every month, after all!"
"We know! But you always ask about us and go and see friends and we never get to talk about you and Eric! At best, you'll mention a couple things here or there. You hardly even talk about you!"
"Yeah, Ariel, we don't just know anymore. When you lived here, everyone found out because all your antics were, like, twenty minutes away."
Ariel knew they weren't hurt by this, and that they didn't mean her any harm by saying it, but she still felt a twinge of guilt over seeing her family less. She never fully understood all her sisters, but the seven had been so close, and had done almost all of their growing together. She supposed she had never realized how natural it had been for her sisters to know what was going on with her, for them to constantly be on the same wavelength. Things were different now.
"It's been very lovely." She smiled. "I've been getting aquatinted with the kingdom, mostly. Eric and I go on rides through town, weekend trips to the countryside, and I've been hosting lots of parties!"
"Parities?" several sisters exclaimed in unison.
"Yes!" Ariel beamed. "I love doing it, too. Sometimes they have all sorts from the kingdom, sometimes it's dignitaries, and sometimes it's more intimate dinner parties. I love planning them, and Chef Louie makes the most delicious things. Although," she smiled a little. "he did say he felt very limited by not being able to make his stuffed crab anymore. But I think he's moved on, now."
"Good, you don't want to eat one of your friends!" Attina added.
"Are you glad you married Eric?"
"Artista, how silly a question." Ariel said immediately. "I couldn't possibly be happier with my choice, every day I am reminded about how it was the right one for me." She sighed. "I know this might sound a little too silly or romantic, but I think that every day is just another part of a happily ever after, that will extend on and on for the rest of our lives."
"Ariel, you're so lucky!"
"Someday I want to have a marriage like that."
"Do you ever worry, about anything?" Andrina said, not to pry, but out of disbelief that a person could feel such a way, fully happy and without worries or cares.
Ariel thought for a second. There were little, momentary irritations that exist if not for proof that you're alive, but no sincere issues. She wanted for nothing, travelled often, and felt consistently and deeply loved. She still saw her family, her old friends, and had nothing but opportunities to make new ones. It still felt silly, almost braggy to answer truthfully, but still she said, "Not really. I hope it will stay that way forever, and I don't know if it will, but if nothing else, I'm incredibly happy at this point in time."
The girls seemed to be growing more and more tired – Alana had already fallen sleep, green face mask applied – so they shimmied back to their respective beds and bundled up. Barely any light reached the sea floor, and Ariel found herself as restless as she was in her younger years, craning her head to just the right angle, so she could see what that barely-there light illuminated. She slipped out of bed quietly, moving to rest on the windowsill, and watched as a few fish swam by, as a few jellyfish caught the light, and remembered how the sea floor always looked so bottomless, for want of any illumination.
Everything felt so familiar here, and there was a happiness in that. But Ariel now no longer felt like the sea was her home. She no longer saw herself as a mermaid craving land – she was a person, visiting a world she didn't quite fit in anymore. Someone groaned in their sleep, and the noise startled Ariel. She whipped around quickly, knocking a bottle off Attina's nightstand with the flip of her fins. She had forgotten exactly how long they were, and Ariel knew she would've never done anything so clumsy if she had feet.
…
Ariel took a lazy breakfast, said goodbye to her family, and returned home the next morning.
"Hey, angelfish!" Eric said, a little shakily, a little strangely, when she returned.
"Hello!" she ran to him, and he wrapped her up in a big hug, giving her an extra squeeze before he let go.
"How was your visit?"
"Lovely as always." The two turned and began to head back to the palace. "You wouldn't believe the party! The whole castle was decked out, I swear. And there were performers the girls picked out and they were very good, a lot better than I expected actually, and-" Ariel glanced over at Eric as she was speaking, and saw he was still very stone faced. "Eric, are you okay?"
He paused before speaking, and then talked very slowly. "Yes, I am fine."
"Then what is wrong?" Ariel dropped his hand and turned to face him, adamantly showing that she was not going to let this go.
Eric exhaled loudly and rubbed the back of his neck. "I don't want you to worry, okay?"
Well of course she was going to worry now! "Eric, please tell me."
"There's been…issues with neighboring kingdoms." He said each word slowly, as if he were picking them individually and carefully.
"What kind of issues? Are they threatening something? Us?"
"The nations, themselves, are not the problem. There problem is what's happening inside them."
"Is there a disease? Something spreading?"
"Something's spreading, alright." Eric said darkly. "Revolution."
Ariel furrowed her brow. She knew what the word meant, she knew what it entailed, but she couldn't believe it was actually happening! "Against what? What are they doing?"
"It seems some of the people in neighboring countries aren't too happy with how things are being run. More specifically, they aren't too happy with monarchy as an idea. They're trying to overthrow it."
Ariel gasped, instantly recoiling from them world. What if it started up here? What if she and Eric were thrown from their lives – and so soon after she had gotten everything in order! "Is that here? What are they doing? Are they coming?"
"The idea is spreading, and I'm sure it's here, but I don't think it is in a threatening capacity." Eric said. "There's revolutionaries in every country, it takes all types, y'know? But it's becoming too many people in this general area. They haven't had any success, they haven't overthrown any throne or caused any true harm, but there's rallies and publications and threats, and as I went through a lot of correspondence I missed, I began to finally understand the severity of what was going on."
"Your friends are writing to tell you? It's that bad?"
Eric laughed without humor. "They're writing to warn me. They're having a hell of a time putting this down in their own countries, and they were hoping their letters would give me a jump start in keeping it under control in mine. If anything, I wish I had read them sooner."
Ariel stood on the beach, halfway between sea and shore, and suddenly she wasn't sure if she felt right, felt safe, anywhere. She wavered a little, and looked back up at Eric. "We'll fix this. We'll find a way. I know we can." She spoke firmly, but she didn't feel it.
Eric smiled warmly at his wife, and took her hand again, heading back to the castle. "You always have the right things to say. And I'm going to need that more than ever, now."
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