A grand total of one review! Nothing absolutely special, but still! Okay, the first chapter wasn't anything too special, but here's the next chapter. It's been a few weeks since I posted the story, so I guess I need to update, even if one person is reading. Enjoy!


Myde felt as if he had searched the entire ocean, but he had yet to find his red-headed friend. There was still one place he hadn't checked yet, but it was mainly because he was a bit...nervous about going to the palace. It's not that he was afraid of the king. Triton was normally very friendly whenever they got an opportunity to speak with each other. It was just the conversation that always managed to come up whenever they did talk. Always abrupt, always having nothing to do with the current subject, and always starting out the same way. Myde exhaled deeply, as he thought about this last resort.

A glimmer of hope revealed itself when he saw a group of merpeople swim nearby. Myde quickly flipped his tail, and swam in their direction.

"Uh, 'scuse me," he began, "have you seen Princess Ariel anywhere?"

"The princess?" The blond mermaid shook her head. "Have you guys seen her around?" Her two friends both shook their heads.

'Damn.'

Myde swallowed hard as he nodded his head in thanks, and swam toward the palace. He bit his lip nervously as he entered, and swam before the king.

"Ah, sorry for coming uninvited, Your Majesty," Myde muttered, bowing his head low.

"Nonsense," Triton said. "A friend of my daughter is always welcome. What do you need?"

"Um, well, I was wonderin' if you knew were Ariel was." Myde looked up and made eye contact with Triton. "We're supposed to hang out today, but I can't find her."

"If I'm not mistaken," he explained, "she went out to find you."

"O—oh," Myde stuttered, turning his head, peering out the exit. "Well, I should see if I can find her." Myde turned away, prepared to flip his tail faster than he ever had, but he stopped before he could even start moving.

"Myde," the king began.

'Too late.'

"Yes, Your M—majesty?" Myde was nearly shaking, as he turned around. He kept his head slightly bowed, to hide the redness in his cheeks.

"I was just wondering..if..well," Triton trailed off, trying to find the right words. This is the part of the conversation that would change around. Triton cleared his throat before he continued, "has your relationship with Ariel...changed any? At all?"

Myde opened his mouth to form a sentence, but all that came out was a yelp. For whatever reason, Triton had it in his mind that Myde was the perfect merman for his youngest daughter. Myde and Ariel had been friends since childhood, and seemed perfect for each other. Ariel had made mention that all of her sisters had teased her about this. In their youth, Myde had mentally admitted to himself that he did have sort of a crush on her, but he was so little then. Now that they were older, he felt that if they had formed a relationship beyond being friends, it would just be..weird; Triton, however, had different plans.

"N—no, Your Majesty," Myde finally managed to blurt out, "n—no change."

The king grumbled at this. He wasn't angry at Myde, just angry that his daughter and her best friend would be nothing more than that—friends.

"Myde!" Ariel's voice echoed through the palace, making both Myde and Triton, turn to her direction.

"Ariel, there you are," Myde said, swimming to her side. "I looked everywhere!"

"Look who's talking," she admitted. "C'mon, let's get going!"

Ariel grasped Myde's hand and swam off to go treasure hunting. Myde couldn't help but mentally groan to himself. She always acted like that in front of her father. He could just hear the king mumbling to himself about how Myde is just embarrassed to admit his feelings and so on. He decided to ignore it. There was a big adventure ahead!


"So where's all of this treasure?" Myde questioned his friend. Sarcasm dripped from his emphasis like acid. He still wasn't very convinced that human stuff could be treasure. Then again, it was interesting to see things that he had never seen before.

"You'll see!" she promised.

'Leave it to Ariel to keep ya in suspense.'

Ariel led the way while Myde followed closely behind...well, as closely as he could follow. Ariel was a very fast, very agile swimmer. Myde, on the other hand was a very mellow merman. There wasn't much fast swimming in his life. He was always caught up with practicing on his sitar. Ariel was sort of a rebel(Myde always teased her about being a professional trouble-maker). She had a reason to swim fast, whether it was avoiding the sight of humans when she swam to the surface, or getting to close to dangerous ocean creatures.

Myde was flipping his tail so fast that he couldn't stop in time when Ariel finally stopped, abruptly. He crashed into her, causing them to tumble and flip.

"S—sorry," he said, turning his head away, trying to hide the redness in his face. The talk her father gave him was still ringing clearly in his mind.

"That's okay," she giggled at him. "We're here, though."

Ariel extended an arm, pointing at an object that Myde thought he'd never see.

"Is that.. a ship?" Myde questioned, tilting his head to the side as he eyed the peculiar object.

"Uh-huh," she confirmed, with an enormous grin spread on her face. Anyone would be able to tell she was ready to hunt for treasure.

Myde stared at the ship, biting his lower lip a bit, before excitement exploded within him. He suddenly couldn't control the smile that now spread across his face. He really was excited.

"Well, what're we waitin' for?" he protested. "Let's go already!"

Myde zipped past his friend, only to have her once again leaving him in the bubbles. The ship had a giant hole in the side of it, which was most likely the cause of it winding up down in the ocean. The two friends used this as an entrance. Myde was so excited that he was nearly biting a hole through his bottom lip. As they entered, Myde felt a little bit disappointed.

"This is it?" he asked, turning to his friend, who was already beginning to search through every corner of the ship.

"Yeah," she stated matter-of-factly. "You gotta look around some."

Myde turned away from her, seeing that the ship had more than one room. He decided to explore here, since the current area didn't have anything eye-catching. As he entered the next room, he still didn't see anything that caught his attention. Myde decided to take his friend's advice and search within the debris of the ship. He began by picking up pieces of the ship that had caved in, and found a strange looking box. Myde flipped the lid open and realized that it was a human jewely box. It had all kinds of necklaces, rings, and bracelets inside. They were all unorganized, and seemed to be hastily thrown in.

Myde reached in and picked up a necklace at random. Surprisingly, it wasn't tangled in a mess like some of the other pieces were. The necklace was a very thin chain, and the charm was some kind of locket. Myde managed to wedge his fingernail to pry it open, and saw that the picture inside was worn away from being under water for who knows how long. He closed it, and managed to notice the engraving on the outside of the locket. It looked like a seashell.

'So..humans are just as obsessed with us as we are with them?'

"Myde, have you found anything yet?" Ariel's voice sounded as she appeared in the room.

"Uh, yeah," he said turning around to her. "Human jewelry." He held out the box containing the sparkling pieces.

Ariel snached the box from his hands and began poking through it. Her eyes widened as she noticed how pretty each piece was.

"Wow," she whispered to herself. Her eyes went up and noticed the locket that Myde held in his hands, "Can I see that?"

"Uh huh, sure," he said, handing it over to her. "You find anything interesting?"

"No," she said, not taking her eyes off of the charm. "Nothing I don't already have, at least—oh! Look at that! A seashell!" Ariel held out the charm, pointing to the nearly faint engraving.

"Yeah, I noticed that, too," Myde admitted. "You can have it, if you want."

"Can I really?" Her eyes seemed to sparkle. "Oh, it'll make a nice addition to my collection!"

"Collection?" Myde raised an eyebrow. He never heard her make any mention of her having a collection of human things. "What collection?"

"Oh," Ariel muttered, hanging her head low with embarrassment. "I kind of have to keep quiet about it, so Daddy doesn't find out about it. Do you want to see it sometime?"

"Yeah, that'd be cool," Myde said with a smile.

"Okay. We should head back, before anyone—," Ariel was cut off by a brief shadow that just rushed passed them. Only for a second, and the light was back. Her next words were barely a whisper, "D—did you—?"

Before either of them nearly had any time to react, a load roar sounded, and a shark had bit through the ship, and almost got them as well. Ariel had clasped Myde's wrist before swimming as fast as her fins would allow.

"A shark?!" Myde shrieked. A shark was something he never encountered, nor did he ever plan to.

"Through here!" Ariel pointed a hand forward, to a hole that was just big enough for each of them to squeeze through. She let go of Myde and went through.

Myde was so caught up in trying to escape that he forgot about the sitar strapped to his back. It prevented him from making his way through this narrow spot. He quickly pulled it off, slipping it inside the hole to his friend.

"Swim!" he demanded his friend, as he sharply swam upward just out of the shark's reach. His fins were flipping as fast as he could make them, and his arms were out stroking the water to make him go even a little bit faster. He quickly made his way into the room that he and Ariel entered through. Myde took a single glance behind him, seeing that the shark was just at his fins. He quickly curled them up as the shark tried to bite him.

"Myde!" A hand wrapped around his wrist, and when Myde saw that it was his friend, he was irritated.

"I told you, get out of here!" he growled. Ariel simply shook her head and began dragging him behind her. The shark continued to follow them, with its mouth open, ready to chomp down. Myde shook out of her grip, and causiously swam around the shark, smacking it in the face with his tail.

"Are you crazy?" he heard Ariel shriek.

"Okay, you beast," he said, completely ignoring his friend's protest, "follow me!"

Myde may have not been the fastest swimmer, but he was a lot more agile then this shark. He swam as fast as he could, zig-zagging back and forth. He had a plan, and hoped that it would work. The shark made a gutteral noise, definitely getting annoyed that Myde was moving around so much. Myde headed for an anchor that had somewhat been buried in the sand. He was just the size to fit through the top of it. He only hoped that the shark was foolish enough to follow him.

'Come on..'

Myde swam through, shutting his eyes, and once he thought he was through, he turned completely. He saw that the shark had wedged its way through and he seemed to be stuck. Myde put a hand to his chest, as he exhaled deeply.

"Myde!" Ariel swam to his side. "That was so dangerous, but so—cool!" She handed back his sitar and he strapped it to his back.

"I was mainly just..improvising," he admitted. "Glad it all worked out."

"Me too," she said, wrapping her arms around her friend. "Now let's get out of here!"


And that's chapter two! Please review! Remember, more reviews = faster updates(but I will update regardless).