It was gone.
Aquata dug through her jewellery box for what felt like the fiftieth time that day, searching for the one necklace she never wanted to lose. Rooting through delicate coral bracelets, tough seaweed chokers, and pearl rings of every colour, she still couldn't find it.
She promised herself that she wouldn't cry about losing it – everything turned up eventually – but that promise was getting harder and harder to keep. She tried her hardest to hold back tears, but despite her best efforts they flowed, salty and warm. They soon melded with the sea water around her, gone as soon as they arrived.
Aquata sank down to the floor of her room, covering her eyes with her hands, and sobbed. Of all the things to have lost… She would never forgive herself.
A knock at the door jolted her out of her sadness. Composing herself as best she could, she called: "Come in."
The door was pushed open to reveal Arista, positioned oddly with one hand behind her back. Suspicious, Aquata raised one eyebrow.
"Can I help you?" She still sounded somewhat nasal from the crying.
Arista scratched the back of her head. "Well, Alana said that you'd lost your necklace…"
Aquata could see where this is going. Her face flushing beet red, she floated up to Arista's level and looked at her younger sister straight in the eyes. She remembered Arista's arm behind her back, and her face went from red to purple.
"Arista…" she growled, "Did you take my necklace? Mother's necklace?"
Biting her lip, Arista nodded and held out the hand that used to be behind her back. In her palm sat the necklace, a beautiful long string of pearls and gold, with seven charms positioned between the creamy white orbs. Aquata snatched it out of Arista's hand, clutching it so tightly the charms dug into her palm.
"Why did you take this?" Aquata's gaze didn't falter.
Arista shrugged and fiddled with her ponytail. "You said I could borrow something from your jewellery box… I liked that one-"
"That was mothers!" Arista screamed, cutting of Arista. "Why in the seven seas did you think it was ok to take mothers necklace! You idiot!"
Arista backed away, frightened of the side of Aquata she'd awakened. She'd never seen her sister so mad before…
"I'm sorry Aquata, really-"
"GET OUT OF MY ROOM!"
Figuring it wouldn't be a good idea to argue, Arista bolted, leaving Aquata in a seething, mad rage. She pushed the door shut once Arista left, and swam back to the jewellery box. Placing the necklace gently in its compartment, she felt the tears coming back into her eyes. Shutting the box, she turned to gaze out of the window. She couldn't stand to be in the palace while Arista was still there – she needed to be alone. So Aquata swam through the window into the open ocean and kept going until Atlantica was out of sight.
She didn't intend to go that far, not really. Aquata had found herself swimming further and further away from Atlantica until she reached the point where her home was no longer in sight. Now she was surrounded by seaweed and rocks formed in tall, jagged spires. The water was dark, and it was eerily quiet.
Aquata had got herself lost while trying to find her way home, and now she wasn't sure if she'd ever seen Atlantica again… It was stupid of her to leave home in such a fluster – it was just a necklace after all. She really didn't have to blow up at Arista like that…
She could be so stupid sometimes.
She sat down on one of the shorter spires. Maybe if she stayed still they would have a better chance of finding her? But she couldn't sleep out here… That would be too frightening.
The rustling of seaweed caught her attention. Whipping her head around, she couldn't see any signs of life other than herself. But then she heard it again, and then again but in a different place.
"Who's there?" she called, but there was no answer. Instead, two dark shadows emerged from the murky seaweed. Biting her lip, Aquata started to shift away.
The shadows started to become more defined. They were long, thin, and scaly. They certainly weren't mermaids, and if they were then something had gone terribly wrong. They weren't mermaids – they were eels.
They swam towards her and started to circle her. They didn't seem to want to harm her… Or did they? Were they just stalling?
"What do you want?" she cried, though she knew they wouldn't reply.
One of them swam closer and brushed up against her, jolting her as it did. She gave a short sharp gasp, then rubbed the place where it had jolted her. The other one started pushing her to the right – they wanted her to go with them! To their owners, maybe.
Deciding that unknown people were better than no people at all, Aquata followed them. After a reasonably short swim through the thickest part of the seaweed forest, they arrived at a cave. Light was coming from inside it, but somehow it didn't look warm or inviting. It looked somewhat eerie… But she followed the eels into the cave anyway. It took her by surprise when she heard a voice.
"Flotsam? Jetsam? Back so soon?"
The eels – Flotsam and Jetsam, she assumed – led her to the depths of the cave where the light and the voice was coming from. When they finally reached their destination, the owner of the voice was revealed.
She was a rotund woman, with short white hair styled in a point. She had lavender skin and too much makeup covering it, and her bottom half wasn't home to a tail. It was home to a mass of inky black tentacles, their suckers firmly stuck to the rock she was sitting on. Her eyes lit up when she saw Aquata, and she smiled a sneer like smile.
"Well, hello," she said, unsticking her tentacles and floating over to Aquata, "What have we here…"
"M-My name's Aquata," she told her, feeling uneasy as the woman circled her.
The woman dismissed Flotsam and Jetsam with a wave of her stubby purple hand, then turned her attention back to Aquata. "What brings a lovely thing like you to these parts?"
"I got lost," Aquata explained, "Then your eels found me, so here I am."
"How unfortunate for you… Tell me, girl, where do you come from?" the woman's question wasn't something she was quite willing to answer. She couldn't tell a perfect stranger where she lived! Especially a stranger that lived in a dank cave in the middle of nowhere…
"I don't think I should tell you," Aquata murmured, backing away to the entrance of the cave. Suddenly a jolt of electricity to her tail made her scream and dart back into the cave. Flotsam (or was it Jetsam?) was guarding the entrance to the cave.
"I said…" She swam up to Aquata's face, staring her down. "Where do you live?"
Aquata swallowed the lump in her throat. "A-A-Atlantica…"
The woman smiled, revealing a wide mouth full of startlingly white teeth. "I thought you might be, you have the same look as Triton did at that age."
"Triton?" Aquata asked, recognising her father's name. "How do you know my father? Who are you?"
The lavender-skinned woman dismissed the subject with a wave of her hand. "We don't need to get into those details, darling."
"I think we do." Aquata folded her arms and pouted.
"Well, you're wrong." The woman floated back to her previous spot and then beckoned Aquata to sit with her. Reluctantly, Aquata did what she was told.
"What's a girl like you doing getting lost out here? Family issues?" she asked.
Aquata wasn't sure why she'd suddenly turned to small talk, but it was better than feeling threatened. Though that feeling was constant. But if she was as evil as she looked, then Aquata could do with some small talk.
"I had a fight with my sister," Aquata told her, "She stole my most prized possession."
"Go on." The woman turned to look at her, all of a sudden interested in what she had to say.
"It was my mother's necklace, the only thing I had left of her. I mean, she returned it, but she didn't even ask… I got madder than I should have and left. I got lost, your eels found me, and here I am."
"I know what it's like to have something precious stolen from you." She seemed wistful now. "A bond between daughter and mother is… Oh, Neptune, I'm getting emotional."
She got up from her seat and floated into another section of the cave. Unsure whether to follow, Aquata got up and floated towards the entrance, hovering in the doorway. From what she could see in the darkened room looked like a collection of bits and bobs – not unlike Ariel's. She could see the mammoth shadow of the woman floating within, scavenging through the knick knacks.
Perhaps she could use this moment to escape? She was distracted after all. Aquata her head to the exit – but Flotsam and Jetsam were still there. Biting her lip, she turned her gaze back to the woman. She was emerging with something clutched in her hand. It looked like an ordinary rock in the darkness. But when the woman brought it into the light Aquata could truly appreciate its beauty.
The stone was deep purple in colour, striped with pale purple streaks. It was perfectly rounded, a sphere in the woman's hand. Aquata wanted to hold it – it looked so satisfying to touch.
The woman placed it on the rock in the middle of the room and beckoned Aquata over to it. She floated over to it and looked up to the woman, asking her what was next with her expression.
"This is the youth stone," she told her, "It will reverse any merpersons age by ten years – but only if an incantation is said."
"What is it? The incantation?"
"Stone of beauteous youth, hide my age's truth."
When the woman spoke the incantation the stone flickered and shook, vibrating on the rocks. But as soon as it had started it fizzled out, returning to its dormant state.
"What happened there?" Aquata asked, poking the stone to see if it would do anything.
"Nothing. No one was holding it, so nothing happened. You see, someone must be holding it for the spell to work," the woman explained. She picked up the stone and placed it into Aquata's hands.
"What do you want me to do with it?" she asked, looking down at the stone.
"You'll know when the time comes. Now go away, Flotsam and Jetsam will take you home."
Aquata sent a wary glance to the eels and then looked back at the woman. The raise of her thinly plucked eyebrow indicated that she wanted nothing more to do with her. Stone in hand, she reluctantly left with the eels.
She couldn't wait to get back to Atlantica…
"Aquata, you do realise who that was, don't you?" Attina asked, with her jaw dropped.
"Uh… No…" Aquata sniffled.
"That was Ursula. Y'know, the evilest sea witch in the seven seas?"
Aquata raised her hand to her mouth and gasped. The whole time that woman had been Ursula… How did she not know that? To think she'd had an artefact belonging to a sea witch for all that time!
"Well, in any case, she might have something to reverse the spell. We just need to bargain with her, that's all." Attina started pacing. "But Neptune knows what she'd want in return…"
"There's only one way to find out." Aquata glanced out the window in the direction of the seaweed forest.
"I guess we'd better get a move on then."
With that, the two sisters swam out the window to Ursula's lair with victory and determination on the mind.
"There she is!" Arista yelled.
The three sisters hurried over to the little girl with the flaming red hair, happily playing amongst the coral with the smaller fish. They couldn't be more grateful that she was ok…
"Ariel, thank Neptune!" Alana scooped her sister up in her arms. Ariel squirmed in Alana's tight grasp.
"I wanna look for thingamabobs!" she cried, trying her hardest to worm her way out of Alana's grip.
Adrina giggled. "She's kinda cute this way."
Alana frowned. "Don't get used to it!"
Ariel finally got out of Alana's hold and floated above them, yelling: "Thingamabob! Thingamabob!"
"Do you reckon we should?" Arista asked, finger on her lip in thought.
"If it'll keep her occupied I don't see the problem," Alana concluded, "As long as we keep an eye on her."
"YAAAAAY!" Ariel screamed, then darted off in the direction of another coral field.
"Ariel!" the three princesses yelled in unison, swimming after her at a great pace. They couldn't lose her again…
All things considered, the thingamabob hunt was going well. They'd found several new things in the coral field, though most of it was stuff Ariel had found before. It was going so well that the older girls had become distracted by finding the best thingamabob for Ariel's collection.
So distracted in fact, that they didn't even notice Ariel swimming into shark infested waters…