Boats were another thing that were much different above water. The colours were fresh and new in comparison to the old boat ruins she had seen destroyed on the sea floor. The silence from those boats had also changed. From her past she remembered an eerie silence around the sunken ships, even eerier than the rest of the ocean. There had been something about the fact that people may have died on those boats that made even Ariana stop talking when she was around them. This boat however, was full of life. She could hear music and singing and the stomping of feet that must have been people dancing. Dancing had always fascinated her. There wasn't much she could do in the way of trying to dance herself, what with having no legs. It still fascinated her.

The sides of the boat had some planks that stuck out a little more then the others and she managed to climb the side. From a small hole in the side she watched.

Here she saw her first human. She thought he was beautiful. Peculiar but beautiful. She quickly realised that this was not the case as she spied another human which made it apparent that the first human was no the best looking as he was cursed with rather large features. The second also proved to be not as beautiful as she had planned as he sported many wrinkles. This was all extremely new to Ariana. Merfolk stayed young and beautiful and looked quite similar due to similar characteristics. All mermaids had hair that was a hard colour to describe. In some lights it was silver but it most it was a pale blonde. To tell each other apart however, merfolk added their own unique spin to the hair that could easily have made them identical. It was still hard to spot differences at times. All of them had eyes as blue as the sea. The scales on their tales blue and silver so as to blend into the water better and avoid enemies.

Ariana had been raised seeing that everyone looked the same so the differences in humans shocked her. She still found them beautiful and if not beautiful, extremely interesting. They varied in every aspect, no human looked all like any other. That was until she saw what must have been twin brothers. But even then, something made them look different to each other.

One of the wrinklier men raised his glass in an odd fashion that made everyone stop talking and turn to face him. He coughed a few times and began to speak. "My dearest comrades, it is with great pleasure that we return home today for no only have we completed out quest but we also return home against all odds. Odds that surely must grant our leader favour in the view of the King. Eric, kindly step up and say some words to your men." There was silence as everyone looked around, looking for this leader. One man detached himself from the crowd and ran into the lower of deck of the ship. He shortly returned with who must be this Eric they were talking about. Everyone broke out in applause even though the man looked extremely uncomfortable at it and tried to hush the men down.

"Right" he said when the clapping had slowed down enough to let him get some words in. "Sanford has requested that I say a few words. And well, I'm hoping those words shall be made clear to me soon." He made everyone laugh. After this they stayed transfixed on him. He was clearly a born leader and the people adored him. Ariana also found that she could not look away. She was intrigued by him. Unlike many of the me around him, Ariana could make out no ugly qualities. Everything about him practically screamed perfection. She looked at his dark hair and the way that part of it kept falling in his eyes no matter how many times he pushed it back. His brown eyes had something about him that made her know that he was a kind man. He looked calmly over the crowd though it was clear by his body language that he was rather uncomfortable with speeches.

Ariana realised that as she had been so absorbed in him she had missed his speech. The people were clapping again which seemed to be a sign that he was done. He walked amongst he crowd now, addressing everyone.

Someone was trying to get his attention and yelled "your highness' before he finally turned around. So he was a Prince. It made sense to Ariana, she knew there was something about him that seemed regal.

Ariana stayed on the side of the ship for quite some time, watching everything they did. Their dancing particularly amused her. She had heard tales of humans doing moving around to music and know she finally witnessed it, she thought that looked ridiculous. The men all seemed a little idiotic, it seemed to be due to whatever it was they were drinking. The more they drank, the clumsier they seemed to get. Ariana was very confused as she wondered why humans would want a drink that made them act in such a manner. The Prince seemed to hang back and refused the drink. She was glad, she didn't like the way the other men were acting. Still, she was fascinated by them. Every small thing was so new to her. All of the things on the ship were strange and exciting. She found herself wishing that there were a way that she could go on the ship and experience these things too. But such thought were crazy. They may seem friendly now but to jump on this ship now would show their true nature.

All her life, Ariana had been warned of one thing, the danger of going above the ocean because of what humans would do. She had been terrified of the horrors that had been told of the things that humans had done to merfolk all those years ago in the war. Apparently humans had a fascination of how humans functioned. They used the war as an excuse to perform experiments of the merfolk. Well they called them experiments. Apparently there was nothing experimental about them other then the experiment of how mush pain they could inflict. But she desperately wondered if maybe humans had grown kinder over the years, after all it had been hundreds of years ago. Surely they would have forgotten about merfolk by now. Maybe it was time to stop seeking revenge.

She knew her thoughts were crazy. The fighting would continue, regardless of whether anyone knew what it was about or not. She would never be able to be on a boat unless it had sunken to the bottom of the ocean and no life remained on it.

A rumble of thunder brought her out of her stupor. It made everyone on the ship pause too. "There seems to be a storm coming" the man Eric called Sanford commented.

"We are so close to home," Eric said as he looked into the horizon "the weather wouldn't dare."

…..

The weather did dare. A storm quickly raged. Lightning flowed the thunder and the waves began crashing around the ship. Men ran around trying desperately to do anything useful as water poured in. Eric was among them, despite Sanford demanded that he go below deck. "I refuse to sit twiddling my thumbs while the ship goes down" he yelled as Sanford decided that he didn't have the time to argue and ran below deck. Eric couldn't blame Sanford for his cowardess. He wasn't a knight and had no wish to be. He was merely his servant of whom his father had insisted accompany him on his journey. He had been more of a hindrance then help. The only thing he was good at was eating more food then most of the men put together. Eric did hope that when a crisis such as this arose, Sanford would rise to the occasion. Clearly he was wrong.

They were fighting a losing battle. Water was entering the boat at a rapid pace and they couldn't keep up with it. One of the men, Scott was having trouble of one side of the ship and Eric ran over to help him. His timing couldn't have been worse as a large wave caused the boat to rock furiously which made Eric lose his balance and hurtle over the edge into the crashing waves below.

He fought to swim up for air but he waves were strong. The second he made it up to breath another wave would knock him down again.

He grew exhausted quickly. Distantly over the roar of the wind and waves he could hear the men on the ship urgently shouting. He knew that they were too late. He sank down and as he lost consciences he could have worn he saw a large fish swim by.

Meanwhile Ariana had been watching from a distance and heard the cries of distress. She heard that Eric had gone overboard. Her first instinct naturally was to save him but then she remembered the words of her father. "Humans cannot handle mermaid power. That is our blessing. Too much contact results in their death." She could see him in the water now, struggling to swim up for air. The waves were too strong for him.

Eventually he stopped resurfacing.

Ariana stopped hesitating. She swam as fast as she could to where she had seen him go under and found his quickly sinking. Ignoring the consequences she grabbed him by the arm and willed him to breathe. A light passed from her to him and to her delight she saw his chest begin to rise and fall.

Now she had to figure out what to do with him. She couldn't just swim up to the boat, give him back and hope that no one noticed the tail. So she kept heading North in what she assumed must be the way to his kingdom.

It was further away then she expected. The sun was rising by the time she found a beach. Fear quickly hit her. She had been holding his arm for half the night, surely that must mean that he wouldn't make it. She had always been told that a slightest touch could kill a human if they were weak enough. There was no way of checking for a pulse or heartbeat without touching him so she waited for any sign of life or death.

She didn't have to wait long. Unexpectedly, he opened his eyes. Her first instinct should have been to move quickly but the thought didn't cross her mind. She couldn't look away from his eyes. From far away she had thought they were beautiful but from close up they were mesmerizing. He shut them again quickly as he became unconscious again. Quickly realising what she had risked, Ariana checked her tail. There was no way he could have seen it. The only thing in his line of vision was her face and there was no danger of his seeing that again. Reluctantly she returned to the ocean and watched from afar until he was found and carried away.

Meanwhile, she could not stifle the wish that he could have remained there.

With deep sadness, she returned to the deep.