Disclaimer: I do not own TLM. I own this plot.
4
"Sebastian, what are you doing here?" Ariel cried, reaching a hand out for the crab that was being flung through the air on her prince's foot. The crab had clamped one of his large claws onto the prince's toe when he'd seen him kiss the mermaid. "Oh Eric, be careful please!"
Eric gave her a look of disbelief—it was his toe being callously clamped onto after all—before he calmed down enough to hobble over to Ariel who gently reached out and took hold of Sebastian.
"Let him go," Ariel warned Sebastian. "He didn't do anything wrong."
"Great blue whales, he didn't!" the crab protested, releasing Eric and crawling onto Ariel's lap. "What do you think you are doing, young lady? You promised that you had seen the last of this human! And here I find you kissing him? Oh when your father finds out—"
"Oh Sebastian please, no!" Ariel protested, pulling the crab into her hands again and bringing him eye level. "Please don't tell Daddy!"
"Ariel, what's going on?" Eric sputtered, watching the conversation between mermaid and crab with confusion. Ariel spoke plainly enough but the crab only made a series of clicking noises that were impossible to understand.
Ariel felt so torn, so scared of Sebastian's looming threat. "Eric, this is Sebastian. Sebastian, this is Eric."
"I know who he is, girl. The question is what in the great blue sea do you think you are doing? First saving him, then talking to him and now kissing him? Oh, my poor heart can't take this," the crab plunked down in her hands and rubbed his aching head with one oversized claw.
"Sebastian it isn't like you think. Humans aren't all bad. Please, Eric is a great guy, just give him a chance," she implored.
Eric knelt beside Ariel and addressed the crab, feeling only slightly less insane then an one legged pirate who decided to take up ballet. "Nice to meet you, Sebastian. I've heard great things about you."
"Oh so you've been selling me out to the human too," the crab berated Ariel. "Hurry, throw me back to da sea before he thinks he can cook me. I'm old, I'm not tender anymore!"
"Sebastian relax," Ariel cooed. "Please, I promise I'm okay here."
"Okay? Okay?! You're fraternizing with the enemy! This is the last straw, it's too dangerous. I'm telling your father!"
He scrambled off her hands and down the beach, disappearing into the water before she had a chance to object.
"Oh no! He's going to tell my father. I have to stop him," Ariel started to pull herself back towards the breaking waves.
"Ariel wait!" Eric called, scooping her up in his arms and walking her to the water. "Please, please come back. I'm so sorry this happened."
Ariel rested a hand on his cheek before quickly brushing her lips across the stubbled surface. "It's not your fault. But I have to stop him. If my father finds out he'll never let me come back."
"Let me talk to him," the prince interjected. "Bring him here to talk with me. I'll explain, I'll—"
"No," Ariel stopped him. "It won't get you anywhere."
Eric had waded waist deep in to the water by now. He gently released the mermaid into the waves.
"Please, if you can, come back. I'll wait here tomorrow night, and the next night if I have to."
"I'll try, Eric. I'll try."
With that she dove into the waves after Sebastian. Neither knew if they'd see the other again.
Sebastian was fast. Try as she might Ariel could not catch up to him. When she finally saw Atlantica in the distance she knew she was too late. Flashes of light were streaking out of every window and doorway in the palace. Her father was awake. And he was angry.
Knowing she could do nothing but accept the inevitable Ariel swam to the palace and straight into the throne room.
Her father was there, trident in hand, talking to Sebastian who was cowering at the base of the throne while the large merman swam in furious circles.
They both looked up as Ariel entered.
"Daddy I—"
"I consider myself a reasonable merman," the king boomed, turning to face his daughter. His glare pinned Ariel to the floor. "I set certain rules and I expect those rules to be obeyed." Sebastian cowered guiltily on the floor as the king continued to address his daughter. "Is it true?" he demanded. "You rescued a human from drowning?"
"Daddy I had to—"
"Contact between the human world and merworld is strictly forbidden. Ariel you know that, everyone knows that!"
"He would have died!"
"One less human to worry about!"
"You don't even know him!" she said defiantly.
"Know him?" King Triton looked scandalized. "I don't have to know him. They're all the same. Spineless, savage, harpooning fish eaters!" He gestured angrily. Ariel shrank away as far as she could. "They're incapable of any feeling—"
"Daddy you're wrong!" Ariel burst out. "Eric isn't like that! I know him, he's—"
"Eric?" her father fumed. "You know his name? Just how much time have you spent with this Eric?" the king spat.
Ariel's eyes widened. She glanced at Sebastian who shook his head vehemently. He hadn't told her father about her meetings with Eric. Whether that was because he simply hadn't gotten to that part or he'd had a change of heart she didn't know. And after her slip up it didn't matter. She'd really screwed up now.
Realization was dawning in her fathers eyes. "The human!" he choked. "That's who you've been falling for? THE HUMAN?" Her fathers trident flared to life, flashing so brightly Ariel wouldn't be surprised if it could be seen a hundred feet up at the surface. Surly all of Atlantica was awake by now and knew that the king was furious.
"Daddy!" Ariel pleaded. "Eric isn't bad. Humans aren't bad. He's kind and funny and I care about him!"
"NO! Have you lost your senses completely?" he boomed. "He's a human, you're a mermaid!"
"I don't care," Ariel whispered brokenly.
"So help me Ariel I am going to get through to you! And if this is the only way, so be it!" He turned to the entrance. "Guards!" he called.
Mermen in golden helmets and matching breast plates flooded the thrown room, bowing before their king.
"You're majesty," they echoed.
"My daughter is confined to the palace walls. Under no circumstances is she to leave, do you understand me?"
"Yes sir!" They saluted him before rushing back to their stations at every possible entrance and exit of the palace.
"Daddy please, I—"
"Enough, Ariel! I'm disappointed in you. Get out of my sight."
Ariel's lip quivered as her father turned his back on her and slowly swam back to his throne. Her heart felt like it was shattering into a million pieces and the only person remotely capable of putting it back together was far away in a different world.
She turned her back and fled the throne room, cries ripping free of her chest as she did.
Nobody could get Ariel to talk. Her sisters tried but she ignored them. Sebastian tried but she sent him away. Flounder was the only person Ariel would even let stay with her, though their time together was spent mostly by him telling her stories or random gossip from around the sea while she stared blankly at a wall.
Ariel had done a lot of things in her life that her father hadn't agreed with. She'd made him angry before but never, never had she seen him so hurt. Never had he told her to get out of his sight.
Ariel regretted that her actions made her father upset but she regretted his decision to lock her away even more. Her father may not agree with her life choices but they were hers to make. And she'd chosen Eric. She was young and inexperienced, she didn't know what love felt like but she knew she cared about the prince in such a way that he consumed her every thought. How could her father think that was such a bad thing? How could he distrust her so much? And how could such amazing feelings be such a bad thing?
On the second night after the fight with her father Ariel was alone in her room. Flounder had left hours ago and her sisters had given up on trying to get her to talk. It had gotten dark hours ago and the only light came from a jar filled with bioluminescent plankton in a sconce by her door.
Ariel lay on her bed, staring at the ceiling when she heard a noise. It sounded like something heavy sliding against stone. Ariel turned to her window and stifled a shriek as two of the ugliest sea creatures she'd ever seen slithered into her room. With gray streamlined bodies, thin snouts with needle-like teeth and mismatched eyes they were unlike anything she'd seen before.
She fled her bed for the safety of the other side of the room, feeling slightly more secure with the cool stone pressed against her back.
"Who are you?" she demanded, wondering how they'd slipped past the guards that kept her captive.
"Poor child," they cooed in sync, ignoring her question. "Poor sweet child. She has a very serious problem. If only there was something we could do. But there is something." They swam around each other in their own twisted version of a dance. Ariel wondered how they didn't tie themselves in knots.
Ariel repeated her earlier question.
"Don't be scared. We represent someone who can help you." They moved towards her brushing slithering their slimy bodies against her. Ariel shuddered but tried to remain calm as she pressed her back closer to the wall. "Someone who can make all your dreams come true. Just imagine, you and your prince. Together forever."
"I don't understand," Ariel admitted. How could anyone help her achieve that? She was a mermaid. There was no way anyone aside from her father and his trident could help her join Eric on land.
"Ursula has great powers," one of the eels, or at least that's what Ariel assumed they were, hissed.
"The sea witch?" Ariel gasped. "Why that's…I couldn't possibly…No!" The sea witch was a taboo in Atlantica. She'd heard stories about her, terrible things, the stuff of nightmares. Ariel didn't know how much of it was truth or fiction but the idea of going against her father for the sea witch was abhorrent. "Get out of here!" she demanded, shooing them away from her. "Leave me alone!"
"Suit yourself," one of them said as they turned to leave out her window. "It was only a suggestion."
Ariel watched as her only hope literally swam away. She thought of the hours and hours she'd spent with Eric, talking, laughing. Dreaming. Of their lessons on each others worlds, shared interests and desires. Of the brief, sweet brush of his lips against her own.
Before she knew what she was doing Ariel was at her window, calling out for them to wait.
Ariel scribbled a hasty note to the first person who came searching for her and then followed the eels away from Atlantica. She didn't know how they'd snuck past the guards, or how she wasn't spotted leaving for that matter, but she assumed the sea witch had something to do with it.
Still not entirely sure it was a good idea, but not being able to bare the thought of life without Eric, she followed the eels through Atlantica, past the reef, over the kelp forest, and into the canyon. She was surprised how close to home Ursula lived. The eels directed her to a cavern made from the skeleton of a terrifying sea monster. Ariel had never seen anything like it before and froze at the sight of it. The eels wrapped their tails around her arms and coaxed her through the entrance.
Gray and green polyps, dancing a gruesome dance in the current, covered the floor of the cave. They gave Ariel an eerie feeling as she passed over them. She almost turned around, overwhelmed by the sense of foreboding that permeated her surroundings, but it was at that moment that a raspy woman's voice spoke from within the cave.
"Come in. Come in my child," called Ursula the sea witch.
