A Dream and a Ring

Ariel smiled in her sleep. She was completely un-aware of what had just happened. She tossed in the clam bed completely in a day dream. Only a single word left her lips "Jim….." She stretched out in the clam bed. The tips of her transparent crystal green fins poking out of the bottom of the blanket, curling and un-curling as she slept. The ends of her red hair played in the ocean as little fish combed her hair while she slept. A hand reached out and cupped her petite face. She smiled again opening her eyes slowly, "Jim?" she muffled through her sleepily state. But when she opened her sapphire blue eyes she was shocked to see her father towering over her.

"Father!?"Ariel cried as she sat up straight. The little fish combing her hair darted in different directions in fright. Her blanket floated in the ocean above her. She went to get up out of bed like she would do if she were human, but fell face first into the sand. Ariel took the first look of her old room in the underwater palace. She hadn't been here in three years. A scream escaped her lips when she figured out where she was.

Her father swam to her side swiftly in the water, "Ariel," his soft husky voice said. Ariel tried to get up but forgot how to use her tail. Her father pulled her up by her shoulders. Ariel wobbled in the water. "My dear Ariel it seems you have forgotten how to swim," he father chuckled softly to himself.

"Well of course I have! I haven't been near the ocean in years! What have you done!?" Ariel answered him furiously demanding why she was here.

Her father looked at her blankly, "what on earth to do mean Ariel? You have only been asleep for one night?"

"What?" Ariel asked as she shook her head. Had her father gone crazy?

Triton smiled kindly at her. "Why don't you get some rest? The dream you had must have muddled you up a little." Her father sat her down on the bed.

"I haven't been asleep I was a human!" Ariel forcibly pushed him away.

"No you weren't dear," Triton said as he sat next to her. "You think you were a human after you had that terrible accident."

Ariel was even more confused "what accident?"

Triton looked at her sadly as if she had no real understanding of the matter when really, she didn't. "You met a human, and you were so excited to see him, but you didn't heed my warnings I gave you. You had led Attina, Finn, Flounder and Sebastian to be killed by him. And you lost your memory."

Ariel tried to think of what her father was telling her, but no memory came to mind. "I don't remember," Ariel said softly as she went over her father's words in her head. Had she really dreamed about her life in space?

"Of course you wouldn't dear, you lost your memory," her father at her father's words she started to see a human killing her friend's. Tears started rolling down her cheeks.

"I remember father," she said looking at him. "I remember everything" the words wobbled from her mouth as she cried into his chest. The last of her memories drained of her human life with Jim.

When Triton left Ariel to sleep off her fake memories, he bumped into Eric. "How is she sire?" Eric asked.

Triton smiled, "it seems that your potion worked, she doesn't remember her human life or that human. But why did we have to say Attina had died with the others?"

Eric shook his head at the Kings stupidness. "Sire," he said as he placed a hand on Tritons shoulder. "Ariel would be wondering where the others are, and if she thinks the last three years were a dream she wouldn't start to get curios. And let's not forget Attina is with the human." Triton tensed as he remembered the human who took his youngest daughter away from the sea.

He sighed, "but Ariel loved the human, are you sure we are doing the right thing?"

"Yes sire, Jim would have died sooner or later and it would have left your Ariel heart broken. And you said yourself, the best place for her is under the sea," Eric finished. The king sighed heavily and thought for a moment. After a short pause he nodded.

"Very well Eric, take care of Ariel now," the king said. With that the King of the sea left a very pleased Eric.

"Everything is going as plan," Eric smiled cruelly as he swam to a window. "Nemo!" He called out the window. A little orange and white clown fish appeared in front of him.

"Yes Eric?" the fished asked shyly.

"Take this and put it in Ariel's secret grotto," Eric said as he gave Nemo a leather band, attach to it was the most beautiful blue diamond ring the little fish had ever seen.

"She's back?" Nemo asked happily as he tore his eyes from the ring.

"Yes she is and you know your job. She can't find out about the grotto," Eric said as he flung the ring in his direction.

"Why not? it is her place after all," Nemo said as he caught the leather band in the ocean.

"Because she cannot know about it that's all, it's the Kings orders." Eric lied as he swam off.

Nemo sighed heavily before taking the long swim to Ariel's grotto. He was too small to move the huge rock that blocked the entrance so he swam to the top where there was a little gap big enough for himself. He looked around the grotto trying to find a place to leave the ring, when he couldn't find one he sat on the sand. "Hmmm where am I going to put it?" He asked himself as he looked around the other human stuff Ariel had found when she used to live under the sea. He studied the little ring some more, it was the most beautiful human thing he had ever seen. It was stunning silver and laced around it were little blue gems. Nemo smiled and tossed it over with his fin seeing there was little cursive writing on the inside.

"What's this?" He studied the curvy writing and remembered some of Ariel's teaching on how to read human writing. "'To my dearest sea monkey, from sea to the stars, this is from my heart. My love for you will grow, be mine forevermore. Love with all my heart, Jim.' Why would Eric want this hidden away from Ariel?" Nemo wondered. He then noticed a fancy candle stick. "Well when Ariel does find this place, and she will. I'm sure this would be the first thing she wants to see." He picked up the ring and slipped it onto one of the candle sticks, he smiled and swam off.