Hey guys, I hope all my American readers had a happy Thanksgiving, and everybody else I hope you had what probably none of us did - a quiet and peaceful day. ;) Thanks for the favs and hits these last few weeks! We're back under the sea today and I hope you're in the mood for a nice long chapter, cuz that's what you've got. I hope you enjoy it and please feel free to leave me a review at the end! :D
The Lost Avatar
& Other Tales from the Four Nations
^..^
Ursula: the Bloodbending Sea Witch
^..^
Single fatherhood was difficult, even more so when you had an entire tribe to protect and look out for, but even King Triton of the Southern Water Tribe had noticed a change in his youngest daughter. Usually she was so bright, bubbly. He couldn't not keep her out of trouble. But lately...lately she had been awfully subdued.
He swam through his shell palace with strong, sure strokes of his tail – aqua to match the water around him, the element of his people – but Ariel wasn't in any of the rooms.
He left the shadow of the palace and swam out into the yard where a garden of colorful corals bloomed, even here at the bottom of the southern ocean. A handful of the tribe's children were out there playing Hit the Hermit Eel, including one of Ariel's friends.
"Katara!" King Triton called out in his deep voice. The girl spun around, missing the irritated hermit eel tucked safely into his shell. The other players awed as it hit the ground and slithered off, effectively ending the game.
"Yes, King Triton?" the girl asked, looking up at him with the big blue eyes their nation was known for. She wore her blue and white parka and long fur skirt over a dark blue fin. Her mother's necklace was around her throat; he had noticed it hardly ever left.
He smiled as warmly as he could down at the girl. "I'm sorry to disrupt your game, Katara, but I'm looking for Ariel. Have you seen her?"
Katara shook her head, beaded hair loops floating around her tan face. "No, sorry. I asked if she wanted to play with us, but she didn't want to come out of her room. Maybe she's still there."
Triton thanked her and the young girl swam off after the other girls and boys her age. He looked around and saw two of the mother's follow them, sharpened jawbone knives secured at their waists. They continued to talk to each other even as they kept watchful eyes on the children.
Reassured the young ones would be protected if something happened, Triton turned swam around the palace towards the shell tower that housed his daughters' rooms. He had checked her room earlier, however when no one answered his knock, he'd assumed she was out like always.
He realized he was wrong when the tower came into view. At the top, her red hair streaming out in the ocean water, Ariel sat with her head in her hands gazing forlornly out her open window at nothing.
There were no stairs leading up the inside of the tower, but down here they weren't necessary. Up and down lost their meaning underwater and it only took a few seconds work to reach Ariel's bedroom door on the top level.
The giant clamshell that was her door was still closed, but he wasn't the first one there.
"Ariel?" his oldest daughter Attina called as she rapped softly against her youngest sister's door. "It's time to come out dearest. You've been in there all morning."
"And all of yesterday, and the day before, and the day before," sixteen-year-old Andrina muttered where she hovered next to Attina. She was the second youngest and, like Ariel, was headstrong and adventurous, but she kept most of her exploring to the nearby coves where the dolphin pods liked to frolic. A much safer venture than the ship graveyard Ariel preferred.
His growingly-sarcastic teenage daughter crossed her arms over her chest and muttered, "What is with her lately anyway? All she does all day is sit in there, stare out the window, and sulk."
Attina sighed, folding her hands together in front of her slender waist. After their mother had died, she'd taken her six sisters under her fins, mothering them as much as an eleven-year-old could. Triton had worried that she was trying too hard, looking after her sisters at the expense of herself, but Attina had always been nurturing. It took him time to see that she found peace helping her sisters. It helped her keep her mother close.
Triton smiled softly at his girls, seeing his beloved Athena in Attina's concern and Andrina's expressive eyebrows.
"Oh, she's got it bad," Attina told her sister as she tried knocking again. "Don't worry, I'm sure you'll go through the same thing yourself soon."
Andrina scoffed. "What, depression?"
Attina smiled gently. "Something like that. Ariel!" she called louder.
Still no answer.
Triton propelled himself forward, golden trident in hand. "Ariel?" he called, his deep baritone carrying farther than Attina's soft tones. "If you do not open this door right now-"
"Daddy!" Attina chided. "That's not helping."
He gestured at the door, the muted underwater light catching against his metal gauntlets. "What? She needs to open the door and if she won't, then I will."
Andrina smacked a hand to her forehead and hung her head with a grimace. "Oh Daddy," she groaned.
Attina just shook her head. "Making her open the door won't help if she doesn't want to talk about him."
White eyebrows rose suddenly. "Him?" He narrowed his eyes. "Him who?"
"Isn't it obvious Daddy?" Attina sighed, her melodic voice sounding strained. "Ariel's in love."
This was news to him. "Ariel?" he asked, looking up at his daughter's violet door in parental surprise. "In love?"
Andrina and Attina nodded, then, probably not wanting to be around in case he took the news badly, swam off to do...whatever it was young mermaids did these days.
Remembering the look on his youngest daughter's face where she sat, sulking in her bedroom window, all Triton could think was a very glum, "Oh dear..."
...
Ariel heard her sister calling from outside, she even heard her father's deep, mildly threatening voice, but she ignored them both as unimportant. She couldn't help it. She was so distracted lately. All she could see was his face, every time she closed her eyes. When she went to bed, when she woke up, every moment in between, she saw Eric's handsome face smiling at her.
And he didn't even know she was real.
"Oh!" she groaned as she rolled over onto her back and stretched her arms above her head, the sleeves of her parka brushing her face as she stared up at the murky surface high, high above their village. "It's just not fair! I save his life and he doesn't open his eyes the whole time! I'm telling you Flounder, if he had, he wouldn't have run off with that block of ice."
Flounder roused slightly from where he'd been taking a nap in the weak sunlight, just enough to blow a bubble at her, then flipped over to try and go back to sleep.
That was ruined when Ariel jumped up and grabbed his fins, swinging him around in a big circle. "Can't you just picture it, Flounder? Him and me, me and him? I could bend myself onto the ice and he could dip his toes in. Who says you need the same limbs to be together?"
Flounder's yellow skin took on a green tinge and Ariel let go, dancing in circles while Flounder flew off out the window.
He swam back in with a scowl on his plump face.
"Oops," Ariel giggled, embarrassed smile on her face as she put a gloved hand in front of her face. "Sorry Flounder. I'm just- I'm so excited! I have to see him again!"
Flounder shot her a look that clearly said that would be exceedingly difficult now that he was back in Fire Nation waters.
Ariel sighed. "I know," she told him. "But all the best things in life are hard to get, aren't they?"
Flounder blubbed that his nap must be pretty amazing considering how hard it was proving to get back to sleep.
Ariel made a sound and flapped her fins at him. "Oh don't be such a fuddy-duddy," she chided, biting her lower lip as her face took on a thoughtful expression. "Now there's got to be a way to see him again. Hakoda told me that the red men come back every year, but that's too long to wait."
She thought hard for a long minute as she slowly swayed around her bedroom, arms wrapped around her. It was difficult though, because she kept seeing Eric's face in her mind.
"Oh!" she groaned, finally flinging herself onto her bed, arms flung above her head on the bunched up pillows. "There must be something I can do..."
She was quiet for a long time, long enough that Flounder was just dozing off again...
"I got it!" Ariel cried, jumping upright. Flounder shot up at the sudden noise, coming to an equally abrupt stop when his head hit the underside of a bookshelf.
The scrolls and surface knick-knacks the young mermaid had acquired fell over with a clatter that Ariel didn't hear. "The sea witch! I could go see her! Flounder, you know where her spirit eels like to swim. We could convince them to take us to her and she can show me Eric! I'll finally get to see him again! Maybe I can even find out where lives!" Her face practically glowed as she pulled Flounder close in a hug. "Oh Flounder just picture it! We could be together. Forever!"
She squealed with the excitement of her first love, squeezing Flounder as she beamed. She let go and darted out the window into the open waters. "Come on Flounder. Let's go!"
Flounder was too sea-sick to argue with her. By the time he'd regained his senses, she was a green speck in the distance and the only thing he could do was chase after her, a stream of protesting bubbles floating to the surface in his wake.
...
They found the sea witch's eels easily enough, gliding through the rocky waters of the Spire Barrens. It didn't take much convincing to get them to lead them to their mistress. With their special glowing eyes, a matching pair between the two of them, they were always on the prowl for new customers.
They led Ariel and Flounder far from the safety of Atlantica Village, named in memorium of their fallen sister-tribe, Atlantis. Through rough currents and murky seas, the mermaid followed them, the sparks coming off of their dark, slithering bodies at times the only thing that kept her from losing them in the dark waters.
Near twilight, the eels slowed and Ariel did not have to push herself as hard to keep them in sight. Lights appeared in the near distance, small and hazy, like glowing eyes watching her. She saw they formed some kind of angular shape, but it wasn't until she drew closer that Ariel saw the lights clung to the spiny remains of a great Serpentine, a rare and mighty creature that mer-mothers claimed would eat naughty children if they didn't listen to their parents.
Even knowing it was long dead, Ariel floated to a stop when she saw it.
"She's not...in there, is she?" she whispered.
The spirit eels paused up ahead, looking back at her. They scrutinized her, and then spoke in the strange hissing speech of the spirits, their words making the small bones in Ariel's ears vibrate and her teeth ache. However it was they spoke, it was not strictly by sound, and Ariel always had the uneasy feeling that she heard them with more than just her ears, with what she could never figure out.
Poor child... one hissed. She's too scared to enter.
Too scared to get everything she wants, said the other.
Ariel stiffened her spine. "I am not!" she insisted, even though she was afraid. All the stories Adella had told her said Ursula was...dangerous. Not just a witch, but a bender of the worst sort. A fearsome blood bender. She could and would bend a person's blood to her will, forcing them to commit atrocities if one wasn't careful.
The only one immune to her – the only person alive she was actually afraid of – was King Triton, wielder of the magical trident that controlled the sea. Forged by Tui and La in the depths of the sea by the light of Yue's moon, they had gifted it to Triton to protect their people from the ancient red men bearing down on them.
"If only that immunity was inherited," Ariel wished hard as she eyed the smiling blue-green eels. So what if she was afraid? So what if this sea witch could make her dance the conga current with a wave of her hand? Ariel, youngest princess of a the Southern Water Tribe and seventh generation water bender, did not let her fear keep her from finding her heart's desire.
"The best things in life are always hard to get," Ariel reminded herself. "And finding Eric would be better than living down here and wondering every day of the rest of my life what happened to him."
She struck out ahead of the eels, chin held high and fists at her sides as she swam ahead of Flounder and the watching eels. "Come on," she instructed. "It's almost dark and my Father will notice if I'm not home soon."
She swam down the dead beast's gullet, biting her lip with Flounder quaking in her wake. It grew increasingly warm the farther they went, until Ariel was practically sweating in her warm outer gear.
She wiped her forehead as she followed the eels down the Leviathan's throat. "It feels like a tropical ocean down here," she mumbled. "Why is it so hot?"
One eel looked back at her with its yellowed eye. The border is weak here between your plane and ours.
That kind of rift causes...friction, his fellow answered.
The first one smiled at her. It did not ease Ariel's mind. It will only get hotter as we get closer to the source.
You can make yourself more comfortable if you wish, the other invited.
Ariel thought about it. She was already sweating in her gloves and parka, but if she took them off, the only thing standing between her and the sea witch would be her robes and her mother's necklace.
Both felt too thin to trust to stand up to a witch's magic. "No thank you," Ariel told them. "I'm fine."
The eels looked at each other, than shrugged. Suit yourself, they said as they reached the main body of the beast.
A line of colored kelp wavered in the water, keeping her from seeing what was inside. A voice floated past it out of the toothy entrance. "Come in. Come in, my child," the voice crooned, unusually deep for a woman's. "We mustn't lurk in doorways. It's rude. One might question your upbringing."
She chuckled, deep and rolling, as Ariel slowly swept inside, fingers twisting together until she noticed and sternly set her arms by her sides.
"H-hello? I've come to see the sea witch, "she announced into the semi-dark of the cavern. Light came from a bubbling cauldron standing in the center, dimly illuminating the shelves that lined the walls, filled with glass bottles and slinking, creeping things. A vanity sat on the far side of the room, complete with a mirror and various products splayed across the table. A small cushioned stool stood before it.
It wasn't empty.
She wasn't a mermaid, like Ariel had always assumed, but a cecalia, complete with the eight, inky black tentacles that made them easily identifiable. The tentacles extended from the edge of her robes, which were gray except for the long sash tied around her ample waist. That was aged scarlet, as if it had been soaked in blood and allowed to dry.
It was a ghastly reminder of her reputation, and Ariel shivered in the open doorway.
The sea witch watched her from her vanity mirror, her wide lips stretching into a wicked smile above her double chins when she saw the shudder trace down Ariel's slender form. Numerous pots and trays lay scattered on the vanity, their recesses partly emptied where she'd spread them across her large face. Gray eyes bored into the mermaid from under swaths of blue eye shadow and sharply plucked brows with an intensity Ariel did not understand. Her hair, twisted into a water tribe knot that had fallen out of fashion when Ariel's mother was only a guppy, was white as the ice over their heads. As Ariel watched, she plucked a pod growing on the side of her vanity and pinched it so that a frill of color popped out, red to match her sash and the lacquer on her fingernails.
"Well, well," the sea witch said as she watched Ariel's reflection in her vanity mirror. She glided the pod along her wide, wide lips, turning them bright scarlet. "The youngest daughter of my dear, old friend King Triton come to pay me a visit. How simply marvelous," she said with another wide-lipped grin.
Remembering herself, Ariel ducked her head in a partial bow. "M-Madame Sea Witch-" she started to say.
She was cut off. "Oh, how formal. Pah!" She flung thick arms up and stuck her nose in the air in an impersonation of a good hostess. "No need for that, angelfish. Ursula will do just fine."
Ariel hesitated. No one had ever told her the sea witch's name before. She'd expected something more...villainous.
The princess ducked her head again, no less nervous. "Madame Ursula," she repeated. "I've come for your help."
Ursula chuckled, the sound mixed with grating and wheezing and rasping. "Of course you do. That's what all my poor unfortunate souls come for." She gave an insincere pout as she pushed off from the too-small stool before the vanity and glided towards the princess, tentacles drifting out from her robes. "The question is," she said as she glided around Ariel's back, sizing her up. "What can I do that a princess cannot find elsewhere?"
Ariel turned to try and watch her, but Ursula was already sauntering away, her wide hips swinging back and forth with unbridled self-confidence. "I was hoping you could find someone for me. A red man."
Shaped eyebrows soared. "Well," Ursula said, "that explains it. Dear old Daddy would flip if he even thought you knew what a red man was." She laughed, loud and brassy.
Ariel flinched at the reminder.
"His name is Eric," she said, and then the words just came out her mouth in a rush. "He was on the ship that came here a couple of weeks ago. I was following it and there was this storm and he jumped in to save another man and I pulled them out and-"
She stopped when Ursula held up a stocky finger. "No need for back story, crab cakes. Magic knows everything it needs, and needs nothing else. Just come to the cauldron," she invited, gesturing at it with another saccharine smile, "and think hard of your red man. My spirits will do the rest, won't you poopsies?"
The eels came forward, with smiles that matched their mistress's. They pushed Ariel forward when she hesitated, shocking her with static that had Flounder pushing against her side like a frightened child.
The cauldron took up the center of the cavern, growing out of a rise in the rocky floor. It looked like a living thing, a great circular maw with teeth ringing around the edge like it would snap closed around her if she came too close.
Tendrils of smoke rose up from the murky liquid inside. Ariel didn't know what it was, only that it wasn't water and it had an oily sheen that made her sick to look at.
"Come," Ursula kept insisting when the mermaid hesitated, "come." She waved a hand and Ariel felt herself pulled forward. Bile rose in her throat as she wondered if Ursula had moved her by magic or...something worse.
She waved her hands over the oily liquid in circles. "There now, close your eyes and think. Think hard. Picture him in your mind and Flotsam and Jetsam will find him."
Ariel kept her eyes open long enough to see Ursula give a nod at the spirits, giving them permission to pop off into the spirit world where it would be easier to work their natural power.
She caught sight of Flounder shaking his head at her, urging her to forget this nonsense and leave, but Ariel couldn't. Setting her face, she squeezed her eyes shut and drew Eric's face in her mind. His strong chin, his straight nose, wavy dark hair above clear, water-blue eyes...
"That's it," Ursula said, her voice sounding farther away the harder Ariel concentrated. "Very good. Oh, he is a handsome one, isn't he?"
Ariel opened her eyes. "You can see him?" she asked, looking up at the sea witch.
Ursula swept a hand over the oily mass in her cauldron, smug smile on her face. "See for yourself."
Forgetting her fear of the rocky teeth Ariel leaned over the cauldron, and gasped. "That's him!" she cried, smile coming onto her face as she leaned closer. "That's Eric!"
He was striding through a shadowed hallway lined with red pillars. Two girls were with him, a blonde and a brunette. Ariel had dealt with enough to recognize a bodyguard when she saw one, but the blonde gave her pause. She wasn't-? She and Eric couldn't be-
She shook it off. No, she clung to his arm like a barnacle, but the smile she gave him as she bounced around was the farthest thing from the ones she'd seen the tribe boys give her older sisters. If anything it reminded her of the looks Katara gave her brother Sokka when his back was turned.
"Well," Ursula said as she looked down at the image of Eric's handsome face as he smiled at the blonde and ruffled her hair, causing a small cascade of surface-world flowers to fall to her bare feet. "A Fire Nation prince! You don't see that every day." She chuckled again.
"No," Ariel agreed as she watched the red prince's face with avid eyes, tracing every line into her memory. But she would like to. Every day of her life.
Ursula looked up from the cauldron without raising her head, a wicked smile coming onto her plump face.
"I must say," she said as she ran a finger through the liquid, destroying the image of the prince in a line of ripples, "he is very striking. You have good taste, angelfish."
Ariel straightened up with a gasp as the vision dissolved into a haze of distorted colors, but Ursula was already sauntering away towards her vanity. "Wait!" she cried. "Please, bring him back. I need to know where he is so I can-"
One black eyebrow arched up, drawing attention to her painted eyelids. "What? Find him and swim off into the sunset together? Ha!" Her laugh was sharp and crass. "I hate to break it to you, sweetcakes, but that costs more than a little princess like you will want to pay. Now-" She flapped a hand that looked too small at the end of her overlarge arms. "-swim along back to Daddy's palace." Her eyes sunk into a glower, fury rising up like steam from a newly woken volcanic vent. "The one he took from me..."
Ariel didn't hear her grumble. Her mind was too busy whirring away. "More than I'll pay...?" Her head snapped up, eyes wide as an exuberant smile pulled at her face. "Then you do have a spell that can find him for me! Tell me what it is, how to find him!"
"Bah!" Ursula flapped a dismissive hand as her eels rematerialized into the mortal plane. They curled around her upper arms like streamers and she reached up and stroked the nearest one like a tame dogfish. "Of course there is. Magic can do eh-nee-thing." She enunciated the single word, drawing it out into three. Then she shot the princess a sharp look. "Provided you can pay for it, of course. And like I already said, you won't."
"Yes I will!" Ariel insisted. "Just tell me what you want. I'll pay anything!"
Both eyebrows rose at that. Over her shoulder, the eels shared a knowing look and slapped their tails together behind Ursula's back where Ariel couldn't see. They had her now...
Ariel didn't see. She swam around the cauldron and stopped in front of the massive woman. "Please," she pleaded, gloved-hands clasped together in front of her. "Please I just have to see him again, to know him better. This could be my one chance!"
Ursula raised a mocking eyebrow. "Love at first sight?"
Ariel looked away, remembering Eric's closed eyes as he froze underwater. "Not exactly..." she mumbled.
The big woman shrugged, muscle and blubber rippling with the motion, and propping one hand on her hip she sidled away on her eight tentacles. "Then I really don't see what the big deal is, sweetcakes. True love might be worth all the hassle, but teenage infatuation? Pah!" She turned away.
Ariel's scales rose on end. "I am not some lovesick teenage mermaid!" she shouted.
Ursula gave her a look over her shoulder that said, clearly, she was.
Ariel fidgeted, unable to hold that look as she tried to explain why she was so desperate just to see his face in a witch's brew. "Look, he's- he's the bravest person I've ever met," the princess insisted, her face falling. "And he doesn't even know me." And it was breaking her heart just thinking about it.
The girl shrugged, rubbing one arm through her thick parka, too warm in the tropical waters of the cavern. "Maybe we'll work," she mumbled, "and maybe we won't. Either way, I have to know."
She looked up at the sea witch, feeling more exposed than she had at her singing debut. Ursula was watching her, feelings carefully concealed behind flat eyes and tight mouth.
"So," Ariel asked, hope and uncertainty mixing in her voice, "will you help me?"
Ursula's eyes slid to the eel on her left, then slid to the eel on her right. The corner of her mouth quirked up just so-
"All right, fine," she boomed, raising her hands in surrender. "You've worn me down. But..." she said leering at Ariel as she put a thick finger under the princess's chin and tilted her head up. "If you really want to win your man, you're going to have to do more than find him."
Suspicion rose in her, making her mouth twist. "Won't that cost extra?" Ariel asked.
"Pishaw!" Ursula cried, letting go of Ariel's chin and flaunted away. "What's a sea witch known for except for her generosity?" She grinned wide. "I'll cut you a deal, sugar queen. I can tell you where your princey-poo is, on the house, but you'll have to pay for the other spell – the bigger spell – in full once you use it."
Ariel peered at the sea witch, hands twisting nervously in front of her again. "And...what will it cost?"
Ursula grinned wickedly, and swiped a finger across her red mouth. "I...can't say. Part of the spell. You'll just have find out when you open it up." She laughed deeply, her rolls jiggling unpleasantly as she turned.
When she turned back, she had an open scroll in one hand, fish bone quill in the other. The words Binding Contract glared out at Ariel from the top.
"Well?" Ursula asked. "What'll it be, Princess? A chance with lover boy there-" She titled her head at the blank cauldron behind her. "-or life under the sea?"
Blue eyes flicked between the blank contract and the bubbling cauldron. She bit her lip, pulled her bright red hair through both her hands and twisted it to one side...
She snatched the quill out of Ursula's hand and signed her name on the dotted line before she could change her mind.
Magic flared, bright as a lantern fish, as she finished the last flourish and Ariel turned away to shield her eyes. When she opened them again, the contract had rolled up into Ursula's hand and the quill had disappeared in a bubble of smoke.
The sea witch's smile consumed her face. "Excellent..." she murmured.
A thrill of unease snapped down Ariel's spine to the tip of her fins, making them twitch. The small voice in the back of her head that always sounded like a hysteric Sebastian demanded, "What did you just sign?"
She tried not to think of the answer as she reminded herself of how her jaw worked. Before she could ask the sea witch how long it would take to ready this magic spell of hers, Ursula flicked a finger and a line of bottles and globs holding strange, winged creatures flew up off their shelves and threw themselves into the cauldron, eliciting a plume of dark smoke with flashes of light thundering at its heart.
Ariel threw herself back, Flounder shivering against her back as she watched in horror, her brain telling her to flee, her heart demanding that she stay and see this through. Lightning flashed, highlighting the sea witch's face as she stood before her brew, turning it into a nightmare. Hands outstretched above her head, she chanted words that meant nothing to Ariel's ears but made her breath freeze in her chest. The water grew heated, as if the words had friction.
She was so caught up in watching the smoke and lights that she never noticed the eels surrounding her. At least not until one of the snaked itself around her wrist and held it in place just long enough for the other to slice her palm with its dorsal spines.
"Ow!" Ariel hissed as blood floated up from the shallow wound. It curled through the water in formless curls, the salt stinging Ariel's palm, before becoming a round thread and flying with purpose through the water.
Ursula waved her hand, the ribbon of blood arcing down into her cauldron like an arrow. It hit and a terrible roar filled the cavern, drowning out the climax of Ursula's chanting as a strong, red-hued, current spun out of the cauldron like whirlpool that was as much magic as water. It spun itself thin and reached for Ariel, encircling her, robbing her of thought and reason, leaving only instinct that paralyzed her. Flounder, in his terror, fled, his stubby fins only just escaping the tumultuous spell.
It was over with just as much warning as it started. The red whirlpool left, guided by Ursula's deft motions, leaving Ariel feeling drained as it dove into a nautilus shell Ursula held out for it.
The silence after the magic was contained was deafening.
Ariel floated where she was, feeling like she'd just outswam a deep-chasm sharktipus. She looked around, saw Flounder cowering half out of sight near the entrance, and breathed a sigh of relief.
"What-" she gasped, "-was that?"
Ursula's smile could have belonged to a devilfish. "Magic, sweetcakes. The more powerful, the more it takes from the bearer." She pointed a finger at the mermaid without letting go of the glowing nautilus shell. "You."
"And-" Ariel held up her still bleeding hand before hiding it against her chest as if that could keep Ursula from having power over her. "And my blood?" Her voice squeaked more than she wanted.
Ursula made a sly sound in her thick throat, and Ariel went pale when she realized it was a sound of sharp-edged glee. "Well the spell has to know who to work on when you call it. This is the surest way."
Ariel rubbed the skin around her wound, the sting of salt oddly reassuring. "Call it?"
The sea witch nodded, white hair curling onto her forehead before she swept it back with one hand. "Just blow into the shell and it will take effect, but!" She pulled it back when Ariel went to take it from her. "Make sure you're on the surface or you'll drown."
"Mermaids can't drown," Ariel told her reflexively.
Black eyes bored into her. "Oh really," she drawled, then quickly returned to what she'd been saying before Ariel could ask what she meant. "Now keep in mind that the spell will only last three days." She held out three purplish fingers. "After that, you'll return to how you are now, more or less."
Ariel thought about that, eyes locked on the glowing nautilus shell Ursula had yet to give up. "And...if I want to stay with Eric?"
Ursula shrugged. "Well what's the good if he can't accept you as you are?" she said.
The fear she had been unwilling to admit to herself made Ariel's throat tighten. She tried not to look at it, tried not to admit Ursula had struck a nerve, but it was difficult. Their nations were at war.
What if Eric hated her?
She shook her head before the tears could do more than sting her eyes. She held out her hand, face set.
"Give it to me," she demanded in her best princess voice. And then feeling contrite added, "please."
Taking no offense at the little mermaid's tone, Ursula handed it over with a smile.
The shell dropped into her hand, heavier than Ariel had expected. She felt the heat of the magic even through her gloves and it was humming slightly.
Not wanting to wear it like Ursula had, Ariel tucked it into an inner pocket. "Thank you, Madame Ursula. I appreciate your generosity."
Ursula made a brash noise. "As I appreciate yours, Princess." She looked over her shoulder and signaled one of her eels, which came forward with a toothy grin, sparks arcing down its body. "Jetsam here will take you to your Princy-pie, but from there you'll be on your own." She pointed at the humming shell. "That's a powerful bit of bending-magic you've got stored away in there. Try not to lose it or-"
She stopped, leaving Ariel hanging like a worm on a hook. "Or...what?" she tried, but Ursula remained frozen. Ariel looked between her eels, hoping for a clue as to what was happening now, but their stares were just as vacant.
Their matching yellow eyes began to glow.
Ariel swam back, looking around as if expecting another whirlpool powered by her own blood, but the water was still.
Light flaring behind her made Ariel turn, Flounder once again hiding in her hair. He peered out as Ariel looked around. Ursula was approaching the cauldron with stiff movements, quite different from all her previous sashaying about, like she had suddenly been hypnotized.
Ariel followed her, flitting around the side of the cauldron when the sea witch stopped before it. She peaked carefully inside, but all she saw were mismatching colors, swirling about like a pinwheel. Some were clearer than others; red, blue, white, yellow-
"The Four Nations," Ariel whispered, leaning closer to the roiling depths.
Ursula made a noise, making Ariel look up sharply. She was still watching the colors – a blue-white hue was at their heart now and becoming larger – but they obviously meant more to her than Ariel.
"Ursula?" Ariel tried, hoping for some answers. "What is it? What's happening?"
Ursula didn't answer. She seemed to have forgotten Ariel was even there.
The sea witch raised an arm slowly over the writing, now blue-white mass, fingers shaking. Ariel watched as her eyes rolled back into her head, her mouth hung open. Electricity snapped up Ariel's spine in warning.
"M-Madame Sea Witch?" she whispered, clutching Flounder close.
Ursula pulled in a deep and noisy breath through her nose and then splayed her fingers wide. That was the only warning Ariel had before the cauldron exploded in a ray of blinding blue-white light that speared through the sea to the surface itself and the sky beyond. Ariel screamed, shielding her eyes but unable to keep it from searing her optic nerves. She tried to flee, but she couldn't feel her fin. She couldn't feel anything! She reached for Flounder, but he was gone, leaving her alone as the light washed over her and brought with it sights and sounds she couldn't possibly explain.
