Chapter 16: The Truth…Almost
As soon as the trident was in Melody's hands the princess swallowed the magical berry Morgana had given her. As promised she turned completely invisible, but the effect was only supposed to last an hour.
Lily darted out of the throne room and through the maze-like castle, secretly leading the unseeable Melody behind her. The princess assumed the bulky trident would weigh her down, or its unergonomic design would make movement tricky. In reality, it weighed nothing and glided through the water as effortlessly as air.
The two got out of the castle mostly unseen and without suspicion. From there they took hidden underground sea caves till they were well out of the city limits. As they emerged from the caverns and began to
They didn't speak the entire time, focused completely on getting as far away as possible. It was as if a single word could blow their cover, and perhaps it could. Besides, what was there to say? The weight of what had just happened was too heavy to speak of frivolously.
Melody had told Lily why she wanted the trident, and how she planned to give it to Morgana. The sea witch who had helped her, who was banished to the ice lands by the cruel king. A sea witch from a species known as sirens had the trident stolen from them by the Atlantica royal family long ago. None of that came as a shock to Lily, in fact, some of it she already was aware of.
The things Lily didn't understand, at least not fully, was how Melody could just grab the trident, how her mother had been a mermaid, a mermaid who knew her dad no less. There were other questions swirling in her head, why did Morgana help Melody, a human? Did the witch know Melody was part mermaid, or not? Morgana said nothing to Melody if she did know, which would be deceitful and suspicious. But Lily couldn't say for certain if the witch knew or not.
Besides, Lily could not know why Melody's mother or family was keeping so many secrets from her. She had none of the details, just a general idea of what was going on. Was it even her place to be the one to tell Melody what she knew? Really her mother should be the one to tell her, but she missed that chance. How could Lily trust Melody's family to tell the truth and do the right thing if they haven't so far?
As they began the journey to the ice shelves, they slowed their pace and Lily finally mustered up the courage to speak.
"Melody, I need to talk to you."
Melody didn't recognize her friend's deliberate tone of voice, Lily was never serious.
It made Melody's heart drop a little, "What's wrong?"
"I- I think I figured out why your family built those walls."
Melody froze, hovering still in the water and trying to hide the pain from appearing in her face.
"They were built to keep me in, keep me, prisoner, keep me from the world." Her voice involuntarily cracked and raised at the end, she hadn't spoken aloud about it all that much. Lily always understood Melody hated her life and hanging out was her escape. For that reason, they never spent a lot of time talking about why Melody hated her home. Lily learned these things anyway, from pure observation and years of being able to read her best friend like a book.
"Yes, but they were meant to keep you from the ocean specifically. Or to put it better, to keep the ocean away from you."
Melody's knuckles were white from gripping the trident so tightly.
"What, why? How do you know… have you always known?"
Lily immediately shook her head, "I'm only just learning and figuring these things out. I'd never keep secrets from you, that's why I'm saying this now. But at the same time, I don't know everything, I don't even really know anything for certain either. But I know this for sure, you shouldn't be able to touch the trident."
Melody glanced down at the tall glimmering trident in her hands. "What are you talking about? You can't touch it too?"
Lily shook her head again, swimming up to the trident and groaning deeply. She raised her minty green fin and tapped the trident.
Electricity zapped her immediately, and with a shriek, she pulled away.
"Lily!" Melody swam to her friend's side instantly.
"I'm fine, just a little sting. I needed you to see that."
"See what?!"
"That only royalty can touch the trident, Atlantican royalty."
"Then why would Morgana even want this thing if she can't use it?! And what are you saying about me?"
Lily sighed, "Where do I even begin… Sirens are magical beings. They originally made the trident, or at least that's the rumor. The crown denies that though, they deny pretty much everything. So it's hard to say but anyway, the point is-"
Before the little fish could finish, something smashed into her at full force and sent her flying through the open sea.
Melody found herself suddenly face to face with a piranha, "Undertow?"
"Sweetheart, you're my hero! Now it's time for some magic, are you ready to see Morgana?"
"But… But my friend…" Melody looked over at the dazed Lily a few feet from them.
"That little yellow belly fry is your friend?" Undertow pointed one of his tiny fins at Lily, who sneered in response.
"Yes she is, and I don't go anywhere without her."
Lily stuck out her tongue, "I'm bigger than you, guppy."
Undertow rolled his eyes, "Whatever, Morgana sent me to guide you guys back to her liar quickly as possible. Even sent along some potions to speed up our swimming, so why don't we get going. How's that sound, ladies?"
Lily and Melody locked eyes for a moment, before turning to the little fish and nodding.
Melody shrugged "Lead the way I suppose…"
It took two days for the search parties to reach the ice shelf, far too long for Ariel. Although any length of time would have been too long for her.
Ariel and her father had joined the army in the journey to the shelves, and both planned on helping with the search. Almost none of the merfolk had ever been close to the dangerous ice fields, and they all underestimated how massive the area was.
All the ice around them was sharp and jagged, making swimming slow and scary. One wrong flick of your tail and you could have ripped fins forever, one wrong gash and you're never going to make it back to open water again. The ice never left shallow cuts either, you didn't get more than one chance when navigating a place like this.
Horrible thoughts of Morgana hurting Melody in these dangerous waters invaded Ariel's mind everywhere she looked, and she had to push the mental image away to keep going at all.
They weren't there long for Ariel to realize the futility of their efforts. The area was too complex, too unknown, too dangerous to navigate quickly, they would never cover enough water in time to find anything.
"Flounder, we are never going to find Morgana's lair. At least not blindly searching like this…"
Flounder placed a blue fin on her shoulder, "Of course, we will Ariel."
The mermaid shook her head somberly, her aqua eyes glancing down to hide her tears.
Movement on the dark seafloor below caught her eye, two manta rays so perfectly camouflaged they were nearly invisible. The slight movement of their fins was the only trick giving them away to a sharply observing eye.
An inkling of familiarity became a flame of realization, "Wait a minute, I… I know those two. They were there… all those years ago…"
"Flounder, we need to follow them."
Hi everyone, thank you for reading my AU of The Little Mermaid 2, with Melody at 19 and not 12. I originally posted this FanFiction on Deviantart, and it is updated there every 1st and 15th of the month. We are official caught up to that one, so the next chapter will be on 02/01/21!
If you would like to check out my Disney fan edits here is my deviantart link:
mermaidmelodyedits
You can also check out my Disney fan edits on Instagram:
mermaid_melody_edits/
I'd super appreciate if you guys could leave me your thoughts in the comments! Critique, comments, discussion, etc. I want to hear it all! Feel free to also message me if you have any questions or want to chat!
So Melody ️is finally getting some answers, ❓and Im glad the worst of it got broken to her by her best friend. Lily🐠 was probably a lot less painful to hear this stuff from. Although Melody still doesn't have all the answers. Next chapter is going to be INTENSE, and lots of stuff will start coming together. Without spoiling anything all i can say is that Ariel, Melody, Morgana, and a few other characters are going to all meet at once…
I really appreciate the reviews my story has been getting and that I got on my last chapter, it means so much! I got a questions about Melody's curse, and how do the subjects of the land and sea know of it. I can't say everything about it now, but I can clarify some of the hints and information given so far. Most things I don't mention here will be revealed in the next chapter!
First, the curse takes place in the prologue of the story, while Melody is being brought to sea 🌊 for the first time. I stayed pretty vague about what happened, but the royal ship was destroyed, a horrible storm appeared, and the royal family washed ashore. That is pretty much all the general public knew as well, and both royal families tried to force anyone who attended to stay silent or face punishment. Many people still didn't keep their mouths shut, and the royal family's complete silence on the whole thing made rumors spread wildly. Pretty much the same thing happened in Atlantica, but the merfolk have a better understanding overall what happened. Humans aren't familiar with sea witches, and how the magic of the sea works, so they created a lot crazier rumors and stories. Although the merfolk don't know the full truth either, King Triton tried to distort everything as much as possible and keep it hidden as well. Merfolk just know of the lost half princess, and the youngest daughter of triton hasnt been seen in almost 20 years.
Now for the curse itself, here is what I can say without spoilers. The royal family owes Morgana/the sea witches for a couple reasons I can't say yet. As the royal family refuses to pay up or relieve their debt, a deal is struck. One that is pretty painful to the royal families, and also means if Melody is in the ocean she is in danger. Thus why Ariel kept all these things from her. The ocean raging during the story as well as in the prologue is actually not apart of the deal/curse, but a side effect of it which Morgana knew would happen.
Eventually I will write ✍️ a chapter or a oneshot 📖detailing exactly what happened on the ship ️, and the details of the curse.
If you guys have any questions leave me a review and I'll answer it in the next chapter! Also feel free to message me any questions or anything else, I love hearing from my readers!
Thanks for reading!