Chapter 20: Painful Mistakes
Cackling echoed off the palace walls, "Oh poor sweet Ariel, her daughter turned against her. Can you blame her? I gave her everything she has ever wanted, I told her the truth from the start, and Melody, you did the right thing."
Ariel's stomach flipped as the witch half hugged her daughter with one arm, and clutched the trident in the other.
"The royal family has tortured us for far too long, that king," Morgana spat the word, "stole it from my mother's dying hands. Then when my sister helps out the young princess Ariel, giving her a fair contract and a gift no one else could, how is she repaid? Skewered alive by the princess and her savage human mate!" Wrath overtook the witch's face, but only briefly.
Undertow boldly and loudly interrupted Morgana, "Blah blah blah, hurry up and zap me with that golden fork already!"
The witch rolled her eyes and the hints of a smile played on her face. "Oh forgive him, dear, he has a bit of a… a size issue."
With a flick of her wrist, the witch wielded the trident confidently, a zap of radiating golden light perfectly hitting and enveloping the tiny piranha. Lily cowered behind Melody, too scared to watch. Her father, Flounder, was doing the same behind Ariel.
During a moment of stillness, Undertow was lifted out of the water and into the air. Then there was a flash of blinding light, accompanied by a large crash of waves. The tiny fish was no more, a massive shark now in his place. The massive beast slammed into the water, the force of it knocking everyone back a few feet.
Undertow couldn't stop laughing at his new self, "Alright! No more it's a small world for me!"
As this happened Ariel attempted to swim towards her daughter but was only met with the end of the triton pointed at her face.
"Careful Ariel, you wouldn't want anything to happen to poor sweet Melody, would you?" As she spoke, she hugged Melody close with one of her many tentacles.
"Oh but sweet princess Melody, you are a victim of your family as much as I. So it would make sense only you would be capable of righting their wrongs and breaking their awful cycle of pain. They lied and hid so much, you didn't even know it was your own
grandfather you stole from. Ariel, I must thank you for making this so easy."
Melody's lips trembled, words shaking, "S-so it's true… M-my grandfather…"
Morgana snatched Melody's face with her hand, squeezing her cheeks like a loving relative.
"Yes, yes, King Triton of Atlantica, Commander in Chief of the Seven Seas. At least he was until a certain little thief came along." Morgana cackled again, letting go of Melody's face and scratching her in the process.
"His granddaughter too, oh it's so rich!"
Ariel couldn't get any closer to her daughter but tried to reach her with words. "Melody, why did you run away? Why trust and steal, for a woman you never met?"
Melody's body shook from her efforts to fight back tears, "She-she tricked me."
Morgana rolled her eyes and threw her arm up in exasperation. "Trick? What tricks? I never lied to you I didn't even ask for you to steal the trident. I told you the true backstory, the truth, and you simply took matters into your own hands. Ariel, really you are such a bad mother… still blaming your daughter when you should blame yourself."
"Besides I gave you everything you ever wanted. The truth, freedom, a chance to be who you truly are. Tell me Melody, is being a silly little mermaid everything you ever dreamed of?" Morgana snatched Melody's face again, her nails digging into the girl's cheeks.
"Was it worth betraying your own family?"
A rage Melody didn't recognize came from her mother, "Get your hands off of her!"
Morgana sang in response, "As you wish!"
In one fluid motion, Morgana entangled Melody in her tentacles, before throwing the young mermaid across the room at full force. The princess's back smacked into the ice wall with a distinct and painful thud.
In an immediate response, Lily launched herself with full force at the witch. Morgana hadn't even noticed Lily's presence until the teen girl had started assaulting her with minty green fins.
"Oh please, I have bigger fish to fry." The evil siren swung the trident like a bat, slamming into Lily like she was a softball.
"LILY!" Flounder shrieked as he watched his daughter fly across the cavern and bounce off a thick piece of ice before floating unconscious to the ground.
Melody raced to her friend who landed only a few feet away, despite a sharp pain ripping through her body from her back and shoulder.
Morgana in the meantime snatched Ariel by her tail fins with her tentacles, laughing maniacally as she dragged the Queen toward herself.
Flounder hesitated just for a moment, debating if he should help Ariel or his daughter. There was nothing he could do to Morgana or for Ariel now, and he knew his friend would understand his choice. The worried father raced towards the girls as fast as his tired fins could take him, and if he had gotten there only a second later it would have been too late.
"Now Melody, why don't you just be a good girl and wait down here?"
There was another blinding flash of golden light, this time shot straight towards Melody and the two fish. When Flounder and Melody could see again they were trapped behind a thick sheet of ice.
Ariel shrieked as she saw Morgana encase them in a glacial prison, "NO!"
"Oh shut up already!" Morgana scoffed and wrapped a tentacle over Ariel's
mouth.
"Cloak! Dagger! Undertow! We got work to do boys…"
All Melody could do was shout and bang on the ice with her fists as she watched her mother being dragged away with the rest of Morgana's cronies.
After some more fruitless attacks on the glass, Melody sank to the ground in defeat and tears. She looked to her poor friend Lily on the ground, her father hovering over her protectively.
The mermaid managed to ask a question between her sniffles, "I-is she okay?"
"She's breathing, and there are no broken bones… I think she will be okay, as long as she wakes up." Flounder cradled his daughter in his arms, her eyes remained close but her face twisted up in pain.
Melody collapsed to the floor in quiet sobs, hiding her face in her arms. "Oh Flounder, I've ruined everything…"
"All Hail Queen Morgana!" The new Queen used the trident to boom her voice far and wide across the ocean, sending out a constant stream of new spells into the air.
Undertow sang back while circling the water with the rays. "I'm hailing! I'm hailing!"
"Oh how poor unfortunate Ursula and mum would have loved this, taking control back and undoing all of King Triton's pitiful work. I've got a list going back decades of curses to undo and spells to cast!" Another wave of magic was released into the air, Ariel had to keep her eyes shut to keep from going blind.
The new Queen spoke again as she began transforming her iceberg fortress into a proper castle of crystals beneath them. Making sure to wave Ariel around in the air as much as possible as she cast her enchantments. Giving the mermaid motion sickness on top of not being able to see or speak.
The new ocean Queen boomed her voice like an opera singer, "Not to mention I've got her killer right here, ready for a fair and proper murder trial..."
Melody in the meantime had started attempting to break their prison walls again in desperation, earning cuts on her fists and arms in the process.
Lily began to stir, instantly capturing the Princess's attention.
"Ugh, what happened?" Her voice came out croaky like she had been sick and hadn't spoken in a week.
Flounder hugged his daughter close, "Oh Thank Poseidon you're okay, I was so scared I'd lost you."
Lily's only reply was, "Oof, my head hurts..."
A wave of relief washed over Melody like a riptide, reinvigorating her determination to break out of their cell.
"It's no use, it's too thick…"
A knock came on the glass, almost in response to the mermaid's words.
Melody couldn't believe her eyes when she saw the murky shape through the sheet of ice.
"Alex?!"
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 02/02/21!
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! 💬
Oh boy was I excited to reveal ️Alex! How the heck is he here?!😳 Alex has so much backstory📚 in this version and I've barely been able to go into it. I'm hoping to reveal a lot about him, and how the ending will be slightly different fo this version. Plus details that may come up in a sequel 📖 are going to be sprinkled throughout these next few chapters. I'm really excited and I hope you enjoy!
I got a TON of ⁉️questions(here and DeviantArt) about how could Melody 🐚 give the trident 🔱 to Morgana? Especially when she threatened to kill ️ her, and my version of the story removes Melody needing the trident to stay a ️mermaid. Honestly I struggled a bit trying to make it work in that scene 🎬, and it must show. So here are more details and my best reasoning for Melody 🎵 to do this (beyond plot needing the climax to happen). In the original she stays a mermaid only for three days unless she steals the trident, which I call bull because she does this in the movie 🎥 and Morgana ️doesn't hold up her end. At least Ursula was fair and square! But Melody in my version can stay a mermaid forever, and Morgana was much more clever 😈about making it seem like stealing the trident🔱 would be a kind thing to do. Not to spoil anything, but nothing Morgana says when she first meets Melody is a lie, in this story at least. Melody felt indebted and like she would be doing something nice, which she would honestly do anyway even if she didn't get anything out of it. I think that's Melody's biggest issue, she is both naive to the wold 🌎and strangers (not her fault) and she also ALWAYS wants to do the kind or right thing. Thus she gets very easily misled about what that would be. But what about after hearing her mother's story? And here is my explanation, why would Melody believe her mother was telling the truth now? She has done nothing but lie and Melody👑 doesn't necessarily thinks her mom is lying now, but she is sick of having to question ❔ every single thing Ariel says. Its exhausting, and she is done doing it, and she only realizes her mom told the truth after handing off the trident🔱 . That's why she says the line "So its true…" Morgana may be evil, but she is honest, and because of Melody's past honesty and trust is something she values over everything.
Its not perfect though, Melody has the details she got up to this point and from Lily 🐠 who she does believe. She is smart enough based on what Lily said to her to have put the pieces together that Triton was her granddad, and Ariel was telling the truth. She had to make a choice and honestly if there wasn't a story to tell I'm not sure what Melody would do. She doesnt trust her family, but why trust someone she barely met either? I think she would have done something else entirely in reality, but this story has a climax and a plot we got to keep moving along!
What do you think Melody should or would have done? I think a real case can be made why she would chose not to give her mom the trident, but there is a lot against her giving it to Morgana too. I'm curious to know your thoughts💡!