Chapter Nine – I'm Not a Fast Dater
9.1
Eric looked over at Lana very nervously. Even though they had both agreed to the fact that she was now and for the foreseeable future would be Lana the human – although the distant future might change that – Eric was still finding it hard to want to go to the palace. It was his birthright as a prince to become the king and unlike Ariel he didn't have older siblings to step up to the role for him. He had wanted to leave and find his own life but he kept being pulled back to the castle.
"Are you sure that you're comfortable coming with me?" Eric asked her and Ariel nodded. She knew that despite how much she wanted to be Ariel, Eric was too traumatized for that. She wanted him to be happy most of all.
"I'll come with you. I'm human. I can come with you as your human partner," she said and Eric laughed as he turned back to her with a very relieved expression. He opened his mouth to say something and 'Lana' stopped him. "I promise not to use a fork as a hairbrush," she told him causing him to laugh again. "You'll just have to help me out in case I do anything strange."
"If people look at you as if you're strange then I don't care. I care about you and I hope that you wouldn't take others' judgement to heart but I don't care what they say about you, Lana. I love you." He walked over to her and wrapped his arms around her, she smiled and let her body sink into his protective chest. "I might be weird myself, you never know."
"Don't people see you and fall in love with you instantly?" Lana asked him and Eric gave her a funny expression and shook his head. He was denying it right now but the truth was that he was quite popular. He was athletic, musically-inclined, an animal lover, a fan of adventure, as well as being intelligent, kind, and trying to understand others no matter how strangely they acted.
"I think that you're the one they fall for just as I've fallen for you," he told her before kissing her forehead. As he broke away from the hold he had on her, he walked away and Lana brought two fingers up to her lips. She really wished that he had kissed her on her lips instead of her forehead.
"Eric," she told him slowly. "Are you sure that you want me with you?" she asked and he turned around with an unexpected desperate expression.
"Not want you with me?" he asked as if checking to make sure that she had really said that. "You're the only one that I want with me, well you and Max. Trust me, I'm only comfortable returning because I have you with me. If you said that you weren't okay with this then I would cancel the whole trip. I just want the kingdom to meet the woman I'm going to marry."
Lana laughed, "Eric, I do want to marry you but if people were to look up my past, if they were to ask questions," she hesitated.
"Lack of information means that you can write your own history. I know that you used to be a red head and I love a red head," he said as he attempted to dance around the topic, he was still fearful that talking about how she was Ariel so bluntly might cause her harm. "However you want to address the situation, I'm going to be supportive for…well nearly every way."
"You mean that you don't want me to tell the truth about who I really am," Lana commented and found Eric to become nervous and twitchy again. She tilted her head watching the unease in him building and he laughed weakly.
"I don't want to hear this," he told her, "Lana, they just want to know about Lana," he repeated and Ariel hated that he didn't believe that she would be fine if he just acknowledged her as Ariel hidden inside of another body. He truly did care about her though. She didn't realize how close to death she had been in those moments. "Still, if you did that I'd support you as much as I could but I can't let you die. I would never be able to do that without offering to sacrifice every part of me."
"Why do you want me to see them?" Lana asked and Eric smiled as he watched her, admiring how beautiful she was and taken aback by how adorable he found her to be.
"Because I am going to marry you but you should have the type of wedding which you deserve. I wish there was a way that we could include your fa-any family that you might want to invite but maybe one day I'll be able to speak to them and attempt to explain this. I suppose a beach at sunset is the best we can ask for.
"Wrong," Lana said before walking over to Eric, he met her halfway and she leaned into him again. "Being with you and you being with me is the best thing we could ever ask for."
9.2
Ariel smiled to herself as she walked through the city with Eric. She could hear people gossiping about him favorably and turning to him but every time she felt even the slightest bit claustrophobic, Eric would hold her hand and squeeze it and smile at her with such genuine kindness that everything felt like it would be okay.
"The city is really cute," Ariel said, committing herself to being Lana again although there wasn't much difference. Eric allowed her to exist as she wanted to but the names and history had to change. It wasn't that she had to lie about things but that he got scared if she tried to honestly say things about herself.
"Did you like it before, I know that you couldn't say a lot about it, but you liked spending that day together, right?" Eric asked and Lana laughed before nodding and went to hold her hand. She heard the puppy-Flounder and Max playing together and let her head rest on Eric's shoulder.
"I've loved all of the days we've spent together," she told him honestly and he smiled, looking down with a half-blush on his face. She wanted to be happy with him but happiness meant that she had to ignore the land of the sea. She just wanted them to live in peace with each other but humans were far too selfish.
"If you'd like me to buy you anything?" he asked and Lana shook her head.
"Everything is wonderful but I just feel happy with anything that you choose to give to me," she told him and Eric watched her, almost as if he were bewitched by her charm. "What should we do next?" she asked him as she looked around again and Eric took her hand and brought it to his lips.
"We're going to go and see Grimsby. I want to introduce you to him and then Carlotta might even be able to help you settle into the palace," he said and Lana nodded. She had already met Grimsby as her true self and she had seen how Eric had sent him away only a few days ago. He cared deeply for Eric but she also knew that due to Eric's fear of her life ending, she would have to be Lana to him also.
She could hear her father's laughter as he said that the human was foolish to not think that she was good enough just being Ariel and that she shouldn't have trusted him with this. Maybe when people were more ready to listen with their hearts and open up their minds she could tell people about the merfolk or maybe she would just have to always remain silent.
Right now she had to focus on living her life on the shore. There was no going back, not unless she wanted to give up being with Eric.
9.3
"Eric, may I speak to you in private for a moment," Grimsby said and Eric turned back to Lana who nodded as she sat with both the dog-fish and the sheepdog. Eric looked over at her longingly before turning to the father figure in his life.
"Grim, this is fine. I'm clear headed this time and -"
"That's why I worry about you, Eric," Grimsby said as he looked Eric over again. "You know how you were tricked into marriage. I should have done something to stop that and I will always feel guilty about that but I don't understand this third woman."
"Vanessa was…an octopus devil who was trying to use me to get her hands on the throne for Atlantica to rule over the ocean or something like that," Eric argued and Grimsby nodded.
"Yes, but how are you wanting to enter into another marriage right now. I am sure that this girl, this Lana has a lot of good qualities but when you do rebound from someone, then…"
"Who is to say I'm rebounding," Eric argued as he felt his heart prick having heard Grimsby making that claim. No. Vanessa was some mistake, some trick that had used him as a toy and batted around with him as if his own thoughts and desires had no meaning or weight to them. Lana was different because she was Ariel and he knew that he and Ariel were meant to be together.
"Eric, that young merwoman was beautiful and she saved you and she wanted to be with you," Grimsby nodded and Eric nodded in agreement.
"And so what are you saying?" Eric asked and Grimsby sighed.
"And you knew that because of how much she had saved you and how beautiful her voice was that you would want to only be with her, that she's the love of your life. I understand all of that. I am not one of those who said that she was a mermaid and let's go capture her, I very much understand how you could have loved her."
"And still do love her," Eric argued.
Grimsby coughed, "My thoughts exactly. You still love her. You are in love with Ariel and then you come and bring home Lana who I am sure is very nice and has all good qualities but one might say that you're moving too fast. I'm not saying that I think that you should break up with the girl but…I only say this because I want to protect you, Eric."
"And I love her," Eric replied before shaking his head.
"I'm grateful that you care about me but I know what I'm doing," he said and Grimsby looked between the two of them. "Sometimes you can see things a little bit different when you're on dry land," he said before looking to Lana and, seeing she wasn't paying attention, nodded to Grimsby who turned to her in complete shock.
"It can't be," he gasped and Eric put a finger to his lips.
"I haven't told you anything," he said, "okay?"
"My lips are sealed," Grimsby chuckled. Eric looked over to Ariel again, she didn't seem to be dying. Maybe they had walked around the subject long enough that he wouldn't have to ever hold her as she appeared to be dying again.
End of Chapter Nine
Thank you for reading
Thank you to the reviewers of Chapter Eight
KathyMesser, marati2011
