This author note might get annoying if you read multiple of my fics because I'm going to copy/paste it over all updates for maybe the rest of the month.
I really have been neglecting some of my fanfics for about a year and some even two years. I've decided to try to update as many as I can (or as many as I know people want to see). I'm going to be scheduling fic updates but based on the number of hits on the latest chapter (there is a way to see on fanfiction net a huge discrepancy between unique IP visitors and hits and I will make sure that no one is just continually clicking refresh on fics). Right now I am updating fics that have 75+ hits on the latest chapter. That is 54 fanfics at this present time. Once I finish the updates of all of those (hopefully before the end of the month) I will update my stat list (an Excel document) and start again. Hopefully this will explain my updates until the end of the year (although there may be a handful I write just for fun). Thank you for checking out my work. I appreciate every well-intentioned reader. Love the reviews but I still appreciate every well-intentioned reader. Thank you.
Chapter Ten – A Mother's Blessing
10.1
Eric looked over the side of the boat as they took off for the sea. They would be spending an unknown amount of time traveling and he really wanted to experience things that he hadn't yet as a child. There were so many stories about mermaid that people were … wait, he knew what mermaids were, somehow as he had stared off into the ocean after leaving his castle he had forgotten about mermaids, forgotten one of the most important things to him.
No. He had to focus. He looked at the sea again before hearing the sound of thunder, the ship was starting to be knocked back and forth in a dangerous manner. He felt his feet on the wood of the ship and saw that the water was gathering on the bottom of the boat again. It was almost as if the sea was making an intentional effort to pull him into it to make him live under water.
Eric looked around, his whole body was completely wet and the people he had been with had vanished, it was all blurry and as he sunk down further into the water, he didn't know if he even had been on a boat. He struggled to breathe and to swim but all he could feel was being dragged underwater.
He had to get back to the shore, he had to breathe, he had to find the men he was with, he had to find Max, and…
"Breathe," he heard a voice and he blinked trying to figure out what the person was asking him. He was a person, he couldn't breathe underwater. "Prince Eric, please breathe," he heard the woman ask him and Eric did so. Somehow it was effortless and he turned to see a woman under the water with him.
He blinked hard. This woman was definitely a mermaid. She looked so much like Ariel, the old Ariel, but older and mature and different in many ways. She swam over to him and Eric tried to kick water. The more he gave into the situation, the easier it was for him to do things such as breathe and move. He didn't quite understand what had been happening.
"Hello. My name is Athena," she told him. "I've been watching you from afar. I know how much you love my daughter."
"I don't know what you're talking about," Eric said as he found himself getting more defensive. "I love LANA. Ariel is someone I am always going to love but LANA and I are going to get married. Her name is L-"
"Her name is Ariel," Athena said, "and I'm her mother. And yes, it would be much better if you were a merman and then you could at least fight in this battle for the one you love but trust me, you are safe to acknowledge her as Ariel," she said and Eric shook his head quickly.
"I can't. I can't. You're her mother, you don't know if…if I accept her as anyone other than Lana then she will die. She is your daughter. I thought that you might care a little more," Eric argued.
Athena sighed, "You truly love her and that love will protect her. The only way from now on that she would be unsafe with you or unprotected is if you let her down, betray her, make your true word one filled with dishonesty. You are going to marry my daughter but her human form needs to remain that of the girl Lana for her protection."
"I understand that," Eric said before seeing that the sun was starting to shine above the surface of the water. "Is this a dream? How do I know that this has any tie to reality, how do I know that you're not planning on using me to hurt her."
"Because of this," Athena said as she handed him a pin. "That, is the crest of my family, Ariel will recognize it immediately," she said and Eric nodded slowly. "And this," Athena handed him something much larger and Eric was surprised to see that it was a trident, something magical like the one he had seen Triton have but it was a weapon that looked as if it could protect her. "That should be all the proof that you need."
Adam felt her put her hands on his waist and then push him up to the surface and the hot sun and -
10.2
"E-Eric," Grimsby said as he approached the prince who was in the middle of the town in a fountain and looking as if he had passed out drunk from the night before. There was the sound of many people talking and gossiping and as Adam found himself waking up he felt something prodding against him and lifted out the same trident that had been in his dream. He looked to where the pin was with the family crest. He didn't know what he was doing here?
"Eric, what are you doing? I know that you just got engaged," Grimsby whispered to him and Eric could hear Max's barks, "but it's far too early to have any of the celebrations. Now, I don't want to know what went on last night, do I?" he laughed and as Eric pulled himself up he tried to figure out how he had at one point been in his bedroom falling asleep and woken up in the middle of a fountain.
Was this a trick or a trap or was it really okay to acknowledge the woman he loved as both of her identities? He looked to the pin and as he touched it, he remembered Athena's face and heard her voice in his head. She had seemed so trustworthy but people were false and was he really going to be okay taking such a gamble?
"Eric!?" Lana yelled as she came over to him and saw him drenched with water. She looked at him horrified before her eyes went over to the pin that had her family's symbol on it, it looked like one that her mother had been given by her father and then, the trident he had, it reminded her of the one given to the head of the guards by her mother. Both of these items, they shouldn't be somewhere Eric had access to them.
"Eric!? Are you okay!? Are you hurt!?" she asked before putting a hand to her mouth and looked away, "I didn't know you could sleepwalk," she whispered to him and Eric took her hand in his. He handed the trident to Grimsby.
"Can you take this back to the castle with you, I need to have a talk with Lana," he told him and Grimsby was about to start spluttering about how Eric was drenched and needed to get into some warmer clothes but the prince had already left. This meant that not only did Grimsby need to take back the trident without having the explanation himself but he had the crowds of people who had just seen Prince Eric passed out in a fountain.
This all followed his return back after the mermaid sighting and Grimsby truly had no way of knowing how to handle the situation. He was nearly ready to start when Max started racing in the direction where the two lovers had gone.
10.3
As Max approached them, Eric ruffled the fur on the sheepdog's hair before looking over to Lana. He had brought them to the ocean but he was still very nervous about this. He couldn't help feeling that he was walking into a trap and that was something that was obvious for him to avoid. He loved her too much to dare risk her life this way but her mother had come to him – and maybe even thrown him into a fountain? – for a reason and that was for her daughter's sake.
"Ariel," he said to her and she looked at him with her eyes widening. Eric counted in his head as he looked her over. "Ariel," he repeated again. She blinked and tilted her head curiously and Eric still had a hold of her hand as he saw her in Lana's form. "You are Ariel."
"Eric," Ariel whispered and he took a step backwards and looked her over with concern but she didn't seem to be hurt anywhere. "If this makes you scared then I can be Lana. I already promised you that I'd be Lana."
"But you are Ariel," Eric argued back with her and Ariel nodded. "And my saying your name, you don't feel any pain inside? You're not hurting from the inside, right?" he gestured to his chest. "No pain in here?"
"I'm fine, Eric, better when I know that you're okay," she said as she took a hold of his hand and heard him laugh out of relief.
"I really can acknowledge you as Ariel without you dying, I really did meet your mother," he said and Ariel stared at him confused. He had met his mother? That didn't make sense to her, her mother was dead and she would give up a lot for the chance to talk to her again, for her mother to hold her again. How had Eric been able to achieve what any girl whose mother died too early wanted so much.
"My mother?" she asked.
"In a dream or a vision or something, I spoke to her, she loves you," Eric told her and Ariel smiled having heard that. "She's very protective of you but I'm okay, I think because she can see how deeply and truly I love you. I wish that you could have been there," he said before letting his hand slip over her cheek, he brought her cheek up and kissed her passionately.
"Are you saying that you want to be with me as Ariel or….do you love Lana?" Ariel asked hesitantly and Eric sighed, he bowed his head.
"As much as I would love to tell you that it doesn't matter, for your protection I think you have to be Lana out loud. Ariel is a mermaid who they want to question. Lana poses no threat to them so at least for right now, is it too cruel of me to ask you to remain Lana?" he asked and Ariel smiled as she kissed his cheek.
"I understand but does that mean that I'm Ariel in your eyes?" she asked, "and we can get married with you having that knowledge."
"Yes," Eric said before looking out to the sea and felt his stomach drop a little. "However, I think that there is something important that I need to make my best attempt at and put all my effort into before we do get married," he told her and Ariel tilted her head to the side.
"I want to set things right between myself and your father," Eric told her and Ariel smiled. Maybe this would help. Maybe Eric did have a chance of doing that but her daddy was still so stubborn and unwilling to change. She didn't know whether it was a good thing or a bad to want to see them meet one another again.
End of Chapter Ten
Thank you for reading
Thank you to the reviewers of Chapter Nine
KathyMesser, marati2011
