THIS could not be happening to him. Not now. Eric could only look on in horror as Ariel went limp in his arms, her eyelids flickering once or twice, barely perceptively, before closing. A small white ball of light floated past her lips which were barely cracked and drifted lazily in the air towards Maggie's outstretched arthritic claw.
The white light that he could only guess wildly was Ariel's soul, it had to be, was consumed into a strange pendant of some seashell around the witch's neck. His stomach dropped and bile rose in his throat.
"No, no, no, no," he breathed as he gingerly set Ariel's body down on the floor and bolted to his feet, his panic nearly threatening to overtake him. He wildly looked around the witch's hut.
He needed something sharp, he needed something hard, something he could kill this witch with if he needed to.
Prince Eric could not find anything close to him and so he grabbed the nearest object closest to him which was a small hunting knife on the table a few feet away, though its blade was dull.
It would have to do. He held the knife in his sword hand, raised by his face and ready to stab the witch if she so much as came near him. He did not know what he had to do to get Ariel's soul back, if such a thing was even remotely possible, though if he could get her necklace off the witch's neck, then perhaps, maybe, there was a chance.
It was a hell of a long shot, but Eric knew that he just had to try it. If he didn't, then both he and Ariel were as good as dead. Eric exhaled a shaky breath, glancing towards the ceiling of the witch's hut to say a silent prayer to the gods, to any god willing to come to his aid and help him, and then pounced, throwing himself forward. The witch did the same, but half a second after him, and it was as he was violently turning to the left to dart around the table in the center of the room to avoid bruising his hip against the edge that he felt the witch's fingertips glancing off a fistful of his jerkin.
A furious blood yell left his throat as he tripped on something wet and slimy, thinking at first it was kelp, as he stumbled onto his knees and then his stomach on the wooden floor.
He looked down and found what looked horrifyingly like a tentacle wound around his shin, squeezing, hard, as a python would squeeze the breath from the lungs of its unfortunate prey. He felt tears come to his eyes and he yelped in surprise and abject horror, groping for the tentacle wound around his leg and nearly crushing it with fumbling fingers, but the witch was already looming over him, changing right before his very eyes into a monster of a creature.
He yelled and kicked out with his free leg. The heel of his leather boot managed to kick the witch squarely in the chest between her breasts and she gasped, staggering backward and clutching at her heart, the tentacle wound around his leg loosened its grip enough for him to wriggle free. Eric had heard tell of people being able to do truly amazing feats in times of great strife when a person needed it the most.
Or the surge of adrenaline that kept you going forward even when you thought yourself otherwise incapable, but he had never truly understood what humans were capable of until that exact moment. Eric pushed himself to his feet with his bound hands and limped towards the front door of the witch's hut, breathing heavily, tears in his eyes and hating that he had to leave Ariel's body lying there lifeless on the floor for the moment, but he needed to find a way out.
He knew he'd not make it back to the palace in time and so he moved towards the beach, not sure what he could do on the beachside to defeat this witch who was not the Maggie he remembered.
He prayed the real Maggie was alive and safe, somehow, and hadn't been killed.
For a moment, Eric wondered if hiding were a possibility but even as the thought crossed his mind, he dismissed it.
This witch, whoever she was, would find him. She seemed like the type that had all the time in the world and it would only make the job of disposing of him easier, if slightly more annoying, but Eric knew that he did not want to be an annoyance. For what she had done to the mermaid he loved, he wanted to be a worthy adversary.
He got to the edge of the beach and looked around in frustration, wishing this was one of the few times when debris from a shipwreck would have washed ashore, he could have used a sharp piece of driftwood and run it straight through the witch's heart. Maybe then, he prayed that whatever the witch had done to Ariel would be undone with her death.
"Please, gods, I call upon you for help," he whispered, squeezing his eyes shut as the sound of the witch's cackling laughter which was raspy in her throat reached his eardrums. The witch was moving slowly, methodically towards him as she emerged from the house, hideous tentacles now sprouting out of her body and she used the tips to walk on them.
She did not rush to catch up to him. She looked like she had all the time in the world to toy with him. It was truly a frightening thing, like one of the leviathan creatures from the tales of old he used to beg Carlotta to tell him at nighttime.
His heart was in her throat and a yell left his lips as he felt one of the witch's slimy tentacles jut out and wind around his left knee, causing him to trip and fall forward, face first, into the sand. Coughing and spluttering wildly, Eric managed to roll over onto his back to find the monstrous wretch who had now transformed and looked nothing like Maggie whom he always had a kind word for and a loaf of bread and jam whenever he ventured the streets of the market.
"Don't fight it, my darling Prince, trust me, dearie, it's better for you this way," the wretch cackled in a feminine voice that was several octaves lower. The change in her voice stuffed the chills down his throat, or perhaps that was the fact that the tentacle that held his leg bound had relinquished its crushing grip on his leg and was now winding itself around his throat. His brain began to turn foggy, and his lungs burned. Damn. This was bloody it. He was going to die, wasn't he?
He had failed Ariel horribly, but at least he would be reunited with her in the heavens, he prayed, if merpeople even had such an afterlife. Did they? He only wished for what would become of his friends. Of Molly and Steffan. If his friends would look after Max for him after his death. Of Grimsby and Carlotta. If they would manage fine without him.
He wondered if perhaps he should have brought one of the guards with them before bringing Ariel here. But even now, he knew that would have done no good. This wretch of a witch was cunning, and her magic was an unfair advantage.
His stunned blue eyes were met with the image of a beautiful little girl, with large green eyes like his mother's had been, a head of black hair like his, and a smile that could only have come from her mother. The babe could not have been older than two or three summers, and her chubby little hands reached towards her, asking her father to hold and comfort her.
As a father, Eric knew there would be more to him than what the people of Ipswich and even those who he worked alongside in the castle had ever seen. But that reality would never come to be if this witch either had a change of heart and turned over a new life, starting with giving Ariel her life back, literally, or if she were killed. He highly doubted it would be the latter, and so he knew it was down to one choice. The witch had to die, somehow, someway.
Eric felt a wave of cold wash over him as he realized this was a glimpse of a future that could be. One where Ariel was alive, where she chose to stay with him and marry him. A future where they had a family together. But one that would never come to fruition if they both were dead. With that thought fueling him, Eric felt alive again. Alive at the sudden gush of air that burst into his lungs as he parted his lips to take in air and smashed a fist against the sea witch's large head.
The sea witch staggered backward and Prince Eric could hear the accursed wretch writhe angrily as a cut had formed and was now trickling blood down her brow from the sheer force of his blow.
Before the creature's groaning could turn to savage shrieks like that of a banshee's wailing, Eric sprinted towards the village, shouting at the top of his lungs for anyone to throw him a harpooning spear if nearby.
His frantic mind only let him see the image of one person's face who might be able to offer him and Ariel a saving grace, and his mind was immediately made up. Eric continued down the cobblestoned street, shouting until his voice was hoarse and his throat was raw and he tasted blood until he staggered into the chest of the very person he hoped to see.
"Steffan!" Eric breathed, turning and meeting his friend, whose furrowed brows only deepened further in confusion and shock at seeing the sight of his best friend this way, blue in the face from nearly suffocating due to lack of oxygen, and strange red welts on his neck that looked like the suction cups of an octopus.
His black hair was wild and disheveled, and Steffan could not recall a time in his life when Eric had ever cried or seen a nasty red welt like the one the Prince was currently sporting just under his eye.
"Good Gods, Eric, what happ—"
"SPEAR, Steffan, give me a spear or your sword. NOW!" Eric roared at the top of his lungs, flinching as Steffan grimaced and shirked away from him, his eyes laced to the brim with antagonizing hurt. He cursed himself and swore under his breath before trying again. "No time to explain, my friend, but I need a weapon. Let me borrow yours," he pleaded.
No sooner were the words out of his mouth than the taller blond man unfasten his sword from the sheath he wore around his belt and handed over his most prized possession with a look of utmost confusion on his scarred face.
"Gods bless you, Steffan, I'll buy you and Molly your very own home for this, my friend, and anything else you could ever want," Eric passionately promised, clamping a hand on the taller man's shoulder, ignoring his friend opening his mouth to likely ask him what the bloody hell was going on, and turned heel with the intent to flee back towards the beaches. A terrified shudder ripped through him when he realized, however, that it would not be necessary.
A dark gray and black mist was slowly seeping its way through the village of Ipswich, like slithering snakes or even electric eels, the witch's cackling laugh echoing through the boarded windows of the various cottages and shops.
Behind him, Eric heard Molly's husband draw in a breath and mutter under his breath.
"…Paska," the Prince heard his best friend swear in his native Finnish tongue, and thought the curse was appropriate.
Shit indeed, my friend, Eric thought bitterly to himself as his frantic blue eyes made a desperate scan of the streets in search of the strange creature that had come from the ocean. A surge of ghostly yet dark minions bounded towards them, a hideous transformation of a mix of human and sea creatures alike.
The haunted beings that lumbered towards where Eric and Steffan stood in the middle of the town square now entirely engulfed in the mist were deathly pale, with dark smoldering empty eye sockets and wide grinning mouths that displayed endless rows of sharp teeth, blood dripping from either side of their mouth.
Sirens. Their songs were fatal to the ears of humans, causing their very eardrums to burst and bleed. At least, that had been from the stories Carlotta would tell him and Steffan as young boys. Eric clamped his hands over his ears as the sirens began to sing as they approached. Worry and dread seeped their way from the pit of Eric's churning stomach and into his throat as he realized that neither of them could fight off the horde of sirens approaching them without taking their hands away from their ears and risking turning into one of them. Beside him now, just to his right side, Steffan shuddered as both of them could hear the sea witch's laughter that sounded like thunder as dark black and purple storm clouds billowed in from the east and settled over Ipswich, weeny spritzes of rain trickling on their shoulders and their hair.
The witch as she appeared at first a faint silhouette in the mist was growing now, almost to leviathan proportions until she towered over the village square's clock tower and crushed it with one of her tentacles as though it were a mere twig.
Eric moaned and felt fear seize his heart as it fluttered painfully in his chest. He and a single sword would not fare well in a fight against this creature, as huge as she was becoming, thanks to her magic.
Eric looked towards Steffan and searched his terrified friend's stricken expression for an idea.
"Come on, Stef, work with me here, we're after an idea. Anything, please," he pleaded with his friend.
He waited as Steffan wracked his brain for a plan of defense, though before the man could open his mouth to speak, they caught sight of a figure emerging from the water, like the famed pirate ship, the Flying Dutchman breaching the surface.
Though the figure that strode from the water was no Davy Jones that he could recall.
"Ursula! Stop this lunacy at once, sister!" The man's voice rolled and roared louder than the crashing waves against the rocks of the cliffside. Eric nearly had to shield his eyes as a blinding white light flooded the town square.
He raised his hands to his face to protect his vision, though, through his fingers, he squinted to see.
The merman that emerged from the ocean and was now miraculously walking on human legs as his body transformed with a single wave of a golden trident he held in hand was beautiful. Too beautiful and yet, all too powerful.
"Who are you to command me, brother?" Ursula bellowed, snapping her head back to the right to get a better look at her brother, King Triton, this mockery of the gods.
She should have been given the throne of Atlantic, not him, though their father, Poseidon, had been insistent upon it.
"The boy called upon the gods for help. I have answered. Look around you, look what you have done to the humans' land! Everything is ruined by your hatred. I beg of you, do not continue down this dark path. Come home with me, where you belong, and rule at my side. This need not end in bloodshed and war between the two worlds. You know it. I heard the boy's call and came to help, but I did not expect that I would find this." The bearded man's face was scrunched up with a look of disgust as his black narrowed eyes surveyed the destruction of the town square Ursula had wrought upon the small village of Ipswich and its peoples. Ursula looked at Triton, both furious and confused, and unable to trust him. She let out a roar and turned at the waist slowly, though before one of her crushing tentacles now the length of six fully grown oak trees could wind around the king of the merpeoples' waist, Triton gave a wave of his trident and the witch's size began to shrink, and her tentacles slowly disappeared, as did the gills that had sprouted on the left of her neck.
With whatever spell King Triton had just placed upon the witch who had killed Ariel, Eric thought it was not enough to see the now fully human woman falling to the ground, convulsing and seemingly struggling to get in a good breath of air.
The sea witch looked around, gasping, and her gaze could only latch upon the trident that glowed even in the darkness of the fog that still seeped in through the streets.
With a cry of hoarse rage that escaped from her lips, she realized too late what her bastard brother had done.
King Triton had turned her into a human, the very creature she despised most, and had stripped her of her magic. Now, she was forever bound to her brother and the magic of the trident, forever human. Forever vile and monstrous.
Triton, as though sensing his sister's thoughts, spoke in a hollow and tinny-sounding voice. "This punishment for the moment is no more and no less than you deserve, sister. I've no wish to kill you, but you must face the consequences of your actions. You will be put on trial when we return home, but for now, you will stay this way until I see fit to return you to your normal form." King Triton's tone as he addressed Ursuala dripped with contempt. The king of the sea then turned his pierce and penetrating gaze towards the Prince and Steffan, causing Eric to grit his teeth in anticipation of whatever was to come next. "Is it true, boy? You are the one who called upon the gods for help. Why?" he asked.
When the king of the merpeople spoke, Eric shivered at hearing how hoarse and filled with abhorrence the man's tone was and shuddered. The King regarded Prince Eric and Steffan with judgmental scowls as his eyes made a quick scan of their forms. Triton's hardened gaze traveled down to Eric's right hand where it clutched Steffan's sword tightly.
The glower with which King Triton shot the Prince of Ipswich was devoid of any kindness or leniency as the king's gaze bore deep into Eric's pleading blue eyes. The merman's scrutiny seemed to Eric to last at least a hundred years.
He let out a little breath he did not even realize he had been holding when the king spoke.
"You are the human boy my Ariel was so taken with, the mortal prince, aye? I know your face, I recognize your likeness from the statue that was in my daughter's wretched little grotto of treasures," he barked, the king of the sea not impressed. The edges of his mouth twitched, and his beard twitched without bidding as Prince Eric struggled for words.
"A-Ariel, Y-Your Highness, she...he..we...I don't...I never meant...she's hurt, the..the witch...did something to her, stole her soul, sir," Eric stammered, tripping over his words. He was unsure how much to divulge if there was anything that could be done for Ariel. His voice held a slight stutter to it, likely due to his growing nervousness at standing in front of one of the most powerful deities to grace the earth with his existence.
Letting out a sigh of impatience and frustration, sensing Eric was currently too flustered to formulate a coherent response, much less think one in his mind, Triton turned towards Steffan and barked an order, wanting a straightforward reply.
"Boy!" he snarled. "Take me to my daughter!" The King of Atlantica ordered, not in the mood for niceties.
Steffan exchanged a terrified glance with Eric and swallowed down hard past a lump in his throat. After the Prince had mumbled into his friend's ear that Ariel's body lay lifeless in the old Seer Maggie's cottage, he had no choice but to stumble to regain his balance as he shouted for the King of the Atlantic Ocean towards the old woman's home.
Eric trailed closely behind, his heart in his throat and his stomach churning in knots as he tried to force himself to breathe normally, yet the Prince could see nothing but black.
The Prince was left in King Triton's wake, staring numbly after the turned-mermaid's form as Ariel's father and Steffan retreated into the thick white mist and disappeared, praying that the king could return his love's soul to her.