I hope you all enjoy this oneshot! I love King Triton and Ariel's relationship.
King Triton floated through the doorway of his palace, filled with dread. He had been avoiding this task for weeks, but it had to be done. He had done it for his parents, and with the heaviest of hearts, for his beloved Queen. And now he would do it for his youngest daughter.
There was an old Atlantican tradition: after a merperson's passing away, their family would gather a bouquet of their favorite sea-flowers and then swim to the places which the deceased had particularly loved. They would place one flower in each location, say a prayer for their peaceful eternal rest, and recall their own memories of their loved one.
It had been months since he had seen his beautiful Ariel. At first he had searched high and low for her, commanding the entire kingdom to join in his efforts. He had stood at the window of his throne room each evening, praying that it was the day that she would swim back home. But days turned into weeks, and weeks turned into months, and he had to admit to himself the hard truth that if she were still alive, she would never have stayed away from home for so long.
Triton sighed and went into the garden. He left his trident behind in the palace; today he was going out not as a king, but as a grieving father. With a heavy heart, he picked several of the pink sea-flowers which Ariel had loved. Then he began distributing them.
He left one on her empty pillow in his daughters' room; then he brought one to the stage of the Catfish Club where the fifteen-year-old Ariel had eagerly sung. He swam around to several other locations of the kingdom where her memory lived. After several emotionally exhausting hours, he only had two flowers left.
Steeling himself, he swam towards Ariel's grotto. Here was where he had seen her last…he could still hear her desperate cries echoing against the stone walls.
"Daddy, noooooo!"
He shuddered at the memory. How could he have lost his temper so? If only he had left those human objects intact, perhaps Ariel would have come home that night instead of trying to run away and meeting her doom!
Holding back tears, he put down a pink flower in the place where Eric's statue had once stood. He thought of Ariel's happiness when she spoke to the statue – that was the last time he had ever seen her smile. Despite himself, a sob escaped his lips.
Trying to distract himself, he looked down at the last flower he held. He had already visited all the places under the sea which Ariel had loved. Where would he leave this last flower?
His conscience whispered the answer to him. He shook his head. No, he would not go there.
But she had loved it. As much as he did not agree with her inclination, Ariel had loved that place. This grotto was only a surrogate of the place she had loved most of all. If he was going to honor his daughter's memory properly, he would have to leave a flower and say a prayer there. He simply had to.
Triton braced himself and began to swim…to the surface.
After a half-mile journey, he reached it. Carefully, he poked his head above the waves. He spotted a deserted shore not too far off. He would go there. He would leave a flower on land – the place that Ariel had loved so dearly.
He swam to the shore gingerly, looking around for humans all the while. He cared little what happened to himself for his own sake…it would be a relief to join Athena and Ariel…but his kingdom and other daughters still needed him. Thankfully, none of the barbarians were in sight.
He pulled himself out of the water and sat down upon the shore. He gently placed the pink flower upon the warm sand, out of reach of the waves.
"May…may my little Ariel…rest in peace," Triton whispered, his voice shaking.
He stared at the sea-flower. At once, it seemed so out of place on the sand, and yet, so right. Ariel had always been going where she ought not to go. It was the perfect way to remember her rebellious…opinionated…but wonderful…spirit.
Far away from all his subjects, his mind filled with memories of his precious youngest daughter, grief overwhelmed him. He began to sob openly. His muscular body shook. Tears blinded him. The Sea King lost himself completely in his pain.
…..
Above the shore on which Triton sat, were some cliffs. Unlike the sand below them, they were covered with soft green grass. And across this grass ran a large dog and a redheaded girl.
The girl was beautiful. She had eyes as blue as the sky. Her dainty feet were encased in soft slippers. Her slender figure was clothed in a light, flowing green gown. And on her head was a crown, symbolizing her status as Queen of the realm.
She had been visiting a home for the elderly in her kingdom. It was rare for her to fulfill royal duties alone, but King Eric, her devoted husband, had to meet with dignitaries in the castle that day, and had been forced to spend the day apart from his love. He had sent Max with her, however, to keep her company and to bring some joy to the ailing residents of the home for the elderly. On the carriage ride back to the castle, she had asked the driver to stop and allow her a few minutes to stretch her legs and let Max have a romp across the green grass.
Thus, Queen Ariel flew across the grass, trying to keep up with the dog. She laughed as she felt the wind in her face, making her hair fly this way and that, just like the ocean currents used to do.
How wonderful it was to laugh! How wonderful it was to use her voice to make a sound! How close she had come to never uttering another syllable again!
When the seashell had shattered at her feet and the spell on Eric had been broken, he had run to her without delay. He had kissed her passionately in front of all his guests, just before the sun had dipped below the horizon. When they had broken apart, they heard a loud splash and saw that "Vanessa" had jumped overboard. Grimsby ordered men to follow her and bring her back at once, for although he understood very little of what had happened, realized that she had somehow been forcing Eric to marry her. Ariel was not surprised when no trace was found of the sea witch. The men could only swim a few feet below the surface, and they would have had to make their way fathoms below to find Ursula.
And then she had realized how overly-practical humans were.
Everyone on the ship had seen her voice rise up and return to her throat in a blaze of light. And yet, everyone questioned their eyes. Before the ship had returned to shore, without asking Ariel for an explanation, the general consensus was that the light had been an optical illusion caused by the setting sun. The return of her voice was credited to the sudden cure of laryngitis. Eric's strange behavior all day was explained away as a mental lapse.
Ariel began to understand. The vast majority of humans needed heaps and heaps of proof before they would believe anything out of the ordinary.
And she had absolutely no proof that she had once been a mermaid.
She knew what she would have to do in order to be accepted as Eric's wife and queen: she would have to keep her origins secret.
Eric, thankfully, did not pry. He knew that he loved her, continued to assume that she had been washed up from a shipwreck, and as she did not mention her family, thought it unnecessary to distress her by asking about them and make her recount their presumed doom. He simply proposed, and she accepted. They were living very happily, although in the quieter moments, Ariel's heart ached with longing for all that she had left behind. She knew, however, that she would never see her family again, and she had become reconciled to that difficult reality.
…..
Ariel suddenly stopped in her frolicking. What was that? It was not the sound of birds…it was not the sound of crickets…or any of the land sounds that she had learned so far.
Max heard it too, and suddenly became attentive to his surroundings, sniffing the air.
There it was again!
The curious Queen and the dog slowly began to walk towards the noise. Soon enough, they were at the edge of the cliff, and carefully peered down at the beach below.
Ariel froze. On the beach sat a merman who she recognized instantaneously. He was clutching the sand with his strong fists, his crowned head was bent towards the ground, and his muscular body was trembling all over from heartrending sobs.
Her heart felt like it was tearing itself in two to see her authoritative, confident father reduced to such a state.
She had just begun to ask herself what in the world he was doing there when she noticed the pink flower beside him. So he had come here for her…he was mourning her presumed death!
A great battle arose in her soul. Part of her wanted to run to him and embrace him and comfort him. After all, he had come to the surface in honor of her memory. But another part feared him. She remembered what had passed during their last meeting, when her admission that she loved Eric had moved him to such rage that he had blasted all the objects in her grotto to rubble. What would he do when she revealed that she was a human, and married to a human? Would he destroy Eric like he had destroyed his statue? Would he turn her back into a mermaid and take her to Atlantica by force?
After several minutes of watching Triton's agony, love proved to be a stronger force than fear. She could not leave him like this, in such a state. She had to do the right thing, no matter what the cost.
So she bent down and whispered into Max's ears,
"Stay."
Heart pounding, she made her way down to the beach. Softly walking across the sand, she was soon next to her father. He was still so wrapped up in his grief that he had not noticed her approach.
She laid a trembling hand upon his shoulder.
"Daddy?" she forced herself to say.
Her action had the startling effect of stilling Triton's sobs and tremors in an instant. He slowly turned and gazed up at her with glazed eyes. Recognition and shock dawned on his face.
"Ariel?" he murmured as if he could not believe what he was seeing. "Have you come to take me to heaven?"
"No, Daddy." Ariel whispered, tears starting to pour out of her eyes. "I cannot take you to the other side, as I have not yet crossed the threshold of death myself."
"You are still alive?"
"Yes."
The Sea King reached out his hand tentatively and touched her chin in his customary gesture of tenderness. When the vision before him did not melt away at the contact, he realized what it meant. In a second, he had pulled her towards him and placed her on his lap, cradling her like he had when she was a merbaby. He began to cry uncontrollably again, this time from relief and happiness. She clung to him, slightly tense. It was clear that he had not yet noticed her legs, and she was not looking forward to the moment when he would.
After several more minutes, Triton finally collected himself. He took a deep, shuddering breath, blinked away his tears, and finally took a moment to fully inspect his daughter.
"Are you alright?" he asked, looking at her deep blue eyes. When she nodded, his worried eyes began to travel down her figure, as if he wished to ascertain that she had no sprained wrists or scars on her tail…and then he caught sight of her legs.
Ariel felt her heartbeat cease momentarily. Here it was, the moment she had been dreading. Looking at his unreadable expression, she braced herself for the inevitable explosion.
To her great surprise, it never came.
Triton reached out a hand and touched her right foot, as if he wished to confirm that it was real.
"So this is why you could not come home," he said stonily.
"Yes, Daddy," the former mermaid replied meekly.
Triton sighed.
"How?"
Partially relieved at his controlled reaction, but still cautious, Ariel began to explain. She confessed that she had met with the sea witch. She gave a summary of her first three days as a human. She revealed that when she and her friends had realized that Eric was marrying the sea witch in disguise, Sebastian had thought to go for him and report the whole truth, but had changed his mind when he saw how Flounder was struggling to pull her and the barrel she clung to. He had joined him and helped propel the barrel forward. Due to the crustacean's small size, he had only managed to improve their time by a few seconds, but those seconds had turned out to be beyond important: they had allowed Eric's lips to meet hers and saved her from slavery to Ursula.
After she had finished the long tale, Triton asked,
"So you married this human? How does he treat you?"
"Very well. Eric has been kindness itself. I made many mistakes in the first few weeks as I learned about human objects and traditions, but he never reproached, he simply corrected. And…when I told him that I pitied the poor fish that his fisherman caught in nets, he promptly ordered Louis – the palace chef – to stop preparing seafood dishes and has been trying to find ways to lessen the kingdom's dependence on fishing. He did all this without knowing that I had once been a mermaid; he simply did it to please me."
"You are happy, then?"
Ariel nodded.
"More than I ever was under the sea, Daddy," she admitted.
Triton held her close and stroked her hair, saying nothing. Ariel could see that he was thinking earnestly, trying to reconcile what she had told him with his presumptions about the human world.
They stayed that way for about half-an-hour, and at last, when Ariel was almost mad with anxiety, Triton heard himself saying,
"I should like to meet him."
Wide-eyed with fear, she stared up at her powerful father. Recognizing her thoughts, Triton added,
"I give you my word that I will not hurt him. If this young human is as fair and good as you say, I want to meet him. He sounds like a worthy son-in-law."
"Oh Daddy!" Ariel cried out, impulsively reaching up and pecking his cheek. "You have not the slightest idea how much this means to me! Thank you!"
"You are welcome, my child," Triton murmured, stroking her hair again. "I only wanted to keep you safe with my rules, you must believe that. I never dared to hope that human beings can be as decent as this Eric you describe."
"I know, Daddy, I know."
The Sea King sighed and looked out over the water, at the horizon.
"The sun is setting, Ariel. You ought to be getting home; your husband will be worried."
"Indeed, I am surprised that he has not yet sent out the entire army to look for me," Ariel admitted, her heart singing as she heard her father refer to Eric as her husband and voice concern for his peace of mind.
Triton reached for the pink flower which he had left on the sand. With infinite tenderness, he threaded it through the hair above her ear, kissed her forehead, and released her.
"Then go to him." He hesitated. "When will I see you again?"
"Eric and I have nothing planned for tomorrow; if you wish, I will bring him here."
"And I will bring your sisters. They have missed you desperately."
"I have missed them too," Ariel whispered, her eyes filling with tears as she thought of all her family had suffered because of her. She stood up and, looking back at her father, recognized in shock that his eyes were full of fear.
"Daddy?" she asked. "What is it? Do you fear Eric? He is harmless! I promise you he will come unarmed, and anyhow, there is no net or harpoon in our kingdom which would be a match for your trident. If anything, we ought to be afraid of you."
"No, it is not that," Triton whispered. He remained silent for a few seconds as he fought with his emotions. He had always sought to project confidence and majesty whenever he was in the presence of others, and even though Ariel had found him in quite a pitiful state earlier, he was still loathe to freely admit vulnerability. Looking at his daughter's sad, concerned face, however, he finally said, "It is just that I know…that once you are out of sight, I will question my sanity, and think that this was all a dream…and think that you are still lost to me."
"In that case, allow me to leave you with a little bit of proof," Ariel said, smiling. She began to tug at one of her golden bracelets. "It appears that humans are not the only ones with trouble believing their eyes! You will be surprised at how similar you are to them!" She held out the engraved piece of jewelry. "Take it, Daddy. You may return it to me on the morrow."
Triton accepted the token. His daughter bent down and gave him one last embrace, and then ran across the beach, back to Eric's obedient, stationary dog with a heart lighter than she had possessed for many months. All would be well – her husband would meet her family, and would finally know her whole story – and they could live in peace and mutual understanding for the rest of their lives.
As for the Sea King, he waved goodbye to his daughter and then slowly began to inch himself towards the ocean. As he did so, in his right hand he protectively clutched something which he would have destroyed but a short few weeks ago – a bracelet, a human object.
THE END