Princess Fantasy D X-2

A/N: I have never been inspired enough to write stories about any fanart before, until I saw the work of deviantart artist Skirtzzz, specifically her Final Fantasy Disney Dressphere series. With her blessing, this will be another part of a series of final scene rewrites, using the powers of the dresspheres to possibly change the script, or failing that, make the scene worthy of a Final Fantasy series. Replicating the feel for such an incredible franchise will be a challenge, but I swear I'll do my best!

If you haven't seen any of the movies or their endings, this could be a little spoilerific, but if you have or don't mind, hang on for the ride!

Disclaimer: See Chapter 1.

The Maritime Musician

Sea-creatures of all kinds fled from sight as the sea witch Urusla swam through their midst, one arm wrapped around a struggling Ariel. Her face was twisted into a sinister grin. "Poor little princess, but it's not you I'm after," she crooned evilly. "I've a much bigger fish to fry!"

"Ursula, stop!" As the half-octopus sea witch rounded the last corner towards her lair, she came face-to-point with the Trident of the Sea King, its gold surface glowing like a star, held in the hands of the elderly but clearly-imposing King Triton with his face in a glare of rage. His small crab aide Sebastian glared at her alongside him.

"Why King Triton," Ursula said, completely unruffled by his arrival. She circled the King, running her fingers along the glowing pole-arm. "How are you?"

Triton was in no mood for games. "Let her go!" he growled.

"Not a chance, Triton; she's mine now!" snapped the sea witch, passing Ariel to her eel minions and holding up the shimmering contract in one tentacle. "We made a deal"

"Daddy, I'm sorry!" Ariel cried, struggling against the grasp of Flotsam and Jetsam. "I… I didn't mean to!"

Completely incensed at the thought of his daughter imprisoned by Ursula, Triton raised his trident and unleashed a burst of lightning-like energy from its prongs. The blast struck the contract and blew it and Ursula straight back into a rock formation, but Ursula merely laughed as the energy bounced off the parchment as if it were a shield, leaving its words completely untouched.

"You see?!" she cackled gleefully into Triton's shocked face. "The contract's legal, binding and completely unbreakable! Even for you!" King Triton was dumbstruck, his attempt to release Ariel a failure and all his power useless to save her.

From his vantage point behind a rock formation, Ariel's tropical fish friend Flounder could only stare helplessly as Ursula swirled around Triton talking about a bargain, even as the contract wrapped around Ariel as a swirl of light and started to metamorphose her into one of Ursula's polyps. Flounder could only guess what Ursula wanted King Triton to do, and if he did, all hope would be lost.

"I've got to do something!" he murmured to himself, looking around wildly. Suddenly, his eyes fell on Ursula's skeletal lair off in the distance, and a crazy plan suddenly entered his fishy mind.

Before he had time to reconsider, the young fish had taken off at full speed towards the lair, swimming faster than he had ever swam before. With all of Ursula's attention focused on King Triton and Flotsam and Jetsam taking care of Ariel, no-one had noticed the disappearance of the small fish.

Disappearing into the skeleton and choking down his fear, Flounder swam over the numerous polyps that lined the inside of her lair and towards the larger protrusion in the center of the main room. When he poked at it with a fin, the protrusion opened like a grotesque flower to reveal Ursula's bubbling cauldron.

"Come on, come on, open up…" gritted the fish, bumping at the clam that he saw Ursula store her potion ingredients in, and felt relieved when it finally swung open. Quickly, he dove in and began shoving all the ingredients he could see out of the cabinet down into the cauldron. Each one gave a huge puff of sea-smoke when it entered, and soon the resulting potion began roiling and churning.

Flounder pushed the last bottle out of the shelf into the cauldron, and this time when it landed, the entire concoction let out a bang and a blinding flash of light. When he could look again, all that was left was a shimmery gold liquid with bubbles that somehow strangely resembled musical notes. For good measure, Flounder scratched off a fin-full of his blue and yellow scales and sprinkled it into the cauldron, and the potion hissed as they dissolved.

"I don't know what this will do, but it has to do something to Ursula!" Flounder said, grabbing a nearby horn-shaped shell and scooping up a quantity of the concoction. Clutching it in both fins, he motored out of the lair as fast as his tail could move him, the polyps staring after him worriedly.

When he reached the place where the conflict was taking place, the first thing he noticed to his horror was that Ursula, now wearing Triton's crown and holding his trident, had pinned Ariel against a rock with her tentacles, and King Triton was now nothing more than a tiny polyp looking panickedly upwards. Following his gaze, Flounder was shocked to see the human Prince Eric struggling in the coils of Flotsam and Jetsam, even as the two eels snapped relentlessly at a circling Sebastian.

"Ariel!" he whispered, swimming up to her while Ursula was focused on her pets. When a bound Ariel turned to notice him, he quickly handed her the shell-full of potion. "I mixed this using Ursula's cauldron! Don't know what it will do to her, but if you blow it on her it might do something!"

Nodding with resolve, Ariel took the shell and put the other end to her lips as Flounder swam up to help Sebastian. But as he did so, Ursula caught sight of him and turned around to see Ariel taking a deep breath.

"Hah! Not so fast, sweetheart!" she sneered, firing a bolt from the trident straight at the shell. Ariel yelped as the shell backfired, sending a cloud of glowing golden liquid straight into her face and down her throat. "Trying to stop me with a little conch horn; how precious! What did you expect to –"

Ursula's words abruptly cut off when she saw Ariel clutching at her throat, her eyes and mouth open wide and starting to shine with a strange, ethereal light. Almost of its own accord, singing started to blossom from her throat, just like it did when she had gotten her voice back, but this time, it seemed to resonate with every drop of water in the entire ocean.

"What in the seas?" Ursula couldn't help but utter, relinquishing her tentacle grip. Sebastian, Flounder and the two eels had frozen as they stared at the shifting mermaid, which gave Eric a chance to squirm free of the latters' coils and make a break for the surface.

As Ariel's pure voice echoed through the water, her hands relaxing from her throat, the water around her body started to vibrate to the point that her body started to blur. Bubbles formed spontaneously around her and began to conceal her from view, as the lights glimmering from her body gleamed and flickered.

A moment later, Ariel's voice hit a pure, resonant high note as all the bubbles blew away in a rush from her body, causing everyone's eyes to widen.

Ariel's simple purple seashell brassiere had metamorphosed into a full lavender halter top that wrapped around her torso, secured by darker violet straps. Her ears were now adorned with flowing gold earrings, and her forearms were now adorned with armbands, one a pale green, the other a Flounder-like blue and yellow. Her bright red hair rippled like a cloud behind her, a small braid trailing at the very end, and her tail was adorned with a deep purple sash and ringed with a number of small green seashells. Finally, clutched in one hand was the intact horn-like seashell, now mounted on a long handle, and a little bulb inside it.

The mermaid princess blinked, as if just realizing what had happened to her. Ursula was also staring at her, perplexed.

"Odd, I don't recall a side effect of our agreement being a costume change," she mused, before letting out a dismissive cackle. "Hah! Oh well, whatever; it's not like something like that will stop me!" With a flick, four of her tentacles lashed out towards Ariel.

Seeing the tentacles approach, Ariel's body suddenly reacted with a response she didn't even know she possessed: with a twist of her tail, a click of her fingers and a whisper of "Jitterbug,", she somersaulted backwards through the sea, Ursula's appendages grasping nothing except water.

The sea witch blinked, scowled, and then sent all eight tentacles shooting at her prey. But to her disbelief, the princess weaved and dodged every attempt Ursula made to grab her, and it almost seemed like she was gaining speed with every moment. If that wasn't enough, loud and jaunty music started playing from out of nowhere, which seemed to perfectly synchronize with Ariel's dodging and made it appear like she was dancing.

Flotsam and Jetsam could only stare at their mistress in dismay, before they realized that Eric was getting away from them. They weaved around to follow, only to find that Eric had already made his way completely to the surface and back onto his boat, having swum at speeds no human could ever achieve. The next moment, he dove back into their view, determinedly holding his breath and clutching two more harpoons in his hands.

The eels hissed, swatted Sebastian and Flounder away and lunged at Eric. But with swimming speed that took both of them by surprise, the prince raced right past them and hurled one harpoon straight at Ursula. The sea witch screeched in agony as the steel point embedded itself into one of her tentacles, drawing a spurt of blackish blood.

"You… you insolent, aggravating… BOTTOM-FEEDER!" Ursula screamed, forgetting a dancing Ariel for a moment. Whirling around, a bolt of lightning issued from the trident, which Eric managed to dodge by the skin of his teeth. "Flotsam, Jetsam, hold him still!"

Ariel faltered in her movements as the two eels closed in on Eric. As she watched them fence in the love of her life, something in her clicked and she stopped dancing, taking a deep breath. All at once, her voice rang out through the sea, the confidence ringing in her voice highly reminiscent of her father's. "Eric, don't fear! You shall not die; when you hear the sound of my Battle Cry!"

The fast-paced background music suddenly halted, and then was instantly replaced by the pounding beat and clarion sounds of a battle song, as Ariel began singing an Atlantica military tune that she had heard many times from the kingdom's army. Amplified by her seashell microphone Anthemusa, her voice resonated through the water. Upon hearing the music, Eric froze, feeling his body surge with energy and strength.

Both moray eels lashed out, coiling themselves around Eric's body in an attempt to restrain him for their mistress. But as Jetsam tried to tighten his coils, a hand suddenly latched around his neck and squeezed hard enough to crack bone, and Flotsam saw stars when a boot kicked him in the head with the force of a falling boulder.

"Better start singing a dirge for your sweetheart!" sneered Ursula, taking aim with the glowing polearm. However, her vantage point meant she couldn't see her minions' plight until it was too late.

The moment she released the beam of gold energy, Eric whirled around with two dazed moray eels in his hands, and threw them in front of him so that they took the blast full on. Ursula's eyes widened in horror as both Flotsam and Jetsam shuddered, sparked and then disintegrated before her eyes.

"Babies!" she gasped, catching a few small remnants as they floated down to her. "My poor little poopsies!"

Her sorrow was suddenly replaced with a boiling fury, as she watched Ariel take advantage of the pause to swim to Eric and help him to the surface. Her breaths grew deeper, the water around her started to bubble, and massive clouds of ominous black ink started to pour from her body as her rage grew, and grew, and grew…

Sebastian and Flounder could only stand aghast at the horror that was forming before their eyes.

The sky above had darkened to a foreboding grey as Eric and Ariel finally surfaced, the former taking grateful gulps of air. "Ariel, what… what happened down there?" asked the prince between breaths. "What sort of… magic was that?"

"I don't know, Eric," Ariel replied fearfully, "but you've got to get away from here! It's too dangerous for you!"

"No! I won't leave you again!" Eric replied, but any more words died in his throat when he felt the water around them start to churn violently. Suddenly, a huge gold spike erupted from the water in between them, and both of them held on for dear life as they felt something carry them upwards out of the water.

Like the sea monster she now resembled, Ursula rose out of the water, now towering a full head over the mast of a royal galleon and laughing like the madwoman she was. Ariel and Eric resembled nothing more than mice clinging to her crown, which was now the size of a carriage.

Desperately, Eric dove off Ursula's head, pulling Ariel with him and splashing the 20 feet or so into the ocean before the witch could fully rise out of the water. As the two surfaced, both clung in fright to each other at the literal monster now looming over them.

"You pitiful, insignificant fools!" Ursula boomed, her voice at least an octave lower and five times more menacing. One giant tentacle reared up and struck the ocean's surface, sending the water up in a humungous splash and sending both Ariel and Eric desperately swimming for cover.

"Now I am the ruler of all the oceans!" The now-steeple-sized trident was raised to the sky, lightning pouring from its tines into the clouds and turning them into giant black masses swollen with storm. Rain and wind poured from the sky as Ursula's monstrous tentacles churned the sea, sweeping up massive waves that could rend a ship in twain. In mere moments, the sky and sea were transformed into a maelstrom. Ursula cackled at the chaos. "The waves obey my every whim!"

Ariel and Eric were torn from each other as the tempest catapulted the prince upwards on a massive wave that flung him end over end through the air before sending him splashing into the sea several yards away. Ariel made to swim after him, but was caught in a riptide as Ursula began stirring the sea with the trident like a cauldron. Anthemusa was almost torn from her grip.

"The sea and all its spoils bow to my power!" Ursula proclaimed madly, her stirring generating a massive whirlpool that stretched all the way to the seabed. Like skeletons rising from their graves, shipwrecks started to surface along the edges of the vortex, torn loose from the seabed by the forceful current.

Ariel leapt to a rock outcropping in a desperate attempt to avoid the thrashing wrecks as they rose uncontrollably to the surface around her. She watched in abject panic, as across the roiling ocean, Eric's miniscule form was almost crushed by another wreck. As he vanished under the water, she could only pray that he was alright.

As she clung to the stone and tried to regain some form of courage, despite the literal chaos around her, for some reason, a memory rose to the forefront of her mind that seemed to dull out everything else; a memory of a strange, eclectic symphony that somehow made everything around her seem magical.

Before she could wonder what this music was or where the memory even came from, she had already murmured, "Esoteric Melody," under her breath and began to sing, lyrics blossoming from nowhere. All at once, the background music started up again, playing a smooth, pulsing, syncopated tune that was audible even through the storm. All at once, something began to stir in her chest, illuminating a light over her heart that pulsed to the beat.

However at that point, Ursula noticed the small glow and looked over her shoulder at her. A malevolent grin on her maddened face, she let loose a burst of energy from the trident that all but shattered the rock she was clinging to, blasting her straight down into the mouth of the whirlpool.

It was a miracle that when Ariel landed, all she had was the wind knocked out of her and Anthemusa knocked from her hand. Unfortunately, she now found herself on a dry patch of ocean floor with no way for her fish tail to get her to safety, an impenetrable wall of water twice as high as a castle tower roaring up around her, and the ghoulish face of the sea witch sneering down at her. Ariel choked at the monstrous sight, the background music dying away, but the light glowing over her heart didn't fade; instead, it kept pulsing on.

While all this was going on, Eric had managed to avoid being flattened by the wreck, and had managed to haul himself up by a length of rotting rope onto the deck. Battling the rains, winds and waves, he heaved himself to the still-intact ship's wheel and pulled on it with all its might. All his years of steering ships through stormwinds came into play as he heaved the ship around the whirlpool towards Ursula, as she sadistically shot bolts of energy from the golden pole-arm's prongs down at the immobile Ariel, who could barely avoid them.

"So much for true love!" cackled Ursula as she raised the trident over her head, the tines glowing brightly. Ariel could only stare up helplessly, all the magic in her body and no way to dance or sing it out.

Eric desperately egged the ship on, but there was no way for him to get it moving any faster. "Come on! Faster!" he shouted over the howling winds, but his heart all but dropped when he saw the sea witch bring the trident down.

Ariel couldn't help but cry out in despair, at the same time that deep within her heart, the magic that her final song produced touched the last remnants of Ursula's first spell – and reignited it to full potency.

The prongs stabbed into the seabed, and a bright light flared from the middle of the whirlpool.

Ursula could only stare down in outright disbelief as a shape somersaulted through the air, did a handspring to pick up her microphone, and landed gracefully a short distance away from the giant trident. What was once her tail had unraveled into a flowing green sash hanging off the back of frill-edged shorts, revealing the once-mermaid's human legs, now wearing deep purple stockings under shin-length green boots, tipped with seashells.

"Impossible…" Ursula hissed, her eyes bulging, "how could you have regained your legs?! We had a deal!"

"The deal is off, Ursula!" Ariel shouted up at her, the adrenaline at surviving turning into pure bravado. "You've had your chance to dance; now it's my turn to take the stage!"

"Why you…!" the sea witch yanked the trident free and unleashed another blast down at her, but Ariel gracefully backflipped away from the resulting explosion as if she'd been walking on two legs her whole life, whispering "Magical Masque," under her breath.

Instantly, the background music from nowhere sprang to life once again, this time echoing with horns and organs in a bright melody not heard anywhere under the ocean. Standing up straight, Ariel proceeded to start dancing, her spins and movements full of elegance. Infuriated at her target's attitude, Ursula snarled and sent another bolt streaking down at her, but this time, Ariel flicked out Anthemusa and actually swatted the bolt away, scattering it into smaller shards that exploded like pyrotechnics all around her.

"You dare defy the Queen of the Seas, you little pest?" Ursula snarled. "Let's see you keep dancing when your legs are broken under my trident!" As she thrust the pole-arm down at her once again, her expression suddenly turned to one of agony as the shipwreck that Eric was steering rammed into her from behind, narrowly missing her shoulder by an inch. Between the storm's roaring and the background music, she hadn't heard the ship approaching until it was too late.

As the three tines of the trident bit into the seabed next to her, Ariel switched tunes. With a cry of "Jitterbug", the jaunty, fast-paced music replaced the masque melody, and Ariel leapt for the trident, half-dancing/half-running up it with all the agility and speed her steps afforded her.

Her face contorted with pain and rage, Ursula looked at the ship as the whirlpool pulled it away, and saw the familiar form of Prince Eric at the wheel as he navigated the crashing waves. "I'll turn that ship of yours into kindling!" she shrieked, pulling the trident out of the stone seabed and out of the whirlpool.

As the giant trident swung through the air, Ariel used its momentum and leapt off the pole-arm, somersaulting through the air towards the skeletal ship. Even in mid-air, she raised Anthemusa to her lips and shouted out, "Disenchant!" Once again, the music switched keys and tempos to a flautist's accompaniment that, despite its meek sound, almost drowned out the storm along with the princess's clear singing.

As Ariel's legs and cloth trail merged back into her tail before she dove into the ocean, her body started to ripple with music-note-shaped sparkles in time with the music. The shipwreck that Eric was on started to ripple with the same sparkles, and when Ursula's next magical bolt struck its wooden frame, the blast just dissipated doing nothing more than scorching the surface.

Swimming through the churning waters, Ariel's tail propelled her clear out of the water and onto the shipwreck, where she landed on her feet right next to Eric who was battling the wheel. "Eric! Are you alright?" she asked as the background flute music went into a solo.

"Just fine, Ariel," Eric was drenched and exhausted, and his clothes were ragged at the edges, but no amount of rain could put out the fire in his eyes. "What about you? Is your magic still working?"

Ariel nodded. "We have to stop Ursula before this storm destroys everything! Just get me in close and I think I can stop her long enough for you to ram her!"

"Sounds good to me!" Eric answered. "All ahead, full!" Twisting the wheel, the shipwreck arced around towards Ursula again as Ariel started up her singing again, the ship glimmering with musical-note flashes.

"Die, you insects!" The behemoth of a sea witch snarled and sent more blasts of power at the ship, but barely denting its magical defenses. Eric's teeth gritted as the energy sizzled over his head like lightning, and Ariel barely faltered in her trilling.

"Fine; so be it!" Ursula flicked her massive tentacles and surged through the wind and rain at the approaching shipwreck. "I'll crush you with my bare tentacles and skewer you on my trident! A watery grave awaits those who challenge me, Ursula, Queen of the Seas!"

Both ship and sea monster raced over the waves towards each other, the latter with a burning, crazy look in her eyes and the glimmering trident held over her head. Eric's knuckles were white on the wheel, and Ariel clutched Anthemusa tightly.

"You're not the queen of anything," she whispered, "especially not the seas!"

The two were only a quarter of a league away from each other when Ursula's black tentacles erupted from the sea, intent on mangling the wreck to splinters. But the moment that happened, Ariel took action.

"Slow Dance!" All at once, a full waltzing symphony bloomed out of the background, as Ariel begun a new dance, gracefully stepping across the deck of the ship in time with the strings. Musical staves of light suddenly appeared from around her, and snaked out like whips to wrap around Ursula's tentacles, arms and face. All at once, her every movement slowed to a crawl, restrained by the magic to move at a snail's pace.

"Now for the finale!" Ariel cried, the opening of her shell microphone suddenly flaring with blue light as she raised it to the sky, and announced her final movement.

"Thalassa Crescendo!"

The background orchestra suddenly swelled to a victorious fanfare that all but deafened the storm around them. Ariel did not miss a step in her waltzing to keep up the slowing curse on Ursula, even as she brought Anthemusa to her lips and began to croon out an aria that made the clouds above them and the waves below tremble.

As if in response to the music, the storm clouds above began to clear and the wind began to die down, revealing a star-filled sky that was already starting to go violet. The whirlpool bubbled and slowed, gradually filling in until the sea was almost calm, Ariel's new melody counteracting the magic that created the storm in the first place.

At the same time, the ocean beneath the shipwreck started to churn, as out of nowhere, a massive wave grew from under the craft and began lifting them into the air. Eric held the ship steady even as the tidal wave surged beneath his feet, lifting the ship until it loomed ominously over the near-paralyzed sea witch. "Hold on tight, Ariel!" he shouted, even as the wave broke and dropped the shipwreck right onto Ursula, who was desperately trying to escape in slow motion.

The only things that betrayed Ursula's outright panic were her eyes and mouth slowly opening in a silent scream of denial, even as the music reached its outright climax. The shipwreck, backed by a thousand tons of water, crashed down on her, the splintered prow piercing her right through the heart.

Ariel and Eric dove off the deck into the ocean, as Ursula's body convulsed, crackled with lightning, and began to sink below the surface, dragging the wreck with it. Soon, all that was left of the sea witch was a plume of black smoke and seafoam drifting on the waves.

Beneath the waves, as Ursula's magic faded away with her death, all the polyps in her lair began to metamorphose back into merpeople. As the trident and crown, now returned to normal size, sank through the water, one particular polyp rose up in a flurry of light and the crown landed perfectly on the head of a restored King Triton.

The morning sun came all too soon, rising radiantly over the horizon. An exhausted Ariel and Eric sat on the beach where they first met, watching the sun rise. Ariel rested her head on Eric's shoulder, remembering the talk they never had about their respective kingdoms.

"I'm really sorry everything turned out like this," Ariel said quietly. "None of this would've happened if I'd just stayed in the ocean…"

"Maybe," answered Eric, "but I wouldn't want it any other way, since it led me here to you." Ariel smiled at the romanticness of the statement, and cuddled closer to him.

"Ariel," suddenly came a deep, solemn voice, and the couple looked up in surprise. There, floating on a column of water in the shallows of the shore, was King Triton, his trident in hand and fully restored to his merman form. Next to him were Sebastian and Flounder, big smiles on their faces as they watched them.

Ariel gasped. "Daddy! You're alright!" She splashed into the ocean and hugged her father, who gladly returned the embrace. Eric stood up, wonder on his face as he saw Ariel's father for the first time.

"And I'm so glad you are too," Triton said, looking down at his youngest daughter. "You saved me, and defeated Ursula, something that I could not accomplish. You have grown to be a phenomenal young woman, and I, and our family, could not be prouder of you."

"I didn't do it alone, Daddy," Ariel murmured, finally letting the tears trickle out, "I had a lot of help." She shared a look with Sebastian and especially Flounder, before turning back to Eric.

Triton's gaze turned on Eric as well. "So, you're the human that has caught my daughter's heart."

Eric dutifully bowed, as a prince to a king. "King Triton of Atlantica, my name is Prince Eric of the Danes. Ariel has spoken very highly of you; of how you are a caring and just ruler to all your subjects, and also how you would do anything to protect your family."

King Triton remained silent as Eric continued. "Your daughter is the loveliest, most caring, and the most beautiful woman I have ever had the chance to meet, and I owe her my very life. There is no-one else in the world that could ever compare to her, and she has captured my heart from the moment I met her. As a father, I know there will probably never be a man that you believe will ever be worthy of her, especially not a human, but…"

And at this, the prince fell to his knees in the beach's shallows, "I beg you, your Highness, for your daughter's hand in marriage. I love her with all my heart and soul, and I believe I can be that man for her."

Ariel looked down at Eric prostrating himself before her father, before looking back up at her father with a pleading expression. To her surprise, rather than the look of disapproval she was expecting, he was looking back and forth between her and Eric with a contemplative look, with more than a small hint of uncertainty. A small seed of hope bloomed in her chest.

Finally he sighed. "You really do love him." It was a statement, not a question.

Ariel nodded anyway.

Turning back to Eric, he said stoically, "Young man, every thing you said so far is true. I do love my family with all my heart, as should any father, and I would do anything to keep them safe. And when it comes to Ariel, I do also believe that there is no merman, let alone a human man, who will ever be worthy of holding her heart."

Both Ariel and Eric slumped, and the latter started to rise to his feet to walk away. But Triton wasn't finished. "However, as someone who managed to save my life, the life of every subject cursed by Ursula, and the safety of my daughter and my kingdom all for her sake, I also think…"

"… that if anyone deserves to hold her heart, it would be you."

Ariel, Eric, Flounder and Sebastian all gasped at that statement, as Triton's face broke into a kindly smile. He raised his trident, which began to glow once again, and passed it over Ariel's still-human legs. As Ariel released her father and stepped back, a sparkling mist started to appear around her body and the water around her rose up to envelop her.

When the water finally splashed down, Eric gaped at the sight of Princess Ariel now in a dress that sparkled like seafoam, with a strange card clutched in her hand, and a pair of perfect human legs.

"I will miss you dearly, Ariel, but you are your own woman, and deserve to find your own way in this world, be it in our world, or the world of the one you love," Triton said warmly. "But know that the ocean will always be your home, and we will always be there to welcome you."

Ariel all but burst into tears at her father's blessing, scooped up Sebastian and Flounder and threw herself into her father's arms, weeping in happiness. Eric, almost overcome with emotion, got back to his feet and extended his arm to Triton, who accepted the handshake with an acknowledging, but still cautionary nod.

Then, Ariel turned around and leapt into Eric's arms, who ecstatically lifted her off the ground before they exchanged a kiss filled with love and joy. Triton, Sebastian and Flounder did their best to hold back their own tears at the raw emotion coming off the one they cared so much about.

And even though Ariel was no longer singing or dancing, an orchestra playing a song of jubilation resonated from the shimmering ocean around them.

Well, here's another chapter ready for everyone! Hope you enjoy it (even if it's not as long as some of my other chapters)!

And yes, I still hate writer's block. I don't know whether it's the lack of any reviews or interest, or something else… although, is it still considered writer's block if you take a month or so to hammer out a chapter of this length?

Once again, I hope this chapter passes muster. This was a lot harder to write than I thought! I might go through it again a few times if I feel it needs perking up.

Skirtzzz, thank you so much for waiting again! I really hope you enjoy this installment!

I wanted to associate every buff or curse that Ariel used with a type of music or dance, so in case you want to know what to imagine when she starts dancing or singing:

Jitterbug – Exactly what you'd expect: 40's jukebox jive music, as fast as you can imagine someone dancing to it

Battle Cry – War drums, horns, medieval marching music

Esoteric Melody – Think smooth jazz music, the type that you would use to relax (or try to relax in Ariel's situation)

Magical Masque – 1600s Masquerade ball dance music, horns, organs, slightly more jaunty than an ordinary orchestra

Disenchant – A smooth, relaxing flautist's solo, somewhere between traditional pipes and classical music

Slow Dance – What you'd expect: classical waltz music

Thalassa Crescendo – Classical orchestra music with an aria accompaniment, when it reaches its outright crescendo

… I'm not a music history buff; sue me.

Find Ariel's songstress costume (both of them!), created by the talented DeviantArtist Skirtzzz here (scrap all the spaces)!:

skirtzzz . deviantart dotcom / art / Songstress – Ariel – 191714854

skirtzzz . deviantart dotcom / art / Songstress – Ariel – Redux – 293687494

Review and Critique please; I'd really like to know someone's reading this! But please, no flaming!

Next Chapter: Locks of Life