pre style="word-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"Scuttle flew towards the castle in morning.
"Ariel! Ariel, wake up! Wake up! I just heard the news. Congratulations, kiddo, we did it!"
Sebastian looked at him like he had lost it. "What is this idiot babbling about?"
"Right - as if you two didn't know, uh? The whole town's buzzin' about the prince gettin' himself hitched this afternoon! You know, he's getting married! You silly sidewalker! I just wanted to wish you luck. I'll catch you later, I wouldn't miss it!" Ariel brightened and ran downstairs, her heart leaping with joy and overwhelming love. Her soul was soaring as she madly ran her fingers through her red hair and raced down the corridor.
Eric was going to marry her!
It felt as if her heart was going to burst with joy right then! She was barely conscience of her surroundings until she nearly skidded over the stairs. The scene in front stopped her dead in her tracks. Eric was standing with another woman - a beautiful woman, with dark brown hair and a pale face - and her hand was in his.
She was plunged right out of her euphoria so fast she felt a little light headed. She shrank behind a stone column – luckily no one had seen her – and leaned heavily for support.
Faintly she listened to the drifting bits of the conversation.
"Well, uh - err, Eric. I-it appears that I was mistaken. This mystery maiden of yours does - in fact exist. And - and she is lovely. Congratulations, my dear," Grims was saying, a little bemused but kind as always.
Eric stood ramrod straight with a distant look in his eyes. To Ariel, it seemed like he wasn't all there but she just passed it off with a shake of her head. "We wish to be married as soon as possible."
Eric NO!
Grimsby hesitated. "Oh, yes - of course, Eric, but, er - but these things do take time, you know. . . ."
Eric didn't take no for an answer. "This afternoon, Grimsby. The wedding ship departs at sunset."
Grimsby gave out a tired sigh. "Oh, oh - very well, Eric - as you wish."
Ariel covered her mouth with her hand, hardly able to believe what she was hearing. She wanted to scream out to him but no sound came from her lips. She couldn't breathe; her heart was ripping apart in her chest.
Eric couldn't marry her! He couldn't love her!
Scalding tears pricked her eyes as she stood there, silently falling apart. Unable to listen to another word nor stop the tears, she covered her face with her hands and blindly ran back to her room. There she flung herself onto her bed, digging her fingers into the sheets so hard that they cramped. She sobbed soundlessly into the pillows wishing that, some how; she had managed to tell him that she loved him. But now it was too late…
It was over./pre
pre style="word-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"Late that afternoon, as the wedding ship started to leave, Ariel sat on a pier, watching Eric slip farther and farther away from her, crying bitterly as Sebastian and Flounder looked on with heartbroken expressions.
Scuttle was off flying around and humming to himself as he flapped around the ship containing the future newlyweds on it.
"What a lovely little bride I'll make, my dear I'll look divine Things are working out according to my ultimate design. Soon I'll have that little mermaid and the ocean will be mine!" the woman who was marrying Eric said to her reflection. Scuttle had heard her go by the name of Vanessa by one of the maids as he passed by.
Seeing the real woman, Ursula, in the mirror, the bird stopped flying immediately and almost hit the ship's wall. "The sea witch! Oh no . . . She's- I gotta. . ." He ran into side of ship the hurriedly flew off to find Ariel. "Ariel! Ariel! Ariel. I was flying, I wa - of course I was flying - An' - I s- I saw that the watch - the witch was watchin' a mirror, and she was singin' with a stolen set o' pipes! Do you hear what I'm tellin' you? THE PRINCE IS MARRYING THE SEA WITCH IN DISGUISE!"
Ariel leapt to her feet, things falling into place in an instant. Eric was in danger, and no one else had any idea but her. She had to stop him from making his vow.
Sebastian was a little skeptical. "Are you sure about this?"
"Have I ever been wrong? I mean when it's important!"
"What are we gonna do!?" Ariel looked to the sea and heard Ursula's voice in her head as the sun dropped.
". . . Before the sun sets on the third day. . . ." She still had time...but not much of it.
Ariel jumped into the water but couldn't swim well. Sebastian quickly sent down some barrels before she drowned.
"Ariel, grab on to that. Flounder, get her to that boat as fast as your fins can carry you!"
Flounder nodded. "I'll try."
"I've gotta get to the sea king. He must know about this."
"What - What about me? What about ME?" Scuttle asked.
Sebastian paused. "You - find a way to STALL THAT WEDDING!"
Scuttle nodded and took off. "Stall the wedding. Wh- what am I - what - that's it!" He flew off to rally the animals and fish. "Move it, let's go, we got an emergency here!"
On the ship, the wedding was in progress. Max growled at Vanessa as she moved down the isle, sensing something wrong with her, but she kicked him right in the face with her heeled show, silencing him as he scurried away, yelping.
"Dearly beloved . . ." a priest began. Flounder was still pulling Ariel toward the ship. "Don't worry Ariel. ugh - we - we're gonna make it. We're almost there."
"Yes, um, do you Eric, take Vanessa, to be your lawfully wedded wife, for as long as you both shall live?" the priest continued back onboard.
Eric, completely under Ursula's spell, gazed forward blankly and spoke without emotion. "I do."
"Eh, and do you . . ." Birds and animals swooped in for attack, coming out of nowhere and causing great chaos.
Scuttle had arrived.
" . . . then by the power inves-"
Before the priest could finish, Vanessa was swarmed by creatures.
"Get away from me you slimy little- Oh, why you little-" In the struggle, the shell holding Ariel's voice inside was ripped from Vanessa's neck and shattered on the deck of the ship. As Ariel climbed onboard, the light of her voice surrounded her and as she opened her mouth to sing, her voice returned to her and she let out a crystal clear melody that came from her own throat.
Eric came out of the spell as she sang.
Eric shook his head, dazed and confused. He looked at the beautiful girl he had come to know and love and smiled slightly, her voice making his heart leap.
His girl had been with him all along…
"Ariel?"
"Eric," she said, smiling lovingly.
"You - you can talk. You're the one," he said, taking her in his arms.
Vanessa looked at him furiously. "Eric, get away from her!"
Eric irnored her and pressed his forehead against the mermaid's. "It - it was you all the time."
"Oh, Eric, I - I wanted to tell you..."
He bent his head and his lips were just about to touch hers when suddenly, her body stiffened and a blinking pain seared through her. In a matter of seconds, she slid from Eric's arms and crumbled to the deck floor, a mermaid again.
"You're too late! You're too late! So long, loverboy," Ursula cackled as he looked at Ariel in shock.
"Ariel!" He shouted after her as Ursula and Ariel went overboard.
He had lost her once...he wasn't this time.
Ursula sneered at her as she was drug back into the depths of her home. "Poor little princess - it's not you I'm after. I've a much bigger fish to -"
Triton suddenly appeared and Ariel breathed a sigh of relief. "Ursula, stop!"
"Why, King Triton! Ha ha ha - How ARE you?"
"Let her go."
"Not a chance, Triton! She's mine now. We made a deal."
Ariel felt her heart break as a tear slid from her eye. "Daddy, I'm sorry! I - I - I didn't mean to. I didn't know -"
Triton attacked the contract with a fierce blast from his trident, to no avail.
Ursula was amused. "You see? The contract's legal, binding and completely unbreakable - even for YOU. Of course, I always was a girl with an eye for a bargain. The daughter of the great sea king is a very precious commodity. But - I might be willing to make an exchange for someone even better. . . ."
Up above, Eric was hurriedly rowing away from the ship.
Grimsby called after him, worried. "Eric! What are you doing?"
"Grim, I lost her once. I'm not going to lose her again."
Back under the water, Ursula and Triton were arguing still.
"Now! Do we have a deal?" After a long moment, Triton looked at Ariel, gave in, and signed the contract. "Ha! It's done then," Ursula cried out, victorious.
Ariel was released and Triton in an instant became withered as Ursula laughed viciously.
"No . . . Oh, No!" Ariel cried, looking at her father's captured soul. She felt tears pring to her eyes. She had done this.
Sebastian came over, in a state of shock. "Oh, your majesty . . ."
"Daddy? . . ."
Ursula picked up his crown. The sight of someone else wearing it instead of her father made her snap. "At last, it's mine. Ho, Ho . . ."
"You - You monster!"
She flew at the witch, hitting and tearing at the woman's hair with all her might.
"Don't fool with me you little brat! Contract or no- AAAAHH!" She was suddenly hit with a harpoon that came out of nowhere, stopping the witch from blasting Ariel with the trident.
Ariel gasped and looked up, her heart leaping to see it had been thrown by Eric. Her joy at seeing him quickly vanished when Ursula spotted him as well. "Why you little troll!"
"Eric! Eric look out!"
"After him!" She hissed at Flotsam and Jetsam flew in for the attack as Eric madly swam away.
"Come on! . . ." Sebastian said.
"Say goodbye to your sweetheart..." No!
Ariel slammed into her and made her miss Eric and blast Flotsam and Jetsam instead, turning them into dust. Ursula gasped, horrified, and held out her hands to catch their falling remains. "Babies! My poor, little poopsies!"
Anger flaring through her, she turned her gaze on the mermaid and her prince, swimming to the boat on the surface. Her eyes bloodshot and crazed, she started cackling madly. "Eric, you've got to get away from here," Ariel said to the prince as he pulled her up into his boat, holding her tightly against him.
"No, I won't leave you."
Ursula sprang from the water, taking them up with her now very large head. "You pitiful, insignificant, fool!"
"Look out!" Eric cried as they jumped back into the water.
"Now I am the ruler of all the ocean! The waves obey my every whim! The sea and all its spoils bow to my power!" She wrecked havoc, created a whirlpool and raised some shipwrecks.
"ERIC!" Ariel screamed as he got on board one of the ships as Ariel fell to the bottom of the whirlpool. Ursula attempted to blast her there where she was trapped. All the little mermaid could do was dodge the strikes. Ursula laughed wickedly. "So much for true love!" As Ursula was just about to finish Ariel, Eric steered the broken ship straight into her. She was impaled by the sharp splinter, the wood slicing into her large body. She screamed in agony and clutched at the wood, her life slowly bleeding away before her eyes. After a few moments of screaming and struggling, she finally died most horribly. With her power gone, the waters became calm again. The whirlpool vanished and ships returned to their watery graves. In the water below, the trident fell back to Triton and everything reverted back to normal, even all those others who had been lost to Ursula long ago.
Eric swam the long distance back to the island where he made his home and collapsed on the shore, breathing hard and worrying about Ariel. What had happened to his girl?/pre
"Ariel! Ariel, wake up! Wake up! I just heard the news. Congratulations, kiddo, we did it!"
Sebastian looked at him like he had lost it. "What is this idiot babbling about?"
"Right - as if you two didn't know, uh? The whole town's buzzin' about the prince gettin' himself hitched this afternoon! You know, he's getting married! You silly sidewalker! I just wanted to wish you luck. I'll catch you later, I wouldn't miss it!" Ariel brightened and ran downstairs, her heart leaping with joy and overwhelming love. Her soul was soaring as she madly ran her fingers through her red hair and raced down the corridor.
Eric was going to marry her!
It felt as if her heart was going to burst with joy right then! She was barely conscience of her surroundings until she nearly skidded over the stairs. The scene in front stopped her dead in her tracks. Eric was standing with another woman - a beautiful woman, with dark brown hair and a pale face - and her hand was in his.
She was plunged right out of her euphoria so fast she felt a little light headed. She shrank behind a stone column – luckily no one had seen her – and leaned heavily for support.
Faintly she listened to the drifting bits of the conversation.
"Well, uh - err, Eric. I-it appears that I was mistaken. This mystery maiden of yours does - in fact exist. And - and she is lovely. Congratulations, my dear," Grims was saying, a little bemused but kind as always.
Eric stood ramrod straight with a distant look in his eyes. To Ariel, it seemed like he wasn't all there but she just passed it off with a shake of her head. "We wish to be married as soon as possible."
Eric NO!
Grimsby hesitated. "Oh, yes - of course, Eric, but, er - but these things do take time, you know. . . ."
Eric didn't take no for an answer. "This afternoon, Grimsby. The wedding ship departs at sunset."
Grimsby gave out a tired sigh. "Oh, oh - very well, Eric - as you wish."
Ariel covered her mouth with her hand, hardly able to believe what she was hearing. She wanted to scream out to him but no sound came from her lips. She couldn't breathe; her heart was ripping apart in her chest.
Eric couldn't marry her! He couldn't love her!
Scalding tears pricked her eyes as she stood there, silently falling apart. Unable to listen to another word nor stop the tears, she covered her face with her hands and blindly ran back to her room. There she flung herself onto her bed, digging her fingers into the sheets so hard that they cramped. She sobbed soundlessly into the pillows wishing that, some how; she had managed to tell him that she loved him. But now it was too late…
It was over./pre
pre style="word-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"Late that afternoon, as the wedding ship started to leave, Ariel sat on a pier, watching Eric slip farther and farther away from her, crying bitterly as Sebastian and Flounder looked on with heartbroken expressions.
Scuttle was off flying around and humming to himself as he flapped around the ship containing the future newlyweds on it.
"What a lovely little bride I'll make, my dear I'll look divine Things are working out according to my ultimate design. Soon I'll have that little mermaid and the ocean will be mine!" the woman who was marrying Eric said to her reflection. Scuttle had heard her go by the name of Vanessa by one of the maids as he passed by.
Seeing the real woman, Ursula, in the mirror, the bird stopped flying immediately and almost hit the ship's wall. "The sea witch! Oh no . . . She's- I gotta. . ." He ran into side of ship the hurriedly flew off to find Ariel. "Ariel! Ariel! Ariel. I was flying, I wa - of course I was flying - An' - I s- I saw that the watch - the witch was watchin' a mirror, and she was singin' with a stolen set o' pipes! Do you hear what I'm tellin' you? THE PRINCE IS MARRYING THE SEA WITCH IN DISGUISE!"
Ariel leapt to her feet, things falling into place in an instant. Eric was in danger, and no one else had any idea but her. She had to stop him from making his vow.
Sebastian was a little skeptical. "Are you sure about this?"
"Have I ever been wrong? I mean when it's important!"
"What are we gonna do!?" Ariel looked to the sea and heard Ursula's voice in her head as the sun dropped.
". . . Before the sun sets on the third day. . . ." She still had time...but not much of it.
Ariel jumped into the water but couldn't swim well. Sebastian quickly sent down some barrels before she drowned.
"Ariel, grab on to that. Flounder, get her to that boat as fast as your fins can carry you!"
Flounder nodded. "I'll try."
"I've gotta get to the sea king. He must know about this."
"What - What about me? What about ME?" Scuttle asked.
Sebastian paused. "You - find a way to STALL THAT WEDDING!"
Scuttle nodded and took off. "Stall the wedding. Wh- what am I - what - that's it!" He flew off to rally the animals and fish. "Move it, let's go, we got an emergency here!"
On the ship, the wedding was in progress. Max growled at Vanessa as she moved down the isle, sensing something wrong with her, but she kicked him right in the face with her heeled show, silencing him as he scurried away, yelping.
"Dearly beloved . . ." a priest began. Flounder was still pulling Ariel toward the ship. "Don't worry Ariel. ugh - we - we're gonna make it. We're almost there."
"Yes, um, do you Eric, take Vanessa, to be your lawfully wedded wife, for as long as you both shall live?" the priest continued back onboard.
Eric, completely under Ursula's spell, gazed forward blankly and spoke without emotion. "I do."
"Eh, and do you . . ." Birds and animals swooped in for attack, coming out of nowhere and causing great chaos.
Scuttle had arrived.
" . . . then by the power inves-"
Before the priest could finish, Vanessa was swarmed by creatures.
"Get away from me you slimy little- Oh, why you little-" In the struggle, the shell holding Ariel's voice inside was ripped from Vanessa's neck and shattered on the deck of the ship. As Ariel climbed onboard, the light of her voice surrounded her and as she opened her mouth to sing, her voice returned to her and she let out a crystal clear melody that came from her own throat.
Eric came out of the spell as she sang.
Eric shook his head, dazed and confused. He looked at the beautiful girl he had come to know and love and smiled slightly, her voice making his heart leap.
His girl had been with him all along…
"Ariel?"
"Eric," she said, smiling lovingly.
"You - you can talk. You're the one," he said, taking her in his arms.
Vanessa looked at him furiously. "Eric, get away from her!"
Eric irnored her and pressed his forehead against the mermaid's. "It - it was you all the time."
"Oh, Eric, I - I wanted to tell you..."
He bent his head and his lips were just about to touch hers when suddenly, her body stiffened and a blinking pain seared through her. In a matter of seconds, she slid from Eric's arms and crumbled to the deck floor, a mermaid again.
"You're too late! You're too late! So long, loverboy," Ursula cackled as he looked at Ariel in shock.
"Ariel!" He shouted after her as Ursula and Ariel went overboard.
He had lost her once...he wasn't this time.
Ursula sneered at her as she was drug back into the depths of her home. "Poor little princess - it's not you I'm after. I've a much bigger fish to -"
Triton suddenly appeared and Ariel breathed a sigh of relief. "Ursula, stop!"
"Why, King Triton! Ha ha ha - How ARE you?"
"Let her go."
"Not a chance, Triton! She's mine now. We made a deal."
Ariel felt her heart break as a tear slid from her eye. "Daddy, I'm sorry! I - I - I didn't mean to. I didn't know -"
Triton attacked the contract with a fierce blast from his trident, to no avail.
Ursula was amused. "You see? The contract's legal, binding and completely unbreakable - even for YOU. Of course, I always was a girl with an eye for a bargain. The daughter of the great sea king is a very precious commodity. But - I might be willing to make an exchange for someone even better. . . ."
Up above, Eric was hurriedly rowing away from the ship.
Grimsby called after him, worried. "Eric! What are you doing?"
"Grim, I lost her once. I'm not going to lose her again."
Back under the water, Ursula and Triton were arguing still.
"Now! Do we have a deal?" After a long moment, Triton looked at Ariel, gave in, and signed the contract. "Ha! It's done then," Ursula cried out, victorious.
Ariel was released and Triton in an instant became withered as Ursula laughed viciously.
"No . . . Oh, No!" Ariel cried, looking at her father's captured soul. She felt tears pring to her eyes. She had done this.
Sebastian came over, in a state of shock. "Oh, your majesty . . ."
"Daddy? . . ."
Ursula picked up his crown. The sight of someone else wearing it instead of her father made her snap. "At last, it's mine. Ho, Ho . . ."
"You - You monster!"
She flew at the witch, hitting and tearing at the woman's hair with all her might.
"Don't fool with me you little brat! Contract or no- AAAAHH!" She was suddenly hit with a harpoon that came out of nowhere, stopping the witch from blasting Ariel with the trident.
Ariel gasped and looked up, her heart leaping to see it had been thrown by Eric. Her joy at seeing him quickly vanished when Ursula spotted him as well. "Why you little troll!"
"Eric! Eric look out!"
"After him!" She hissed at Flotsam and Jetsam flew in for the attack as Eric madly swam away.
"Come on! . . ." Sebastian said.
"Say goodbye to your sweetheart..." No!
Ariel slammed into her and made her miss Eric and blast Flotsam and Jetsam instead, turning them into dust. Ursula gasped, horrified, and held out her hands to catch their falling remains. "Babies! My poor, little poopsies!"
Anger flaring through her, she turned her gaze on the mermaid and her prince, swimming to the boat on the surface. Her eyes bloodshot and crazed, she started cackling madly. "Eric, you've got to get away from here," Ariel said to the prince as he pulled her up into his boat, holding her tightly against him.
"No, I won't leave you."
Ursula sprang from the water, taking them up with her now very large head. "You pitiful, insignificant, fool!"
"Look out!" Eric cried as they jumped back into the water.
"Now I am the ruler of all the ocean! The waves obey my every whim! The sea and all its spoils bow to my power!" She wrecked havoc, created a whirlpool and raised some shipwrecks.
"ERIC!" Ariel screamed as he got on board one of the ships as Ariel fell to the bottom of the whirlpool. Ursula attempted to blast her there where she was trapped. All the little mermaid could do was dodge the strikes. Ursula laughed wickedly. "So much for true love!" As Ursula was just about to finish Ariel, Eric steered the broken ship straight into her. She was impaled by the sharp splinter, the wood slicing into her large body. She screamed in agony and clutched at the wood, her life slowly bleeding away before her eyes. After a few moments of screaming and struggling, she finally died most horribly. With her power gone, the waters became calm again. The whirlpool vanished and ships returned to their watery graves. In the water below, the trident fell back to Triton and everything reverted back to normal, even all those others who had been lost to Ursula long ago.
Eric swam the long distance back to the island where he made his home and collapsed on the shore, breathing hard and worrying about Ariel. What had happened to his girl?/pre