Ariel awoke on day one, washed up on the beach like an amusing joke of a parallel. She laughed, stretched, and then laughed, for she had wiggled her toes so naturally that she had almost forgotten they were new to her.

"Ha-ha!" she sat up, beaming. Running her hands up and down her legs, she admired them. They were hers! Maybe for a week, but hers! And though the Sea Witch had spoken of pain, she felt none. A little bit of sand in her eyes, but nothing extraordinary.

She was in the same nightgown she had worn last night, and it was still damp and salty. She rolled to her hip and pushed herself up, crying out and falling to the ground as she realized what the Sea Witch truly meant. Bolts of lightning staggered through her legs, and the itchy bits of sand had turned to tiny daggers, prodding every inch of skin she walked on.

"Owwwww." She moaned, falling back onto the sand. She ran both her hands up her face and into her hair. She would have this pain for seven days.

So she'd better get used to it! She pushed herself up into a standing position, wobbling, wincing, and began to plod along, back to the castle. The back doors were locked, of course, so she had to go all the way back around and slip in through the window she had only just escaped from. She switched nightgowns and ran a brush through her hair, smiling a little at how it kept puffing back up. Her hair had only been fully dry three days– w ell, now four - in her life. It was a nice thing to have, even if she felt like her feet were about to burst.

She was too excited, too anxious, to actually go back to sleep, and settled instead for lying in bed and waiting until it seemed an appropriate time to be up and around the castle. The time was decided for her, around six 'o clock in the morning, when she heard a faint knocking at the door.

"Breakfast is being served in about half an hour, dearie." Ariel recognized the voice of Carlotta. "We'll set a place for you, but if you don't come, I'll bring you a tray about an hour after. Lord knows you need your sleep."

"No, no! I'm coming!" Ariel called through the door. "I'll just get dressed!"

"Alrighty, do you need help, love?"

"No, I'll see you soon!" Ariel smiled and rushed to her closet. It had been filled shortly after she had arrived, Eric's orders. Dozens of dresses, shifts, socks; she could live the rest of her life out of that closet alone! She pulled on a pink dress, and, to be honest, didn't remember the order of all the garments Carlotta had pulled over her yesterday, so she took her best guesses. Maybe I should've asked for help.

She slipped on the heels, and her feet were affected just by the touch of the shoe alone. She winched, and knew she had to hide this, too. If Eric noticed her pain, he'd ask to the cause, which she couldn't share, or the remedy, which she hoped he'd figure out. Another secret, and she'd have to concoct another lie, but she knew the truth would be told. Eventually. When the time was right.

She tottered awkwardly out into the dining hall, pausing in the doorway and smiling.

"Ariel!" Eric exclaimed. "Good, I was hoping you'd join us."

Ariel walked to the table, trying her best to be graceful, and seem happy.

"Here, let me get that." Eric rose and grabbed her chair for her. Ariel felt instantly better once she was off her feet, and the pain subsided in ebbing ripples.

…

Eric didn't know why he felt a pang of relief when Ariel showed up, he never truly doubted that she wouldn't. Maybe he did. Who knows. But his relief was quickly overtaken by joy, he had been starved of her for three years, and he fully intended to drink her in and consume her. And the best way to do this, of course, would be to keep her in his sight; to spend time with her.

Which is why he proposed his idea so early on in breakfast, keeping it inside his head seemed almost like he was pushing her out again.

"Would you like to go to town?" he cleared his throat. Had his voice sounded weird? "I mean, I don't know if you've ever been around-around the kingdom, but it's very lovely and I'd like to show it to you, I mean, if you want to see."

"Yes, that'd be wonderful!" Ariel searched for the words she needed. "Can we take one of those, uh, with the horses –"

"A carriage?" Eric finished.

"Yes!"

"You've never been in one?" Cora asked.

"Not like the ones here!" Ariel exclaimed truthfully. There weren't a lot of seahorses on land.

"Well, then of course!" Eric smiled. He turned to his right. "Cora, which carriage would you like?"

"Oh, I don't think I'm coming."

"Oh?" Eric furrowed his brow.

Ariel felt a small pang of relief. His sister was a lovely woman, and very sweet to speak to, but if all she ever got in her life was seven days with Eric, she wanted to spend them alone.

"I have a lot of letters to write, and such. I've been putting them off and really need to do it."

"Oh, well if you're sure." Eric nodded. He turned back to Ariel, and smiled. "Well, breakfast is pretty much done. Would you like to go now?"

Ariel jumped a little getting up from her seat and Eric laughed at this. You'd think she had never seen a town before with her excitement. She reached out a hand to him and he took it, and the two ran out from the castle, to the carriages, and to town.

…

Cora went out to her gardens, took a shuttering breath, and leaned against a fruit tree. She wished she could be a fly on the wall, a bird in the air, a person with the ability to observe exactly what was going to happen on that carriage ride. She wasn't entirely sure, and that scared her.

He had spent, what, a day with that girl? Already he was attached to her in a way she had never seen! Glowing when she was there, stagnating when she was not. She was blowing it all out of proportion, she was sure, but, still! There was something there. Any fool could notice that.

Which is precisely why she had to send them out together. If she was sure of anything in Eric, it was that he was an honest man. Should he make any sort of…transgression, she knew he would tell her, and tell her immediately. And then she would know that the problem was not of her imagination. Should he come back and tell them of vendors they spoke to, and what they had for lunch, then she would know that this Ariel was no threat, and merely a lively girl who would stay with them for a few weeks, or, hopefully, less. If only she had a place to return to.

Cora thought for a second, of shelters and people who supported those searching for homes, but she quickly pushed these thoughts out of her mind. Don't be cruel, Cora. She's a foundling, and you should show her kindness. She will not overstay her welcome.

Cora exhaled and slid down the tree. Marriage wasn't supposed to be like this! She had dreamed of love and marriage since she was but a child, and though her perceptions and ideas had changed as she had grown, there were constants, the most prevailing one being that she would always be happy.

And she was content with Eric, and she did love him. She could not say she was ever mistreated or forgotten, but it just wasn't…what she had in mind. It's not like they never had anything together, she was so deeply in love with him when he first came, renewed when she came to visit him a second time, and when she returned the third to marry him officially. Something had just changed, shifted, been lost.

So she would find it. Because the love she felt for Eric when he first looked into her eyes was so overwhelming, she forgot every other boy that had ever heard her. Because he came back to her after he left, and she appreciated him so much more. Because he was the only boy, save for Will, that had ever been in her garden.

She would fix this, for herself, for Eric, for her marriage.

…

Ariel threw her head back and laughed, a gorgeous peal, as she snapped the reins and the horses took off faster. Eric laughed as well, lest he should scream out, for she was going so fast and dear God, had she never driven horses before? But that didn't matter, because she was having a great deal of fun, and there was only, like, a 50% chance they'd get maimed.

But they eventually arrived in town, and, wow she somehow had drawn more energy in, from the sun and the chatter, and the very universe around them, because she was bursting with questions and exclamations, dragging Eric around because he just couldn't keep up.

She was infectious, and Eric tried his hardest to match her wit and energy, but settled for just interacting with it. It was so much better than doing without.

"Eric!" she exclaimed, picking up a wine opener. "I have so many of these! More than 20, uh, 24! I think. Flounder m-" she cut off there. "Look!"

"Oh, do you like wine? We've got a cellar in the castle that has some great stuff, maybe after dinner I can show it to you."

"What's wine?"

Eric laughed. "Why do you have so many corkscrews if you don't drink wine?"

"That doesn't make any sense." She stepped closer to him, almost touching, and Eric held his breath without realizing it. "Here." She twisted it up in his hair like a curler. "Perfect! You'll need like nine more."

The shop owner grumbled, but it was the prince, and his guest, so he said nothing. Eric shot the man an I'm sorry, but don't spoil her fun look, and promised to buy the boxful.

…

"Your town is so gorgeous!" Ariel exclaimed, falling back into her seat.

Eric had the reins this time, so the ride was steadier and less thrill-seeking. "Thanks!" he smiled, looking over at her. "I'm pretty proud of it." He jerked his chin at the bag of purchases sitting in her lap. "Which one's your favorite?"

"Yes." Ariel giggled, hugging it closer. She then began rummaging through, pulling out the box of corkscrews, a pair of dancing shoes, a necklace with a pretty shell on it, a music box, a pair of earrings, a shawl, a bouquet of lavender and two books. "Oh, I can't choose. All of them. Thank you!"

She reached over and squeezed his forearm to thank him, and Eric slid his arm back just enough to grab her hand. Ariel made eye contact with him and smiled.

"Today's just been so wonderful." She cooed. "I don't want it to end."

"It doesn't have to." Eric thought quickly. "It's already past dinner, so we've got nothing to be on time for."

"Poseidon knows I've never been timely anyway." Ariel smirked, squeezing his hand.

Eric laughed, though he felt like she was withholding something. "I know the perfect place. But it's a surprise."

"Perfect!" Ariel exclaimed, leaning against his shoulder, as the horses trotted them to somewhere only Eric knew.

They arrived some 20-odd minutes later, to a mossy bank of a lake, surrounded by trees and shrubbery.

"Why, it looks like something out of a fairy tale!" Ariel pulled Eric out of the carriage, and he came about to her. She hopped down to the ground and winced, crying out softly.

"Are you okay?"

"Uh, landed wrong. I'm fine." She insisted, and Eric nodded.

"Here, there's more."

"More?" Ariel smiled again, and for the first time all day, Eric got to lead her out.

There was a little rowboat docked on the side of the lake, oars placed inside. "Do you want to go out?"

"Yes! Yes! Of course!" Ariel slid gently into the boat, more tenderly than she had moved all day.

Eric pushed the boat out with her in it, then waded in a few steps in order to hop in himself. Grabbing the oars, he pulled them out of the shallows and around the waters.

"Thank you so much for today. It was….everything." she sighed dreamily.

Thanking me? "Thank you." Eric insisted, chuckling a little. "That was the most fun I've had in town. Ever."

"Really?"

"I wouldn't say it if it weren't true." Eric promised, pulling the oars in and letting them drift.

"I know." Ariel nodded solemnly, rolling her shoulders forward.

The stars were just beginning to peak out, as the sun had gone down only moments earlier. Eric could hear frogs and crickets all around them, as well as the water lapping at the shores they had only just left. Lightning bugs played among the leaves of the trees that hung over them, and Ariel was so close to him that he could smell the salt in her hair and the lavender he had bought her earlier that day. He could've kissed her, he would've kissed her, but he had a wife back home who had already dined without him that night.

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