Ariel stared dazedly at her cell door…or was it a bedroom door? Ever since…something…her head had been in a fog, and she'd spent the last few hours at least drifting in and out of a marvelous dream.
Ellian, her Ellian, was in it. He'd rescued her from a terrifyingly dark place. Then, in a matter of hours…or moments, she couldn't remember, he had taken her to this safe little room with its steel-frame bed, and firm, windowless walls.
"Stay here, my little princess," he'd said to her, once she'd been safely stowed away from the incomprehensible loud noises and crowds that swarmed the palace doors. "Tonight the eclipse passes, and your heart will finally be settled come morning. Then, we will wed, and leave to our kingdom before the day is out."
She did hope he was right. Her heart was giving off longing, aching pains that she didn't understand. Curled up on the stiff cot, she tried and failed to place the feeling, and eventually settled on the thought that Ellian knew better than she, and if the feelings were due to leave her in the morning, she might as well simply wait it out.
A faint green light lit her space letting her see the tray of flat salt biscuits that had been brought a while ago. She had never been able to stomach the hard, tasteless things, but it had so kind of her Ellian to have thought of her, she'd tried anyway. Tried and failed. Even underwater, the things were too hard to be eaten by anything but a manta.
Oh, how good Ellian was to her!
Ellian might be irritable to those who got in his way, but he represented a clear path to her goals. His viciousness was actually a necessity. She saw that now. It was even better that if he was willing to be hard on the people around them, then she wouldn't have to be. She remembered her father had said that Ellian's father was just like him as a young eel, and had then grown into one of the best of the rulers in the ocean. The eel people were happy, and if a little behind the times, well-provided for, protected. It was everything she had ever wanted, no?
Bubbling up slowly in her head, as though through sludge, the memory of her father ached at her heart. Ellian had brought her the news of her father's death.
Her fault, he had said….her fault.
Though something nagged at her that the grave news wasn't all that was paining her, she couldn't think what else it could be—or should have to be. The death of her father hurt her like an aching, stabbing wound.
No, worse, she thought. I'd rather have taken the stab wound.
It was in an awful state of muddled grief that she spent the day, until she'd at last cried herself to sleep.
When she opened her eyes again, the gentle green light that permeated her cell through the gratings in the ceiling, and a nearly invisible porthole that her slow mind hadn't picked up on in the day, had turned to a dull gray, and the piercing glimmer of a full moon shone through it.
That time, her dreams hadn't been permeated by Ellian, but by Joe.
It was funny, she thought distantly, that both of them had had occasion to subvert her will in the last few days, but Ellian's aim had been to force her into the worst of situations, while Joe had managed to use it to care for her. It was the first time in her life that she was so often, so aggressively, and deliberately disobeyed, but that was also because of her place in a hierarchy she'd never completely understood, and Joe didn't belong to that at all. With another sad pang, she realized, she would never see him again. He might be strong, but he wouldn't be able to fight his way through a whole palace to get to her, and even if he did, she wouldn't be in any mental state to recognize him.
As wakefulness seeped through her fins, the reality of the impending wedding pulsed through her, but unlike in days past, she found that she could not summon the energy to care. Her whole body was lethargic, and though the water was plentiful around ehr gills, she felt as though she had been slowly suffocating. The water about her was certainly stale enough, and she couldn't detect a movement or current in the whole room. With a weak flip of her tail, she realized she hardly had the strength to move—not that she would have wanted to.
Though it was nighttime, the nearness of the eclipse meant that her head was the least clear of all those that had preceded it since the cursed potion. At least, though, with the moonlight streaming in, Ariel's head was able to recognize that fact. She didn't know how long she had left until any clarity the light afforded would vanish forever. It was impossible to tell exactly how close the eclipse was, but considering the strength of the beams drifting in, she didn't have long.
It was lying there, trying to cement in what memories of clarity she had, that the clattering and voices reached her from the hallway. Ellian's unmistakeable voice boomed out from the hallway, arguing with her posted guards.
"I don't care if I ordered you not to let anyone in; I'm not anyone," he was huffing.
"But Your Highness—"
"But nothing. I'm here to see my bride."
"Yes, Your Highness—"
"Then stand aside."
There was a scuffling of locks being undone, and the sound of the bolt outside her cramped room being slid open.
Ellian swam in with an arrogant flip of his hideous orange hair, and she wondered how in Poseidon's blue oceans she could ever have found it attractive even if she was cursed.
"Ah, Ariel, my bride! The eclipse is but an hour away. Surely you must be excited. Our nuptials begin at first light, after all," he exclaimed, sauntering in with a prissy strut. Ariel just caught a glimpse of her father's guards, posted outside the door. She felt only slightly more kindly toward them when their expressions betrayed just as much disgust as her own over the cringe-worthy display. Unfortunately, they seemed to be under the impression that her curse would be broken after the eclipse, and not set, so begging them to be released from Ellian's wretched attempts at wooing was moot.
She didn't dignify his exclamations with an answer, remaining quiet until the heavy cell door swung shut.
"I wasn't aware my palace had cells like this," she said instead, conversationally. "So how did you?"
"What, our little Ariel doesn't know her way around her own palace? Or perhaps…. You've suspected at last that I haven't been working alone. So very clever."
"What do you want, Ellian?" she sighed, tiredly. The least he could afford her was a decent night's sleep before she signed her life away.
"To get you out of here. To salvage what's left of this mess."
Ariel glanced up in surprise. Ellian actually sounded sincere. He sounded… entirely unlike himself. In fact, even his voice wasn't his own.
Before her eyes, his strutty posture softened into something much more naturally confident, and the water around him shimmered as his skin, his tail, and even his awful broken harpoon lost their color. The texture of Ellian's spotted yellow tail revealed itself to be eight, cleverly colored tentacles. His facial features had merely been contoured to hide the much longer, sharper frame of Joe's face. The awful orange hair melted away into Joe's long, silvery coloring.
With considerable effort, she pushed herself up from the groaning cot's frame, it's hinges and springs giving an irritating screech.
"Thank Poseidon. Joe. How did you get out? I thought…" She didn't know what she'd thought. That Joe had been locked away? That he'd been left in the depths, too far away to ever see again. Ellian certainly hadn't been forthcoming with information during the time she'd been lucid, and afterwards…she hadn't been herself enough to remember.
"What did they do to you?" Joe held out his hands, far less reluctant to help her up than he'd once been. She smiled faintly at the change. It seemed her sluggish movements hadn't escaped him.
She sighed again, the effort producing far fewer bubbles than it should have. "The water in here is so deoxygenated I can barely move."
"You need ink. It'll be out of your system, now," he said, with such business-like familiarity, it made her heart ache.
"Not right now." She shook her head, the weight of it far heavier than usual on her shoulders. It took the force of all her remaining pride not to let her forehead simply fall into Joe. "The water in here is so stagnant, it'd be noticed. Wait. They. And you said Ellian hadn't been working alone?"
It was more of a statement than a question. Ellian wouldn't have been able to make the palace roil like this, and it was unlike Sebastian to have let the people get so aggressive. "I'd suspected…"
"King Ezra." An annoyed grimace passed Joe's lips, and, feeling her efforts to stay upright, he shifted his hands around her back to better hold her up. Lethargic as she was, she didn't have the words to protest. "He has the trident and he assured me your father's death wasn't an accident."
"He told you?"
"His magic is having a hard time controlling the trident because it was trying to protect him for his own for at least a few months."
"How—"
"I'm a little more practiced at seeing the lines than you are, Ariel."
She smiled into his shoulder, though she didn't know why. The news that her father was murdered… was actually a slight relief. It was a relief! Having Joe here, that was a relief, too. She might lose her head, but at least her last moments of clarity would be tolerable.
"I can get you out of here, but you're going to need to be able to swim for that."
"Yes?" she asked breathlessly. "Yes—no. No, Joe. If they find the ink in here, they'll know you were here. You can't get me out of the palace without—" she had to pause for breathe. "—Without half the palace chasing after us."
Joe smirked. "I'm a lot faster than half the palace, if you recall—and we will have help this time. Adin is waiting for us. I'll find some way to break this thing, Ariel, but we need more time than we have tonight."
Against her will, she felt her forehead scrunch up at the last memory of that particular merman. "Adin?"
"Is less of a traitor than we'd thought….but it looks like he will be needing a little assistance, too."
Seeing Joe's dark look over the subject, Ariel chose not to question further. For now.
She sighed. "I'd rather spend my last few moments of clarity in peace."
For a moment, he looked as though he was going to insist that that was a terrible idea, but after a beat of deliberation, quirked her the slightest nod. Joe strengthened his hold on her, and pulled back enough to see her. WIth an intense stare, he seemed to deliberate something.
"You won't be able to have all of it… but perhaps some. Ariel, you'll want your last few minutes with your own head with actual clarity, then, and for that, you need ink. Try to catch as much as you can."
Joe steadied her with one arm around her waist, letting his tentacles curl about her tail in a way that made her feel safe and supported. The other hand held har jaw level with his own as he gently blew a small amount of ink for her to breathe.
Just like before, its effects were immediate, soothing her lungs, and giving her sluggish mind a feeling of openness and control she'd been trying to regain since she'd woken up. That familiar taste was an anchor in her disorientation, and she chased it. Leaning into the feeling of clarity, and the sweetness of the ink on her tongue, she inhaled deeper, just a bit too far, until her mouth brushed against his as brief as a sigh.
This close, she felt his breath stop. Every bit of him had gone rigid, as if frozen under some spell.
"I—ah." Ariel took a shaky breath, trying to wriggle back a bit. "Did you mean for that to—I mean, I'm so sorry, I—"
Joe closed the rest of the distance between them in another of his impossibly swift movements, fingers shifting from her jaw to her hair. If her kiss had been a question, then his was an answer, emphatic and resounding. His pulse hammered under her fingertips, and hers matched it in her ears—and she didn't even have three hearts. Pulling into him, she felt her head spinning despite the new clarity he had gifted her.
She shuddered, glad when he didn't let her go. Something black and sticky was pulling away from her mind, untangling itself from where it had rooted itself.
Ariel started back with a gasp.
Lilac eyes searching her face, she shook her head, spluttering.
"It's not you, it's not—the curse is gone. I felt it."
He raised a silvery brow disbelievingly, in a gesture so stern, so familiar, that she found herself laughing. She couldn't stop it. She threw her arms around him again, this time burying her smile in his neck. Her head was clear in a way that it hadn't since that fateful ball with Prince Snake-in-the-Kelp, and she knew—she knew—that the curse and all of its effects were gone.
"Wait until after the eclipse and I'll prove it, Joe."
"Alright…even so, we do need to get going. I believe you, but on the chance—even so, it will be a lot easier to sneak you out of the palace if you're cooperating."
She shook her head violently, shoving herself back enough to see his face again.
"I can't leave."
The surprise he'd worn after their kiss turned just as quickly into vehemence.
"You're going to be forced into this marriage, cursed or not, Ariel," he warned, with a jerk of his chin toward the door. "Now, you at least have a chance to get out before it happens and you're bound into it."
"And go where?" she rebutted. "The kingdom of the Depths? A place whose secret I helped to out to the future ruler of a kingdom who hates it?" While her father had been alive, Ariel would have taken Joe's offer in an instant. Now; however, the kingdom had changed. She had changed. Ariel felt in every vein of her being what she needed to do. "I have to stay, Joe. I can take back Atlantis. You know Ezra doesn't have a full claim while I'm unbound."
"Right…the last unbound princess. All the others abdicated or married…" Joe grumbled—or at least she chose to hear it as a grumble. It was probably meant to be growling.
He was certainly disapproving of the idea, but for now, he wasn't fighting her.
"I won't go, Joe."
After a glance at her face, he heaved a sigh—one that sounded bone-deep in long-suffering. "I know you won't. Well, then."
"I'll need your help, if you're willing to give it."
He eyed her warily.
"The eclipse is starting," he all but whispered.
Together, they waited. The darkness seeping over the cell only lasted a few minutes, and Ariel couldn't help but think that there was so much to-do over something so brief. So innocuous. After a brief fading of the light, it came and went, and a jubilant, euphorious feeling spread through her as she realized her mind had felt no change.
"Well?" Joe asked cautiously, as though he expected her to start hurling insults at him at any moment. She only smiled, and put her forehead against his.
"You know what this means, yes?"
He swallowed hard. "I'm not sure I'd have believed it otherwise."
"Will you help me, Joe?"
He let himself smile, a sight that calmed her just as much as a whole bottle of cecaelian ink to the lungs.
"I did already promise it, if you remember."
"I do."
Ariel started to lean into him again, willing her fins to carry her back into him, but he held her back, his gaze snapping to the door.
"Why—" she said, hurt.
"Ssht!" he hissed quietly. "Listen!"
His sensitive ears had picked up what hers didn't, moments before he came into range.
"Don't just swim in place! Let me pass, you sodding fools! Can't you see I've returned to check on my bride?"
There was a low, seething hiss coming from Joe's chest that she'd never have heard if she hadn't been pressed right up against it. With a flush, Ariel wondered how many other things like that that she'd missed about him.
"We, ah, weren't you just in there, Prince Ellian?" one of the guards outside her door's hallway stammered.
"Of course I was!" Ellian snapped churlishly. "And now I'm back. Is that so hard to comprehend? Stand aside!"
"But…but my prince—" said the other guard stupidly. "But you're still in there!"
Against her better judgment, Ariel fought back a giggle. Quickly, she stuffed her face onto Joe's shoulder to stifle the noise.
"I realize it's been a long few days, but do tell me," Ellian was saying in a voice full of false regality, "Does it look like I'm still in there?"
There were then sounds of shoving and grunts of protest.
"Don't look at me," Joe warned her under the noise of the guards arguing. "Act."
Joe had her back on her cot in less than a second, somehow managing to set her down lightly enough to avoid the horrible screeching she'd wrangled from it upon his entrance. Then, he darted away from her to the opposite end of the room and seized up the stony lance he'd entered with. Once it touched his skin, he camouflaged himself to look just like a murky, green corner of it. It was impressive.
Knowing he was there, she could just make out his outline, but it wasn't easy.
The sounds of shoving and grunting intensified, and the sound of a key turning forcibly in the lock of her cell door snapped in her ears.
The real Ellian swam in.
Ariel did her best to gaze at him blearily from the cot, forcing a dreamy smile onto her lips.
It must have worked, because Ellian clapped delightedly at the sight of her.
"My, my! Seems your palace witches were right. Special water does calm you down, though it is terribly stuffy in here. Not to worry, my love! This is the only night you will have to endure this sort of thing. Tomorrow, we embark on the current to wedded bliss!"
Ariel did her best to sound as gasping as before. "Yes, my—my prince. Very exciting."
He made to kiss her hand, but she stayed on her cot instead of rising to meet him, and it seemed the effort of gallantry was too much for him to muster. He settled for an arrogant strut in the small space, instead.
"So nice and peaceful in here, beloved. I almost envy you. Your kingdom has experienced a bit of an uprising since our departure. I only just got you in here safely, you know."
"I…would expect nothing less," she said, although whether her answer had any effect on him was unclear.
"Then the eclipse did work," he muttered, eying her with a slimy leer. She had to fight to keep her fins from curling up beneath her, remembering that she was supposed to not have the energy, or the air, to move. "So promising…."
Ellian was too close for comfort. Ariel couldn't help a panicked glance toward Joe's corner, and just as quickly forced her attention away.
"Uprising, my prince?" she asked, hoping to distract him from whatever lurid gutter his mind had offed itself into.
It worked.
"Oh, nothing too pressing, and certainly no longer your problem, love, is that not lovely? Although, it would be poor form to leave my bride's kingdom in this sort of state. I've sent half my men to fetch a few of my own soldiers. After all, yours seem to be unable to control their own riots. Never let it be said that we Aegeans aren't willing to lend a helping fin!" Ellian laughed unattractively until he noticed Ariel's carefully blank expression. "What, not impressed by your husband?"
"Hm?" Ariel smiled dreamily, as though she barely understood him. The situation was precarious, but perhaps not as unpleasant as it could be if she could have some recompense "Oh yes, she sighed. "Very impressed."
Ariel was careful to punctuate every soluble with a gasp for air. If a little dramatic, it did the trick.
"Perhaps I overdid it on the water." Ellian would have had to be blind to miss it. "Ah well. You only have to make it through the wedding come morning…I only wanted to check on you, my bride. You'll be back to your vivacious self tomorrow, or so I'm told. And ready to bestow it all on me."
Then, with an awful return of his sickening leer, Ellian left as quickly as he came.
Joe melted out of the corner and into his own coloring almost before the door could shut.
"I'd really like to kill him," he snarled after him, only just managing to keep his voice down.
"I wouldn't stop you," Ariel breathed, surprising herself. "After what he did to Krill—"
"He's fine."
She started up from the creaking cot. "You saw him?"
"He kept Ezra from executing me."
Bile threatened to take her throat, and she swallowed nervously. "There was a lot about Ezra that I didn't know."
Joe extended a hand to help right her, although she suspected he did it to calm her, just as much as he might have been proving, however slightly, his superiority to Ellian.
"You, and many others twice your age. I do wonder how he's been managing it…" Joe trailed off… "But that doesn't matter as much, now. If you want to stay with the kingdom, you'd better have a plan, Ariel."
Ariel swallowed again, her throat once more oddly salty. "I do. Of sorts."
He nodded, surprising her once more that he wasn't trying to dissuade her.
She laid out her plan along with everything she knew about the morning's proceedings overheard from the guards and Ellian in his earlier visit. Joe nodded at intervals, looking more and more grave throughout.
"It may work, Ariel," he said at last. "Although—and I'm not trying to prevent you from this—what will you do if it doesn't?"
"If this doesn't work, I'll likely be dead." Ariel tried to laugh it off, but Joe only glared.
"This is serious, Ariel."
"Yes, I know. Dead. But I do think this will work, Joe, or I wouldn't propose it. Plus, I'm fully confident that before I'm gruesomely murdered, you and Krill will whisk me off somewhere discreet, and I can send in a letter of abdication like Sephina."
Joe shook his head, and Ariel was once more surprised by exactly how he seemed to know off-hand things that had taken her years to memorize. "You won't live a life unhunted if you choose to go through with this. It will never be the same again. If you're going to abdicate—if you suspect Ezra would even consider that sort of thing now—this is the only time. We're only going to get one chance at this, Ariel. You have to be sure."
Ariel paused, but not to ensure whether she was committed. She went over the plan in her head one more time. It was a gamble, but certainly not a bad one. Considering the stakes, she couldn't help but not. Her people were worth the risk, if she could get them to consent truly to be hers.
"I'm sure."
"Then I'll see you at the wedding in a few hours. I have to tell Adin and Krill. Until sunrise."
She'd known he'd have to go, but the thought of Joe leaving again, even in this sort of situation, was painful to her. She touched his hand fondly, relieved when he didn't jerk away from her as he'd been wont to do in years before.
"You'd better."