A/N: Thank you so much for your reading and your reviews. Ah, REVIEWS! Those little golden pieces of what makes the adventure so worth continuing. Have I mentioned that I love your reviews? That's right. Even if it's just an unexplained emoji-sort, (although those will certainly keep me up at night. What do they really MEAN?)
Once again, the names of these characters aren't mine, and while the characters started out as being Disney-inspired, they're definitely starting to take on OC vibes of their own. Becoming their own three-dimensional people I hope. I am planning to eventually fully revamp this story (It's all true! *sob* I'm just posting the rough draft as it spews out!) and I will give it more scenes, more coherence, and publish it. (Probably for free, I don't want to lose you guys over something as silly as *fees.*)
That said, we are still on an occasionally comedic romantic adventure, so although the evil forces of will-kill-you-so-you-don't-fall-in-love have certainly been swirling around the last few chapters, it is at last time to get out of the heads of the angsty octopi and Michelle-Pfeiffer-inspired devils-of-chaos, and move on to what makes everything matter—our fun and flirty princess! Sure she's going through things, but she's not about to stop being herself over a little scolding. Hey, she's known Joe for a while. She knows how he can get.
Now, in the rich, and dialogue-wealthy words of a here-unnamed character: "Onward and upward, and may we confound our enemies!" A pox upon them and all that jazz.
Chapter 18 ArielThe powerful pull of the current wrapped itself around her tail playfully, giving Ariel a sense of weightless speed. The other currents had been entirely devoid of life, but as they traveled through this one, they passed a few small shoals of fish and the occasional deep-sea octopus. Ariel couldn't help but laugh at their confused expressions as they went flying by, as if she'd managed to lob puckerfruit into every one of their mouths.
Ahead of her, Joe and Adin seemed to relax a little at the sound.
What a pair of trout, she thought, smiling.
Yes, Joe's speech outside of the valley had rattled her, and she knew in her fins that he'd been right, but the thrill of survival, and the excitement of the place they were in was just more important right now. At the same time, she knew Joe was probably worried he'd over-stepped.
Silly, she chided silently.
For years Joe kept her from seeing certain things in the outer rings. It wasn't as though she didn't notice. She saw everything she was around, including every time he or Adin skirted her around a corner when unsavory deals were being made, or each moment there had been a citizen packing, or too thin, or sick. They were guppies if they thought they could keep everything from her, and yet, after the valley, she wondered just how much she'd managed to miss. It was certainly a new feeling. However; she'd known Joe long enough to know his moods. She knew Adin's too. She also knew when they were really angry, and that it never really lasted. After a few long days of trying to keep her alive, they were probably stressed out of their gills, but that didn't mean they couldn't enjoy the ride. There was nothing like this view in the whole kingdom, and she was sure they were missing it.
"Look at that!" she exclaimed.
Joe stiffened down to his toes, and Adin's shoulders clenched all the way to his chin as he snatched his spear close to his chest. She burst out laughing.
"It's nothing dangerous, just look to the left," she called up through the churning water.
They were just in time to see an octopus shocked out of its mind, turning six different colors as it tried to blend in with open water.
Adin snorted, while Joe gave it a 'pathetic' sort of look.
"Not bad," Adin admitted, as they flew past.
"Focus, Ariel," Joe grumped. "If you swim a little faster, we might cut a few minutes off the arrival."
It was nonsense, of course. Nothing they did in this current would affect how it took them. If it was anything like the others, it simply equalized their speed and dragged them along.
"You know that's a load of kelp, Joe" Ariel muttered, but if he heard, he didn't let her know, opting to keep pumping his own tentacles to no avail. Seeming to realize that despite his efforts, he was just drifting along next to her lazy backstroke, he tried harder, and harder until with a popping sound like a porthole coming unclogged, the current spat them all out into the sand—only Joe flew out much harder, splatting on a smooth black wall like a tentacled-starfish.
"Wow!" Adin and Ariel said in unison.
Joe gave them an ironic bow, looking thoroughly annoyed until he saw where they'd been deposited.
"Wow," he eventually agreed, as peeled himself arm-by-arm off the wall.
The Eighth Tentacle wasn't a tentacle at all. In place of the singular rising monolith that they'd come to expect at the end of the travel current, the end of their last watery path led to another expansive range of black and gray rock, the size of an underwater mountain range—although much more intricately formed.
Along the mountainside, carvings of guardian octopuses were etched into the stone, with a carefully woven web of tentacles forming pillars that outlined an enormous gate. Like the valley they'd passed through, the protective range seemed to stretch endlessly in either direction, and all the way up and far past the surface. Levers shaped like suckers dotted the gate's door, in no conceivable pattern, although that detail was by far the most bland of the rocky expanse before them.
Glowing depictions of historical scenes, marine life, and even ancestral odes lit up as they approached, glowing the same bluish color as the beams of light, and stone riddles that had guided them there.
At last, lighting up with a flare that didn't let them doubt the importance of the words, a final riddle appeared on the gate:
I am a celestial guide, forever bound to the sky.
Open my box that holds keys without locks,
Then seek out the symbols, for they will tell,
Which stones to press to break the spell.
"Well, princess, I believe that's your cue," Joe invited, waving a hand at the gate as though to invite her forward. She didn't miss the defeatist slump of his shoulders when he didn't even try to puzzle out the message from his people.
"Agh!" she cried, surprising them both when she took him by the shoulders, and gave him an exasperated shake. "Name it, Joe! What trident-blasted thing do I have to do to get you to never call me that again?"
"Ar-riel, you're still-ll shaking me," said Joe, although the tension he'd been carrying since the current ebbed a little as she willfully placed him back a little.
"Better," she said, turning to Adin with a small half-smile. "How was that for acting a little more princessy, Adin?"
Evidently holding back a snigger, Adin gave her a thumbs up.
"I won't call you p—that," Joe said quickly, when Ariel gave him a hard look. "Unless the situation merits—no, don't complain, there are too many outliers—but Ariel, we only have two hours until sunrise, and I'd rather not be dragging you screaming through the streets."
He had a point.
"I imagine that would be awkward for introductions," Ariel admitted.
"If you're like yesterday, then we'll either have empty streets, or a lot of spectators," said Adin.
Ariel couldn't hold back a blush. "Right, well, wouldn't want to scare the children and all that," she busied herself with studying the glowing script on the gate. "The first line of this one makes sense. A celestial guide is pretty much any constellation, and a box with keys without locks. I….I don't know. I've never heard of any tool like that."
"It's a music box," said Adin, quickly. "Lots of keys, and I guess some of them lock, but, you know, they don't have to."
"Good one, Adin," Joe praised with an appreciative nod. "That's the second answer you've gotten. We might have been stuck without you, actually."
Ariel didn't know if Adin looked more pleased or ashamed. She frowned at his confusion, but recognized that now wasn't the time to start accusing him of still wanting to drag her back to the palace.
"He's right Adin," she said, trying to sound encouraging. "Thanks! Let's see, that only leaves the last part. Press the symbols?"
"It's the levers."
"Hm?" Ariel asked Joe.
"Look at the suckers carved on the door. No cecaelian tentacle looks like that. I can press some of them into the door, there's probably a lever behind each."
"Then it's a combination lock," she said. "That is…incredibly clever. One this size would have taken perfect balance…"
"And will probably lock us out if we get it wrong."
"Or shoot spikes at us, or something," said Adin, apparently getting into the spirit of the thing.
"Thanks, Adin, that's helpful," Ariel mumbled, glaring at the symbols on the door.
Each of the suckers were connected by a series of lines that didn't have any pattern until she realized that they were all terribly familiar, if upside-down.
"What are you doing?" asked Adin, watching her swim above their heads and turn herself upside-down to examine the door.
"They're constellations," she said, pointing at the patterns. "But all of them are guide's…sort of. Or not? Joe, can you reach across all of these?"
Measuring himself across the length of the widest pattern, Joe grunted in affirmation.
"Right, not all of them are guides. We're looking for the Sallow Sunfish, which was the first guide in the sky, and then the lunar serpent, the second." Ariel pointed at each of the corresponding marks at the heads of the suckers. "Wait, Joe, don't press them yet!"
"There's also the Hangry Halibut, the Gar of Infernal Goo, the Trussed Trenches, the Depressed Dolphin—although there's some debate about him—the Two-Faced Catfish, and Poseidon's Wayward Sardine."
"Those are not constellations," Adin scoffed. "A sardine? Really?"
"The Sardine is only one star, but it's the only one in the sky that never moves. If anything it's the most stable of the stars, a complete misnomer," Ariel said matter-of-factly. "Those are the constellations that either point at something, or are used as naval guides in open waters."
"So, we have which levers to press," Joe said softly, encouraging her forward. "What about the order?"
"It could be order of origin—wait, no, don't press them! Two of them come from the same legend…erm. Oh—oh! I'm so stupid sometimes." The answer was clearer than a nursery rhyme, and so simple she couldn't believe it had taken her so long to see the answer. Was she an astronomer or a barnacle?
"Ariel?"
"Each of them has a different number of stars, and there are eight. Eight in total."
Joe nodded, understanding, and positioned himself over the single-stared Sardine. "I don't know them all. Call them out!"
"Ready. The Sardine first!"
A beautiful tinkling note sounded through the water as he pressed it in, and the distinct thud of a tumbler falling into place echoed over the calming waters.
"Now the Gar, then the Sunfish," she instructed.
"The code is a song," Adin mumbled, watching Joe dart to the next set of symbols she pointed out. "It kind of sounds…familiar."
As the constellations accumulated stars, the levers he pressed gained notes, letting fall a series of lovely, calming notes. One by one, she named the constellations, from the tiny one-starred lever, to the eight-stared serpent. Joe had to stretch himself nearly to breaking to place all of his arms in the lever-points.
"The whole thing really was a giant music box," she marveled, as the final chord sounded. A heavier tumbler than the last clicked into place, and Joe swam back as another series of falling and clicking rattled ominously through the door. The glowing letters of the riddle disappeared, which she hoped was a good sign.
"Well, now it'll either kill us or open," Joe said sardonically, placing himself between her and Adin and the gate.
"I'm not going to get killed by a door, Joe," she said, trying not to laugh.
"The song sounded…right. I think I've heard it before, but I don't remember where," said Adin.
"It was a nursery rhyme. The song tells the story of the oceans from before the war. I thought it was banned in the palace," said Joe.
"Well, I wasn't born in the palace," Adin shot back.
"No, I suppose you weren't," said Joe, now regarding the door with a little less suspicion as the sounds from the internal mechanism slowed. "Interesting they'd choose that one, though."
"Interesting that the opening would be musical," said Ariel in wonder.
"Historically, cecaelia are very musical. It's practically an insult to the species if you don't play something, or sing," Joe informed her.
She tried to hide her smile and failed. "You sing?"
He rolled his eyes. "Presumably."
"I'd like to hear that,"
"No."
Before she could wheedle him further, the door began to swing down from the rocky wall, opening like a tongue baring entrance to a wide, gaping mouth.
"Just like your cavern at home," Ariel remarked in an awed whisper.
"That—that is nothing like what is in Atlantis," said Adin, who seemed to agree with Joe's grunt of affirmation.
"We don't have long. An hour and a half?" Ariel asked, edging her fins toward the opening, but letting Joe take the lead in case there was some other cecaelia-only trap or code laid. Fortunately, there wasn't and the city wall allowed them entrance with no further obstacle.
"Less," said Joe.
The city's entrance opened up into the Kingdom of the Depths, and while Ariel didn't know what she'd been expecting, it certainly wasn't this.
Towering rock formations directed a winding, seemingly unplanned spider's nest of streets of all sizes and shapes, some so unique that they would have presented quite the hazard had anyone not familiar with them swam down them with the vivacity that the creatures here all seemed to do. The streets themselves were not traditional paths, and were instead layered with smooth, iridescent currents that wove through the landscape. Bioluminescent flora and fauna was so common that every street corner was lit even better than Atlantis in mid-day.
To aid navigation, street signs adorned with glowing runes and symbols pointed the way to things like markets, inns, shops, suburbs, and even a separate district of potions shops. The signs responded to the touch of a fin of passersby, transforming to reveal hidden pathways and secret passages so dizzying she couldn't track them all. The Depths boasted architectural marvels the likes of which she'd never seen, with buildings crafted from living coral, crystal formations, and seashells, all reinforced with magic to withstand the immense pressure of the deep sea. Everywhere the eye turned, walls, buildings, and even the city floor were adorned with intricate patterns that shimmered and pulsed with bioluminescence. The city was so threaded through with weather charms, pressure stabilizers, and aquatic conduits for clean water and air that she wondered if they would be needing Joe's ink at all to be down here. She never could have imagined such a harmony between magic and technology.
Where she had expected the life in the city to be the dark-and-toothy sort that they'd encountered en route, the creatures that inhabited the streets were just as colorful as in Atlantis, if not moreso. Shoals of messenger-groaners darted around the street corners. Everything from goldfish to gobies shimmered in the brilliant street-lighting, evidently already preparing for a new day. There were cecaelia and mermen there with tails and tentacles in colors she'd never seen. Some were bright yellow, others were half-lionfish, and some of the tentacles floating past had shining blue and green rings. The market-vendors they passed ranged from mer-men to cecaelia, often working together to haul loads of goods to the streets marked for shops.
"We've got to get inside quickly," Joe remarked, watching the day's preparation with obvious unease. "Before the day-crowds come out. It's unlikely, but if anyone recognizes the prin—Ariel, then we're going to have more trouble than we have time for."
"I'm swimming ahead to scout the inns," said Adin quickly, when they turned the corner onto a street that looked as though it boasted nothing but inns. "They'll react differently to me then they will to you two, and Ariel your, um, condition could start up any minute," he said before Ariel could insist on them staying together. She huffed a frustrated stream of bubbles as he turned tail and vanished into the evening bustle before she could protest. Adin was good-hearted, but he definitely had a head for doing stupid things in the name of being noble. With a start she realized that that was probably how Joe saw her.
"Come through here." Joe grabbed her arm and pulled her into one of the more secluded alley entrances, and tucked them behind a stack of driftwood crates labeled an ominous 'Misc.'
He had her face pressed into his shoulder, and her back to the rocky wall so that she was completely blocked off from passersby. The positioning made her feel safe and covered, but there wasn't anything dangerous here—not this time. Joe kept looking behind them as if expecting one of the goldfish to suddenly announce them, and produce…she didn't know what. An army of other goldfish? An angered cecaelia or two?—who had seemed entirely absorbed in their own affairs from what she'd seen.
"The goldfish won't hurt us, Joe. Why are you so stiff?"
"You never know," he said distractedly, although, 'never know what,' he didn't specify.
She snorted bubbles into his neck, and he flinched when they tickled past his ear.
"You're right. That little yellow one looks suspicious. I could chase it off if you like."
He peered down at her, pulling his attention from where the merchants had disappeared up the street.
"Aren't you a riot," he said blandly.
"I perform to a sold-out house. Look, Joe, we've made it through an impossible series of riddles and traveled what looked like half the ocean in less than a few days. We're here. We're less than a mile from a whole hoard of potion shops where there's bound to be a cure, and—stop fidgeting. I've never made a single public appearance with my family outside of balls and dances—no one is going to recognize me!"
She snatched up his hands that wouldn't stop fiddling with his pouch and his hair, as though he thought they would somehow aid him in a feral goldfish attack, and he, at the same time as she, seemed to realize how close they were swimming, and as she saw the emotion register in his eyes, for the first time, Ariel felt like they were on equal pacing. His expression was unreadably intense as he bent toward her, closing the very small distance between them in the alleyway, and she could have sworn that, as his face disappeared above her view, she felt his lips brush her hairline.
Adjusting her handhold on him ever so slightly, Joe rubbed slow circles in her palms, as though to sooth her, but managed anything but. The euphorious victory of that feeling froze in her veins along with her heartbeat, and the movement of the water around them seemed to blur.
"Before I change again," she said, much more quietly than she'd meant to, her voice seemed stuck in her throat, and she couldn't get the words out. She couldn't remember when anything so simple had frozen her so completely.
But then nothing was ever simple with Joe, she thought, trying for all her fins were worth to
"There's something—"
"Guys, I've found a place! Their policy on the door is literally 'Don't Ask Questions,' and they take almost anything for payment, it's perfect, and….and what are you doing?"
Adin's eyes darted from Joe to Ariel brimming with questions Ariel knew she couldn't answer.
"Right! Let's go!" she said, trying to brush off the fact that she'd almost told Joe something she certainly hadn't thought through—something forbidden. If anything, maybe Adin had saved her from making some terrible mistake.
But something deep within her whispered that that wasn't true. Ariel found she couldn't look at Joe as they swam after Adin's twitchy tail, and something—something that tasted suspiciously like disappointment, and failure, and a whole bag of lead sinkers made its way through her heart.