"Andrina, can you stop skulking about?" Attina sighed, irritated, looking at her sister through the mirror. "I already said no."

"How can you just say 'no'!" Andrina complained, huffing in exasperation.

Attina pressed her lips together. "Like this. No."

"Ugh!" Andrina responded, dramatically flopping next to her older sister on the empty vanity seat.

On her other side, there came a high-pitched squeal. "Andrina! Bubbles! You're going to mess me up!"

Andrina sat up, tilting her head to the side. "Alana, you're not even going to the party tonight, why are you putting on lipstick?"

"It's a new shade," Alana responded, peering at herself in her mirror, admiring the her lips. "Just because I'm staying back with the baby doesn't mean I can't see how this color looks."

"Ooh, I like that," Adella said, looking over. "Can I borrow it?"

Alana glanced at her sister, before declaring, "I don't think it will match your pearls. Try Reef Red instead, it's on my second vanity."

"It's not your second vanity, Alana," Attina chimed in, rolling her eyes. "It's still Ariel's."

"And Ariel said I could use it," Alana defended.

"Technically, you asked her if you could use it once for the Neptune's Ball, and she said yes," Aquata explained. "You didn't ask if you could use it all the time."

"And that was…what, ten, fifteen years ago?" Adella wondered aloud, leading Alana to shoot her a look.

"Do you want my lipstick or not?" She asked, narrowing her eyes at her younger sister.

"It hasn't been that long since Alana took Ariel's vanity, has it?" Arista asked, putting a palm to her forehead as it creased in thought.

"Fifteen years, sixteen children later," Andrina responded nonchalantly, before pausing. "Well. Seventeen now."

"What do you think she's like?" Arista wondered aloud. "Harmony. Do you think she's like Melody?"

"Sebastian said that Ariel said she's fragile, whatever that means," Aquata said, thoughtfully, twisting her hair up into a high ponytail. They'd cornered the crab as soon as Attina had broken the news to them. "I wouldn't describe Melody as fragile."

"That was only a week after she'd returned, though," Adella pointed out, now sitting at Alana's second—er, Ariel's old vanity and searching through Alana's makeup. "I can't believe Ariel didn't say anything for a week—a whole week!"

"She hasn't said anything directly for more than a month," Andrina said, now returning to being slightly annoyed. "She's niece-hogging!"

"Niece-hogging is not a word," Alana said absently.

"Well, I want to meet my niece already," Andrina responded, flipping her head in Attina's direction. "We should tell Ariel we want to see her."

Attina could practically feel Andrina's eyes boring holes into the back of her head. She remained silent, pulling her hair down, and running her fingers through it. She was listening to the conversation around her, absorbing it, but not interfering unless it got out of hand.

"Do you really think she went through the Divide? That she was living in…the other world?" Arista's voice lowered, less anyone overhear what she was saying. She'd run through the idea multiple times, had discussed it with her husband, and still couldn't fathom it.

"Sebastian said that Ariel was convinced," Adella answered, thoughtfully. "But a whole other life? Growing up thinking you're someone and then it turns out you're not?"

"Especially not knowing she's a princess," Arista said, worriedly, twisting a bracelet in her hand. "She must have been surprised."

"Maybe that's why Ariel said she was fragile," Aquata reasoned empathically. "Fourteen is a tough age."

"All teenage years are tough," Alana corrected. "Newborns are easy—they cry, you pick them up. They're hungry, you feed them. But teenagers are so much more complex."

"Which is why," Andrina started, trying to bring it back to her initial point, "Harmony could use her very tidal aunts to help her through this tough time."

There was a serious groan from her older sisters at that. It was Alana who spoke up, though. "'Tidal', 'Dri? Really?"

"Well, excuse me for trying to keep up with the latest vernacular," Andrina retorted, before deciding it was time to bring her oldest sister in the frame. "Besides, it was Coral who taught me. In between all the studying she's been doing."

"Alright Andrina, what are you trying to say?" Attina finally entered the fray, putting her brush down, and turning slightly to her sister.

Andrina gave her a wide-eyed, too innocent look. "I'm only saying that Coral has been studying an awful lot lately, don't you think?"

"She's hardly getting into trouble anymore," Adella commented, swimming back to her own mirror. This was a time they all enjoyed, getting ready for an event together, bonding as though they were still unmarried and childless, gossiping and teasing one another.

"She's been volunteering to help her cousins with their schoolwork, actually helping teach them new things," Aquata replied, suspicion in her tone.

"Two months ago, if one of the younger ones so much as looked at her, she snapped at them," Arista offered, before her eyes went wide. "Oh! You don't think it's a boy she's studying with, do you?"

"That would explain the sudden dedication to school," Alana declared, squinting at some invisible spot on her face in the mirror.

Attina shook her head, returning to brushing out her long hair. "It's not a boy. She would tell me if it was a boy."

"Right, because teenagers tell their parents everything," Andrina snorted. "It's a possibility."

"It's a friend who moved recently," Attina said casually, waving off the implication. She was confident her daughter would come to her when she became interested in boys. "Coral's helping catch her up in school. If her grades improve in the process and she stays out of trouble, I'm not complaining."

"You and Marin aren't even the least bit curious why she never brings her new friend around?" Andrina asked.

"'Dri, we've got an infant, an eleven-year-old, and a thirteen-year-old. Marin has the shop and I've got royal duties—ones that you should be attending to as well, I may add. We don't have time to be curious." Attina replied, finally putting her brush down, her mouth set in a fine line.

Although she did have a similar suspicion that perhaps Coral wasn't telling her the whole story, Attina had to admit that her daughter was doing well. Her grades had been steadily improving, and so were the sharp edges of her teenage attitude. The Crown Princess had to admit, whoever this friend was, they had been a good influence on her daughter.

Andrina opened her mouth to reply, but her oldest sister cut her off before she had a chance. "And as for sending Ariel a message, you're an adult, do as you like, but leave me out of it. I'm going to respect her wishes on her daughter and give her the time she asked for."

"Yikes, serious tone," Adella muttered, her eyes looking across the room briefly, before settling back on her image in the mirror. "Andrina, give it up already. She's not changing her mind."

"I just wanted to meet my niece already," Andrina responded, sounding more like a petulant child now, the fight in her waning. "Waiting is the worst."

"Dad doesn't seem to mind waiting," Aquata said, holding two different earrings up in the mirror to her ears, and making a face. "Maybe he's right, we need to be patient. It's Ariel's call anyway."

"Well what if—" Andrina began, already formulating a new plan, when she was cut off by a scream. Not a bloodcurdling scream, or a scream of terror, but one that sounded like a toy had been taken.

Andrina winced. Her sisters did not seem bothered, with Attina even casually looking over her shoulder and saying, "That's yours, 'Dri."

"Could be Arista's," Andrina tried to explain away, thinly.

Arista shook her head. "Not mine. Mine don't scream that high."

"Adella?" Andrina asked, desperately.

Adella frowned. "Try again, 'Dri. I told mine to find the Sea-Dragon in the palace. I've got at least twenty more minutes before they realize there is no Sea-Dragon in the palace."

"Aquata, maybe—"

"Not even close," Aquata rolled her eyes, putting down one pair of earrings, and deciding on the other. "Last I saw, mine were busy setting up an extreme version of spongeball with Alana's."

"Well, Alana, what if—"

"Nope, I told them it was a bad idea and not to come crying if they got hurt," Alana responded, waving it off. "And the baby is sleeping."

"Attina?"

"Coral is out studying, Theron is napping, and Cori is with his father at the shop," Attina said, ticking off each child with ease. "It's yours, Andrina."

"I don't think—"

Another scream cut her off again. "Mo-om! Tell her to let go of my tail!"

"Aunt Andrina! She broke my chariot!" A yelping voice replied.

"It is not a chariot!" The first voice argued.

"It is too a chariot!" The second voice responded, adamant.

Andrina sighed. She looked up at the roof, as though willing the unfolding argument to stop without her interference. It did not.

Finally, Andrina admitted, "I think that's mine."

"Your written Atlantican is pretty good," Coral said, examining the sheet of college-ruled paper before her. "But your handwriting is still pretty awful."

"'S not my fault they never taught us cursive," Marcie replied, shrugging. "Blame budget cuts."

"My Mom is always insistent that I have nice handwriting," Coral said, grinning at Marcie mischievously. "Drives her crazy when my handwriting isn't perfect."

"No one's ever cared how I write," Marcie said, chewing on some type of gummy candy Coral had brought her. "Well, except one teacher here, but then I quit school, so that doesn't really count."

Coral's smile fell. "You're still waiting to go back to your old school? Your old village?"

"Yeah," Marcie intoned, trying to keep her voice level.

"I thought you said they said they were working on it?"

"They still say they're working on it," she sighed. "I've stopped asking, mostly. I think it makes them happier that I don't bother 'em with that."

"Does it make you happier?"

"That don't matter," Marcie said, focusing intently on her absent-minded writing in the margins. "If they think I'm okay, that's fine. They don't have to see the other stuff."

Coral frowned. "Still not sleeping?"

"Can't sleep. The nights are the worst, that's when I miss Amherst the most." Marcie said, pursing her lips, thoughtfully, before continuing. "You know, they kept saying they were so proud of me after I spoke up in that meeting. No grownup has ever told me they were proud of me."

"No one?" Coral asked, surprised, her blonde brows drawing low at the thought.

"No one," Marcie confirmed, nodding to herself. "I finally figured it out: the girl who spoke up, the girl who wasn't sad, that's who they want 'round. So, now, it's easy, I just pretend I'm alright."

"That doesn't sound easy to me," Coral responded, her frown deepening. "I don't know if I could act like everything is okay around my family if I was always upset. Mom says it's not good to hold things like that in."

Marcie made a noise in the back of her throat. "I'm used to it. Always kinda been like this."

Coral twirled her squid pen between her fingers, silent for a moment, processing, before asking her friend, "What do you mean?"

"My old man don't like the tears," Marcie responded breezily, shrugging. "Most of the time he doesn't even like me."

"How could your father not like you?" Coral questioned, searching her friend's face for a clue, taken aback at the idea.

"He's not my father," Marcie shook her head, sending a fleeting glance in the direction of the palace, before turning back to Coral. "I was adopted as a baby."

"Did your parents die?" Coral squeaked out, her green eyes wide at the notion. She didn't have much of a filter for these kinds of things.

Marcie blinked at Coral, her face scrunching in confusion. "No?"

"But you were adopted!" Coral argued. "That must mean your parents died and you're an orphan!"

"Why do you say "adopted" like that, like it's a bad word?" Marcie wondered, warily, her guard creeping on. She'd defended herself enough on the playground to know that kind of tone.

Coral grimaced, looking down at the homework spread between the two girls, her face heating up. She hadn't meant to be rude. "I'm sorry. I've never met someone who was an orphan before. Well, besides Urchin, but he's a grownup."

"I'm not an orphan, I've got a family," Marcie pushed back determinably. "My brother is back home, and…and…"

"And then your parents made you move and they don't know how to send you back?" Coral filled in, watching as Marcie's shoulders dropped.

"I'd give anything to make things normal again," Marcie said, quietly, her gaze falling to the mostly healed scrape on her hand, sharpness leaving her tone. After a moment, she looked up, slowly, asking, "Have you ever heard about something called the In-Between?"

"In between?" Coral repeated, her brows scrunching together. "In between what?"

"I dunno, it's called the In-Between," Marcie responded, swallowing hard. Eric had told her not explain her story to others, but she figured there was no harm in asking after it. "It's like, there's two universes, that run at the same time, but they're different. The In-Between's how you get back and forth between 'em, cept it's been locked up forever."

"I think I've heard of something like that before," Coral said, her face scrunching in thought, trying to place the notion. "But I think it's a myth, right? An ancient story?"

"Have you ever looked it up?" Marcie wondered, cautiously floating the idea to her friend. "Like, done a school project on it, or just read up on it, for fun?"

"No," Coral shook her head, before suspiciously asking, "Why?"

"I wanna learn more about it, but I'm running into some issues," Marcie explained, as truthfully as she could without revealing that Ariel and Eric continued to bar her from helping in their research. "I was wondering if you could look it up for me?"

"But everything I'll find is from Atlantica, they won't talk about humans," Coral said, twisting her lips. "And that's a big if I found anything. I could ask my grandfather, he may have heard more about it."

"I don't need it to be about humans!" Marcie replied, rushed to get her words out. "And you can't ask grownups."

Now Coral's interest was really piqued. A mischievous glint appeared in her green eyes; this was a secret. "How come?

"Grownups complicate things. They ask too many questions." Marcie said, firmly. "Look, humans, mermaids, aliens—I don't care what you find on this In-Between thing. I just want answers."

"Answers to what?"

Marcie paused for a beat, before answering, "Everything."

Disclaimer: Ariel, Eric, Melody, Atlantica, Attina, Alana, Adella, Aquata, Arista, Andrina, King Triton, Sebastian and the setting for this story are from The Little Mermaid, which is property of Disney. I own nothing; everything represented from the film(s), tv series, etc. is/are the property of Disney. Other characters are from my own imagination and are not associated with Disney.