by Liz Braswell
“Understood,” the seagull said with a bow.
“Understood, My Queen,” Flounder corrected politely.
“Are you?” the gull asked curiously. “My Queen? How does that work with the Law of the Worlds—that of the Dry World and the World Under the Sea?”
Ariel found herself almost rolling her eyes and making that wide, sighing smile she used to with Flounder.
But the little gull had looked at her, at her, while she signed. Not at her hands, or Flounder as he had spoken. There was a friendly heart under Jona’s direct and inappropriate questions.
Ariel just shook her head and dove back under the water, tossing a sign over her shoulder as she went.
“The Queen says you may call her Ariel,” Flounder said. Also, under his breath: “You have no idea what an honor that is.”
On the way back down Ariel’s silence was deeper than usual; it practically echoed into the quiet sea, filling the water around them.
“What are you going to do?” Flounder asked, trying not to sound as anxious as his old self. “We have to save Triton. Don’t we? But can we?”
Ariel stopped suddenly in the water, thinking. Her tail swished back and forth as she held steady in a tiny current that rippled her fins and tendrils of hair.
Do we even know it’s actually true?
Flounder’s eyes widened. “But she said…I don’t know, Ariel. She seemed like a pretty honest—if weird—bird. And Scuttle!”
It’s been years. Why would Ursula keep him around, alive?
“No idea. So she can talk at him? All the time? She loves that kind of thing. But if he is alive, isn’t that great news? Don’t we need to do something?” Flounder was practically begging, swishing back and forth in the water in desperation.
I don’t know….I want to believe it’s true. It’s too much to take in. I’m going to go…think for a while.
Alone, she added.
Flounder didn’t need to ask where.
“Sebastian won’t like that,” he sighed.
Then he tried not to giggle at the very unqueenly thing she signed.
“I’ll tell him you’ve gone to consult some elders or something,” he said, waving a fin. “Be safe.”
He needn’t have suggested that as he swam off; with the trident, Ariel could kill an army or call up a storm that would destroy half the sea. But it was hard to let old habits die. And it was harder still to care for a powerful queen, whose only vulnerabilities were ones you couldn’t see.
Drifting slowly now, Ariel wound her way through the kingdom to the outskirts of Atlantica.
A few fish stopped to bow and she acknowledged them with a nod of her head. No merfolk were around to bother her. As a rule, most didn’t like lonely, dusty corners of the ocean where rocks thrived more than coral.
Eventually she came to the hidden grotto where her collection of things once was. Millions of years ago it had probably vented hot water and lava that provided sustenance for tube worms, which resulted in a perfect, cylindrical series of shelves for Ariel to display her finds on. Then her father had blasted it back to its mineral components. Which tiny creatures will use again, completing the circle.
Fine sand, the aquatic equivalent of dust, covered everything in an impressively thick layer. A couple of seaweeds had managed to anchor onto the rubble here and there, and anemones sprouted from the more protected corners.
Ariel looked around at the old destruction her furious father had wrought. She had hated him so much. And then he had…traded his life for hers.
And now he was…alive?
She could hardly let herself believe it. The cries and sobs she couldn’t make aloud turned inward into her heart, in spasms of pain.
If he really was alive, Ursula had probably been torturing him all these years. She was not kind to her prisoners.
Or it could be a trap, a complicated setup to lure Ariel back so Ursula could finish her for good. A strange move to make half a decade after the mermaid had obviously given up, but the sea witch was strange….
And all Ariel had was the word of a gull she didn’t even know.
Although…despite the short amount of time she had spent with the bird…there was something unquestionably honest about her. The queen had a feeling that if pressed, Jona couldn’t lie or exaggerate to save her own life. And despite Scuttle’s tendency to misrepresent or fabricate or even believe his own lies, he never really meant it. If he thought there was a chance that Triton was alive, he would do anything in his power to help Ariel save him.
I should do it properly, she thought, hands tightening into fists. She should advance on the human castle with a mer army, and summon the power of the seas, and dash Ursula to bits on the rocks, and drown all those who opposed her, and sweep in and save her father; and he would be king again, and she would have a father again….
…and she wouldn’t.
She would never enlist soldiers sworn to protect the mer kingdom to help with a mistake she had made. She would never endanger a castle of innocent people just to get back the person she was responsible for losing.
Fate was giving her a second chance.
She would take it, but by herself.
She would right the wrongs she had committed on her own.
She would—her heart leapt despite her doubts—find and rescue her father, ask his forgiveness, and return the king to his people. Everyone would be ecstatic, her sisters most of all! And she would redeem herself. She might even be a hero. And they would all live happily ever after, under the sea.
But to do this, she would need to return to the Dry World.
She picked up a roundish thing from the ground and shook the sand off. It was the top of an old ceramic jar, once painted bright blue and gold. The humans had so many jars. And amphorae. And vases. And vessels. And kegs. And tankards. So many…things…to put other…things in. Merfolk rarely had a necessity to store anything beyond the occasional rare and fancy comestible, like the sweet goldenwine they used to trade for when she was a child. Merfolk ate when they were hungry, almost never had the need to drink anything, and rarely had a reason to store food for the future.
She dropped the lid and sighed, drifting over to the rock she used to perch on while admiring her collection. Things, so many things. Things she never found out the proper use for in her short time on land. Because she had been too busy mooning over Eric.
In some ways, that was the part of the seagull’s story that bothered her the most. She could not believe the reaction her traitor heart had when the bird mentioned his name.
Eric.
Eric remembered something?
He wrote an opera about it? About her?
It wasn’t just the flattery of it, though. If Eric remembered enough to compose music about it…would he remember her, too? A little?
She remembered him far too often.
Despite the fact that her life had been ruined because of her pursuit of Eric, when she closed her eyes to go to sleep, her last thoughts were often still of him.
Or when a perfectly handsome, reasonably amusing (and mostly immortal—not an irrelevant point) merman tried to win her affections, and all she could think about was how his hair might look when it was dry. Would it bounce, like Eric’s?
An opera. What were his arias like? What did he write for her to sing?
She smiled, the irony of it not lost on her: she had run away from a concert to pursue a human, and he had written songs for her now that she could no longer sing.
She ran her finger along the sand on a nearby shelf, writing the name Eric in runes.
Maybe, just maybe, along the way to save her father, she could pay him a visit.
For old time’s sake.
“NONONONONONONONO!”
Sebastian scuttled back and forth along one of the balustrades that demarcated the edge of the throne dais. It had been grown, as many of the mer objects were, from coral, the original inhabitants coaxed to move on once their job was done.
&
nbsp; The crab’s toes made little tickticktick noises as he self-righteously walked one way and then back the other, claws gnarled in the ready position, not even once regarding his audience.
She sighed. While it was, of course, not unforeseeable that the little crab would respond this way, waiting through his tantrum was not the most efficient use of her time.
As a girl, she would have swum off. As a girl with a voice, she might have argued.
As a mute queen, she could do neither.
She lifted up the trident and struck the ocean floor with it twice. Not to raise any magic—just to get his attention. To remind him of who she was.
The little crab stopped mid-rant. She raised her eyebrows at him: Really, Sebastian?
“Nothing good will come of it,” he said, a little sheepishly. “Nothing from the surface ever does.”
My father may be alive, she signed. That is reason enough to try.
At this the little crab wavered. He clicked slowly along the railing until he was close enough to put a claw on her arm. “Ariel, I miss him, too…but you could be just chasing a ghost.”
“Give up, Sebastian,” Flounder suggested. “She’s already made her decision.”
“I think you’re encouraging her in this!” Sebastian snapped, aiming an accusing claw at the fish.
Flounder rolled his eyes.
He’s not encouraging, he’s helping, Ariel said.
“I could help you more,” Sebastian wheedled. “I can go on land for short periods of time.”
You’re needed down here, to act as my representative. And distraction.
“I am not going to get in front of a crowd of merfolk and…similar ocean dwellers to tell them that their queen has left them to go off on some ridiculous mission by herself! You want to leave, you have to be brave enough to tell them.”
A single sign: No.
She rested a gentle hand on her throat, letting that action speak for itself.
Sebastian wilted. “All right, go. No one has ever been able to stop you from doing anything you wanted anyway—even when it costs you dearly.”
For a moment, Ariel felt her old self surface, the urge to grin and plant a kiss on the little crab’s back. He was right. She did have a habit of swimming in where angels feared to tread. No one could dissuade her once her mind was fixed. And it had cost her dearly.
What could it cost her this time?
“Please tell your sisters, at least,” Sebastian said with a weary sigh, dropping off the edge and scooting himself along the ocean floor toward the throne. With some quick kicks and sidewise crabby swimming he landed neatly on the armrest, the proper place for his official position as the queen’s deputy. “I cannot imagine dealing with them right now.”
Ariel nodded, and then gave him a second nod, eyes lowered: thank you.
And then she swam off so she wouldn’t have to see the looks he and Flounder exchanged.
Her sisters were in the Grotto of Delights, swimming about, well, delightedly; attaching little anemones to their hair, fluffing up seaweed fascinators, rummaging through giant seashells of jewels, pearls, and snails. Ariel could barely remember the time before her mother was killed but she was fairly certain that her sisters had been less frantic in their pursuit of pleasure then. Now they drowned their grief in safe, silly things that required little thought and provided constant distraction.
She ran her hand through a shell bowl absently, letting the trinkets slide through her fingers. Mostly they weren’t cut or polished the way a human jeweler would treat them: they sparkled here and there out of a chunk of brownish rock. A single crystal might shine like the weapon of a god—but be topped by the lumpy bit where it had been prized out of a geode.
Ariel regarded the stones with fascination. Of course they were beautiful. Yet she still found the bits and baubles from the human world, made by humans, far more alluring. Why? Why couldn’t she be content with the treasures of the sea the way the ocean had made them? What was wrong with them that they had to be altered, or put on something else, or framed, or forced in a bunch onto a necklace, in perfect, unnatural symmetry?
“Oh! Are you coming to the Neap Tide Frolic after all?”
Alana swirled around Ariel, her deep magenta tail almost touching her sister’s. Her black hair was styled in intricate ringlets that were caught in a bright red piece of coral, its tiny branches and spines separating the curls into tentacles. The effect was amazing—and not a little terrifying.
Looking around, Ariel realized that her royal sisters were done up more than usual. Once again she had forgotten one of the endless parties, dances, fetes, celebrations, and cyclical observations that made up most of the merpeople’s lives.
No, I’m afraid it slipped my mind, she signed.
“Oh, too bad,” Alana said, making a perfunctory sad face before swooshing away. The sisters had come to expect her absence and no longer even showed disappointment when she declined.
It hurt a little, Ariel realized.
Attina saw her and came over. Despite their extreme difference in age, she was the one Ariel felt closest to. Even if her big sister didn’t fully understand the urge to seek out a human prince, or to explore the Dry World, or to collect odd bits of human relics, she always treated her little sister as gently as she could—despite how gruff she sounded.
“What’s happening?” she asked, swishing her orange tail back and forth. Her hair wasn’t done yet; it was obvious she was devoting all her time to helping the younger sisters with theirs. The only slightly frumpy brown bun was locked in place by sea urchin spikes. “You look…concerned. All royal and concerned.”
Ariel allowed herself a small smile.
I’m going away for a few days.
“Royal vacation! Aww yeah! You could use it, clearly. I’ve been saying for ages now you need to relax and kick back for a bit. Haven’t I been saying that? Your skin looks terrible. I’m so glad you—oh. Not a royal vacation, I can see that now.”
Attina said all these things quickly, one after another: revelation, opinion, realization. When people could speak aloud, Ariel had realized long ago, they spent words like they were free, wasting them with nonsense.
Her sister frowned. “Where are you going?”
Ariel didn’t make a complicated sign. She just used her index finger and pointed. Up.
“What?” Attina wrinkled her nose, confused.
Ariel waited for the meaning to sink in.
“Oh, no.” Her sister shook her head, eyes wide. “You cannot be serious.”
Ariel nodded.
“No. Nope. No, you don’t,” Attina said, crossing her arms. “Not again. We lost Dad when you did that last time. You’re not doing it again.”
The other sisters felt the tension in the water and swam silently up, watching—hiding—behind the oldest.
Attina—Ariel didn’t spell out the sign; she moved her hand to suggest the robes of a goddess, the sign for Athena, for whom her sister was named. There was an implication of regalness and wisdom; Ariel was appealing to her oldest sister for her best values. Attina, he may still be alive. That is why I am going.
Several of her sisters gasped. Tails lashed.
“Nuh-uh,” Attina said firmly.
Then she whispered: “Really?”
There’s a chance. Someone I trust saw him, as Ursula’s prisoner.
“Huh,” Attina said, crossing her arms again. “Huh.”
“Let her go,” said Adella, swinging her ponytails.
“She needs to go,” Andrina, the one closest to Ariel in age, whispered.
“You should go now!” Arista urged, tossing blond hair out of her face. “Get Daddy back!”
Alana and Aquata were silent, looking at their leader, Attina.
“Can’t you send someone…” Else, the oldest sister was going to say. But she shook her head. “No, I guess you can’t.”
I have to do this, Ariel agreed.
“You sure this isn’t just a chance to see y
our little human prince again?” Alana asked flatly.
Ariel felt her face redden. Her left hand clenched around the trident, her right hand clenched in the water, around nothing, around everything—she could throw foam into her sister’s face and it would become a poisonous, spiky urchin, or a handful of sharp sand, or a thousand little scale mites.
Attina made her lips go all squooshy the way she often did, like a puffer fish before it puffed. She raised a hand to silence Alana. Not now.
Ariel reflected, for a moment, how much communication was in sign, even for those who could speak.
“Fine. Good luck. I hope you bring Father back,” Attina said, perfunctorily. “You can go.”
Ariel could feel the twists in the water: the oldest sister, who had tried to take over as mother when their real mother died, and never succeeded in that role. The other sisters, who liked the idea of power and ruling and strength and crowns—for someone else. They all just wanted everything the way it had been when Ariel was one of them, when they were all the same.
But Ariel had never really been the same.
I don’t need your permission, she signed. I was merely letting you know.
“Well!” Attina said, raising her eyebrows.
You made me queen.
“Yes…I suppose we did.”
The five other girls flowed and slipped into the currents, their fins flickering sinuously into the depths. Attina swooped and followed behind. “I really hope you do find him,” she called over her shoulder.
No one’s going to volunteer to come along? Ariel signed, half ironically; with her back turned, there was no way her sister could have known she was saying anything.
She watched them all go back to exactly what they’d been doing before: fixing their hair, gossiping, swirling around each other in a scene that used to delight their father.
Don’t you ever get bored with your lives? she signed, even though no one would see it.
Aren’t you even a little bit curious?
She mouthed these words, trying to will a sound to come forth. This one time.
Nothing but water flowed out.
It’s been over one hundred years since Mother died!
