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disneyat34 · 4 years

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The Little Mermaid at 34

A review by Adam D. Jaspering

Throughout the 1970s and 80s, Disney Animation Studios was the weak link of the Disney empire. In 1985, Michael Eisner moved the animation department offsite. Animators were relocated five miles away to nearby Glendale, no longer operating on Disney property. The vacant Disney Animation Building was repurposed to office space.

Financially troubled and burdensome, the prestige of working for Disney was gone. Their new studio was a complex of warehouses and trailers. The filmmakers were now working in squalor. If they were to wither and die, they would do so out of sight. If they were to survive, they would have to earn it.

Sometimes, things go right. Sometimes, everything goes right, all together, at once.

The modest successes of The Great Mouse Detective and Oliver & Company provided funds and confidence. The development of a computer graphics division prompted new frontiers in technologic development. Touchstone Pictures’ recent release, Splash, focus-tested and primed the public’s interest in mermaids. The success of Who Framed Roger Rabbit fostered a nostalgic affection for Disney animation. Circumstances could not have been better for The Little Mermaid’s release.

The Little Mermaid is based on a fairy tale by Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen. The film features Ariel, a teenage mermaid who falls in love with a human. Ariel's loyalty is split between her underwater life and a magical opportunity to pursue love and live as a human.

Making an entire animated movie set underwater is a daunting and intimidating task. The standard rules of animation must be discarded. Light behaves different underwater. Gravity is different underwater. Hair moves different underwater, as do plants, sand, debris, and stone. Animating underwater scenes requires learning how to draw all over again.

Everyone on staff embraced the challenge. Characters don’t behave as if they’re on dry land, nor do they move as though they’re flying. You can feel the weight and resistance of the water as they move. Underwater scenes look murky and shadowed, using soft light effects. The subaquatic world appears pleasantly alien, but never unpleasant. It contrasts perfectly with scenes set on dry land. There is no shortage of spectacle in any one scene.

Some poor animator was tasked with drawing thousands upon thousands of bubbles. Simple transparent circles of no account. And yet, their mere existence is a garnish that elevates the final product considerably. A thankless job, but one who has not gone unnoticed.

The titular little mermaid is Ariel, the seventh and youngest daughter of the sea king, Triton. Ariel is sixteen, and harbors a secret obsession with people and the surface world. She spends her free time salvaging shipwrecks, compiling a menagerie of human artifacts. She doesn’t understand humans or their lives, but loves them with jealous passion. It consumes her to the point where it affects her daily life and relations.

The mermaid world lives in secrecy, a form of self-imposed isolationism. Contact, interference, and involvement with humanity is forbidden. Ariel violating this rule as princess of the kingdom is especially egregious. Triton spends the movie growing increasingly furious at his daughter’s transgressions. Regardless, Ariel’s infatuation grows only stronger.

A major theme of the movie is the conflict between generations. Triton, being the parent, believes in obedience, tradition, and wisdom. Ariel, being the child, believes in freedom, exploration, and experiences.

The purpose of this conflict in storytelling is, there’s no real right or wrong stance. Both the wizened adult and the uncorrupted child are supposed to make equally credible cases. They each have information available only to them from their own perspectives.

For example, Triton’s insistence on isolationism is based on ritual and fear. Whatever caused the mermaid populace to go into hiding is forgotten. The inciting factor is either ancient history or a fabricated myth. Triton was told one day to remain hidden from sight, and has since accepted it as truth. He's been conditioned to be xenophobically bigoted. When Ariel questions him on this, he has no answer. Rather than seeking truth or turning introspective, he gets offended. He’s upset he could possibly be propagating a lie he doesn’t even believe.

Humans have no malice towards his kingdom. Humans don’t even believe in mermaids. Their knowledge of mermaids exists only in storied myth. The cause for isolationism is unfounded and unnecessary. Ariel is the only mermaid in generations to notice this. If Triton would trust his uncorrupted daughter, Ariel could easily be the human-merfolk ambassador so badly needed.

Meanwhile, Ariel’s level of infatuation is based only on a surface-level examination. She has no idea what humans actually are, only her own conjecture. She lusts after a prince she’s only seen from a distance the same way any teenage girl lusts after celebrities in magazines. The difference being, most teenage girls’ crushes are the same species as the teenage girl.

If not her father, Ariel should be consulting somebody about her feelings. One can’t make life-changing decisions alone, inexperienced, based on a singular source of information. Ariel knows next to nothing about humanity, and what she does know, she’s been misinformed of. Her passion is nothing but her own invented narrative. Dedicating one's life towards an ideal one wishes to be true is an incredibly foolhardy gamble. Luckily, everything works out in Ariel's favor because of plot convenience.

From an observer’s standpoint, both Triton and Ariel both make good points, and both are blind in specific areas. They should be on equal grounds. However, The Little Mermaid is a princess movie, so the movie leans heavily in Ariel’s favor. She’s painted as a tragic figure and Triton as wrong.

Miscommunication is gumming up the works. The father-daughter pairing can’t continue on. Something absolutely has to change. But Triton, being older, more powerful, and magically inclined, ends the conversation premature. In a fiery demonstration of tough love, he annihilates Ariel’s treasure trove. He believes it will curb his daughter’s fantasies. Instead, it backfires. It demonstrates his instability and ignorance. Ariel is now convinced she must get away at any cost.

Ariel's obsessive nature is painted as admirable and sympathetic instead of destructive. She's so desperate to be part of the human world, she abandons her home and family. She rebels based on prolonged miscommunication and spite. She'll sacrifice anything just to feel wanted and accepted and understood. That's not a romantic fairy tale. That’s how people get abducted into cults.

The movie is unwaveringly sympathetic to Ariel’s wants and expectations. It paints obsession and infatuation as legitimate forms of love. Triton is turned into a secondary villain by daring to oppose her. The way Disney presents the story, Ariel has done nothing wrong and some mean adult is standing in her way.

Ariel could have demonstrated the innocence of humans. Ariel could have found and exposed the root cause of her father’s prejudice. Ariel could have gotten an intermediary to fix the communication breakdown between her and her father. Ariel has six sisters sitting around with literally nothing else to do. Any one of them could have helped. They contribute nothing else to the story.

Triton assigns someone in his court to “advise” Ariel. In actuality, they’re chaperoning her, deftly nudging her from her interest in humans. He chooses Sebastian the crab for the duty. Sebastian is the royal orchestra conductor. He's chosen mostly because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Sebastian is an overworked, unappreciated figure in Triton’s court. He wants nothing more to compose music, but is now subjected to being a glorified babysitter. Ariel doesn’t see him as an authority figure, and he can’t do much beyond offer advice that falls on deaf ears.

Unable to influence Ariel, Sebastian follows the wayward girl in the hopes she doesn’t get into too much trouble. Being a tiny crab in both a mermaid and a human-sized world leads to a number of problems. It’s hilarious schadenfreude as his tiny crustacean body is subjected to physical calamities. Thankfully, Sebastian does retain some dignity leading two of the best musical numbers of the film.

Ariel’s only source of knowledge of the surface world is a scatterbrained seagull named Scuttle. His mind clearly baked by the sun, Scuttle embodies the term “Birdbrain.” Scuttle acts as Ariel’s go-to expert for her scavenged artifacts. He makes up both names and uses for common objects. A fork is called a “Dinglehopper” and conflated for a comb. A tobacco pipe is called a “Snarfblat” and mistaken for a musical instrument.

Ariel’s best friend is Flounder, a fish of confusing origin. He shirks at danger, shies away from threats, but is somehow very fond of Ariel. What these two could possibly have in common is unknown and undemonstrated.

Flounder’s voice is childish and stuffy. He second-guesses Ariel’s decisions. He tries to be a voice of reason, but more often comes across as cowardly and dull. He is very close to being an annoying character, but never quite crosses the line. That said, his saving grace is likely because he disappears for large stretches of the movie.

Ariel has very odd taste in friends. Maybe her obsession with humans and humanity has made her an outcast. She doesn't fit in with the rest of mermaid-kind. Maybe she’s forced to accept the loyalty and companionship of other outcasts and weirdos.

Here's another likely theory. Ariel becomes human at the halfway point. Her first task is covering up her naked body (this scene's intricate framing and editing is perfect. The animators knew exactly what they were doing.) With the help of her friends, Ariel fashions a makeshift toga from some discarded rigging and a canvas sail. Not just a garment to cover herself, Ariel seems outright proud of the goofy dress. It’s at this point all the pieces fit into place. Ariel’s friends with a bunch of idiots because Ariel is herself a giant bubbleheaded ditz.

Ariel is the end result of a group of adults designing a teenager in the valley girl era. Either deliberately or subconsciously, Ariel embodies many shallow traits of a 16 year-old girl in 1989. She’s obstinate, boy-crazy, doesn't think things through, and is obsessed with her physical appearance. It's amazing Prince Eric wasn't named Prince Corey.

This is made even more apparent as Ariel ambles around the human world. A series of comical misunderstandings is expected. Ariel is exploring a new world and new experiences. She's guaranteed to see and experience things never seen before. After all, she is literally a fish out of water.

But the way Ariel carries herself, she doesn’t seem concerned with blending in or learning about humanity. She acts like a magpie who found something shiny. She jumps in headfirst, embarrassing herself in her excitement. She's so deliriously happy, she doesn't care if she appears childish or flighty.

Ariel’s transformation from fish-person to person-person is the result of Ursula the Sea Witch. An octopus-person with a penchant for transformation magic, Ursula was scorned by Triton and the kingdom for... some reason. Ursula was apparently on good terms with the king once, even living in the palace. Then she was banished. It’s not revealed why. It’s an amazing feat of writing to both overexplain and underexplain at the same time.

Ursula lives reclusively, on the outskirts of the kingdom. She petulantly seeks revenge on the empire one citizen at a time. She offers magical bargains to the desperately vain and envious. She can transmute their body into anything they desire.

In true Faustian nature, the fleeting moments of glory are undercut by the contract’s fine print. Ursula's fee for these transformations is steep. So steep, no one can afford to pay. In turn, Ursula curses her reneging customers, leaving them withered and decrepit on the floor of her lair. It’s a fate worse than death, and Ursula is fully aware of that.

What does Ursula want with these doomed individuals? Does she find their shriveled remains aesthetically pleasing? Does she sadistically enjoy seeing the damned wallowing in agony? Or is she forced to keep them where no one else will find them? One imagines it hard to find new customers when there's abundant evidence of the hazards.

The manipulation and double-talk on display is truly staggering in its corruption. Ursula never forces Ariel to do anything. She doesn’t blackmail, trick, or deceive her in any way. She lays out her evil scheme, plain as day. She convinces the poor girl that the rewards far compensate for the associated risks. It’s the same type of lawfully evil predatory practices used by loan sharks and pyramid schemes.

Ursula is unique in that she has no real qualms with Ariel (at least no more than any other mermaid). Her grudge is with Triton. Ursula exploits the growing, unrepairable rift between father and daughter to get revenge on the king.

Ursula becomes heavily invested in the affairs of Ariel and her prince. She sets up arbitrary boundaries Ariel must cross to fulfill her contract. Ariel must kiss Eric within three days, and she must do so without speaking. Ursula takes Ariel’s voice partially as collateral, partially as a back-up plan.

When Ariel nearly overcomes these obstacles, Ursula interferes even further. She brainwashes Prince Eric, disguises herself as a beautiful woman, and uses Ariel's stolen voice as a final insult. Ursula exploits the contract to her advantage.

It’s a valuable lesson: just because someone offers a contract, it’s not a guaranteed form of legitimacy. The corrupt will always enforce contracts when it helps them, but promptly violate them once they’re inconvenient.

Many individual facets made The Little Mermaid an unmitigated success. The single element that deserves the most credit is the soundtrack. The Little Mermaid’s score and songs were written by two men, Alan Menken and Howard Ashman.

Howard Ashman had a career in musical theater before turning to film. His greatest accomplishment was the 1982 off-Broadway musical adaptation of the 1960 film The Little Shop of Horrors.

After his next stage musical was a discouraging flop, Ashman turned to film. Disney hired him to write lyrics for the opening number of Oliver & Company. For his efforts, Ashman was given full reign on The Little Mermaid.

Ashman brought on his writing partner, Alan Menken. The pair operated beautifully, far exceeding original expectations. The duo contributed a lush score that emboldens the mystic sights of an underwater landscape. The songs are powerful, dynamic, and influence the story itself. Other Disney films had music, but this was Disney Animation's first true musical.

Music became so integral to The Little Mermaid, Ashman and Menken were practically directing the film. Story elements and scenes were changed to fit their music instead of the other way around. For example, Ashman was inspired by the oceanic setting to create a calypso-influenced number. In order for this song, “Under the Sea,” to make sense, he needed a Caribbean sounding character to provide vocals. Ashman convinced the production team to redesign Sebastian so that he’d be Jamaican.

“Under the Sea” later won the Academy Award for Best Original Song; one of three songs from The Little Mermaid nominated for the award.

The soundtrack of The Little Mermaid is nothing short of remarkable. Seven songs were written for the film, all of them varying in style, mood, and purpose. Menken and Ashman’s background in musical theater is apparent throughout. The music is bombastic, passionate, demonstrates character and drives the story. Each song works in context, but also stands independently when separated from the film.

The animation is astounding in its scale and and execution. Backgrounds are deep and engaging. Color and effects are vibrant and electrifying. The characters move with natural grace and rhythm. It’s an astounding demonstration of quality and effort.

At times, the animation is almost too good to the film’s detriment. Characters are drawn so well, they sometimes clash with their cartoon environments. Other times, the silly looking fish contrast with the realistic backdrops. Flounder’s bulbous body and bright stripes stick out like a sore thumb. He looks like he belongs in a different movie.

Ariel is stylized so much, her face is inconsistent. Sometimes she looks like a teenager, other times an overgrown child. Sometimes her eyes look glassy and her stare vacant. Sometimes her smile is too big. Sometimes her eyes are too small. Sometimes she emotes and smiles in an uncanny valley way. She moves too much like a human for a cartoon, but she’s still too cartoony to ever be realistic. Not to mention, it’s anybody’s guess where her hair begins and her forehead stops.

The Little Mermaid is a fascinating display of what can happen when the right people are in the right place at the right time. Through passion, talent, and good timing, The Little Mermaid saved Disney Animation Studios. Talented filmmakers made a film whose impact changed animation for a full decade. It's a visual and auditory delight which jump-started the Disney Renaissance. Unfortunately, it also features a story with questionable morals and motivations. Maybe it wasn’t by mistake The Little Mermaid insists surface-level attraction is a virtue.

Fantasia Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs Cinderella Alice in Wonderland Sleeping Beauty The Little Mermaid The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh Pinocchio The Jungle Book Robin Hood The Sword in the Stone Bambi The Great Mouse Detective 101 Dalmatians The Three Caballeros Lady and the Tramp The Fox and the Hound Peter Pan Dumbo The Black Cauldron Melody Time Oliver & Company The Rescuers Saludos Amigos The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad The Aristocats Fun and Fancy Free Make Mine Music

#The Little Mermaid #Disney Canon #Disney #walt disney #Walt Disney Animation Studios #disney studios #Film Criticism #film analysis #movie review

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shanastoryteller · 7 years

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looking around here you think - sure, she's got everything

okay so as some of you know i wrote a trans little mermaid rewrite already. this is that same story, but with A LOT more content (haha 6k more aka almost twice as long as the first one) to hopefully be more true to real live trans girls’ experience, and not a magical world with shortcuts where everything is much, much easier

one million thanks and hearts and good things to @gemcuttlefish for all her helpful advice and ideas. this rewrite would not exist without her.

ok so here we go

when the mermaid athena marries king triton and becomes queen of the sea, there is a prophecy announced by the powerful sea witch ursula.

the king and queen will have seven daughters to represent the seven seas. athena names their daughters just then, her bridal crown still on her head. they will be named attina, alana, adella, aquata, arista, andrina, and ariel.

things do not go as planned.

the queen dies. ursula is banished and proclaimed a betrayer of the crown.

the seventh child is not quite as expected.

ariel is the youngest of triton’s children – the most treasured, the most coveted and protected.

ariel is triton’s only son, and the heir to the kingdom of the sea.

his mother had given him his name years before. the healers hadn’t had time to tell her that she had borne a son, not a daughter, before she died.

they all call him ari.

he is beloved. his eldest sister fawns over him, attina trying her best to be a mother to six children even though she’s barely a teenager. she may be queen on day – no one yet knows who will succeed her father, but she is the eldest, and clever, and not a bad hand at magic. she may be queen one day, and if she cannot comfort six mourning children, how will she rule a nation?

they have many nannies, people to make sure they are fed and dressed and bathed. but it is attina they turn to with their nightmares, their cries, and their hurts. it is attina who first forces ariel into their father’s hands. “he’s your son,” she says, desperately.

triton has been as affectionate as always with his girls, has embraced them and kissed their cheeks when they come to him sad and scared at the loss of their mother. but he has not yet picked up the child his wife died to give him. triton looks down at the small babe and says, “he has her hair.”

“and her eyes,” she says, “don’t you want to see mom’s eyes again? look into his, and you will.”

he heaves a great sigh and hold out his hands, something guarded and stony in his features. attina carefully places ari into them, anxiously watching as her baby brother breaks into a huge grin, grabs onto their father’s beard, and tugs.

she wants to scream. why couldn’t he have giggled or smiled or done something else adorable and lovable –

but triton’s whole face softens and he throws back his head and laughs, the first one she’s heard since their mother died. the sadness is still there, but as he gazes down at ariel, the first hints of true happiness peak through.

“he’s just like her,” he says, and when he looks up at her, she realizes she’s smiling too. she hadn’t done that since her mother died either.

ari is two years old, sitting in his father’s lap in the middle of a council meeting, when he topples forward and grabs onto the trident for balance.

“no!” triton yells, horrified, pulling him back even though it’s too late, even though one touch is all it takes.

but his son is unharmed. he’s not a pile of ash, he isn’t crying, there are no deep bloody wounds on him. instead ari reaches for the trident again, and this time no one tries to stop him. he bites it, liking the feel of cold metal on his sore gums as his teeth start to poke through. all that happens is a little spark of electricity travels up the trident.

the advisors are staring. triton has no choice but to make a public announcement.

prince ariel, the youngest of his children, is the chosen heir to the throne. there is no longer a question of succession.

the trident has spoken.

if this were normal circumstances, then the confirmation ceremony would commence immediately, and ariel would be named a regent.

but this is not normal circumstances. ari is not of age, is a baby who touched the trident by accident, who was named crown prince of the sea by accident. “we do not know how the trident will react to my daughters,” king triton objects, “perhaps it likes all my children equally, and it is simply ari who touched it first.”

“regardless, he has touched it and been declared worthy,” his councilman says, unimpressed. “let your daughters hold it then, and we shall know for sure.”

there’s a chilling fear up his spine, because if they are not so favored it may kill them. they are of the royal line and magic blood and it will not mean to, but there is a reason he himself did not hold the trident until he was a man.

this must all show on his face, because his councilman softens and says, “we shall move up the timetable from eighteen years old to ten years old. your two eldest daughters will attempt to hold the trident immediately, and each daughter shall attempt the same on her tenth birthday. then, if the trident chooses any or all of them, we shall know for sure who shall be declared regent on the day of their twentieth birthday.”

it’s a compromise, and one he doesn’t like, but one he must stomach. news of ariel using the trident as a teething toy has already spread even farther than the oceans, is being whispered about by the gods and spirits of the surface and the sky. “very well,” he says, pretending he has a choice in this at all.

attina manages a full five seconds with her hand on the trident before she releases it with a cry of pain, her palm coming away bloody. alana barely places her fingers against it before she pulls it back, shrieking, the skin where she touched it gone completely.

triton cleans their hands and heals them, kissing the wounds to comfort them. somehow, he’s feels like this is how each of his daughters will fair when the time comes.

he’s not wrong.

ari is slightly less beloved after that. it is unavoidable – he is a treasured, a crown prince when they are only princesses, and even as a child his talent with magic is obvious, his affinity for controlling the power of the ocean plain for all to see.

he spends long hours with tutors, with old men and women who teach him the basics of wielding power, and then even more when his talent and intellect demands it.

but he is still a child.

“this isn’t fair,” ari pouts, clinging to his sister’s hand as she tries to pull away, “i want to go to!”

“you’re too little,” aquata says, finally shaking him off, “father doesn’t want you leaving the castle.”

he runs to the window and calls out, “when can i leave?”

“when you’re older!” andrina answers, laughing. he watches his sisters’ tails create a rainbow as they all swim away from him.

andrina is only a year older than him. this doesn’t seem fair.

he is young still when he first realizes something is off, that perhaps he is not just like other boys. but he doesn’t know that many boys to compare himself against, so he tries not to dwell on it.

the way people call him prince, sir, brother, son – it doesn’t seem quite right. but he’s not sure what else it would be, so he keeps quiet.

ari has big blue eyes and hair a brighter red than anything else in the ocean. he looks like their mother, or so everyone tells him, and he wonders if that’s part of the reason their father doesn’t let him stray.

he grows his hair long, and it raises a few eyebrows, but not too many. triton has long hair, even if it’s not the current style. ari’s is different, though, and he knows it. his father’s hair is wild, more of a mane than a head of hair. ari’s isn’t like that, he spends longer than his sisters combing it each day, and loves its softness and it’s shine. he likes the weight of it on his head, something solid and grounding, and it’s a smooth and cared for as his sisters’ hair.

he’s swimming down the hall, trying to memorize a scroll of spells that his father is going to test him on tomorrow. he passes by as alana is complaining to arista, “i can’t get that knotted bun to sit right, it keeps getting loose and falling apart! i think i’m getting an arm cramp from redoing it so many times.”

“well don’t’ looke at me,” arista says, “last time i let you practice on my hair, attina had to spend twice as long trying to undo it and brush out all the knots.”

“that was one time!” alana says passionately, “come one, please?”

arista is already shaking her head when ari says, “you can practice on me.”

they both turn to him, surprised to see him next to them. he tries not to feel upset that they hadn’t noticed him before. “really?” arista asks eagerly.

“sure,” he shrugs, “i just have to sit there, right? i have some reading to get done anyway.”

“nerd,” arista says, but alana grabs his hand and is so excited she practically shoves him into their room. he loves his sisters’ room. as the only boy and crown prince, he has his own quarters, away from them. he wishes he didn’t. he feels separated from them enough as it is.

it’s bright and glittering, littered with jewelry and hair ornaments, with sparkly shell tops that he loves to touch. he likes things that sparkle, he’s discovered. but if he walks around wearing his crown, he looks like a jerk.

alana gets to undoing and brushing out his hair. he wears it in a long braid down his back because it gets in the way when he’s reading, when he struggles to summon the power his father uses so easily, when he’s trying to memorize spells and languages no one else in the kingdom will ever know.

there are other magic users in the kingdom, of course, but the extent to which they can utilize their power and effect the world, and the extent to which the ruler of the sea can do such things, are so far apart as to be laughable.

arista sits by them, “wow, his hair is the longest of us all. trying to look like a girl, ari?”

he rolls his eyes, but loses track of his thoughts hallway through. he supposes his long hair does kind of make him look like a girl. but he likes it – does it matter? there’s nothing wrong with looking like a girl. he likes girls. when his sisters aren’t being annoying or mean, they’re his favorite people.

“be nice,” attina says absently, head buried in a book. “you’re just jealous because your hair keeps breaking midway down your back and you wish it was as long as ari’s.”

arista scoffs, but takes one of his hands, “here, brother, you should have the nails to match.”

he wants to protest that he needs his hands to read, but he can already tell she’s going to ignore him. so he uses a quick spell to make the scroll hover in front of him. it’s easier than trying to argue with her.

for the next hour arista polishes and shapes his nails before painting them the same shade as his tail. alana works at his hair, twisting his mass of red hair into several styles before finally mastering the knotted bun. She dots it through with pearls and abalone shells carved into floral shapes, which he doesn’t think is necessary. but they are shiny, and he likes shiny things, so he doesn’t say anything.

“this looks fun,” adella decides, and takes her own spot in front of ari. he officially gives up on getting anymore studying done. she brings over a set of pots and a couple delicate brushes, setting them out just so next to her. she swipes on eyeliner and paints his lips red, then grabs some of the expensive glittery green powder from that attina’s vanity.

attina sighs but doesn’t move to stop her. “that’s only for special occasions.”

“be quiet, it’s perfect,” adella says, using delicate fingers to smudge the powder onto his eyelids.

finished, they all lean back to look at him. his other sisters crowd in close, and even attina looks up from her book. “huh,” arista says, “it was meant to be funny, but – you look really pretty ari.”

he turns and finally allows himself to look into one of mirrors.

huh.

he raises a hand to his reflection, then lowers it. he – he does really look like a girl now. he likes it. he doesn’t know how to feel about the fact that he likes it. is it like his long hair, just something he likes? or is it something – else. “guess it’s time to take it all off,” he says, but doesn’t move to do so, only keeps staring at himself. he doesn’t want to look away. he doesn’t know why he doesn’t want to look away, which is the most concerning part.

no one says anything until attina snorts, “they spent so long making you look pretty, ari. you should at least keep it all on for the rest of the day.”

he snaps his neck around to look at her, but she’s already focused back on her book. “okay,” he says, and the wave of relief is – strange.

“you might as well keep the pearls,” alana says, trying for nonchalant and failing miserably, “they look better on you than me.”

“i don’t know how to put them in,” he says, and winces. he should have said that he didn’t need them because he was a boy, and boys didn’t wear pearls in their hair. or, well, maybe some boys do, just like there are boys who like having long shiny hair. there’s more than one way to be a boy, right? he’s just a boy who likes looking like a girl.

right?

or maybe he’s not a boy at all. but he’s not a girl. he would know if he was a girl. wouldn’t he? if he’s questioning it, then he can’t be one. he would know if he were like Mistress Megara, his scary history tutor who used to look a lot different before a potions regimen and used to be called Master Markle.

“well,” alana says, a small smile tugging at the corner of her lips, “i guess i’ll just have to teach you then.”

he smiles back.

he has his sisters around him, all being nice for once, and a list of spells to master before tomorrow otherwise his father will give him one of those awful disappointed looks.

he has more important things to worry about.

“when can i use the trident for my spells?” ari asks hungrily, the dizzying power of having it so close crackling up his spine.

triton sighs, “only when you have progressed to the point where you do not need it.”

what’s the point of being able to handle and use the trident if his father won’t let him? what’s the point of spending so much time cooped up in the castle, reading and learning and practicing, if he can neither explore with his sisters nor fully explore his magic?

“you have more important thing to do than your sisters do,” triton tells him, “you will be king one day, and you must study your magic. on your twentieth birthday, you will be tasked with proving your claim to the throne, and you must also be able to wield the trident.”

ari holds out a hand, and his father willingly passes him the trident. if anyone lacking great power attempts to hold it, if anyone deemed unworthy of being the ruler of the sea tried to use it, they would be killed.

that ari is able to hold it with nothing more than a spark of static electricity on his fingertips is the only sign of his rank and status of heir that matters. his sisters have all tried to hold it more than once, and it left angry, blistering welts on their hands. it did not kill them, but neither will the trident allow them to wield it.

it is ari, and ari alone, who will one day wield the trident of the seven seas.

when’s he’s fourteen, he masters illusions.

he leaves a double in his bed, and sneaks out past the palace grounds for the first time in his life. he’d feel guilty about sneaking out from his father’s watchful eyes, except –

he doesn’t know how anyone can expect him to rule a world that he does not know.

ari does this, night after night. he explores, visiting all the places his sisters talked about and he could never go. he goes down caverns and takes naps on the back of blue whales. he rides rip currents and plays tag with tiger sharks.

at night he has all the freedom that’s denied to him during the day.

ari figures he’s not a boy, because so much of a boy doesn’t feel right, doesn’t sit right on his skin. but he’s not a girl either, because he would know if he was girl, that’s not the type of thing he just wouldn’t notice. something like that would be obvious, and since it isn’t, he can’t be one.

so he’s whatever the space in between those two things is. something – else. he decides not to mention it, not to make a fuss. he’s not a boy, but he’s not girl, so he might as well keep responding to prince and be a he and a him. it’s just as good as anything else. it’s not right, but nothing is quite right, and he’d rather not make things unnecessarily difficult. there’s nothing wrong with being a boy.

he shoots up when he’s fourteen, and when he has to start looking down at attina it feels like something is curdling in the pit of his stomach. his voice cracks in the middle of lessons one day, and that night he has something that he doesn’t want to call a panic attack, because it seems dramatic, but is almost certainly a panic attack.

there are potions that will stop it. but he’d have to tell someone he wanted them in order to get them. he doesn’t want to have that conversation, not when has to go i’m something else, not quite what you think i am, but not quite like my sisters either. he barely understands what he is, what he wants. it’s not something he could articulate to anyone else. he can’t even really articulate it to himself.

instead of having that conversation, he sneaks into the library and spend the night searching for the spell that will do the same thing. there’s a spell for every potion, although not a potion for every spell.

mistress megara says potions are more reliable and stable, but master glaucus says that potions are only used by people who don’t have sufficient magic to cast their own spells. one of ari’s favorite things to do is start a discussion about it, because it inevitably ends in a mistress megara and master glaucus getting in a screaming match, and ari being able to sneak out of his lesson early.

(aquata says master glaucus has been in love with mistress megara since way back when she went by master markle. andrina claims they’re dating already, while adella insists master glaucus keeps asking mistress megara out, and she keeps rejecting him. ari would just prefer not to think of his tutors having any sort of love life at all.)

either way, he finds the spell that the potion is based off of. it’s not as strong as the potion – he’ll have to recast it every week, instead of taking a potion once a month. but it’s something he can do on his own, without having to talk to anyone about it, which is mostly all he wants.

things seem to even out after that. no one notices anything different. he continues to sneak out of the castle most nights. he explores the edges of the city and beyond, lets currents carry him farther from home than he should go.

one day, he will command the whole of the sea. how can he command what he does not know?

ari is minding his own business, swimming through the city when most of its inhabitants are asleep, when he sees a skinny boy a few years older than him with an oddly rounded blue and yellow patterned tail trying to break into a medical storage room. this is clearly none of his business, and nothing he should get involved in, but he can’t help it. he silently swims up behind the boy as he tries to pry a window open. “what are you doing?”

the boy spins around, arms raised in defense. he’s got short bright blonde hair and eyes as blue as ari’s own. “i’m not doing anything!”

he’s too skinny, ari realizes. no person should be that skinny. “do you need something in there?”

the boy crosses his arms. ari can count his ribs. “what’s it to you?”

the spell keeping the windows locked is advanced, and powerful. but ari is the crown prince of atlantica, he is one of two beings in the world who can hold the trident of the seven seas without getting burned. he undoes the locking spell with a flick of his wrist, and the window creaks open. “i’ll keep watch,” ari promises.

the boy is suspicious, but it’s too good an opportunity for him to pass up. he squeezes in through the window – being that malnourished is at least good for something – and is out only a few minutes later. he has a net full of bright red bottles with spidery handwriting on them. “blockers?” ari asks, surprised. he absently reapplies the spell to the window. it makes sense – the boy’s tail looks more like ari’s sisters’ than his. “aren’t you kinda old for these?”

which raises the point of how long he can use his magic to suppress his own changes. he has to stop, at some point. but the thought of his voice deepening and hair growing on his face is – wrong, somehow. he doesn’t want it.

the boy scowls and shrugs, “the substitution potions are a lot harder to make, and a lot more expensive. they’re locked up even better than these.”

“is it dangerous?” ari asks. especially since the boy is clearly not eating regularly, and likely any other number of things.

stuff like this is why ari should have been leaving the castle long before now. how can he help and lead his people if he doesn’t know how they’re struggling?

“guess i’ll find out,” the boy shrugs.

this isn’t right. it’s not just, and it’s not fair. people shouldn’t have to go ransacking medical storage sites just to get what they need. no one should be so thin that their ribs can be counted on sight alone. “let me help,” he blurts. “i’m studying magic. i deal mostly in enchantments, but i can probably figure out the potions.”

“it’s advanced magic,” the boy says, blank with surprise.

“i’m an advanced student,” ari answers.

“the ingredients are expensive,” he says, watching ari’s face carefully.

he shrugs, “we’ll just have to gather the ingredients ourselves instead of buying them. it’ll be an adventure!”

the boy’s face is slowly splitting into a large grin, “i like adventures.” he holds out a hand, “i’m flounder.”

“ari,” he says, almost giddy. a new friend and a new challenge and a whole new reason to go exploring the depths of the ocean.

it’s exciting.

flounder quickly becomes his best friend. granted, he’s ari’s only real friend, but that doesn’t matter. he can tell this is more than casual friends, knows when flounder follows him into a riptide current and darting through a whale skeleton that this is the type of friendship that defines a lifetime.

ari brews the potion. it would probably be easier for him to cast the spells, but flounder doesn’t know who he is. he hasn’t asked, and ari hasn’t told him. he knows he’s a magic student, that he comes from privilege, but that’s all. flounder knows he has secrets, but he doesn’t press ari to reveal them. not yet. if flounder knew he was powerful enough to cast those type of spells on his own, there would be no question to his identity.

so flounder takes the tinted blue potions that ari makes, and he changes. the potions combined with the regular meals that ari brings him, plus all the physically demanding adventures they go on - it’s slow, but it’s there. his voice deepens, the hair on his arms and chest thickens. he’s not skinny anymore, even has muscles that flex and shift when they play together. other smaller, subtler things that don’t mean that much apart, but together – he looks different, he looks his age. before he’d looked younger than ari, but now he looks like what he is – a nearly grown merman.

the potions also give him a horrible case of acne, which he moans and whines about until ari whips him up a paste that takes care of the worst of it.

ari gets used to not getting much sleep. his days are spent as they always have been, studying and learning and irritating his sisters. but his nights are spent laughing and exploring and doing all the things he can’t do when he’s confined to the castle. its spent going to the worst parts of atlantica, of the ocean, to the places where fishermen have picked it bare, to where merpeople are sick and hurt and hungry, to the places where people need help, need change.

ari doesn’t know how to fix these kinds of problems yet. he’s only fifteen. but he knows they exist, and knows they need fixing.

the things is – ari can’t keep performing the blocker spell on himself forever. his sisters have been teasing him for being a late bloomer for years already, and he can only get away with that for so much longer. but the thought of stopping the spells, of letting nature it’s course, of his body changing the way flounder’s body is changing –

it makes him sick. he can’t think of anything he wants less. and for so long he thought he didn’t want to be anything at all. he knew that he wasn’t a boy, but didn’t think that he was anything else either.

he may have miscalculated.

maybe he never would have figured it out, maybe he would have lived his whole life in that in-between, nothing exactly wrong, but nothing exactly right either. but seeing flounder, watching him change, resonating with so many things that he says and feels – it really only leads ari to one logical conclusion.

he’s a girl.

he didn’t think he could be a girl, because he thought something like that should be obvious, that it should be something he always knew. but it’s not, it can’t be, because it wasn’t. besides, he really should have known better from the beginning – mistress megara was far past what most people considered old when she became mistress megara, and she was still a girl. it didn’t matter that she’d gone by master markle for most her life, that she’d lived as a boy for longer than she’d lived as a girl. she was still a girl, and ari knew that, and if mistress megara could figure out she was a girl when she was an old woman, then ari should have known better than to think it would be that easy, that obvious.

but there’s a bigger problem here. there’s an issue that is particular to his situation.

ursula the sea witch prophesized that queen Athena would give birth to seven daughters.

she was right.

ari is the seventh daughter of queen athena and king triton. but this revelation brings up a whole new set of problems.

because he can’t be a girl.

he’s not a commoner, or a noble, a tutor, or anything else, anything where this wouldn’t matter. he’s the crown prince of atlantica, the heir to the seven seas.

the trident chose him over his sisters. him. over his sisters.

if he is a girl, if he takes the potions, if he asks everyone to treat him like a girl and call him by his full name, the name his mother intended for her seventh daughter, then what separates him from sisters?

what’s to stop the trident from rejecting him too?

if the trident rejects him, there will no longer be a clear heir to the throne, and the kingdom will weaken. triton’s rule is peaceful, but not uncontested. there are sea gods who seek to claim the oceans for their own, water spirits who would snatch it away at even the hint of opportunity.

if atlantica loses its crown prince, if there are signs of unrest in the kingdom, it will be as good as inviting war onto their doorstep.

he can’t be a girl.

ari spends about two days having an existential crisis, and going in circles with everything over and over in his head. then remembers that he has a best friend, and that best friends exist precisely for these type of things.

it comes tumbling out of him that night, everything about not knowing what he is, and what he thinks he is, and flounder sits and listens and doesn’t interrupt him once. “i kind of figured,” he admits with a smile. “it works differently for everyone. i knew i was a boy really young, but that’s just me. this is great! we can got hunting for the ingredients to make your version of my potion, and you already have so much practice making it for me that it should be easy for you!”

flounder is pleased and beaming, completely supportive, and ari kind of wants to hug him. but he’s not done yet.

“there’s a problem,” he says, “ari’s not my full name. it’s ariel.”

“like the prince?” flounder asks, and then he pales. ari watches several pieces come together for him all at once.

“yeah,” he says quietly, “like the prince.”

then he tells flounder everything else – what him being a girl would mean for the kingdom, how it could change how the trident reacts to him, all of it. “if atlantica loses an heir, we’re in trouble,” he says, “it’s not just that i wouldn’t be able to be king. it’s that everyone else will see the trident rejecting me as a sign of weakness in the kingdom.”

flounder’s arms are crossed and his lips are pressed into a tight line. “that’s tough,” he says at last. “but – you are a girl. if you don’t tell anyone, that’s your decision. if you don’t want to take the potions or change how you look, that’s your decision. if you go off the blockers and end up looking like me, then that’s your decision. but i don’t know if you can just decide not to be a girl. if it’s was possible to just decide that kind of thing, i would have done it. it’d have been a heck of lot easier than going without eating for a week so i could afford a blocker potion that month. so – it’s okay if you don’t want anyone to know, if you want to go through puberty the natural way without any potions – but i think you’ll always be a girl.”

ari swallows and says, “i am a girl.” it’s the first time he’s said it, and he flushes, he likes the way it feels on his – his – her tongue. “i am a girl. my name is ariel, and i’m a girl.”

flounder beams and grabs her hand to spin her in place until she’s giggling. “there we go! that’s the most important part, i think. we can figure out the rest as we go.”

ariel tackles him to the sea floor in a hug, and he returns it, laughing as he wraps his arms around her.

that night, she doesn’t go straight to bed as soon as she gets home. instead, she sneaks into her father’s room as he sleeps. the guards are diligent, but her magic is strong, and its easy not to be noticed as she slips into his room. she hovers over the trident, gleaming even in the darkness in the corner of his room. “i’m a girl,” she whispers, then again, fiercer, “i’m a girl!”

nothing happens.

she swallows her fear and places her hands on it, like she has so many times before. it heats up her touch, and for a moment she’s terrified that she’s ruined everything, that it will reject her and she’ll be left with nothing, having opened up her kingdom to attack through her selfishness.

but it cools after a moment, and it was uncomfortably hot, but it did not burn her, did not hurt her. it seems like a warning.

“okay,” she says, and it’s not perfect, it’s not what she wants, but she’ll make it be enough. her kingdom matters more. it has to matter more, otherwise she’s not fit to be any sort of regent. “i’m a girl. but it’ll be our little secret. well, and flounder’s.”

the trident doesn’t react, so ariel takes it as agreement. she puts it back in its stand and gives it an affectionate pat before leaving as silently as she’d came.

her studies advance. as her magical abilities grow, so does her connection with the sea. she knows when storms rage on the surface, when typhoons and hurricanes rip across the ocean. she can’t control the sea yet, but she can feel it, and that’s the first step.

“i was four times your age when i felt my first hurricane,” triton says, hand heavy on her shoulder and his approval making her feel light as a feather. “son, you’re doing amazing.”

“thank you,” she says, and forces her smile to stay on. he loves her, and he’s proud of her.

so what if he doesn’t know she’s a girl? no one else does.

now ariel does her hair and make up before going out to meet flounder each night, just like she’s learned from years growing up with her sisters. she likes how it softens her face, how it makes her look that much closer to what she wants to look like.

she lets her hair go free in waves down her back, dotted with the pearls that alana gave her so long ago, or pulls it up in a complicated bun when she’s worried about it getting in her way.

before, she only did it in the privacy of her room, or when her sisters would pull her into theirs and insist on letting them practice on her. before, it was something she liked, but it confused her – she wasn’t a girl, she just liked dressing up like one. except that’s not true anymore. she is a girl, and she likes how it makes her feel more like a girl. so now she does it whenever she leaves the confines of the castle, the only time she can without getting caught. flounder swings her around and pretends to be a noble and kisses her hand. “you look beautiful, crown princess ariel,” he says, first thing, every time he sees her, and if feels wonderful to have him know everything about her, that she’s a girl and that she’s the heir apparent.

“you’re my best friend,” she tells him, beaming.

his smile gets even wider and he kisses her on the cheek, “i better be, because you’re my best friend too.”

“i want to take the potions,” ariel tells flounder one night. “i’ll cast an illusion on myself when i’m in the palace, so no one can tell. but – i want to be able to tell. i want to change.” she’s a girl no matter what. but this is what she wants.

“whatever you want,” flounder tells her, “you need sea silk harvested under a full moon for that potion.”

“the full moon is tonight!” she says, looking up even though they’re too deep in the ocean to see the moon through its depths.

he swims away, calling over his shoulder, “we better hurry then!”

she scowls, because flounder is a much faster swimmer than she is. but with one well places wind spell, she’s shooting past him, laughing.

“cheater!” he howls, but only elbows her gently in the side when he eventually catches up.

if she had any doubts before, she doesn’t after taking the potions.

she’s young enough, has been taking the blockers long enough, that the changes come quickly. she’s also permanently irritated, and itchy all over, but luckily she’s at the age where it’s not exactly out of character.

three years in, she’s eighteen and the illusions she uses to make herself look like a boy are very necessary, which she adores. her tail will never be as round as her sisters’, but her hips curve slightly, giving her at least the illusion of a feminine tail at first glance. her skin is lighter, and softer, even if it itches something awful. when she first notices her face getting rounder, she has to poke at her jawbone to make sure nothing is missing. but it’s only that her cheeks are fleshier.

when her chest grows, and eventually gets big enough that she can wear the sea shell tops like her sisters, she’s ecstatic. her torso is too wide for it, and in size she’s definitely the smallest of her sisters. but she has breasts and she can finally wear the sparkly tops over them. she still loves things that sparkle.

when she goes up a size, she’s so excited she has to show flounder, who sputters and groans and slaps his hand over his eyes while saying he’s very happy for her, but will she please put her top back on?

ariel thinks she can live like this. everyone thinks she’s a boy, but she’s a girl, and maybe sometimes she fantasizes about being made queen of the sea, of being able to hang out with her sisters as their sister, of being able to pester mistress megara about her own changes – but, well, they’ll just have to remain fantasies.

the trident wants a king on the throne. which isn’t fair, because ariel is one of the most magically accomplished people in the ocean, and a girl, so clearly she’s qualified to be named queen.

but people still talk down to her sisters, as if they aren’t just as magically accomplished, just as educated, and just as powerful. they do it because they’re girls, so at least the trident isn’t alone in its prejudices.

attina knocks on her door one day, and her sisters almost never seek her out when she’s in her room. “yes?” she says, warily. attina has never played any tricks on her or teased her, but her sisters don’t usually bother her when she’s supposed to be studying, so there’s a first time for everything.

“ari,” her sister says, and she does her best not to wince. she actually likes her nickname. she just minds that everyone uses it only because they think she’s a boy. she likes being called ari, she thinks it sounds cute. she just doesn’t like people calling her ari if people are only saying it because they believe her to be a boy. which sounds confusing to her, in her own head, so she pushes the thought aside so she can focus on her sister. “i’m having trouble with this spell. can you help me?”

she takes the book from attina. it’s a spell that affects time, creating a time bubble around certain plants to promote years of growth in mere moments. it’s mostly used in times of famine, thanks to it being rather draining for the caster, and it only being able to be applied to a limited area. ariel’s been able to cast it since she was ten.

attina is thirteen years older than her. she’s a real adult, and it’s times like these that ariel understands the terrible power she has, how the scope of her abilities differs even from her own sisters, even from the people who are widely regarded as some of the best casters in the ocean.

“of course,” she says, instead of articulating any of that, “let’s practice in the garden.”

they’re swimming through a long abandoned shipwreck half sunk through the bottom of the ocean floor when flounder licks his lips and says, “your confirmation ceremony is coming up soon.”

that gets her attention. she looks up from the chess piece she’d been trying to dig out of the mud without breaking. “not for another two years,” she says crossly, “and it’s pointless anyway. i’m already the crown prince, and i touch the trident all the time. doing some magic with it won’t change anything.”

“representatives from all across the ocean will show up to witness you wield the instrument of the sea,” flounder says, “after that, it will be impossible for any to stand against you. you will no longer be the son – daughter – of the king of the sea, but a recognized regent in your own right.”

“it doesn’t change anything,” ariel repeats, shrugging. “i’m not taking the throne for a long, long time. and the regent stuff is just a bunch of paperwork, it doesn’t actually mean anything. i won’t be able to do anything that matters until i’m on the throne, or at least until i can convince all the stodgy old councilmen to listen to me.”

flounder rolls his eyes and sighs, “i’m only bringing this up because - when the time comes, don’t – wouldn’t you prefer to be named the crown princess of the sea, rather than the prince?”

ariel wishes she had the excuse of the potions to explain away her irritation, but her moods finally started to settle, for the most part, last year. and if anyone has the right to question her, it’s flounder. “i can’t. the only reason the trident doesn’t reject me is because everyone still thinks i’m a boy, because thanks to the glamour spell i look like one. if everyone knew i was a girl there’d be no confirmation ceremony, because i wouldn’t be able to wield the trident, and war would be brought to the doorstep of atlantica.”

“don’t you think you’re being a little over dramatic?” flounder asks, and he is so lucky that he’s her best friend. “you think you have great magical power because the trident chose you. how do you know the trident didn’t choose you because of your great magical power? maybe it doesn’t care if people know you’re a girl, because it chose you for your power, not your gender.”

ariel gives up on the chess piece. she has three more just like it, after all. “i know because all my sisters are talented with magic, all of them have things they excel at, are beautiful and personable. i know because attina studies, because she’s level headed and kind and smart. she would make an amazing queen. but she won’t be one, instead i’ll be king, and the only thing i have that they don’t, the only difference between us, is that i’m a boy and they’re not.”

“but you’re not a boy,” flounder says, “you’re a girl. you told the trident you were a girl, and it still lets you touch it.”

“it wants a king on the throne, not a queen,” she remembers the burn of it in her hand, the burn she’d never felt before. “i know i’m a girl, and you know i’m a girl, and it knows i’m a girl, and that’s as far as this can go,” she says, using her firm voice, the one she uses on tutors and ambassadors who have irritated her.

flounder sighs, unimpressed, but says, “all right, ariel. whatever you say.”

ariel goes to the surface more often than she should, but never close to shore. that’s how she catches sight of this particular ship, and usually she’d watch them talk and drink by firelight and let the ship be on it’s way, but – she sees a man on the ship, and there are many beautiful men in the sea, and she has seen her fair share of handsome humans on ships, but this one – she can’t explain it, but his smile makes her heart lodge in her throat. he’s got dark hair and eyes as perfectly blue as the water on a clear day, and she wants him in a way she’s wanted no other.

“he’s a human,” flounder points out, scowling disapprovingly even as he stays be her side and spies on them with her. “we shouldn’t get involved with humans.”

“he’s a human and a man, and i’m not some mermaid that can go around seducing sailors whenever i feel like it,” she says absently, “that doesn’t mean i can’t look.”

“what’s him being a man have to do with it?” flounder asks. “you like men. besides, even if you’re dad does think you’re a boy, alana has a girlfriend and he doesn’t have a problem with that.”

she knocks her shoulder into his, “don’t act dumb. i can’t marry a man because everyone thinks i’m a guy, and i’m to be king. i have to have a line of succession, which might be a little difficult if i take a husband. I can’t be known to like men for the same reason.”

“you have six sisters, five of whom like men,” flounder says, “i’m certain one of them will provide an heir or two. there’s no reason you can’t take a husband, besides the councilmen being bitchy about it. and from the way you talk about them, they’re going to bitch about everything anyway.”

that’s actually a good point.

she would much prefer to be with a man, although it would have to be one she trusted – the glamour charm can handle some touching without breaking, but not a lot. unless she plans to live a life celibacy, she’ll need to marry someone who knows she’s a girl.

she’s pretty sure kidnapping a human is out of the questions either way.

instead of answering him, ariel grabs onto flounder’s shoulders and pushes him under the water, both to get enough leverage to see better and to shut him up. he crosses his arms, but lets her continue to use him as a ledge.

most storms build. they take a long time to form, ariel can tell when one is coming two days out and her father can feel one a week in advance.

this is not one of those storms.

it seems like it takes only minutes for the sea to go from perfectly calm to intolerably rough. the humans try to control their ship, try to move it with the storm, but this sudden tempest makes it impossible, and soon the massive ship is capsizing.

“we have to go!” flounder yells in her ear, trying to tug on her arm, “we have to go back to the sea floor! we’ll be safe there!”

the humans have started scrambling into lifeboats, but ariel can feel the power of this storm, each massive wave makes her bones shake. this is a storm that plans to leave no survivors. “i have to help,” she says.

flounder yanks on her, managing to pull her a bit more into the sea. “ariel, you can’t! you don’t have the trident, you can’t control the sea! we need to go before it swallows us too.”

she shakes him off, “i am the heir to the sea. trident or no trident, i will control it. you need to go.”

“i’m not leaving you behind,” he says stubbornly, “this is crazy, come with me!”

the waves are larger than the men can handle, rocking and threatening to smash their small boats. “i’m really sorry about this,” she says earnestly.

his eyes widen and he grabs for her, his blunt nails digging into the skin of her shoulder, “no, don’t!”

she uses a spell to make him heavy, heavy enough that he’ll sink to the sea floor. he reaches for her as he’s pulled under, screaming for her, but she ignores it. the spell will wear off in a few hours. he’ll be fine, no matter what happens to her. “go to my sisters! tell them i’m okay!” even if this doesn’t kill her, it will leave her weak enough that it will take her days to make it back home.

she knows this is stupid. she’s the crown prince of the sea, and her life is more valuable than that any number of humanss. but that man, the one with dark hair and blue eyes – she doesn’t know why, but the thought of him dead is like a knife to her chest. she can’t stand it. he has to live, no matter what it costs her.

ariel has never tried to control a storm before. she’s not stupid enough to try to now, that’s something she doesn’t even know if her father can do. but the current – that she can command, probably. she thinks. she gather’s her magic to her, and concentrates. it’s hard, so much harder than anything else she’s ever done, but it’s working.

she controls the current under the boats, guiding them to safety and out of the way of the harsh waves that wish to claim the sailors for their own. she feels the heat of magic burning her from the inside out, but she doesn’t stop. she’s going to save these men’s lives.

but then the one man in particular she’s trying to save jumps into the ocean and climbs onto the ship that’s currently on fire.

she doesn’t understand how humans have survived at all if they’re all like this.

her foolish human succeeds in getting his dog onto the boat, but is pulled beneath the sea. ariel didn’t think she could do anymore, she thought that controlling the current so all the boats wouldn’t be torn apart and the sailors drowned was taking all of her magic and energy.

but she sees her human swallowed by the ocean, and she goes after him. she won’t allow the others to die just to save him, so she continues controlling the current even as she wraps her arms around his torso and pulls him to the surface. he’s unconscious, a nasty head wound bleeding sluggishly, but he’s alive. the boats are far ahead, but she ignores the ache of her body and pulls him onto her back, determined to see him to safety.

she rides the tail end of the current out of the storm, and as soon as they’re on calm seas she releases her control of the ocean. they’re sailors. they can get to the shore by themselves now.

all she wants to do it sink to the bottom of the ocean and find a cave to pass out in. but her human is still unconscious on her back, and she hasn’t gone through this much effort only for him to drown now. she’s exhausted and her body feels heavy, like she’s made of lead, but she keeps moving forward. she’ll get him to land, and then she can rest.

it’s the cool grey of almost-dawn by the time she gets them to shore. she drags him onto the sand, and collapses beside him, eyelids begging to shut. she’s never done this much magic before, has never swam so far before, especially not with a person on her back.

her hair had come undone at some point, and it splays out around her as she shifts onto her side, determined to get one last look at him. the wound on his head had stopped bleeding hours ago, and his breaths are coming out deep and even. she raises a hand, hesitates, but presses her thumb against his lips, then splays her hand so she’s cupping his cheek. he turns into her touch, and for a moment all her drowsiness disappears. she’s wide awake, heart pounding as she shifts forward enough that she’s looking down at him. he’s not awake, not yet, but he’s turning into the warmth of her hand, skin against skin, and she feels like she’s falling.

she leans down, oh so carefully, and presses her lips to the corner of his mouth.

“prince eric!” frantic voices call out, “prince eric! are you here? prince eric!”

she tries to drag herself back into the ocean, but all at once her exhaustion comes rolling over her. her magic has had time to recover, but her body hasn’t. her human’s beginning to wake, the voices are getting closer, and she can’t make herself move.

she closes her eyes, pulling at her magic. it should be weak and trembling, barely recovered, but it feels as strong as ever, stronger even. she doesn’t have time to question it. instead she uses it, performing a spell she’s never cast before, doing something she’s never done before – she turns herself human.

she barely has the time to see her human’s perfectly blue eyes open before her own slide shut.

she wakes up slowly. her first thought is that everything hurts. her second is that she’s – dry. she comes awake completely at that, gasping, and tries to push herself up but when she does sharp pain stabs her throughout her body. “miss, please, be still!” calloused hands push her back onto the bed, and she looks up at a woman staring down at her worriedly, “you’re bruised – well, all over,” she says, blushing. “not to worry dear, i’m the one who dressed your wounds and all that. i am carlotta, miss.” the woman hesitates, “it is miss, isn’t it? we – i thought so, but grimsby was uncertain, but i said i should be the one to care for you either way, what with me having four sons and all, it’d be better if i took care of you and grimsby was wrong than if he did and i was wrong.”

ariel takes a moment to untangle the mess of words, then says, “it is miss,” taking special care that her voice comes out lighter and higher, so that she sounds how like she thinks a miss should sound like.

“oh, good,” carlotta says, relieved. she instantly returns to her previous infectious cheer, “i am afraid you gave our young prince quite a show!” she winks at her, “i believe he would have been quite taken with you just for saving his life, but you’re such a pretty thing too!”

ariel has no idea what’s going on. “where am i?” how long has she been gone? there’s sunlight filtering in through the window. her father must have noticed she’s missing by now.

“the palace,” carlotta says, “the prince requested i get him right away when you got up. he wanted to wait with you so he’d be here when you woke up, but the poor dear’s a bit banged up himself!”

her human. “is he all right?” she asks urgently.

“just fine, just fine, nothing some food and rest won’t fix, thanks to you!” carlotta pats her knee. “now, he did say right away, but why don’t we get you all dressed up first?” she pulls out a beautiful pink gown from the closet. a gown, because ariel told this woman that she was a girl and she didn’t question it, even though she can already feel that the place between her thighs isn’t like most women on the surface have.

she should leave. even though her body is sore and weak, she’s never felt stronger in magic than she does right now, and she has a duty to the ocean, to the kingdom. she should run. she should run to the shore, leap into the sea, and never look back.

but a kind woman is holding out a pink gown for her to wear, and her human wants to see her.

“okay,” she says. her father has to have already noticed she’s missing. she might as well make his anger worthwhile.

carlotta bathes her and helps her into the dress, and she’s worried it won’t fit her right, that she’ll be too tall, her hips too narrow, her shoulders too wide, her breasts too small. but it fits, somehow it fits, and ariel thinks that carlotta must have some sort of magic all on her own.

she brushes ariel’s hair and attaches dangling pearls to her ears. then she’s brought into a grand ballroom, and her human is there waiting for her. he takes a step towards her, then pauses, unsure. he’s just as handsome as before, and he’s alive, and ariel runs to him before she can think better of it. “your face!” she cries, reaching up to delicately tilt his chin down. the cut on his forehead has closed, but it’s surrounded by a big angry bruise. she lightly runs her fingers over it and bites her lip. “does it hurt?”

he stares at her for a moment, stunned. ariel remembers that her human is supposedly a prince, and that if anyone ran up to her in her palace and started touching her face without permission, they’d be given a harsh punishment. before she can figure out whether she should apologize or not, he breaks out into a large grin. “i’ll live,” he says, taking both of her hands in his own so he can kiss the back of each one. “you saved my life. i don’t know how, or what you were doing in that sea by yourself. but – you saved my life.”

he’s holding her hands. he’d kissed her hands! “i like to swim,” she says, too distracted with looking at her prince to think of a better lie.

“i like you,” he says, painfully earnest, and ariel’s heart is in her throat. he saw her naked, and she’s standing in front of him in a pink dress, he has to know, has to have figured it all out, and he likes her still. “i’d like to get to know you better. will you stay here, in my palace, as my guest? just so we can get a chance to get to know each other. please.”

she can’t. she has a kingdom to return to, people who need her and depend on her. besides, even if she and her prince do fall in love, what then? she can’t keep her human form, and she can take a human husband to the ocean like she’s some sort of siren living outside of the laws of decent seafolk. this can only end in heartbreak. she has to tell him no, and go back home.

“yes,” she says. and only regrets it long enough for her prince to grab her waist and lift her up, spinning her above him as he laughs from pure joy.

she will go back –just in a couple of days. flounder will tell her family she’s fine, and if her father get impatient he can use the trident to find her. but until then, she can have her prince, and he can have her.

days stretch to weeks. eric and ariel spend almost all their time together from the time they wake up to when they fall asleep again. both of them skip the shy stage, and jump right to eric trying to teach ariel how to dance and laughing at her when she steps on his feet. she’s thankful her prince is tall, because so is she, and when they’re dancing they can look each other in the eyes. she’ll have to stick to the flat shoes, however, and not the dainty heels carlotta gets for her, if she doesn’t want to tower over him.

ariel lays claim to his library, devouring books as she curls up by the fireplace and eric goes over charts and nautical maps on the other side of the room, looking up and smiling at her every few minutes. she demands eric teach her chess, and as soon as she understands the rules she soundly beats him every game.

he takes her to town and buys her every strange and random object that catches her eye, and when she starts elbowing him in the ribs and telling him to stop it, he only laughs and does it anyway. “i don’t understand your fascination,” he says as he pays for a copper fork with a delicate flower carved up the side, “but i like how happy you look. i’d be willing to trade a lot more than gold to keep you happy, ariel.”

she rolls her eyes and scoffs but she can’t keep from smiling, which was his goal to begin with. she can’t help glancing at herself in every shop window they pass. on land, some things are more apparent than under water. carlotta had finally solved the mystery of her itchy skin by helping rub coconut oil all over herself, and it makes her skin even softer, gives her a subtle glow that she adores. the hair on her arms is lighter and thinner, and carlotta had showed her how to shave her legs. they’re usually covered by dresses anyway, but she likes how smooth and silky they feel when she rubs them together.

there are nights when ariel and eric look up at the stars, curled into each other’s arms, and just talk. he tells her of how his parents are dead, and how his whole country is merely waiting for him to get married to take the throne, of how the fear and pressure of being a prince is almost crippling. and she understands, of course she understands, she’s the child of a king too, she set to inherit her own throne. she doesn’t tell him any of this, but instead offers him the comfort and encouragement she wants for herself. he seems lighter, and kisses her hands, and says she’s the best friend he’s ever had.

they take long walks on the beach together, and are affectionate and kind to one another constantly, thoughtlessly. ariel didn’t expect it to be this easy, she didn’t know anything in life could be as easy and right as eric’s hand in hers.

it’s more than him, even though he’s wonderful and as close to a perfect as a real person can be, even though he makes her heart pound when he settles his hand on her waist, even though he’s carved a place for himself in her heart.

it’s that everyone knows she’s a girl here.

there’s no hiding, no pretending, no secrets. well, one secret, since no one knows she’s a mermaid. but carlotta treats her like a girl, so do the people in town, everyone. she thought that people would be against them, against her being with her prince, when she’s not the kind of woman who can ever give prince eric a child.

(“oh, don’t worry about that,” carlotta says when ariel brings it up, hoping she’s not being too presumptuous. “prince eric’s father was adopted by the queen after the king died because she refused to take a husband. there’s no reason you two can’t do the same!” she had sighed wistfully, “i do miss having children in the castle. perhaps you will adopt many children? just three or four, or five. no more than seven, i think.”

“seven is a good number,” she’d said, and had laughed when carlotta had lit up and clapped her hands in delight.)

it’s not just carlotta who has expectations. everyone talks. all the servants and townspeople believe eric will propose any moment now, it’s clear as day that he’s in love with her, and that she’s in love with him.

she’s in love with him.

he’s her soulmate, her friend, someone she wants to fall asleep with every night and wake up to every morning.

ariel loves him, and she cannot have him. staying was a mistake.

she still can’t force herself to leave.

she’s been there a over a month, and it’s the cool dawn of morning. she’s standing in front of her closet, trying to decide which dress to wear. she hadn’t been specific, of course, but she’d mentioned that she’d never had a chance to wear a lot of dresses or pretty things growing up. he’d responded by ordering the seamstress to go to market and get two dozen beautiful dresses, just for her.

(“you’re spoiling me,” she’d accused, trying to pretend like she wasn’t crying and failing miserably.

he’d leaned down to kiss her forehead. “you deserve to be spoiled.”)

she doesn’t know how she’ll ever live in any way but this. she’s a girl, and everyone knows she’s a girl. she feels freer than she ever has, even though no one knows she’s from the sea.

the first golden ray of sunlight has just passed through her window when there’s a pain in her chest. it starts out dull, but soon it’s to the point where she’s doubled over and gasping, each beat of her heart a new wave of agony.

something is wrong in atlantica.

she needs to return home.

she hurries. she doesn’t have time to question it. she runs from the palace to the shore, still wearing the clothes she slept in. “miss!” carlotta call out from where she’s hanging laundry, “miss! where are you going?”

“i’ll be back!” she calls out, and hopes it isn’t a lie, “tell him i’ll be back!”

she runs into the ocean, diving below as soon as it’s deep enough and releasing the spell, returning to her true form of a mermaid. she almost applies her customary illusion to make her look like a boy, but hesitates, and doesn’t do it. she tells herself it’s because she needs to preserve her magic. it’s a long swim back home, but she does just as she did before, and redirects the current, forces the water to take her back to atlantica faster than any fish or boat could take her.

she returns in the midst of a battle.

the great sea monsters cetus and lotan are attacking her home. her citizens are huddled in their homes, while their soldiers struggle to defend the city. her sisters are coordinating the attacks, acting as generals and mages to keep the monsters at bay.

her father is fighting ursula, the sea witch having transformed herself into a being of horrendous size. this shouldn’t be a battle, it should have been over and won but the time ariel got here. except that, for whatever reason, her father fights without the trident. his magic is strong, but so is ursula’s.

she swims, darting around cetus’s snapping jaws until she reaches her eldest sister’s side. “attina!” she cries, “what’s going on?”

attina whirls around to face her and her face goes slack in shock. she grabs her shoulders and pulls her into a fierce hug. “ari! you’re alive!”

“of course i’m alive,” she stares, “why would you think i wasn’t? didn’t – did flounder find you?” she thought for sure that flounder would be fine, but what if she was wrong, what if something had attacked him and hurt him while her heaviness spell was on him –

“your friend came to the palace,” attain says, and ariel’s shoulders drop in relief. “but he said you were trying to control the waves, and then the trident stopped working, so we thought for sure you were dead.”

“the trident stopped working?” she repeats in disbelief. is this her fault? did it stop working because she’d been living as girl with eric? that doesn’t make any sense, but neither does the trident simply breaking.

she puts the rest of the pieces together. the trident wasn’t working, so her father couldn’t find her like she’d thought he could. they thought she was dead, that the line of succession was unstable, and then if the trident had broken somehow, thanks to her – it’s no wonder that they’re at war. she’s shocked it’s just ursula here now, and not any of the other spirits and gods who are so eager to claim the sea for their own.

there’s a loud crash as lotan’s tail swings wildly and a tower comes tumbling to the ground. “no!” attina shouts, but there’s nothing she can do.

people scream as the rubble comes raining down, and ariel doesn’t even have to think, she whips around and moves the water, creating a barrier over her people so none of the rock falls on them. “move!” she yells, and they all scramble to get of the way. once it’s clear, she lets the broken tower fall to the sea floor. people are starting to notice her, her sisters yelling her name and people staring. “where’s the trident?” attina is wide eyed, and ariel resists the urge to shake her. “attina!”

“in the throne room,” she says.

ariel moves to go to the palace, but lotan snarls and comes barreling towards them. soldiers line up, but ariel is not interested in any of her people dying today. she spins in place, magic unfurling from her hands. a small hurricane appears within the water, capturing lotan in it’s grip and dragging him away. “i can’t leave,” she says grimly. her soldiers jaws are slack. “attina, i need you to get the trident for me. i know it burns–“

“i’ll do it,” she says immediately.

ariel uses her magic to slice off a foot of her bright red hair, and pushes it at attina. “here, use this to hold it. it will help.”

her sister nods and hurries to the castle. ariel takes up her post, magic gathering in her hands. lotan has escaped her hurricane and she send it tumbling back with another large wave. “adella!” she calls out to her sister who’s leading the defense on the other side of the castle. “send cetus my way!”

adella nods, and her soldiers marshal together, trying to push the monster toward the center of the battle line where ariel stands. cetus and lotan are beings of magic, and can only be killed by a tool of magic, like the trident. ariel can’t kill them on her own, but she can slow them down. cetus hisses at her, and she calls the power of thunderstorms down to them, sends a bolt of lightning that pins him to the sea floor. it glows and sizzles while cetus ineffectually tries to free himself from its grip.

this is more magic than she’s ever done, more than she’s ever seen her father do. it should be killing her, but instead it feels like it’s bringing her alive. it’s like the electricity of the lightning bolt is filling her, powering her.

ursula’s cackle surrounds them. ariel looks up in time to see triton fall limp to the ground with a thunderous boom. “father!” she cries. she wants to go to him, but she has to stay, has to defend her home. she looks to andrina and aquata and says, “help him.” they specialize in healing magic. if any of his daughters can save him, it will be them.

they don’t need to be told twice. they bolt to where their father has fallen, and soldiers line up in a path to protect them. ursula moves to stop her sisters, but ariel gathers another lightning bolt in her hand and throws it. it misses the sea witch, but it certainly gets her attention.

“so the prince isn’t dead after all,” she cackles, sauntering towards them. her soldiers raise spears and weapons, but don’t move to attack her, waiting for ariel’s command. she won’t give it. she’s not interested in any of her people dying today. “learn a few new tricks did you, boy? like your pathetic little illusion? if you think pretending to be a girl will save you, you are sorely mistaken.”

attina swims up beside her, holding the trident wrapped in ariel’s hair so it doesn’t burn her. “ariel, here, take it!”

she doesn’t. she’s furious, an anger as deep as the sea rising up within her. she shouldn’t do this, shouldn’t have come here without her illusion. but she had. it’s who she is, and she’s tired of pretending otherwise. the trident can reject her or not, she doesn’t care anymore. it’ll be harder to drive them all back without it, but her magic is just as powerful as her rage, and she can do it if she needs to.

“i,” she says, practically spitting she’s so angry, knowing the eyes and ears of all her people are on her and there’s no going back from this and not caring at all, “am not pretending to be a girl. i am ariel of the seven seas, crown princess to them all. i am the seventh daughter of king triton, and this is no trick. i am a girl. and this girl,” she finishes grimly, “is going to destroy you!”

she lifts the trident from attina’s hands.

it burns.

but not to hurt. it comes alive in her hands in a way it never has before, sparking and shining. for the first time fear flickers across usrula’s face as the sea swirls around ariel, her hair flying and her eyes glowing with power.

she picks up the trident, and she understands what happened, what has been happening. when she controlled current, when she tamed the sea to her will, she did something that not even her father has done. when she commanded the sea to save eric, it knew. it knew that she had surpassed her father, and as such only she could wield the trident.

she’ll worry about that later.

what she’s not worried about anymore is the trident rejecting her. it never would have. the trident is always, always a reflection of who wields it. she doubted herself, and so it doubted her.

she doesn’t doubt herself anymore. she’s a girl, she’s powerful, and she will protect her land and her people as is expected of any future queen.

she slashes the trident down, and a deep cut opens across ursula’s shoulder, blood oozing and black. ursula presses her hand to it, howling as she sears it shut. “you think that just because you wield the trident you matter?” she pants, standing straight. “it means nothing.”

“you’re right,” ariel says, something her father said to her long ago surfacing in her mind and finally making sense. “being able to wield the trident means nothing, because only those who have no need of the trident’s power are able to wield it.” she lets it go, and it remains floating at her side. “if it will comfort you, sea witch, i will kill you with my own magic, and save the trident for your allies.”

ariel focuses, finds the sea witches heart with her magic, and squeezes. lightning runs up and down her arms and she flings every bit of it at usula, watches with grim satisfaction as the witch tries to move against her and finds she cannot move at all. ariel gathers a lightning bolt with the strength of a typhoon in her hands, and thrusts it through ursula’s heart.

her screams are cut off, and she’s reduced to nothing but ash. what’s left of her is carried away by the current.

ariel hold out her hand, and the trident obediently falls into it. she makes quick work of cetus and lotan, powerful stabs to the neck with the trident are all it takes for them to be reduced to nothing more than bad memories.

she takes a deep breath, centering herself for just a moment. then she goes swimming to the sea floor, where triton lays surrounded by her sisters. everyone she passes bows to her, and she tries not to focus on it.

“father!” she says, and her sisters part for her so she can sit by his side. “daddy, look at me.”

he’s weak but alive, and turns to face her. he’s crying as he lifts up a trembling hand to her, and she clasps it in both of hers. “you’re alive,” he says, voice scratchy, “my beautiful daughter, you’re alive.”

she breaks completely at that, throwing her arms around him and bawling. “i’m so sorry, i didn’t mean to worry you so much, i didn’t mean for any of this!”

“it’s all right,” he tells her, “you’re alive, and you came back. all else can be forgiven, ariel.”

flounder finds her when everything calms dawn, and yells at her and then hugs her tightly for so long her arms go numb, but she only laughs and hugs him back. she formally introduces him to her family, and can’t help but notice the interested glances arista keeps sending him. by the flush on the back of his neck, flounder can’t help but notice either.

with some help from ariel, triton is back to full health in no time. he still can’t wield the trident.

ariel is having none of it. triton and her sisters look on amused as she glares at the trident, “i’m not ready to be queen,” she tells it sternly, “i’m much too young. you will obey my father until i take the throne, and you will like it!” she shakes it for good measure, and then holds it out to her father.

he picks it up, and after a stubborn moment it glows, becoming his once more. “thank you,” he tells her, amused, “i am willing to retire, you know.”

“no thanks,” she tells him, wrinkling her nose. then she rubs the back of her neck and says, “i – i was thinking, actually, that i should get some practice in being a queen first, before i take the throne.

“your human,” triton says, frowning. “is there no mermen you will be satisfied by? it must be him?”

“i love him,” she says helplessly, because she does, as truly and honestly as the first day she met him, but even more deeply.

he sighs, “then you shall have him.”

her family comes with her when she goes to him. he’s sitting on the beach, knees pulled to his chest as he stares out into the waves. “he’s looking for you,” attina says, nudging her. “go on.”

ariel takes a deep breath, then swims closer to shore. “eric!” she calls out.

his head snaps up, and he catches her eye instantly. “ariel!” he cries, running into the ocean, “ariel!”

she swims to meet him so he doesn’t drown trying to get to her, and he’s submerged to his waist when he grabs her and pulls her close. she wraps her arms around his neck and he presses his face into her neck. she can feel his shoulders shaking. “oh, eric, i’m so sorry.”

“where did you go?” he asks, but doesn’t pull back enough to look at her. “carlotta told me you ran into the ocean, and no one could find you, and i thought – everyone thought – but now you’re here, and–” his arms around her waist graze lower, and he freezes.

“there’s something i have to tell you,” ariel says nervously,

he adjusts his grip and lifts her up in a bridal hold. she’s impressed he doesn’t drop her when she waves her tail at him. “i’m a mermaid. and a prince. well, a princess, obviously. i’m going to be queen of the seven seas one day.”

eric rubs his hand against her scales, eyes wide. “honey, you have a tail.”

“yes,” she says, “is that – is that a problem?”

he blinks and then smiles at her. “nothing about you is a problem.”

she throws herself at him, and he stumbles back and falls, soaking himself completely. she grabs his face and kisses him, the first kiss they’ve shared, and it feels warm, feels important, like the trident in her hands. “i love you.”

“i love you too,” he answers, smiling so wide it looks like his face will break in half. “would the future queen of the seven season consider taking a human prince as a husband?”

“yes,” she answers, and kisses him again because she can, because he knows all her secrets and loves her anyway.

there’s the cool sensation of magic that isn’t her own covering her, and when it’s gone she’s back in the shape of a human, in a blue dress that sparkles in the sunlight.

they look over to triton, eric flushing and inclining his head to him, since he can’t exactly bow with ariel in his lap. “this feels different,” she says, but she’s the same as she was when she transformed herself, same wide shoulders, same narrow hips. then she rubs her legs together, confused, because something is missing. she does it again, and she just stares at her father. it’s something that no amount of potions could give her.

“to help you look more like most of the other surface women.” his lips quirk up at the corners, “the legs are not permanent, of course.” he addresses the both of them, “when your time as monarchs of the land ends, you must both return to the sea. ariel will be made queen, and you her husband.”

“i love the sea,” eric says, looks down at her and a blush covers her face, “it will be my pleasure to stand at queen ariel’s side when the time comes.”

she kisses him again, because she can’t help herself. “as it will be mine to stand by your side while you are king.”

when they look back, her father and sisters are gone.

ariel isn’t worried. the magic and power of the sea still hums in her bones. she can simply transform back into a mermaid and visit them whenever she wishes. she’ll bring eric with her, so that he can know the place she grew up and he will one day call home.

eric and ariel walk out of the ocean onto the land, hands clasped and with a whole future together spread out before them.

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