Chapter Text
Lightning cracked across the raging sky, nearly blinding Ariel as she trembled on the ocean floor. The very clouds bucked and heaved with fury, deafening thunder booming over the ocean and unleashing sheets of rain upon the thrashing waves. The waters roared and spun in an impossible vortex around her. Far above, Ursula cackled with glee, raising the enormous trident to strike.
“So much for true love!" the gigantic sea witch crowed.
Ariel squeezed her eyes shut, bracing herself for the blow—but it never came. A hideous screech of pain and rage tore through the storm. The mermaid’s eyes flew open and she watched lightning surge through the witch as she fell backwards, wrapping her tentacles around a decrepit ship lodged in her side. Ariel could hardly believe what she was watching.
Just as the sea folded back in on itself, she saw a battered Eric fall from the ship as Ursula began to disintegrate and sink into the depths. The trident shrank and fell from her grasp, drifting slowly towards the sea floor. Beams of light shot up from the witch’s cave and dozens of merfolk swam from their former prison. Her father's crown settled on the ocean floor, and the tiny polyp swirled back up into a powerful merman.
Ariel pushed herself up from the seabed and flapped her tail frantically, swimming up to meet Eric’s sinking body. In a motion that felt all too familiar, she wrapped her arms around his torso and began hauling him to the surface. But this time, she felt a strong hand grip her arm and she looked down to meet Eric’s eyes. They were impossibly blue as he gazed back up at her in awe, as if seeing her for the first time.
He kicked his legs to help her propel them up, and the two broke through the surface. Eric took a deep, gasping breath, leaning against the mermaid. Even after all that had happened, Ariel couldn’t help but smile.
“Eric—“ she breathed, but a loud crack cut her short as they were yanked back underwater.
A blaze of ugly, purple light arced up from the seabed. It enveloped the prince and ripped him from her grasp. He struggled fruitlessly against an invisible force pinning his arms to his sides and pushing his legs together. Ariel glanced below to see her father cast backwards from his trident that sparked with the same violet energy circling Eric.
His eyes widened as his pants and boots disintegrated, leaving everything out in the open. His legs began to fuse. The skin of his feet melted together into an indistinct lump of bone and flesh. Dark blue scales spread from his waist to cover his naked and squirming lower half. Bones snapped, his knees vanishing and leaving his legs rubbery. New muscles filled them out, rippling beneath his scales and lengthening whatever his legs were becoming. He let out his last breath in a yell of pain as wide fins unfurled from where his feet had been just moments before.
Ariel felt as if every muscle in her body had turned to stone.
Eric was a merman.
The light dissipated. Princess and prince, mermaid and merman locked gazes for a heartbeat before Eric’s eyes rolled back in his head and he plummeted towards the sea floor.
Ariel darted forward to catch him, pulling him close and burying her face in his hair. She was dimly aware of movement around her, Eric’s weight lifting from her and a strong, warm, achingly familiar arm wrapping around her waist. Exhausted, she sank back into her father’s embrace.
“Come along, little one,” he murmured. “Let’s go home.”
Ariel lay curled up on her bed, staring blankly at the wall. It had been two days since Ursula was defeated, since Eric had been changed. No one had said anything to Ariel about where he was, not even Sebastian. She barely moved from her bed, eating almost nothing. Every once in a while, one of her sisters would poke their head through the door, but Ariel merely turned away each time, disinterested in whatever comfort they tried to offer. Flounder swam back and forth above her anxiously.
“D-don’t worry, Ariel,” he reassured her, hardly sounding sure himself. “Everything’s probably fine! M-maybe it was… a trick of the light! Or an illusion! Or—“
Whatever option he was about to offer was cut short as Sebastian skittered through the door.
Ariel bolted upright. “Sebastian! Where’s Eric? Where’s Daddy?” she demanded. “What’s going on?”
"The prince is in the palace infirmary,” the crab replied briskly. “Come along.” But Ariel had already shot past him. He sighed, scuttling after her.
Ariel burst into the infirmary and raced to Eric’s bedside. Her breath caught in her throat as she watched his chest rising and falling. He twitched fitfully in his sleep, a blanket woven from soft kelp covering his lower half. She blushed—the palace doctor had discarded the prince’s ragged, bloody shirt, leaving his broad, muscular chest bare.
She had never liked the infirmary. Its white stone walls always felt cold and sterile. It was a far cry from the rest of the royal halls, decked out with shells and vibrant coral, the dark blue stone trimmed with gold. But mostly, it reminded her of how her father had sat there for hours, days, weeks after her mother’s death, staring at an empty bed.
Eric stirred, crying out in his sleep and jolting Ariel from her thoughts. Ariel’s trembling fingers brushed a strand of hair from his face and traced a wound along his chest. They came back red with blood.
Eric wrapped his hand around hers, his eyelids fluttering. “Ariel? Is that you?”
“I’m here, I’m here,” she breathed, leaning in close. “I won’t leave you.” He was even more gorgeous as a merman.
“Where am I? What happened?” Eric struggled to sit up, letting the blanket that covered his new appendage slip off the bed. It was the first time he’d seen his new form since he was changed. With a shaking hand, he rubbed where the scales met his skin in horror. When he thought about moving his feet, the fins twitched instead.
“This can’t be possible,” he protested. “A few days ago I thought magic and merfolk were just children’s legends and now…” he trailed off, searching Ariel’s face with wide eyes. “I’m sorry, I don't want to offend you.”
Ariel giggled. “It’s alright,” she said. “We don’t exactly advertise ourselves. We’re home, in Atlantica. Daddy brought you back here.” She reached for his tail, pausing and looking at him. Eric nodded, and she ran her hand from where his hips used to be, all the way down to his fins. He shuddered.
The royal blue scales glimmered in the early morning light. “It’s beautiful,” she whispered, smiling softly. “I’ve never seen such a wonderful tail.”
“I… I guess it is.” He tilted his head and studied his anatomy. Nothing seemed to change from his waist up, but he didn't want to think too hard about how he was breathing. Eric ran his fingers through his thick, black hair. At least that was the same. “It’s just hard to wrap my mind around it. That this is my body now.”
Ariel’s head snapped up. “You don’t hate it, do you?” she asked desperately. “I know you never asked for any of this, but it’s not too horrible, is it? Oh Eric, I’m so sorry.”
“No, of course not,” he replied hastily. “I’ll just have to get used to it. Besides, maybe this means we can be together,” he grabbed Ariel’s hands in his own. “I just wish we knew what happened.”
“I believe I might be able to answer that.”
King Triton swam through the doorway, trident in hand. His eyes were dark, but they softened as he saw his worried daughter crouched by Eric’s bedside. Sebastian followed and settled on the bed beside the two young merfolk.
Ariel flew to him and threw her arms around her father’s neck, burying her face in his long, white hair. “I’m so sorry, Daddy,” she choked. “I never meant—“
The king squeezed her tightly, pulling her head into his shoulder as if she were still a young child. “It’s alright, little one,” he said huskily. He held her at arm’s length, lifting her chin to meet his eyes. “I am sorry. My anger and my hatred blinded me, and I can only ask your forgiveness.”
Eric shifted uncomfortably when Triton said “hatred.” He knew the merfolk were shy, but he had no idea the king viewed his kind—his former kind, he reluctantly corrected himself—so unfavorably.
But Ariel sniffled and nodded, going in for another hug. Triton planted a kiss on the top of her head, and set her back down on the bed next to Eric.
He turned his eyes to the young prince, drawing himself to his full, imposing height. “We have not formally met. I am King Triton, ruler of Atlantica and keeper of the First Sea.”
Eric pushed himself up from the bed, wobbling as he wiggled his fins frantically to keep upright. “It’s an honor to meet you, your highness.” He tried to bow, but tipped too far forward. Triton reached out a hand to steady the new merman, and Eric leaned against his arm gratefully.
“My name is Eric. Prince Eric, heir to the throne of Tirulia,” he added hastily, almost forgetting his royal formalities in such an unfamiliar place. “I am grateful for your hospitality.”
“That’s one way to describe it,” Sebastian muttered. Ariel and Triton threw him identical, scolding looks. The crab shrugged sheepishly. “Just saying.”
Triton pushed Eric gently back onto the bed. “As I was saying, I believe I may know the cause of your… transformation.” He looked from Eric’s tail to his trident, and back again. “Not just anyone can wield the mighty trident. It requires powerful magic, magic that can only be inherited by those of Poseidon’s blood. Even lifting it requires his blood. When that witch took the trident, she left some of her own tainted power within it.”
His large hands curled into fists at the mere thought. “When I reclaimed it, it had to be driven out. And,” he shook his head, “I am afraid you were simply caught in the currents, young… merman.”
Because it was a merman who sat before him, who wrapped an arm around his daughter’s waist. He had two days to think about it, but taking in the boy’s full form, Triton had to accept it. There was nothing to indicate he had ever been one of the vicious land-dwellers that he so hated.
“But you can change me back, can’t you?” Eric asked hesitantly. Ariel placed a hand on his lap, and he grabbed it tightly. “I mean, everyone has been very kind to me, and I want to spend as much time with Ariel as I can, but my parents don’t know where I am. They don’t even know if I’m alive.”
Triton closed his eyes, but he already knew what would happen. The prince and princess stared at him with bated breath as he lifted the trident and pointed it at the merman. It glowed, faintly at first, then brighter, so bright Eric had to shield his face from the light. He squeezed his eyes tight, waiting to feel his fins split and turn back to legs, but nothing happened.
The trident’s light flickered and died with a hiss. Smoky bubbles rose from the tines, and Triton laid it down. “No,” he murmured. “Her magic was very powerful. Clearly, she had been honing it for years. It may have left the trident, but so did the rest of its power.”
Eric hung his head, staring down at his twitching fins. They were permanent now. He would never run across the beach with Max again. He would never dance with his mother at royal functions again. His father would order dozens, hundreds of search parties, and when they came up empty there would be a funeral, and Eric would only be able to watch sadly from the water as his family mourned their only son, lost to the mysterious fathoms-
“Daddy?” Ariel’s wavering voice cut through his thoughts. “You said only those of Grandfather’s blood can wield the trident.”
Triton turned away. Sebastian gulped, pulling slightly into his shell. He and the king both knew what was coming.
“That means Ursula must be related to Grandfather, doesn’t it?”
His shoulders slumped. When he turned back and looked his daughter in the eye mournfully, it was as if a hundred years had descended upon him. “I suppose it is time you knew the truth,” he sighed. “Ursula is… was … of Poseidon’s blood. She was my sister.”
“Ariel?” Eric’s voice echoed through the water. “Ariel, where are you?”
After Triton revealed his secret, Ariel had fled the palace angrily, going to the one place where she could be alone with her thoughts. The little mermaid sat at the bottom of her grotto, tucking her tail beneath her chin and wrapping her arms around it as she stared up at her treasures.
Because they were her treasures again—her father must have restored them while she was on the surface, maybe in hopes she would return. Sebastian had tried to coax her back to the palace, but Ariel was her father’s daughter: stubborn to the end. She spent the night curled up on the sand, hardly sleeping.
She traced her fingers over the sand absentmindedly. “Here,” she called out, voice cracking.
“Ariel, what are—“ Eric stopped short as he reached the grotto, gasping.
Ariel looked over her shoulder with a shy smile. “You’re swimming,” she whispered. And he was, though he jerked his tail awkwardly, still using his arms to pull himself forward, like how humans swim. “How do you feel?”
“I… I feel alright, considering… everything,” he replied. He spun in a slow, wobbly circle, gaping around at all the human items filling the shelves. Things he would never give a second thought about. Silverware, a bosun’s whistle, a lost shoe, a painting.
Ariel swam over and put her hands on his shoulders. “This one is my favorite,” she giggled, turning him to see the main attraction: a life-sized statue of himself. “Isn’t it amazing?”
Eric traced the stone cheek with a finger and stared into his own lifeless eyes. “This was supposed to be my father’s birthday gift to my mother,” he murmured. His face darkened as he ran his hand down the statue. “It was lost from the ship’s cargo in a horrible storm. Some of his men gave their lives trying to transport it.”
He whirled around. “Where did you get this?”
Ariel gaped at him, wide-eyed. “I-I didn’t,” she stammered. “Flounder said he found it at the bottom of the ocean and knew I would like it, so he had some friends help bring it here. I thought it was the most beautiful thing in the world…”
Eric’s gaze softened, and the weight of everything Ariel had done finally hit him. The witch, that bizarre song in the lagoon, the necklace, everything. “All this time, you’ve been watching us? Watching me? You were willing to give up all of this,” he gestured broadly to the grotto’s entrance, her kingdom outside, “to become human for me?”
The mermaid nodded, her hair drifting in a scarlet cloud. She wrapped her arms around Eric’s neck. “And I’d do it again in a heartbeat.”
He pulled her closer, gazing into her enormous, blue eyes. Eric had never noticed how much more beautiful she looked beneath the waters, in her true home. “I love you,” he whispered.
She looked up at him, still scarcely believing he was here with her. “Oh Eric, you barely know me,” she murmured with a sad smile.
Eric’s eyes sparkled. “Mm, but I would like to,” he teased, finally bringing her in for the kiss Ariel had desperately wanted those three days on the surface.
Ariel felt as if she could live in the moment forever, pressing herself against him and wrapping her tail around his.
Eric finally pulled back, allowing himself to sink down to the bottom of the grotto and sitting on a large rock. “Ariel,” he began, “why does your father hate us—I mean, humans—so much?” He regretted the question as soon as it passed his lips.
“It was Mother,” she said quietly. She drew in a shaky breath and swam down to sit beside Eric. “I was only a little girl when it happened. Did you know merfolk used to surface more often? Mother always loved the feeling of the sun on her fins, that salty breeze in her hair.”
She smiled wistfully as she remembered her tall, strong mother, with the same vibrant red hair and teal fins as her own. “One day, we were all up at the surface, just for a little while. A large ship came along. Daddy grabbed us as soon as it got close, but Mother—“
“They caught her in a net.”
King Triton’s voice boomed behind the two young merfolk. He swam out of the shadows of the grotto’s entrance with Sebastian on his shoulder. The enormous merman’s body trembled.
Eric shrank back involuntarily, wrapping a broad arm across Ariel’s body and holding her tightly. Now he really regretted asking.
“The humans hauled her up like some common mackerel and cut the ropes,” the king spat. “She was too high above the rocks—she never stood a chance.”
Eric didn’t need to hear the rest. He knew the sharp stones along the coast. He had seen them shred even the most well-built boats as if they were nothing but paper. He could almost see it—a scream, a wet thud, a limp body, red-stained waves. He gripped Ariel tighter, trying to calm the shivering girl.
“Not a single merfolk has been allowed to go to the surface since,” Triton finished.
The prince looked down, his cheeks burning with shame for what his people had done. “I’m sorry, your majesty.”
“And I am sorry that you cannot return to your former life. You are a merman now, and that cannot be undone,” the king replied, the anger fading.
Eric winced, but Triton continued, “Sebastian has seen to the preparations of your quarters. He will take you there. I wish to have a word with my daughter. Alone.”
Ariel reluctantly let go of Eric, glowering at her father. In spite of everything, Eric had to bite back a laugh. She was the spitting image of her father in her anger, right down to how she defiantly pushed out her chest and clenched her fists at her side.
Eric placed a hand on her arm. “It’s okay,” he assured her. He bowed as low as he could without falling and followed the strange, little crab out of the grotto.
Triton didn’t look at his daughter. He was keenly aware that last time they had been alone, he destroyed her most cherished possessions. The last thing he wanted was to push her away again. Isn’t that what had gotten them into this mess? “I understand that you are angry.” He swam up to one of the shelves, fiddling with a fork. “But I promise: everything I do, everything I do or do not tell you, I do it to protect you.”
“Daddy, I’ve faced more danger under the sea than I ever did on land,” Ariel protested, arms crossed.
The merman turned sharply, his long white beard swirling around him. “All this, yet you still speak of the land!” He struggled to not raise his voice. “You’ve seen the surface world, you have your prince—you have what you wanted all right here, in your home!”
“What I wanted?” Ariel repeated in disbelief. “Daddy, I love Eric. But I wanted a choice. Now, even he doesn’t have that!”
For the first time in her life, Ariel saw her powerful father flinch as her words hit home. He stared at her, his face falling. The merman swam slowly to the bottom of the grotto, leaning against Eric’s statue and tucking his tail beneath himself, head bowed.
Ariel watched him for a while, her heart filling with guilt. She had never seen him look so defeated. Finally, she joined her father, curling up on his lap like she had done as a little girl. “Please, no more secrets,” she whispered, leaning into his chest. “What happened to Ursula, Daddy?”
Triton gripped the fork tightly. “Ursula was not always that way. She was even beautiful, once. But Father bestowed the trident upon me earlier than planned, before he receded from the world with the rest of the gods. Ursula’s jealousy consumed her, drove her to meddle with powers she had no business touching.” The fork snapped in his grasp. “She became a monster. That witch ceased to be my little sister the day our mother died. I turned her myself that day—her outside finally matching her insides.”
Ariel’s curiosity turned to fear. “What happened?”
As the king looked down at his daughter, her heart caught in her throat. She hadn’t seen her father cry since the night her mother took her last breath in his arms. And yet, his eyes were misty.
“It was my coronation, the day I came into my full power as ruler of Atlantica. Ursula went to her, begged for forgiveness, claiming she had seen the error of her ways. And Mother always had the kindest heart, just like you,” he added, stroking his daughter’s cheek.
“Instead she betrayed her own mother, transformed her into a beast and robbed her of her mind. Right within the palace walls, where every subject in the kingdom had gathered. It was a bloodbath… I had no choice.” The king’s voice broke, but he wasn’t finished. “And then, Ursula turned Mother back just as I stabbed—“
“Ariel? Eric wanted to know if‒” Flounder stopped short when he saw father and daughter curled up together, and the look on Triton’s face. “I’m interrupting something,” he squeaked. “Never mind!”
Triton shook his head quickly and rose, placing Ariel back on the ground. He cleared his throat and tried to wipe away tears as casually as possible. “No, no, Flounder, that’s alright. We were just on our way back, weren’t we, Ariel?” He held out his hand.
She recognized the peace offering, and allowed her father to pull her to her fins. “I should go see how Eric is doing.”
“A fine idea, dear. We’ll get you settled into your new room.”
“New room?” she asked, brow furrowed.
“Well, if the boy is to stay, I expect you would want to be close to him, wouldn’t you?” Triton asked, raising a bushy, gray eyebrow.
For the first time in days, a true smile spread across Ariel’s face.