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Eventually soulmates meet, for they have the same hiding place.
- Robert Brault
It isn’t unusual for Ariel to disappear. Her curiosity is irrepressible and often sends her flitting away on abrupt adventures, well out of sight. Eric has gotten good at finding her, in a way that Sebastian never quite mastered. There’s a lot to be said for being so similar, he thinks, for being cut from the same cloth. When they’re home, it’s especially easy, because she - like him - gravitates towards the room that holds his collection.
He finds her humming softly, twirling by the bookshelves. Eric watches her from the doorframe with a tender smile on his face.
“I thought I might find you here,” he says, after a moment.
Ariel turns to him with a look of surprise. He appreciates that she is so rarely embarrassed, that surprise becomes elation whenever he takes her off guard. The joy of her smile as she comes towards him, hands already reaching, is unmistakable.
“It’s my favourite room in the castle,” Ariel admits.
“Mine, as well,” Eric says, grinning. “Though I’m sure you knew that.”
“I might have guessed it,” she agrees.
“I must say, our chambers have made for quite a competitor - ”
Ariel raises her eyebrows.
“Do you disagree?” he teases her.
“I have been told that it’s unbecoming to speak of such things,” she replies, feigning primness.
“I doubt I’ll ever forgive Lashana for that.”
Ariel bursts into giggles, and the sound is so melodic, so beautiful, that Eric wants to prolong it, so raises the hand she’s clinging to and spins her beneath his arm. Her hair swings after her, soft red and abundant, landing heavily against her waist, not unlike an ocean wave.
Graceful as Ariel is, she still sometimes stumbles on her feet. Eric likes to joke that she’s only human whenever she complains about this. She might be annoyed by how it slows her down, but Eric finds her clumsiness sweet, hopes she’ll never grow out of it.
Like now, when he gets to grab her waist and steady her, to murmur, “I’ve got you.”
Ariel gazes at him with her wide eyes and bright smile, and for a moment, all he can think about is the stranger she was to him, their first time in this room. Smiles like this one had been an important means of communication when they first met. She never said a word, but Eric never had any difficulty understanding her. She had gestured and pointed and smiled and stared, and by the end of the night, he knew her well enough to adore her.
Her thoughts must be straying in a similar direction. Their dance has landed them right by the shelf on which a familiar amber crystal glitters on display.
“You must have thought I was mad,” Ariel says, softly.
“Not at all,” Eric assures her.
“Not even when I destroyed your fossil?”
“I was certainly startled, before I saw the crystal, but no.”
Ariel laughs again, dusts a hand over her face. “You’re so kind. I can only imagine how strange it was, keeping company with such an impulsive, silent stranger.”
He shakes his head, a gentle smile overcoming him as he sinks into the memories, the candlelit evening where they first connected. “It was wonderful. You were there. You remember.”
She gives this a moment of consideration, her eyes pensive and then shimmering.
“It was wonderful,” she agrees, nodding. “It felt as though my heart was being rewarded.”
Eric is intrigued by her phrasing. “For the risk you took?”
He assumes that she is referring to the deal she made with the sea witch, but when she nods, she absently touches the left side of her chest.
“Yes. The risk my heart took, letting you in,” she explains. “I felt such certainty about you, before I ever spoke to you. It was a relief to know my instincts were sound.”
The fact is that Eric understands what she is talking about precisely - these instincts exist within him, too, pulsing and sparkling and demanding proximity to Ariel. As much has been true since the moment the servants first fetched him and told him that a shipwrecked girl had been brought to the castle. He recalls the urgency with which he ascended the staircase, and knows that the thread conjoining their hearts was what pulled him along so hastily.
“I recognise that feeling,” Eric murmurs. “That instinctual, inexplicable certainty. I couldn’t understand how it was possible, but I knew I was in love after a measly two days with you.”
Ariel smiles brightly, almost smugly, but when she speaks again, she sounds vulnerable.
“Was there… a moment that you first knew?”
Oddly, the first thing that he thinks about is the marketplace, and Ariel pulling his hand and pointing towards the ground. “Sand?” he asked her, twice, before he realised that she was gesturing at the people surrounding them, at their feet, the sandals they wore. She pointed at her boots and mimed a pinching crab with her fingers, and he somehow understood.
But that wasn’t the moment that he knew. He thinks about the boat tilted up to Aries, her name written in the stars, and wants to laugh at himself, because of course it wasn’t then, either, it wasn’t when he was already done for. He recollects his saviour, a sunlit silhouette singing life back into his blood, and realises he’s gone too far back. He thinks of how breathless he had been, first seeing her in her blue dress in her borrowed bedroom, but the pull he felt towards this stranger, this stranger who could not be his saviour, had been so confusing it muffled his curiosity. He remembers the unexpected noises from the hallway and finding the door to his collection ajar, pulling apart the curtains and unsheathing sunshine to expose the intruder. He found her crouching behind a shelf, staring with enormous eyes.
“Oh. It’s you,” he had said.
Now, Eric reaches for her hand, and runs his thumb carefully over her knuckles as he pulls her towards the shelf that once held the green mermaid statue.
“I don’t believe there was one single moment that I knew,” he tells her. “It was instantaneous, from when you first sang on the beach. It was true through my doubt when I met you again. It was undeniable by the time I said goodnight on the second day.”
The tenderness in her eyes looks glossy, salty. Ariel stands on her tiptoes and winds her arms around his neck, pulling him down for a fierce hug. Eric holds her securely, one hand on her waist and the other cradling her head.
A long while passes before they begin to separate. One of his arms is still loose around her waist, his other hand on her face, wiping away her happy tears.
“Do you ever miss your little mermaid?” Ariel wonders aloud.
“What do you mean?” he asks, softly. “She’s right here.”