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At sunset, when the shadows are at their longest, Pocahontas makes her way down to the river. She does not take a torch, letting her eyes adjust to the light of the gibbous moon and the thousands of glittering stars that watch her, guiding her every gentle step. The land looks so different by moonlight than it does during the day, but she finds it equally beautiful, the pebbles at the river's edge turned to silver and white, the bark of the trees with deeper, more intense patterns. Pocahontas know that she too is changed by the moonlight, her hair becoming part of the shadows, her eyes and teeth glittering bright. It is fitting, she knows, this otherness. Fitting for them.
She does not have to wait long, sitting on the cool river's edge, on the outside of the curve where the deep water comes near the bank. It is deep enough to swim in, the river huge and wide here; that is, of course, the whole idea. Pocahontas smiles, feeling her heart lifted, as the surface of the water is disturbed into ripples, and then from within the water a figure rising, head and shoulders silhouetted pale against the black water.
"Ariel," she says softly.
Ariel swims to her across the surface, using her arms clumsily. Even early on, she explained with gestures that it is easier for her to swim beneath the surface using her powerful tail; it took longer, and more language, for her to admit that she would surface earlier so that she could see Pocahontas earlier, stealing every second.
Despite the chilly water, Pocahontas wades into the river in return, until she is waist-deep and the hairs on her arms stand on end with the chill. Ariel surges into her arms, almost knocking her down, and kisses her desperately. Her lips are cool and wet, and her tail brushes against Pocahontas's legs as they both struggle to stand like, this, but it is worth it. It always is.
Ariel sits on a rock at the edge of the water, the tip of her fin just splashing at the surface, hair streaming down her back. She does not feel the cold, she and her kin so used to deep water that mere cool air cannot bother them, and Pocahontas does not care for it while Ariel is here. She sits cross-legged beside her, her knee against Ariel's fin, and rests her hand on Ariel's scaled lap.
They exchange their pleasantries, small stories of nothing. Pocahontas explains, and demonstrates, a small bone flute that Ariel has found; the notes are wispy and imperfect now, but Ariel is entranced with them all the same. Neither can explain the strange gold clamshell with its spinning arrow, though. As usual, they exchange more words in their languages, a task on which they have been working since they first met in the deep waters, since they first came to the air and exchanged their names, both caught up in their wonder of the other. As usual, it turns to sweet kisses, teasing each other's mouths and playfully pulling away at the last minute, giggling.
"This is new," says Ariel gently. She ran her fingers over the necklace where it lay at the base of Pocahontas's throat. Pocahontas could not help the way that her smile faded when she was reminded at it, or the way that she averted her eyes. "Pocahontas? What's wrong?"
"It was my mother's," Pocahontas replies. Ariel's brow furrowed; that had bonded them as well, when they had the words to explain their losses. "It was for her wedding. My father expects me to marry before too long."
They have always known that it would happen, sooner or later. That it cannot last forever, these clandestine twilight meetings. But each summer that goes past without talks of Pocahontas marrying, without Ariel being caught in her trips to the surface, has made the inevitable seem a little more escapable. But all the same, Pocahontas feels as if she can see the sorrow in Ariel's eyes, before Ariel reaches in and kisses her again, sweet and tender and troubled, and Pocahontas catches her hand and kisses her in reply, and says without words: I know.
"I will stop coming, if you want," Ariel whispers, as she finally lets their lips draw apart, foreheads still resting together. Her lips taste of salt again, when they had dried. "Or I will keep coming. Whichever is... better."
Whichever will hurt less, Pocahontas knows. She strokes Ariel's arm, the lean swimmer's muscles, and wishes that she could dive beneath the sea and join her lover there. There are only a finite number of paths, her father always says, but surely paths are formed by humans, not natural things that make their own decisions? There always has to be the first foot upon a path, the first hand to part the bushes.
There has to be.
"No," says Pocahontas. Ariel looks up, sharply, blue eyes huge and heartbroken. "No," Pocahontas repeats. "I will not let others choose my course." Her fingers catch at a stray tendril of Ariel's hair - so strange, the red, surely something that can only be of mermaids, and not humans - and gently twine into it. "We will choose our course."
Slowly, finally, Ariel smiles again. It is as beautiful as the sunrises that flower over the open ocean, as true and as natural as the song made by the wind in the trees. She throws herself into Pocahontas's arms, but in her enthusiasm knocks them both over, rolling them off the boulder on which they sit and splashing them into the cool shallows. Pocahontas laughs all the same, rolling with it so that Ariel is on her back and Pocahontas can lean over her, drinking in her beautiful smile and the wonder in her eyes.
"Both of us," says Pocahontas. "We will both look for a new course."
"Yes," Ariel promises, and twines their fingers together. When she reaches up for another kiss, the salt on her lips is the salt of the river, and the taste of hope lingers on her tongue once again.