Flounder stuck his head up out of the water next to her.
“That sure was Eric,” the fish said. “Wow, he looked so different.”
Ariel signed absently: I’m sure he’d say the same about you.
“Hey,” Flounder said a little shyly, a little proudly, swaying back and forth in the water to admire his own belly. “I have an official position in the castle now. I have to keep up my weight!”
Ariel smiled.
But these were all just words meant to diffuse the tension and emotional weight of the moment. They didn’t mean anything. Flounder was really asking if she was all right, and saying that he was there for her.
So little actual communication was represented by words that were said aloud, she had realized upon losing her voice. Often the real meaning lay underneath and unspoken.
Sometimes people forgot that she wasn’t deaf as well as mute, and then the conversations got really interesting.
They scooted together just below the surface. The water turned and began to stink of organic matter, tar, things alien to the ocean. While the overall smell was a little much for a mer, human activity and refuse often meant extra food for the fish who dared to live so close to the shore. Covering every stony and wooden surface underwater were razor-sharp barnacles; ebon black bouquets of mussels; clusters of soft purple velvety tube worms, all mouth and utterly harmless. Crabs braver and less artistically inclined than Sebastian endlessly clambered up and down piers and shipwrecks. Sometimes one would wave to her and then drop to the ocean floor, unable to hang on with one claw, and tirelessly begin the climb again.
The way to the castle was a bit of an obstacle course between the trawling nets that scooped up everything on the floor of the bay, regardless of its edibility, and the raw sewage that leaked out of giant pipes hanging over the water. They had to swim a broad way around the marsh: water billowing out from a drainage creek was an unhealthy bright yellow. The seepage blossomed and flowed into the sea as pretty as an octopus’s ink, but it burned Ariel’s scales. What were the humans doing up there?
When they made it to the blessedly cleaner waters near the castle （built a bit removed from the commercial center of town, specifically to avoid the bad airs and plagues）， Ariel spun through the currents like an otter, shaking out her hair and ruffling her scales free of filth. Then she and Flounder popped to the surface and looked around.
There were exactly eight guards posted along the beach and at the entrance of the lagoon where she had once saved Eric. Easily a third as many as the last time she had tried to approach the castle. One was trimming his nails with a small knife; another had his boots off so he could rest his feet in the sand. Not a single man was taking his job seriously.
And why should they? The foreign princess of the castle had ordered soldiers to guard the beach against the incursion of…an unspecified pelagic threat. Possibly a mermaid. Who on earth would take that seriously?
Maybe…maybe this really will work this time.
A squawk drew Ariel’s attention skyward. Seemingly innocent, a half dozen shining white seagulls soared picturesquely above the beach. Well, one had greyish underwings and a grey tuft of unlikely feathers sprouting on his head. Another, smaller than the others, trailed the grey one—Scuttle and Jona.
They were ready, waiting for the signal.
“On it,” Flounder said, gliding off.
Ariel waited in the water while he sought out a flying fish and conveyed her orders. Just a few moments later she felt the shimmering vibration of the school swimming in unison, above and below the water, where worlds collided.
They were beautiful. Silver and winged, they took to the air as easily as they sped through the water, like the material world meant nothing to them: space, objects, water, air, time, light—they were all the same. They made the noise of a thousand large locusts or of the strange crackles before lightning strikes.
A couple of the guards looked up curiously.
And then the gulls attacked.
Ariel had to turn away, remembering that what they did was for her and that she should be grateful. She hadn’t been quite sure what to expect when Jona had suggested a distraction; she figured it would involve eyes and soft human parts and clawing and maybe the dropping of sharp shells on their scalps. What they chose to do was far less violent but devastatingly more effective.
In any case, it made Flounder almost choke in laughter.
The guards ran. At first crazily, back and forth, around and around, trying to escape the stinking, terrible hailstorm. The smarter ones immediately made for the shelter of the castle and the cliffs.