Eric smiled bitterly. “She should have taken this away, then,” he said, shaking the ocarina. “That would have shown me. She should have kept me from composing and performing and spending all my time with real musicians, and made me rule. That really would have been torture.”
“I don’t think she was looking to punish or torture you, specifically,” Ariel said delicately. “I think you were just a pawn in her plans.”
“Great. Not even a threat. That’s me,” Eric said with a sigh. “You know, speaking of our joint love of music—remember that song you sang? When you rescued me? I never put it into the opera. I could never get the ending right. I think I must have drifted into unconsciousness before hearing you finish it.”
Eric moved the ocarina slowly to his lips, looking at her for permission. She nodded, and he played.
It was just like when he had played it in the boat, when she had watched him, unobserved. And just like then, the melody trailed off into silence.
But this time she could finish it.
Even if it wasn’t Eric, even if it was Ursula herself playing the piece, Ariel would have continued the tune. The last note had hung there so invitingly, so unfinished, it was a blasphemy against nature to let it drop.
Ariel didn’t so much sing as allow the song to come up from her chest, from her heart, from her soul, and let it merely pass through her lips.
Eric grinned in pure delight.
When she came to the end of the refrain she took another Dry World breath, to sing it properly from the beginning. Eric hurriedly put the ocarina back in his mouth and played along. This time he didn’t play the tune—out of respect for the original artist, he let her sing that alone. Instead he improvised a harmony that was just a touch minor. The main melody still sounded bold and cheerful, enthusiastically describing the world as young Ariel had seen it. But Eric’s part added an element of complexity: things weren’t as simple as they seemed; details and nuances convoluted a bold declaration. It was no less beautiful, in fact, probably more so. Age and wisdom, life and the outside world, observations hitherto unseen.
They finished almost together, Eric cutting off his last note before she was done.
A nod to his mortality? Ariel wondered.
“That was beautiful,” she breathed aloud. Of course she had sung duets with the greatest mer singers, male and female, ones who were hundreds of years older than she with voices trained for as long. Somehow what she had just done with Eric was far more powerful and beautiful. All with no audience except for the sea grass, the water, and the wind.
And the one seagull who landed ever so delicately on the boat behind them.
“Sorry to interrupt,” Jona said. “The skinny grumpy old man at the castle is acting fidgety and skittish—I think about Eric’s absence.”
“Thank you, Jona,” Ariel said with a sad smile. “Eric, she says that Grimsby is getting nervous about you being out here.”
“You can talk to seagulls?” Eric asked, eyes widening. He looked over her shoulder at Jona. “Seagulls can talk?”
“Life outside the human realm of understanding is complicated,” Queen Ariel said gently. “For you, seagulls will never talk.”
“I disagree,” Jona said, a little waspishly. “HEY, FEED ME SOME OF THAT BREAD.”
Eric jumped at the demandy squawk.
“See?” the gull asked triumphantly.
Ariel laughed. “Excellent point, Jona. She’s right, though. I have to go. Maintaining this form is beginning to be a little bit of a strain—I have to return to the sea.”
“Oh, you can do that. Turn back and forth,” Eric said quickly. “But you couldn’t before. But you can do it now. Because you’re queen?”
“Something like that,” she said, self-consciously pushing a piece of hair back behind the comb that was the trident in disguise.
“Right,” Eric said, looking into her eyes like he was memorizing her, like he could make her stay.
“I have to get my father back,” she whispered quickly before she could say anything else. “And then we can work on…you, and Ursula.”
“Of course, of course,” Eric said, nodding, looking back at the castle. “Of course. Please, let me help you. I’ll find him for you. It’s the least I can do.”
“He would be in a jar,” she said, wincing at the words as she said them. They sounded ridiculous. “Or a tank. And would look like a slimy, weird piece of seaweed or a tube worm.”