“Back to your old ‘children playing a game of koralli,’” Eric said with a wry smile. “But if we were human kids playing chess, at least, an adult could come over and put an end to everything eventually.”
An interesting point, but how relevant? If it were her and Eric against Ursula, who was the adult in the scenario? Her father? An Elder God? Or…
Something was just at the edge of her mind, like a playful eel nosing in and out of the sunlight at the edge of the shore. Slippery, sparkling, and just out of her grasp.
“I think if adults—if everyone just knew what she was really like,” she said slowly, “who she really was, they would do something. But how do we convince anyone she’s an evil tentacled sea witch?”
“I don’t know. Even if you just managed to show one person…there’s no way to prove it to anyone else, much less everyone else. Enough people to do something about it,” Eric said.
Ariel thought of poor terrified Vareet, who had seen her mistress change in the tub. She was the only one in the entire castle who knew the truth of the matter—very viscerally—besides Grimsby and Carlotta.
“But don’t worry, we’ll figure it out,” he added, seeing the look on her face. He took her hand and squeezed it. “We have to, and soon. So she doesn’t have a chance to do that ritual or whatever.”
But Ariel didn’t feel as much faith in them as Eric did. Somehow, despite being a rapidly aging human, he had managed to keep some of his youthful optimism, while she had lost some of hers. It was kind of adorable.
She leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek.
He smiled in surprise. He put his hand up to touch her face, perhaps brush away a stray hair…before his fingers did what they really wanted and pulled her chin closer to him.
He kissed her on the lips.
It was brief, but in the moment their skin touched she closed her eyes and consumed him: his smell, his warmth, the movement of his mouth against hers.
It was like…
A good-night kiss.
Over too quickly, but every moment of it meant a universe.
All those years before, and all those years in between…She had dreamed so many different scenarios of this moment! Ariel as a human, Ariel as a mer. Eric as a mer! Eric opening his eyes right when she rescued him and kissing her, falling in love with her on the spot. Eric kissing her in the boat, when she really, really thought he was going to, and the night was so romantic…Kissing her on any of the three mornings, or realizing at the last minute Vanessa was a fake and kissing Ariel instead, and the wedding would have been for them…
And here it finally was. She was a human—temporarily—and he was a human, and it was night, and they were getting ready to leave, and it was cold, and she had barnacle-bumps on her skin, and her feet hurt, and…
She found herself laughing, albeit a little breathlessly.
“That wasn’t the way I imagined it would be…”
“‘Imagined it would be’？” Eric asked with a smile. “You’ve been thinking about me? Does that mean I have indeed caught the heart of a mermaid?”
“You did years ago when she was an idiot minnow, and look where it got us,” she said, pushing his chest. “Where it got me.”
“I know, I was just—” He sighed. “I know.”
She kissed him again on the cheek.
“Let’s…just…see how it goes,” she said, heading off to the water.
He watched her walk straight into the waves, no hesitation, no floating, until it was up to her neck.
“Hey—aren’t you going to ruin your clothes?” he called.
She rolled her eyes and dove, letting her tail hit the surface like a whale’s, slapping a spray in his direction.
He watched Ariel’s head disappear under the waves and a fin appear in its place. He couldn’t help smiling.
He had just witnessed the transformation of a girl into a mermaid. Back into a mermaid, he corrected himself. Despite the terrible things they had endured—and probably more before it was all over—despite the years he had lost in a haze to Vanessa’s spell, he felt like a delirious little kid who had seen his first firefly, or bioluminescent jellyfish, or shooting star. Everything was beautiful and anything was possible: the world was an amazing place just waiting to be explored.
He laughed and picked up a handful of sand and pebbles, throwing it into the ocean.
Though her whole walking straight into the water without floating or swimming thing was more than a little creepy. Almost like a lead soldier.