Part of Your World (Twisted Tales)(10)

Ariel’s mind whirled, in shock from the news.

Her father was alive!

…Probably?

Good queens did not react immediately to new information, especially if they didn’t already have some inkling of what it brought. Snap decisions were rash and led to disaster. Ariel had learned this the hard way. Not having a voice was an advantage here: she could compose herself while working out how to say what she needed to.

You have really seen my father? Alive?

“I saw a…” Jona struggled for the right word. “…thing in a bottle that the princess spoke to like it was Triton, King of the Sea. And Great-Grandfather says the…thing…bore a more than passing resemblance to the entity he once was.”

Ariel remembered all too clearly what that “thing” looked like. It did indeed sound like her father.

“Great-Grandfather thought you would be up to another adventure,” the gull added, almost timidly. “And I am to let you know that he’s in, to rescue your father.”

How would we rescue him? Her hands shook a little as she signed. Impossible…the guards…

“While I am not directly familiar with the situation as it previously stood, Great-Grandfather told me to tell you that the number of soldiers on the beach has been greatly reduced since the two of you last tried to reach Eric. He is not the best at counting,” Jona added neutrally, “but when we were there to see if your father was still alive, I saw no more than eight. None of them were in the water, and most looked like they were barely paying attention.”

Eight? There had been dozens the last time she tried. And they marched, resolutely, up and down the sands, eyes on the sea. But that was years ago…After Ariel stopped trying, maybe Ursula figured she had given up forever. Maybe the sea witch had turned her attentions elsewhere and let security lapse.

Ariel signed.

“I will take these matters into consideration,” Flounder translated, “and will either return here myself in three days or send a messenger in my place.”

“Understood,” the seagull said with a bow.

“Understood, My Queen,” Flounder corrected politely.

“Are you?” the gull asked curiously. “My Queen? How does that work with the Law of the Worlds—that of the Dry World and the World Under the Sea?”

Ariel found herself almost rolling her eyes and making that wide, sighing smile she used to with Flounder.

But the little gull had looked at her, at her, while she signed. Not at her hands, or Flounder as he had spoken. There was a friendly heart under Jona’s direct and inappropriate questions.

Ariel just shook her head and dove back under the water, tossing a sign over her shoulder as she went.

“The Queen says you may call her Ariel,” Flounder said. Also, under his breath: “You have no idea what an honor that is.”


On the way back down Ariel’s silence was deeper than usual; it practically echoed into the quiet sea, filling the water around them.

“What are you going to do?” Flounder asked, trying not to sound as anxious as his old self. “We have to save Triton. Don’t we? But can we?”

Ariel stopped suddenly in the water, thinking. Her tail swished back and forth as she held steady in a tiny current that rippled her fins and tendrils of hair.

Do we even know it’s actually true?

Flounder’s eyes widened. “But she said…I don’t know, Ariel. She seemed like a pretty honest—if weird—bird. And Scuttle!”

It’s been years. Why would Ursula keep him around, alive?

“No idea. So she can talk at him? All the time? She loves that kind of thing. But if he is alive, isn’t that great news? Don’t we need to do something?” Flounder was practically begging, swishing back and forth in the water in desperation.

I don’t know….I want to believe it’s true. It’s too much to take in. I’m going to go…think for a while.

Alone, she added.

Flounder didn’t need to ask where.

“Sebastian won’t like that,” he sighed.

Then he tried not to giggle at the very unqueenly thing she signed.

“I’ll tell him you’ve gone to consult some elders or something,” he said, waving a fin. “Be safe.”

He needn’t have suggested that as he swam off; with the trident, Ariel could kill an army or call up a storm that would destroy half the sea. But it was hard to let old habits die. And it was harder still to care for a powerful queen, whose only vulnerabilities were ones you couldn’t see.





Drifting slowly now, Ariel wound her way through the kingdom to the outskirts of Atlantica.

A few fish stopped to bow and she acknowledged them with a nod of her head. No merfolk were around to bother her. As a rule, most didn’t like lonely, dusty corners of the ocean where rocks thrived more than coral.

Eventually she came to the hidden grotto where her collection of things once was. Millions of years ago it had probably vented hot water and lava that provided sustenance for tube worms, which resulted in a perfect, cylindrical series of shelves for Ariel to display her finds on. Then her father had blasted it back to its mineral components. Which tiny creatures will use again, completing the circle.

Fine sand, the aquatic equivalent of dust, covered everything in an impressively thick layer. A couple of seaweeds had managed to anchor onto the rubble here and there, and anemones sprouted from the more protected corners.