Part of Your World (Twisted Tales)(43)
“Oh, but what about the Great Kelp Wars?” Flounder asked with a shiver.
“That was over an eon ago,” Ariel pointed out gently. “There have been no wars, no battles, no…large disagreements since then. We’ve lost touch with the Hyperboreans and haven’t heard from the Tsangalu in decades. We exchange Great Tide gifts with the Fejhwa but little else. We have had naught but silence and peace for decades.”
“Sounds like a utopia,” Jona said. “Especially if no one is grappling over the last tasty morsel.”
Ariel smiled. “Yes. Nothing but arts and leisure, beauty and philosophy….But it’s all the same, and no one has had a desire to go find out what happened to the Hyperboreans or Tsangalu, or acquire anything from them besides presents. Surely their art and philosophy would be interesting, and might invigorate our own…somewhat static culture? The humans, on the other hand, are still exploring their world, every crevice and cranny.”
“But…” Flounder made a face. “But we were here to get your father back. Not to get involved in human things.”
“Yes, but the two are intertwined,” Ariel said, though she was impressed with his desire to stick to the point. The old Flounder would have let her talk indefinitely and hung on her every word. This was better. She needed friends like him right now. “I had to find out what the consequences of my actions were, and unfortunately, I have satisfied that. I have a duty to make things right for the Tirulians, in addition to—after—saving my father. He can help us defeat Ursula once he’s back in his original form and king again.
“Unfortunately, it’s also going to be much harder to find him now, because as I said before, she has been alerted to my presence. I made the first move, I had the element of surprise, and I blew it.”
“Stop beating yourself up, Ariel,” Flounder said sternly. “There’s no guarantee you would have found him the first time you looked, anyway. Ursula isn’t stupid. She’s not going to leave the king around in a vase labeled Ariel’s Father, Don’t Touch. Just because you made the first move doesn’t mean you would have been successful. Games take a long time, and a lot of moves, before someone wins.”
“But I don’t know how much time we have now. I don’t even understand why Ursula kept my father around this long. Yes, she likes an audience and probably loves bragging about her triumphs to him…but even she must get bored of that eventually. What if she’s keeping him around for some other reason? Which I have…interrupted?”
She squeezed her hands in sudden panic, pulled at her braids since she couldn’t run her fingers through her hair.
“Now that you’ve found him, you’re terrified of losing him again,” Jona said quietly.
Ariel nodded, too full of emotion to trust her words. That was exactly it. What if she had set something in motion by trying to find him? What if something happened? It would be her fault, all over again. And she would never get him back.
“I have to go back to the castle,” she said, fighting down the childish surge of panic. She stood up and tried to give her friends a reassuring smile. “Even though it’s a risk. At least I have a better understanding of the situation now. I’d better disguise my voice, huh? Since up until now everyone has only heard Vanessa using it. Mebbe I shood tahhk liiike this.”
She deepened her voice and put her hands on her hips, made a frowny face.
Flounder couldn’t help laughing. Jona leapt into the air for a moment, letting out a squawk.
She wrung the water out of her skirts and prepared for the walk back to face a castle full of sea witches and soldiers who were probably waiting to grab her.
“Hey, Ariel,” Flounder called shyly. “Before you go…could you…could you sing that lullaby? The one you used to sing to me after I lost my mother?”
Her eyes widened. “Flounder, you haven’t asked me that in years…even before I lost my voice.”
“And I won’t ask again! It’s just that”—he looked around. Jona politely pretended to watch something out in the sea, over by the far rocks—“we’re alone here. No one from Atlantica is going to hear us. I don’t know when you’re going to have another chance.”
And Ariel, who lost her voice for years and had mixed feelings about singing for others, sang more sweetly than she ever had before, or ever would again. And no one heard but one fish, one seagull, the sand and the water and the evening breeze coming over the waves, and the rising moon.
“I have been waiting over a week now for an answer!”
A barracuda towered over the throne in a way Sebastian was pretty sure he wouldn’t have if Ariel had been sitting there, voice or no. The little crab glanced nervously at the guards: one a mer, one a surprisingly large weever fish with venomous spines. The two exchanged a look that was certainly not respectful, but nevertheless leaned in protectively, the tips of their spears coming close enough to touch above his head.
The barracuda scooted backward—but recovered himself quickly.
Fortunately there weren’t many there to observe the scene; it was late in the tide and even the most dogged petitioners had gone home to wait until the next day. Or have dinner.
Or do something civilized, because they are civilized people, unlike this shiny-scaled bully.