[rd][fic][Disney's The Little Mermaid] Two Houses
Two Houses
by K. Stonham
first released 21st November, 2011
The sand was uncompromising, the sun was blinding, and the dried salt was rough on his skin. All of it, he thought, paled compared to the pounding of his head. Eric opened his eyes anyway.
He was, he discovered, washed up on the beach again. Twice in as many weeks; it didn't bode well for his eighteenth year that this kept happening to him.
Memories swirled as he levered himself up, then settled into place. The wedding, aborted by the sea creatures themselves. His foundling friend, regaining her voice. Vanessa...
The rest of it came to him in a flash, like lightning, and he looked around for her, for Ariel, for eyes as blue as the ocean's depths, for burning red hair, for the voice that had sung him back to life....
* * *
She curled on the rock, just peeking over the edge. It was a bitter thought, how many times she'd done this before. Wanting things out of her reach.
She breathed as Eric breathed, counting the rises and falls of his chest.
He was perfect, and she knew, feeling it somewhere deeper than she'd ever felt anything, that she would never love anyone but him.
But she wasn't a child anymore. Or not as much of one. Magic and contracts and spells had their prices, and she'd seen what being selfish had nearly cost her, cost her father... cost her people and the entire ocean.
Ariel was a very small drop in a very great sea, and while her loss would diminish the volume of the waters only the tiniest amount, she found she could no longer ask for that freedom.
She turned to her father as Eric sat up. Sebastian was saying something to the Sea King, but Triton ignored it in favor of his daughter. "Yes, Ariel?"
"Let me say goodbye," she asked.
Sebastian's jaw dropped. "A-after all of dat?!" he demanded.
Even Triton looked taken aback. "Are you sure, Ariel?"
She nodded.
"Very well, then."
* * *
Crimson broke through the water as Eric struggled to his feet, and it was her, his sweet Ariel, his... well, mermaid princess. Eric sighed, relieved, as she swam closer, and knelt, sitting in the surf as he realized she still had a tail.
She swam right up to him, sat beside him, her tail curling around her far hip like a pair of legs. They just looked at each other for a moment, then he smiled, brushing a strand of water-plastered hair out of her face. "Hi," he said.
"Hi." She smiled at him, and he relaxed, knowing everything was going to be all right.
"So, you're a mermaid." She nodded. "And your father's King Triton." She nodded again, mutely. He watched her pearl-white teeth bite her bottom lip and felt his hope fade. "You're not going to stay with me, are you?" he asked quietly.
"I can't," Ariel said, and he didn't think the liquid in her eyes had anything to do with the sea. "My kingdom, my people... you saw what that witch nearly did to my father. And it was my fault."
"Your fault?" he asked, surprised.
"I saw you, on your ship," she explained. "That night."
"My birthday." He thought he understood. "You were the one who saved me."
"Yes. And I wanted...." She waved a hand vaugely. "To be human. To be with you. So I traded my voice for legs, for three days." She stared at the waves. "I had to get you to kiss me by sunset on the third day." Her mouth twisted. "I didn't expect Ursula to cheat."
He thought about--God, had it only been the night before last?--almost kissing her. She'd been so comfortable, fitting with him, filling something he hadn't even known was empty. Like she was a part of him, meant to be there. And he'd made his decision, intended to honor it. But then, he'd heard the voice, her voice, and everything he'd thought had become muted, dull. Like sailing through a heavy fog. In retrospect the witch's enchantment was obvious. "You would have won," he told her.
She twitched.
"I do understand, Ariel," he told her. And he did. He was a prince; she was a princess. More than their individual happinesses, the safety of their peoples was paramount. "Your people need you," and his voice wasn't going to crack, he wouldn't let it, "more than I do."
Her head whipped back and she stared at him. He took one hand in his. "I do understand," he repeated, fighting back the blurring of his sight. "I have to. We're in the same position."
Her laugh was small and bitter. "If you were just a sailor, and I wasn't a princess...."
"You sure you wouldn't've drowned me?" he tried to joke.
"Only if you wouldn't've eaten me," she replied miserably.
He jolted upright. "Eaten you...?" he asked with a sense of foreboding.
Ariel nodded. "It's what your kind do to fish," she said, with a gesture at her green tail.
That.... Eric swallowed. That explained her horror at the market, at the docks.
"Not me," he told her. "Never again."
"But--"
"I promise you," he told her. It might be the only, the last thing he could ever give her.
She wavered, then smiled. It was like sunlight through water. "Thank you," she whispered, then looked out at the rocks, where a gold and blue fish jumped repeatedly out of the water.
"Friend of yours?" Eric guessed.
Ariel nodded. "It's time for me to go."
* * *
"Hey." His hand was warm, tilting her face back to him. "If you... ever want to visit," he offered. "Or... just talk. You know where I am." He tilted his head north, where his castle lay along the shore.
"I know," Ariel said, relishing the warmth of his hand for just one minute longer. Her father and Sebastian and Flounder were all waiting for her. So was Scuttle, but he couldn't follow them down into the depths. "I'm sorry," she offered, for what little it was worth. "For everything."
"I'm not," Eric said, and when she looked up at him to try and figure out what he meant, he leaned closer, hesitated as if wanting permission, then his lips met hers.
Ariel let her eyes close, kissing her human prince, breathing him in, trying to hold onto the moment as long as it lasted.
And when it ended, she opened her eyes.
Eric's eyes, she thought, were as blue as the depths.
Somehow that thought was comforting.
She took her last breath of air. "I will always love you," she told him. "I will never forget." Never forget dancing with him, the taste of the fizzly champagne at his table, the sound of the pipe he'd played, or the rough, shaggy fur and rough, sloppy tongue of his dog.
And before he could say anything, before her heart could break again, Ariel dove beneath the waves, older and wiser than when she'd left them.
*~*~*
Author's Note: Inspired by this doll being posted on the Disney Princesses community. Actually, this is part 1 of what I want to write, but we'll see if and when I get to part 2, which contains the initial idea. The title is, of course, from the opening of Romeo and Juliet: "Two houses, alike in dignity"....