"Perhaps we should," Prmce Eric said. "A free performance—for all of the town! At the end of summer, on St. Madalbertas Day!"
The cheers grew even louder.
Nobles seated closest to the royal box made a show of appropriately classy, restrained enthusiasm—while keeping their eyes on the prince and princess. Only a fool would have failed to notice certain similarities between the sea witch and Prince Eric's beautiful wife, Vanessa. That night in the great stone mansions, over tiny cups of chocolate and crystal glasses of brandy, there would be much discussion of the thousand possible shades of meaning behind the words m the lyrics.
But the brown-haired princess was grinning and laughing throatily.
"Eric," she purred, "that was positively naughty. And wonderful. Where do you get such imaginative ideas?"
She coquettishly took his hand like they were newlyweds and walked out proudly with him into the crowd, beaming as if she were also the mother of a very talented and precocious boy. Her two manservants trailed behind
them: looking back and forth at the crowd with suspicious smiles, seemingly ready to kill at a moment's notice should it be required.
Nothing was required; everyone was joyous.
Among the hundreds of people and creatures that were audience to this spectacle, only one was flummoxed by it.
Scuttle stood stock-still, an unusual pastime for him. Two very important things had been revealed in the play. And while he was as scatterbrained as a seagull generally is (perhaps more so), the wisdom of his long years made him stop and try to focus on those thmgs in his muzzy mmd, to remember them, to pay attention to his quieter thoughts.
"PRINCE ERIC REMEMBERS WHAT HAPPENED!" he suddenly cried out.
That was the first thing, and it was easy.
"Even with the whammy laid on him!"
Scuttle had been there when the land-walking mermaid had failed to win Eric's heart, the sun had gone down, and he had married Vanessa mstead. Scuttle had seen the mighty fight break out between ancient powers, so poorly captured in the paints and papier-mache below. He had seen the ocean swell and waves rent in twain by the power of Triton. He had watched as the King of the Sea traded his life for his daughter 's and the sea witch, Ursula, destroyed him. The red-haired girl became a mermaid once more and swam sadly away, voiceless forever. Ursula-as-Vanessa remained married to Eric and now ruled the kingdom by the sea with little or no useful mput from her hypnotized hubby.
"Yup, check and check,'' Scuttle murmured. "And somehow my boy Eric knows this. But how?"
And what was that other thing?
That important thing?
The...almost-as-important thing?
Or was it actually more important?
"Waves rent in twain by the power of Triton, " Scuttle repeated to himself aloud because he enjoyed the sound of his voice and the big, epic words. His great-grandgulls rolled their eyes at each other and flew off. All but one, who sat watching him curiously.
"And the King of the Sea traded his life for his daughter's, and Ursula destroyed him. THAT'S IT!"
Scuttle squawked, jumpmg up into the air in excitement. He beat his wmgs and the few lingering spectators covered themselves with their arms in disgust, fearing what the bird would do next. "KING TRITON IS STILL ALIVE!"
"I'm sorry?" his remainmg great-grandgull asked politely.
"Don't you get it?" Scuttle turned to her and pointed at the stage. "If everything else in that show was true, then Ursula still has Triton as her prisonerl He's not dead1 C'mon, Jonathan! We got to go do some investor-gating of this possibility!"
"My name is Jona, Great-Grandfather," the younger gull corrected gently.
He didn't seem to hear.
With a purpose he hadn't felt since his time with the mermaid Ariel. Scuttle beat new life into his tired old wings and headed for the castle, his great-grandgull gliding silently behind.
When the king and queen of Tirulia decided that the time had come for each of their children to assume the roles and habits of adulthood—and, more importantly, to move out of the main palace—Prince Eric quite unsurprisingly chose a small castle on the very edge of the sea.
The giant blocks that made its outer walls were sandstone, light in color and far more evocative of the beach than the granite and grey stone with which other ancient fortresses were built. A welcome addition by Eric's grandfather featured a walkway out to a viewing deck, supported by graceful arches in the manner of a Roman aqueduct. The two highest tiled towers cleverly recalled architecture of more eastern cities; a third was topped by a pergola covered with grapes and fragrant jasmine. The great formal dming room, another modern addition, was finished in the latest fashion with floor-to-ceiling windows.
In fact, all the public and fancy rooms—even* single bedroom in the castle, except for the lowliest servants' quarters—had a view of the sea.
This was of great mterest to the humans who lived in the castle, the villagers who bragged about their castle, and the Bretlandian visitors taking the Grand Tour who stopped to sketch the castle.
But the windows were of especial mterest to the flying and scurrying members of the kingdom.
It was well known to all the local seagulls where the kitchens were, of course. Their windows were the most important. Boiled seashells, some with tidbits still stuck on; avalanches of crumbs that had gone stale; meat that had been left out too long; fruit that had rotted... All of it got dumped unceremoniously out the windows and into a hidden section of the lagoon. Hidden to humans, that is.
It was also well known that Countess Gertrude, a cousm of Eric's, was much enamored with anything that flew and could be counted on to stand at her window for hours, enticing gulls, doves, sparrows, and even sparrow hawks to land on her hand for a treat.
The Ibnan ambassador, Iase, paranoid and terrified of poison, was constantly tossing whatever he was served out the closest window.
Anything that got dumped out of Prmcess Vanessa's window, however, was known to be actually bad for you: sharp, and often really poisoned.
After a moment's precipitous scrabbling. Scuttle managed to perch himself on the lintel of this last unglazed window, his great-grandgull just beside him.
"Huh. Nice digs," he said, looking around with mterest. Then he settled himself in to wait.
Seagulls might be a little scattered and unable to focus—sometimes greedy, and borderline psychotic if it came to fighting over a real prize—but the one thing they could do was wait. For hours if they had to: for the tide to go out, for the fishing ships to come back in, for the wind to change, for the pesky humans to leave their middens to those who so rightfully deserved to plunder them for treats.
Jona cocked her head once, observing a chambermaid dumping a chamber pot out the side of the castle, mto the sea.
' And humans complain about our habits," she muttered.
"Shhh!" Scuttle said, keeping his beak closed.
Eventually their patience was rewarded. Vanessa came sashaying in, leaving her two manservants outside.
"I'll see you boys later," she purred. They bowed in unison, almost identical twins in matching uniforms that had costlier jackets and prettier feathered caps than other castle staff.
The princess began to disrobe, pulling off her gloves, her mantle, and the wide hat that topped her dark hair. This was brown velvet with golden medallions around the crown and the plumes of rare foreign birds m the band... and she still left it carelessly on her bed. She quietly hummed one of the arias from the opera, one of the mermaid's arias, and then opened her mouth wider and belted it out, knocking the seagulls back a little with the force of her musicality.