She hadn't been this far up m years and gulped as the pressure of the deep faded. She clicked her ears, readying them for the change of environment. Colors faded and transformed around her from the dark, heady slate of the ocean bottom to the soothing azure of the middle depths and finally lightening to the electric, magical periwinkle that heralded the burst mto daylight.
She hadn't planned to break through the surface triumphantly. She wouldn't give it that power. Her plan was to take it slow and rise like a whale. Casually, unperturbed, like Ooh, here I am.
But somehow her tail kicked in twice as hard the last few feet, and she exploded mto the warm sunlit air like she had been drowning.
She gulped again and tasted the breeze—dry in her mouth; salt and pme and far-distant fires and a thousand alien scents...
A small gull sat riding the waves, regarding her curiously.
Ariel composed herself, remembering who she was. Trying not to delight in the way the water streamed down her neck; how it dried from her hair, lightening it. Flounder whirled around her body anxiously before poppmg up beside her.
She signed: I am told you have a message for me.
But before Flounder could translate, before she could stop herself, Ariel signed again:
Do you know Scuttle? Where is he? Why isn't Scuttle here?
"Queen Ariel was told you have a message for her," the fish told the gull solemnly. "However, she was expecting her old friend Scuttle. He is the only bird she has ever been close to."
"You are correct to assume it was he who sent me out here. Great-Grandfather Scuttle couldn't make it this far," the seagull answered. "How are you breathing?"
It took Ariel a moment to fully register the second part of what the bird had said.
What?
She didn't even have to sign it.
The seagull cocked her head at the mermaid and stared at her, unblinking. "You went from under the water to above water with no trouble at all. Smce you live underwater all the time, I assume it's not that you can just hold your breath forever—like if you were a magical whale, say. And you have no gills like a salamander. So how are you breathing ?"
"You do not address the queen of Atlantica that way," Flounder chastised. Ariel was impressed by how grown-up he sounded, unruffled by the weird conversation.
"Pardon," the seagull said immediately, dippmg her head.
Ariel twirled her trident casually, letting the water fly from it in a hundred sparkling droplets. Although the merfolk accepted her lineage and rights to the crown immediately, there had still been a defmite period of adjustment while they still thought of her as the pretty, carefree baby girl of Triton. Some spoke to her far too patronizingly, some spoke to her far too familiarly. And some folk of non-mer persuasion (sharks, mainly) had needed several displays of her anger before they acknowledged her authority.
But she didn't think that was what was going on with this odd little seagull. There was no judgment m the bird's expression. Just fascination. She had probably never seen a mermaid before. Ariel could have been a sea slug or a demon and the gull would have asked the same question.
What is your name? Ariel asked.
"Jona," the bird said with a little bow after Flounder had translated. "But. ..if you talk to my great-grandfather at all, he may refer to me—incorrectly—as Jonathan. Jonathan Livingston. He's a little confused sometimes."
Ariel smiled, thinking that sounded exactly like Scuttle.
"Why don't you tell the queen everything, starting from the beginning, Jona?" Flounder suggested.
So the gull told the tale of watching the opera with her great-grandfather, and her great-grandfather's reaction to it. She told of their flight to the castle and spying on Vanessa, and the revelation of the existence of Triton. She told it succinctly and perfectly: no unwanted description, dialogue, or personal observation. Ariel wasn't sure how exactly she could have been descended from the absentmmded Scuttle. Maybe an egg got misplaced from another nest.
Ariel's mind whirled, m 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 prmcess spoke to like it was Triton, Kmg 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
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 mto 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 m 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?