The Little Mermaid and the Sea Witch (3/3)

Okay so....remember that I was adding a bigger climax? It's here! And it's longer! I think I'll end up going back and smoothing out a bit of the end--tension is so hard! But i'm really happy with how this came out. I hope you enjoy the final part to The Little Mermaid and the Sea Witch!

Ursula is...distinctive. Her people pride themselves on the way their magic changes them, turns their skin different colors, their hair, their eyes. She’s one of the most powerful their kingdom ever saw and her body is a monument of that. When she was growing, cheeks filling and eyes sparkling, her parents told her there would be a day named after her. They celebrate their differences in a way humans don’t. She knows better than to show up with her white hair and purple skin.

She shows up in finery with the most boring appearance she can think of. She misses the mark by a long way though and, for some reason, is mistaken as a princess, here to ask for the Prince’s hand in marriage. She doesn’t complain though. Being swept straight to where the Prince and Ariel are playing chess in the library is pretty convenient.

“And how shall I announce you, your highness?” the butler asks Ursula.

Ursula’s mind stalls. She can’t say Ursula. Trident’s watching, always watching, and she doesn’t want him to know that this human form is her yet. She needs a moment to plan with Ariel and she can only do that if she’s not Ursula right now.

“Vanessa,” Ursula says and desperately searches for a surname. “Vanessa...Van.”

The butler, oddly, looks impressed. “From our Northern cousins? The King will be pleased your family is so responsive to the peace treaty.”

“Yep,” Ursula says instead of what peace treaty? Who’s in the North? Who can keep up with you humans?

“Princess Vanessa Van of Trilbia,” the butler announces, throwing the doors to the library open.

Ariel is sitting at a table in the center and Ursula immediately sees what Triton was talking about. Ariel’s in a wheelchair, obviously trying to look like she’s in too much pain to walk. But she’s also grinning as she grabs Prince Eric’s Queen and chucks it across the room.

“Yay!” Ariel signs. She reaches for the pile of silver cutlery next to Eric’s elbow. She makes a crying motion at him as she pulls the whole stack towards her. 

Prince Eric looks like he wants to flip the chessboard, but turns to Ursula instead to offer her a bow. “Welcome, Princess Vanessa, I apologize for not meeting you in the sitting room, I wasn’t--”

Ursula doesn’t hear the prince offer his excuses. She’s looking at Ariel, Ariel who she hasn’t seen in forever (four days) and falling in love all over again. It’s odd how comfortable the other woman looks on land, no sign of discomfort as she breathes in the thin air, her gestures gentle and confident as she resets the chess board. Her smile is somehow even more radiant under the bright sun and it’s shocking to realize that she’s never seen Ariel outside of the dark depths Ursula inhabits. Her hair is far redder than Ursula thought and her eyes are so green that they glow. She takes Ursula’s breath away.

I’ll help her to stay in the sun, Ursula swears to herself. She watches Ariel start sorting the spoons from the forks. I’ll help her stay wherever she wants.

“Um, Princess Vaness?” Prince Eric asks. He’s staring at Ursula, frown pulling at the corners of his mouth. “Are you alright?”

Finally Ariel looks up. Ursula doesn’t expect her to recognize her; her disguise is a true transformation without any illusion magic to be seen through. Why even Triton wouldn’t recognize her like this--

Ariel flies up out of her chair, uncaring that she’s supposed to be in excruciating pain with every step, and throws herself right into Ursula’s arms, the other woman’s name on her soundless lips. 

Ursula hugs her back, forgetting to keep her strength in check until Ariel huffs in her ear. She pulls back but doesn’t let go, keep her arms wrapped around Ariel’s waist. “Are you okay?”

Ariel rolls her eyes as if to say obviously. Then she twists in Ursula’s grip to stare smugly at the Prince.

“I’m guessing this is your girlfriend?” Prince Eric asks.  His brow knits. “But didn’t you say she was purple?”

Ursula snorts and then has to let go of Ariel so she can try and stifle the laughter spilling from her mouth. Part of it is hysteria--girlfriend? Ariel called her her girlfriend? And part of it is because Prince Eric is exactly like Ariel said.

“You just take everything in stride, don’t you?” she asks when she’s got some control of herself. Ariel is rubbing her back, still smiling smugly at the prince.

Prince Eric shrugs. “I mean, what else is there to do? Mermaids are real and there’s a crazy god in the sea destroying my people’s boats when they venture too far from shore. Anything can happen at this point.”

Ursula sobers at the reminder of their end of the deal. Prince Eric would probably have helped Ariel just because he’s kind and understands how hard it is to go against your own father, but Ariel refused to accept charity.  She wants to help him and, by extension, his whole country as well as her own. Ariel’s a princess, a ruler, and she’s never left well enough alone when the average citizen is being hurt.

Ariel wants to take care of her people, the ones who believe her to be a princess. That’s why they can’t simply run away. Not without taking care of Triton and all the harm he’s done first.

She had cried when Ursula told her what exactly Triton had done to her family. Ursula knows that Ariel won’t ever be happy if she stands by the wayside and lets him do the same thing to the humans or continue doing it to her own.

“Hopefully,” Ursula says, “we can do something about that.”

---------------------------------------------

The plan is a lot simpler with Ursula already on the surface. They don’t have to worry about timing it right, at least, and she doesn’t have to hide her presence since Triton is the one who sent her here. On the second day of her arrival, Sebastian catches on to her disguise.

“His majesty is too eager,” he tells her from the vanity. He’s snuck into her room early enough in the morning that she knows Ariel is not awake. He sniffs. “Ariel is a smart girl. She will come to her senses without your interference.”

Ursula didn’t always hate Sebastian. He’s been at Ariel’s side all her life, filling the void her mother’s death left the best he could. But then she found out how much he tells Triton about things Ariel would prefer stay secret. She found out about the first betrayal--the first time Triton took away a toy Ariel wasn’t supposed to have--and she lost any kind feelings she might have had.

“You’re a pathetic worm,” Ursula says. She holds a pair of pearl earrings up to her disguise’s ear and hums thoughtfully. “Don’t come near me again or I’ll squash you.”

Sebastian scuttles back a few inches before forcing himself to stop. “You can’t. You can’t act without his majesty’s blessing.”

“I can’t curse without his majesty’s blessing,” Ursula corrects. The trident gives Triton the ability to control magical power. That’s it. She contemplates her hands.  “I don’t think I even need to hit you very hard at all.”

Sebastian dives off of the vanity and hurriedly squishes himself under the door and out of her room.

----------------------------------------

Here’s Ursula’s secret--she is not happy. She doesn’t know if happy can happen for someone who’s seen what she’s seen, who has lost what she’s lost. She saw a madman rip her family’s greatest treasure from the cold hands of her sisters and then had to watch as he sent her parents fleeing to the deepest part of the ocean. She has felt his control over her like a fist around her throat.

So. She is not happy. For a long time, she thought she would never be again.

And then she met Ariel.

She thinks happy is a state of being. Happy is when things are right in the world and you don’t remember the screams of your people as magic was ripped from their bodies. What she feels now is different. More fleeting and intense than happy ever could be. She looks at Ariel and she feels joy.

Her other secret is that joy is a gateway to happy. The longer she feels it, feels Ariel’s hand in her own, the more her world feels right again. She is scared of the day her happiness comes for her, scared that it will mean forgetting her father and mother and sisters and people, but she doesn’t shy away from it. She wants to be happy with Ariel, more than she thought possible after everything she’s been through. She wants happy even though she is so terribly afraid of it too.

Ariel helps her to embrace the future through her fear. Ariel has lost too, lost love and faith and a mother. They are two children in the dark, scared, but reaching. Wanting.

Ursula won’t let go.

------------------------

They modify the plan a little to account for Ursula. The original idea had been to fake Prince Eric getting called away, across the ocean to where his country’s trade partners are grumbling at another order unfulfilled. The prince would be a sitting duck in his ship and Triton would be unable to resist taking revenge on the human who lured away his daughter. When the King rose from the depths to sink the vessel, Scuttle would swoop in with his feathered brethren and aid human soldiers in stealing the King’s trident.

With the trident out of the way, Ursula would strike from where she’d been hiding beneath, waiting for Ariel to give her the signal.

Now, everything is easier. Ariel doesn’t need to go through a painful, fast transformation to warn Ursula at the bottom of the ocean. Ursula “torments” Ariel by “stealing” the prince away from her. It helps that nobody questions Ursula’s disguise as a princess from the North and Ariel does a great job looking heartbroken when the engagement is announced.

“I don’t really want him,” Ursula hastens to reassure Ariel after the party. She knows it’s an act--she knows-- but those tears looked incredibly real. “I’m only doing this for you.”

Ariel blinks the last of her tears away and then laughs. It’s still a little shaky, her voice only newly recovered, but it’s as beautiful as before the transformation nonetheless. “Sweetheart, I know. It’s part of the plan.”

“Ouch,” Prince Eric says, coming into the private sitting room behind Ariel. He kicks the door closed with one foot which Ursula is fairly certain prince’s aren’t supposed to do. “I thought we had something, Vanessa.” He shucks off his formal jacket and collapses over the sofa. “I thought we were in love.”

“Who taught you sarcasm?” Ursula asks incredulously. She’s only been here for two days, but she’s reasonably sure Eric never talked like that before. She whips around to stare down at Ariel. “Did you teach him sarcasm?”

“Well, I had to teach him something,” Ariel says reasonably. “He’s completely hopeless at chess. What else was there?”

A lot, Ursula wants to say but loses her voice when Ariel smiles proudly up at her.

“Hey,” Prince Eric says, lifting up his head, “I’m quite good at chess, I’ll have you know. I’ve beaten Ursula like six times.”

Ursula clears her throat. “Leave me out of this? Please?”

“Six times?” Ariel looks absolutely shocked. She presses a cool hand to Ursula’s burning face. “Did the transformation change your brain too?”

Ursula resolves to never let Ariel see her play chess. The pieces are just so small and she doesn’t understand the rules. She lifts her nose. “My family played checkers.”

Ariel softens as she always does when Ursula mentions her family, knowing how rare it is, but Eric grins.

“Oh, I have a checkerboard around here somewhere,” he says, moving to stand. “Shall I go fetch it?”

Ursula throws him the nastiest glare she has and isn’t surprised when he remains unfazed. All of Ariel’s friends are weird.

--------------------------------

Ursula’s wearing a wedding dress when it all starts to go to shit. She doesn’t know it’s going to shit--no, she’s too busy trying to figure out how a human bride is supposed to act. They’re having the ceremony on the water to “bless the next trade season” and her dress is lighter than it would have been on land. Still, it’s cumbersome and scratchy.

Prince Eric knocks on her door, pushing it open without waiting for her say so. “How’s my beautiful bride doing?”

Ursula wobbles on her heels as the ship sways but manages to turn enough to glare at him. “I need you to know that my true form is endless and unfathomable and if you ever refer to me as your or bride again, I will squash you like the tiny land lice you are.”

Eric, undeterred, whistles and shuts the door behind him. “Ariel’s the nice one, huh?”

Ursula doesn’t know how to respond to that because, to be honest, neither of them are very ‘nice’ in the human sense of the word. Instead, she pulls a small vial from her dress. “Here, just in case.”

Prince Eric accepts the tube and examines the bubbling, green liquid inside. “Are you asking me to poison myself?” He doesn’t sound upset if she is.

“No, idiot,” she says. She bends down to make sure her boring ass hair is okay in the mirror. “It’s curse reversal for Ariel. If this all goes to shit, I want you to give it to her. She’s faster in the water.”

“What about me?” Eric asks. “How do I get away if it all goes to shit?”

Ursula snorts. “She can carry you too, if she has to.”

“We’ll run away together and elope,” Eric promises and puts the vial in his breast pocket. He holds out a hand to her mockingly. “Right after we get married and overthrow the King of the Sea.”

Ursula’s too busy rolling her eyes and asking when they’re pushing off from the dock to notice the small red visitor at the window.

----------------------------------

“The sea witch has betrayed you, sire,” Sebastian tells Triton. He’s vibrating with energy, eyes wide. He can hardly believe it. Ursula is a fickle monster, he knows, but she’s not a stupid one. “She is helping Ariel go with the prince! Then, when you’re distracted, she’s going to overthrow you with the humans!”

Triton’s knuckles go white around his trident. He should have remembered the worst quality Ursula’s people had. Heart. He’ll burn it out of her.

Just as soon as he gets his wayward daughter back in the water where she belongs.

---------------------

“Something isn’t right,” Ursula murmurs. She watches the skies, the bouquet in her hands crumpling under her grip. It’s her, the crew, Prince Eric and the captain on the top deck, but there’s something above them, something besides the birds. Why above them? Why not below? They’re in the target range, coming above Atlantis’ outermost reaches. She breathes in the salty air and then curses. “There’s magic in the clouds.”

It’s obvious now that she’s noticed it. They’re not the typical, mist like creatures floating over this part of the ocean. They’re heavy and darkening as each moment goes by, unnatural winds swirling the edges into claws. She looks over the railing. The ocean is black, not a single glimmer coming from the city she knows is down there.

“Vanessa?” Eric asks her. His hand is on his sword and his eyes dart to her and then to the men around them. They all start reaching for their weapons. “What’s wrong?”

Ursula kicks off her heels as subtly as she can and lets go of the transformation on her feet. Nobody can tell when her tentacles reform under the wedding dress. “I don’t know.” She doesn’t know if she should stay in character or not. She slides between Eric and the railing, unsure why the stillness and blackness of the water is unsettling her. “Maybe we should turn--”

The ship lurches as the sea boils around them. It’s not hyperbole--the sea literally starts boiling around them, steam rising from the waves and stinging against Ursula’s bare arms. The prince’s knights curse and back towards the center of the ship, dragging the prince to stand inside their protective circle.

“What’s happening?” Eric shouts. “Urs--Vanessa!”

Ariel bursts through the door to the lower deck, eyes wild as they lock on Ursula. She’s battered, her hair in disarray and there are rips in her simple shirt and pants that weren’t there before. “He knows--!”

Two dark shapes leap out of the darkness behind her, sending Ariel crashing to the deck with a cry. Ursula starts forward, lips curling into a snarl, but she’s too slow and they yank her up into the air. Ariel’s assailants aren’t human; they’re magic soldiers. Golems made from the souls of those unable to pay the cost of a curse. Ursula’s only made those terrible things for one being.

“Let go!” Ariel screams, struggling as they raise her higher and higher. “Let go--”

The roar of the ocean drowns out the rest of her command.

Triton rises from the depths, his crown breaking the surface first. He’s in his true form, dozens of meters tall, and he rises up and up and up. He’s furious.

“You’ve betrayed me,” he bellows at Ariel. Saliva flies from his lips and a drop lands on the handrail in front of Ursula. It sizzles like acid. Triton surges towards Ariel until they’re face to face. Ariel is hardly the length of his nose. “You betrayed me for a human!”

“No!” Ariel’s voice has always been powerful. She glares at her father, hanging between the soldiers’ grip and bares her teeth. “No, I didn’t!”

“You deny it?” Triton extends one fist towards Ariel and opens his hand mere feet from her. In the center of his palm is Sebastian. “Sebastian?”

Sebastian won’t meet Ariel’s eyes. “I-I heard the sea witch and the human conspiring to overthrow you, sire. Ariel wants to run away with the human. Ursula is helping her, sire. Ariel w-was led astray by the sea witch.” He is trembling in his master’s palm. Maybe he finally understands his role in all of this. Disposable spy. “Please, sire, I know Ariel would not have done this if--”

Ursula’s not even mad that Sebastian is throwing her under the bus. She’s more impressed that he even thinks that will work.

Triton drops Sebastian, uncaring of where the little crustacean lands. He thuds onto the top deck, still pleading with Triton to calm, to have mercy, to blame the true culprit in all this. When he sees Ursula standing just a few feet away from him, he goes deathly silent.

Ursula sneers at him, vibrating with fear and adrenaline and restraint. She can’t move--not yet. Even though everything’s gone to shit and Ariel is in his grasp, she can’t move yet. Not until they get the trident. They just have to bide their time. He loves showing it off and she knows he won’t really hurt Ariel. When he brings it out, Scuttle and his army will steal it and then she can--

“Do you dare deny your treachery?” Triton booms. Overhead the clouds rumble ominously. “After your watcher has told me the truth of it?”

Ariel barks a laugh. “Deny it? Hell no!” She tosses her hair out of her face, feet kicking the air. “I betrayed you, but not for a human. I betrayed you because you suck.”

Ariel, Ursula thinks in the beat that follows, Ariel is brave as hell.

Triton rears back as if struck, eyes flying wide. Ariel goes in for the kill.

“You’re a terrible king!” Ariel shouts at him. “All my life you’ve bullied and killed good people, innocent people! A king doesn’t hurt his citizens! A king protects them!” Her voice is powerful, louder than the thunder that is starting to rumble continuously above them. “And you’re a shitty father! You--”

“ENOUGH!” Triton bellows. He looks wild, electricity crackling through his beard. “You--I see I have been too soft with you. These humans have gotten into your head.” He plunges his hand once more into the tumultuous sea and, this time, he brings out the trident. It glows golden with magic, striking against the dark clouds. His glare cuts to Ursula and there’s enough evil there that she feels her breath still in her lungs. “I’ll deal with you, sea witch, like I should have years ago. How would you like to burn alive alongside mortals?”

The trident is above the surface of the water. It’s in its bigger size, but Scuttle had promised it wouldn’t be a problem. Where is he? Where is he?

They need more time.

Ursula laughs, high and cold. “You think to burn me, Triton? You will not survive the attempt!” She needs to distract him so he doesn’t use the trident. He’s fully capable of setting them all ablaze with it in his hand while her curse renders her useless. “Did you really think I was helping you all this time? You! Child killer! Oath breaker! My kingdom sent you aid when the storms destroyed your lands and left you homeless! You are a worm, Triton and I will see you die as one!”

Triton grows in his rage, eyes flaming with magic as her accusations pierce the air. “You witch. You have bitten the hand that feeds you for the last time!” He raises the trident high. Higher. “Ursula, I sentence you to--”

Ariel screams and throws herself out of the soldiers’ grip on her. The scent of blood hits the air; the claws that held her cut. But she recognizes a curse when she hears one and she launches herself forward, hands out as if she’s going to claw out her father’s eyes. She won’t let him hurt Ursula any longer.

Ursula screams when Triton catches Ariel in one hand. “Ariel!”

“Daughter,” Triton growls, bringing Ariel up to his face again. The magic sparks on the trident. There’s already a curse waiting. “I will deal with you later. Return to the sea.”

The trident obeys.

Ursula is the first to understand what’s happened. She knows magic, has studied it with her family who made it, knew it, bled it. She knows magic and she knows Triton. Triton is trying to send Ariel back to their kingdom, so far beneath the waves that she won’t have a hope of reaching the surface until Triton has killed them all.

But he hasn’t cursed her to return to his kingdom. He has unwittingly accessed an ancient and powerful magic, one great enough to overcome a paltry transformation.

He has cursed her to return to the sea.

“No,” Ursula whispers as silvery magic consumes Ariel. It bubbles like the ocean, shimmering and glittering as the first bolt of lightning flashes above. Ursula rushes the rails of the ship. “NO!”

Triton stares at his own hand. The silver magic is not one he’s used to seeing. He no longer feels his daughter’s body in his grip. Slowly, finger by finger, he opens his fist.

Sea foam drips from his palm and down into the churning water below.

Several things happen at once.

Ursula screams Ariel’s name into the wind, over and over and over again. The sea foam glimmers and shines and does not answer.

Eric shouts “Men! To arms!”

From the clouds, thousands of birds descend, gulls and eagles and hawks and sparrows. Scuttle leads them, shrieking a war cry, talons extended.  Triton, shocked by his daughter’s cursed transformation, does nothing as they grab the trident,  moving in tandem to lift it away.

Triton jerks as he feels a tug on the trident, but is too late to grab hold. He turns, intent on snatching his weapon back from the sky.

And Ursula breaks her curse.

------------------------------

Her people are old. Their elders remember a time when every living being came from the ocean, ages and ages ago before the stars changed location and before anything walked the earth. There are parts of their knowledge that are too dangerous to remember, that must be stored carefully away in the farthest reaches of their souls.

Ursula’s parents were not warriors. They did not listen to the ways of their ancestors and did not reach for knowledge--for power--when their peaceful neighbors turned greedy eyes to them.  They did not defend themselves with a hundred eyes or a thousand claws because they did not remember they had them.

Triton won because her people forgot. He cursed her to forget, to know only what he needed her to know, but his spells are too complicated without the trident. He loses hold of the magic. He loses hold of her curse.

Ursula sees sea foam and remembers.

-----------------------------------------

Ursula uses the lashing appendages that manifest to launch herself at Triton. The ship rocks behind her as if in a tempest, but she’s hardly aware of how the prince shouts her name. Her eyes bleed black and her skin loses its human softness. She feels her mouth split open with a thousand teeth and she reaches for Triton’s throat.

“Stop!” Triton commands as he whirls back to her. His tail lashes against the water, trying to keep him balanced, but it’s too late. “I command--”

The being that was (is) Ursula does not understand such paltry things as words. She is beyond sound, beyond thought, beyond time. She is endless and omnipotent, many and one, knowing and without mind.

She thinks, Ariel. She understands one word still.

It’s more than enough.

She hits Triton with the sound of an avalanche, a howl streaming endlessly from her throat. She feels her body breaking and changing (remembering) and she does not notice as black primordial ooze bleeds into the water from her fury. 

Triton fights back. She’ll give him that. He fights back and it hurts. He is not powerless, has never been powerless. He is without control. He is brute force and sheer, unending power. He bellows his fury into one of her many faces, hands ripping and tearing at her limbs, her chest, her eyes.

She howls back and smashes her tentacles like clubs against him until he is pushed back from the ship and into deeper water.

It is a fierce battle, but one that’s already been decided. It was decided when Triton destroyed her kingdom, chased her people out, but kept her. It was decided when he named her sea witch and believed the lie.

Triton may be a king, but Ursula is eldritch. 

She breaks him down slowly, tearing at the power he wields so thoughtlessly. She bleeds him dry, slashing at his arms, his throat, his chest. He bleeds and where his blood falls, her inky shadows swallows it down and sends the power back into her many mouths.

“Ursula,” he gurgles when she locks her own hands around his throat. His eyes are bloodied and red. “No--”

Her name is enough to bring a part of her back. Her head and torso emerge from the mass her body has become and her eyes are very cold as she looks down at him. He’s shrunk each time she sipped at his power. She’s bigger than him. She’s angrier than him.

“I loved her,” she tells him. She is dual-toned, her voice on earth and her voice beyond. She wants him to know that Ariel was important. She wants him to know why she’s killing him. “I loved her.” Her voice breaks. “And she loved me.”

Triton cries blood and dies under her hands.

She stares at his lifeless face for a long time. She should have kept him alive. There are spells to transfer life. She could have--she could have used his life to bring back Ariel but--

But things brought back from the dead always come back tainted. Ariel wouldn’t have wanted that.

The skies break open overhead, the rain finally coming down on the battlefield. There is only Ursula out here with Triton’s body. They somehow swam deeper into the ocean, away from the ship and away from Atlantis.  She releases Triton’s corpse and watches it sink down and into the depths. She watches for a long, long time.

Ursula’s body steams as she lets go of what she knows. There is no point in keeping so much power under her skin; there is no one left to protect. Ariel is gone and Ursula is free.

It is not what she wants.

Ursula screams at the sky. She nearly had Ariel, but lost her to the same man who’d taken everything else she loved. She wants to--she wants to be with Ariel. She doesn’t want to see if she can find joy again, not when Ariel is the only one she’s felt it with since her kingdom’s death. She wants to become sea foam herself so she can--

“Over there! I see something over there!”

Ursula turns numbly, aware that she looks terrible. She’s probably covered in blood and ooze and worse. She doesn’t care. She looks at the ship making a beeline towards her, dully recognizing Prince Eric waving to her from the prow. That’s right. She should make sure that he’s alright. Ariel would have wanted her to--

“URSULA!”

Ursula jerks, the fog ripping from her mind at the sound of that voice. It’s powerful, even as abused as it sounds. She’d recognize it anywhere. It’s not possible!

Ariel swings herself up onto the railing of the ship, red hair streaming in the wind. She’s wearing a sheet around her body, like when she first turned human, and there’s soot high on one cheek. Her tail is a beautiful, glittering green under the sun.

Ursula forgets to keep herself afloat through her shock. She inhales a lungful of saltwater, so much better than air, and the last bit of confusion fades. That was Ariel, she just saw Ariel on the ship--! 

When Ursula breaks the surface, exhaling saltwater, she’s met with the sight of Ariel jumping ship. Ariel who has her fin back and has what looks like a sail wrapped around her. Prince Eric didn’t even try to stop her; he’s whooping on the deck, grinning like he’s personally responsible for Triton’s defeat.

Oh shit, Ursula thinks, staring at where Ariel is now struggling through the water. The sail is tangling around her tail.  I killed her father. 

Ariel gasps for air and reaches a hand out. “Ursula!”

Ursula is beside her between one breath and the next and wraps an arm around Ariel to help keep her afloat. At the feel of her skin under her hands, ursula can’t help it. She starts to cry. “Y--you were sea foam! How did you--I don’t understand!”

Ariel is grinning down at her, so so relieved. “You gave Eric a curse reversal potion, remember? And you told him to--”

“I told him to dump it on you,” Ursula interrupts. She uses her free hand to trace Ariel’s cheek and swallows heavily when Ariel brings up her hand to hold Ursula’s palm against her skin. “Oh my god, that idiot actually dumped it on you.”

“Hey!” Prince Eric shouts from above them. He’s managed to bring the ship up alongside. “I saved her life!”

Ursula ignores him. Now that Ariel is here, in her arms, she can’t hide it. She has to tell Ariel what happened. “Ariel, I’m so sorry, I killed Triton. I killed him.”

Sorrow filters behind Ariel’s eyes and then sinks away. She brings her forehead to press against Ursula’s. “He was mad, Ursula. You did the right thing.”

“I’m sorry,” Ursula whispers again. She is not apologizing for killing him now. She’s saying sorry that killing Triton was the right thing to do. She’s saying sorry that she was the one to do it when they’d both planned to leave the dirty work to the humans. She’s saying sorry that Ariel lost someone, no matter how awful they were. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” Ariel murmurs. She leans forward and presses a chaste kiss to Ursula’s lips. For their first kiss, it is not passionate. It’s comforting and loving and everything. “We’ll figure it out.”

Ursula nods, careful to keep still. Her lips feel very hot. She clears her throat. “Together.”

“Together,” Ariel agrees. She turns a little in Ursula’s arms to squint up at Prince Eric. “So you guys gonna help us out of the water or what?”

“Oh, did you remember we’re here?” Eric asks. He’s got his chin propped up on one hand. He looks down the rail at his knights who are all staring at Ursula’s tentacles with open fascination. “These two are the worst. It’s like, get a room already.”

The knights look unsure of how they’re supposed to respond to that.

“I was going to help you explain to your father that you just saved the kingdom,” Ariel tells Eric, “but now that you remind me, I do have a room. See you in a week!”

Eric jerks upright, alarm darting across his face. “Wait, Ariel, you promised you’d explain--!”

Laughing, Ariel tugs Ursula beneath the water, dragging her down and down and down. They’re going home to Atlantis. Neither woman knows what waits for them, but they aren’t running. They’re swimming. Together. And Ariel’s hand is warm in Ursula’s.

Neither of them let go.

Ursula thinks that this might just be the start of happy. It might even be the start of happily ever after.