Flounder squealed, shaking his tail as fast as he could.
"OH, ARIEL, THANK THE THOUSAND SEAS OF THE WORLD YOU ARE BACK. IT HAS BEEN A TERRIBLE NIGHTMARE OF BUREARCRACY SINCE YOU LEFT!" Ariel, Sebastian, and Flounder were alone in the deserted throne room. Ariel had her audience very much to herself. She opened her mouth.
"YOU HAVE NO IDEA THE THINGS I HAVE HAD TO BEAR. " Sebastian clacked a claw against his foreshell dramatically, turning away from her. His eight walking feet clicked tinnily on the armrest of the throne. Ariel took a breath and opened her mouth again.
"The constant fighting," Sebastian continued, "the interminable discussion of rituals. Taxes. The stupid sharks and their stupid sea-grabs. Distributing parts for the Sevarene Rites. And no one knows where the Horn of the Hyperboreans went!''
The little crab collapsed in a heap, more like a molt than a living creature, burying his eyes under his claws. Ariel and Flounder exchanged an exasperated look.
"Not a moment for me. Not a moment for ray music. Not a moment to compose, or prepare a chorus for the Rites," Sebastian continued feebly. He poked his eyes piteously up through the crack in his claw. "What is a musician to do?"
"Maybe stop whining and be grateful for a chance to serve his kingdom," Ariel suggested dryly.
Sebastian's eyes twitched in a crab version of blinking. "ARIEL! You can TALK!"
Using quick scooting motions, Sebastian swam sideways to plant himself on her chest, pressing his face against her skm. A crab hug. "Oh, my dear, dear girl. I am so happy for you. I want to shed!" "Ugh. Please don't," Flounder said.
Ariel picked the little crab off her and held him, cupped in her hands, before her face. "But how did this happen?" he asked, looking around. "And where is your father?" "It's..plicated," Ariel said. "Ariel!"
Attina was frozen in surprise behind them, staring at her sister. Then with a snap of her tail she was next to and around her, holding her shoulders and looking her all over, as if she would be able to see a physical reason for her change.
"Ariel! I'm so happy- for you! How did you...? Where's Daddy? Is everything back to normal now?"
"Not...precisely." Ariel wished she could stay there, basking m her big sister's good humor and attention. But there were truths to be told. "Oh," Attina said, her facmg falling. "So., .does this means you're back to assume yrour responsibilities again? For good this time?" Ariel thought about the twin meanings of that word: good.
"Why don't you listen?" she suggested, making her voice lilting, not quite begging, but the sort of come on sound a y-ounger sister would use to wheedle sense out of an older sibling. "I was just about to tell the story-." "I'm all ears." Attina crossed her arms and drifted away from her.
Ariel decided to ignore her sister's tone and just leapt mto the tale, starting with Jona and Scuttle's furious attack on the guards and ending with a slightly censored and greatly abbreviated retelling of the conversation she had with Eric.
It was hard to tell that part. Her lips moved as she recounted their official discussion, but her heart wandered away from the conversation. She could still hear echoes of their duet lingermg in her mmd. "Help from the human prince," Attina drawled. "I'm so surprised."
"All right," Ariel said mildly. "Do you have a better idea to get our father back? Because if you do, I'm all ears"'
"Now, girls," Sebastian said, holding up his claws. "It's good that he's searching the castle, but...Ariel...he's the reason you lost your head to begin with."
"I'm not gomg to lose my head again," the queen said with a steely look. No, really. Despite the flutters her heart felt when she thought of him. "I'm older and wiser, and I have a mission. I'm not going to be distracted from rescuing my father by a human boy. Even Eric."
"Even Eric," Attina said with a sigh, throwing her hands up. "There are millions of 'human boys' up there. You're the queen of the merfolk. Don't you ever think about that? Are any of them worth one of you?"
For a dizzying moment Ariel saw things from her sister's—and her father's—perspective: countless humans swarming everywhere on the Dry World: only a tiny kingdom of mer below in the World Under the Sea. Losing a daughter to a human wasn't just tragic on a personal level; it also meant the loss of one of the dwindling mer to the