Part of Your World (Disney Twisted Tales) - Liz Braswell Page 0,13

sighed, drifting over to the rock she used to perch on while admiring her collection. Things, so many things. Things she never found out the proper use for in her short time on land. Because she had been too busy moonmg over Eric.

In some ways, that was the part of the seagull's story that bothered her the most. She could not believe the reaction her traitor heart had when the bird mentioned his name.

Eric remembered something?

He wrote an opera about it? About her?

It wasn't just the flatten* of it, though. If Eric remembered enough to compose music about it... would he remember her, too? A little?

She remembered him far too often.

Despite the fact that her life had been ruined because of her pursuit of Eric, when she closed her eyes to go to sleep, her last thoughts were often still of him.

Or when a perfectly handsome, reasonably amusing (and mostly immortal—not an irrelevant pomt) merman tried to win her affections, and all she could think about was how his hair might look when it was dry. Would it bounce, like Eric's?

An opera. What were his arias like? What did he write for her to sing?

She smiled, the irony of it not lost on her: she had run away from a concert to pursue a human, and he had written songs for her now that she could no longer sing. She ran her finger along the sand on a nearby shelf, writing the name Eric in runes. Maybe, just maybe, along the way to save her father, she could pay him a visit. For old time's sake.

"NONONONONONONONO!"

Sebastian scuttled back and forth along one of the balustrades that demarcated the edge of the throne dais. It had been grown, as many of the mer objects were, from coral, the original inhabitants coaxed to move on once their job was done.

The crab's toes made little tickticktick noises as he self-righteously walked one way and then back the other, claws gnarled in the ready position, not even once regarding his audience. She sighed. While it was, of course, not unforeseeable that the little crab would respond this way, waiting through his tantrum was not the most efficient use of her time. As a girl, she would have swum off. As a girl with a voice, she might have argued. As a mute queen, she could do neither.

She lifted up the trident and struck the ocean floor with it twice. Not to raise any magic—just to get his attention. To remind him of who she was. The little crab stopped mid-rant. She raised her eyebrows at him: Really, Sebastian? "Nothing good will come of it," he said, a little sheepishly. "Nothing from the surface ever does." My father may be alive, she signed. That is reason enough to try.

At this the little crab wavered. He clicked slowly along the railing until he was close enough to put a claw on her arm. "Ariel, I miss him, too...but you could be just chasing a ghost."

"Give up: Sebastian," Flounder suggested. "She's already made her decision."

"I think you're encouragmg her m this!" Sebastian snapped, aiming an accusmg claw at the fish.

Flounder rolled his eyes.

He's not encouraging, he's helping, Ariel said.

"I could help you more," Sebastian wheedled. "/ can go on land for short periods of time."

You 're needed down here, to act as my representative. And distraction.

"I am not gomg to get in front of a crowd of merfolk and...similar ocean dwellers to tell them that their queen has left them to go off on some ridiculous mission by herself! You want to leave, you have to be brave enough to tell them."

A single sign: No.

She rested a gentle hand on her throat, letting that action speak for itself.

Sebastian wilted. "All right, go. No one has ever been able to stop you from domg anything you wanted anyway—even when it costs you dearly."

For a moment, Ariel felt her old self surface, the urge to grm and plant a kiss on the little crab's back. He was right. She did have a habit of swimming in where angels feared to tread. No one could dissuade her once her mmd was fixed. And it had cost her dearly.

What could it cost her this time?

"Please tell your sisters, at least," Sebastian said with a weary sigh, droppmg off the edge and scooting himself along the ocean floor toward the throne. With some quick kicks and sidewise crabby swimming he landed neatly on the armrest, the proper place for his official position