Part of Your World (Disney Twisted Tales) - Liz Braswell Page 0,80
" Vanessa interrupted sharply. "The youngest. The prettiest. The one with the beautiful voice. The one who looked the most like his own dead wife. Everybody knows it. Humans do the same thing—have children who are then favorites—but they constantly rail against the habit m their religions and laws. They try so hard to defeat their own base natures. It's one of many things I fmd rather attractive about them."
Ariel didn't answer immediately, processing this. She almost wished she still had no voice so she could vamp for time while commg up with the right signs.
"Is that why you're still here, causing trouble?" she finally asked. "Because you like the humans you live among?"
"Well, yes." Vanessa put a fmger to her lips, seriously considermg the idea. "They are so rash and easily manipulated and full offeelings and quick to agree to anything—more like a race of children than a real race, if you ask me. You know, I almost understand your fascmation with them now. Before, I thought it was because you were just a dumb bored teenager looking for a way to shock your father."
Ariel opened her mouth to respond but Vanessa cut her off, commg near. She lowered her head and hunched her shoulders, like Ursula preparing to attack, and Ariel was pretty sure that if there had been shadows in the
alley, the one behind her would have shown tentacles waving high, poised to strike.
"You will never, ever get your father back. You, the merfolk, everyone under the sea—you have all lost the great Kmg Triton forever. And you will lose so much more....That is what you get for exiling Ursula. That is what happens to everyone who crosses her!"
Ariel said nothing—she just raised an eyebrow, as if to say. Are you done now?
"And you can just forget about ever getting Eric back, too," the sea witch added snidely. "Whether or not he remains devoted to me, he is oddly devoted to his people."
"It's not odd," Ariel responded, a little sadly. "A good ruler—a successful ruler—loves her people and governs at their will. She doesn't use them up for her own selfish purposes. Someday you might actually learn that, even if you triumph against me now. The humans will not put up with you forever."
Vanessa's face dissolved mto another Ursula-style snarl.
"If I catch Eric helping you in any way, Grimsby will die."
Ariel almost said, I know this already, but stopped herself just in time.
She wasn't a great actress and couldn't feign last-minute surprise. So she spoke the truth.
"You're a monster."
Vanessa crossed her arms. "You're up to something. I can tell. You're trying to cheat, somehow."
"How does that feel?" Ariel asked innocently.
"If you're gomg to play a game of knives, you had better prepare to win," Vanessa growled. "All you have ever done so far is lose. Lose your voice, lose your prmce, lose your father.... Don't for a moment think you have gained the upper hand just because you have a crown now. Content yourself with ruling the merfolk; they are about all you can handle.
"Go back to the sea, little mermaid. Go back and leave the human world forever. Leave them...to me."
[Jrsala
She made a suitably dramatic exit, stepping languidly up into her carriage and having Jetsam slam the door and Flotsam whip the horses to move off.
It was a little bit uncomfortable in the carriage, it being a mail coach and not made for the transporting of royal prmcesses. Also: there was indeed a large wooden crate for eventual delivery to Ibria: random and delicate polyp within.
But at least it was dark and cool inside. She pulled down the isinglass shade, which cut the glare further and also amused her: its translucent material was made from the swim bladders of fish. As she ran a fmger down its textured surface she grinned at the number of lives given just so she could avoid a headache.
The coach slowly began to roll off—and Ursula's smile faded. She had come out on top m their verbal spar. ..she should have been exultant. She should have celebrated the fact that the stupid mermaid princess—excuse me, queen—had appeared just as she predicted. And did the sea witch ever show her\ She had all the cards, all the leverage, and the mermaid had none. Ursula was at the top of her game. There was nothing Ariel could do but swim back to her little home under the waves forever.