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“Hesitantly Eric pulled something out of his pocket. At first Ariel thought it would be a pipe- it seemed appropriate for someone of Eric's current age and station. But as he placed it to his lips she realized that it was a tiny instrument. Smaller than the recorder he used to carry with him, and fatter. More like an ocarina, the instrument humans used to play in the days they still talked to animals and merfolk. He took a breath and waited for a moment. Then he played a few notes. Quietly and slowly. Ariel's heart nearly stopped. It was the song she had sung after she rescued him, the song that had burst unbidden out of her heart as he lay there, unconscious. It described the beauty of the sea and the land and the mortality of humans and the wonder of life. It had poured out of her like life itself. Hearing it again was the sweetest pain she had ever experienced. Far deeper even than having her tail split in twain for legs. It coursed through her whole body, hurt and recognition and pleasure all at once.”

“Hey, check this out," Eric said, pulling up his sleeve and holding out his arm. The name Ariel was written out- in mer runes! It circled his arm like the sort of band a warrior would wear, and glistened with oil he had rubbed into it. "Eric! What did you do?" "What? Don't you like it?" "I love it, but..." "Until we have wedding rings, I thought it was a nice permanent commitment. Argent did it! Sebastian helped me with the letters." "It... must have hurt." "You have no idea. That's how much I love you," he said, kissing her on the forehead.”

“If Eric had just listened to his heart and not someone else's singing, none of this would have happened. He had fallen in love with the voiceless red-haired girl. He was just too stupid and obstinate to recognize it. He loved everything about her. Her smile, the way she moved, the way she took delight in everything around her. She was impulsive, unmannered, willing to get dirty, a little strange, and extremely hands-on. And beautiful. So different from all the princesses and ladies his parents had introduced him to.”

“She picked up a roundish thing from the ground and shook the sand off. It was the top of an old ceramic jar, once painted bright blue and gold. The humans had so many jars. And amphorae. And vases. And vessels. And kegs. And tankards. So many... things... to put other... things in. Merfolk rarely had a necessity to store anything beyond the occasional rare and fancy comestible, like the sweet golden-wine they used to trade for when she was a child. Merfolk ate when they were hungry, almost never had the need to drink anything, and rarely had a reason to store food for the future. She dropped the lid and 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 mooning 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. Eric remembered something? He wrote an opera about it? About her? It wasn't just the flattery 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 point) 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?”

“There was also an amazing scent of fresh-baked... something. Baking wasn't a thing under the sea. When Ariel lived at the castle with Eric she had tried breads, cakes, pies, rolls, and sweets, and found them all mystifying (though delicious). They were like nothing she had ever eaten before and sometimes came to her plate still warm, which was also an odd way to eat food. Eric had bought her twelve different kinds of pie at a fancy shop in town and laughed as she had a bite of each, savoring.”

“He held the papers up to the moonlight. There was a little smudging, there, right where the chorus was supposed to come in with a D major triad. But it wasn't so bad. His eyes drifted from the pages to the moon, which shone clearly through his unglazed window. A bright star kept it company. A faint breeze blew, causing the thick leaves of the trees below to make shoe-like clacking noises against the castle wall. It carried with it whatever scents it had picked up on its way from the sea: sandalwood, sand, oranges, dust. Dry things, stuff of the land. Eric looked back at his music, tried to recapture the sound and feel of the ocean that had played in his head before waking, aquamarine and sweet.”

“I guess falling in love with mermaids is pretty dangerous," he finally said. "Did you?" Ariel asked in a small voice. "Fall for me? At all?" Eric gave her a measured look, treating the question seriously as she had his. "I did fall for you, just not in the way I expected it would happen. And maybe not in the way you hoped. It wasn't a lightning bolt. As I got to know you, I realized you were the most... energetic, fun, enthusiastic... alive girl I had ever met." He smiled at the memory- and Ariel felt her breath catch. "You know, for a boy who's all about sailing and running around with his dog and exploring, you were just about as perfect a companion as he could ever want. And beautiful, to boot. I would have been very lucky." He said this wistfully. Ariel wasn't sure when she was going to start breathing again.”

“He had just witnessed the transformation of a girl into a mermaid. Back into a mermaid, he corrected himself. Despite the terrible things they had endured- and probably more before it was all over- despite the years he had lost in a haze to Vanessa's spell, he felt like a delirious little kid who had seen his first firefly, or bioluminescent jellyfish, or shooting star. Everything was beautiful and anything was possible: the world was an amazing place just waiting to be explored.”

“No artist can create without an inspiration; no man can work so without a muse. So it is with your prince. Everything I've ever done, every piece you've ever heard, every tune I've ever scribbled in the wee hours as a Mad Prince does, they are all because of one woman, who owns me heart and soul." This was met with awwws and cries about the power of love. Eric looked out at the crowd, but his eyes didn't find hers. It didn't matter. Ariel knew he was speaking to her, and she felt her eyes moisten.”