Chapter 12:

Turbulent Sisters

Ariel

The answer that Ariel feared spilled forth from Attina’s lips, as harsh and as cold as the depths of the sea they occupied. Ariel’s eyes darted back and forth around her sister, searching for any sign of softness, any hint of understanding, but finding none. Her gaze settled once more on Attina’s piercing, pale green eyes, eyes that blazed with anger and determination. The tightening in Ariel’s chest turned to throbbing as her heart beat furiously against her ribs, each pulse echoing the panic rising within her. Her fingers curled into her palms, her nails threatening to slice into her skin, a physical manifestation of the emotional turmoil she struggled to contain. Ariel straightened her spine, setting her shoulders with a resolve she wasn’t sure she felt, and her upper lip curled in defiance.

“No.”

That single word carried all the weight of Ariel’s fear, anger, and determination. She wouldn’t return to Atlantica with her sister, at least not until she made sure that Elsa was returned home. Father wasn’t going to stop her from getting Elsa home and Attina certainly wasn’t either.

“You will come home, right now.” Attina’s clenched jaw had her snarling the last words.

“Why?” Ariel demanded. “So Father can keep me locked away in the space he calls a home?” Attina’s eyes stayed narrowed. “I might as well be imprisoned in Atlantica.”

“If you had just listened to him when you were sixteen and not gotten yourself wrapped up in the life of a human, you wouldn’t be in this spot right now.”

Ariel’s muscles tensed. “Eric needed to be rescued. He was going to drown!”

“Then you should have let him drown!” growled Attina, emphasizing the word 'drown' with a deep, guttural intensity.

Ariel flinched at her sister’s response, tears welling in her eyes. Her voice quavered, “Would you let Andrina die if you had the chance to save her?”

Attina’s knitted eyebrows loosened, and her eyes softened. Her shoulders sank and she averted her eyes from Ariel. “I would do whatever I have to in order to protect all of my sisters.”

Ariel rolled her eyes, letting out a derisive snort. “Yeah, right. How many times have you practiced that line?”

Attina’s anger returned. “Protecting our sisters and protecting a human are two completely separate things, Ariel. You know the rule about humans. We are—”

“—not meant to intervene should a human find themselves stuck out at sea,” they said in unison. Attina's voice was firm, reciting it as an unquestionable fact, while Ariel groaned, rolling her eyes to emphasize how ridiculous she found the rule.

Ariel crossed her arms over her chest, balling her hands into fists. “Mother never would have agreed to such a rule, Attina. And you know it.”

“Mother’s not here!” At her abrupt response, Attina gasped, covering her mouth.

Ariel’s fists laxed under her crossed arms and then they dissolved away from her chest and hung at her hips. Ariel’s eyes fell away from her sister. “Go home, Attina,” she muttered. “Tell Father I’m happier here. Alone.”

Ariel moved left, swimming away from her sister with powerful strokes of her tail. She ascended rapidly, leaving the dark kelp forest behind. As she neared the surface, the shimmering lights of the stars danced on the rippling water, appearing as tiny, bright pinpricks against the black canvas of the night sky. Breaking through the surface, Ariel’s dark-sea vision faded and she turned eastward, her eyes catching the faint, welcoming glow of Elsa’s fire in the distance.

The sea rippled behind Ariel and she rolled her eyes. Attina’s voice floated over the surface. “Listen, I know you’re out here because of m—”

“You’re right!” Ariel turned, facing her sister. “I am out here because of you. You just had to go and tell Father that I was at the surface that night, didn’t you? Daddy’s precious first-born who can do no wrong had to go and tell on his youngest daughter. The screw up. The disappointment. The human-lover.”

Attina’s eyes softened. “Listen, Ariel—”

“No, Attina.” Ariel huffed. She wiped her hair from her face. “I have no interest in going back home. I meant what I said. You can tell Father that I found my piece of land”—Ariel threw a thumb over her right shoulder—“and I plan on staying here because I’m happy here. If he wants me home, then he can come and get me!”

Attina looked over Ariel’s shoulder. Her eyes narrowed. “Is that…?” Her eyes nearly popped out of her head. “Is that a fire?”

Ariel’s eyes shifted. She moved so that she was blocking Attina’s line of sight. “It’s none of your concern.”

Attina moved past Ariel. “Why would you need a fire?” Attina gasped. “Unless—”

Ariel whipped around. “There is no unless. I made the fire. I wanted it because it’s pretty and because it reminds me of my time as a hum—”

“You have a human on that island!” Attina shrieked and dove beneath the surface. She grabbed hold of Ariel’s tail and yanked her below. “How could you get caught up with another human?” she shouted. “How could you be so careless, Ariel?”

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

“There is—” no human, Ariel started to say, but the words died in her throat. Elsa’s soft, icy blue eyes appeared behind Ariel’s eyelids when she closed her eyes. Why lie now? She had already come this far. Ariel opened her eyes, breaking free from Attina’s grasp. She crossed her arms over her chest defensively. Her tail whipped back and forth beneath her, agitated and anxious. “I rescued her!” she declared, lifting her chin, ready to face whatever came next.

Attina pushed her middle finger between her eyebrow, groaning, shaking. Through gritted teeth, Attina growled, “Ariel, this is Eric all over again!” She dropped her hand to her side, balling her fists. Her growling turned to shouting. “You’re abandoning everything for a human you’ve known for—what?—a few days, at most?” Attina circled her sister. “What’s your grand plan here, Ariel? Father won’t turn you human again and Aunt Ursula is dead in case you forgot? You can’t strike anymore deals with her, not that that deal did you any good anyways. Father will never let you live with that human. Your feelings for her will never be accepted.”

Ariel followed her sister, glaring as Attina circled her. She turned her head left to right, tracking Attina's movements. "That's rich coming from you," Ariel retorted.

Attina halted, floating in place, her eyes narrowing as they locked onto Ariel. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Ariel rolled her eyes and scoffed. “Oh, please, like you don’t know what I’m talking about. Why do you think I brought up Andrina earlier? I know about you two!”

Attina screwed up her face. “Me and Andr—Ariel, don’t be gross! There’s nothing going on between me and Andrina.” Attina circled Ariel again, her tail twitching erratically.

“Then how come I saw you two sharing a kiss under the Floating Stars?”

Attina’s eyes nearly bulged from their sockets. Her face flushed and she roared as she lunged at Ariel. Ariel caught her sister by the wrists and rolled through the water with her, their tail fins breaking through the surface, making a huge splash when they returned to the sea.

Attina pulled her wrists from Ariel’s grasp and went for her sister’s throat. Ariel dodged, rolling in front of her sister, her tailfin slapping her older sister. Attina grunted, holding her jaw, and then lunged for her sister again. This time, she caught Ariel. She had one hand wrapped up in Ariel’s red hair, knuckles turned white, and the other hand slipped around her sister’s waist, holding her so that Ariel couldn’t move too easily. Ariel cried out, the roots of her hair tugging at her scalp.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about, Ariel!”

Ariel threw her head back, headbutting her sister in the jaw. Attina yelped, releasing her grip on Ariel. Ariel’s tail thrashed beneath her like a pissed-off eel. “If you tell Father about Elsa, I’ll tell him about you and Andrina.”

Attina nursed the spot on her jaw where Ariel had struck her, her eyes blazing with fury. Without warning, she lunged at Ariel again, and the two sisters collided in a flurry of fins and fists.

Suddenly, the shimmering water around them seemed to darken, a chilling presence settling over the sea. A dark, ominous voice echoed from below, cutting through their struggle like a blade.

“Two little mermaids squabbling like sisters. How quaint.”

Ariel and Attina broke apart, brows furrowed in confusion. They searched the water around them. Ariel’s eyes narrowed. She peered below into the dark abyss. Her dark-sea vision cast a green hue below her and staring up at the sisters from the edge of the kelp forest was a large, crustacean-like creature that also happened to be part mer.

The creature’s hair glowed pearly white in the greenish hue of Ariel’s dark-sea vision, with two long, blue antennae protruding from her head. Her skin, a shade of light brown, contrasted sharply against the murky water. Her eyes gleamed with an eerie green glow, and instead of hands, she had small, menacing pincers. She was thin, her small, bare breasts visible, but below her waist, she transformed into the body of a stunning, rainbow-colored shrimp. This was no ordinary shrimp, though; her other half was enormous and significantly disproportionate from her mer-half, with countless legs writhing beneath her and two massive, spear-like pincers extending from her shrimp body.

Ariel trembled and when Attina looked below, she shrieked. “Who are you?”

The creature began to ascend toward the mermaids. “I”—the creature spoke quietly, though her voice was coarse, harsh—“am what happens when you mess with my kingdom.”

Attina twitched, instinctively positioning herself between the approaching creature and Ariel. Despite their recent clash, she proved to be the protective sister she had always been. “We need to swim,” she whispered urgently to Ariel.

“I will teach you what it means to mess with the Mantis Queen,” snarled the creature.

Ariel’s jaw trembled and her tail shook. She remembered the sign outside of Mantis Forest: ‘Beware of the Mantis Queen and watch out for her nests.’ She took it as nothing more than a joke, a caution to watch out for mantis shrimp. Never did she actually believe that there was a real queen of the mantis shrimp. She had never once heard stories about her! She had only ever heard of the stories of how dangerous it was to try and catch mantis shrimp. Ariel floated close to her sister.

The Mantis Queen grinned up at them, though as she clicked her two pincers together, her sights settled past Attina and onto Ariel. “You should have killed all of my babies. Now, I’ll kill you,”

Ariel’s eyes widened. Panic coursed through her, from head to her fin. “Swim to the island!” she shouted at Attina. Ariel and Attina darted through the shimmering, serene waters and raced east toward the beach. Ariel could feel the water shifting behind her and she could hear the whirr of the large creature racing after her.

How am I always getting myself into these situations?

She and Attina beat their tails in the water as hard as they could, picking up speed. She needed to get back to the island. And for what? So this monster can get Elsa, too? Her eyes widened. Ice! She remembered Elsa's magic. Maybe she can freeze her?

Ariel's heart was ready to explode in her chest. It was beating too hard and too fast and her gills and lungs were working on overdrive. As she neared the beach, she noticed the petals from the trees along the beach floating in the moonlight. She was close!

When Ariel and Attina finally surfaced and landed in the tide with seafoam and flower petals surrounding them, Ariel fell over on her back, gasping for air, unable to speak. The cool, wet sand beneath her felt good on her skin and her scales.

"Ariel!” Elsa beamed. Though when she noticed Attina slithering up the beach, her cheery expression faltered and she stumbled back on her rear, landing beside the fire.

Ariel rolled over, propping herself up on her hands. She flushed at the sight of her blonde friend. She found herself wanting to cuddle up next to Elsa and run her fingers through her sand-laden hair. She had no time for that, though. She had no time for anything! The surface broke behind Ariel with a massive splash.

The Mantis Queen was here.

Ariel’s eyes widened with terror as she locked onto Elsa. Panic surged through her veins. "Magic, Elsa!" Her voice cracked with desperation. "Ice!"

"Ariel!" Elsa shot up to her feet pointing out at the sea. "Ariel, what is—"

“Run!”

Ariel shrieked as the Mantis Queen fell over her, wrapping Ariel up in her arms. "Come, Princess," she growled. "We're not finished yet."

Ariel writhed and squirmed in the queen's grasp and did her best to get free, but to no avail. Ariel dug her nails in the wet sand as the Mantis Queen dragged her back out to sea hoping that the beach would aid her in getting free from the queen’s grasp.

"Run, Els—" and then the sea swallowed the mermaid.