This Drowning Kingdom

Chapter 7

"You know, you should've told me you didn't have any other clothes," Moana said, almost a week later, as Ariel picked at the hem of her blue dress. "We could've gone shopping before we left. Are you sure you don't want to borrow any of mine?"

"I'm fine," Ariel said. But she was frowning, and her frown only seemed to deepen when she saw Eric approaching them, Maui in tow.

She stiffened at the sight of him. "Captain," she murmured. She nodded to Moana before walking away, and Eric could have sworn her jaw was clenched.

His brows furrowed. It'd been like that the whole journey—she seemed to be warming up to his crew quite fine, but around him, she would turn cold and distant. She hardly said more than a few words to him at a time.

Maui seemed to be thinking along the same lines. "She's an odd one," he mused.

Moana scoffed. "She's probably just adjusting," she said. "She's never sailed before. And besides, she's surrounded by strangers—what more could you expect from her?"

But Maui shook his head. "There's something weird about her." Moana scowled, but before she could speak, Maui continued, "Look, strangeness aside, I get this feeling that she's more than she seems. She... Power seems to radiate off her, but subtly, if that makes sense. Almost as if it's muffled."

"Now you're just being crazy," Moana said dismissively. "Captain, can you get him in line, please?"

Before Eric could speak, however, Maui said, "Get me in line? I'm a demigod, in case you forgot—I can feel these things. And that girl does not feel right!"

"I'll talk to her," Eric said finally, and they both turned to him, eyes wide.

"Are you sure that's a good idea, Captain?" Maui asked skeptically.

"It'll be fine," Eric said. "And besides, what's the worst that could happen?"

Moana raised a skeptical brow. "Nothing good ever comes from those words, you know."

Eric shrugged, still staring after Ariel as she made her way to the other side of the ship. "It'll be fine," he repeated. "I'll talk to her as soon as I have the chance."

But as it would seem, that chance never came. Through bad luck or simply a series of unavoidable coincidences, there wasn't an opportunity to talk to the girl that day—and when the crew finally turned in for the night, Eric watched as she made her way below deck, trailing behind the rest of the crew, until her blood-red hair finally disappeared from sight.

He closed the door to his cabin and sighed.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The ocean called to her.

She awoke to the gentle sounds of the ship as it rocked back and forth on the waves. The sun was just barely peeking up over the horizon, its feeble rays of light reaching out to caress the tranquil ocean.

Quietly, silently, Ariel placed her feet on the floor, sitting up in her hammock. She made her way past the sleeping crew around her, careful not to cause any of them to stir, before making her way above deck. She knew that one of the crew—Zarina—was keeping watch in the crow's nest, but at the moment, she didn't particularly care.

She stopped at the front of the ship, tilting her head toward the sky and relishing the salty morning breeze on her face. Below her, water lapped at the sides of the ship, almost as if it were trying to reach her. She looked down at the water and smiled softly. What she wouldn't give to be racing alongside dolphins right now, to be floating above the great whales, to—