Taking Fantasia : A Disney Fanfiction

Chapter 88: The Little Mermaid

Chapter 88: The Little Mermaid

"Mermaids are cold blooded."

Ariel kicked. It was feeble. Her legs barely brushed each other. Her muscles were frozen. Her nerves were dead. The ocean constricted her lungs. She and Wart sunk like stones.

"Mermaids are cold blooded."

Ariel swallowed water. Tiny silver bubbles bled from Wart's nose.

"Mermaids are cold blooded."

Passively, Ariel tilted her head using the momentum of the ocean. She listened to the musical voices, too numbed to understand the words. She watched dark shapes sweep by, too exhausted to actually see them. She sagged into two long arms, too cold to actually feel them.

Suddenly, she broke the surface.

Leaves of ice broke around her face. Ariel gasped. She cringed. The cold air was painful. So painful. Each breath was tender, as if an icicle were being gouged down her throat.

Ariel shook her head, trying to stop the ache.

Wart was trembling. Ice stuck to his hair as he shivered against Ariel. His teeth were chattering hard enough to slice his tongue. "I-t-t-s. C – c – old."

"That's because you're not cold blooded, Dearie."

Lana.

Ariel clutched Wart. They dipped, sinking through the seams of ice and ocean as Lana pulled on Ariel's waist. Seizing against the cold, Ariel tried awkwardly to reach Lana with her trident.

"Aww. Look at her. Look at the littlest mermaid." Lana dug her nails into Ariel's stomach. She grinned as her sisters appeared from the water, reaching for Ariel's elbows, arms, hair, and trident. "Tell me girlies. What do you think? Is it possible to drown a mermaid?"

Cordelia twisted Ariel's hair. Her tail slithered against Ariel's legs. "Pluh-lease, Girl. You know she's not a mermaid."

"Ohhh…that's right!" Lana squealed. She forced Ariel's mouth into an icy wave. "Then I guess we can drown her."

Ariel rolled her neck from the wave. The water splashed into her eyes, freezing the lashes. Wart and the trident swayed with her, and glistened in icy films as the wave passed.

"L—ana." Ariel coughed, trying to keep Wart and the trident from her cousins. They writhed like white snakes between them. "How'd—y—you—get—out-t-t?"

Lana laughed. Her voice was bitter as a death sentence. "We followed you, Dearie. We swam in pool all our lives too…remember? Hmph. And you thought you wereso heroic and so clever breaking the ice. Thought you were going to escape with the lamp just like that. Didn't you? Oh. Poor, poor, Ariel. Ariel, Ariel, Ariel…"

Ariel jolted. The lamp! She'd forgotten about the lamp!

Panicking, she wiggled her fingers. The lamp was there, the golden handle frozen to her joints. Looking down, she could see them bleeding as Limpet and Coral tried to rip it from her fingers.

"L—Lana!" Ariel pulled, trying to protect Wart, lamp, and trident from her cousins. "Lana! D-d-don't! Don't join the villains!"

Lana laughed. Dilatorily, she dunked Ariel and Wart deeper and deeper, slowly soaking them in ice.

"The –l-lamp-p won't help!" Ariel protested, desperately trying to hold her grip. The lamp slipped over her skin. "Only Aladdin c-c-can use it-t-t."

"Silly. Then only Aladdin can be forced to use it."

Ariel's nose filled with water. The salt stung the back of her throat. "He's f-f-f-frozen! Aladdin's frozen!"

Lana's arm locked around Ariel's throat. "Frozen is not dead." she hissed, pressing into Ariel's windpipe. "Unlike you and the foster boy will be. Right, girls?"

Gagging, Ariel clawed blindly as Wart, the trident, and the lamp vanished.

Hysteric with glee, Lana snapped her neck downward so she could see.

Ariel choked. Three cousins smiled before her. Cordelia. Maris. Marina. Two cousins splashed around them in circles. Limpet. Coral.

Cordelia held Wart.

Maris held the lamp.

Marina held the trident.

"Youngest of the Tritons. Youngest of the mermaid cousins…" Lana purred, guiding Ariel slowly through the water. "What did your mommy call you? The Little Mermaid. Puh! Please, the Little Mermaid. I think I just threw up in my mouth."

Limpet and Coral sneered, but Ariel did not hear. Her eyes flickered back and forth between Wart, the lamp, and the trident.

"If you had to save one…" Lana teased, jouncing Ariel up and down. "…sayyy if they all were drowning at the same time. Do you think you could? Without a mermaid tail?"

Ariel blinked.

Suddenly, she felt sick.

Suddenly, she knew exactly what Lana was planning.

"Lana!" Ariel cried, trying to move her legs. "Lana! Don't – "

Lana swerved, stirring an icy wake. Ariel spun, trying to keep her eyes on Wart.

But then she noticed. Slowly, she noticed. The sea below them was turning black. A massive, monstrous shadowy something was swimming beneath them. Cold currents sliced across Ariel's toes, almost too quickly for her to notice but sinister enough to scare her to death.

Lana stopped. Flipping back her hair, she cackled like a siren.

"The Wishing Star doesn't believe you are a mermaid! But I'm going to give you a chance to prove yourself, Little Mermaid!"

Ariel gasped. The ocean parted. And from the black cavity came a monster. Screaming in setting sun, Ariel saw the graceful body of a whale but cursed with bloodstained teeth and hungry eyes.

Instantly, she remembered that night. That night her father had forbade her to see Jim. That night she had fled to the ocean and propelled all her anger through the trident and into the sea…

….that night…she had electrified the monstrous, savage whale.

"Wart!" Ariel cried. "Wart! No!"

The whale crashed, slamming into Wart, the lamp, and the trident. Snapping away, her cousins scattered.

Wart, the lamp, and the trident disappeared. Under the ocean. Unto the mercy of the monstrous whale.

Ariel screamed.

Maris giggled. "You're such a bitch Lana."

Lana smiled. She released Ariel. "I know."

Blindly, Ariel dove.

"Good luck!" her cousins laughed. Their voices chinked like shells as Ariel knifed through the icy water. "Little Mermaid!"