Well, as luck would have it, I have some off time to post the next part! Woohoo! Enjoy!
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At the palace, Aquata was in the sitting room organizing a game of Canyons and Currents that had grown to include her and Finn, Andrina and her boyfriend Sheldon, Arista and Rip, and the rest of their sisters.
“Guys,” she said in an irritated voice, “don’t move you’re pieces any more than what you rolled. I saw that last time, Arista.”
“We didn’t do anything,” Arista complained. “Tell Attina to stop trying to cheat the dice.”
“Am not!” Attina cried.
“Alright, alright,” Aquata said. “Just play everybody.”
“It’s getting late, shouldn’t Ariel and the boys be back by now?” asked Alana.
“If she didn’t get Eric eaten by a shark,” Arista laughed.
“Hey, I think Eric can take care of himself,” Andrina remarked. “That’s why he’s a perfect match for her; he’s the only guy who’s ever been up to the challenge that is Ariel!”
“So he’s really a human?” Rip asked tentatively.
“Yeah,” answered Adella. “But he’s a great human. I know it sounds weird but wait till you meet him. You’ll see.”
“With him here, aren’t you guys a little worried about the celebration on Saturday?” asked Sheldon.
None of the girls answered immediately. Apparently Sheldon had brought up a subject that none of them wanted to discuss. Aquata finally answered.
“I don’t think it should be an issue,” she said confidently. “The only people coming to the celebration are friends of Atlantica; I don’t think they’ll have any problem with the kingdom, Ariel, or Eric.”
The rest of the girls smiled with relief. Then with her usual enthusiasm, Andrina spoke up.
“Right,” she said, with a resolute nod. But in a split second, she’d turned back to the game. “Now Shell, do you think we’ll get to home faster if we take the canyon or current?”
They played for a few more minutes before they heard Ariel’s voice in the hallway.
“…Of course I went back that night, untied Stormy, and rode into the wilderness. Not the best decision, I know, but at the time it seemed totally justified.”
“Uh-huh,” answered Eric dryly as they swam into the room.
“Hey, you’re back!” said Andrina.
“How was the tour?” asked Aquata.
"It was great!” Flounder shouted. “We went to the water slides, and the reef, and then there was this huge octopus in Shark Canyon! We almost didn’t make it out but then boom! we shot out of this little hole. And then we went to the grotto and now I know what an accordion is.”
All the girls smiled. Then Aquata spoke up.
“Flounder that’s great and all but I was kind of wondering how Eric liked it.”
“Oh,” the little fish answered sheepishly.
“I think Flounder summed it up pretty well,” Eric said, reassuring him. “We had a great time.”
“Good,” said Aquata.
“Hey Eric,” Andrina said, putting her hand on the shoulder of the young blonde merman next to her. “This is my boyfriend Sheldon. Shell, this is Eric.”
“Hi,” Sheldon said timidly.
“Hi,” Eric replied.
“And this is Rip Tide,” Arista said, with an air of superiority. “He’s mine.” With that she and Rip put their foreheads together and started to laugh and giggle behind the curtain of their blonde hair.
“Nice to meet you,” said Eric, not expecting an answer. Then, addressing the room at large, he asked “Are they always like that?”
The group nodded in perfect unison, including Sebastian and Flounder.
Then Ariel finally looked down at the board in the center of the floor. “Canyons and Currents!” Ariel exclaimed. “Can we play?”
“Of course Ariel,” said Adella, handing her the seahorse. “We even saved your favorite piece for you.”
“Great! Eric, you’re going to love this game.”
And Ariel was right; Eric loved Canyons and Currents. Unfortunately for Ariel’s sisters, the reason why he loved it was because he was really good at it. By the end of the night, they’d lost about three different times to Ariel and Eric. Ariel had no complaints; she was so used to being thrashed by Eric’s chess skills that actually being on the winning side was nearly cause for a parade.
But, regardless of their losing streak, they all had a wonderful time. The more they played, the more relaxed Sheldon and Rip got with Eric. Pretty soon, they were all talking and laughing like normal teenage boys, human or otherwise. At one point the boys stopped playing all together and started talking about sports. Sheldon and Finn were just intrigued by the idea of using legs to hit a ball, and into a tiny goal no less. Then, Eric had to have the rules of spongeball explained to him. It kind of worked out perfectly because Eric put their team to seven, the perfect number for a spongeball team. So they spent most of the time working out who would play what positions and who would be first string.
When the game was over, it was time for Sheldon, Rip, Flounder, and Sebastian to get home. Flounder gave Ariel another big hug before he left and Sebastian gave her and Eric a sleepy goodnight and swam with Flounder out of the palace. Then it was time for Sheldon and Rip to depart. They kissed their respective girls good-bye, talked a little more strategy with Eric, and then left for the night.
As they all helped to straightened up the sitting room, Ariel managed to swim over to Aquata.
“Hey, Aquata, can I talk to you about something tomorrow morning?”
“Sure, Ariel.” Then her concerned big sister face appeared. “What’s wrong?”
“Oh, it’s nothing,” Ariel answered hurriedly. “I just needed to talk to you for a few minutes.”
“Yeah, I’m all yours, you know that. You’re sure everything’s alright?”
“Yeah, Aquata; I’m fine. But, I do have some news, but you have to promise that you won’t kill me when I tell you.”
“What did you do now Ariel?” Aquata asked, already exasperated.
“I didn’t do anything…not on purpose anyway.”
Her eldest sister raised one unimpressed eyebrow.
“Pearl’s going to be in Eel-lectric City on Friday night.”
“Well that’s not a problem,” Aquata answered lightly.
“She knows that we’re going to be there too,” Ariel added with a wince.
Aquata stared at Ariel and let out a long sigh. “Well, we’ll just have to keep a low profile…a very low profile.” Clearly Aquata was worried about this new development but at this hour, fatigue outweighed her ability to fret. “We’ll worry about it in the morning. For right now, little sister, you’d better go ahead with Eric. You two’ve had a long day.”
“Thanks Aquata,” she said with a beaming smile. She hugged her sister for letting her off the hook about the whole Pearl thing and in a flash, Ariel was beside Eric taking his hand.
“Night, girls. Night Finn,” said Ariel as Eric waved.
The girls waved and said their goodnights as their sister and Eric disappeared down the hallway. As they finished their cleaning the girls left the parlor, with Aquata and Andrina lingering behind.
“Aquata, do you think there’s anything to what Sheldon said tonight, about the Ariel and Eric and the celebration?” Andrina asked quietly.
Aquata’s face turned serious for a second as she thought, but then she gave Andrina a reassuring smile. “No. Everything will be fine.” Then she turned down the glow worm lamps and swam out behind her sister.
*****
In Ariel’s room, the glow worm lamps were shining dimly, aided by the softly glowing shell sitting on the nightstand. Eric lay on the bed with Ariel resting peacefully on his chest. They had just recapped the entire day, complete with laughter over Sebastian’s side comments and awe about the amazing corals and creatures they’d seen. But now, the exhaustion that they’d been out swimming for about four hours finally caught up to them.
“…Eric.”
“…Yes.”
“You know, I think I know how you felt the day you took me on a tour of the kingdom. How did you ever put up with me and all that enthusiasm for a whole day?”
“Well, you were so excited that I guess it just kind of rubbed off on me. I don’t even remember being tired when we got home, even after falling in the lagoon.”
Ariel yawned. “Well I’m exhausted.”
“What, was I too much for you?”
Rolling her eyes, Ariel turned around to face Eric’s smirk. “Don’t fool yourself Eric; I can handle you any day. But the whole of Atlantica is another story entirely. I don’t know the last time I’ve had to swim that far. Your kingdom is nothing compared to Atlantica, and the reef, and the wilderness, and the canyon…”
“Alright,” Eric conceded, “there was a lot more to your tour than there was to mine. But…I made a better tourist.”
“What!”
“I was a better a tourist,” he said, lazily putting his arm beneath his head. “At least I didn’t hang out of buggies or decapitate puppets.”
Ariel’s mouth was agape with offense. “First, I apologized about the puppet. Well, you apologized for me, but I still felt bad about it! Second, you knew way more about Atlantica than I knew about your kingdom! There was so much I hadn’t seen or heard of that I was next to shock when you took me to town! And third, you were acting like an overexcited toddler in the marketplace this afternoon. You couldn’t stay still for more than thirty seconds; I lost you about a hundred times! You were downright giddy for goodness sake!”
“I was not giddy!”
Ariel gave him an unflinching matter of fact stare.
“…Okay, so maybe there was a little giddy,” he added hastily.
“A little? ‘Ariel can we slide again!? Can we, can we?’”
“Come on; you cannot be giving me a hard time, Miss ‘Let’s jump the carriage over that huge ravine and see if I can give a human a heart attack!’”
Ariel turned, crossed her arms, and fell as hard as she could onto Eric’s chest.
“Ow! Hey!”
Ariel’s scowl melted into a smile in about five seconds. “You know, I never have seen you that excited before. Actually, I thought it was kind of…”
“Don’t say it.”
“Cute.”
Eric groaned.
“I’m sorry but it was,” Ariel said, without a trace of an apology in her voice. She waited a few moments before she continued. “I hope you had a good time.”
“A ‘good time’ doesn’t come close to what today was. I’m pretty sure I couldn’t have dreamed of anything as amazing as what we did today. I saw more in the last twenty four hours than I’ll ever see even if I spend the rest of my life sailing. I’d say that was pretty priceless.”
Ariel bit her bottom lip as she smiled. “Good.”
“Thank for sharing your home with me, Ariel.”
She looked up to meet Eric’s gaze and the next thing she knew she was kissing him. Then, she sleepily allowed herself to fall onto his shoulder.
“We should go off exploring new places more often,” she said softly.
“Just pick a ship and we’ll race for the horizon.”
Ariel sighed. “That sounds amazing.”
There was a long pause before either of them said anything else.
“You know what else sounds amazing?” Eric asked. “Sleep.”
When he got no answer he looked down to see Ariel breathing softly on his chest. He smiled and slowly moved from beneath her. Then he pulled the blanket up from the bottom of the bed and laid it over her. He swam over to the shell door and, with one last look he left Ariel to her dreams.