Disclaimer: I certainly don't own Naruto, Disney or any of its affiliated properties. If I did, I wouldn't be writing this now would I?
"The connection of our hearts…" : Speech (Bold for yelling ,Bijuu, or massive creatures)
'The connection of our hearts…' : Thought
King Triton's Palace, Atlantica…
While Naruto was 'occupied' with Shanti for the better part of the afternoon and was enjoying every second of his time, the same couldn't be said for Ariel, as the poor princess was busy being lambasted by her father and his loyal advisor Sebastian. Her father was more than a little disappointed that his youngest daughter couldn't even manage to show up for her debut concert – given her remarkable resemblance to her late mother, King Triton had a soft spot for Ariel and let her get away with a lot. However, what she had done (or rather hadn't) really irked him something fierce, so much so that he kept scolding her for hours. Ariel was relatively uncaring, having heard this sermon more than a few times herself (for different reasons of course – she was a curious girl and spent most of her time exploring the open ocean).
"Ariel, how could you be so nonchalant? Your debut into high society here in Atlantica is crucial to cementing your position as princess – you don't want to be seen as a mere child forever do you?" Triton said, trying to appeal to Ariel's reason seeing as his trouble child was ignoring him with a small pout on her lips.
"You listen to your father now Ariel! It may be hard for a stubborn girl like you but it's time to grow up now. Enough gallivanting around!" Sebastian said, huffing at the girl, annoyed with her petulance (he was also the court composer and since one of his performers had pulled a disappearing act earlier that day, he was feeling insulted as an artist).
Ariel simply weathered the storm, ignoring most of what the two men were saying in favor of daydreaming about she was going to be doing with Naruto later that night. Unfortunately for our resident royal cool cucumber, Flounder was unable to simply stand by and watch his best friend get called immature in front of him.
"Hey! Ariel wasn't gallivanting! We were actually exploring a shipwreck and even found some good loot after escaping a shark! Scuttle even said we found some important human tools!" He said, intentionally exaggerating the nature of what Ariel did find (in his good natured, if limited mindset, he believed that the King would at least be impressed with his daughter's prospecting skills in dangerous waters). But as the common saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions – by letting slip the fact that Ariel had ventured to the surface, the fish had confessed to a grave crime.
King Triton was a kind and just ruler – he administered his territories with a steady hand and doted on his daughters as each one was a treasure entrusted to him by his late wife. However, there was one thing that he was absolutely obstinate about – no citizen of his kingdom was to go to the surface lest the humans learn of their existence. In his eyes, humans were a vile and despicable race, with greed only surpassed by their insatiable urge to consume the world in their eternal manipulations of the world. Should the magical civilization of Atlantica be revealed to them, Triton feared that the humans would capture merpeople – he knew what an exotic animal was seen as and he didn't want that for any of his subjects, least of which being Ariel, whose antics put her at the greatest risk of being whisked away so to speak.
"What?! You went to the surface! You know I have forbidden all contact with humans and their material belongings – they are an evil reprehensible race!" Triton shouted, noting that Flounder flinched at his anger (he had noticed his slip-up a little too late it seemed) but Ariel only seemed incensed as she finally gave her own input to this one sided haranguing session.
"Father, humans aren't evil! They make so many interesting things and they even have their own culture and technology – don't you think that we should work together instead of hiding like this? Besides, with your trident, I don't think we have anything to fear right?" Ariel said waving off her father's irrational hatred of humans (she considered the whole thing foolish – all the humans she had ever seen were of a simple, honest sort – hard to reconcile that with the picture of evil that her father painted for everyone).
This had her father seeing red – now completely furious, he abandoned all composure as he began speaking.
"Enough of this drivel! Ariel, as long as you live in this ocean, you will obey my orders – do what I say, not what you want!!" He yelled as Ariel swam away in despair, her tears disappearing in the water as she did so(ah, to cry in the ocean – an exercise in futility if nothing else…what's a few drops of salty tears in comparison to an ocean of saltwater);Flounder in hot pursuit.
Now left alone in the room, Triton felt a little guilty for his outburst and turned to Sebastian for some advice.
"Tell me old friend, was I too hard on Ariel? She just aggravates me with her recklessness sometimes…" Triton said, scratching the back of his shaggy head while Sebastian scoffed at his reservations.
"Definitely not.You worry too much sire – the girl needs constant supervision lest she stray too far from home. Why, those humans have been especially active these last few months – the shark population in the upper tiers of the ocean has been dwindling. Who's to say that some lucky fisherman won't catch little Ariel on one of her little 'adventures'?" The crab said, his claws waving in the air, miming imaginary quotes on the word 'adventures'.
"Hmmm. You have a point Sebastian."
"Of course sire – it comes as part of my job as your most loyal advisor!"
"Perhaps you should be the one to watch over my daughter then. I can only entrust such a task to one who has my full confidence after all…" Triton said, amusedly watching the crab squawk in outrage followed by some resigned grumbles as he scuttled out of the throne room.
"How do I get myself into these situations? I should be writing symphonies, not tagging along after some headstrong teenager." Sebastian mumbled, his little legs moving him through the water at a surprisingly quick pace. Unlike other fish or merpeople, the crab lacked any fins which meant that his swimming wouldn't disturb the waters around him much, making him the perfect candidate for any stealth missions the King might send him on. As such, it wasn't long before Sebastian caught sight of Ariel and Flounder swimming away from the city and into the surrounding cliffs.
Now more than a little curious, he followed the two to a hidden grotto where he bore witness to a shocking sight. The cave floor was littered with uncountable numbers of human knick knacks of all shapes and sizes, a testament to Ariel's unquenchable need to learn more about humans.
Ariel swam closer to her treasures, pulling out the fork and pipe before placing them in her hoard. She was no longer crying (to Flounder's great relief) but she was still sad about what her father said. As she rummaged through her collection, her eyes strayed to the flute Naruto crafted for her – the eerie sound of its music still stuck in her head. Underwater, it was useless but the haunting melancholic tone spurred her into singing her own song about her desire to join the world of Man, to walk and live like they did. She wanted to see how her friend Naruto lived with his family, to see if Santiago was as grouchy as Naruto said, to know how it felt to walk on two legs. Her song, aptly titled "Part of your World", spoke of her wistful nature tinged with a sense of deep sadness. She had big dreams but she knew not how she could achieve them, something that Flounder picked up on as he tried to comfort her.
"Don't be sad Ariel-you might not be human but you have one human friend at least! Didn't Mister Naruto say that he would show you the human prince's birthday party tonight?" He said as Ariel gasped in realization.
"Oh! You're right – I completely forgot about all of that…we should leave immediately!" Ariel said, right before Sebastian decided he had heard enough and burst into the grotto.
"Princess! Cease your actions at once and return to King Triton immediately – I am sure he would be most interested to hear that you have been collecting all this garbage against his wishes. Surely, all this stuff will be destroyed in a flash once he hears of this!" Sebastian said, crossing his arms resolutely, even as Ariel tried to reason with him.
Their conversation was cut short however, as a large mass blotted out the moon's light passing into the grotto. Curious as to what was causing the obstruction, Ariel swam up to investigate, ignoring the crab's shouts. Upon reaching the ocean's surface, Ariel quickly realized that the mass was a human ship – not a small boat like she was used to seeing Naruto commandeer but rather a massive vessel that carried several men.
The ship was setting fireworks into the night sky, the colorful bursts catching the mermaid's eyes. Bedazzled by the spectacle, she tucked Flounder under arm before swimming closer to the ship and pulling herself onto it, her tail dangling in the ocean below. Sebastian was beside himself with worry but dared not speak – he knew what humans would do to a crab like him and he was not ready to become some human's dinner.
Ariel surveyed the ship – she saw many men making merry but a strange creature noticed the girl and loped over to her. When it reached her, it barked happily at her before licking her cheek amiably, drawing a small laugh from Ariel.
"Well, you're certainly friendly! I wonder what kind of creature you are?" She said, playing with the dog before noticing Naruto, who was grumpily moving a huge golden statue over to two men who were busy talking to each other. She was about to wave over to her friend but was taken aback when she saw the handsome visage of one of the men (unknown to her at the time, this was Prince Eric and in the canon lore of the Grimm Lords, her fated husband).
Meanwhile, back with Naruto…
"Good lord! I know that it's the prince's birthday but was it really necessary to get a body sized statue of the kid in gold?! This stuff could do so much more than be some monument to vanity…Santiago would be spitting blood at this extravagance if he wasn't busy getting drunk with Manolin back with the rest of the ship's men…" Naruto grumbled, dragging the statue over to Grimsby (the royal advisor) and Prince Eric, who were also having a conversation he caught the tail end of.
"…haven't found the right girl yet, but when I do, it will strike like lightning!" Eric said, waving off Grimsby's disappointment at his bachelorhood. The two men then waved over to Naruto as he placed the statue in front of them.
"Love doesn't work that way your Majesty – what could you get from a single glance that could convince you to spend your life with a girl? It's talk like that that tempts all sorts of bad luck ya know?" Naruto said, sighing as he leaned on the ship's railing in silent thought about how love at first sight seemed to be a running theme in every world he had visited so far.
The men looked at him in surprise before dismissing it in different ways. Eric saw it as mere platitudes but Grimsby noted that Naruto was the special expert they had called over for the celebration and quietly filed away the fisherman's capacity for deeper thought as something he'd bring up to the king later – he didn't speak like a fisherman would…
The festive mood was, alas, not meant to last. A sudden storm suddenly manifested as a hurricane struck the ship. Ariel was knocked off the ship and entered the ocean once more – she immediately followed the ship to check up on Naruto. The people on board were quick to respond however, battening down the hatches and hunkering down to wait out the inclement weather. Ariel popped her head out of the water just in time to see a flash of lightning – the spectacular burst of electricity striking the ship, setting the ship on fire.
It was hell on Earth on board the ship – it was raining cats and dogs and yet the ship was a fiery deathtrap. Now completely uncontrollable, the ship crashed onto the rocks near the shore and the crew took this opportunity to jump onto lifeboats. Every man was accounted for but Eric was quick to notice that his faithful dog Max wasn't among them.
"Max! He must still be on the ship – I must go and save him!" He said, jumping back into the ocean and swimming back to the ship. Naruto was quick to follow, as his charge was risking his life to save his dog. Eric's noble gesture was for naught – after passing Max over to Naruto(who threw the dog over to Grimsby), the gunpowder from the fireworks finally decided to explode, the power of which knocked the Prince unconscious and blasted Naruto into the ocean a little dizzy but relatively unharmed.
Underwater, Naruto swam to save Eric and met Ariel, who seemed to have the same idea. The mermaid then pulled the comatose prince to the beach while Naruto dragged himself out of the water before plopping down next to Ariel with a relieved sigh.
"Ya know, when I said I'd show you something nice tonight, I wasn't expecting a life or death situation with our Prince here. Something tells me you don't mind too much though…" Naruto said, smirking at Ariel's blush when she looked at Eric's sleeping face.
"Oh Naruto, stop teasing me. I am sorry that I came so late but at least I didn't miss the whole party right?" She said, the two of them having a nice conversation before the sounds of Grimsby and Max had Naruto hurriedly helping the mermaid into the ocean before she was discovered.
Eric, by now had come to his senses just long enough to see Ariel leap into the ocean. Turning to Naruto, he only had a single question.
"W-who was that girl?"
"Girl?What girl? Aint no girls on this beach your highness – maybe you hit your head when the gunpowder exploded on the ship~…" Naruto said, watching Grimsby and Max fuss over the prince as he glanced over to the ocean, where his keen eyesight noticed Ariel waving at him.
And that was chapter 65! Ariel has met Eric and will now visit Ursula since the seeds of infatuation have been planted. How Naruto will foil the foul villainess' plans is still a mystery however – stay tuned to find out how things change from now on!
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