Title: Drowning Depths
Fandom: The Little Mermaid
Author: Apache Firecat
Characters: past Eric/Ariel
Rating: PG-13/T
Summary: Ariel doesn't get her happily ever after ending after all.
Word Count: 400
Written For: fan_flashworks 363 Amnesty: 359: Current
Warnings: Character Death, Dark Future AU, Tragedy
Disclaimer: All characters within belong to their rightful owners, not the author, and are used without permission.







The current sweeps around her. Up above the battle rages on. She can hear screams from both sides, and their pain torments her. She places a hand over her belly as she sinks down.

Her little cavern of wonders isn't far from here. She could easily swim there, hide there until it's all over. But it already is over. It's all over except the screams and a few more deaths. Her sisters are already gone, and her husband... Eric's alive, but he hates her. He hates her. He hates the baby she carries. He wants them both dead.

It's as though she's slipped into a parallel world, and as blood fills the water, its dark, churning waves make her feel as though she is indeed slipping into another world, or at least another time. This is not the world she loved, or the world that she thought loved her. This is not where she wants to be, where she wants to spend her future.

But then what future does she have here? Her family is dying. Her husband hates her. This is not the life she envisioned for her self, her marriage, or her baby. She hears a cry and knows, in her heart and churning stomach, that Sebastian is gone. She's already seen Flounder; it was that horrible sight that brought her down into these depths of darkness.

Lightning splits the sky, and the waves themselves seem to cry out. Pain strikes Ariel, and the Princess who, for a short time, had been Queen plummets through the oceanic depths. She hears more than screams now. She hears laughter too, cruel, vicious laughter and knows Ursula has won after all.

Perhaps Eric is under a spell; perhaps he isn't. All she knows is the man he is doesn't love her, and what's been left of her world, without his love, are remains in which she does not want to live. They are remains in which she does not expect her daughter to have to grow up in, without a father, without a home, without a grandfather...

Ariel cries out, and for the first time, water rushes into her mouth. Water rushes into her suddenly human body, and she feels herself drowning. Lightning continues to slice through the sky. Ships overturn. Human men and mermen both cry their last.

Ariel cries her last, and as all around, war and laughter echo.



The End