"So what do you think? It's a great plan, no?" I ask Ariel who has her arms thrown around the beautiful marble statue that looks so much like Prince Eric. She floats there, completely disregarding all the flowers she used to take care of. They overgrew the paths until the place was a wilderness, and their long stalks and leaves became so entangled in the branches of the tree that it cast a gloomy shade. Many evenings and many mornings, whether I was with her or not, she'd revisited the spot where she had left the Prince. And each time, became disappointed as the prince no longer appeared at the church. 

"Yes...yes!" Ariel agrees, swimming up to me. She grabs me and spins around happily. Brightening the once gloomy garden. She stops and asks, "But how are we to sneak away for so long?"

"Who said anything about sneaking away? If I knew your sisters, they wouldn't tell a soul. They can cover for us!" I state, reassuringly. Ariel smiles and agrees. 

Once evening hit, we had already informed her five sisters. All of which were willing to help with our plan. I guide Ariel to where the young prince is currently residing. His palace. It was built of pale, glistening, golden stone with great marble staircases, one of which led down to the sea. Magnificent gilt domes rose above the roof, and between the pillars all around the building were marble statues that looked most lifelike. Through the clear glass of the lofty windows, one could see into the splendid halls, with their costly silk hangings and tapestries, and walls covered with paintings that were delightful to behold. In the center of the main hall, a large fountain played its columns of spray up to the glass-domed roof, through which the sun shone down on the water and upon the lovely plants that grew in the big basin.

"This is such a splendid palace! Ooh, please tell me if you see him. I wish to see that he is fine!" Ariel says, swimming closer to the shore. 

I glance at my map, seeing that the prince is currently higher up the stream. "...Maybe we should swim through the narrow stream? He may be up there."

Without a second thought, Ariel does just that. We make our way under the splendid marble balcony that casts its long shadow in the water. Here, she stops once she sees the prince who seems to be holding a small, shiny object. He stares at it with much thought. The bright moonlight shines upon him, illuminating his whole body. Ariel seems to stop breathing when she lays her eyes on him. 

I lean forward, trying to see what the shiny object he holds is. I was surprised when I saw that it is a green scale. It must have fallen off when Ariel was saving him. 

"Ariel..." the prince mumbles. Seems he does remember her. I feel Ariel shift forward. I look down to see that she is trying to get even closer.

"No! He cannot see you. Mermaids and humans aren't allowed to mingle." I warn the little mermaid who immediately stops in her tracks. She swims back, feeling extremely disappointed.

"Why must it be so? I wish to converse with him. He remembers my name!" Ariel complains as we watch the prince turn to leave for the night. 

"It has been placed for generations. It's only for your protection Ariel. I do not wish to cause harm to you. I just worry greatly for a friend." I state, a little saddened. 

Ever since that day, Ariel would come by just to watch the prince stand alone in his garden. He always carries with him the green scale which fell from the little mermaid. On many nights we'd see the fishermen come out to sea with their torches, and hear them tell about how kind the young Prince was. This made Ariel proud to think that it was she who had saved his life when he was buffeted about, half dead among the waves. 

Increasingly she grew to like human beings, and more and more she longed to live among them. Their world seemed so much wider than her own, for they could skim over the sea in ships, and mount up into the lofty peaks high over the clouds, and their lands stretched out in woods and fields farther than the eye could see. There was so much she wanted to know. I tried my best to answer the many questions which plagued her mind. Ones that I could not answer, I'd suggest she'd tell her sisters or ask her old grandmother, who knew about the "upper world".

"Did you know that humans have souls?" One day, Ariel asks out of nowhere. I look at her with a confused look. 

"Why, yes I did. Is something wrong?" I ask. Ariel looks down, saddened by whatever thought crosses her mind.

"...Grandmother told me today that mermaids don't have souls. That...once we die, we become nothing more than sea foam. We are like the green seaweed - once cut down, it never grows again." 

I look upon the little mermaid, saddened by the thought that she was aware in the original story of her impending doom if she failed to marry the prince. Yet, still tried to win over his heart. She smiles while looking towards the marble statue. 

"But, if a human being loved you so much that you meant more to him than his father and mother. If his every thought and whole heart cleaved to you so that he would let a priest join his right hand to yours and promise to be faithful here and throughout all eternity, then his soul would dwell in your body, and you would share in the happiness of mankind. He would give you a soul and yet keep his own."

I suddenly realized what the original story's little mermaid was aiming for. It wasn't just for love, but for the prospect that she too could receive this eternal soul that only humans seem to possess. But, this is crazy! She endures all that pain to still end up failing in the end. I will make sure that this time, she can achieve her goal.

Ariel looks down at her tail. The many oysters still latched onto it make me remember that she is also suffering from the pain. "...But grandmother said it would never come to pass. My very tail would be considered ugly on land. Instead, they find having two awkward props called legs are more beautiful. Isn't that ridiculous?" 

Suddenly, I hear someone knocking. Ariel and I swam to see who it could be. A messenger fish holds with him a small shell. This signifies that the court ball is happening soon. Ariel and I quickly make our way toward the palace. There, we see a much more glorious affair than is ever to be seen on earth. The walls and the ceiling of the great ballroom were made of massive but transparent glass. Many hundreds of huge rose-red and grass-green shells stood on each side in rows, with the blue flames that burned in each shell illuminating the whole room and shining through the walls so clearly that it was quite bright in the sea outside. 

You could see the countless fish, great and small, swimming toward the glass walls. On some of them, the scales gleamed purplish-red, while others were silver and gold. Across the floor of the hall ran a wide stream of water, and upon this, the mermaids and mermen danced to their entrancing songs. Such beautiful voices are not to be heard among the people who live on land. The little mermaid sang more sweetly than anyone else, and everyone applauded her. For a moment she looked so happy. Everyone in the palace knew that she had the loveliest voice of all, in the sea or on the land. 

"Isn't she amazing?" I hear a familiar voice ask. Looking to my side, I see the blue angelfish. Or Flounder. 

"Yes, she is." I agree as I watch Ariel's singing slowly come to a close. 

"This ball does help me to forget what happened a week ago. It's so bright and happy." Flounder states, grinning to all who can see him.

"What happened a week ago?" I cannot help but ask. Flounder isn't easily startled, so whatever happened must have been bad. 

"While swimming, a whirlpool sucked me in! I thought I was going to die, but then, I saw her..." Flounder whispers in suspense. He shivers as if remembers a scary memory. "I saw...the Sea Witch!"

I gasped in shock, well, sort of. Thinking back, I do remember the story talking about a sea witch. I believe she is the one who gave Ariel her legs. In exchange for something...what was it?

"I wasn't sure what was happening. But I do remember escaping from the whirlpool and swimming away as fast as I could from there. I wasn't going to stay around to become food for her or her snake friends!" Flounder continues.

"Good job then. Happy to see that you are alive. Use the ball to take your mind off of that traumatic experience. She never leaves her forest, so you shouldn't worry that she will try something." I say. Suddenly, I spot Ariel leaving the ball. I quickly follow behind her. "Excuse me, Ariel is calling me."

I find her sitting sadly in her little garden. Staring upon the statue with longing. The sound of a bugle call echoes down through the water, into her garden. It must be the prince who is sailing once again upon a ship. Ariel sighs while swaying her tail back and forth. 

"Are you alright?" I ask her. Ariel quickly turns to look at me. If she could cry, she'd be spilling tears by now. 

"My mind keeps wandering off to the prince. He whom I love more than my father or mother, he of whom I am always thinking, and in whose hands I would so willingly trust my lifelong happiness. I dare do anything to win him and to gain an immortal soul. But how can I when my tail is considered ugly above?" Ariel asks, looking back at the statue. 

I think back to what Flounder said. About the witch. I understand that my mission is to give Ariel a happy ending. If her happy ending is to be with the prince, then I must help her fulfill that desire. So, with a heavy heart, I tell her about the witch. Ariel's eyes brighten with hope. She quickly springs up and hugs me. 

"Yes! While my sisters are dancing in my father's palace, we shall visit the sea witch of whom I have always been so afraid. Perhaps she will be able to advise me and help me. Let us be on our way!" Ariel quickly drags me with her toward the sea witches' dwelling. 

Whirlpools rage nonstop near the entrance of the dark forest. No flowers grew there, nor any seaweed. Bare and gray, the sands extended to the whirlpools, where like roaring mill wheels the waters whirled and snatched everything within their reach down to the bottom of the sea. Between these tumultuous whirlpools, she had to thread her way to reach the witch's waters, and then for a long stretch, the only trail lay through a hot seething mire, which the witch called her peat marsh. Beyond it, her house lay in the middle of a weird forest, where all the trees and shrubs were polyps, half animal and half plant.

They looked like hundred-headed snakes growing out of the soil. All their branches were long, slimy arms, with fingers like wriggling worms. They squirmed, joint by joint, from their roots to their outermost tentacles, and whatever they could lay hold of they twined around and never let go. The little mermaid was terrified and stopped at the edge of the forest. Her heart thumped with fear and she nearly turned back, but then she remembered the Prince and the souls that men have, and she summoned her courage. 

She bound her long flowing locks closely about her head so that the polyps could not catch hold of them, folded her arms across her breast, and darted through the water like a fish, in among the slimy polyps that stretched out their writhing arms and fingers to seize her. I lay attached to her head, guiding her to avoid as much contact as possible. We saw that every one of them held something that it had caught with its hundreds of little tentacles, and to which it clung as with strong hoops of steel. 

The white bones of men who had perished at sea and sunk to these depths could be seen in the polyps' arms. Ships' rudders, seamen's chests, and the skeletons of land animals had also fallen into their clutches, but the most ghastly sight of all was a little mermaid whom they had caught and strangled. I try to close my eyes, to look away from them. But as an octopus, I could not blink. So, I saw everything without a second wasted. 

We reached a large muddy clearing in the forest, where big fat water snakes slithered about, showing their foul yellowish bellies. In the middle of this clearing was a house built of the bones of shipwrecked men, and there sat the sea witch, letting a toad eat out of her mouth just as we might feed sugar to a little canary bird. She called the ugly fat water snakes her little chickabiddies, and let them crawl and sprawl about on her spongy bosom.

"I know exactly what you want," said the sea witch. Startling us both. How did she know we were here? "It is very foolish of you, but just the same you shall have your way, for it will bring you to grief, my proud princess. You want to get rid of your fish tail and have two props instead so that you can walk about like a human creature, have the young Prince fall in love with you, and win him and an immortal soul besides." At this, the witch gave such a loud cackling laugh that the toad and the snakes were shaken to the ground, where they lay writhing.

"You are just in time," said the witch. "After the sun comes up tomorrow, a whole year would have to go by before I could be of any help to you. J shall compound you a draught, and before sunrise, you must swim to the shore with it, seat yourself on dry land, and drink the draught down. Then your tail will divide and shrink until it becomes what the people on earth call a pair of shapely legs. But it will hurt; it will feel as if a sharp sword slashed through you. Everyone who sees you will say that you are the most graceful human being they have ever laid eyes on, for you will keep your gliding movement and no dancer will be able to tread as lightly as you. But every step you take will feel as if you were treading upon knife blades so sharp that blood must flow. I am willing to help you, but are you willing to suffer all this?"

Just hearing the gruesome description of what the original had suffered, I freeze in my tracks. Was she truly willing to suffer just to marry and prince and gain a soul? Why not be content with what she already has? Mermaids can live up to 300 years. I do not understand just why she is willing to bear it all.

"Yes," Ariel says, bringing me out of my thoughts. I look at her with a shocked look. 

"Remember!" said the witch. "Once you have taken a human form, you can never be a mermaid again. You can never come back through the waters to your sisters or your father's palace. And if you do not win the love of the Prince so completely that for your sake he forgets his father and mother, cleaves to you with his every thought and his whole heart, and lets the priest join your hands in marriage, then you will win no immortal soul. If he marries someone else, your heart will break on the very next morning, and you will become foam of the sea."

"I shall take that risk," said the little mermaid, but she turned as pale as death. Even though she is aware of her foolishness yet still chooses to go along with it. 

"Also, you will have to pay me," said the witch, "and it is no trifling price that I'm asking. You have the sweetest voice of anyone down here at the bottom of the sea, and while I don't doubt that you would like to captivate the Prince with it, you must give this voice to me. I will take the very best thing that you have, in return for my sovereign draught. I must pour my blood in it to make the drink as sharp as a two-edged sword."

"But if you take my voice," said the little mermaid, "what will be left to me?"

"Your lovely form," the witch told her, "your gliding movements, and your eloquent eyes. With these, you can easily enchant a human heart. Well, have you lost your courage? Stick out your little tongue and I shall cut it off. I'll have my price, and you shall have the potent draught."

"Go ahead," said the little mermaid.

"Wait! Let me bear the pain instead!" I shout. No! I won't allow this to happen!

The Sea Witch turns to stare at me. She gives me a smile that sends a shiver down my spine. Wait, do octopuses even have spines? She pulls out a locket that glows a golden hue. Without explaining, she handed it to me and continued with what she was saying. I stare at the locket, confused as to why I was given such an item. It must have something to do with what she will soon explain.

"Are you truly willing to bear her pain? I must warn you, it won't be an easy task. Not only will you have to lose your voice in exchange for hers, but if she fails, you too will turn to sea foam. By agreeing with this, she can keep her voice. But with every word that is said, a sharp pain will be felt cutting through your throat. And every step she takes will feel like serpents biting off the flesh. You will constantly bear her pain until you perish. And once you perish, she will take on the pain instead." 

I shiver at the description. I'm just a little Atlantic Pygmy Octopus. No bigger than a hand. I have memories from when I was once a human. Am I truly willing to bear Ariel's pain? I glance at Ariel who looks at me with a worried look. The Sea Witch smiles, she must sense that I am conflicted. 

"You will only bear her pain when wearing this locket. So long as it isn't removed, you will continue to feel it. But the process of the little mermaid turning into a human cannot be felt. She alone must endure it until the process is done. So, let me chop off a limb of yours as a replacement for her voice. Let me chop off your radula so that you can no longer speak."

What she didn't say out loud was the repercussions of removing my radula. Ariel looks on with confusion, perhaps, not understanding the severity of the situation. The radula is a small, spikey, tongue-like structure, that is used to drill a hole in the prey's shell. It helps to secrete poisonous saliva out of its beak to paralyze its victim. Without this, I cannot eat. 

Despite knowing the long and harsh journey ahead, I agree to her terms. The Sea Witch laughs. Her voice vibrated through the dark forest. Making everything feel so gloomy yet harsh.

The witch hung her caldron over the flames, to brew the draught. "Cleanliness is a good thing," she said, as she tied her snakes in a knot and scoured out the pot with them. Then she pricked herself in the chest and let her black blood splash into the caldron. Steam swirled up from it, in such ghastly shapes that anyone would have been terrified by them. The witch constantly threw new ingredients into the caldron, and it started to boil with a sound like that of a crocodile shedding tears. When the draught was ready at last, it looked as clear as the purest water.

"There's your draught," said the witch. And she cut off my radula along with one limb, making me jolt from the pain. Ariel looks on, covering her mouth in shock. She shivers, realizing that too was what could have happened to her had I not dared to help with her predicament. I am now dumb, unable to speak anymore.

"If the polyps should pounce on you when you walk back through my wood," the witch said, "just spill a drop of this brew upon them and their tentacles will break in a thousand pieces." But there was no need for that, for the polyps curled up in terror as soon as they saw the bright draught. It glittered in the little mermaid's hand as if it were a shining star. So she soon traversed the forest, the marsh, and the place of raging whirlpools. I lay latched onto her, unable to swim correctly. My missing tentacle, bleeding no more.

 We could see her father's palace. The lights had been snuffed out in the great ballroom, and doubtless, everyone in the palace was asleep, but she dared not go near them, now that she was leaving her home forever. Her heart felt as if it would break with grief. She tip-toed into the garden, took one flower from each of her sisters' little plots, blew a thousand kisses toward the palace, and then mounted up through the dark blue sea.

The sun had not yet risen when we saw the Prince's palace. As Ariel climbed his splendid marble staircase, the moon was shining clear. The little mermaid swallowed the bitter, fiery draught, and it was as if a two-edged sword struck through her frail body. She swooned away and lay there as if she were dead. I worriedly watched on as her once-green tail littered with eight oysters became two legs. I try nudging her, seeing if she is responsive. The pain must have been great if it caused her to faint.

I would occasionally dive back into the sea to rejuvenate my skin. Allowing me to breathe once more above the sea. I watched the locket that dangles in front of me lose its shine—signifying that now, I will be bearing her pain. 

When the sun rose over the sea, Ariel finally awoke. I felt a flash of pain when she tried to move her legs. Hearing the sound of someone approaching makes me dive back into the sea. I looked up to see it was Prince Eric who now stares down at the naked princess. Ariel's eyes lock onto his, she is mesmerized by his gaze. His coal-black eyes, observed her every expression. For some reason, I find myself disliking him a bit. Perhaps it's because he's staring at her form.

Ariel lowered her gaze, she saw that her fishtail was gone and that she had the loveliest pair of white legs any young maid could hope to have. But she was naked, so she clothed herself in her long hair.

"Who are you? How did you come here?" The prince asked. It seems that he only remembers her name, not her face. Perhaps he was too out of it to realize it was her who had saved his life.

Ariel smiles, her deep blue eyes looking upon him tenderly. "My name is Ariel. I came here through the stream. My ship crashed, and I was swept away by the current. It's nice to meet you."

Upon hearing the name Ariel, the prince's eyes light up. He looks at her more deeply, trying to find any resemblance in her face. He frowns when he cannot seem to remember. But his eyes stay longer on her hair color. The platinum blonde is very hard to come by. So, against his better judgment, he helps her up.

"I see...are you the one who saved me before?" He asks.

"Yes! I'm the one who brought you out from the sea!" Ariel excitedly exclaims. The prince gives a thoughtful look. He smiles.

"I wanted to thank you properly. But when I woke up, you were gone. I was surrounded by young maidens who resided inside a church. When I asked for you, they did not know your name. Where had you gone?"

Ariel sadly lowers her head. "I...had to return home. It was becoming morning, and I did not want to worry my family. Forgive me for leaving so abruptly."

"I understand. Would you like to come with me to the palace? My servants will accommodate you as it seems you've lost all your clothing." The prince suggested. Ariel agrees, trying to stand up. He takes her by the hand and leads her into his palace. I watch them leave, feeling my very being writhing in pain. When she spoke, it felt like I was swallowing knives. It was so painful that I felt I would pass out.

I suffered as I watched them disappear into the distance. Question if what I did was truly worth it. And, without warning, I black out.