Landlocked 3

“Wha—what was that?” Flounder quailed as Ariel further explored the cabin. Her friend’s terrified inquiry and the eerie quiet could not reach her. She saw it. On a broken wooden pedestal was an antique pipe with the initials LH emblazoned on the bell. It was beautiful. Ariel hesitated, then picked up the foreign object. Had it been there a moment before?
“I wonder what this one is.” She mused. Flounder was growing more insistent.
“Ariel…”
“Will you relax?” Ariel asked, exasperated. “Nothing is going to happen—“ Seconds later, she was swimming for her life.

“Don’t you EVER consider others’ feelings?!” Jim seethed, kicking savagely into the dirt. “EVER considered that people’s lives are not only harder than yours, but sadder, too? Or are you as stupid and spoiled as you pretend to be, recklessly showing off your body?” He kicked a stone that rolled off the cliff and into the water below. He watched as the ripples got wider and disappeared, drawing his attention to the ship wreck clearly visible below the surface, and the shark chasing a green streak, probably a fish, around it. He observed the shark’s ravenous hunt, and murmured,
“It seems to me, all women are the same. Like the shark, they are always on the hunt… preferably for the young and weak.”  Jim stopped abusing the earth and crouched next to Sable, so close his cold blue eyes nearly made her eyes go glassy with fear and mortification. “Well, let me tell you something, Highness. I am not weak, and I will never fall in love if all there is in the world are women like you. Consider yourself rejected.” Then, without being dismissed, Jim Hawkins strode down the hill and away.

Ariel gasped as Flounder hit his head on the mast and plummeted to the sea floor. He had to get cocky, she groaned inwardly, then darted after her friend. As she descended, she knew there was no hope. Even if she did get there in time to catch her friend, then the shark would just eat them both. Suddenly, a fist-sized stone hit and snapped the old rope that was holding the anchor to the side of the ship. The anchor eagerly rolled down into the shark’s path. It was a simple matter for the mermaid to grab her fish friend through the hole in the top of the anchor, luring the carnivore through it. The shark’s speed lodged it comically in the iron. Picking up her nearly forgotten bag, Ariel smiled brightly at the beast.
“You big bully!” Flounder accused inches from the shark’s snout. His cowardice won out in the end, for he darted away at a mere snap of its jaws. Ariel giggled.
“Flounder, you really are a guppy.” She accused, but she was shaking too. Her friend had almost been killed. If it hadn’t been for luck… or was it fate?... he would have been. Ariel dismissed the thought. No point of reading into it, it was a rock, big deal. No, these treasures she held in her hand where much more important. Forcing another giggle at Flounder’s meager attempts to write off his fear, she turned south toward Scuttle’s island.

Baffled, Sable watched her prey walk away without a scratch on him. Somehow that little deer had mauled her heart. She sat in silence for a few minutes, trying to figure out how to move without shaking and wondering why her heart was shaking, too. Finally, she was able to take a whistle from her hidden pocket and blow into it. Almost instantly there were two attendants helping her up, another two picking up the picnic they had laid out only twenty minutes ago. Sable pulled away from the commoners who turned away quickly, smiling amusedly into their hands. Sable thought about her predicament. She could not let this slide. Her reputation as an irresistible huntress would be shot. No, this just wasn’t possible. There was no way that boy just rejected her. A good seductress is versatile, she remembered. If I can’t make him what I want, I’ll become what he wants. Now I just have to get close enough to the whelp to learn what that is. Sable smiled a cynical smile. Cake.

Eric was waiting outside Jim’s dorm room when a fuming Jim returned. The prince looked a bit anxious. He must have known what his cousin was planning, and he hadn’t warned him, Jim realized. All the restraint he had shown toward the prince evaporated.
“You knew.” He growled, stalking up to the man and staring up into his eyes. “You b—, augh, you knew that Sable was going to try something low, and you didn’t tell me, and now—“
Eric wasn’t up to speed with Jim; he was still gaping at a realization of his own.
“You’re back. You were only gone about a half hour! Most are gone at least three times as long… so you didn’t…” Then he saw the scowl of pure distaste on the younger boy’s face. “Jim, what happened?”
“I did what was right.” Jim growled at Eric, bypassing him to unlock the door and open it. “If you hear any reports regarding me negatively, they are false.” With that, Jim entered and slammed the door in the stately prince’s face.
Later that night, Jim lay sprawled on his shallow bunk, looking longingly out his window to the stars. “I don’t know Morph,” Jim sighed, caressing his cooing pet with the back of his hand, his other hand tucked under his head. “I’m not sure if learning here is worth it anymore.” He rolled over and blew out the primitive candle on his nightstand. “Too much drama.”