"Oh Flounder, isn't he beautiful?" Ariel said quietly, as she stroked the statues cheek that had been half broken off from the damage it experienced. Flounder looked worriedly at her, and nodded silently. He wasn't in on this whole, "human-mermaid" love story. He knew if Ariel was to dare go through with it, King Triton would have her locked up in the castle until the day she died.
Sebastian squeezed himself in through a small hole in the giant rock, as crabs were known to be able to move about tight areas. He hid behind a pair of binoculars, which Scuttle had named "a Shibbleshpob," and listened to Ariel and Flounder quietly.
"Ariel, please, I don't want you getting hurt," Flounder said quite softly. He looked down and backed up, knowing he said the wrong thing. Ariel turned her head to him and laughed.
"Oh Flounder, you're such a fool," she said with a nudge.
Ariel couldn't take the truth. She knew no one would agree to this plan, never less be happy that she went to the shore a million times already. In the kingdom they lived in, it was forbidden to be around the humans once Ariel's mother had died. Even before that, humans were a taboo to the community underwater, as they killed off their wildlife and polluted their seas. But Ariel never understood that. She never understood that people who hurt you or your love one's shouldn't be accepted into your crowd so easily.
"You can't do this!' Flounder said finally with a burst of courage.
Ariel swam right over to him, her face in his, and huffed.
"It's true love! Flounder you don't understand true love. When you've found the right man, you'd trade in anything and everything for him."
"He doesn't even know you exist, Ariel. How would you know it's "true love?""
She gave Flounder an awfully mean look, one she had never given her best friend before. She swam away towards the entrance, and pointed to the rock. "Leave," was all she said.
"I hope you remember what happened, to your mother. And I hope you can sometime understand that all of this is wrong." Flounder swam off back into reality, as Ariel stayed in her own little world. Sebastian shook his head whilst she looked down on him, and he swam off to find Flounder.
Ariel closed the rock slowly, and looked over to one shelf in her grotto. On it, was the music box her mother was gifted with from her father. She opened it, and the sound of many seas came from it. She held it to her chest, and laid on the sandy floor, right next to where Eric's feet were. For one of the most talented, and beautiful daughter's of Triton, there was no doubt she would be the one to fall first.