At night, the deck was cold and slippery beneath her feet. The wind whistled eerily and tangled itself in her dress, billowing it out around her thin frame. At the rear of the ship, she could make out the lines of the mountains behind them, massive and looming in the distance. Storm clouds rolled in from the sea and abutted them, forced to spend their fury against the cliffs instead of continuing on to the towns beyond. Streaks of lightning lit the very peaks of the clouds, blooming purple and green like beautiful, electric flowers.

Ariel watched the clouds for a few moments, blurred by the burning salt dripping down her cheeks. Superimposed over the horizon was the image of the prince, wrapped so contently around his bride-to-be, soundly asleep in their bunk. She shouldn't have gone in. But she had. And now look at her.

What should she do? She'd bargained one life for another, her love for the sea for love on dry land. But...as her beloved sisters had reminded her over and over...nothing was certain. She hadn't won his love. She'd never even been able to compete. So what now? She couldn't stay here. She couldn't live in the sea. She took a few more wobbling steps toward the rail, hair whipping frantically around her and catching on her wet cheeks. Her feet- her slender, lily-white feet- were numb from cold. She could almost feel the comforting fins where they should be, ghosts of what had been. One hand clutched at the rail to keep her wracked body from collapsing. The other covered her mouth, but it didn't matter. She would be silent anyway.

"Lady?" a man called. His voice was coarse and burly- the voice of a sailor. Ariel turned haltingly and searched the darkened deck for him with haunted eyes.

"I'm here, lady! Up!" and so he was. It was the lookout in the crow's nest. She cast her face up to him, struggling with more tears. She had met this man before. He was a nice man.

"Wot- lady, ye look white as a sheet! Wot be th'matter?" He had to shout to send his voice past the wind and the distance between them. Ariel watched him quietly, unable to respond and unwilling to. She didn't have any energy left. She didn't have any life left in her. She lowered her eyes and turned back to the rail. Stiffly, with icy fingers, she gathered her blowing nightgown in her fingers and held it bunched against her hips. One foot wedged in the stylized wooden lattice; then another.

The lookout called to her again. This time his voice was sharp, with fear and with warning. Ariel swallowed hard and took the final step onto the rim of the rail. She held tight to the length of wood from which was suspended a single, lonely lantern. Its stability held her there, perched above the cold, cold ocean below and the yawning black sky above. She felt so small.

The lookout wasn't calling to her anymore. Now he was calling to his mates, shouting furiously for help, for anyone to come.

There was no REASON left. It didn't MATTER anymore. No one would help. She cried soundlessly down to the sea, begging her sisters to come for her, or her father, or ANYONE who still cared.

The icy, frothing ink said nothing to her in response. Nothing.

She released her dress. Breathing hard through her nose, she forced herself to drop one arm from around the wood. Heights were TERRIFYING; she'd never had to deal with them underwater. They were a dizzying challenge presented only on land; she cried as hard now with fear as she did with heartache. But it had to be done. Sooner or later. It had to happen.

"Ariel?"

She twisted from the waist to see him, alarm ringing through her mind. He looked sleepy and confused, draped in only a white cotton sheet around his waist. He'd come out in response to the lookout. His eyes sharpened on her, lost the hazy quality of sleep and narrowed suspiciously.

"Ariel? Get off that. You could fall." He was a prince now, doling out commands in a not-to-be-argued-with voice that no one could ignore.

She let her vision wander over his tousled black hair, his flame-bright eyes and his pale, flawless skin. You're the reason I came, she told him. And you're the reason I'll leave.

"Ariel, NOW."

She let go.