katleept

1. The Tales of Los Almas » reviews

The human man haunted her dreams every time she closed her eyes, and though she knew it was wrong, Ariel longed to be with him in a passion hotter, more intense, and more desperate than anything she'd ever before experienced.  She was the unexpecting fish floating along upon her merry way until she got snared in the octopus' legs, but unlike that unfortunate fish, Ariel knew that that which was drawing her was meant for her.  The man was her destiny, and she was his.
Every time she closed her eyes, she saw him again, standing upon his ship and looking more beautiful than anything she'd ever saw before.  Scuttle said the humans had another word for it, that men were not considered beautiful.  They were . . . handsome.  She didn't quite understand what that meant or how it got along with one's hands, but that's what Scuttle said and Scuttle was always right about the humans.
Oh, how she envied the bird his ability to fly amongst their people and get to know them in such intimate ways!  He knew everything there was to know about humans while she knew so little and craved information about them more than she craved food, water, or any of the other things her body had to have to live.  She wanted to be a human.  By all rights, she should have been born on land, but she had been stuck with a tail instead!
It didn't matter, Ariel assured herself as she began to drift off to sleep to dream of her Prince yet again.  It didn't matter what she looked like or where she lived or had been born.  They would be together.  One day, when he was standing upon his ship, looking so big, tall, brave, and handsome, he would see her.  Their eyes would lock, and he would know what she already knew: that they were each other's destinies and belonged together.
He would call to her, and she would go to him.  He would pick her up in his strong, humans arms and lift her out of the ocean and into his arms and heart.  He would be amazed by her tail, but they would find a way, some magic way, to give her legs.  Then they would dance together on his ship, dance and love and spend hours just talking as he taught her about his world.
And when the sun began to sank below the horizon, Ariel knew her father was looking for her.  Her green eyes cast worried looks all around the water.  She could feel his worry radiating as the ocean churned, but she didn't want to leave her Prince.
"Ariel," the man of her dreams asked, leaning forward, caressing her cheek, and gazing at her in concern, "what's wrong?"
"My Father . . . " she replied, looking downcast.  "He must be so worried about me!"
"Is that all?" he questioned in surprise.
"Yes," Ariel answered, looking at him in confusion.  How could her father being afraid for her well being be such a small thing to him?
He smiled, and in the flash of his radiant smile, all her worries vanished.  She knew it would be okay for he loved her as much as she loved him and they would be together as was destined for them.  "Then we just have to let him know you're all right."  Her Prince took her hand and led her over to the ship's railing.  They looked at each other, and Ariel sighed.  She was in love!  Then, hand in hand, they dove over the ship's railing.
When the water cleared and Ariel could see again, she gasped in astonishment.  Her Prince had a tail!  She gazed at him in shock.  "I . . .  How do you have a tail?!"
He cupped her face in his wonderfully human hands and told her, with an adoring smile, "Your love gives me what I need.  I can be whatever I want just as you can be whatever you want."
Ariel felt her tail moving in the water beneath her, looked down, and gasped a second time at the sight of it.  "So . . . "  She raised questioning eyes to her love's enchanting, dark orbs.  " . . . we can be merpeople or humans?"
"Yes!"  He smiled broadly.
"But . . .  I want to be a human . . . "
"Don't you want to see your father?"
"Of course!"
"Then we'll see him and your family.  You can introduce me, and then, after every one knows you're okay and we're together, you can come back up here with me to my world."
Ariel looked at him suspiciously.  Something was wrong.  He shouldn't have a tail, but her dream mind was too accepting, especially when he swam closer to her and pressed his lips to hers.  A heat hotter than anything she'd ever felt before spread through Ariel's body from his kiss, and her head was spinning merrily when he let her go.
She followed him, still holding to his hand, as her Prince led her to her home and into her family's palace where her father was sitting on his throne.  "Ah, my boy, I'm glad to see you!" Triton beamed as he waved at her Prince.  "It's about time you found my daughter!  You two are meant to be together!"
"We know that, sir," her Prince answered her father, "and we're so happy and in so much love!  Ariel's the best thing that's ever happened to me!"
"Of course she is!"  Triton was now floating in the water before Ariel and her love.  He reached out and tweaked his daughter's cheek.  "She's the best thing that's ever happened to all of us, and now she shall have her fondest dream!"  As Triton raised his hands, horns blew, and trumpets sounded.  The castle transformed in a blink of an eye.
Ariel pulled back with a gasp as she found herself suddenly wearing a wedding gown!  She gazed down at the shimmering, white cloth in shock.  "Father, I . . .  I don't understand!  What's going on?!  How's this happening?!"
"It's your dream come true, Princess," Triton answered, reassuringly stroking her face.  "You're to be married right away, so that you and your Prince may live wherever you choose."
"I want to be on land.  I want to walk where the people walk and dance where they dance."
"I know, my dear," Triton assured her with a bright, fond smile, "but don't you want to be able to see your family whenever you choose?"
"Of course!"
He clapped his hands together.  "Then it's settled!  Sebastian!"
Again the scene whirled around Ariel, and this time she found herself standing beside her Prince in front of Sebastian.  The castle was filled with guests, and all her sisters were crying.  She gazed around her in wonder before Sebastian's voice pulled her back to the matter at hand.  "Come on now, Princess!  Dis is no time for your mind to be wonderin'!" the crab announced, urgently snapping his claws together.  "Do you take this human boy to be your husband or no?"
"I . . .  I do . . .  Of course I do!  I love him!"  Ariel looked around her again, confusion pulling her full, red lips down into a pout and creasing her forehead.  "But this is all happening so fast . . . "
"Dat's how real love happens, Princess.  One minute ya ain't got it.  The next minute -- boom! -- you done be fallen for it!  I now pronounce you husband and wife!"  He snapped a book closed, then pointed his claw at Ariel's love whose hand she continued to clutch throughout everything that had already happened and was continuing to transpire all around them.  "You may kiss de bride, boy, but you be careful wit' her heart!  You hurt her, you gonna answer to mon claws, capice?"
Her Prince nodded his handsome, dark head in respect to Sebastian before turning to face Ariel and pull her closer into his arms.  "I would never hurt the woman I love," he vowed, gazing deeply into her eyes and making Ariel shiver deliciously inside.  Then he lowered his lips to hers.
Fire again coursed throughout Ariel's every vein.  She'd never felt so alive or dreamed of such intense feelings as those that were sweeping through her now!  They seemed to kiss forever until something disturbed Ariel and she lifted her head.  The palace was gone.  Gone, too, were her father, Sebastian, her sisters, and all their people.  She and her Prince were alone again but still under the water.
His hands treaded in her long, red hair.  "What's wrong, my love?" he queried softly, his face and voice full of deep concern for her alone.  "Aren't you happy here with me?"
She quickly reassured him, "Of course I am!"  She frowned again, however, when her green eyes caught movement behind him.  There was a dark tail.  No, two dark tails flipping through the ocean currents . . .  She peered closer, trying to get a closer look, but her Prince pulled her away.
He kissed her again and again.  His mouth moved slowly from her mouth over to face and across her neck.  She was lost to the passion and pleasure that built within her.  Her love made her feel emotions stronger and more pleasurable than any she'd ever even dreamed of before.  She was lost in a sea of pleasure, moaning as he suckled her neck and continued to move his way down.
As if from far away, Ariel became aware of her Prince's finger looping around the vine that strung her seashells together.  For a fleeting moment, she thought that she should stop him, but then she remembered.  They were married!  This passion -- this wonderful, mind-boggling, heart-roaring passion was their right as husband and wife!
Their tails began to slide together as her Prince slowly removed her shells.  He cupped her bared breasts into his hands and massaged them.  If Ariel had been drowning in delight now, she thought for certain that she was about to explode from the sheer enormosity of the fire he stroked within her, making her hotter and hotter and hotter . . .
His mouth sank onto her breast.  She threw her head back in delight.  A scream of pleasure escaped her.  Then, suddenly, her Prince was pulling away!
She gazed down at him, and horror filled her.  His hands were clawing at his throat.  His tail was gone, and his human legs had been returned in its place!  She cried his name but could not hear herself for she knew not his real name.  She swam to him, trying desperately to reach him, as his eyes, so full of panic and fear, filled her vision.
Then something snatched her tail!  She pulled with all her might against the unseen force but could not break away.  Laughter echoed as her Prince fell deeper and deeper into the murky depths of the ocean.  Again she saw the tails from before, and this time she realized that they were the eels her father had always warned her from whence to stay away!  Ariel screamed as she felt her Prince dying, but though she fought with all her might to break free, an immense force held her firmly in place.
"My dear, dear girl," crooned a husky, feminine voice, "don't you know anything?  You can't have your Prince and your family too!  You can't have both worlds!  You'll have to choose!"
Her Prince was gone, and now Ariel found herself gazing down at her family, all of whom were plastered to the ocean bottom.  She didn't know what was happening to them or understand what was happening to her herself, but she could tell that they were in pain.  She watched in horror as her father raised a hand and cried out.  "LET HER GO!"  He threw his triton, but it shattered into a million pieces without ever coming close to the thing that held her.
"DADDY!" she screamed as Triton's face hit the ground.  "DADDY, GET UP!  YOU'VE GOT TO GET UP!"  She fought harder to break away, but still the force holding her held her tight.  Booming laughter echoed in Ariel's ears.  Her Prince . . . her love . . . her family . . .  They were all gone.  She could feel her very world crumpling around her as she continued to fight and knew that it would all be for naught . . .

~*~*~*~

Ariel woke up screaming.  "Ariel!  Ariel!  Geez, man, what lungs!  Hush, gel!  It's okay!  You're home!  You're safe!"
She blinked as she found herself gazing at Sebastian, who was using one pincher to click urgently at her and the other to cover one of his ears.  "Geez, man, you sound just like your father!"
"I . . .  I do?" Ariel asked in surprise.  Though her heart was still pounding in her ears, she was beginning to understand that the events she had just felt like she had lived, from meeting her Prince all the way to every one she loved and all she held dear being destroyed, had only been a horrible nightmare.  A really, really horrible nightmare, but a nightmare nonetheless.
"Yeah," one of Ariel's sisters prodded with an eager grin, "she does?"
Sebastian waved a pincer.  "I didn't say that!"
"Yes, you did!"  Another of her sisters giggled.
"No, I didn't, and if any of you Princesses say I did, I'll deny it one hundred percent!"
Laughter bubbled around the Princesses, all save Ariel.  Then they looked at their little sister, saw the fear still written plainly over her face, and brought her close into their huddle.  "It's okay, Ariel.  It was just a nightmare."
Ariel nodded and swallowed her fear.  It had been only a nightmare, but it had felt so heartbreakingly real!  She hung her head as her sisters hugged her and fought back the tears that threatened to swell into her eyes from her heart.  There was truth to her dream, and she was saddened to realize it and understand what she would have to give up to be with her Prince for the first time.
She looked around at her sisters reassuring her, nodded and muttered acceptable answers, before Sebastian announced that they should be getting ready to see their father.  She was thankful when they swam away, but still her heart hung heavy as the facts of the dream weighed her spirit down.  She had no choice.  She would either have to give up her Prince and the love she knew they shared or abandon her family and all she'd ever known permanently to be with him.
Sebastian gazed intently up into Ariel's face.  "You sure you okay, Princess?"
"I'm fine," Ariel answered brightly, forcing a smile that was sure to win him over.  "I just want to get this meeting with Daddy done with so that I can go treasure hunting."
"Now, Ariel, what have I told you about dat, hmm?  Dose humans -- Dey good for nothin' but de destruction of our world!"
"Not all humans are like that, Sebastian!"
"Yes, dey are, Princess, and one day you'll find dat out!  Now get ready!"  He scuttled away, huffing, puffing, and muttering to himself about Princesses.
Ariel wrapped her arms around herself as she watched him go and gave herself a tiny, reassuring hug.  He was wrong.  They were all wrong.  She wasn't being silly, and humans were not all evil, wicked creatures.  She suspected a few of them must be for even her own people had bad guys amongst them, but most humans were wonderful beings full of love, care, and the enjoyment of adventures and fantastic things far beyond anything her own people had down here below the surface!
Her Prince certainly wasn't like that!  He was the love of her life and the most wonderful man ever!  Ariel sighed.  It was too bad her family would never get to know him, and an unfortunate fact that she'd have to give them and their world up forever in order to be with him.  But she would.  She would do whatever she had to do to get the man she loved, the adventures she deserved, and their very own happily ever after.

The End

Newly posted tonight: 

"This is going too far, Jafar!  I won't put up with this!"

Jafar sneered down at his pet as he shook his golden birdcage.  "You'll do whatever I have you do," he told him.

Scar's tongue ran over his lips as he eyed the parrot.  Not only were his feathers brighter than Zazu's, but there was considerably more meat on his bones.  "You can thank Mufasa for not feeding you properly," Scar growled at the terrified, blue bird, his long tail slashing through the air.  "I don't bother to eat skinny, little runts like you."

"You'd better not!" Zazu cried, shaking the bars on his cage.  "Why, when the King hears of this -- "

"What King?"

Zazu's eyes flared as he glared at Scar.  "Mufasa, of course!"  This lion really had hit every limb on the way down when he'd fallen out of the tree!

"Oh, that King," Scar replied dismissively.  He jerked one of his long and deadly claws at his own throat.  "He won't be saving any one pretty soon."

Zazu bristled at the threat, but then the Majordomo reminded himself that Scar had been making such idle threats about his Highness for years.  Indeed, he reflected, Scar had been threatening to kill his brother, who was as high above him as the moon that shone down upon them all, ever since Mufasa had been named King.

"He'll come!" he said, rattling his cage again.  "You'll see!  He'll come, and you'll be lucky if he doesn't eat <I>you</I> up and spit you out like the mangy hairball you are!"

Jafar peered down at the brave, little hornbill.  "He has quite a mouth on him, I see."

"Yours does, as well," Scar pointed out.

"A bad habit I've been working for years to try to correct," Jafar told his friend, glowering down at Iago.

"You can't shut me up!" Iago exclaimed.  "I'll never shut up!"

Scar smiled.  "You'll shut up when I eat you."

Iago's yellow eyes nearly popped out of his very head.  "You can't eat me!"

Scar smiled.  "Watch and die."

Iago quickly changed tactics.  "You don't want to eat me!  I'm nothing but skin and bones!"

Scar licked his lips again.  "You look nicely plump and juicy to me," he remarked.

"It's all feathers!"  Iago began madly plucking at his own feathers.  "See?  I'm not really big!  It's all these feathers that make me look big!  I'm really, really skinny, even scrawnier than he is!"  He jerked a wing at the other bird.  "If you want any meat at all, you better eat him!"

Scar's eyes glowed in the darkness lit only by the fire from the surrounding geysers.  "Go right ahead," he said with a lethal-sounding rumbling coming from his throat.  His tail swished as he watched the terrified bird with pleasure and patience.  "Remove all your feathers like a good, little bird, so I don't have to taste them when I devour you."  He reached over and raked his claws across the door of Iago's cage.  His smile grew at the parrot's scream.

"And this," Jafar demanded, picking up Zazu's cage and peering in at the hornbill, "is the Royal Advisor to your kingdom?"

"Yes," Scar dismissively flipped a paw, "for what good he is."

Zazu threw a wing up over his face to shield him from Jafar's piercing glare.  "Put that thing away!" he commanded.  "Your face is uglier than the backside of a warthog!"

Jafar sneered, his mustache bristling.  He shook the cage menacingly.  "We'll see how fast you change your tune when I take you home to my snake!"

"I'm not going anywhere!  The King will come for me!"

"Your beloved, little King's not coming," Scar told him again.  "It's the mating season.  He's busy making new little brats to run around and pester their Uncle Scar."  Moonlight reflected off of his gleaming fangs as he smiled devilishly.  "The hyenas will enjoy devouring them almost as much as I'm gonna enjoy eating you!"

Iago screamed again as Scar wrapped his paws around his cage and snatched it to him.  His tongue flicked between the bars.  Gathering all his strength to him, Iago flew forward and bit down on his foul-smelling tongue with all the strength he possessed.  As Scar screamed, threw the cage, clutched his paws over his mouth, and fell back, Iago started spitting fur.  He'd never tasted anything so rotten in all of his life!

Jafar smiled coldly down at the parrot.  "I can see you two were made for each other.  I'll just be going, then, with my new, little friend, so that you may enjoy your feast in private."  He grabbed Zazu's cage and started to walk away.

Scar motioned to the man's back, and hyenas raced out of the shadows.  Jafar whirled around in a twirl of black and shot his staff out.  The golden snake head's eyes glowed, and Scar and his hyenas stopped where they stood.  None of them could move an inch!

A sudden, massive roar echoed through the land.  It chilled Jafar to the bottom of his black soul.  The Sorcerer was so startled that he immediately dropped his staff.  As it clattered to the ground, Scar and his hyenas were released.  They blinked as they returned to their senses and then shrank and slithered back into the shadows from whence they'd crawled.

"Thank goodness you've arrived, brother dear!" Scar crooned, putting a paw to his chest in a feigning act of defenselessness.  "Look at what this monster was going to do to our buddy, Zazu!"

Mufasa roared again, and Scar fell to the ground.  "Honestly I didn't have an idea this was happening!  It was all his and the hyenas' doing!  They -- "

Mufasa's third, enormous roar finally silenced his brother.  Scar lay, quivering, upon the ground as Jafar reached for his staff.  It was suddenly snatched up into the air by a thin, hairless hand.  Jafar yelled in protest and then screeched again in pain as Rafiki hit him in the head with his own staff!  "Asante sana!  Squash Banana!  We we nugu!  Mi mi apana!," the monkey chanted, grinning from ear to ear, as he bounced up and down.

Mufasa smiled approvingly.  "A precise hit, my old friend, as always."

Rafiki screeched in victory as he raised the staff above his head.  The snake's eyes glowed.

"No!  Don't -- " Jafar cried out, reaching a hand toward his favorite weapon.

Rafiki hit Jafar again.  Then he immediately began to chant words that none of the others could understand even as Jafar fell to the ground.  The baboon continued bouncing up and down, chanting, and hitting Jafar each time he reached for his staff.  Whenever Scar and his hyenas began to slink forward from the darkness, a roar from Mufasa quickly sent them scattering again.

Rafiki's voice grew stronger, and the speed of his chant quickened.  He raised his hands into the air and released the staff.  The snake's eyes continued to glow as it flew up, spun swiftly around seven times, and then shattered.

"NNNOOOOO!!!!!!" Jafar cried.  He desperately began grabbing at the pieces of his staff as they floated back to the ground.

Mufasa turned and sliced Iago's cage open.  The parrot shrank back into his cage and eyed the great lion apprehensively.

"Go ahead, little friend," Mufasa coaxed.  "You're free."

"You can't do that!" Jafar protested.

Mufasa whirled on the Sorcerer.  He roared so loudly that the wind sailing from his mouth ripped holes into Jafar's clothes.  "I AM THE KING!  I CAN DO WHATEVER I PLEASE, AND YOU, WIZARD, WILL DO WELL THIS NIGHT TO ESCAPE WITH YOUR LIFE!  THERE WILL NEVER BE ANY BIRD SWAPPING IN MY KINGDOM!"

"But, brother, this isn't exactly your kingdom," Scar spoke up, edging stealthily forward out of the shadows.

"DO NOT DARE TO ARGUE WITH ME THIS NIGHT, SCAR, WHEN YOU HAVE STOLEN ZAZU!  I SHOULD BANISH YOU!"

"I was innocent in this!"

Mufasa glowered at him, his deep, rich brown eyes speaking clearly of how he never trusted nor even liked his brother.  "You are innocent in nothing, Scar."

Scar fell to the ground beneath Mufasa's fierce gaze and groveled.  "Yes, yes," he cried, "I'm a wicked, mangy lion who should be put of my misery!"

Mufasa turned his back on Scar.  Scar started to rise up, but Iago saw his movement, flew swiftly out of his cage, and pecked his eyes.  Scar swatted at him, but the parrot deftly avoided his blows as he flew up into the air.  "Be careful who you trust, Your Majesty," he called back down to Mufasa, "and thank you for my freedom!"  He turned and began the long flight back to Agrabah.

Mufasa smiled down at Zazu as he opened his cage.  "Let us go home now, my friend."

"Yes, let's, please, Sire!" Zazu was quick to agree.

Scar reached a paw towards Mufasa, but Rafiki swiftly hit first his paw and then his head.  He hit Jafar again for good measure as Mufasa and Zazu headed back to the Pride Lands.  The Shaman screeched in victory again before swiftly hitting Scar and Jafar twice more with his stick and hurrying after Mufasa and Zazu.

~*~

Much later that night, Mufasa left his cave to go in search of Zazu.  He found his little friend gazing up at the stars.  "Zazu?" he asked in his deep voice.

"I almost joined them tonight."

"Nonsense.  I headed after you the moment you failed to report."

"I . . . "  The bird slowly drew a talon through the grass, his small, blue wings folded behind him.  "I was afraid you were too busy to notice my absence, Sire, what with the lionesses being in heat and all . . . "

"Nonsense."  A deep, rumbling purr began in Mufasa's throat as he walked up behind his dear friend, sat down, and pulled Zazu backwards into a hug.  He leaned down and rubbed his face against his, still purring.  "I have many lionesses," he told him sincerely, "but only one of you, Zazu.  No one will harm you as long as I live."

Zazu put his wings around Mufasa's face and returned his hug as well as he was capable of doing when he was so much larger than he.  "Thank you, Sire," he spoke sincerely and yet, in his secret heart, Zazu wondered just how much longer his beloved King would live.  Scar had been making threats for what seemed like forever, so long indeed that Mufasa too quickly dismissed them, but he came ever closer with each new plot.  He wished that Mufasa would banish Scar but knew he would never abandon his brother for no matter how gravely Scar harmed him, there was a part of Mufasa that would always love him for he was his family.  Zazu hugged Mufasa more tightly.  He never wanted to see their world without him for the loss of his King would surely destroy his own heart and soul.

The End

Would any one out there be interested in helping me to create and run an X-Men land comm where there would be weekly or biweekly challenges and five teams would compete against each other for points?  I'm thinking it would be best done with two or three mods taking turns issuing challenges so that every one would get to play, and team names possibly being X-Men, Excalibur, New Mutants, Generation X, and X-Force but am open to ideas.