C'est de l'amour

That night when Ariel had ambled into the kitchenette to fetch herself a bottle of milk in order to wash down the bile taste of whiskey on her tongue, she encountered her father slouching, disheveled, upon the desk in his office. From the quick glance she sent his way, she reckoned he was asleep, but with the gurgling of his throat resonating throughout the house and the bobbing of his shoulders evident, she fell glum to her father's wailing. She had once tried to console her father of his habitual moping, but the results were not pleasant. Ariel had just ended up in her bedroom taking his lead, and bemoaning.

"Goodnight, papa..." the young girl muttered before entering her bedroom, stripping herself of her clothes and changing into a silk sleeping gown, and then lastly chugging down the last drops of the milk. As she lied there in bed, the comforter sheltering her face from the darkness, she thought over the events that haunted her the most in life, which she was all the so unwilling to tell anyone about. Ariel considered herself as a flower pot- so elegant and amusing on the outside, but filled with so much dampened soil and dirt on the inside. The roots that stretched in all directions within the pot were that of the strings to her heart, and if the roots were barren, she was unhappy. This also applied to the soil, though most of the time even if it were moist, the roots would still be dry. This only presented her artificial happiness which she was so sensitive to.

"Everything will be better one day," Ariel whispered before closing her eyes into a deep and highly needed slumber.

The next day, Ariel was dressed in her finest suit [a grey, woolen pencil skirt and a white peplum blouse], and attended lunch with her father, who had pushed away his pessimistic thoughts for the day, and her dreaded aunt, Ursula. Ursula was the aunt that always seemed to be present in everyone's families, and they loved to provoke their nieces and nephews. She'd always send her majestic cat after Ariel to spray her nicely polished shoes or to get her clothes covered in so much fur that it was hard to even wear them again. Ariel always felt she should get revenge for her aunt's imbecilic motives towards her, but then she was reminded that if she ever attempted any trickery, her father would immediately catch her and most liably punish her.

Ariel fixed the trimming on her shirt before staring over at her father, who on the contrary was bellowing out a hearty, but forced laughter in the presence of her gargantuan aunt. She almost went sick at the sight of him desperately attempting to flatter her aunt, but she knew deep inside that he despised her. Ursula was the evil sister, after all, and a mighty round one she was too.

"Oh, look who it is!" shrilled the deep voice of the large woman, stomping obliviously to the small red-head. "Ariel, darling, you look a lot more voluptuous than when I last saw you! Your father has finally been feeding you enough portions after all of my begging in the past years. You'll soon be looking as marvelous as me, don't you agree?"

The moist cackling that followed after had only made Ariel frown much further than when her face was smothered into the chest of her aunt, in an overpowering hug. It was a vile impulse, a sadistic one, having been so rude to her niece, but that was all a part of the affronting.

Finally being released from the constricting embrace, Ariel stumbled over to the couch that was put center in the enormous room, and leered back over at her father pointedly, but he seemed not to notice the animosity raging in her azure eyes.

"Triton," Ursula called out to her brother while still staring confidently at his daughter. "I'm ashamed of you for having this girl's hair to grow this long. My, my, it will not fit in with the fashion of this age!"

The man rubbed his beard, before speaking quite solemnly, "Well, I have decided as a fatherly guardian to Ariel, that I should not force her to do anything she would protest with such an opinion about. Anything she feels is of deep passion, is none of my concern to abduct from her."

"What burden that is!" Ursula exclaimed with a dramatic hand posed to her face. "If I were her mother... I'd chop it all off and make a coat for myself, that is. It would benefit the girl, you know. She'd have the bob that every young lady is portraying these days."

"I will not cut my hair, you oaf."

From those words alone spoken by the rebellious Ariel, a corruption of words fleeted into the air with an aurora of hatred that convicted the air. To the red-head, it was almost too shabby to even endeavor breathing without remarking against everyone else's words.

"ENOUGH!!" bellowed out Triton with a stomp of his foot. "I will not stand to see the only two female figures who I acquaint with on a daily business, fight with one another over such a foolish little peeve!" He took a brief huff of frustration before averting his eyes from the wall, to his daughter who looked as frightened as a cat drenched in water. "Ariel, we are leaving."

"But father, we have only just arrived-"

"-I do not want to hear it, Ariel. I am ashamed of you for speaking out in such begrudge. As for you, Ursula, I apologize for my daughter's outburst. It will not happen again..."

The aunt who had look disarrayed for a moment shook off her vulnerability, and put on a rousing smile directed towards the young red-headed girl. "Of course, brother. I shall not expect it again... but if it should happen again, I think the punishment should well enough be that I cut that hair of hers, off. It is only fair in my dismay, you see."

"Of course," Triton mumbled after a moment before departing the abode, dragging along his daughter Ariel who had looked so vulnerable.

Waiting until she got home to storm off into her room and cry, Ariel had planned immediately that if her friends were to drop by, she would be all in their hands to do whatever they wanted with her. Ariel was up for anything at this point to make her happy and vivacious as she was always thought to have been seen as.

Ariel would not let her ego falter for one moment.