Poor Unfortunate Soul (Villains 3)

At least I will be able to save Ariel. Perhaps she will rule with more compassion than I ever had. The sisters watched and wished they could destroy the king as they had intended. It wasn’t enough that he finally lamented what he had done to his sister. They wanted him to die. It took all their strength to rein in their hate of Triton and focus it on Ursula, so long had they gathered it, cultivated it, and given it life. It took all their might not to succumb to it and kill the tyrant king.

Oh, how they wished Ursula was the friend they had thought she was. They would have loved to take down her brother and put her on the throne. They would have done anything to help their friend. Why the betrayal? It was such a disappointment, seeing Ursula fail in the face of such promise. They had thought she was different. She wanted nothing more than revenge—and power, because she’d spent her life feeling powerless. She’d become the thing her brother accused her of. She had become loathsome.

Fear gripped the witches’ hearts when they saw that Ursula had seized Triton’s crown and trident. This is why the Dark Fairy sent her warning. She knows Ursula’s heart better than we do. And the sisters watched in terror as Ursula grew to prodigious heights.

The madness within her also seemed to grow with an unnerving velocity. Her laugh dominated the many kingdoms as she commanded the sea, bringing forth ships that had long before sunk to the depths. She brought the dead ships to life with the treacherous waves, raving maniacally and claiming the sea as her own.

If there was anything left of the witch the sisters had called “friend,” they couldn’t detect it. Ursula was completely at the mercy of this overwhelming power, and it had driven her quite mad.

The Dark Fairy was right.

Ursula created a maelstrom of twisting splintered ships and used them to attack Ariel and Eric. She was going to kill Ariel. It seemed her plans to be Eric’s bride had been tossed aside like an unwanted plaything, forgotten now with the madness that was swelling inside her.

She’s grown mad with power. Perhaps mad with grief, with the loss of everything she once loved.

Lucinda said the words again, this time resolving to destroy the thing she and her sisters had helped create with their hatred. They were no better than Triton, Lucinda thought, because they had played a part in Ursula’s undoing, as well. It broke Lucinda’s heart and brought her no joy, in spite of the betrayal.

“Kill the witch and make her bleed, release our sister, my words you’ll heed!”

Martha and Ruby were in a panic.

“We can’t kill Ursula! There has to be a way to save her!” screamed Ruby. “If we take the crown and trident, she’ll come back to herself.”

“Yes, this is our fault! Circe was right to be angry with us! We’re always meddling, and our meddling caused this. It will cost Ursula her life!”

Lucinda cast a terrifying gaze at her sisters. “Silence! This is Ursula’s doing, not ours! She would have gotten her hands on the necklace regardless, and she took our sister as insurance that we would help her! She is not the witch we once knew. She’s been overwhelmed by power and greed just like the Wicked Queen, and we shall destroy her for her duplicity!”

The fireworks burst forth from the ships in Morningstar Harbor and exploded overhead, raining on the dome above the witches as Lucinda went on. “This is the only way to free our sister and ensure she will not hate us until the end of her days! Circe would never forgive us for unleashing this power.”

Lucinda looked to the sky through the glass dome, at the storm of sparks cascading down, as the sea raged with a violent purple light. “We have no choice, my sisters. We have to destroy her. Now, say the words with me.”

Lucinda, Ruby, Martha, and the One of Legends gathered their power and sent it out to the many kingdoms so witches far and wide would hear their call. This was not a secret, dark sort of magic. It was a desperate gathering of forces to take down the witch who now had the power to destroy them all.

“You took our sister and our hate, to die at our hands is now your fate!”

The witches screeched, and taking the mirror once again, they said, “Now show us the witch!” Ursula’s image appeared in the enchanted mirror.

“She’s trying to kill Ariel! She’s broken her deal! Kill the witch now, make her suffering real!”

All the witches were in a frenzy, stomping their boots and screaming so loudly the glass dome was again threatening to break. The servants were pounding on the door, trying to get in to see what was the matter, frightened of the loud screams coming from inside the room and the terrible explosions coming from the sea.

“Show us the witch!”

The witches watched as Prince Eric climbed onto one of the resurrected ships. Its bow was splintered and jagged, and the witches knew Ursula’s death was almost upon them.

“Impale the witch and make her bleed, give Eric the power, our words you’ll heed!”

And to their relief, Ursula was violently impaled by the ship’s splintered bow in an explosion of electricity and billowing purple smoke, casting her remains deep into the sea.

The sisters collapsed as they watched the voluminous smoke rising from the sea, knowing they had killed the witch they had once called their friend.

Deep within the ocean, tucked away in Ursula’s garden of lost souls, Circe felt herself become shining and brilliant, like the dazzling golden lights that surrounded her. It was a curious sensation, as if she had never known what it was to feel alive until that moment. Ursula had taken her soul and left her empty shell to wither with the other victims in the sea witch’s garden.

Circe had never contemplated what that would be like, to lose her soul, and she couldn’t have imagined what a deep, penetrating sense of emptiness it would bring, as if nothing but sadness and loneliness remained.

But even that didn’t adequately describe how it had felt.

She supposed it was similar to powerful grief, that wretched emptiness and feeling of despair and helplessness, as if being swallowed by a deep blackened pit that you were unable to crawl out of.