Meeting Ariel was a shelter from the rain of loneliness, it was a soothing rescue from the pains she didn't know existed in her dried heart. Dampness. A Mediterranean dampness. That's what he was. Rich in colour, life and mind. He was well-read, thus arrogant. Or perhaps he was arrogant because he wasn't well-read at all. Red at the heels, white on the nose, every protrusion, every edge of his body was smoothened by a strange redness, almost as if it had brushed against a warm, damp cloud. She was cold and dry, he was warm, moist and life-giving. All engulfing, ever-present and ever-approaching. He was young like Jevelene, with no hair on his face, no girth of shoulders and thin legs, he looked as if he were a maiden himself if it were not for his trousers. His long, brown mane stopped shortly at his neck, where his hair gracefully turned golden as it touched his bare skin. 

"Ariel? That's an absurd name," He crossed his arms and smiled, "Perhaps, I could done it for a while,"
She laughed, "Certainly,"
He looked at her for a while, then looked away, staring in a distance, as if looking for something, "Say, madam," He looked back at her, "Where do you live?" 
"Just about the brook, on that mansion there. Oh! I forgot! Mother's rose tea!" She quickly took the water inside her bucket and ran back to her mansion, "Goodbye, Ariel!" 

Ariel watched her go and smiled at her. He turned towards the brook and looked at the market far away. Jevelene reached her kitchen and kept the bucket down, only to find that all of it had turned to warm, delicious rose tea. She couldn't believe her eyes. She served it to her mother and ran back to the brook, it must be him, she wondered. But how could he do that? Was he a magician? A sage? A nymph?

When she went to her garden that evening, she was still thinking about him. With the gems around his eyes, he must have had quite a wealthy master, he had golden bracelets on his arms. And he doned fine silk. She wondered if she would ever see him again. The next day, she saw him at the brook again, he seemed to be waiting for her, reading a pamphlet while resting against on the wilderness. She walked up to him and looked at her, "Jevelene," He got up.

"You are here again?" She asked, "Tell me honestly, you turned my water to tea yesterday?"
"I? Not at all,"
"Well, if not you then...who could it be?" She asked him.
"Perhaps, you have a fairy godmother," He smiled at her. 

She laughed as she leaned towards the brook and poured the water into her bucket. He moved towards her, "My master has been quite upset at me," He said. She looked at him, "Why so?"
"I run away. But I like to be the master of my own will when I know he can't be my master. In my dreams, Jevelene, I'm freer than all," He pressed his hand on his stomach, "And hungry too,"

She smiled, "I have leftover bread from last night in my pantry. I could get you some,"
"With tea?" He smiled.
"With tea and honey,"

He walked beside her, "Say, aren't you... afraid of a stranger like myself?"
She looked at her visage, his eyes were brighter than all the gems around them, they held a godly faith--Green like the charm of a forest spirit. 
"Why should I be afraid? Fears don't know my weakness," She walked before her, "If I met you before when my father was still alive, I would've been afraid of you...For then I had something to lose," She kept her bucket outside the pantry and opened the door, "Now, you can't take anything away from me, I have nothing worth of value, Ariel," She turned back and smiled at him. 

He looked at her, pressing the weight of his body over her door, looking at the little glow in her eyes. The white daisies behind them sprawled on the European landscape and swindled around the salty breeze. She put a kettle on the fire and cut the bread on a plate with honey and orange jam. She poured tea into a Chinese porcelain cup with her delicate fingers and smiled at him as he sat at the table, looking at his meal. She quickly poured the leftover tea into another cup, "I will be back once I give this to my mother,"

"Is your mother sick?" He asked her.
"No," Jevelene looked at the kettle, "Perhaps she is. Father has...left her scarred too, I'm afraid. I know she loved him, even if she refuses that she did. It's a different kind of sickness, Ariel, the one you have when your lover dies,"
"And how do you treat an ailment you can't see,"
"Patience and love," She smiled and loved.

Ariel looked at the single loaf of bread on his plate, smeared with jam and honey. He looked at the cooling rose tea in the cup. He began eating. Jevelene reached her mother's room and served her morning tea to her. Jevelene watered her plants and saw that one of the water lilies had gotten exceptionally big. She went upstairs to her room, plucked the water lily and pressed it between the pages of her notebook. She would mark its various parts, its features and functions after she was done with her duties of the day. 

In the afternoon, after her mother had done her toilette and powdered her face, she walked by the hall near the garden, and entered the dining hall. 

"Jevelene, you ought to have prepared my breakfast," She said as she opened her fan.
Jevelene bowed, "Yes, mother. I have. I have set the table,"
"Good. Come then, pour my soup and get the handkerchiefs,"
She trotted forward while Jevelene kept her book on the table. Once her mother was done with her breakfast, she looked at the dishes kept inside the bucket to be washed. A plate and a teacup. Jevelene never ate in the morning. Had she been starting to eat secretly?

As she walked back to her room, she looked at the garden again. She noticed the footprints on the damp garden soil. Those were not Jevelene's shoes. Next morning, Jevelene went to the brook, and yet again, Ariel was there, waiting for her. 
"How long would you keep coming?" Jevelene asked him.
"As long as my master stays here, in Italia,"
"I hope your master never leaves then,"

"Why? Would you be lonely without my company?"
"I would be. You are the only friend I have ever had,"
He smiled and looked into her eyes, "I wouldn't want to make you lonely either. But fate, it hasn't given any free will to either of us. Born enslaved, perhaps our desires fall short of our masters' wishes, and we, a pebble, forgotten if lost, in an ocean so vast... I wish we could get lost, maybe when we are truly in the heat of abandonment, maybe then we could be free, and die as a flitter in sky rather than a slow, silent cry,"

Jevelene returned home, kept her bucket outside the pantry door and walk inside. There, she found her mother. She was so shocked, she couldn't move, 
"Mother? You are awake? At this hour?"
"I had to," She said as she walked towards her, "Since you would bring men into my house...right at this hour, wouldn't you?"
"He was hungry-"
"This isn't a charitable institution!"
"But I gave him my share..."

"Why would you do that? Go hungry to feed him? Answer you mother, Jevelene!" Her mother roared, "WHY?"
"Because I love him, mother!" Jevelene said and ran towards her room. 
"What? Him? That boy? I cannot believe you'd bring such shame to the family! How dare you!" Her mother followed her slowly, holding her large gown. 
"I can't choose who I love, mother. I see him and I love him,"
"He is a servant to a nobleman! What happiness could he ever bring you?!...I should've known that you are better married. I will ask the clergyman, Mr Tilburry, to send forth his son's proposal,"
"What?" Jevelene looked at her, "I can't marry someone who I don't love,"

"I did that and I am doing just fine,"
"You are not fine, Ms Stacephelece. You are a living corpse. Wealth has blinded you to the pain in your heart. This mansion, my inheritance, the inheritance of Tilburry...nothing would ever make you feel complete because what you've lost is not power...but love. My father has abandoned you-"
"My decision is final," She closed the door to her room and locked her in, "You are getting married this Sunday!"

Jevelene looked out her window and saw Milo sitting at her plane. She quickly rushed to her desk, sat and wrote a letter to Ariel, informing him of the events. She asked Milo to deliver it to him, except that she told her mother than she loved him. She didn't know if he loved her. She hoped he did. As the day passed by, which it passed awfully slowly, Jevelene looked out of the window, waiting for Ariel. Finally, he came to her, at the break of dawn, with Milo sitting on his shoulder. 

Jevelene looked down at him from her window, "Ariel!"
"I read your letter,"
"I'm going to get married this Sunday," She told him. He looked at her, "Do you love him?"
"I don't. He's a middle-aged, English man. I'd be his second wife. His last one died from childbirth... I don't even know him. But my mother, she gives me no choice,"

Ariel walked closer to her window, looking up at her, "What would it take for me to free you from your evil mother?"
"I wouldn't have any of what she would want. I have no fortune, no estate, no gardens. I don't even know if I'll ever get my inheritance,"
Ariel looked at her, she looked helpless. She looked into his eyes, "I have what you might want though,"
"What is it?" Ariel asked her.

She took her book in her hands, "I know you love flowers, and that is all I have," She opened her book and pulled out the dried water lily she had plucked last morning, "Would this suffice?" She looked at him and he looked back at her, "Would this help you win my freedom from my mother?" She dropped the water lily from her window, "I'm not winning your freedom from that woman..." Ariel's green eyes turned to the colour of molten golden, his body began glowing as the the water lily slowly turned to gold as it fell on his palms, "I'm freeing you myself," The entire mansion slowly began upturning itself, and the wood separated itself, the bricks segregated and opened themselves into a staircase, running down from Jevelene's window, and ending at Ariel's feet. Milo flew from his shoulder and sat on Jevelene's arm instead. 

He brought his hand forward for her and smiled, "Come, Jevelene,"
She stepped on the staircase and looked down at him, "...Who are you? And how did you..."

"Everything that doesn't have a pulse, a life, a spirit, I can mould it however I wish, turn it to gold, or leave it in ashes, just at a finger's whim...I am a demigod," He smiled as his eyes turned back green, his body stopped glowing and he was just...himself again. Plain old Ariel. 

-To be continued

Ariel
Dear Ms Lady Demigod