Queen Athena

**Queen Athena** is Ariel's canon mother, originally introduced in Disney's The Little Mermaid 3.
This page covers the same character, but reimagined.

The design was an attempt to justify the varying colours Triton's daughters have in their appearance. Since Triton was shown to have red hair in the animated series (though was given brown hair in the threequel), the original's red hair was considered the biggest abnormality.

Artwork was first uploaded at Deviantart on May 6, 2015.

## Original Queen Athena

*To read about the original Queen Athena and recognize the differences mentioned below, click here.*

## Redesigned Queen Athena

Athena first met her husband when they were teenagers. She came from different waters and didn't think the crown he wore was anything but a hair accessory, thus boldly approached the prince with her curiosity for his magic trident. The young Triton was charmed by her and oddly fine with letting her hold it all the time. His blind trust in an outsider made his parents uneasy, though they eventually accepted Athena as his friend.

While she could be very nosy, Triton found it cute and kept meeting up with her. Her love for music became apparent and after hearing her sing for the first time, he knew he wanted to marry her.

Athena was a different type of mermaid and easily able to give birth to Triton's many daughters in a small amount of time, while normal mermaids reproduce at the same speed and succession as humans. She came from a large family herself and was the youngest of 20 siblings.

Like the original character, Athena was killed by humans, but purposely so. Because of this, king Triton grew to dislike them and wanted none of his people or children to ever approach the surface. Music was not banned by him, though, *because* it was his wife's hobby.

Athena's death occurred after she saved a drunken sailor from drowning and returned him to his boat, where his colleagues grabbed hold of the mythical sight and started flinging her around. The men were extremely intoxicated and couldn't be reasoned with.

Because Athena kept trying to escape the abuse and denied their touch, they became angry and started using their daggers on her. The men then doubted themselves on what it was they just killed, as it hit them that mermaids aren't supposed to exist and no sea animal looks like a human. When they convinced themselves the fish tail was just the beer's illusion and they murdered a shipwrecked woman, they tied heavy weight around her waste and pushed her back into the sea as to absolve them of their crime.

Triton appeared in time to see the body of his wife sink from under the shadow that was the boat. He chose to pursue her to check on her well-being, allowing for the perpetrators to escape unpunished.

## Personality

Athena was easily entertained, which made her easily liked. She had never spoken a bad word about anyone and often debated her husband on the strife they had with the octopids. She wished for the two groups to come together.

She liked song and dance, and her husband made sure there was a show for her to watch or perform in at least once a month. Even after her death, this tradition was upheld with their daughters; explaining Triton's anger whenever Ariel wouldn't show up to do her part.

Athena had a mesmerizing singing voice that would echo itself outside of the sea, and she told her children about the humans who'd show up to listen. While she never showed herself to her audience, she loved the attention and humans because of it.

When Ariel first heard this story, her fascination for them made its start.

## Appearance

Athena has long black hair, a golden tail with fins at the side, and two different eyes. She wears a green clam-shell bra with a pearl in the middle, pearl earrings, and a purple seashell necklace.