Chapter Text
Cold shards tingled up her back when her head cracked against stone, and a wave of nausea threw Belle over onto her side, emptying her stomach of seawater. The burn of salt stung her eyes and nose as she coughed, sure she would never be able to breathe again. Something hot and sticky dripped down her neck in a steady flow, and the harsh coppery scent made her heave again. Through the roar of blood in her ears, she was conscious of gentle hands on her back, her neck, her knees, and she tried to open her eyes before the darkness pulled her under once more.
Under blackness so deep, it was only the most terrible of pain that brought her back to the surface. Her bones felt like they’d been turned to glass, and her eyes were wrenched open when her leg was shattered. She tried to scream, but she couldn’t find the air for it, and cold, biting hands held her arms down when she felt another shrieking pain as her other leg was taken, too-as if an ogre had wrapped its fist about her knee and squeezed until it was dust.
The passage of time between those moments her blurry vision yielded anything was slight, but Belle could hear voices, muffled as though behind drums, soft and deep and raspy voices that rose and fell all around her. The closest one was sweet, though, and when her bruised eyes rolled open, a dark figure was above her upside down. She could feel someone stroking her hair, but even such a gentle touch hurt.
Another shadow passed before her, then, and she felt fingers at her jaw, prying her mouth open before something hot was pulled up through her throat, and an overwhelming pressure crushed her chest. Then, Belle felt nothing at all.
For all the violence of the storm that had swallowed her and the ship’s crew whole, when Belle began to wake, it was a gentle sensation of becoming aware. She was too cold to feel anything, save for the bone dryness of her throat and the dull, throbbing ache at the base of her skull. Each breath hurt her ribs, which felt battered beneath the rise and fall of her chest, and her eyes stung as if she’d slept with sand in them. By her ear, she heard a splash of water, and she was able to turn her head and open her eyes.
Near darkness shadowed what appeared to be a large cavern, but there was a pool of crystal water that stretched out before her from the bank she laid upon, wet and shivering. Blinking hard against the pain behind her eyes, Belle let her vision adjust in the strange lighting, as the moonlight made the water glitter and spray shards of light along the cavernous walls. Beneath the surface, if she looked over the edge, she could see that the pool was lit by more than just moonlight, and the lagoon water was rippling with colors of amethyst, aquamarine, and emerald. Staring for so long, Belle was lost to the beauty of it, so much so that it took another closer splash to draw her attention.
“Are you awake?”
Not able to turn her head up towards the voice, Belle waited until she heard the sloshing of water nearby before ghostly white hands came into view, gripping the ledge of the shelf of stone where she lay. A moment later, a girl pulled herself up, huffing quietly as she wriggled to sit up beside her. Belle stared, disturbed, for she knew the slight young thing that perched by her hip, the pearly pink hue to her fins, the near translucent gauzy chemise that kept the girl decent. Her slick blonde hair was taken back in a heavy braid, but strands escaped to hang about her thin face, making her big blue eyes even rounder as she leaned over Belle, dripping saltwater on her neck.
“You remember me,” the young mermaid gasped softly, her mouth lifting in a pretty smile of delight. “They all said you wouldn’t, but I knew you would.”
At Belle’s heavy silence, the girl hesitated, blinking long, pale lashes. “Are you in pain?”
Closing her eyes, Belle managed to tuck her head, nodding once. When she looked back up, the young girl had produced a burlap sack that was sopping wet, but the water was delightfully warm as it pooled on the cold stone, seeping beneath Belle’s skin. Glass bottles could be heard clinking in the bag until the mermaid produced one that was filled up to the cork stopper with a thick, dark green mixture. “I was told to give you this, that it would help you... mend.”
At her hesitation, Belle frowned, but before she could try to raise herself up, Seraphina uncorked the glass vial and leaned forward. Cupping the back of the brunette’s head, she put the bottle to her lips, and Belle was forced to swallow.
It mostly tasted of pungent plants, astringent alcohol, and something tartly sweet. Licorice, Belle thought, coughing as she choked it down and trying not to retch all over the pretty creature helping her.
“Kyme makes medicines and potions. She has a whole collection of herbs that she’s able to keep dry here in the cove,” Seraphina chirped, stopping the bottle and putting it back in her rucksack. “I don’t have the patience for it, but Kyme has read every recipe and book of medicines that exists, or so they say. She was the wisest woman back where she came from.”
The medicine had wet Belle’s throat enough that she could cough up the words, “Where... is that... from?”
“Across the southern sea, from Agrabah,” Seraphina answered promptly, smiling wide like an excited child. “They wear hardly any clothes there, you know, all bright silks and jewels, and they speak more tongues than anywhere else in the world.”
Belle felt her lungs burn as her fit subsided, and she tried to breathe slow and deep, letting the mermaid chatter happily at her side while she waited for the pain to recede. And, slowly, it did. Blinking up at the pretty patterns of light reflected off the pool and onto the cavern walls, memory began to build itself around the cold and the numb that encased her, and as the pain diminished, her clarity of thought returned.
“There was a ship,” she whispered, turning her face up to Seraphina’s. The girl leaned down, her brow furrowing gently as she listened. “I was aboard a ship...and I jumped-”
“Yes,” Seraphina’s eyes dropped to her lap, and her thin white fingers played delicately over the pearly pink flush of her scales. “Yes, there was a ship. It’s at the bottom now-” Her eyes lit like the blue of a flame and she smiled. “I could show you. Would you like to see?”
“It sank?” Belle whispered, realizing she should have expected it and surprised how alarmed she was at being alive when she should have felt thankful, grateful. But she had not been alone on the ship, and as she gazed across the pool of water around the rest of the cavern, she knew she would be the only survivor she’d find.
Seraphina must have seen the confusion and questions in her eyes, and a shadow crossed her face. “I only saw you, beneath the wreckage. I knew you were no pirate,” she added quietly, biting her lip in a similar habit that Belle herself had. “I couldn’t just leave you.”
“And you saved my life,” Belle murmured quietly, a smile she did not feel lifting her cheeks just enough to show her good thanks to the young creature.
Seraphina’s eyes did widen then, round like tea saucers. The gentle dip of her throat lifted as she swallowed, and she licked her lips quickly. “N-No.”
Frowning, Belle wrinkled her brow.
“You were all blue,” Seraphina breathed, unblinking. Belle only then realized the poor girl was holding her hand, but she couldn’t feel it through the numb and the cold. By the looks of the whites of her knuckles, she was squeezing her hand for all she was worth, too. “You were blue, and I couldn’t...I didn’t know how...”
“Am I dead?” Belle whispered, raw panic clawing in her breast too fervently to even think about a heartbeat.
“No!” Seraphina let out a high yelp, her eyes widening even more if possible. “No, we sa-wait, don’t get up!”
But Belle had already rolled herself up onto her elbows, and took in the account of herself with a sinking dread. In place of her body, there, below the creamy whiteness of her hips and belly, tapered off a tail of shimmering pale gold scales that lay like a disposed ribbon against the dark, wet cavern floor. Staring in horror, Belle tried to reach forward towards the thing where her legs should have been and almost fell back, giving herself a hard knock, had Seraphina not caught her in time. “Don’t, you’ll hurt yourself,” the girl begged, but Belle was beyond reason, shoving herself back with the heels of her hands to sit up straight.
The scales themselves were small things, flinty and surprisingly hard like rock. Shivers began to grip her soon until her teeth were chattering and her hands were shaking, but she ignored the pleas of the mermaid-the other mermaid.
Oh gods.
Her hand flew to her mouth, and she felt her eyes sting so badly a sharp pain twitched between her eyes, behind her nose. “What’s happened to me-” Belle whimpered into her palm, her other hand coming to rest against her forehead.
“Don’t cry, it’ll only make it worse,” Seraphina whimpered, sounding just as upset as Belle was. Sense of thought and reason flew, and Belle wanted nothing more but to get up and run. Realizing she couldn’t sent her into a blind torrent of anxiety that had her gasping for air and trying her best to rein in tears she had not shed so ardently since she was a girl on her father’s knee.
Out of everything that had been done, Belle had ground her heels into the fact that she could decide her own fate. She made the deal with Rumpelstiltskin, she secured her people’s safety, she chose to take the chance to love a beast, and she walked away from him rather than stay and deface her pride. She had taken care of herself for these past weeks, and she had been the one to help and better those she’d met. Belle had tasted her freedom, she’d worked it and shaped it like a new leather book bag until it carried her with purpose, but to have lost that was to see all her newfound courage disappear.
It was long, severe moments of suffocating silence before Belle could control her sobs, her hand smothering her mouth and nose to quiet her noises as she stared, stared, stared at where her legs and feet should have been. Soon, her sobs quelled into tremulous sniffling, and her muscles cried as she leaned back against the rock wall, watching as she shifted how her tail and fins moved as dead weight.
“You did this to me?” Belle asked in a hollow voice, not recognizing the sound to be her own. She looked up at the younger mermaid, who watched her with fear and trepidation. After a moment, the girl shook her head, and Belle swallowed thickly, nodding. She didn’t think little Seraphina could have been the one; Belle knew the look of those who had magic (for it could only be magic). It was a powerful weight that carried them, like an invisible armor that gave them a confidence to be unfeeling above the rest.
The next question stilled on the tip of her tongue. If Seraphina knew the one who’d done this to her, perhaps they could go and beg the witch or wizard to change her back. For one moment of deep set fear that nearly stopped her heart, Belle thought of calling for Rumpelstiltskin.
She could.
He would change her back, he would. She knew it, and she knew he would relish in exacting another price from her for it, to see her squirm, so weak and having gotten herself into such a mess. Belle swallowed thickly, frowning at her own thoughts. He would change her back though. Even if it toppled her pride, what little she had left, he would help her. No matter what he said, she knew he loved her. He detested his own form so very much, she didn’t think he would let her suffer in such a similar state, too, especially when it was against her will.
But would he even answer her call of his name?
The ache in her head swelled to a throb, and Belle put her hand to her forehead, grimacing. “I’m going to be sick.”
“Come into the water,” Seraphina said, her voice softened to almost a whisper. When Belle let her hand drop, the girl’s eyes fell to the rocky shelf she sat on. Her voice was small when she said softly, “It helps.”
The idea felt traitorous, as if indulging the very crime that had been committed against her, but her muscles were so incredibly sore, bone deep, and her head felt like a cracked egg that was about to leak. Shifting, Belle maneuvered herself to the edge as much as she could, frowning at her own tail, which she had to drag.
Seraphina reached over, and Belle froze when she touched her tail fins. Against the dark rock, they looked like wet, wrinkled translucent fabric, but it startled her to feel someone touch them. It was... it was a delicate sensation, like a chaste kiss to the back of the neck, or someone stroking the flesh between her thumb and forefinger. It was odd, perplexing, but pleasurable in a way. Seraphina moved and let Belle’s fins fall gently into the pool.
Coming unwrinkled, her fins shone faintly in the water, and Belle saw them under the light of the moon. From the base of her tail to the tip of her fin, it was almost as long as her arm, and soft gold webbing caught the light, flowing like a banner beneath the surface. Wrinkling her brow, Belle wondered how she was supposed to... use them.
“It’s alright,” Seraphina whispered, and Belle looked up to find the girl watching her fondly, a small smile playing on her lips but still wary, waiting for Belle to cry again. Sitting so close, again, Belle could see the mermaid’s own visage. She was indeed little, even her own tail was shorter than Belle’s but vastly different. Her scales were so thin they almost blended together, a gentle pink that was almost white, and frilly fins edged her hips down the length of her tail like ruffles, and where Belle’s fin was wide and flowing, Seraphina’s was thinner, like a ribbon trailing in the water beside her own.
“What is?” Belle asked, her voice a whisper in the cavern.
“To like it.”
“It... it feels nice. The water,” Belle said, taking a moment to enjoy the pretty way her scales-gods, her scales-glowed underneath the soft reflecting light. Now that she could see them, she was surprised by how extremely delicate they looked. The palest of golds that disappeared beneath her belly to the fleshy softness of her skin. Her fingers tapped along her hips where the scales softened, feeling like she was looking at herself from outside her own body.
“Can you move it yet?”
Belle tilted her head in thought, looking down at her otherwise limp fins in the water. She couldn’t move it, but her tail... if she concentrated, she found she could. Slowly at first, she tried out those new muscles, wonderstruck. The movement stemmed from where her knees once had been, and though the actions tired her quickly and seemed altogether clumsy, Seraphina clapped her hands in delight. “You’re so strong,” the girl wondered, looking at her with wide blue eyes. “I could hardly move my first time out of water."
“Really?”
“It’s different... being up here,” the girl said, wrinkling her nose. “Scents and tastes... everything is different. It’s not right.”
Belle remained quiet, looking down at the water. It did feel nice to have her fin in the pool. Perhaps... a little more would feel good, too.
“Will you help me?” Belle asked, hating how her voice broke.
Seraphina nodded, grappling for anything Belle offered her, and she held out her hands. Taking them, Belle scooted to the very edge and allowed gravity to do the rest, tipping over before falling into the pool.
It was indescribable, a rebirth. The water slid over her skin, up the back of her neck, through her hair, in her eyes and mouth and nose, and Belle felt whole. Sinking beneath the surface, nature and instinct worked together and she felt the thrumming of the gills behind her ears tickling her. It was only a moment or two before she came to sit on the bed of the cavern pool, but she could have stayed suspended by water and salt for her whole life.
It was then, when she came to sit abruptly against the rock, that she realized the ache of her head, the numbness of her limbs, the dull pain slowly began to fade. She was no longer cold-no, she hardly felt any discomfort-and for the briefest of moments, Belle forgot her pain. There was only the water washing over her. Opening her eyes, she winced at her rather murky surroundings until her eyes began to adjust.
At the bottom of the pool, there was a flourishing collection of plant life in an array of colors Belle had never seen. Purples, blues, and greens, and the flowers seemed to glow beneath the light of the moon, swaying with the gentle currents and reaching out with their tentacle fingers. Their touch was slightly stinging against her tail, but it was so pleasant that for a moment, Belle was compelled to reach out with her fingers and touch them.
Before she could touch one of small, dark blue bulbs with the filmy light blue petals, two white hands took her own, and she looked up to see Seraphina floating just above her, smiling. Her blonde hair was lifted and nearly white against the light of the moon, making her look even paler, her eyes even bluer.
Taking her hands, Seraphina pulled her up and led her in an easy glide through the water.
Belle let herself be pulled, eyes wide as she felt the current embrace her. For one terrifying moment, she was frightened that she wouldn’t know how to adapt, but instinct took hold of those muscles and bones once more. With the current bending her body in a gentle undulation, Belle pushed and rolled with her tail.
Seraphina nodded in answer. Where she’d seemed so limp and small and weak above the surface, she was brilliant and beautiful beneath, shining as she led Belle backwards. As they came to the edge of the mouth of the cavern, Seraphina let go of her hands and turned, swimming out into the dark waters of the ocean.
Belle floated gently to a stop, staring out at the rising darkness of the deep. Moonlight cut through in glassy shards, illuminating Seraphina’s pretty pink tail, but soon she was just a blur against the waves, and Belle was alone at the mouth of the cavern, looking out into the darkness.
Considering her past, the darkness of war and monsters, she had never been given the unknown before. There had never been a time she’d been offered discovery, exploration, adventure, and now it was at the tips of her fingers, if only she could be brave enough to reach out and touch it. It was unsafe and dangerous, but looking out into that murky darkness, Belle could only hear the voices of her past, those who had discouraged and berated her before she’d even been given a chance.
“You foolish, gullible girl!”
Blinking in the inky black water, Belle tilted her chin down and narrowed her eyes in realization that there was no voice there, then, to judge her. Trilling her gills in what would have been the deepest of breaths, she let go of the rock and, reaching out, touched the abyss for her own.