Another OUAT one-shot. Rumbelle, if you squint.
Disclaimer: I own nothing associated with Once Upon A Time.
We went down to the shore at night.
She has always wanted to see the ocean.
Her father is king to a forested nation, tucked into the farthest corner of the land ages away from open water. When she was little she would run to the tallest reaches of the tallest tower in the castle and peer out with bright blue eyes at the expanse of green. It never ended, an ocean all its own with its swaying trees and evergreen leaves. She imagined the sea to be wilder than this, windblown and magical.
If she squinted just so and tilted her head to the left, she fancied she could glimpse a bit of blue at the edge of the horizon and taste a faint tang of salt on the air.
Then of course she grew up, the only body of water she ever saw circulating around the fountain in the courtyard's garden. Occasionally she would steal away to the pond just beyond her father's sight and dip a toe in it, imagining the calm surface to be flecked with seashells and polished stones.
Then his voice speaks, lilt and wit, and she finds herself sitting where before she had been standing. Her skirts pooled around her on the marble, an ancient book in her hands from the library she had been dusting.
"What on this godforsaken earth are you reading, dearie?"
She tilts the tome to him, its parchment pages yellowed but for the block of blue she places a hand over. A beautiful illustration, with rolling waves and proud white sails that brave the open sea.
"A book about the ocean. It's a far better sight than the sliver of water beyond our kingdom."
He looks down, his mouth curling into a smirk and lips ready to pour words of ridicule and blame at her for wasting time reading when she has a job to do. Something stops him though, the catch in her voice puzzling him.
"You lived a rather secluded life in your castle," he observes, and surprises himself when the sentence comes out free of mockery.
She glances up at him, smiling wistfully. "I dreamed of traveling around the world, seeing all its wonders with my own eyes. My father never accepted that fate for a princess."
He finds himself staring mutely at her, vaguely registering that her eyes are the same shade as the ocean shallows on a summer day. He shakes himself slightly. She has only been here a few months and already he finds her tolerable.
He manages to make his tone a bit stiffer, more commanding and less friendly when he next speaks to her. "Perhaps you will see it one day, dearie. But for now, I believe the other half of those old books are in terrible need of cleaning."
She nods and closes the book, recognizing the dual order and dismissal. Tucking the tome back into its niche on the shelf, she gathers her rag and duster. Setting off, heels clicking lightly, she resumes her work, thoughts of shores and shells and gleaming baubles dancing in the air around her.
She finds the book on her bed in the dungeon that night, pages open to the blue waves that seem to glisten in the moonlight.
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