Disclaimer: I do not own any familiar aspect of Disney nor its characters. I am doing this for my own and others' pleasure.
I wake up.
My nose and throat burns, my cheek against the sand. Cool waves ripple over my calves as I lay on my stomach, tangled up in something unfamiliar.
I cough. Where am I? I wonder, and panic as I realize I hadn't a clue.
At first, words were a mystery to me, and my thoughts were like a newborn baby's. Luckily, words slowly returned like the tide, though to my relief they stayed. I carefully sit up. An enormous white, thin thing is wrapped around me as if I had randomly twirled within it, a dark brown cord lying in a heap in my lap. I arrange the thing around me more tightly, taking surprising comfort in the feeling of it against my bare skin. Seeing as it kept falling down or getting loose, I use the cord and wrapped it around me as well.
The water kept kissing and licking at my feet, which I stare at in wonder. They are large and pale, with little stubby fingers at the end. I wiggled them, a childlike delight rising through me. I reach over to touch them feeling a strange, burning pain in my legs. It went away as I leaned back again.
I have a curious fascination with these appendages, these legs, smooth and white and unfamiliar. It's like a new toy I've never seen before, except they were attached to me in a way I found curious. I was about to inspect and explore some more of this newness when I heard a rough, loud sound to my side. Alarmed, I tried to stand.
I collapse to the ground, my feet unused to taking my weight. I'm not sure how to balance, either. It's like something is dragging me down, and it is strange and new to me. Something gray, white, and shaggy bursts from around the corner and headed towards me, kicking up sand and making those strange noises. Frightened, though I am sure I've seen it before, I struggle back onto my feet, slipping down to the ground again with each attempt. Finally, I awkwardly drag myself to behind a rock. The creature bounds up to me, opens its mouth, and a very wet tongue brushes my cheek.
My fear falls away and I giggle as I find this adorable creature is no threat. Its long fur covers its eyes, slipping on either side of a large black nose. Its tongue lolled out, and there is this huffing as it panted. Apparently delighted, it let out another one of its loud noise and licks me again, placing its weight on my thighs.
"Max!" a voice calls. "Max, come back here you – oh!"
I look up, my fear returning though it is rather difficult with a very friendly, very furry creature licking my face.
It is a dark, handsome face that peers down at me, the hands that belong to it dragging the creature back. I stare, pressing against the rock. It is so familiar, yet I couldn't grasp it.
"Sorry," the tall creature says. "Max here is a goof, but he won't hurt you – his bark is worse than his bite."
It smiles at me, and I feel a heat rush up to my face. It looks like me, with legs and everything! It reaches down with one hand as if to touch me, and I flinch back.
"It's ok, I won't hurt you. How'd you get here, anyway?" it says, with its hand still out to me. I stare at it, confused. "Come on, it's alright."
As I listened to its warm voice, I couldn't remember who he was, and I could remember what he was and what to do. The fuzziness is so frustrating. I place my hand in his, and couldn't help but notice its strength and warmth. It is also then that I realize how cold my skin is compared to his.
He studies me with deep blue eyes, and I feel the same heat rushing back to my face. "You look familiar," he says, with a bit of hope.
"Have we met?"
As I try to figure out how to talk and move my mouth, I nod swiftly. I could tell, he is so familiar, I am so sure we've met.
"What's your name?" he asks.
I open my mouth, then close it as a look of confusion passes over my face. "Uhngi…" I clear my throat automatically and repeat, "I … I don't…"
"You don't know? You have amnesia?" he says, concern as well as disappointment falling over his face.
I stare blankly at him. "Am…ame-wha?"
"You can't remember anything?" he pressed. "Where you are from? Were you shipwrecked? Why are you wearing a sail?"
"Uh…" By the look on his face, I feel sad and nervous that something was wrong with me. I hang my head. "No," I say quietly.
He studies me again and offers his arm. "Gee, you must have really been through something. Come, I'll take you to my home. Carlotta and Grimsby will be able to help you." As I hesitate once more, he smiles, showing his dimples. "Don't worry. We won't hurt you."
"Oh, you poor dear," Carlotta, a plump woman with a kind face fusses over me. "Shipwrecked and amnesia at your age! And a couple of days after the ship Eric was on sank too..."
"Eric?" I repeat, looking at her in slight confusion. She sighs in exasperation. "The boy hasn't even told you his name yet? No manners at this age, none at all!"
"Eric," I say again. I like it.
"You're both lucky to be alive. Honestly, there should hardly be any more shipwrecks nowadays anyway! I swear, people are overestimating today's boats..."
She leads me over to what she calls a "tub" filled with these round things called bubbles and - water!
I dip my hand into it right away, though I pull back in exclamation when I find it is mighty hot.
"Well, we certainly have a crisis," Carlotta says as she helps me out of the sail and into the water. I am already captivated by the floating bubbles, scooping them into my hands and blowing them into the air before popping them. "Don't even remember your name. I doubt Grimsby will let you stay here, child, you'll have to head over to the foster care."
I look over towards her. "Foster care?"
"Where kids that need a family go, hun." There is a sympathetic sadness wreathed about her face.
The more I try to remember my family, the more I come up blank and disappointed.
"Don't worry, dear," Carlotta says warmly. "You'll be fine there. Perhaps your family has survived and will turn up. Now, let's see, you have such beautiful red hair... I've never seen such a bright color. Oh, there is a piece chopped off on this side..."
As I finish the bath and is dried off and supplied with the names of different things around the room and what they do, Carlotta fishes out what she calls a "dress." First, with a "comb", she parts my hair differently, on the left side so that I have floppy bangs that I like. I enjoy talking with her, and am not too keen on heading over to this "orphanage".
Lunch is another place I had many questions of. A bit of an ordeal, as I used a supposed "fork" to rake through my hair due to another returned memory only to receive odd looks. Eric and a thin, tall man I sort of recognize are there are well. Eric is more amused than the stern Grimsby by my flood of questions.
After the meal, I not-so-officially went on an expedition to discover all the names and purposes of the items all over the "house". Eric had offered to show me everything, thought I am pretty sure he had a different definition of "everything" as I dragged him up and down the stairs, through the rooms and pointing at several different objects.
"What's this?"
"What's this?"
I've got to know! My curiosity surges through me in a flurry of questions as I jump from thing to thing and ask about the different sounds.
"What's this? What's this?"
I suddenly feel a want, a desire. Not only couldn't I get enough answers and new things to gaze at, but I wanted to hold these things, to keep them, to take them away and -
I stop abruptly.
"Hey, what's wrong?" I turn to see Eric's concerned eyes, and look away. I shake my head and shrug. That flash of odd... emotion? is new and strange and unfamiliar, as nearly everything is. I feel more lost, and afraid that I wouldn't be able to learn everything people like Eric grew up with. The things I did know, that I remember just faintly, are all about the sea.
When I told Eric about it, his smile had widened as he said, "I love the sea. I suppose it won't be only you learning new things before school."
School - another different topic. A place where minors learn new things five days a week. When I thought of week, I was thrown into another bout of deep thinking, from which I was snapped out of by Eric snapping his fingers in front of my face.
"Come on," Eric says, and I return to the present. "Grimsby had an idea of how to remember your name."
He leads me to a wooden rectangle that looks an awful lot like the table ("What's this?"
"It's a desk. I do my homework and stuff here."
"Homework?"
"Yeah, work you do at home from school.")
He gives me a ("What's this?" "Um, a pen. You write by making markings like this,") pen, which I turn over in my hands until Eric pried it from my fingers and placed it against a white rectangle ("What's this?" "Paper. You write on it.").
"Grimsby had the idea if you try writing your name, since I'm pretty sure you've written it down a lot up until now, you'll be able to remember it more quickly. It's like taking notes, something about muscle to mind memory thing," Eric says to me, helping me form a proper grip on the pen, which comes easier to me than I had suspected. "Go on."
I feel slightly nervous. What if I did it wrong? What if it didn't work. I give him another unsure look, to which he nodded encouragingly.
It was only after lots of random scribbling and a few guesses form Eric to jog my memory (Rachel? Mildred? Really?) that I received another memory. Well, more of a brief, sketchy thought, but I was holding something different than a pen. Something glowing. I had turned my head around as if I couldn't believe I was about to do it, and wrote - what? Before it could slip through my grasp, I clutched the pen and closed my eyes, letting my hand guide itself across the paper, scrawling something I've forgotten.
"It worked!" I cry joyously, gazing down at the sloppy yet readable signature in front of me.
Eric looks over my shoulder at it. "Ariel?"
Hearing it fills me with joy, some piece clicking back into place, and I know at once that's it. I nod furiously, grinning at Eric.
"Ok, Ariel," he says, smiling at me. "That's kinda pretty."
The heat rushes back to my face (which I learned was a blush).
Then I notice a rectangle, thick object at the edge of the desk, of which I picked up and held it up towards Eric.
"What's this?"
A/N: The next chapter will definitely pick up, especially because the other Disney characters come in! By the way, the title of this chapter was inspired by the song "What's this?" from Nightmare Before Christmas. Heh, I guess I'll make all the chapter titles related to a Disney song. Anyway, stay tuned!