Pocahontas gaped at the eerie blue swirls of souls gliding past the low hull of the raft. Each had a face, a distinct face, which came into sharp focus against the masses and quickly dissolved back into the slew of the formerly living. None of them had any outstanding characteristic in particular; the souls were unique, but they were not by any means special.
Pocahontas glanced at her own wispy hands. She felt that if she dared approach the river, she would be instantly absorbed. She was not any different than any of the souls in the river. There was no reason the stream should treat her royally. She was the protagonist of her life and her life alone; to all others, she was merely a passerby.
The looming blue cliffs brought her eyes from the swirl of souls upwards along the imposing walls of rock running along either bank of the river. The peculiar glow of the souls lit the walls from underneath, casting heaven-bound shadows off of everything it hit. The spiny protrusions that frequently craned out from the sides curved from the top back downwards and seemed to point their menacing heads straight at Pocahontas.
"Watch your head here," the skeleton man said all of a sudden. "Cerberus can be a tad… unruly."
Cerberus? What was that supposed to-
A large drop of something viscous plopped into the river behind Pocahontas. She turned around. To her horror, there was a dog – a massive dog the size of a mountain, black as the darkest coal, with three enormous snarling heads all hovering over the little floating ferry.
Pocahontas was frozen in place. Each of six red eyes took turns staring her down, passing over her in every possible angle of examination. One head leaned in uncomfortably close and took a powerful sniff, analyzed the odor, and released its rancid breath.
Just as Pocahontas and the ferryman floated out of dog's territory, the world still spinning from the shock of seeing such a beast, a cavernous glowing castle came into view. It was no traditional castle – the rock streamed up from the river and mushroomed into a falling mass, forming a skull-like structure larger than anything Pocahontas could have imagined in life. The two entrances of the castle were shaped and positioned as eye sockets in the skull, shining from inside as if there were a soul trapped within, mistakenly placed and dying to set things straight.
The ferry came to a stop. "We're here," the skeleton man said. He motioned for Pocahontas to get off the boat and step on the graveled bank, and she did. The skeleton man nodded slightly. "You know what? I like you, kid."
Pocahontas cocked her head. "Why is that? I haven't said anything."
His face dropped. "Exactly. Everybody either whines about death or brags about how accepting they are of it. You handle it with just the right amount of awe."
"Thank you." There really wasn't another way to respond to something like that.
The skeleton man stuck his pole in the bank of the river. "Hades's minions, Pain and Panic, should be here to pick you up any moment now. If they asked how you got here, say that Charon dropped you off." With that he pushed off, and Pocahontas was left alone in the Underworld.
• • •
Eilonwy was relieved the moment she spotted a large hole in the top corner of the cell; she knew her bauble would find her sooner or later, and she'd be able to get back home.
The woman chained on the adjacent wall tried saying something to her a few times, but unfortunately she spoke some language Eilonwy couldn't understand. The woman didn't seem to understand English, either, as she looked confused whenever Eilonwy tried to reply.
Perhaps she'd be able to talk once her bauble came. It had a knack for clearing things up; surely it would do a fine job translating for her.
• • •
Two short, colorful, devilish creatures came barreling down a set of stairs for Pocahontas. One was skinnier and teal, the other rotund and mauve. They were running so fast that the fatter one stumbled over the blue one and ended up faceplanting on the gravel in front of Pocahontas.
"Are you Pain and Panic?" Pocahontas asked. They were strange names, but maybe in this strange place they were common.
"Yup," answered the fat one.
"Yup?" The skinny one faced his companion. "Really, Pain? 'Yup?' We're supposed to be intimidating!"
Pain's cold, scaly hand grabbed Pocahontas's wrist so suddenly that she yelped. "Oh, right. Like this?" The imp started gaining mass, growing until he was a good two feet taller than Pocahontas, muscular and more human in shape. His spiny reptilian grip became the vice-like grasp of a burly man.
"Perfect," said Panic, who in that time had undergone the same transformation. "Now we just bring her up to see the big man himself."
Pocahontas knew that to mean Panic's and Pain's master, Hades.
• • •
Mother Gothel had practically locked herself in her cabin after Shan Yu had started hurling chunks over the side of the ship. The poor son of a bitch had never sailed before; he had said that Mongolia, his homeland, was nowhere near the sea. He had never had any desire to sail a ship.
It was absolutely appalling to see what shit that brute ate a second time, and besides, Dr. Facilier was an arrogant bitch. Mother Gothel hated bitchy people. More than once she had refrained from slapping the knowing grin right off his goddamn face just because they were working together towards a common goal. But God, she really wanted to.
If all went well, they should arrive in Africa by dusk. Gothel prayed for it; she didn't want to have to idly while away her time in a cabin on this god forsaken boat. If she was going to do nothing, she at least wanted the pleasure of publicizing it.
• • •
It was not long after Pain and Panic had escorted Pocahontas to their master's lair that she gasped at the cloud of black smoke that swirled out of the ether, falling down and fuming up to give live to the most hideous thing she had ever seen. It had skin grey like ash, round shoulders and thick arms that ended in spindly fingers. Its jet-black robe fell to the ground and dissolved into the same cloud of smoke that had birthed it. Its face was elongated, stretching from its rounded bottom to its brilliant flaming top. It was literally flaming – it was a spectacular fire top for so ashen a fellow, dancing atop that creature's head. Oddly, Pocahontas felt no warmth from the flame; there was only its menacing blue light, an intense amplification of the eerie blue glow that pervaded the place.
"Hi! Name's Hades, Lord of the Dead. How are you doing?" Hades – Pain and Panic's master – held out his bony hand for handshake.
Pocahontas did nothing. She felt for some reason that the best post-mortem course of action was inaction; Charon had tipped her off, so it must have been important.
Hades's pointed smile dropped. "Not a talker, eh? That's fine, that's fine. What's your name, babe?"
"Pocahontas," barely managed to slip out of her mouth.
"Pocahontas! God, that's unruly. Can I call you Poca?" Hades gestured wildly.
"Or you could call her Hontas," Pain interrupted.
Hades frowned again. "Shut up, Pain."
"Yeah Pain," Panic said. "Shut up."
Hades dragged his hand down his face and turned to Pocahontas. "You see what I have to deal with? I don't get paid enough for this!"
"But boss," Panic said. "You don't get paid for this at all."
Hades's flame engorged and turned orange when he suddenly jumped at Panic and slapped him across the face. Panic morphed back into his impish self and went skittering across the room.
Hades waved at Pain. "Just put her with the others. Get some girl to say the introductory shit to her. I have better things to do."
• • •
"My bauble!" the blonde girl yelled when some glowing orb floated into the cell and scared the shit out of Meg. "My bauble! Oh joy! Now I can finally leave this dreaded place."
"What the fu-" Meg almost expressed her confusion when something profound occurred to her. "Did you just speak Greek?"
The ditsy little blonde turned to Meg airily. "Why, of course not! I don't even know how to speak Greek."
"Don't fuck with me, girl. You're speaking Greek right now!"
"Oh, that!" she giggled senselessly. "That must be my bauble doing its thing. I never really knew it could do that, but it's not all that strange if you think about it."
"Mm-hmm. Not strange at all." Meg stared at the brilliant golden light for a while. Too long of a while, really – the kid got uncomfortable at the awkward silence now that they could talk to one another.
"So," the blonde began anew. "What's your name?"
"What's yours?"
"I'm Princess Eilonwy."
Meg rolled her eyes. "Princess. Of course. I should have guessed." Then, after actually processing what she had heard, "Wait a minute. How come you're not in the Tournament bracket if you're a princess?"
Eilonwy was confused. "What Tournament?"
"What do you mean, 'what Tournament?'" Surely they had all been told where they were being kept captive? "The Princess Tournament!"
"I'm afraid that doesn't really mean much to me. And you still haven't told me your name."
Meg sighed. This was getting really annoying really fast, but she kind of felt sorry for the thing's ignorance. "It looks like I've got a ton of shit to tell you, kid. You don't even know what- Zeus, where do I start!"
"You could start with your name." The girl said it sweetly, but it sounded subliminally sarcastic for some reason.
"Just call me Meg."
• • •
"Get in there!" Pain squealed as he shoved Pocahontas through some glowing blue barrier. The barrier was a transformative one, giving substance to Pocahontas's vaporous soul. It almost felt as if she were human again. But of course, there was a reason to this – the barrier would not allow Pocahontas's now human form to pass through the other way. It was another dungeon cell.
"Wait!" Pocahontas yelled at Pain. "I thought Hades wanted to see me for some reason!" She wouldn't accept that she escaped the torture of imprisonment in life just to face the same fate in death.
Pain ignored her and left, and Pocahontas was alone. Or so she thought.
"Hey!" some fragile female voice called from behind her. "Hey, you!"
Pocahontas turned to see a little girl's head awkwardly popping out from a large rock. She had short black hair and the palest skin Pocahontas had ever seen.
"My name is Snow White. What's yours?"
"Pocahontas," she said, approaching the girl cautiously.
"Wait!" Snow White commanded. "Let me get my head on straight!"
Pocahontas thought this such a strange request that it didn't occur to her to actually listen, and she accidentally caught the butt end of Snow's adjustment. When she said she was adjusting her head, she wasn't kidding – it was literally severed off, and she was plopping it back onto place on her neck.
Snow White sighed exasperatedly. "How come nobody waits? It's really a horrible sight, and I try to ease people into seeing it, but no! Everyone just has to keep walking!"
"I-I'm sorry, Snow White," Pocahontas stammered. "I didn't realize-"
"It's fine, Pocahontas," she said. "Nobody knows what to do on their first day. Trust me – I've been her for nearly a week. I've seen how people react to the Underworld most out of anybody in this cell. It kind of makes me the leader."
"The leader? Of who? And why is your head severed from your body?"
"Oh, Pocahontas, you know why! You saw it happen; I was beheaded, remember? Round 1, Match 1."
Oh God. Pocahontas remembered.
"Everyone in this cell is a victim of the Tournament. Everybody's form here is as it was when they died." Seeing Pocahontas's obvious panic at discovering the hole in her own torso, Snow waved her hand. "Come on, then. I'll have to introduce you to the other girls – they really are a lot of fun to talk to. And boy, do we have a lot to talk about."
***Author's Note***
So basically there are now three groups of girls instead of one: the original one in the main cell, Eilonwy and Meg in the second cell, and the dead in the Underworld cell (Elsa's by herself still). The dead people go through a filter that makes them have bodies like they were when they died – kind of like Everlost by Neal Shusterman, if you've ever read that. It's a kid's book, but it's one hell of a kid's book.
Sorry to not answer your question, Rainlily216, but I don't really know. I suppose Belle could try speaking English with Merida, but Merida has a thick accent that Belle might not be able to understand. Norwegian's a bit of a stretch – geographical proximity doesn't mean they understand each other. However, there might be other ways they find to talk… ;)
Also, thank you Guest for pointing out that mistake with Eilonwy. All I know about her comes from the Black Cauldron, and that movie didn't do a good job of telling me much of anything. I fixed it.
Anyways, thanks for reading and reviewing! Tell me what you think about the underworld (and about Eilonwy and Meg), and I'll see you again in two weeks.
P.S. Yay I'm on time!