No Happy Endings

By: The Duchess of Arendelle

Ariel- Legs Are Required

Part One?

AN: Okay real quick, I'm thinking about continuing this in a Part Two, but the ending is ambiguous enough to stay an ending or pick up into another part. Read and tell me what you guys think. Part two or no?

The sea witch had tricked her. Three days after her transformation and she still couldn't find her prince. She desperately searched for him, how hard could it be to find a prince in a small kingdom? Very. When midnight stuck on the third day, she braced herself for her transformation back into a mermaid, only to find it didn't happen. Even more strange was the fact that her voice was still gone. What was Ursula up to?

She aimlessly wondered the streets of this strange land. Her stomach grumbled loudly again. She was starving. The first day she arrived, she had met a very nice fisherman. He'd found her wondering alone and confused on the beach and offered her a place to stay on his boat for the night. He told outrageous, funny, and exciting stories as they dined on roasted chicken (she had instantly recoiled at the sight of dead fish) and potatos. As she retired for the night and laid in the hammock below the deck of the ship she thought to herself, 'See father, humans are not as bad as you make them out to be.' If she would have known then what she knew now, she would have swam as fast as she could and engulfed her father in a warm hug, never to leave his safe embrace.

The man left the next day, leaving her on the docks and wishing her good luck. She waved excitedly at him, her way of saying goodbye since she couldn't speak. Before his departure, the man had given her a real dress to wear. It was a lovely pale blue that flowed all the way down to her newly acquired ankles, one of his late daughter's. The girl had been around Ariel's age and full of adventure and life. Always insisting on going on every fishing trip with her father. She had passed the previous year, scurvy had taken her life. The man, Jack, had told Ariel that his daughter had fought it till the end. But he knew, no sailorman- or woman, had ever beaten scurvy.

Jack was the first and last nice human she had encountered. She soon discovered that humans were selfish, greedy creatures. But, being the naïve sixteen year old that she was, she kept faith. Surely there was one human here that wasn't cruel. The day Jack had departed, Ariel found herself searching the kingdom for her prince. It was hard to ask people about the prince's whereabouts when she couldn't speak. The humans looked at her like she was crazy. They called her words she had never heard before. Mute. Cripple. Dumb. Stupid. They sneered at her and pushed her aside. That night was very different from the first. Nobody would provide a strange mute with free lodging. Ariel had to make her bedding for the night under the old docks.

The third day was much like the second. She searched for her prince. She was looked down on by the humans. The men leered at her distastefully. She was almost excited at the prospect of the clock striking 12. She had given up on finding her prince and she longed to be back with her father and sisters. She very much so missed Flounder and Sabastian too. Imagine her confusion and disappointment when the clock struck midnight and she was still a human, just wading in the ocean's water.

And now here she was, soaking wet and wondering the streets. A man silently watched her from the shadows and decided to finally approach.

"Hello love. The name's Nathan, and who might you be?" he asked charmingly. Nathan was a young man, around 25. He was tall with neatly kept blonde tresses that stopped at his shoulders. He was very well dressed and his gleaming white smiled suggested he was friendly. Ariel smiled back, relieved to finally meet a friendly face. Her brow furrowed as she gestured to her throat, indicating that she couldn't speak. His smile widened.

"You're a mute then?" he asked, stepping closer. Ariel nodded her head sadly. Nathan gently grabbed her hands and looked her in the eye.

"It's okay love. Hows about I get you a pen and paper and you can tell me about yourself over some dinner. How's that sound?" he asked. Ariel's stomach growled at that moment and she blushed and looked away. She looked back when she heard Nathan let out a hardy chuckle.

"I'll take that as a yes sweetheart." He said in his thick cockney accent, letting go of one of Ariel's hands and leading her to the nearest pub.

Nathan turned out to be a very generous and attentive man. He had let Ariel order anything she wanted off the menu, he even made some suggestions drink wise.

"Here, try this love. It goes great with that pork." He said, filling her glass to the top with wine. Ariel eagerly drank it. And the seven cups that followed. The redhead had noticed around the third cup, she began to feel slightly dizzy.

"That's normal." Nathan said, taking a sip from his own cup, eyes gleaming. After Ariel had finished her meal and she was immensely drunk, Nathan had offered to take her home. She groggily shook her head, trying to convey she had nowhere to go.

"You have no place to stay? No family?" he asked surprised. This was almost too easy. Ariel nodded and Nathan smirked.

"I know someplace you can stay." He said. "My carriage is just around her, I'll take you there."

The journey seemed to take hours and at some point Ariel had dozed off. She woke up when she felt the carriage rattle and come to a stop. She was still very, very drunk. She heard Nathan leave the carriage and begin speaking with someone.

"I got another one for you pop, and this one is perfect. She's beautiful, slender, clean, got long red hair, and get this." He paused and laughed like he couldn't believe his luck. "She's a mute with no family and no place to stay. Ain't nobody gonna be looking for her."

Ariel tried to fight her way through the haze of drunkenness to try and make sense of the situation. Where was she? Who was Nathan talking to? Who was he talking about? Her? She heard another laugh, this one deeper and wheezier than Nathan's.

"Good job boy. Take her back with the other girls, and hey, as a reward, you got first ride on her." A raspy voice responded, laughing.

"But pop, I think this one's a virgin. You know how much those go for." He responded, walking back towards the carriage.

"Someone's gotta brake her in. Go ahead, you earned it." The old raspy voice replied. Just then Ariel saw Nathan appear in front of her, smiling down not with the friendly smile he threw at her earlier, but with an evil smirk that promised pain and heartache.

"My pleasure pop."

AN: Don't forget to review or PM me your opinion!