V
"Washed up from a shipwreck … you poor thing …"
Ariel could hardly pay attention as Carlotta, the prince's kind-faced maid, set about dressing her for dinner. She was too mesmerised by the large bedroom she was in: the wooden furniture, the flat hard floor beneath her, the funny little objects that she didn't recognise from exploring shipwrecks.
It was odd to be stood firmly on the floor like this, not being able to go up and down. Looking out at the magnificent garden below, Ariel's first instinct would have been to go straight out of the window – but she knew that on land that wasn't such a good idea. Instead, she would have to go down the stairs and find a door.
"But what are the chances of you swimming to land in the same place the prince did?" said Carlotta. "You're both very lucky to be alive."
Ariel smiled at her, knowing very well by now that that was all she could do. It was so frustrating, not being able to tell the prince she'd met him before.
If only I'd let him see me before I swam away … but then, he might have seen what I am.
Ariel still wasn't sure if she wanted Eric to know what she was – or at least, what she used to be. But seeing the way he looked when he talked about the mystery girl, Ariel couldn't help but wonder if she'd have a chance with him if he didn't know.
Why did I have to sing to him? Now he's looking for a girl who can sing!
"There you go, honey," said Carlotta, stepping back to look at her. "Oh, you look pretty as a princess."
She took Ariel's hand. Ariel breathed in, and put one foot forward. Then the other. Careful to keep her balance, she steadily followed the maid to the mirror. Slowly but surely, she was getting the hang of this walking thing – although the heels didn't help.
"Now, don't you look lovely?"
Ariel was taken aback by her reflection. She was standing in a pale salmon pink dress. It seemed to bring out the redness of her now-dry hair, which was clipped back over the ears and allowed to flow down her back. Ariel couldn't help but smile. At last, she truly looked like a human.
"Are you happy? Yes? Good. Now, let's go downstairs. The prince will be waiting."
One foot after the other, Ariel followed her to the door. She felt so foolish to remember when she tried to walk before, and staggered headfirst into Eric.
A girl who can't walk or talk. He must think I'm such an idiot.
And yet, he was so kind. The patient way he spoke to her, the sweet way he smiled at her, the gentle way he held her … it could be Ariel's imagination, but maybe she did have a chance. After all, she had plenty of time, and surely Eric could only wait so long for a girl with her voice to show up.
VI
"A girl from a shipwreck? Eric, does this have anything to do with that dream of yours?"
"It's not a dream, Father, and no it doesn't. She was confused, she needed help."
Eric was dressing himself for dinner, his eye constantly wandering to the window, looking out to sea. His father, the king, was standing near the door. He was a handsome man, tall and very much like his son, but his greying hair was neater and not windswept from constantly going out to sea.
"So you give her your shirt and ask her to dinner?" he laughed, stepping forward. "Eric, the girl shows up wearing nothing and doesn't speak. That's not my idea of a princess."
"It's not like that, Father," said Eric patiently. "I'm waiting for the one who rescued me."
"Well, then you'll be waiting forever for a dream girl."
"She's not a dream girl. She saved my life," said Eric, pocketing his flute and looking in the mirror. His white shirt was open-collar underneath a black leather waistcoat.
Satisfied, Eric took one more look out of the window, and then crossed to the door and opened it. The king followed him out into the corridor.
"We don't even know who this mute girl is," he said as they walked.
"But we can find out, when she's had time to recover," said Eric, straightening his cuffs.
"And how do you plan on doing that? The girl can't say a word."
"I already know she's from another land, and she got caught up in a shipwreck."
The king looked curious at this.
"And what would she be doing here?"
"I don't know, Father."
"Well, she's your friend, son. And you seem to know plenty already."
"I made guesses and she nodded. I won't ask her any more about it until she's feeling better."
"She could be a princess," said the king in a low voice as they reached the stairs.
"So what if she is?" Eric retorted as they descended the steps.
"So her kingdom might reward us for helping her," said the king earnestly. "They might even want you to marry her."
"I told you, my heart already belongs to someone, Father. I want to marry for love."
"Oh, for goodness' sake, Eric. Be reasonable, young girls don't just swim around rescuing princes in the middle of the ocean."
"I'm telling you, Father, she was real. I'm going to find that girl, and marry her."
They reached the bottom of the stairs and made their way to the dining hall.
"And what if you don't find her? What then?"
Eric considered this for a moment. He supposed he would have to marry anyway.
"I'll have to marry … someone else."
"Someone who can't speak, by any chance?" said the king with a smile.
Eric stared forward. He took a while to respond.
"I barely know her," he said. They arrived in the dining hall, where the dinner table had two places set at the end. It was a magnificent room with a doorway at either end; an entire wall was made of windows overlooking the ocean. The girl wasn't there yet.
"That isn't an answer," said the king. "Just be careful, Eric. We all have to make tough decisions, but they always have a time limit and a price. Watch out for what you might be giving up."
"Come on, honey. Don't be shy." Carlotta's voice came from the doorway at the other end of the hall.
"I'll leave you to it." The king backed into the doorway. "Good luck, son," he said, closing the doors on his way out.
Eric didn't have time to think on what he said. He straightened up and turned around.
As he approached, the girl came into view and his face broke into a smile. Above the soft pink of her dress, her hair burned like the sunset on the ocean. Beneath her wide, ocean-blue eyes she wore the same bright smile as before. She was breath-taking.
"You … you look wonderful," he said, and she bowed her head in thanks.
Offering his arm, Eric led her to her seat. She walked very slowly and stiffly, but a lot better than she had on the beach. Once she was sat down, Eric walked around to his seat and saw that she was fidgeting a lot, looking closely at the chair beneath her.
"Uh … are you comfortable?" he asked. She nodded enthusiastically, and closely examined the cutlery on the table.
As Eric sat down, his flute dug into his leg. He shifted it in his pocket, and his hand lingered over it for a moment. He looked up at the girl, and was surprised to see her massaging her face with her dessert spoon.
Eric stared in confusion – was this what spoons were used for where she came from? The moment the girl saw him staring, she froze. Her eyes jumped between Eric and the spoon, her face turned red and she put it back on the table in embarrassment. He grinned.
"I've never seen them used like that before. Do your people do that where you're from?"
She smiled, then nodded slowly. Raising his eyebrows, Eric leaned forward in fascination.
"Sounds like an interesting place. Maybe I should sail there sometime."
She nodded and, copying him, leaned forward on her elbow with her head resting in her hand.
"This place is probably very strange to you, right? Maybe I could show you around tomorrow, give you a tour?"
The girl nodded eagerly, as though he had just offered her a pile of gold.
"Okay, let's do it," he said gladly. He sat back, completely forgetting about the flute in his pocket, and dinner was served. "I hope you like it. We're having fish."
VII
"Careful, dearie. For you, that's almost cannibalism."
Rumplestiltskin giggled down at the crystal ball on the table, tapping his fingertips together playfully. The look on their faces, the prince and the mermaid's – he had seen that look in others before.
The look of twoo love.
"Just keep going, dearie. Just a little bit further."
He waved his hand; Ariel, Eric and the dinner table disappeared from the crystal ball. Rumplestiltskin stood up and looked at the mirror in the corner, which was still covered up. How tempting it was to uncover it again, to thank the Queen for her idea.
"I have a deal to discuss. A certain … mermaid."
Rumple grinned as he crossed the room to his display. He approached the pedestal he had spent the most time looking at since the Queen's last visit. The pedestal displaying a small, chipped teacup.
His wide grin shrank into a small smile as he came closer. He extended a finger and slowly traced the rim of the cup, all the way around until his fingertip reached the gap.
A chipped cup. Let's just hope it's enough.
VIII
Emma.
As Mr Gold entered his shop, it was almost like seeing it all for the first time. All these objects, all this stuff he thought he had collected, all that time he had spent thinking they were just simple objects and antiques.
Emma.
The name was still echoing in his head. The name that gave him back his memories.
"Swan. Emma Swan."
And now he was finally able to be satisfied, to be smug that he had actually done it. After all this time, all his work, he had reached the land without magic.
Gold peered through the darkness at all the things that belonged to the victims of the curse. He walked past the puppets – the carpenter's parents – and stared at the unicorn mobile hanging over the left-hand counter. Emma's mobile.
Emma Swan.
But some of the things in Gold's shop did belong to him. Once he remembered this, his smirking expression flickered to a serious one, and he hurried through to his office in the back.
More objects that suddenly had so much meaning – but where was the one that meant the most of all? Trying to concentrate despite the echoes of the Saviour's name, Mr Gold wondered where he had seen it last. He had better not have thrown it away …
There it was, on the shelf. Mr Gold crossed the room and reached up, withdrawing a plain shawl from it. Bae's shawl. He held it close with relief.
I will find you, Bae. Thanks to Emma.
And there was something else that belonged to him, but where? Gold put the shawl down and scanned the room, searching his false memories. Suddenly remembering, he pointed his finger at a cabinet and headed towards it. Dropping his walking stick, he seized the door and pulled it open. He sighed with relief.
Inside the cabinet was a set of fine china, and among the plates and saucers he found it – a chipped teacup. He carefully picked it up and gripped it tight, staring so hard at it as if to make up for twenty-eight years of ignoring it. Picking his stick back up, he carried the chipped cup back through into the shop and placed it gently on the front counter. The echoes of Emma's name were beginning to fade and be replaced by another.
"Belle," he whimpered, his lip trembling. He screwed his eyes up, bowed his head over the cup, and sobbed.
As he snivelled and wept over the cup, a tear ran down his nose and dropped into it.
A tear …
Something dawned on Mr Gold's face as he saw it land in the cup, and he looked up. Drying his eyes, he looked around the shop.
Where is it?
Maybe it was somewhere in here – maybe it was carried here by the curse. Racking his brains, Gold couldn't remember ever seeing it here.
He began to search the shop, looking frantically through shelves and under counters, violently shifting and thrusting objects aside.
Oh, come on, let it be here somewhere …
He suddenly stopped when he found something – something he had seen many times before, but like everything else in this shop he had previously considered pointless.
Gold picked it up and stood up straight, leaning on his stick as he stared at it in his hand.
The silver flute.
He breathed in and let out a slow, angry, rattling breath. It was more like a growl, the growl of a beast.
"You'll pay for this," he muttered. "I have no use for you anymore. When I figure out how, when the time is right, you'll pay."
He gripped the flute so tightly it hurt, and threw it as hard as he could. The flute sailed across the room and struck a vase on a shelf, smashing it to pieces before clattering loudly to the floor. It wasn't until it had rolled noisily to the foot of the counter and fallen silent, that Gold realised.
He's in Storybrooke. Maybe, just maybe, there's still a chance.
IX
The faint sound of the melody, the tune of the prince's flute, could be heard from the beach. The music carried far out to sea, over the gentle waves that glinted in the moonlight. A wave rolled onto the shore, and with its foam several large, dark tentacles slapped onto the sand.
Ursula pulled herself up onto the shore on the corner of the beach, her wet violet tentacles glistening with the cold seawater. The sea witch smoothed her hair back and squeezed the water out of it. She lifted a scaled bag over her head, careful not to catch the strap on her warm shell necklace, and held it out.
She shook some of the water off the heavy black bag, and dropped it onto the sand. Turning towards the prince's castle, and the music coming from its garden, she smirked.
Beautiful music, Eric.
A tentacle stretched out and slithered over the wet sand. As soon as the next wave came in, it circled around to catch a tiny pool of seawater. Ursula made a lifting motion with her hand, and the entrapped water rose into the air in a large bubble before her.
An image shimmered into view inside the bubble. It was the redhead, sat on her bed in a nightdress. She was looking curiously at the squashy mattress, bouncing up and down on it in delight. Ursula couldn't help but laugh; she almost felt sorry for the girl.
She seems happy so far. Good.
As Ariel laid down on the soft bed with a smile, the bubble burst, fell back into the waves and became sea foam.
Ursula hooked the scaled bag with a tentacle and lifted it back up to her. With her hand she reached in and took out what was inside.
It was a smooth, round stone plate. At night its grey colour looked almost black, but in the moonlight Ursula could still make out what was engraved upon it: two moray eels. The ends of their tails met in the very centre of the plate, and they snaked and spiralled around each other until their heads rested as far apart as possible.
Clutching Ariel's voice with one hand, the sea witch weighed the Moranastice in the other, and looked back towards the castle. Now all there was for her to do was watch, and wait.