-The Prince-
"Well, I am not staying on the ship." Derrick said.
"Someone has to stay behind to tell the King about how his son got himself killed, and it will not be me!" Captain Lorren responded.
They had been talking around in circles. The Slavers' ship was close enough that the men had already prepared themselves for battle. Captain Lorren was insistent that the navy could handle the slavers themselves, but the Prince was too crazy-eyed and stubborn.
The three men stood at an impasse when the sound of expletives rang out around them. Charles' head jerked up to find a massive tentacle rising out from the bottom of the ocean and wrapping itself around the slavers' ship.
The waves created by the monster rocked their ship violently, but nothing could tear their eyes away from the gruesome sight.
Charles felt every last hope flee and every sailor stood around with open mouths. The feeling of helplessness pervaded the hearts of every man standing on the ship. Slavers were one thing, but there would be no vanquishing the sea God.
People turned to him. Even the captain turned to him. They were all looking for direction.
"What is our course of action?" Derrick asked.
There was no chance they could be spared if they ventured any closer. The tentacles from the ungodly sea creature spiraled angrily around in the water.
He could not risk more lives, but he would not abandon Cinderella.
"I will take a rower." Charles was already heading towards the docking boats on the ship's side.
"That is madness!" Derrick declared, trailing after him.
Charles pulled the ship up and leveled it over the open sea, ignoring his friend. Derrick placed his hand on his arm.
"Stop. Think this through. There is no saving anyone on that ship."
Captain Lorren joined their conversation.
"Your friend is right your highness. That ship belongs to the great sea God now."
"He can have the ship. I am bringing Cinderella back."
Charles was on the boat and reached for the pulley, but Derrick was there first.
"I am not going to let you do this. You will die."
Charles met his eyes.
"You cannot stop me."
Charles and Derrick stared at each other and a silent understanding passed between them.
Derrick stepped into the boat causing it to teeter further from the ship.
"She had better be worth it," Derrick grumbled.
"Wait!" The captain called out. Charles stilled the pulley in enough time for Captain Lorren to jump in the boat with an extra pair of oars.
"You boys have probably never rowed a day in your life."
"I will not have you risk your life for mine."
The captain remained unmoving.
"Drop the boat. I have met the Queen. The only ones who need to be afraid are the ones who have to tell her they watched as her son rowed to his death. I would rather face the sea God."
-Cinderella-
A roar sounded and shook the wooden planks beneath them. The wood creaked, and the men and women around her all stood up slowly. Everyone watched in eerie silence as the wall of the ship began to bow. All at once, the wall compressed with an ugly crunch, and water poured in along with the light from the rising sun.
A flurry of screams erupted around her. Panic surrounded the crowd, and all at once, the people pulled frantically at their chains.
Ella struggled through her pain and stood slowly. Water pooled at her ankles, and it was rising quickly. Her heart rate grew out of control. Death. Her lungs restricted as if the water was already over her head.
"Ella!" Her fairy godmother burst into existence in front of her.
Her fairy godmother grabbed her wand out of thin air. She grabbed Ella's manacles, and with a garble of nonsense words, the chains that held down every slave in the room melted into liquid metal and swirled into the water.
There was not one wasted minute. Men and women fled past her, trying to get to safety.
"I have to go. I am being summoned now, but get to the boats. I spelled them to keep them safe from destruction and anyone who wishes you harm."
Her golden eyes filled instantly with tears, and she surged forward and wrapped Ella in a hug.
"This will be the last time we meet Ella. Magic has failed you in so many ways. I failed you. You are going to have to find your own happiness."
The Fairy godmother was gone just as suddenly as she had appeared.
The slaves fled to the exit. Ella was the last to leave, wading through chest-high water, and using the wall as a crutch. Climbing the stairs was agonizing. She was on the brink of collapse. The water soaked into her dress and added a crushing amount of weight. Her leg would not cooperate. She had lost one shoe in the water, revealing her foot that was purple and swollen from its repeated abuse. She pulled herself painfully up the stairs and out of the hull of the ship. The door that had once separated the inner ship from the upper deck was shattered. Ella could see the chaos reigning over the upper deck.
Monstrous tentacles tore up the ship. Screams sounded out all around as slavers took up their weapons against the great beast.
Ella pulled herself through the doorway with the last of her energy. A man stepped out of nowhere and ran into her, grabbing her by the elbows before she toppled over backward. A familiar tingle ran through her exhausted body.
The rising sun blinded her for a brief moment, but when her eyes adjusted to the light, she couldn't believe it.
"Cinderella." His voice held nothing but pure wonder.
She laughed in a panicked desperate sort of way.
It was not the familiar "Ella" or the more formal "Ellanore". It was "Cinderella". The nickname her father gave her. The name her father used when he was teasing her. She could almost believe that this was all a figment of her imagination, but just when insanity threatened to overwhelm her, he pulled her against him.
Her emotions were fried. Pain was too familiar, and she had held it at an icy distance until this moment. The pain from the entire day came coursing through her all at once. A battle raged behind him, but it was just them.
"I am so sorry." He repeated over and over again as if he was broken too. He pulled her back, searching her eyes. He looked defeated.
His eyes were drawn to her dress. It bore witness to the filth and blood that had become her reality in the last few hours. His jaw tightened, and his eyes filled with an emotion she had not seen before.
A man put his hand on Charles' shoulder. "We need to leave! The ship is coming down!"
Charles did not look away from her. She felt herself burning from his gaze.
"Charles!" The man yelled when he got no answer. "If we do not get to a rower now, we will all be swimming back home!"
Ella looked to where the boats were. Adrenaline surged through her, demanding that she get herself to safety, but there was too much pain. There was no time for helplessness. She had lost her shame somewhere back on land. Her pride was nowhere to be found. It was all she could do to stand.
"I- I need your help."
She looked down at her hideously swollen ankle, and Charles followed her gaze. He lifted her up instantly. She tucked herself deep into his chest, and he followed his friend. Most men had made their choice between battling the beast and jumping overboard. A half dozen rowers littered the waters filled with newly freed slaves. One last boat waited on the pulley, swaying dangerously over the ocean. One man stood guard over the boat and waved them all toward safety.
The ship sank fast. The rower was already in the water by the time Charles carried them both onto it, followed by his two friends. They barely managed to cut it free from the slaver's ship as it gurgled and complained all the way to its watery grave.
-The Prince-
Not a word was spoken.
The sun had risen over the horizon, but the morning air was still crisp and freezing. They all watched as every last piece of the slavers' ship was dragged down into the sea. The slavers who had attempted to flee were pulled under the swirling waves one by one. The oars were forgotten. Every soul waited in trepidation for the tentacles to reach out of the black depths and drag them under.
Captain Lorren sat on the edge of the boat whispering prayers. Derrick scanned the ocean and watched for supernatural movement. Cinderella shivered next to him.
Charles wanted to say something, but he could not think of any words to take this all away. It was too late to fix the mistakes he had made.
"Your ship is coming around." Derrick called out.
Captain Lorren looked over to see his ship coming closer.
"I am glad to see the men finally grew a pair of balls."
The Captain sent a short look over to Cinderella, "Forgive my language m'lady."
Charles looked down at her and saw that her eyes were glazed over and empty. She looked like she was somewhere else. He was scared to know the full extent of the horrors she experienced. He was scared that this look in her eyes would never go away.
"The Captain is alive!" A voice rang out from the naval ship.
"Of course I am alive you idiots! Get us out of the water!" Captain Lorren yelled.
The crewman lowered the pulleys and pulled them up. Ella stood and Charles shot to his feet sending the boat swaying over the open water. Every man watched as he helped her over the lip of the ship.
"Get the woman a blanket!" Captain Lorren yelled as he boarded the ship behind them.
The men jumped at his command.
"Do you have any doctors on the ship?" Charles asked.
"Doctors? What does this look like to you? We are an off-duty exploratory naval ship. You were lucky we had enough crew to sail."
Cinderella grabbed his arm, "I will be fine. My injuries will hold. We need to save them."
They looked over the side of the ship to see men and women in boats looking up at them distrustfully.
"They are not going to board another foreign ship. We will probably have more luck trying to become doctors."
Cinderella straightened her shoulders and looked the captain in the eyes.
"If you are content to leave them behind to die, you might as well have died with the slavers because that is what you deserve."
Captain Lorren squared up to her, "What you cannot understand is-"
"We will save them." Charles said, interrupting the captain.
Captain Lorren looked between Ella and the Prince. He recognized the same immovable set to the Prince's shoulders.
"Great. This is all just great." Captain Lorren turned to his sailors. "Somebody find me Jerris. I think he told me once that he spoke a dozen languages, and that is looking very useful right now."
A man approached Ella and Charles.
"This is for you my Lady." the sailor said, holding the blanket out to her.
"Thank you." She said earnestly.
Charles took the blanket out of her hands and wrapped it around her. It was not much, but it was something. He held her at arm's length, searching her eyes for any invisible pain she was feeling.
"If I do not sit down, I fear that I might collapse."
"I will not allow you to collapse on my watch."
He could not watch her take another painful step. He gathered her up into his arms and began looking for the most comfortable place to sit. He set her down against a mast. It was another selfish move. He should have taken her to the Captain's private quarters to let her find rest, but he was not ready to let her out of his sight.
He was crouched down next to her, not knowing what to say. He needed to help bring the freed slaves up from the ocean, but he did not want to leave her side. He wanted to ask her questions, but he did not want to know the answers. She reached out and took his hand. Her hair spilled over her shoulders, and her face was bruised and red, but she was still the same. Intelligent. Beautiful. Kind. She spoke before he drew up the courage.
"I am ashamed," she said, breaking their silence, "that I have waited this long to say thank you."
Her words were a small crack in his heart. Thank you. She was thanking him after everything he had done.
"Please. I would prefer steely silence to your profession of gratitude. I deserve none of it."
Her eyebrow raised and a ghost of a smile showed on her lips. "In the short time I have known you, you have shown an aversion to my apologies and now to my gratitude. I am beginning to think that your manners are just boorish. There has never been a greater need of gratitude than right here in this moment from me to you."
He fell down to his knees in front of her. There was a lot he needed to say, but it was already too late.
"You are right about one thing. My manners are boorish. I have- I have done everything wrong with you from the first time we met all the way to now. There is too much I have to confess to you. Too much that I was not honest about."
"Charles." She said, stopping his parade of words.
"Yes?"
She was smiling. After everything, she was smiling. He would give her the world if she wanted it.
"We will be sailing home very shortly, and when we get there, I imagine that there will be a lot of headaches that we both have to deal with."
"Yes." They would both need to face their families, whatever that would entail.
"I want you, not tomorrow's problems. Right now can be just another piece of the past to worry about tomorrow."
"All of this is my fault." He said. He had to make her understand. She could not possibly want him near her.
"I do not know what imagined horrors you think you have committed against me, but whatever they are, they are forgivable. I will not, however, forgive you if you do not allow me to properly thank you."
She cut through his excuses and explanations and she made him smile.
"There." She said, "That is what I wanted. Now, I need you to tell me that everything is going to be alright."
His hand reached between them and grabbed the bottom of her chin.
"Everything is going to be alright."
She pulled his hand closer to her and wrapped her other hand around his shoulder.
"Now I am going to kiss you to show how very grateful I am that you showed up when you did."
She pulled him closer, but stopped just short, meeting his eyes. "Unless you are still convinced that there is no room for gratitude."
His hand pulled at the ends of her hair. "I did not say there were no reasons to be grateful. I said there was no reason for you to have any gratitude for me. There is plenty of gratitude here, but all of it is owed to you."
He said before pulling her tight against him and kissing her. It was a promise that he would make things right. No matter the cost.