Chapter 58: Ursula's Urchin
"Rumpelstiltskin, never thought I'd ever hear from you again," Ursula says, as her tentacles slowly churn the surface of the harbour, allowing her to almost "tread water" and speak to the demon she once worked with before Emma and Hook had helped her gain her happy ending by allowing her to reconnect with her father. "Still causing trouble for Storybrooke?"
"Lady Ursula, looking as gorgeous as an angler fish. Time under the sea has done wonders to your complexion."
"Cut the wisecracks Rumpel!" the cecaelia snaps, one of her tentacles whips some water at him in anger for the distasteful joke.
"Tongue still as sharp as sea urchin barb," the Dark One smirks.
Again, Ursula's tentacle forces itself forward in anger, the slimy suction cupped appendage comes within inches of his face, ready to strangle him in retaliation for the insults. But of course, the imp barely flinches at the intended threat. He had faced much worse in his time being alive so a half-human/half-octopus hybrid hardly scared him.
"Much has happened since you have left, in fact, I would like you to meet my daughter and my new son."
"Your new son?" the former mermaid says in surprise, her eyebrows raising with much skepticism. "Who was stupid enough to let you knock them up?" She feels great pride in sending a few insults back at the villainous man.
Rumpel bites his lip extremely hard, wanting to make the sea witch pay for her derisive comment towards his wife. "My wife…" he hisses angrily.
"Your wife, you two are still together? Wow, I owe Cruella twenty bucks that you would be divorced by the end of the year."
"That might be a bit hard considering Miss DeVil has been deceased for quite some time."
"What? Cruella is dead?"
"Yes."
"Who killed her?"
"Believe it or not, it was the Saviour."
"Really? Did it darken her heart?"
"Not quite, you see Miss DeVil foolishly decided to kidnap my grandson in order to challenge Miss Swan's ethics and question her values as a hero. However, in the end, the Saviour pushed her over a cliff with her magic since she was threatening to do the same to Henry. She did it to protect him, so it was technically done out of desperation rather than evil."
Ursula fixes her hair while she pondered this news. While she never technically liked Cruella, she knew she wouldn't miss the selfish and vain woman, but they had worked with each other in the past; "teaming up" with Rumpelstiltskin against Chernabog, working together to kidnap Belle when the imp had betrayed them, working with Charmings to prevent the curse, catching the so-called heroes while they were sending Maleficent's baby to another world, using Lily's egg together to stay young, and spending quite a long time in the mortal world, something that was completely foreign to them. She technically didn't deserve to die in such a way, but perhaps she deserved it in the end. It surprised her further that Rumple had not done anything to stop the puppy hater considering he often claimed that he loved his grandson as he was the only link back to his son, Baelfire. She truly had missed quite a lot since going home again.
"Hmmm, never mess with a mother bear and her cub," is all the sea witch can really say to justify to what happened to her former ally.
"Interesting that you should mention that…" Rumpel says. His face shifts to nervous anxiety as he considers telling this aquatic creature this unusual news.
"What?" she demands, catching the look on his face. Her suspicions begin to arise, and she prepares to go back into the water, return to her home world. "What did you do this time? I'm done helping you Dark One so you may as well forget it! Every time you do something it always comes back to bite everyone in the ass!"
"I haven't done anything. Actually, this is my daughter's fault for the development of recent events."
"So, she's as bad as you then?" Ursula inquires. "And when did you have the time to knock up Belle twice. It's only been like three years since we last met, so how could a three-year-old cause so much trouble?"
"This is my daughter from a previous relationship back in our original realm. One that few people are aware of that due to my illicit affair with a miller's daughter, I produced a daughter with the magic of her own, which lines up more with those blasted fairy tales from this land. The mother escaped with our child in her womb into the real world. She's 21 now and actually takes much more after her mother than me."
"So why are you being forced to clean up her mess?" Ursula inquires.
Rumpel bites his lip extremely hard, deciding it was better to show her rather than continue to tell her. "It's a bit of a complicated situation than just that, perhaps you would prefer to walk with me and get a burger from Granny's as I explain and then show why I called you here."
The sea witch hesitates, rolling her eyes upwards, not entirely understanding what the imp was saying. This mostly sounded like a waste of her time and she should really just leave. However, she has travelled all this way to answer the conch shell, she hadn't walked on land in quite some time, and some form of sustenance other than seafood sounded like a novel change.
"All right, but this better not be another sick joke," she warns. "Or I will fulfill that promise of making you pay Rumpelstiltskin. I still haven't forgotten the last time you betrayed me."
"Lady Ursula, I assure you I am a changed man and have been for a long time. There will be no surprises from me."
"As if I've never heard that one before," the cecaelia says, rolling her eyes.
The shell around her neck begins to glow as her tentacles reach up, grabbing the edges of the docks and pulling her up out of the water. As soon as she's on the wooden docks, her shell glows brighter and her tentacles shrink and then vanish completely until the sea witch is standing on two feet once again. She takes a few cautious steps, grabbing one of the side rails to support herself.
"It's strange," she says, mostly to herself. "I'd never thought that I would miss walking on two appendages again."
Rumpel merely nods and offers his cane to her as a method of assistance. But of course, the cecaelia ignores the Dark One's suggestion and continues to walk, a bit unsteadily, until she gets the hang of walking again and has no further trouble.
The Dark One accompanies her as they begin walking towards Granny's in rather awkward silence.
…
"Never would have thought of you as a lady's man," Ursula says as Rumpel comes back outside of the restaurant with food in his arms. He had explained what had transpired in Storybrooke since the former mermaid had left with her father Poseidon. The sea witch had decided to wait outside the eatery while the Dark One went in to buy her food. This was considering that most people would likely not be happy to see this Queen of Darkness again, not after the havoc she, Cruella, and Maleficent had created while they were here. She'd rather not cause a scene of any kind, especially with the Charmings. "Having three children with three different women… that has to be a record for any Dark One. Usually, none of them are very attractive, to begin with."
"Thank you for the boost of confidence Lady Ursula," he says, biting his lip and handing the witch a warm bag containing cheeseburger and fries, as well as a soda.
The half human/half octopus goes immediately into the bag and digs ravenously into the burger.
"Man do I miss greasy human food," she says through bites of her burger and taking a long sip of soda. "You can't fry anything underwater and the only things available are raw fish, clams, scallops and all that gross stuff. Sometimes I just need Ramen or something that just isn't good for you, you know what I mean?"
The two former villains begin walking along the street to wherever Rumpel wanted them to go; he appeared to have bought more trust with the cecaelia by buying her lunch. He merely nods in response and continues walking, gazing forward, knowing that what he's about to do is going to be shocking to several people.
It is then that Ursula notices the second bag of warm food in the imp's hand.
"Bringing food home to the family?" she asks.
"N-No…" he says, continuing to stare forwards. "It's for someone I'd like you to meet."
They continue to walk until they come to the sheriff's station.
"Why are we here Rumpel?" she demands, fearing the worst. "You better not be trying to arrest me."
"Just come, everything else will make sense in a few moments," the Dark One says. He opens the door and walks in, with a reluctant Ursula following him.
As they go into the holding cells of the station, a very irritated teenager is pacing her cell, her turquoise braids swinging back and forth with her hasty movements. Rumpel sees a mess of shattered glass and a pool of water beside one of the deputy desks. Clearly, this girl had had some kind of temper tantrum and thrown the glass of water, which his daughter had put in the cell as a sign of kindness had been, against anything she could.
As soon as she sees movement out of the corner of her eyes, the girl stops pacing and grasps the bars in fury. "Finally, will someone let me out of here!" the braided and extremely moody teenager screams. She looks like she could bend the bars of the cell with ease due to her anger. "Why am I in here big nose?!" she barks.
Rumpel frowns at the insult but chooses to ignore it.
"Such harsh words from the man who is holding nourishment for you. Might I suggest you bring the temper down in order to receive it."
Uma just snarls and stares daggers at the man whom she knew was dangerous. She's peeved beyond words that she couldn't remember what happened back at the shop. One minute she's standing there, the next she's waking up in a jail cell with her seashell and sword gone, and no other way of escaping. She had tried picking the lock but there seemed to be an enchantment on it, preventing her from doing just this. After many frustrating attempts to escape and being unable to do so, she lost her temper and destroyed everything in her cell, including tossing the glass of water across the room and shatter it completely. She didn't care who she hurt. She wanted answers… and food and she wanted them now!
"No one tells me what to do!" she snaps back at him.
"Is that so?" the Dark One says, raising his eyebrow. "Not even your mother?"
"My mother is dead to me!" Uma says in pure rage. "She's an ugly bucket of barnacles that deserves to be doused in gasoline and set on fire."
"Interesting analogy…" he pauses, giving a slight smirk before turning towards his companion. "Dear Ursula, what do you think of that?"
Uma's dark eyes go wide in pure shock, her knuckles on the bars of the cell go pale from how tightly she'd grasping them. A lump appears in her throat and the pirate captain becomes completely paralyzed in shock.
The Dark One then conjures up the shell that had been hanging around Uma's neck when she'd come to Storybrooke and holds it up for the sea witch to see.
"Look familiar? Perhaps further explanation will be required to understand what my daughter brought to Storybrooke."
A/N: Sorry to everyone for taking such a long time to update. Practice teaching is not an easy thing. Hope you enjoy it and please give me lots of feedback.