Chapter Text
“Where are you taking her?”
It had taken moments to fill a small bag, but they were moments spent with her cousin and mother and aunt. Her grandmother was asleep, thank the gods.
“You can't!” Her mother was sobbing. “I won't let you!”
“Mother,” Dizzy didn't know what to say. Her mother was made ugly by her weeping, and Dizzy longed to put her bag back, to wipe her mother's face, as she had done for Dizzy when she was a baby, before Grandmother had put a stop to what she called “coddling.”
“Don't be selfish, Drusilla!” Aunt Anastasia pulled them apart. “She'll be in Auradon, she'll be with Evelyn.”
“And who knows what they'll do to her?”
“Enough, Aunt!”
Anthony pushed past both Mother and Auntie, glaring at the guards, who frowned at one another.
“Give this to his grace, Benjamin,” Anthony handed her a tattered paper, sealed with the Tremain crest. “Don't open it, Delores, it's for his eyes.”
“Yes, Anthony.”
He smiled, a grave twitch of the lips that didn't reach his eyes, then took something out of his pocket.
“Take this,” he put it into her hands. “It isn't as gaudy as your usual attire, but you might be able to pawn it.”
It was his pocket watch.
“Anthony, you can't-”
“I can, and I will,” he pushed her hand closed around it. “It's yours by right, as much as it is mine.”
“Oh, yes,” Mother had gotten over her hysterics, and began to take her jewelry off. Auntie did, too, and they put them into her bag.
“It's out of fashion,” Auntie apologized. “But the vintage market, well, you know.”
“I'll try not to sell it,” Dizzy said. “I'll keep it for you. We'll see each other-”
“Get in the car before one of these gentleman loses his grip on his crossbow,” Anthony interrupted her, picking her up, and tossing her bodily into the limousine.
“Listen to the queen!” Auntie told her as they closed the door. “And the kings! And your teachers. Do everything that you're told, Dizzy, promise me!”
“I promise,” a guard closed the door, but left the window open, and Mother took Dizzy's hand.
“I love you, my darling.”
“I love you,” and for the first time, Dizzy thought she might cry. “I love you, Auntie. Good bye, Anthony.”
Anthony swallowed, then lifted his chin.
“Remember you're a Tremaine, Delores.”
“I will!” She almost leaned out the window. “I love you! Goodbye!”
...
The water was so cold, so blessedly cold, and blue. She could dance, almost, reaching out by instinct, shooting her way past the tug of currents, part instinct, part skill learned in the bays of the Lost, braids loosening at the end.
“This is what they stole from me,” Uma reached out, and the water parted before her. She could see fish, whales, even her own curious cousins, flitting out of the way, some stopping to stare at her in shock, some even playing in her wake.
She felt her necklace glowing, and the next moment was as easy as thought.
“Get us out of here,” her ship, her crew, Harry, her mad, bad, sad Harry. “All of us.”
Lost boys and girls, a small, broken ship. All of it. They only had each other, and a few dirty odds and ends of existence.
She could see the ship, and feel the ocean pouring through her, currents and tides and unnamed, unknown things, earthquakes and volcanoes and the richness of the life that made its home in the depths of the seas, since long before there was such a thing as bones or breath.
The barrier loomed high in her sight, glowing, but then it suddenly seemed as thin as paper.
She was the child and grandchild of witches and sorcerers. Her bloodline came of Neptune, Mami Wata, Agwe, Lyr, Aegaeon, and Ceto, of a thousand other gods and goddesses, who had vanished with time and the coming of men. She was the ocean made flesh, but she was still the ocean and no barrier of fire could stop her. It had tamed her for a time, but now she was with her element, with salt and wind and water.
She raised her hands.
...
In the days that came after, they would speak of how the water burst over the shores. They would speak of the way it flew up on shore, the way the docks splintered and those houses closest to the beach and the rocks flooded.
In the aftermath, no one noticed the missing ship.
...
They were carried out without warning. They'd seen Uma try, they'd seen her fail, and the only option was to stay together, to cling to the only place that most of them called home, ignoring the taunting jeers from the Isle proper, waiting.
The wave hit them, as it had everything else, then paused under them, righting the ship carefully. Gil tried to stand up, but Jonas, already holding down three other kids, shouted for him to stay down, keep everyone else down, and for Harry to stop being a fool.
“Uma!”
Gil glanced over his shoulder.
Harry was was clinging to the bowsprit, yelling into the wind.
“Uma!”
Gil began to crawl to him, and through the rain, he could see the kohl around Harry's eyes begin to run down his cheeks, hair plastered to his head, coat flapping in the wind.
“Uma!”
Gil tried to get up, stumbled, and tried again. He managed it by clinging to the rail, inching along the slick deck, realizing he'd never actually been out during a storm. Not like Harry and Uma, who could be found on their ship at any hour, in any weather.
“Harry!”
Harry didn't move. The only sign he'd even heard Gil was to dig his hook into the spit, and yell into the storm again.
“Bring us to you, Uma!”
The storm grew wilder, at that point, and the wind, picking up, screamed like an angry woman. The ship began to spin, turning to starboard, and Gil nearly fell to the deck.
“Harry, come back!”
Harry did leap off the bowsprit then, laughing wildly, and brandishing his hook gleefully.
“That's my girl!”
Then, as Gil watched in horror, the yardmast swung loose, and Harry went down, cracking his head on the deck.
And the storm raged on.
...
“We don't even know if the storm was her,” Jonas shook Harry awake. “Come on, walk around a bit.”
“Is she back?” Harry asked, clinging to Gil's arm.
The storm had disappeared as quickly as it had come, thinning and disappearing, and everyone was out on deck, staring at the stars. They filled the sky, horizon to horizon, and a misty blue mass of them split the night in two.
Harry swayed as he stood, then stumbled to the portside, vomiting over the rail, making Jonas swear and run to him.
“Second star to the right,” Harry said, when he finished spitting up bile. “Straight on 'til morning.”
“Harry,” Jonas shook his head, exasperated. “We can't-”
“We can!” Harry pulled a knife from somewhere, pointing it the other man's throat. “We can! That's where she'll be!”
Uma. Jonas shook his head when Gil met his eyes.
“Uma's not there,” Gil said, gently, trying to pull Harry back to the cabin. “There's no way she could swim faster than we could-”
“Second star to the right,” Harry pulled away from him, and brandished the hook. “Straight on until morning.”
Harry took the wheel, while Jonas told him to get back to bed and stop being an idiot. Gil told everyone to dry off and get some rest, and he'd wake Bonny for next watch. He brought out some empty barrels to collect rainwater, and threw some blankets on top of the crew as they began to fall asleep.
There had been star maps at school. Harry had been shit at reading them, though, although Gil hadn't been much better. To be honest, Harry hadn't ever been good at much besides being scary, fighting and loving Uma. It made him a good first mate, and a shitty captain.
Gil jumped when Jonas sat down beside him.
“There's no point in trying to stop him,” the older boy said. “He'll tire himself out, in a minute.”
...
Someone would have known how powerful Uma was if she had been born outside the dampening of the barrier. She would have been trained in control and finesse by someone like the Snow Queen, who knew, better than anyone, the effect of untrained elementals.
“Well, you did tell them,” Annika drawled, running a hand through her short red hair.
The drawl was reminiscent of a certain ancestor, long dead and gone before Annika's parents had even met. The red hair was, too, but the white streaks and large blue eyes spoke of another ancestor, and the heavy build of yet another.
I am surrounded by ghosts, Elsa thought. So I am never alone. Anna, did you fear for me? Or did you know you left me with your ghosts?
“I did warn them.” she watched the mirror, the water splashing up on the shore. “I told them what would happen if they caged the sea. You'd think Ariel would have known, if no one else.”
“I'd have thought Triton would have had some thoughts on the matter,” Erik said, from corner where he had perched himself, still getting used to a sudden growth spurt that had left him with gangling limbs, like a little colt. Elsa spared him a gentle smile.
“He doesn't care what happens to the world above, as long as his children are safe,” she explained. “No more than the trolls care for the world outside the vales, nor the hulder care to come down from the mountains.”
“All the same,” Annika fiddled with her axe worriedly. “You did warn them.”
“All the same,” Elsa left the mirror, which had switched to a scene where girls in pastel gowns and shimmering jewels whirled with boys in suits that left the viewer slightly pained, and went to the courtyard.
It was summer, and one of her many times great nieces was playing with the wind, laughing to herself. Elsa watched her raise and lower the breeze, while another niece sulked in the shadows, sunburnt and irritated with summer, while Olaf tried to cheer her up.
Ice crackled and chimed, swirling up from the pool and reforming itself into a crystal horse. The new cars and limos did for diplomatic visits, the sleds for everyday winter, but Elsa had been born before the days of the combustion engine, and she had once been an accomplished horsewoman.
“I'll be back in a few days,” she said, and patted Annika on the shoulder. “And yes, I have my cell phone. It's even charged.”
“I put your charger in your purse,” Erik added, leaning out the window with the bag. “And some granola bars, in case you get hungry.”
“Be careful, will you, Auntie?” Annika added. “Don't let the Beast get to you.”
“He won't be so beastly with a little frostbite,” Elsa teased. “Now be good, all of you.”
They laughed, and waved at her as she rode the rainbow road, over the roiling sea and through the storm winds.
...
Jonas was old enough to remember outside the barrier, although only barely. He remembered sunny skies, mostly, enough food that he'd never felt hungry, and a puppy that had met its end when her Grace had sent her soldiers to round up the fey on the edges of the moors, by way of a steel-toed boot to the neck.
“They killed the fells,” was all his mother ever said, when he asked about it.. She had quietly died in her sleep the day word came that the last of those black dogs was gone.
So when he woke up the a burning light in the sky it wasn't the surprise it was to the rest of them. He'd seen sunrises before, although not so much the colourful dream as this.
What did surprise him was Harry, who was still standing at the wheel, as if he were stuck to it, legs and back straight as arrows, focused on something hidden in the sunrise.
“She's there,” Was all he said.
Jonas tried to get him to rest. He wouldn't leave the wheel.
It didn't really matter, he supposed. If Harry was bent on dying, there was nothing they could do to stop him.
...
But he didn't die.
...
When they brought Dizzy in, unlike Evie's own arrival, it was late enough that most people were asleep, and the press was occupied with the events of Cotillion. Also unlike Evie's arrival, she came in asleep, with smears of cream and chocolate around her mouth, curled up in the arms of a guard.
“She said she'd never had ice cream before,” Pierre said, awkwardly shifting his feet, almost apologetic.
Evie laughed, and led them, Pierre carrying Dizzy, and Leon carrying her bag, to a dorm room not far from hers. She'd be alone at first, but Evie knew Dizzy didn't really have her own room at home, sharing the kitchen with her mother, so maybe the change would be welvome
“Mmm...” Dizzy woke up just a bit when Evie wiped her face free of chocolate, and blinked up at her. “Evie?”
“Go back to sleep, Dizzy,” Evie smiled as gently as she tucked Dizzy under the covers, remembering the first time she'd slept in he soft, firm bed, covered with blankets as soft and fluffy as clouds.
“Anthony said this is for Ben,” Dizzy put a small, crumbled piece of parchment in her hands. “He said no one should read it, just Ben.”
“I'll give it to the king,” Evie assured her. “Go to sleep, Dizzy. You have a big day tomorrow.”
...
“What is it?” Ben asked, taking the paper reluctantly.
“It could be anything,” Mal shrugged. “Anthony's kind of a weird guy.”
“He's a snob,” Carlos inserted, tossing a ball for Dude, who brought it back and refused to give it to him, curling up in Carlos' arms instead. “Remember that time you stole his watch?”
Jay laughed, and shook his head.
“He paid my dad to get it back,” he told Ben, who was smiling in the polite, Auradonian style of confusion. “It cost him three pounds of mermaid scales, and he smelled like fish for a month.”
Ben winced.
“Mermaid scales?”
“They wash up on the beaches,” Mal assured him. “He didn't skin any mermaids.”
“That would have been worth a bit more than a watch,” Jay said, then winced. “Sorry.”
“No,” Ben remembered Uma, fierce, bright, then slowly defeated, and how Harry's eyes had glittered with bloodlust. “It's fine, I mean, you did what you had to do.”
The parchment was so old it had factured along the folds, and the wax snapped cheaply.
“To Your Grace, King In Waiting, Benjamin of House Anjou,
Greetings, and with hope for your continued happiness and prosperity.
You have with you all the treasure of House Tremaine. I pray you keep her well, she is fully innocent and good, and your mercy and kindness will be rewarded with her loyal service, and mine.
Keep her with you, teach her well, let her grow to be happy and good, and I will give you any service a man in prison might do for his sovereign, no matter how great or small,
Yours in gratitude,
Anthony Tremaine”
“He's a bit dramatic,” Ben commented, passing the letter to Mal, who snorted.
“That's Lord Tremaine, alright.”
“He loves his cousin,” Ben thought about the portrait of old Lady Tremaine and her daughters, that he'd seen in Aquitaine, before his cousin by marriage, eyes sad and soft, had covered it in response to his mother's offense.
“You think Chad'll want to meet her?” Carlos asked, tickling Dude's stomach so fiercely that they both fell onto the ground.
“I think the question there is if she'll want to meet Chad,” Dude commented, attacking Carlos' face with licks and puppy nibbles. “Not exactly a sterling example of gentlemanly behaviour.”
“I can't believe he's Cinderella's kid,” Mal said. “I mean, she's so nice. How did she raise someone like that?”
“He's kind of like his grandpa, to be honest,” Ben put the letter carefully away, in case Dizzy or someone would want it one day. “He used to be a total tyrant, until he died a few years ago. His sisters are nice, but they're too little to come here.”
“How old are they?” Evie asked. “Do we have any other kids Dizzy's age?”
Ben shook his head, and winced.
“The only way we could get her out was to bring her here,” he explained. “We'll have to figure something out with Fairy Godmother.”
“At least she's out,” Evie sighed. “And she's had some ice cream.”
“Wait until she has bacon,” Dude said, excitedly. “And peanut butter, oh mama! Peanut butter and bacon ice cream!”
“Why are we friends again?” Carlos asked him.
...
Elsa banished the ice horse back to the waves as she landed on the docks. Cell phones had their uses, and Rapunzel was waiting for her there, long black hair hanging loose and pooling around her feet.
Else ran and embraced her cousin, feeling like a girl again.
“Dearest,” she sighed into Rapunzel's hair, which smelled of lilacs. “It's been too long.”
“Too long indeed,” Rapunzel drew back and looked her up and down. “You've put on weight!”
Elsa twirled, laughing. “Five pounds, if you'll believe it.”
“I almost don't,” Rapunzel took her arm. “Eugene is at the castle, with young Cassidy. He's following in his great-grandmother's footsteps. Even has his own owl.”
“How unfortunate,” Elsa sighed, remembering her own experiences with the stupidest bird in Corona. “They just aren't very bright, Rapunzel.”
“Don't say that to Young Cass, Elsa, he'll never forgive you.”
There was a small door, hiden behind a tapestry and a mild glamour, and they took that way back, slipping in from the garden, and it was there that Elsa asked the question, in a dark staircase illuminated only by the faint glow from the Sun Queen's aura.
“Did you feel it?”
Rapunzel nodded, face growing grave.
“I felt it. The waves were so high we evacuated the lower edges of the capital.”
“Whoever it is is strong, stronger than any ocean mage since, well, since Maui's friend.”
“Moana's been asleep on Te Fiti for at least half a millenium, though,” she mused. “And if you felt it, you know where it came from.”
“The Isle,” Rapunzel shook her head, grimly. “Not even Ursula was as strong as that, in her prime.”
They kept walking in silence, then Rapunzel spoke, voice trembling.
“They-they have Ruby.”
“Your youngest,” Elsa stared at her. “Rapunzel, how?”
“She's MagicMirror-friends with that boy, Benjamin,” Rapunzel was nearly weeping. “She wanted to go to his school so badly, and I couldn't... I thought it would be harmless, just a term.”
“Oh, Rapunzel,” Elsa sighed. “Rapunzel, we'll get her back. Request her return, make up an emergency.”
“I'm trying,” Rapunzel sighed. “But it's so soon after the barrier broke.”
“Do they even know it broke?” Elsa asked, thinking it over. “Maybe they haven't felt it, yet.”
“But if we felt it-”
“We're two of the strongest elementals in the world,” Elsa interrupted her. “I mean, they don't have anyone near our skill.”
“You don't know that, Elsa,” Rapunzel opened the door to a small study. “You think that mirror shows you everything, but it doesn't. They have a fairy godmother.”
“A godmother who relies on a wand,” Elsa snorted.
“Hello, Ice Cube,” Eugene wrapped an arm around her for a quick embrace, before turning to his wife. “And how's the most beautiful woman in the world?”
“Frazzled,” Rapunzel smiled at him.
Elsa wondered at the power of the sun, to keep her consort with her, young and strong.
Anna wanted to go. She wanted to be with Kristoff.
“Have you heard from Ruby?” Rapunzel asked, clearly trying to keep the panic out of her voice.
“She says she'll be coming home by ship,” the prince assured her. “Something about picking up a friend and bringing her to visit.”
“Didn't you tell her it was urgent?” Rapunzel snapped. “That girl, she should be taking a magic carpet, or a pegasus.”
“Yeah, imagine you having a daughter who throws caution to the wind, and does things her own way,” Eugene snorted. “It's incredible.”
“Stop it, Eugene,” Rapunzel looked close to tears. “This isn't her leaving a tower for a day trip, it's serious.”
“Then she has a serious reason to take a ship,” Elsa comforted her. “And we have a full day of planning ahead of us.”
She turned to Eugene.
“Please ask Ruby to meet us in Maldonia.”
“What on earth is going on in Maldonia?”
“You'd know if you ever used that magic mirror I gave you,” Elsa laughed. “Saddle a sunbeam, little cousin. We're meeting with Tiana in two days time.”
“What?”
“Why in two days?” Eugene asked, already tapping away on his phone.
“That's when the gods will be there,” Elsa felt her dress whirl and reform, suitable for a hot, humid city on the edge of a swamp.
“The gods?”
“Maui, at least,” Elsa opened her phone. “And possibly another.”
...
“You certainly took your time,” the old woman said, sharply. “Shes been awake a full day.”
Mortals got cockier as they got older, Maui thought, as he resumed his human form. It was like they spent the last few years of their lives trying to get the last word in.
“Is she alright?”
“She had a cry, then she sat up and started eating pork, happy as you please,” the old woman leaned heavily on her stick as she walked, and Maui offered her his arm, which she ignored.
There were seldom many humans here. Only the very old, and one warrior, to watch the woman who had brought sailing back to the people. The homes had electricity now, including the one they were walking to now, where a young girl sat next to a skinny rooster, eating slices of mango, and letting the juice ruin her clothes.
“Hey, princess!”
“I'm not a princess,” she retorted, looking up with a grin. “I'm a demi-god. Did you know that would happen?”
“What can I say,” He took her into his arms and squeezed the breath out of her. “You're welcome.”
...
It took a full day, and the theft of a garbage skow before anyone realized that the barrier had come down. Water elementals were the first, flinging themselves into the waves with wild delight, then air and fire demons whirled upwards, singing. Earth witches, trapped by the waves, shook the ground as their powers returned, or, in some cases, overwhelmed them for the first time.
Magic hit the children of the island hardest. Most had never known that they were children of magic, and when it came, it overflowed. Uma might have known, but she was gone.
The navy sailed in, followed by the air force, turning the water folk back with grim determination. Some fled to caves, or hid in reefs. Parents tucked their young ones away, and surrendered themselves, or threw their children to the sailors and Triton's warriors, fleeing to save themselves. Air and fire was downed by both water and planes, by fairies and phoenixes.
No one would have dared to call it a massacre. No one talked about the attack. No one would have called it anything but necessary, and Auradon watched in terror as their prisoners fled the little pile of rocks that had been generously accorded them, and were herded back by heroes.
...
Ben paced back and forth in his room, trying to ignore the steady presence of the guards outside his door, trying to pretend that Mal was out there instead, that she was about to knock, and they were going to go down and picnic in the grass, and that the sun was shining and that they were about to close the island and bring everyone home.
He pretended he couldn't feel a heat rising in his heart and he pretended he was clipping his nails because they'd gotten too long.
...
The island rose with the sun, a black dot above and below the horizon that slowly colasced into a blur, then a range of mountains, then, as the sun rose higher and higher, the mountains were covered with trees of every type and size, all far cries from the small, spindly things that grew somewhat desperately in ragged patches on the Isle.
They sailed in, Harry trembling at the wheel, soft, keening notes rising from his throat.
(No one was close enough to hear it, Uma, Uma, Uma...)
They dropped anchor in a small lagoon, scattering some mermaids, and Harry ran to the dingy, the one they never used and were about to find out leaked. He bailed it out himself, while Bonnie rowed.
The trees were so thick here that they blocked out the sun, they climbed the mountains as if they had legs themselves, the touched one another and whispered in an ancient tongue that Harry couldn't speak.
(“Too much like your mother, boy, too much...)
He stumbled from the boat, and the world spun around him, even more than usual, and what time was it? Was it ten? Was it ten past? Was it four? The blasted watch, the numbers spun, and made no sense, never had, but it was his, Uma had given it to him, to keep him from being late, but it hadn't worked, the damn thing.
“Uma!”
She wasn't in the cove, she didn't spin out like a water spout.
“Uma!”
She didn't flow up the shore, as graceful on two legs as eight, she didn't appear in the little break in the trees where a river poured itself uselessly into the sea.
“Uma!”
She didn't answer, and the world was dark and bright and dark again.
“Uma...”
He was falling. He thought he might be flying, but he'd never had any pixy dust.
“Uma.”
...
“-A tale of the queen of the sea, sing hey, to the starboard, heave ho,” a hand brushed her hair back, and a wave flowed over her skin. “Ruler of all of the oceans is she, in mysterious fathoms below.”
The words were followed by humming, soft and deep. She moved, trying to get away from the hand, some instinct reminding her not to let herself be touched, or taken.
“Easy, lass, easy.”
She opened her eyes. For a moment she couldn't see. Then soft blurs, and finally it cleared.
The man was old. He didn't look so old, but she could feel the years on him, heavy and deep.
Yet, he smiled. At her.
And for a moment she hated him for his smile. Some darkness, grief and rage, rose in her.
“Hello, darling.”
She drew back from his hands, which reached out as if he couldn't help it.
“Who are you?”
He flinched, as if she'd hurt him.
“I'm your grandfather,” he told her, after a long moment.
She nodded, and sat up, then panicked for a moment, realizing she was underwater. They were both underwater, they were so far underwater, but.
She was breathing.
He tried to stifle a chuckle, but failed, then guffawed out loud when she shot him a dirty look. He slapped his knee(his tail?) and she flinched, then hated herself for it.
“I'm sorry,” he held up his hands. “I'm sorry, you just, you look exactly like your mother used to, when she was your age.”
Mother, the words conjured rough affection, and rough words, but no face. Tentacles that could snap around a corner anywhere.
“My mother,” she tasted the words.
“Yes,” He sat down on the bed beside her. “My Ursula.”
She thought about it.
“My mother's name is Ursula.”
“Yes,” he reached out, and gingerly wrapped an arm around her. She waited, for hands to wander, for him to pull her tight, too tight, but he just sat, touching her as if she were some fragile gift.
“What's-”
How did introductions go, after all?
“What's your name?”
“Poseidon,” he said, softly. “Poseidon, after the god.”
That was a good name, a name you could take pride in, she thought. But not the name for a grandparent.
“Grandfather?”
“Yes, my little minnow?”
She looked at him, at his face. He had kind eyes. Warm and brown.
“What's my name?”
...