Chapter Text
A girl was precisely what Eric was searching for, and yet he was stunned when he came upon her.
She had flaming red hair and a face like an angel. Everything about her was striking, but what drew him in more than anything else was the way she was smiling at him. While Max eagerly bounded ahead and danced around the rock where she was perched, Eric made his way over more slowly. He couldn’t take his eyes off her.
“Are you okay, miss?” he asked, wondering if she was in some kind of trouble. She was dressed only in scraps of sailcloth and rope, and she was dripping wet, as if she’d just stepped out of the ocean. But she didn’t seem distressed at all. He pulled Max away and started to apologize in case the dog had scared her, but he soon trailed off. It was clear she had something else on her mind entirely.
She gathered her wet hair in her hands and leaned closer. Her eyes, as blue as the ocean and even more mysterious, seemed to speak to him, although she still hadn’t said a word. There was just something about her…
Could it be? Was his search finally over?
“You seem very familiar to me,” he said slowly. “Have we met?”
The girl nodded excitedly, like she had just been waiting for him to ask.
“We have met. I knew it!” Impulsively, Eric stepped closer and grabbed her hands. “You’re the one – the one I’ve been looking for! What’s your name?”
Her lips formed the shape of an answer, but no sound came out. Then, for the first time, a look of distress did cross her face. She lowered her eyes from his and lifted a hand to her throat.
“What’s wrong? What is it?”
She patted her throat.
“You can’t speak?” Eric guessed, though he didn’t believe that could be it. He’d been so certain…
But the girl slowly shook her head. There was an apologetic look in her eyes, along with something else he couldn’t read.
“Oh.” As quickly as his hopes had risen, he felt them deflate again. “Oh… then you couldn’t be who I thought.”
She blew a stray lock of hair from her face with a huff, looking just as frustrated as he felt. It was clear that there was something she was desperate to tell him, but she could only resort to pantomime.
“What is it? You’re hurt? No… You need help?” As hard as he tried, Eric couldn’t figure out what she was trying to say. Her gestures grew wilder each time she tried again, until finally she lost her balance and tumbled off the rock. He caught her and held her steady while she found her footing on the sand.
It took a minute before he realized he was still holding her. Somehow her arms had found their way around him as well. She clutched at the fabric of his shirt, gazing at him even more intensely than before. Something about this felt so right that it almost made him question his memory of his mysterious rescuer. Even without a voice, how could this girl not be her? And yet something about this also felt very wrong.
The girl broke eye contact again and looked down. As she idly dragged her bare toes through the sand, her face took on a thoughtful look. Suddenly, without warning, she seized Eric’s hand and pulled him toward the water’s edge, where she knelt on the damp, hard-packed sand and began to trace lines in it with her fingers.
What a brilliant idea, he thought – but his excitement quickly faded when he realized he couldn’t understand any of the symbols she was writing.
“Um, I’m really sorry, but I don’t know that language,” he admitted. “Can you write in any others?”
She looked up at him, crestfallen, and shook her head.
How strange that they could understand each other in speech but not in writing. As a prince, he was expected to be conversational in a handful of languages, and familiar enough with the rest to at least identify them at a glance. But the script she was using didn’t resemble anything he’d encountered before.
“Where are you from?” he asked, wondering if that would at least be communicable. Even a direction would help.
She stood up and pointed to the west, out across the ocean.
“West? Let’s see how well I can remember my geography. I’ll list out names, and you stop me when I hit it, okay?”
To his surprise, she shook her head. He’d thought this would be an easy game, but he decided not to push. Maybe she didn’t want to talk about her home.
“Okay… never mind, then.”
She brushed sand off her makeshift dress and chewed her lip, looking lost. Max had wandered off, probably after the scent of some animal, and the two of them were left in relative silence. Eric tried to think of something to say to lighten the mood.
“So, you said we’ve met before, and I swear we have… but I don’t remember where. Isn’t that strange? You’ll have to forgive me. I do meet a lot of people, but I can’t believe I would ever forget someone like you.”
There was that look in her eyes again, the one he just couldn’t read. She gazed at him a moment longer, and then her eyes lit up. She reached for his hand again and began to pull him in a new direction.
“All right, I’m coming,” he laughed.
Eric had no idea where she was taking him, of course, but it turned out to be the absolute last place he would have guessed.
It was the spot where he had been rescued.
He briefly wondered how she knew that – but then again, maybe she didn’t. She could have brought him here for any number of reasons.
She strode purposefully to the exact spot where he had awoken, sat down, and beckoned him over.
Too confused to protest, he went and sat beside her. She gently pushed him backward until he was lying in his own indentation in the sand.
This was so right… so wrong… so surreal.
The girl leaned over him, just as his rescuer had. Touched his cheek, just as his rescuer had. The bright sunlight from behind her shone like a halo around her head, making even the vibrant red of her hair appear dark against it as she smiled down at him.
It was like a perfect reenactment. Only one thing was missing.
She slid her hand up along her throat and outward from her jaw, opening her mouth as she did. This was the very first thing she had tried to pantomime. But this time, he suddenly understood it.
She was pretending to sing.
Eric sat upright in shock, nearly knocking her over. “It was you!” he exclaimed. It made no sense, and yet it was the only thing that made any sense.
She responded with a nod and her most dazzling smile yet. He swept her into his arms and held her close. She smelled like the sea, and her skin was softer than silk.
“I’ve been looking for you everywhere,” he confessed. “I wanted to thank you, and… and…”
And what? he wondered for the first time. What came next? What would he do now that he’d finally found her? Take her home? Propose? He still didn’t even know her name! She didn’t seem to mind his forwardness so far, but that didn’t mean it was wise. Even if she was his savior and the girl of his dreams, and even if deep down, what he really wanted was to hold her like this forever.
Well, there would be plenty of time for forever. Getting to know her would be a good start.
“I want to know your story,” he said, drawing back to meet her eyes again. “Everything. Who you are… how you found me… what happened to your voice… I mean, if you don’t mind telling me.”
She opened her mouth and closed it uncertainly.
“It’s okay if it takes time. We’ll figure something out. I know it’ll be tricky, but, well, somehow you don’t strike me as the type to be afraid of a challenge.”
She grinned. Challenge accepted, then.
“You don’t even have to start at the beginning, if that’s too hard. Sometimes I find that the best way to tell a story is to start with whatever’s most important and work your way out from there.” He smiled back at her. “Although I guess you already did that, didn’t you?”
She thought for a moment and then tentatively shook her head.
“No? You mean there’s something even more important? What is it?”
She hesitated, biting her lip and looking at him with something like apprehension. He could tell it was more than just her lost voice holding her back this time. But then she seemed to make up her mind about something, and her expression softened. She slid her hands over his shoulders and began to slowly lean in toward him.
The question of what she was doing almost didn’t occur to him, he was so captivated by her beauty. Her face was mere inches from his when he finally realized… she wasn’t stopping.
She was going to kiss him.
He could stop her. She was leaving him plenty of time. But he couldn’t think of a reason to. This was what came next. He wanted this – her. Voice or no voice… she was the one.
He closed his eyes.
And heard a beautiful, soaring melody.
Stunned, he opened his eyes again. The girl was so close that her nose brushed his when she turned to look into the distance, confusion clouding her eyes.
So she heard it too. The wordless tune was ringing out from somewhere close by, in a voice as clear and pure as he remembered.
It was unmistakably the voice of his savior.
And it wasn’t coming from her.