From The Sea ➛ OUAT {Book 2}

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Felix stood on the edge of the talk rock, looking down into the abyss below. He couldn't help but think of the huge history of the entire thing.He would be making history when jumping off this, as well. Not that he considerably wanted to, of course. That time has long passed for everyone.

"Felix." The light voice didn't make him turn at all, just nod to acknowledge it was there. "What are you doing?"

"I think I'm afraid of heights." He answers. "I don't know. I used to be okay with it, but now it's just... It makes me uneasy.

"It's understandable." Ariel answers. "It's a huge way to fall."

Felix clenches his jaw as he looks down more at the everlasting drop. "What do you need, Little Mermaid?"

Her cheeks heat at the nickname. "Rapunzel would like to see you."

He pauses at her words. "Does she..."

"No." Ariel quickly stops. "She is on a guilt trip. She believes that she's to blame for most of everything."

"That's ridiculous."

But was it?

"I know." Ariel chuckles. "So, can you just come along and bare with her?"

"Of course I will."

Of course I will. I love her. He could never say it. He could never feel it. He doesn't know the feeling. Felix knows strong admiration for the girl with the long hair that doesn't even remember his name. But who didn't? He surely wasn't the only one.

"Lead the way."

❧

Rapunzel anxiously awaited Ariel's returnal. She hated that she honestly had no idea what to say to this Felix guy, that she didn't even know where to start. An apology could suffice as a start, but how would she even start that? She probably has made his full on years a living hell. After her first death, the entire island went rogue. Every single action that happened in those years, was all of her fault. She ruined all of their lives.

A rustling in the bushes took her out of her endless thoughts and into reality. Ariel walked out of the woods and once she moved to the side, Rapunzel saw the other body behind her.

He was dressed like the other lost boys she has seen. A look on their face that wasn't a smile but wasn't a frown, dark green outfits that helped them mix in with the trees. She knew that she has never seen this one before.

The hood to his cloak is up, and he looks very nervous as he nears the mermaid. She could only swim to the end of the lagoon. Rapunzel hated that she couldn't go any closer.

"I'll... Leave you too alone." Ariel whispers, backing out from the woods that she just came through. At times, Rapunzel resented her. She wanted to be able to walk on feet and still be able to sleep in the ocean. She wanted to be able to discover the island without being confined to the water that went around it.

But she also knew it was not possible.

Felix waits until he reaches the edge of the sand before sitting crossed legged on the land before her. She wondered what he had been before the rogue and during it. In one part, the land was good now. Ever since Peter had come into terms with Pan, as Tinkerbell had explained to her the third day as a mermaid, every has come in terms with themselves. The land was good, then it was bad, and now it's normal. Like a real world. She just wished she wasn't the reason for the bad time of Neverland.

"Hello." He finally says, playing with the sand. She wondered if he was intentionally not giving her eye contact.

"Hi, Felix."

He closes his eyes for a split second. "It's been a half millennium since you've seen my name. Weird, considering technically you're not even saying it now."

She pauses at his words. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, you're not the same person. I know Peter Pan and the rest of the crew want to believe that our old Rapunzel is still in there digging her way out, but she isn't. You're just a carcass of who you used to be. And, Rapunzel, you should be glad. You get to start over. I don't think you get that the rest of us would kill to get that opportunity. You want to know how your old life was? It sucked. You were stuck in a tower for 16 years of your life to come here and be stuck in your own mind. You don't want to remember it. You can start over, fall in love with Peter again and forget every single awful thing of your life. Take the opportunity."

By the end of his monologue, Rapunzel felt the strange urge in her heart to want to cry. She refused to, so she bit the inside of her mouth and looked strong. He had said all of her thoughts, but hearing someone else say it somehow made it feel different.

She was also stuck on the fact of being stuck in a tower for 16 years. No one had ever mentioned that to her.

"Thank you." Rapunzel suddenly says. She looks up into his eyes, and this time he was looking back. "I needed that. Everyone else is telling me how I'm the same person I always was. I needed someone to tell me what I was always thinking."

Felix is quiet for a while. "Don't get me wrong, Rapunzel. Some of your personality is the same. You're still caring and selfless from what I can see."

She looked away, unable to look at him as he says these things to her.

"But memories is what makes someone who they are. You no longer have any. So, again I repeat, start over. As you sit and pout about wanting your old memories back, you affect everyone else by they looking for some stupid cure that's probably not even real."

"So what?" She says, stopping his words before he could even talk. "I go on and be happy with the sea and everyone suddenly stops trying to give me my memories back? I can't do anything that will make them stop trying to save me."

"They're trying to save you because they believe you need to be saved. You make yourself look happy, you try with Peter Pan. If he thinks you like this life, if you really convince him... He won't think you need to be saved."

Rapunzel only looks back at the lost boy when he is standing up off the sand.

"Just... Think about it, alright?"

She tried to look up above her to him, but the sun in her eyes prohibited it. So the girl stayed staring at the ocean, her home, even as he walked away.

Once he left, she dunked herself fully under the water and swam out into the actual ocean, not just the secluded area of the lagoon.