Part of Your World [OPEN!]

[arieltriton]

There was darkness and a sensation of falling or floating, she wasn’t sure which, and then she tumbled out in a heap onto the cold, stone floor. Slowly sitting up, Ariel parted the long, wet hair that hung over her face and peered around. She appeared to be in a room of some sort, all tall and dark and stone, and directly in front of her was an equally large door.

Also, in front of her, were her toes. Instantly forgetting her strange tumble, she was delighted all over again by her new form. Wiggling her toes again, she pushed her hair back over her shoulders and wiped her hands on the tattered sail that was tied haphazardly around her with a length of rope. Putting her feet flat on the floor, she tried to stand again but only ended up falling back onto her hands and on the bendy part of her legs. Huh, they were pretty solid; this could work. After all, that’s how the hairy human got around, on all fours.

So it was all of this that lead up to a pretty redhead, wrapped in a tarp, crawling around the hallway of the school. Sadly, not the strangest thing to have ever happened at Tintagel.

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For an awful lot of people, the sight of a redhead crawling around the corridors wrapped in canvas was just another Tuesday, so there were plenty of people who wouldn't even blink as they walked past Ariel, let alone help her. Cinderella, of course, was not one of those people, she would never be one of those people no matter how long she stayed here.

Luckily, despite not having been here long, she was still at least somewhat used to strange things - her best friends, after all, were talking mice - so she didn't find it too bizarre, and her overwhelming urge was the desire to help no matter how strange the situation.

"Goodness, are you quite alright?" she rushed over to the girl, crouching down to offer her a hand up.

[arieltriton]

So far as ways to move around went, Ariel wasn’t enjoying this one very much. The ground was cold and was starting to hurt her... her... the part of her legs that was contacting it. Maybe she should try to stand up again. She could lean on the walls and sort of... drift forward.

Just as she was starting to strongly consider this, a voice suddenly called out to her and a moment later there was a pretty human girl beside her. Stopping her slow trek forward, Ariel blew a puff of air out to try to move the hair from her face as she looked up at the girl. Nodding her head, opened her mouth and started to reply, even managing to mouth a few words before realising that no sound was coming forth. In all her excitement she had forgotten the deal she had made: her beautiful voice was gone and now not only could she not sing, but she couldn’t speak either. Clutching her throat, her face crumpled and for a moment she looked completely miserable.

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Cinderella had no idea exactly what was going on, but the girl looked so terribly upset about it all that she was determined to figure it out. She'd gone to speak, but now words had come out, and then she... oh but of course, she couldn't speak! Perhaps it was some magical encounter that had left her this way, Cinderella had heard they were quite common here at Tintagel, although she'd luckily managed to avoid any so far.

"Oh don't be sad!" She said encouragingly, hoping desperately that the poor girl wasn't too upset "Why don't you come with me, we could get you some paper and a pencil or something, or maybe we could take you to the nurse, she might be able to do something about it! I'm Cinderella, by the way, very pleased to meet you." she beamed cheerfully at the girl, feeling good partly because she was proud of herself for not asking the girl her name, when she couldn't answer just now.

[arieltriton]

Ariel looked up with huge, blue eyes at the pretty blonde. How could her father think that all humans were so terrible? This girl seemed very nice and so helpful and not at all dangerous. He really didn’t understand, he didn’t even bother to try to know them, he just judged them because of what had happened to her mother.

Nodding at Cinderella (such a pretty name!), Ariel wasn’t completely sure which part of it all she was agreeing to, but the offer to stay with this girl was enough for now, no matter where she took her. Now, just one more thing to take care of first...

Planting her feet on the ground again, she got her hands behind her and sort of pushed herself up, trying to crap walk her hands forward and get somehow up to her feet. Needless to say it didn’t go well and she ended up on all fours again, only this time on her hands and feet and facing upwards to the ceiling. It was a lot less comfortable than when she had been facing the floor.

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Cinderella straightened up when Ariel seemed to plan on standing up herself, waiting patiently - until it became apparent that the young redhead wasn't actually going to be able to stand up herself.
Perhaps this lack of balance was something to do with whatever had caused her voice to go, some illness or magical accident maybe. Cinderella didn't really mind what the cause was, she was confident that eventually they would figure out the problem and solve it (she didn't even hesitate in considering it a 'they' problem, as soon as she made friends with someone she desperately wanted to help them with whatever problem they may have had).

For now, the most pressing problem was to get the poor girl some clothes and find out who she was, but before that she had to get her standing up.

"Here, take my hand," she proffered said hand with a sweet, encouraging smile.

[arieltriton]

Ariel wasn’t above accepting help from others; in fact it had never crossed her mind to even consider refusing. Smiling gratefully at Cinderella, she lowered herself safely back to the floor before taking the blonde’s hand. Letting the girl help her up, Ariel leaned heavily on her as her legs wobbled under her weight.

She would get used to this, right? Eventually she would learn to walk just liked she had learned to swim as a child, she just had to practice, that was all. She had to learn to deal with the weight and the sensation and the moving. She had learned to breathe air pretty quick, she’d done it without even thinking about it, so maybe she was a fast learner! Then again, she always could breathe air, like when she went to visit Scuttle, but she just didn’t need to. Or... ow, now her head was starting to hurt and she hadn’t even fallen on that.

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Cinderella wasn't the strongest girl, but you didn't spend all those years carrying around laundry and doing other strenuous chores without gaining at least a little strength from it, so she just about managed to support Ariel without falling over.

"Okay, now just one foot in front of the other, it's easy!" From anybody else, that might have sounded patronising, but Cinderella was so earnestly sweet that it sounded like simple, honest encouragement. She took a few small deliberate steps herself as if to show Ariel how to do it, gently tugging the redhead along with her.

[arieltriton]

Ariel heeded the advice carefully, watching Cinderella’s steps closely and mimicking them herself. It actually was pretty easy, even if her new legs still felt sort of squishy. It was an odd sensation, how the muscles worked with each step, and she let out a joyous laugh at her progress... or she would have had she had a voice. This time the knowledge didn’t bother her as much because she was walking! She was among them, finally, walking among the people, finally part of their world.

Once she found Prince Eric it would all be worth her voice. Three days Ursula’s voice reminded her, but she wasn’t worried. They would find each other, she knew they would.

As her steps grew a little more steady she beamed at Cinderella and squeezed the girl tightly in an excited hug.

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"That's it! You're doing it!" She encouraged, overjoyed on Ariel's behalf, but also feeling a little bit like she was sharing in the success because Ariel was her friend - not that she'd actually asked the girl to be her friend, or even known her for longer than five minutes, but she still already considered Ariel that way.
Cinderella's friendship was quickly given, but it wasn't given lightly or easily lost.

"It's easy when you get the hang of it," she beamed, carefully moving away from the redhead a little, withdrawing her support so that the other girl could get used to holding herself up, all the while keeping up that encouraging smile.

[arieltriton]

Cinderella was so encouraging and excited and really, Ariel couldn’t have hoped for anyone better to have found her crawling around... except maybe Eric. Even so, she was never one to really thing of these things, and to her this was all completely normal. To her anyone or everyone would have been so helpful because why wouldn’t they? So while Cinderella was actually exceptional, it went without notice.

There was a brief moment of panic when the blonde started to pul away where Ariel almost reached for her to cling to the support, but she managed to hold herself upright without the help and all her worries were forgotten. I’m walking! she mouthed, clapping her hands together excitedly. Of course it was then that her legs started to wobble a bit and she began to teeter.

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Cinderella shared in her joy, even though she couldn't quite tell what Ariel was trying to mouth, she still got the spirit of it and nodded encouragingly. She would also be clapping her hands in delight, but she was still holding them out just in case Ariel lost her footing again. Just because she had moved away from the other girl didn't mean she wasn't ready to support her again, so when Ariel began wobbling she stepped forward quickly to catch her.

"Almost!" she smiled cheerfully "Soon it will be second nature. Could you not walk before, or is this a new thing?" she didn't mean to pry, she was just making conversation - but doing it in such a way that Ariel could reply with a nod or shake of her head instead of speech.

[arieltriton]

Ariel wasn’t doing too badly staying on her feet despite the wobbling, but she was still grateful when Cinderella stepped back in to help her. At the girl’s question she started to shake her head because, no, she couldn’t walk before, but then she was being asked if this was a new thing so the head shake changed directions and now she was nodding. She tried to make a waving motion with her arm to indicate that she used to swim and looked at her new friend hopefully.

Her legs still felt a little weak, but she was starting to feel more comfortable on them, like they were actually part of her body instead of these strange appendages that had no right being attached to her. She was becoming a little more sure of her footing, and she was determined that next time she wouldn’t need help, she would be able to do this on her own.

Probably.

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Even though she was feeling overjoyed with their success, Cinderella realised that they hadn't actually moved very far down the corridor, and they weren't really doing much to help the semi-naked and not-being-able-to-talk issues, so she should probably get on that if she was going to be the very best friend she could be.

She realised she didn't know where to find the nurse, or in fact any solution to the current predicament other than getting Ariel back to her dorm... actually, that wasn't a bad solution, she could find the poor girl some clothes and some paper and get to the bottom of what had happened, and then she'd know how to help from there!

"Ok, we're going to go back to my dorm room, I've got some clothes you can borrow, and then we can decide what to do from there," she explained cheerfully

[arieltriton]

Ariel wished there was a way she could thank Cinderella for all her help, but for now all she could do was nod her head and let the girl continue to help her down the hallway. As they continued it got easier and quicker, and even though she wished she could reply, Ariel was grateful for her new friend’s excitable chatter during their journey.

Maybe she didn’t know where Eric was, or Sebastian, Flounder and Scuttle, but it was nice to know she had a new friend already and wasn’t alone in this strange place.

(finis)