anneoftheisland

Current Location: the small waterfall

Entry tags:

ariel,
in-game

picnic

Normally Anne's picnic basket held all her worldly belongings, ever since she'd fled her home ahead of the storm, but today she'd stowed all of those things beneath Ariel's bed so that she might use the basket for its intended purpose: a picnic. She'd needed to take a trip down to the small waterfall anyway, to determine whether Matthew's apple tree had survived the storm, so she thought it might be lovely to make a day of it with her new friend Ariel.

"Have you been here before?" Anne asked her, pushing through the last underbrush blocking the path. "Oh, I'm sure you have, you were on this island long before I was, but this is one of my very favourite places."

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"I have, but not often," Ariel said, pushing her long red hair behind a shoulder. "Do you like to go swimming in it?"

"I haven't," admitted Anne. "I don't swim often. But I like to come and watch it, and it's usually quite peaceful here; most people go to the large waterfall and the pool of water there instead."

"You should come swimming with me more often," Ariel said, looking hopeful. "And maybe after our lunch we can play in the waterfall."

Anne blushed. "I haven't got a swimming costume," she confessed. "And I've dipped my feet into the ocean, but it never seemed terribly proper for me to go swimming here. Do you go swimming often, Ariel?"

"Oh, well aren't you wearing a bra and underwear?" Ariel asked. "That's what I wear when I swim. If you wear your clothes they stay wet too long."

"What do you mean, not proper? I go swimming all the time, it's okay, if you don't go out too far it isn't dangerous. And the waterfalls are perfectly safe."

Anne felt her cheeks go hot. "Oh, I couldn't do that!" she said. "Let everyone see my underthings? Oh, I couldn't! What if someone else should come along and see us?"

Ariel looked confused. "Why? I go swimming and people see me all the time..."

Anne tried not to look as shocked as she felt, for she had encountered a great many new things here, and she'd certainly seen any number of people walking around in dress she would never have considered herself. Her own standards had already become markedly different as well, thanks at least in part to the continuous heat.

"We don't do that, where I come from," she explained finally.

Somehow Ariel thought Anne must be disappointed in her, and her face fell a little. "But I don't...well I don't understand. What do you swim in?" None of the humans had said anything about what she swam in before, excepting when she didn't know to wear the bottoms as well and Dean teased her for it.

"My swimming costume would cover my body," Anne explained to her awkwardly. "It's not... proper, where I come from, to do that, particularly around men. Even the things I'm wearing now--" Said things consisting of a skirt the fell just below her knees, and a short--sleeved blouse. "--they would be considered improper."

"I like your clothes," Ariel said, sounding a little glum. She didn't want Anne to think she was improper.

"Oh, and I like yours," said Anne. "I hope you're not disapointed that this is difficult for me. I'm trying very hard to learn new ways of doing things, but it's very hard to unlearn what I've learnt all my life."

Ariel found she could understand when Anne put it like that. She nodded, looking sympathetic. "It was the same when I came here, I think I've just been here so long now that it doesn't bother me so much anymore. But where I come from this," she said, pulling at her shirt, "is too much. I'm used to only wearing a bra of shells and that's it. And in fact men wear nothing at all."

"Nothing at all?" said Anne, truly shocked this time. "Oh, I can't even imagine that." And truly, she couldn't, never having seen a fully-grown man unclothed. "You must come from a very different place than I do."

"Yes, I..." Ariel's reply was cut off as she realized she hadn't even told Anne yet. And suddenly she felt she almost dreaded it, especially after Regina's reaction. Of course, Anne would never be like that, but it was still a little intimidating. "I used to live in the sea," Ariel finally admitted, her voice going quiet. "I was a mermaid."

Anne's eyes grew very wide. "You were a mermaid?" she said in astonishment. "I didn't even know mermaids were real, I always thought they were just sailors' tales. Of course I hoped that they were real because it's a very romantic notion, don't you think? Oh, but why are you not a mermaid now? For I'm very certain that right now you are entirely human."

"Romantic?" Ariel repeated in a small voice, blushing a little. She didn't know how being a mermaid would be romantic of all things. "You believe me, then?" she pressed, coming to a standstill.

"Well, why would you lie to me?" Anne asked her simply. "I have no reason not to believe you, Ariel. What was it like?"

Ariel felt relieved and a little foolish as well. She shouldn't have thought Anne would doubt her. "It was...normal?" she replied, at a loss. "I don't know how to explain it, really. I could breathe water and air before, now I can only breathe air. And now that I'm human I can't open my eyes in the water or speak with the fish."

"That must be difficult for you," said Anne, still awed by the very idea. "That's much more difficult than just going from one place to another, when your entire way of life is suddenly different!"

"It was difficult, but I've been here for a long time and I feel much better about it now," she said, trying to play it off as nothing. It wasn't, not really, but she was reluctant to bring it up and let all those emotions back to the surface. She kept walking, she could hear the waterfall coming up.

"Well, perhaps with a little bit more practice, I can learn to swim like you do," said Anne. "It will take some time to get used to it, I think."

"It's so much fun, Anne," Ariel said, sounding wistful, and reached out to take her friend's hand. "It isn't the same but it's as close as I can get."

"Well, nothing's quite the same here, but we all make do," Anne agreed. "And some things, some things might even be better."

"Like what?" Ariel asked curiously. She knew there were things she liked better about being human, but she wondered what was different about this land in particular as opposed to other land.

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