21 Days of Disney!

The sea was deep this far from land, and she had not even seen fish in it for more than a week. It had been three since Pocahontas had seen land.

The ocean was beautiful, Pocahontas didn't deny that, but it was monochromatic, blue on blue on grey on still more blue, and only the dead browns of the ship to break the endless blue--John's hair still shone like fresh corn in sunlight, but Pocahontas saw precious little of him since she'd set foot on the ship.

She saw a flash of brightness on the endless horizon, too quick to even know what colour had broken the endless blue. Pocahontas glanced back over her shoulder, to the man up the mast who watched for land. He was looking in the wrong direction, and she held her tongue, looking back to the waves.

She strained her eyes, watching the shimming blue waters for that flash of colour, hoping it would reappear. A splash caught her attention, and she saw a shock of red beneath the waves, twisting and twining like spilled blood. Pocahontas leaned out over the bulwark, searching for a source.

A man yelled from behind her, and she ignored it, for they were always yelling--

The breath was knocked from her lungs, and she tumbled overboard, sinking into the sea like a dropped stone. The clothes of John's people tangled around her limbs like a net around a fish and Pocahontas choked on bitter water, her own hair obscuring her vision to the point where she could see nothing but threads of black against endless, haunting blue.

***

Salt water poured from her mouth, nose and eyes. A hand thumped her back enthusiastically, and she broke into a wet coughing fit, hands curling into the sand beneath her. They'd brought her to land? There had been no land in sight.

"You live!" a girl cried out beside her, sounding absolutely delighted. "The sand made you live!"

Pocahontas turned her head, and couldn't see a thing through the soaking wet sheet of her hair. She was on land. The sand did not rock beneath her as a boat would, and the lack felt as wrong as the boat had when she'd stepped on it for the first time. And there was a girl by her, speaking the language of John's people. There were no women at all on the ship, except for her.

It seemed likely that she was no longer on board the ship. Pocahontas gave another wretched cough, water coming up with it and asked, "Where am I?"

"Oh! You--oh no!"

Pocahontas heard something slithering away and then a distant splash, and then nothing but the waves and the wind. "Well fuck," Pocahontas muttered, borrowing words from John, and spitting yet more sea water onto the sand. She tugged her hair back behind her ear, and surveyed her mysterious safe-haven. Sand as white as snow made a beach, and yellow-green grasses crawled up to a forest of trees that looked nothing like any she'd seen before. England? Pocahontas wondered, staggering to her feet. Could the waves have brought her so far?

Or the girl--Pocahontas looked across the deserted beach. Tracks like nothing she had ever seen before led straight from her side to the ocean. Long fingered hand-prints to either side of a thick, curved hollow, like that from the body of a snake...Pocahontas pressed her hand next to the print in the sand, and found hers to be larger. "What made this?" she asked the wind, and got no answer.

A thread finer than any she had ever seen was tangled around her fingers, red as blood.

"Come back!" she called out to the sea, wondering if it was spirit or beast that had saved her--or if the women of England were excellent swimmers. Perhaps they didn't go on boats because they preferred to swim.

A bright spot of red rose from the water, and hidden under it was a face as pale as John's. It waited, not moving as the waves pulled past it.

Pocahontas brushed her hand across her mouth, sand raining down, and yelled, "Thank you!"

The girl-spirit fluttered excitedly under the waves, a hint of pale green joining the white face and red hair.

The water was not deep, Pocahontas didn't think. And when she wasn't logged down by the weight of skirts and petticoats, Pocahontas was a good swimmer. She loosened the laces of the corset, and the waterlogged and sand-crusted thing fell off of her. The rest of the dress and skirts were more difficult, and Pocahontas was sweating by the time she had rid herself of them.

She walked into the waves, and still the face in the bay didn't move. It's eyes were as blue as the brightest skies, as blue as John's. Bluer than the sea by far.

The water washed the sand from her skin, cooled her from the heat of the sun. Her skin tightened, goosebumps rising along her arms and neck. The waves brought the water up to her thighs, curls of foam flecking her skin, and the face in the water disappeared, gone in a flash of red.

Pocahontas frowned, more disappointed than she'd expected. There had been something about the girl's voice...something almost magical. She waded deeper, unwilling to give up on her curiosity just yet, and caught of glimpse of the lovely red sliding through the water like a knife.

She braced herself, but was still sent flying back into the soft sand of a departing wave.

"You mustn't!" the girl cried out. "You cannot swim, you'll drown!"

Not in waist-high water she wouldn't. Pocahontas tossed her hair over her shoulder to clear her field of vision and froze, her eyes widening. "You are--"