AN: This muse grabbed me after me and a close friend were having a long conversation speculating about OUAT, various parings and possibilities we would like to see. Then we ended up on the topic of Ariel/Hook and I fell in love with the idea of it…..the rest, well that turned into this plot bunny. Enjoy.

Warning, this is a unbeta'd chapter. Sorry, all mistakes are mine yada yada.

This is a back note that I am adding after already having posted Chapter 5. If you are new to this story, I should warn you that I develop my plots and characters a bit slower than most people, because I prefer the build up and believability when I read fics (I can't stand, oh I just found her and I love her and we are already happy ever after all in the first chapter fics). If you can make it past the first three chapters, which I realize is a lot of not dialog and not captain hook, you will get a lot more of what your wanting to see, just perhaps not the way you want to see it at first. I apparently am drawn towards the darker perspectives of things before I bring out my fluffy bunny apparently.

Chapter Posted: 08/15/13

Part of His World

By: Morgansgurl

The shores of Neverland where her favorite place, there weren't many creatures here to bother her. It was a peaceful place, with gentle waves lapping at white sandy beaches. There weren't many humans that came to pass these parts, and that was one of the things Ariel liked most. Sure, there were boy's on the island, the lost boys – they stayed deep in the jungle of the island though, they only came out once in a great while and stayed far from her lagoon.

There were so many fictitious rumors about Mermaids, so many lies and legends. However sometimes there is truth to the grains of salt spewed about. The lost boys had every reason to fear her, to give her a wide birth. She was considered one of the most dangerous creatures of the sea, with her melodic voice and enchanting looks. Qualities conducive to a seductive predator.

She hadn't tasted the flesh of a sailor in centuries.

That didn't change the fact that whenever any creature saw her, they would make haste in the other direction. It was the chase her kind usually loved, but she had always been different. She never quite fit in with the thirst and bloodlust of her sisters and brothers. She had curiosities and dreams of more than a life in the ocean. Her soul had been discontent, like there was something missing.

Emotions were irrelevant in her world. Choice was frowned upon. There was a hierarchy of order and to disobey was unimaginable and punishable. As not only a princess but her father's first born it was even more so, she had been expected to mate for life the merman of her father's choosing, have a few merchildren heirs, and bide her time until she was queen of the undersea.

She was royalty. Her breeding of the best blood lines available, a result of many years selectivity from her ancestors. Her looks were one of the many attractive qualities, in her world she was rumored the most beautiful of all. She had long luxurious ruby red hair, the color almost unnatural. Her skin was pale with a porcelain hue and the smoothness of polished marble. Her eyes were a bright sapphire blue, much like parts of the ocean she lived in. Her fin, now that was the most beautiful of all, her fin was longer than most mermaids, a dark shimmering green, if it caught the light just right it almost glittered. Her sisters were envious of her perfect pristine looks, but humans were always calling all mermaids extraordinarily exotic and stunning. But like any society there were social standards and preferences. She was perfect by all accounts, it made her father that much more protective and angry, like she was the product her ancestors had strived for with their years of particular breeding practices.

She grew to hate that life. Hate what was expected of her. Hate nearly everything about the world from which she came.

Eventually she grew curious of the human world, watching as ships would leave and arrive at port. It seemed happier on land, her prey seemed content. It struck her as odd to yearn for what her prey had. At first she wasn't sure what the concept of freedom was, but that's what she was looking for. Freedom from the oppressive ways of her kind.

That was centuries ago though, so much time had passed since her first rebellion against her father. Since her first deal with magic and its dark ways. Ursula had made her many promises that fateful day, one of which saying she would be human permanently. The witch lied through her crooked teeth, and it should have been expected.

Ariel wasn't bitter anymore. In fact she was grateful. The best eighty years of her life were with a human prince she had loved dearly and with every fiber of her heart. Prince Eric, he was such a kind and compassionate man, he had made a wonderful king and his people…oh how they had loved him. She had been his loving queen and the masses had adored her. She was never one to be kept cooped up in the castle, she wanted to experience human life first hand, learn all she could. She was often found outside the castle walls mingling with the common folk.

It wasn't long before they both realized that Ariel wasn't aging a day. Magic always has price.

Mermaids lived, well until they just didn't anymore. They weren't immortal, they didn't get to live forever, but she had known some brothers that were millennia old, and she knew some sisters that passed after only a few hundred decades. There wasn't really a set life span for merfolk. The rumor was that a mermaid didn't pass along into a next life until their soul was fulfilled, or until they were killed by another creature. It was difficult to catch a mermaid though, almost impossible, and mermen really never came to the surface so it was unheard of for them to be captured. It had happened before though, rumors of her sisters being trapped in nets, harpooned, dragged on land and their breath stolen from them by those they hunted.

She had thought for sure that her time was nearing as she stayed by Eric's bedside, watching as he lived his final days. Even though he had deeply wrinkled time weathered leathery skin with dark patches here and there, even though he had lost all of hair and most of his vision, even though he had become so frail and weak and dependent – she still saw the man she loved. His heart was still the same. He was still her Eric.

It broke her heart to pieces to watch her lover die. All the while her face still beautiful as the day they first met.

When his heart stopped beating and he took his final breath she couldn't stop the tears from rushing down her face. Her hands cradling his and telling him it was ok, that he could rest now. It was the hardest thing she had ever faced, and that including defying her father Triton. When she felt the breath start to leave her lungs she was sure she had met her time, that her soul had been fulfilled and there was nothing left for her to live for in the world. No purpose to serve. She was going to go be with her love in another place. A better place from what she had been told.

Her wish wasn't to be granted though. She had felt the scales start to emerge with a piercing pain as her muscles and flesh started to slowly mold and change. Her screams of agony had carried through the castle. She had lost her human form, and was now stuck back in her old visage. She didn't even get to attend the funeral. That was a longer memory for another time.

That was centuries ago. Almost a distant memory that she wasn't sure ever truly happened.

She was an outsider to both worlds. No longer human and not accepted back into her community. She was exiled, and so to Neverland she came and she has been ever since. Her brothers and sisters didn't much like this place, specifically because the food was scarce, not many ships traveled these seas. Not one of her own, not one of them. Alone.

The memories brought tears to her eyes that she didn't bother to wipe away.

Even to this day, that moment still twisted her heart up. Losing her love and her legs. Magic, it always comes with a price. She would have paid it again and again without hesitation.

A strong breeze started to blow, the smell of the salty sea assaulting her superior senses. `High tide must be coming in` She thought to herself as she pushed her hair back and propped her torso up with her elbows from the basking rock she had perched herself on. It had been such a beautifully warm and clam summer day it would have been a waste to spend it napping in the deep cold isolation of her lagoon.

Mermaids were nocturnal by nature, daylight was not a time that they usually enjoyed or ventured up to the surface for. She had never been a normal mermaid though with her foolish human desires. The territorial instinct had never truly kicked in for her. She had never become bloodthirsty and savage like most of her sisters. She didn't hunt for the thrill. She didn't kill because she could.

Some had blamed her petty emotions on too much inbreeding. That all she had gained were looks but all the brains were gone. What was the use of a mermaid that couldn't or wouldn't hunt, she would hear them whisper. Merfolk and more specifically mermaids were very much of a pack mentality, much like a herd of lioness. She never felt like part of her so called pack, she never felt the urge or the joy of decimating an entire ship in a feeding frenzy, watching as the debris float to the bottom of the sea. As men clamored over each other to jump off the side towards their siren songs and to their death.

When the winds started to pick up and whip her hair about she opened her eyes again. This certainly wasn't just high tide coming in. In the distance she could see a single storm cloud start to form with a violent electricity, out of place among the serenity around it. She watched as it grew continually larger, a purple huge tinting the blackness, and a sparkle of lighting flowing through it. Her brows furrowed together tightly and she flicked her tail in agitation. This wasn't normal. There were no freak storms in Neverland, the occasional rain on a cloudy day, but nothing close to this. The sun was still warm and high, making a halo around the cloud, accentuating the strangeness of the event.

Soon the waves started crash down onto the beach, gone was the gentle lapping. The wind started to whistle violently and had a feverish feel to it. The balms of the beach were being brushed backwards by the force and the water sang a violent song as it hit the rocks she was perched on. Ariel sat up a little taller, her curious eyes watching the storm cloud wearily. Something was wrong, very wrong. She could feel it deep in her bones and being. When she noticed the water start to swirl underneath the cloud she pulled herself higher onto the rocks, as far as she could go. She could see the whirlpool start to form and hear the water ripping apart as lighting started to flash and the day grew dark. She didn't want to get caught in the suction of it as she watched the water recede dangerously low from her lagoon faster than it should have. It was like the water was being funneled out from Neverland.

She raised her hand up to shield her eyes from the bright flashes of lightning that started to crack against the water, shuddering as the thunder resonated through her entire body. She spread her fingers trying to peak through at the storm that had grown exponentially in seconds. She had seen her fair share of open ocean storms, this didn't hold a match to them. It was like it had a personality, a vindictive and violent one.

Suddenly a large ship appeared, lurching out of the whirlpool of the water, the sails ripping and the ship rolling from side to side violently as waves crashed over the top of her. Her eyes widened as much as they could at the sight. She was sure the ship would meet a very untimely end and scatter at that bottom of the seabed as it turned in the whirlpool, nearly capsizing more then once. It was as grand and strange an entrance as ever. Magic was surely at fault. Magic always had a price.

As soon as the ship seemed to fully emerge, the storm as quickly as it had come, started to die away. Ariel waited a bit for cloud to dissipate some the ocean to calm while the water rose up in her lagoon again before she dove in. She was always dangerously curious by her own nature, she made her way further out into the ocean and closer to the ship, careful to keep herself at a depth that she would be well hidden. Not that after the chaos she had just witnessed would the sailors pay any mind to her. The waves were still moving heavily and she could feel the currents trying to pull her this way and that, but it she was stronger and forged ahead and besides now it was nothing more than a usual sea storm she had experienced many a time.

When she felt close enough she popped her head out of the waves to get a closer look at the mysterious vessel. She hadn't seen a ship pass this way in decades, and never had one in all her time here made such a ruckus of an entrance. Her curiosity always got the better of her, and she hadn't witnessed anything this interesting in far too long. It would be impossible for her to resist investigating.

She could see the distant outlines of men running about the deck, she couldn't hear what they were saying but their motions seemed rushed and erratic. She had to fight the sudden bloodlust that thrust itself up into her throat. She hadn't had human flesh since before Eric, and she made it a priority never to eat it again, that didn't mean she didn't experience predatory cravings though. It was her creatures nature to hunt those that sailed the seas. This ship wouldn't be sailing very far though the sails were completely damaged and would need to be replaced at the very least seriously mended if they expected to travel anywhere.

The flag was still flying high though. A black flag with a skull and bones.

Pirates.

The kind of humans her kind feared most, if you could say they feared any. Pirates were known to hunt merfolk for various reasons. Sometimes for their tears because they were valuable in many potions and folk remedies, sometimes for their fins so they could string it up in front of the ship for good luck and protection while passing through treacherous waters (which is also why the visage of many mermaids were carved into the front of ships but not nearly as affective), but most of all it was to get a healing kiss. It was rumored that a mermaid's kiss would keep a sailor from drowning if they wanted it to, but it would also heal any wound no matter how fatal. Humans were always looking for ways to beat death, and her kiss could save many.

It was for a darker purpose though, the kiss of life and death. It would keep a man from drowning under water, heal all his wounds, but it wasn't for their benefit. She had seen her kind drag the men to the bottom of the ocean, and eat them alive. Fresh flesh was best, she remembered the saying well. Kiss them so they wont drown, all their biological imperfections and diseases cured, and eat them while their heart still beats the blood through their veins. It was a curse to be touched by a healing kiss, that is, unless you got away.

`If only it could have cured age` she thought sadly, again her mind wondering back to Eric. Time, it was the one thing her kiss couldn't heal. No matter how many kisses a man or woman received, they would still age naturally. Well, except in Neverland that is. No one aged in Neverland.

Well they couldn't be here for her, mermaids were known not to be in abundance in Neverland. Sure there were a few here and there along with herself, but they kept a good distance away by being on the other side of the island. If the pirates were after mermaids they would have gone to different seas surely. Still, they were an opportunative bunch. Pirates always were.

`Best to stay hidden for now` she thought as she ducked back down under the waves.

AN: So there you have it. Let me know what you think so far. Yes, I know I took some liberties with mermaid lore, sorry if you don't like it ;)