Title: The Coming War
Fandom: Real!Disney AU, including but not limited to Pocahontas, Hercules, Robin Hood, Peter Pan, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, and Beauty and the Beast
Author: Apache Firecat
Characters: Pocahontas/John Smith, Meg/Hercules, Belle/Beast, Salem, Various Others
Rating: PG/K+
Summary: The coming war has already began.
Word Count: 2,779
Written For: Fan FlashWorks 433. Angry and 50 Disney Fandoms For 2024 #2
Warnings: Political Views, LGBTQ issues -- a lot of things that will likely, honestly, piss people off... Sorry/not sorry. We are each allowed our own views. <3
Disclaimer: All characters within belong to their rightful owners, not the author, and are used without permission.








She had come here, knowing the other woman would likely be here, but remained quiet as she took the open seat beside her. The bartender looked at her, but the Indian Princess mutely shook her head. She did not touch any form of the white man's firewater after seeing how it had changed her father. Many of their people had fallen to that poison, and Pocahontas would have nothing of it. She very rarely stepped into this establishment at all, except when summoned, but she was worried.

She had been worried for some time now. John did not seem concerned, and the animals twirling around her certainly did not comprehend. Grandmother Willow was sleeping and did not seem to want to wake, and though Pocahontas was concerned for her, it was not uncommon behavior for the kindly, old spirit during these cold moons. She had asked Merlin, with whose advice her beloved Grandmother often agreed, but he had only confirmed that she was tired and sleeping.

The world was tired, Pocahontas thought, gazing into her own eyes reflected in the mirror behind the bar. This whole world was tired, and it did not seem to be growing any more energetic -- or any happier. It seemed not unlike the cold gray of London when she had visited there so many centuries ago. Only that had been a different London, not this time's or world's London, she reminded herself as Meeko chirped near her ear. He rubbed his furry cheek against her own, seeking, she knew, to please her, but Pocahontas' spirit was heavy with all the cries she had heard recently.

Things were changing rapidly and, she feared, none for the better. Animals were being hunted to extinction; no one seemed to think twice of wearing her dearest friend as a cap. Children were no longer children, and those who did come into their village seemed so change from the children of just a couple decades prior. They were no longer interested in pure, innocent fun and always clutched strange, metal things in their palms. Pocahontas, in the last several weeks, had witnessed many of them being smacked by their parents, even here, where they were fabled to be the Happiest Place on Earth. She had witnessed as well, and the white man -- not the good ones amongst her husband's kin -- were invading ever more into their little walls.

She'd heard even worse on the news. A shiver crawled down her brave spine as she recalled some of the most recent news stories she had heard. Ludwig said they were destined for a war that would even touch here. None of them were eager to experience another war, but she had already seen Buzz, Mulan, Merida, and several other soldiers preparing for the war that seemed inevitable. The Queen and King stayed constantly in a deep concern, but Pocahontas had spoken seldom to them. Cinderella and Mickey were not her leaders, after all. She had been the leader of her own people to a certain extent, but after all her Father had done after succumbing to the white man's firewater and thundering cannons, Pocahontas no longer trusted any leader.

She had only come to this bizarre, new land after all at her husband's encouragement, and even then, not without checking with Grandmother Willow. When her grandmother had agreed, Pocahontas had finally acquiesced. She had not really regretted the move. Her entire tribe had come with her, and she had even spotted John Rolfe and her father in this new land. Her father seemed well, but did not recall the things he had done to her before. The others spoke of him coming from a different time, but Pocahontas did not want to think of that tonight. Her head and heart were already burdened with far too many other, more pressing topics.

She almost jumped as several, frothing mugs of the firewater were slammed down onto the counter. They were slid down to the boisterous fox and the other men surrounding him. They wore bows and arrows on their backs, and Pocahontas wondered if they were soldiers also preparing for the common war. She readjusted her gaze to the woman to whom she had come tonight to speak and was startled to find the near stranger gazing back at her.

"Well," Meg asked, swinging her own frothing mug of mead through the air between them. Pocahontas' deep, brown eyes followed the mug uncertainly. "Are you going to ask me what's bugging you -- "

"Ooo! What is bugging you, Pumbaa?!" Pocahontas heard a strange, colorful squirrel standing on his hind legs (she believed she heard his kind referred to previously as meerkats, although she saw nothing catlike about the animal) ask the warthog next to him a few stools down. She swallowed hard and pulled her gaze away from the pair eating bugs.

" -- or are you just going to keep staring at me, pretty Princess?"

She swallowed hard again, suddenly fearful, but she had faced worse fears than this. "I..." She unconsciously licked her lips, but then found her voice. "I wanted to ask you something," she started, staring down at the other woman. She had seen her often on the outskirts of the Princess crowd, not unlike herself. The other woman had skin as fair as John's, but Pocahontas knew that she belonged to a faith that was considerably more similar to her own than most of the others in this huge, diverse village.

The brunette shrugged lithe shoulders underneath a thin, almost sheer, purple frock. "Go ahead. Ask me anything. I've got answers. You may not like 'em, but I've got 'em." She spoke with a voice of confidence, but when Pocahontas announced her query, the suddenly ashen look on her face gave away her truths.

"Are your gods angry also?"

Meg tilted her head, cleared her throat, scratched the back of her head, and cleared her throat again. "That's a doozy of a question!" she finally admitted. She turned back to the bar and finished her mug in a single, long, and very unladylike gulp. She wiped the remaining liquor from her mouth with the back of her hand, a gesture Pocahontas had witnessed her husband perform a good many times over their years together.

She waited patiently, but when the one they called Meg did not speak again, she finally pressed, "You said you have answers."

"I do." She nodded. "I also said you wouldn't like them."

"The truth is seldom kind." She felt Meeko's gentle, black paws on her cheek and Percy scratching a flea beside her bare ankle but did not move her eyes from Meg. Instead, she cleared her own throat and asked again, "Are your gods angry? I fear mine have been furious for quite some time now."

Meg slumped back down onto her stool, but finally, quietly, still hesitantly, she answered, "Yeah, I think they're pissed." She signaled the barkeep for another refill. "I mean, how can they not be?" She sipped her new mead, and Pocahontas, resuming her own seat, waited patiently for the other woman to continue.

Meg stared into the frothy, white top of her drink as she slowly continued, "Herc says they're pillaging the holy lands again. That's bad enough, but now this war is coming here too. And we're not allowed to discipline our own. Try explaining to Zeus why He can't just hit anybody He wants to in the ass with a lightning bolt. They've tried to take Pegasus for some kinda studies, and the other talking animals are being warned about that too. I'd watch yours," she said, indicating Meeko, Percy, and Flit with her gaze.

Meeko draped himself around his Princess' neck -- he didn't care what dangers came, he knew she would protect him as he always had --, but Flit hid, even ceasing his humming and falling abruptly silent, in Pocahontas' long, dark hair. Percy, always the last catch of the three to catch on, continued scratching and growling at that pesky flea.

"Aphrodite's upset too. She says people are messing with their bodies too much. We were all born beautiful, and sometimes, people don't like the body they're born into. Changing their sex organs are one thing, she says, but when they go to messing with their faces and everything else that the Gods gave them at birth -- That's what upsets her. She says they're messing around too much with natural beauty."

"Athena's upset that people no longer read, but I think the beauty thing is the more pressing issue -- "

A voice Pocahontas had ever only known to be polite and humble suddenly harrumphed on Meg's other side. "That's what you think. You people always pay attention to beauty, but stopping reading is the beginning of the end. People are doomed to repeat the past if they do not understand it."

"Belle, you're... drinking?!" Meg asked in surprise.

"Yeah. Beast is out with the other Princes. They're not even enjoying themselves, or at least, that's what he says. They're worried. The government is coming into our kingdom. if they find out what's going on here -- " She made a face and tossed back the rest of her drink.

A sheep, whose wool Pocahontas was surprised to note was black, baaed his agreement next to her. The sheep on the other side of Belle's long legs was even stranger. Pocahontas did not speak of its difference, however, for Meg and Belle both seemed to take the sheep's hot pink wool in stride. Both animals, however, were clearly agreeing with their Princess!

"We're going to be sucked into this war," continued Belle. "There's nothing we can do to stop it! They're already sending their royalty into our gates, no longer on visits but on investigations! They're watching us, and when they find out magic is real, that animals can talk, that the movies and other forms of entertainment we have put out pass the Golden Gate is actually the history of the various peoples protected within this place -- " She shuddered, and Pocahontas felt the inside of her bones suddenly turn cold.

She had felt the shudder deep inside of her like this only twice before. The Native American sat bolt upright on her stool as it gnashed its way, it seemed, into the very marrow of her bones. This was how she had felt when her husband had been shot all those years ago, and again when she had watched him sail away. She had feared she would never see him again, and in some worlds, she understood, in some timelines, she never had. Her heart thundered in her ears as though she was again hearing the drums of war. She wanted to run from this place, but she knew leaving the bar would do no good. She needed answers. She had to face this and figure out how to lead her family through the chaos, the -- she gulped, brown eyes wide -- the war coming.

"Are we certain their war will reach us here?" Her voice emitted so hushedly that she almost didn't hear herself.

"It already has, fair lady," the fox on her right side. She looked to him to see that his entire, little troop were no longer laughing and carrying on. Each now sat with a very serious expression on his face, his head slightly bowed and his rounded eyes gazing right at her. "They will come," Robin continued, his bushy tail tucked between his legs and green, feathered cap clutched in his paws. "The only question is whether or not we can protect our own. We already cannot protect the children who visit."

"We cannot even send them to Neverland anymore," spoke up a young man dressed in a long, white nightshirt and a top hat. His terrified eyes seemed larger than his glasses as he relayed, "Why, just the other day, Wendy and I observed a child being beaten by his father. He'd been to the island villages and had a bit too much to drink. The child admitted to us, quite tearfully might I add, that it was not the first or the last time his father had beaten him. He had hoped things would be different here, at the Happiest Place on Earth, that his family might be able to come back together here, but alas, it was not to be."

The boy sorrowfully shook his head. "Once, we could have offered him protection at Neverland, but the last time we tried to protect a beaten child that way, their guards came from their world and found them. They almost discovered the mermaids, too, and they would have if Peter and Hook had not gotten along just long enough to run them out of Neverland!" He was shaking as he related his story and stopped to push his glasses back onto the bridge of his nose with a quivering forefinger.

"There must be something we can do!" spoke another voice.

"Our best option is to agree with them and hid amongst our own people -- " spoke a black tomcat who had walked up on the table behind Pocahontas.

"But that's why we came here!"

"Yeah, so we didn't have to hide anymore!"

"No." The cat, whose name the Indian Princess recalled hearing as being Salem Saberhagen, sat beside her on the counter. His long, ebony curled around him as he looked pointedly at the gathered, and scared, people. "That was only part of why we came here," he reminded them, his whiskers bristling. "We came here, for the most part, because our own lands were destroyed after normal man discovered magic. Humans have a tendency to fear what they do not understand, and to be angered by anything that makes them feel inadequate."

"But how do we make them feel inadequate?!" cried a Fairy, her multicolored, translucent wings buzzing.

"Because," Salem said, "we are better than them. Yes, most of us have powers. Most of us can use, or have been touched by, magic. But we do not let that change who we are at our core. We do not let it change our values. Their values are already changing, in large part because they fear and are angered by anything that makes them feel bad. It isn't about chasing their pleasures or passions; it's about not feeling bad because of what they allow themselves to succumb to. The best we can hope for," he concluded, tail swaying, "is that they leave us alone for the most part. They dip in and out, and do not find out any of our secrets while they are. If they do -- " He shook his head, his green eyes wide and sad. "If they do, my friends, we're as screwed here as we were in our own worlds."

Cries went up, rending the air, but amongst them all, Pocahontas heard a voice behind her. "Get you something, pretty lady?"

She turned slowly, and was shocked by the person she saw. The other barkeep had apparently either left for the day or gone for their break. Regardless, a new barkeep stood before Pocahontas now. She recognized the girl instantly, only the girl she had known had always dressed demurely in a simple blue and white frock and apron that covered her body. The girl before her was now dressed in tight, animal hides dyed black and had a nose ring in her face like a pig. The girl before her was a very loud cry of the changes coming. Alice had once been one of the most shy and innocent Princesses in the land, but now --

Pocahontas could not bear to look at her, with all her garish changes and strange dyes covering her face and hair. There were other metal rings, too, in the most absurd of places. Pocahontas let out a cry, turned, and ran. She heard Percy yip behind her as the stool spun and clattered to the ground. Meeko dug his claws just enough into her shoulders to keep his perch on her back, and Flit soared beside her.

Pocahontas did not stop running until she had reached Grandmother Willow. "Grandmother! Grandmother!" she cried out, but the old soul, who had always guided her on her life journey, remained soundly sleeping. Pocahontas fell amongst her roots and cried, burying her face in her tender, old bark. Once, her vines would have wrapped around her and held her tight and close as she sobbed, but the old tree did not move this day, except for her browned leaves which swayed in the gentle, rising breeze. Pocahontas cried and cried, not even realizing when Percy came and laid his furry head on her feet.




The End