A/N: In the words of Regina on the season four Promo: "Here we go again."
Disclaimer: Nope I don't own a thing.
~8~8~
Agonizingly bright orange light stabbed painfully into Rumpelstiltskin burning vision whichever way he dared to turn. He seemed as though he were struggling in a swirling pot of miserable heat. Intolerable heat as fierce as a kiln's pressed his pathetically skinny forms at all sides and seemed to grope at him with gnashing teeth. Oily gray smoke churned as evil clouds come down from the firmament to choke the little air that filtered through the wet rag wrapped firmly at his nose and mouth.
Fire. The word blaze as the inferno did all around him. Fire.
The knobby crutch clutched desperately in his calloused grasp was akin to a hot pans handle in his sweaty, slipping grip. The spinner lumbered and stumbled through the flames and swirling embers and peered as far as his tear stained eyes could allot through the dense smog that so swarmed and smothered about him.
Somewhere in the flames that burst and clawed out with fiery talons all around him was home. Somewhere in the plumes of gluttonous wrath and the sparks that swirled was Baelfire, his precious son.
Wary hands daring to pry the wet rag from his mouth, he hacked in the smoke and called out over the screams and pleas of the conflagration engulfed village. "Bae! Son! Can you hear me?" he screamed as best he could in his errant panic. Fear galloped as hot as the flames through his veins. He had to find his son; he had to be alive and safe. There was nothing else in the world that mattered.
Hope that some word would reach him struck weakly through his heart, but all that returned was the roar of the flames to cruelly dash his hope. Everything seemed to rise to a horrendous symphony that could potentially drown out his son. The beams that kept the roofs and gables cracked as loud as thunder as they split into fire engulfed splinters that hurtled to the charred ground. Thick patches of roofing as dry and brittle as tinder crackled like an old woman's incessant gossip about him to buffer the sound that could have belong to his dying son.
Everywhere there was noise of death and destruction but not of Bae.
He wheezed as the smoke found purchase upon his tongue and jammed down to clog his throat. Hastily the spinner shifted the cloth over his mouth and nose again. There was too much risk to keep the cloth away from his airways for long. The rag had a wretched stink but at least he wasn't dead of smoke inhalation. Yet.
For the moment however, his death lingering so near in the midst of the hazardous smoke was not the first thought that raced through his mind. At least, not for himself. In the moment he cared not one whit for his life, but for Bae's. He needed to find his son and try to take him away from the madness that had swooped upon their tiny village.
At the thought of having left his son alone, he cursed himself thrice for a fool. He shouldn't have let him stay home by himself but spinning had to be done while he himself had to venture and find any good soul willing to purchase a poor cowards wares so they could eat another day.
He had been out doing just that, trying to peddle his spools of wool to a woman eager to toss a few copper coins his way, when they had come down to destroy the only life he had ever known. He hadn't been so far from his hovel but they had swept through the town like a northern gale and the shire had erupted like dry nesting from the murderous sparks the intruders wielded.
The entire village was doused in chaos wherever the gluttonous bickering flames leapt. Animals clucked, bawled, barked, and roamed or stampeded heedlessly to escape the flames. People Rumpel had known all his life dashed before him in blurs of panic. Children wailed and coughed in the smoke and mothers cried out for their young in shrill, crying voices. Men either tried to gather their families or fend off an attacker that was by far more powerful than they.
Bodies lay strewn like horrid surprises beneath people's feet. One could only hope they were not related for there was no time to truly configure just who lay dead through the burns, cuts, and bruises. Indeed some men from the old war had fought but they were few and far between, and if the blood mingled with the dust was anything to be accounted for, the men of the village were losing.
The thought strobed wildly about his mind like a ball of angry light and he grimaced deeper despite the smoke and bite of flames that pawed about his scorched body. Had he the chance he could have possibly regained some respect and honor back by aiding the men who tried to rally a defense but his son and their safety was more important.
Focusing on that thought, his last rope to courage, Rumple clambered and staggered as best he could through the blindness. The gray smoke belched and billowed all about him and the way, he thought, led to his home.
Every so often he dared jerk down the rag around is mouth and call out the name of his boy and yet every time his voice became hoarser and fainter.
He hoped Bae had perhaps made good an escape but knowing his son he was probably out looking for hi-
"Papa!" a familiar fourteen year old voice coughed out over the smoke.
Relief filled the spinner like a draught of cold water tossed over his head. His cast his previous thought away, his mind only for his son. As he heard his son's voice, rough, but alive, the fires seemed to beat back as his hope sprang forward to hasten the flames of demise away.
"Bae!" he hallooed back and stammered in the direction of the voice. "Bae, son speak again, where are you?"
He had to be close! The voice didn't lie!
"Here, Papa," the voice came again, nearer to Rumpelstiltskin's delight. His son was indeed breathing and not so far off!
Using his crutch like a blind man's staff, the crippled fanned the wood out bit by bit to help his way. He stumbled and bumped through the debilitating flames searching desperately for his boy. His shin throbbed with the extra weight but he endured, as he always had, when matters came to his son.
At last a small hand eagerly grabbed the ragged sleeve of his tunic and for the moment nothing else in all the world mattered.
Grabbing on to the hand that clutched on to his shirt, the spinner pulled the lad in close. "Bae you're alright?" he asked, his voice faintly muffled by the rag.
Hugging his father tight, the boy nodded. Hand gripped tight to his father's tunic, he kept close to the familiar thin body. His throat was too chaffed and sore from the smoke for much else. But he was alright. His father had come for him.
Everything would be alright then, Rumpel told himself with his son so close. Items, wool, coins could be replaced, his son could not. Nothing else mattered but his boy, his Baelfire.
Grasping his son with one arm, the cripple began to move back the way he had come. The smog was still thick as a sea fog, but with his precious boy, the heat was a summer's sun. "C'mon, Bae, if we can reach the edge of the woods then maybe we'll be safe."
The woods would provide relative safety, he knew very well. They could hide in the old underbrush piled high with seasons upon season dead leaves or in the ditch at the bend in the road. Once the place was safe and the smoke had shredded away then they would see what could be salvaged of their home.
And then? The thought stabbed a needle of trepidation and horror into his heart but he ignored the fast approaching future. At present their main goal was to stay alive and together.
"The forest you say? Well that would have been a fine plan a few moments ago. My condolences but I don't think you're going to get there," a careless voice intoned cheerily from their left.
Swerving to their left, both son and father stared in horror as a medium sized, but strong man, appeared like a ghost through the smoke. Dressed in black as some phantom would, he held a rough piece of wool cloth over his face. Even still, his wickedly crazed smile seemed to pierce through the cloth and the smoke to reach them. A dangerously sharp cutlass' curved blade lay dull in the smoke in his hands.
Capturing father and son, the oddly dressed man easily toted the two away with a few prods of his weapon. Weak from smoke and frightened by the cutlass wielding man they could do no more than be carried away by one of the raiders that had ransacked the village.
~8~8~
Rumpelstiltskin greedily gulped the putrid but mostly smoke free air as they finally came clear of the worst of the disaster. His feet stumbled and he lagged behind with his limp as he and his son were dragged out of the inferno. The last of the flames seemed to sting all the fiercer as though angry two more had escaped their hungry clutches before they turned to find more demise to feast upon.
While the ruins of the village were left behind him what lay before him was little better. What once had been the wide road to the village was filled with captured people from the town.
Bloody stumps wrapped in ragged cloth hung from silent men. Blood flowed in a collective rivulet that washed down into the ditch as a stream of scarlet gore. Burns both minor and fierce branded every form. The smell of burning flesh and burning hair overpowered any other. Wails and shrieks of women torn from husbands and wounded warriors and children piteously filled the air. What the smoke had masked was now in the light and there was nothing but decimation and fear in every eye and every heart.
The village was utterly demolished and so were the people. Daring a swift look back, Rumpelstiltskin noted not a house, not a barn, not an inn would be left standing for any of them to return to. The fields had been pillaged early and by no little band of bandits looking for a belly full. No, the people, animals, who had done the ignoble deed, scum, filthy and horrid to the last.
By their clothes and their drawls the fact was obvious they were pelagic killers. They word faded bawdy clothes and tarnished hoops in their ears. Swords hung from red sashes and dirty unclad feet tramped the bloody dust. They looked hard hearted brigands all and as they were put with the rest of the gathered survivors, Rumpel quivered inwardly as he possibly guessed their fate.
These were no regular bandits. These were pirates.
Fear one more wrought icy shackles about his heart. With his boy safe he shriveled inwardly and quailed as a mere coward. There was no escape from them, he bemoaned inwardly.
Laughing heartily as though they were all gathered to some celebration feast, their captor herded them with the rest of the prisoners. "In you go, gentlemen!" He shoved the spinner into the gang of terrified villagers.
Unable to support the sudden shift, his leg screaming in agony, the cripple stumbled hard to the ground. Sharp stones cut into his hands and knees as he landed but he dared not cry out. Biting his bottom lips until a trickle of blood brooked down his mouth, he clutched close to his son and scampered to the edge of the knot of prisoners. Squeezing tight into the mass, he tried to make himself as small and meaningless as possible. He wanted none to notice him or his son for some cruelty.
"Keep quiet, Bae," he muttered fearfully to his boy. "Keep your head down and don't make a sound." There very lives could depend upon them being unnoticed.
Eyes wide with terror the boy nodded and pinched his lips shut.
Knowing that he would obey, the spinner cautiously began to espy what was happening. He didn't have to seek very far before a strong voice broke through the agony of the prisoners.
"Jefferson what are you doing with those two? You weren't told both come back with any prisoners," one of the pirates growled from the front of the gathering.
From his subservient posture on the blood slick ground, Rumpel dared a glance at the man who had lugged them to the road. He seemed much less a threat out of the smoke. He looked like the rest of the fellows save a dirty patched coat that looked pilfered from some old ball and a top hat stained by soot and smoke sat jauntily atop his head.
In retaliation the captor laughed dryly. He swung his head back to the unfortunate pair of father and son. "I found them on my way. You know I don't like coming back to the captain empty handed."
Before the large, burly fellow could snap back another voice interposed. "Captains coming! No squabbling if you value your cut."
Immediately both men quieted as though some intangible hand had pulled their tongue and bound them into knots. The one with the top hat, Jefferson, as Rumpel had heard him been called even doffed his dumpy hat as some gesture of respect.
Rumpelstiltskin blood ran cold as the herald gave the alert of the captain once more and the rest of the killers quieted from their foul enjoyment of the ransacking. A strange silence shivered over the raiders and the prisoners alike. Scream were reduced to mutters and the moans of the dead and dying seemed to almost float away with the smoke.
As he had feared before, the raiders were pirates, he knew definitely now that they had mentioned a captain. Now was to come the worse part. All helpless captives were at a captor's mercy. Any captain could potentially do anything to let them free, or to board them all on deck for slavery in some faraway land. The thought of torture sprang to the spinners mind but he pushed the thought away to keep from whimpering in terror.
What would this captain be like, the spinner wondered frighteningly, and then cursed himself from ever to have to find out. Were the matter up to him he would never like to clasp eyes on another pirate in all his days. Clutching his son a bit tighter he anxiously stared as the rest as the captain arrived to the burnt town.
His jaw swung as the figure mounted the small hill of the road. He had expected some rough, uncouth barbarian, or a sly wheedling man who had some sort of charm all the women seemed to love and all the boys emulated in their games. Instead, the had gotten… a woman. A beautiful woman.
And looking at her, Rumpel could only guess that fact made her so much the prouder. Head high, gait confident, she exuded the ruthlessness of a pirate and the intellect to back up her rule and ferocity that dubbed her captain.
His eyes sat stapled upon her as she stood at the crest of the hill, for that was all he could manage in that moment, but to stare at the mixture of death and beauty that had arrived.
~8~8~
Belle had always prided her men on their work. Staring at them all she observed the neatness in which they had accomplished her commands. Quick, bloody, and efficient, that's how they toiled in their vile deeds.
As her eyes scanned over at the damaged that rose in thick plumes behind the pirates she could not help but feel the same satisfaction well in her once more. Oh yes, her men were good.
A light wind rife with blood and smoke stirred playfully through her light umber mane that hung free and wild down past her shoulders. Dressed provocatively in leather men clothes of red and brown she cut a decidedly neater and cleaner figure than her compatriots.
Where they were coarse and grimy she was lithe and neat. Her blade was tucked into a scabbard and looked a poniard rather than some clumsy curved weapon. Her eyes, as bright as the sapphires in her stolen hoards, mercilessly scanned the spattering of cowering captives like a wolf among a prized flock of sheep.
"Well aren't you all a lucky lot," she began, her words light and idle in some accent that could not have been placed for all the gold in the realms. Eyes ever roving she slowly winded her way down to the prisoners. "Your village has been chosen to help re-supply my noble crew for a venture we're taking. As a reward you may keep your lives."
An audible sigh shivered through the frightened crowd like a peal of thunder. They were rough and ragged but they would live. This captain, whoever she was, at least would allot them that mercy.
Rumpel's thin, tired shoulders slumped at the excellent news. Their lives were no longer in danger and not only that but he had Bae who had escaped the flames as well. Whatever would come next need not matter. They would find something.
"However," she continued, her smile never leaving her lips, "My crew does need a cabin boy." Stopping finally, the captain stood right before the prisoners. Her azure eyes roved the masses and came right upon one that would suit her needs. "Him." She pointed her poniard to Baelfire. "He looks capable. He'll do." She turned to the man who had been squabbling with Jefferson. "Gaston take him."
In an instant the frail spinner's already tenuous world came crashing all about him. The fire was one thing, the capture another, losing everything they had even more, but now…. Terror seized his heart with dagger claws that scarped the last remnants of his calm away as a deathly realization took him thrall. Despite all the hazards they had just so recently overcome another, impossible, immovable one had swatted them down. Now there truly was no way to pry his son back to him. The pirates were as final as death.
Grunting once, the bulk of a man strode forward. Before Rumpel could even formulate a word, the large man grabbed Bae by the back of his ragged tunic. Hauling him with a strength born on the high seas, Gaston nearly lifted the boy off the ground. Indeed he would have had Rumpel not acted.
Grasping the edge of his son's ankle in a tight hug, the cripple hung on desperately to his boy. "No, please," he begged piteously, his weary body fighting to keep the boy stationed to the ground, the only home he had ever known. "Not my son, please."
He couldn't lose Bae. What would he do without his son? After everything that had happened. How could he still lose him after fire and pirates and the smoke? How could one woman take him? This woman who had not even raised a hand to execute them no less!
"Papa!" Bae cried as the hulk of a man attempted to rip him from his father. Refusing to remain idle he squirmed and struggled like an eel in Gaston's clutches. His worn fingers clawed at suntanned skin and scarped over old scars. He couldn't be separated from his father!
"Now now he'll be well taken care of," Jefferson offered in a careless sort of fashion to the spinner. He acted as though the cripple were a child with a toy being taken away.
A disgusted grimace pulled at Gaston's chilled features as he endured the annoyance, at best, that was Baelfire. The boy fought like a wildcat but his strikes were as a flies and unlike Jefferson he had no such inclination to soothe fears. Raising a foot he aimed a brutal kick at the spinner whilst trying to fend the boy from clawing out his eyes. "You'd best let go if you value your life, cripple!" he threatened darkly.
Though the captain had given them their lives, he would beg her pardon later after he gutted the spinner who dared defy the captain's orders.
Rumpel's head swam dizzyingly as the kick wrought pale blue stars to his vision. Light strobed through his eyes and a dull pain swam through his skull. Still he clung on desperately, a limpet attached to his son. He couldn't lose Bae. Better to die than lose his son.
"Please you don't understand." Blood dribbled from the edge of his mouth with each strike. "I'll do anything, I'll give you anything, please just don't take my boy."
Gaston aimed a few more kicks to the spinner. Each time the cripple's head snapped back but he was as a limber sapling always springing up once more. "He's no longer your concern cripple," the pirate spat acidly.
His temper only flared with a struggling Bae and a whimpering father at his leg. As the boy kicked and scratched the brute finally tossed the boy to the ground. A cloud of dust rose about Bae and he lay stunned at the brute's feet.
"Enough of this," Gaston snarled murderously and drew his cutlass. The blade gleamed in the haze of sunlight that filtered through the black smoke above. Raising the steel high he aimed to strike the helpless spinner down. At least then he might not be scratched to death by a stupid boy.
Frozen in terror, the spinner watched helplessly as the blade came hissing down to steal his life. For an instance he caught a reflection in the steel as the blade sang nearer. Only inches away he whimpered for mercy and closed his eyes tight. He raised an arm as though he could have blocked such a blow.
An audible clash and rasp of steel filtered through the air, snatching the thought of death away and sending the dark shadow back to the burning town. Confused that no other pain had pierced him, the spinner uneasily open an eye to see what had occurred. Was this death he wondered absently for a moment before he saw the one responsible for his life.
All froze to see the captain blocking the steel of Gaston with her poniard. A slight smile tiled her full lips as she slowly withdrew her blade from the parry.
"Now Gaston lets not be so hasty," she replied mildly neither angered nor amused at the spectacle of a father trying to preserve his son. "This man has me intrigued," she admitted as she sheathed her blade.
Indeed the begging man had sparked curiosity. The man was obviously a maimed cripple. His leg was bound in rags and a staff lay nearby. His clothes were stained as and had not been new even before the fire. His soft brown eyes told of horror and strife. He hadn't been in any fair condition to start with which begged the question who in such straights already would fight so desperately for their boy when they were promised life? Was the child so precious? Why?
Bae scrambled back to his father as the moment died down. Hugging him tight as though his Papa were a bulwark against the evil before them, he looked fearfully to has father with the hope he would not be separated.
Finding the captains eyes upon him, the Rumpelstiltskin wasted no time with his supplication. "Please my lady he's my only son." He clasped is hands together. "I'm a cripple. I don't have much in this world. Let me keep my boy."
A look of rumination crossed Belle's fate rues. The words sank in like the heat from above. "You love your son?"
"Dearly," replied the spinner. "I would do anything for him. Name your price whatever you ask I swear somehow I shall do whatever you wish." She could have asked him to destroy the nine moons and he would have tried. Anything to save his son.
Belle nodded slightly, her lips cast into a sly smile. "Anything?"
"Anything," he swore with an eager nod.
Her smiled grew wider. "I see." Turning to another woman, a red head she inquired, "Ariel how many crew did we lose?"
"We got off lucky, captain," Ariel explained lightly, her lips curved into a distasteful line. "Four dead."
Belle arched a brow "One was Cooks assistant correct?"
The red head nodded without words.
Satisfied, the captain turned back to face the spinner. Her blue eyes stared thoughtfully into his muddy brown orbs. They were plain, just as he, but there was a bit of a feeling about him. She knew not what the feeling meant but she had always learned to go with her gut.
"Well Cook will need a new assistant and I can't have a man who owes me a debt just gallivanting off through the realms. I need him close by to call upon his debt. The old assistant was a lay-a-bout anyway so I suppose a cripple won't be any worse." As though finished with them, she turned to Jefferson instead of the hot head Gaston. "Jefferson please takes them to the ship and make sure they're well guarded until we return." With that she busied off to another task that came along with a raid.
Gleefully, the off kilter Jefferson smiled at the shaken pair as though they were old friends. Hauling them to their feet, he wedged himself betwixt them. An arm over each shoulder of father and son, he ferried them slowly to their destination. "Come along new shipmates. There's quite a distance to the sea and your new home, The Forgotten Rose!"