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Prologue
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Even in the burning heart of summer, the stream was always deliciously cold.
The girl sat upon the bank, bare feet dangling in the water, face cupped in both hands, mind wandering far-away realms. Above her head, the trees arched their great boughs, their leaves a million flickering emeralds. Light and shadow danced together in swift joy.
This stream came from the great mountain beyond the hills, and the heart of the mountain—though you wouldn't always know it—was always pure and full of love. The finest, clearest water in all the lands. That was what the grannies and the village chieftains always said.
Her gaze lost upon the gleaming ripples, the girl thought of the mountain, wondering if its heart pulsed, if it felt happiness or sorrow. In the mountain lived wild and beautiful creatures, and beyond the mountain lay distant places, cities and seas and mysterious countries, just like all the stories told.
When she grew up, decided the child, she would leave her little village and see the world, cities and seas and mysterious countries. The beautiful beasts would await, the wild birds alight on her hand, and she would learn the happiness and sorrow of the mountain. Yes, that was what she would do.
But not now. Now it was time to go home.
With a soft sigh, the girl drew her feet back to solid ground. Rising slowly, she picked up a little basket by her side, filled with wild raspberries, and started on her way. The path descended through the forest, following the stream closely, and she lingered a little here and there. Overhead, bird called and trilled in duets and trios and choruses, and she whistled along with them. Her mother was waiting.
Halfway home, near Dreamer's Pool, she heard voices upon the breeze.
This was a place where the stream bent and swerved, carving out a small deep pool, and the forest opened to a patch of meadow. In weather like this, the children of the village often came here to swim, shouting with glee as they splashed one another, bobbing above and below the surface, snatching at the wildflowers that grew along the bank. Maybe I'd have time to join in for a while, she thought idly.
"This world is still innocent. It is still safe from the giants," someone said. A man's voice. It sounded young, but also not young, and there was a very faint echo to it, a bare murmur upon the horizon.
"Not for much longer, if the war continues." A woman spoke, an ethereal music in each word.
These were no village boys out for a dip. They sounded like no one she had ever heard before in her ten years of life. The child crept closer to the clearing, concealed by the tall grass at the water's edge, blinking in confusion and curiosity. War, giants. Those, too, were things she had heard of only in tales. Tangling vines and wild daisies brushed against her arms and legs, trying to pull her back, but she paid them no notice.
Through a gap among the leaves, she caught sight of a group of grown-ups standing in a circle, men and women, six or seven of them. They stood very straight and very tall, clad in simple robes of white. Yet those raiments—on second glance—looked like they were woven from thunderclouds and snow and air.
They were more beautiful than anyone she had seen or could imagine.
"This is the place. This is the purest water remaining in all the realms," said the first man. His face was turned toward the silvery pool, and the sunlight snagged on a glint of gold in his hand.
"Pure enough for sorrow," replied the woman. Something else filled the music of her words—weariness, though the child was too young to recognize it.
"Yes," agreed another voice, low and edged with steel. "We must do it here. We must turn the tide of the war."
"We must preserve the light—"
The sentence did not finish. The breeze drew in a deep breath, and did not exhale. The child was quite certain that she never moved at all, nor made even the faintest sound, but the nearest man in the circle turned his head. She did not see him walk or run toward her, but before she had the time to take a backward step, there he was, the sun fleeing to hide away from his face, an icy hand clasping her shoulder. His gaze pierced her mind in an instant.
"What did you hear, girl?"
She gulped. Her little basket dropped to the ground, and raspberries rolled in every direction upon the grass like countless garnets. In the middle of the clearing, the other men and women, too, turned.
"Do not frighten her, Hades," said one of them. "She's only a little child."
"We cannot afford to be spied upon, Zeus." The voice of the man beside her remained tight and cold. But the other merely shook his head, and then he, too, stood right there in front of her. An exchanged glance, and the clamp on her shoulder loosened.
"What is your name?" asked the newcomer softly. He was the one whom she had first heard speaking, realized the girl. He dropped to one knee, so that his gaze was level with hers. She could not describe his eyes: they were clear, as clear as the water that shimmered in the pool, but there were also a thousand veils between them and the rest of the world.
"Taya," she whispered after a moment. The man's gaze followed hers down to the upturned basket by her feet. He smiled. It did not look like he did anything, but all of a sudden, the basket had righted itself, and the scattered berries were already all home, peacefully snuggled together.
"Do you live in the village down there?"
The girl turned, looking away across the clearing and along the hill path. Afternoon light was still dancing across the valley, but in the distance, smoke was starting to rise from kitchen chimneys. She nodded.
The man understood. She did not need to explain anything to him.
"Don't worry, Taya," he whispered. "Rest a little while here. You'll wake up in time to go home before dusk, and when you do, you will not remember us."
Taya blinked, eyelids already heavy with the infinite weight of the other's quiet words. The man caught the child as her knees buckled. Gently, he laid her on the fragrant green grass on the pool's bank, then turned back to the others.
Those men and women, they no longer spoke, thought the little girl as darkness draped tenderly about her limbs. Not the way regular people spoke. They were chanting, maybe singing now, singing to the water. And the water sang back. Their voices were so near and so far away and so strange and so sad. Somewhere from an already endless distance, she discerned the word love, and then, the very last word, despair.
To lower a child of ten to sweet slumber for an hour, then draw her out again with smooth silken cords: it was a simple piece of magic, almost a beginner's work. And the man who performed it—even in those days, many had begun to call him not merely a sorcerer, but a god. So understandably, he thought no more of the girl, and did not look back at the small still form beside the pool as he left this world. But something must have gone terribly wrong, for Taya did not wake up in time to go home before dusk. She did not wake up when the village men came with torches and shouted her name. They trampled all over the meadow, almost tripping over her, yet never saw her. She did not wake up when down in the valley, her mother let out a keening wail, as they brought back to her the little basket full of congealed blood, the only thing they had found. She did not wake up when summer turned to winter, when shadowy beasts began to stir in the depth of the mountain, when her village burned.
She slept for a long, long time, much longer than the god intended. And when she finally awoke, nothing in the world was the same, and she no longer remembered who or what she was.
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Note: This is my first foray into the Once Upon the Time fandom, so please, let me know if I get anything wrong.
I know the prologue looks totally unrelated to anything Rumbelle, but it will tie together...eventually. Rumple will appear in the next chapter.