Hi everyone! Okay the thing is, my friend and I sort of got this idea a while ago and I stated to write it to see where it would lead and now I really want to know what you think. I liked the idea even more myself from the fact that Emilie de Ravin who plays Belle actually stated that one of the main characters in this story was her favorite fairytale character as a child. I have only ever read these stories in their original language so a lot of it will be directly translated or my own english verson of a character's way of saying things. Well, hope you'll enjoy it!
Disclaimer: I own nothing except maybe tha plot in this, I have yet to add a character that doesn't allready excist in one way or another so all credit to the writers of Once and the wonderful childbooks author that owns the rest
Limestone Cities and Legends Come to Life
The people of Lindgren was a legend, one most rulers of the Enchanted Forest refused to acknowledge. But they were real, very real. Spread out over the land were men, women and children who all would listen to the call of Queen Astrid should it ever come. Most of them were commoners or wanders, some were robbers or thieves, some actually nobles, no royals however. Most were born into the culture of Lindgren but some found out and joined later in life. This story starts with one of the people born into this underground world.
A young girl was walking alone through the forest towards an opening in the trees up ahead. She was young, maybe fifteen or sixteen, with dark hair chopped of just beneath the chin and just as she walked pass the tree line to gaze down on the valley she closed her brown eyes, spread her arms and let out a scream of pure joy.
"Cherry Valley" she said with a smile and dropping her arms, the scream still ringing in the air.
The valley beneath her was a wonderful sight as it stretched towards the sea in the spring sun. Fresh green grass stretched from where she stood down to the clear water of the sea only interrupted here and there of bundles of trees of which most wasn't big enough to even be called forests. Fruit gardens seemed to pop up here and there among the farms and the river glittered in the sun that was just rising over the mountains. She started to move down the slope she stood at the top of towards the road that snaked its way towards the old town located on the shore. As she walked along the road she passed many people who were either on their way somewhere or just relaxing in the grass along the road. A vagabond and his son were stretched out under a cherry tree, a woman was looking annoyed at the broken wheel of her cat-pulled cart and on a bridge over the river was a group of children, one of them had just dropped her shoe in the water.
"Madicken, what are you doing?" the older girl asked and the ten year old spun around.
"Ronja? When did you arrive?" the girl asked giving her a smile that was only half genuine, probably had something to do with the shoe in the water.
"Two or three hours ago, why is your shoe in the water?" Ronja answered.
"She wanted to see if it float" one of the boys said and Madicken looked sheepish.
"Did it?" Ronja asked looking over the railing.
"No" the boy answered with a grin and Ronja shook her head.
"Come on Madicken, you're joining me to your mom" she said and the younger girl sighed but followed.
By the archway through the limestone wall that surrounded the town was a girl around Ronja's age. The girl had bright red hair in pigtails that was standing straight out, freckles all over her face and was currently standing on her hands scratching her ear with her foot. Ronja smiled, she had missed her.
"Hi Pippi, resting your feet?" Ronja asked and the redhead nodded and took her foot out of her ear.
"Yup, come on robber girl, Astrid is waiting" Pippi said falling in beside them walking on her hands. "Jonathan is here by the way" she said.
"He is?" Ronja asked surprised, the young man didn't spend much time in the town other than the fights with Katla the Dragon, that had actually been defeated last fall by Jonathan.
"Pippi, why did you have your foot in your ear?" Madicken asked, clearly not understanding the significance of the conversation, not that the older girls minded though.
"Because you shouldn't scratch your ear with anything smaller that your elbow" Pippi answered as matter-of-factly, she often said things like that, things that didn't really make sense at first, not that much of Pippi made sense at all actually.
They continued along the road with Madicken pondering what Pippi had said.
"Heard anything from your dad, Pippi?" Ronja asked as they walked through the town.
"Nope, I think he still has trouble with Hook, I mean really why not just pick the man up and hang him on the wall?" Pippi asked shaking her head from her up-side-down position.
"Not everyone is as strong as you Pippi, do you really think your dad can do that?" a voice asked and all three girls turned towards the voice.
"Course he can Jonathan" Pippi said smiling at the young man.
Jonathan Lionhearth was a few years older than Pippi and Ronja and one of the most popular people among the Lindgrens, a hero due to his defeat of Katla the Dragon but you rarely saw him in town, he and his younger brother Skorpan, whose real name was Karl, were most often traveling the rest of the world. Jonathan's friend couched to show that he was there.
"Oh, I'm sorry, Thomas this is Pippi, Ronja and Madicken, girls this is Prince Thomas" Jonathan introduced them.
"Pleasure to meet you, Your Highness" Madicken said curtsying.
"Same to you" Prince Thomas said glancing curiously at Madicken's bare foot and at Pippi who was still on her hands, Ronja completing the ensemble with cloths fit for a well-of-robber.
"Don't ask" Jonathan advised his friend who laughed.
"Wasn't going to, I believe there's a man somewhere who takes consil from a cricket so what's a girl on her hands?" Thomas said and Jonathan smiled.
"Can't be very sound advice" Madicken said confused.
"You haven't heard the Cricket Tales?" the young man asked and the girl's eyes lit up.
"Those are true?" she asked excited.
"Who knows? But my father once said that he had met a man who could talk to insects" Thomas said and Madicken's eyes were wide.
"That would be great to see" Pippi said as her own 'pet' monkey Mr Nilsson jumped down from a building landing on her foot.
"It really would, but we got to get Madicken home now or her mother is going to be even worse than it's already going to be because of the shoe in the river" Ronja said and Thomas looked amused.
"So that's where it went, we'll join you, Thomas need to talk to Lady Astrid anyway" Jonathan said and Thomas looked interested.
"This is Lady Astrid's daughter? Father said she didn't have any children" Thomas said.
"She does, Madicken here and her younger sister Lisabet" Jonathan said and Thomas nodded as they started to walk along the roads again.
"Just, Madicken doesn't sound like any name I've ever heard before…" Thomas trailed off and Jonathan started to laugh.
"My real name is Margareta and Lisabet is really named Elisabeth but no one calls us that" Madicken explained and Thomas nodded in understanding.
"A bit like Skorpan then" he concluded nodding to Jonathan who smiled.
"Exactly" he agreed as they stopped by a road blocked by two collided carts.
"Hey, Pippi" a voice called from the top of one of the carts and they look up to see a boy in Pippi and Ronja's age. "Could you give us a hand?" he asked and Pippi smiled.
"Could? Of course I could Tommy" Pippi smiled and Ronja quickly took Mr Nilsson off Pippi's feet as the other girl bent her arms and jumped into the air landing on the top of the carts.
Thomas looked surprised and Ronja couldn't resist sniggering quietly, he hadn't seen anything yet. Pippi held a loud and short conversation with the people on the other side of the carts from the top of them as Tommy and his twin sister Annika climbed down to stand beside Ronja and Jonathan who both greeted them happily as they backed away, Jonathan pulling Thomas with him as the other young man questioned what Pippi with her red pigtails standing straight out could do. Ronja, Tommy and Annika glanced at each other with meaning looks in their eyes as Pippi did a backwards summersault down and causally lifted up one of the carts. Thomas' jaw hit the ground when he realized that she was lifting the cart completely on her own. Jonathan couldn't hold it in anymore started to laugh at the young Prince's look while the other teenagers settled for grinning.
"There, try not to do that again" Pippi said when she had moved both the carts out of the way and Tommy's father, who had been driving one of them, smiled and nodded.
"We'll try Pippi, thanks for the help" he said and they continued along leaving Tommy and Annika behind with their father to help clear the rubble away.
"How… how…" Thomas spluttered and Ronja and Jonathan laughed.
"Spit it out, besides, she has been that strong as long as I have known her" Jonathan said giving a shrug at the end.
"I don't know, it's always been like that" Pippi shrugged not really thinking it strange.
"Jonathan what haven't you told me?" Thomas asked looking at his friend.
"A lot" Jonathan said unsure of the reaction.
"Like?" Thomas tried to get him to talk.
"You wouldn't believe me" Jonathan said and Thomas rolled his eyes.
Ronja and Pippi shook their heads as they entered the courtyard of Lady Astrid's home. It was a bustle of activity around the courtyard and quite a few people seemed to be looking for something.
"Madicken!" a voice called and they all turned to see a woman walking towards them. She was neither young nor old with a few grey streaks in her curly, brown hair. She was walking with such sureness towards then that Thomas had to wonder if she had seen him at all. "Have you seen your sister? She's been gone for several hours" the woman said sounding worried. "Where is your shoe by the way, young lady?"
"I haven't seen her Mom, she was asleep when I left" the girl said and the woman frowned.
"And the shoe?" she tried again and Madicken looked down guiltily.
"It's on the bottom of the river, Lady Astrid, she wanted to see if it float" Ronja answered for the younger girl and Lady Astrid sighed.
"Little Miss Splendid as usual, get inside your tutor is waiting" Astrid told her daughter who sheepishly walked towards the main building.
"I'm sorry about that, none of you happen to have seen Lisabet?" Astrid asked and the once who even knew what the girl looked like shock their heads. "Where could that girl be?"
"Mr Nilsson can help look" Pippi offered and Thomas looked confused at her wondering how she could offer a man who was not there's help, that was until the monkey on her shoulder started to nod quite eagerly.
"Thank you Pippi, I was about to ask Sofia for the help of her doves actually but he is very welcome to help" Astrid said as the small guenon jumped from the girl's shoulder and hurried of up a pole.
"I could talk to her, oh, and Lady Astrid, this is Prince Thomas he is here to speak with you" Jonathan said apparently preparing to hurry off.
"Thank you Jonathan, it's good to see you and you and Skorpan is eating with us tonight, no excuses" Astrid said and Jonathan smiled, she was one of the closest things he had to a mother since he had showed up here.
"Yes, we will, I'll see you all later" he said hurrying off to talk with Sofia.
"Well then Your Highness why don't we take this inside?" Lady Astrid said gesturing to her home.
"So, why are you here Your Highness?" Lady Astrid asked sitting down behind her desk with a smile gesturing to Thomas to take a seat in the comfortable chair across from her.
Well…" Thomas trailed off before he could even start as Pippi pulled herself up to round crossbar by the window and hooking her legs around it causing her to hang upside down while Ronja plopped down on one of the corners of the desk as if it was not strange at all.
"Don't bother, she spent many years living on the sea with her father, she is like that" Lady Astrid said as she noticed where he was looking.
"Oh, anyway my father wanted to send someone here to see how you were doing after the winter, you know with the dragon and all last fall" Thomas explained.
"And he sent you? Your Highness correct me if I'm wrong but aren't you an only child?" Thomas nodded confused by the question. "Then why would the King send his only heir to do something like this?"
"I offered actually, I have known Jonathan for a few years and I felt that I needed to get out of the castle so…" Thomas said with a shrug.
"I see, you can tell your father that he doesn't have to worry about us, Katla was not a new enemy but an old one finally defeated. We have survived several winters after her attacks and in a way that is what we do, if you want to hear about a hard winter I imagine you should ask Ronja here. Or how much snow did you have this winter?" Astrid asked looking to the girl.
"No more than usual, but of course that means we're snowed in at least part of the winter so that isn't saying much" Ronja shrugged. "I just hope some Greydwarves and Wildvittras died in it"
"You can always hope" Pippi agreed and Astrid shook her head fondly.
"As you can see we're fine and if your father has any ideas of giving Jonathan a title or honor or something you should probably put that out of his head. We don't want too much attention" Astrid said turning back to Thomas who looked surprised and a bit suspicious between the women.
"I was under the impression that Greydwarves and Wildvittras were just legends" Thomas said slightly accusingly.
"Everything in this valley are legends according to the rest of the world" Astrid dismissed his words. "After all, have you ever heard the People of Lindgren being referred to as anything else than such?"
And then it's done, if you like it I'm sorry to say don't expect chapters regulary because I'm useless at that and I have school to think of but I do hope to continue this. See you next time!