It was a beautiful sunny day. Today was more important than ever to Bae. He had his first date. A date with a peasant girl he met while taking a walk from his odd, freighting, terrorizing lunatic of his father, the one known as The Dark One, Rumpelstiltskin.
He thanked the Gods everyday his papa decided to live in a very large castle. The more room for Bae to hide once he was mentally exhausted by his father's annoying, and sometimes scary antics. Like most teens, he did care about his parent, but he didn't like to show it, or let his guard down.
Luckily his Father was out making deals today…no worries.
Bae stood in the grand kitchen preparing two cornished hens with his special stuffing recipe, mixed with his herbs he personally grew himself. Ever since they moved into the castle, he found a new joy in cooking. Honestly, he was paranoid his papa would put some sort of horrid spell on him through dinner. He often wondered if his papa would turn him into a snail as he often joked about. As long as Bae cooked, he knew what would happen…nothing. That's how he liked it, just a meal, with no paranoia.
He stood there for a moment, pondering about his "date," he thought of her sweet smile, those glittering sparks of silver in her grey eyes, how cute her blond braids were, the brown freckles upon her pale complexion, how she was so friendly and smart. He hoped she would enjoy his dinner he made. Bae was very nervous; he never cooked for a girl before…
He also hoped she wouldn't find out who his Father was. That often scared away girls. He lost count of how many dates he offered up to the girls in the village. He was known as the Dark One's Son.
Like his Father, he was lonely as well.
He then thought about this other girl, she had red hair, went by the name of Clair. Clair was nice, but she seemed to feisty. He did find her interesting though, she did come up to him a few times to speak to him. He wondered if she were interested in him. He remembered asking her if she knew who was his father. She didn't care.
"Well…if this one runs off, I guess I can venture to Clair…we'll see how brave she is then. But on the other hand, I hope things work well with Gretchen."
-A few Hours Later-
Bae took a breath after running eagerly to the door. He opened it. A pretty young blond stood in the doorway .
"Uh…hello Bae." Her timid ways eased a bit soon as she saw the smile and blush on Bae's face.
"Hello Gretchen…please, come in!" He offered to take her cloak. She took of her cloak and gave it him. Gretchen looked around as soon as he put her cloak up.
"Come, follow me, I have dinner ready."
"It smells great," she stated. Bae was glad she was pacing behind him, preventing her knowing he was very red in the face and nearly shaking. He did his best to control the jitters.
"Bae…I have to ask, are you a prince?" Bae laughed.
"No, why do you wonder," he asked.
"Well, this castle is huge. It's bigger than the Queens!"
"Oh…my pa, he, he gets paid well for whatever he does." He let out a sigh of relief knowing she wasn't aware of how his father was.
Bae pulled out a chair for her, offering some tea.
"Yes, I'd love some Bae." The young woman sat down on the chair looking at the vibrant bowl of fruit placed in front of her. She did a double take to confirm that she didn't just see the apple bouncing up and down on top of the fruit.
Once she looked back, the fruit stood still.
"I…I must be nervous. Yeah, I'm imagining it." Her thoughts faded away once she saw Bae's hand set down a cup of tea in front of her view.
They both shared an awkward smile and glance before he left to go get their dinner.
He quickly came back out empty handed noticing Gretchen sitting on the sofa this time looking at a small book that was set on the coffee table earlier. It was a book of fairytales.
"Um, sorry Gretchen, it's going to be ten more minutes."
She spoke while she peered into the book. "It's all good Bae, come here and look at this amazing picture I found in this book!"
Bae scurried over curious to see what she was looking at. He made himself comfortable beside her on the sofa.
As he peered down to look, his head instantly cracked up along with hers to the cackling laughter echoing from the halls.
"NEHAHAHHAHAHHA!" Bae looked over to his right feeling an impending doom and misery about to corrupt.
"Maybe he will be understanding and leave us be…for once," Bae thought.
The two young people were drawn away from the laughter once they saw something very odd…a slew of rats and spiders dancing into a synchronized waltz among the floor right before their feet.
The performing creatures crawled up the table once again continuing where they left off. The spiders swayed back and forth on the outside, twirling about gracefully on their legs. The rats stood on their hind legs twirling and waltzing to the imaginary crescendo.
Gretchen jumped into Bae, he had no choice but to put his arm around her. He wanted to, but not in this type of predicament!
He closed his eyes. "Oh Gods, this isn't happening, please Papa, stop it!"
The pair watched in horror as the creatures now merged into a fox trot, then lastly, a very impressive conga.
Their faces went white as soon as they saw all the creatures working with each other, the spiders kicking out their legs, along with the rats.
Gretchen couldn't take any more of the sight before her. She believed in magic, but this was too much. She jumped behind the couch with Bae quickly behind on her trail. They met over at the dining table.
They watched in amazement as the creatures danced while descending down the table and all the way across the grand room perfectly continuing the Conga.
Bae realized the maiden was about to buckle. He threw out another chair, guiding her upon it.
"Um…Gretchen…I…" he wasn't sure what to do. Bae was always a very level headed quick thinker, but this was bad either way.
"Oh, it's nothing really, my Father is Rumpelstiltskin, he is just having abit of fun. Yeah, creatures dancing, that is typical."
Or he could deny it and then the poor girl would scream bloody murder. He sighed.
"I'm sorry Gretchen…this palace is enchanted. It has a very odd spell, things…random things happen here." She nodded her head, still getting the creeps rolling down her spine.
Before Bae could even take a step, he found himself locked into the brace of death by Gretchen. Once he cleared his mind, he realized what she was startled from. The laugh was back.
"Nehahahaha! Nehahahah! NEhehhahehahihi!" Bae rolled his eyes. He learned over the year, in order to deal with his Pa, he had to keep calm. If it was anything that provokes the playful Rumpelstiltskin, it was a reaction, acknowledging you were annoyed.
After Gretchen calmed down and sat back in her chair the third time, Bae went into the kitchen to retrieve their dinner.
He came back out seeing a smile across her face, in which encouraged him to set down his edible masterpieces proudly.
He sat across from her as he poked his fork into his salad, before taking a bite, he spoke.
"So, I was wondering if you still wanted to fish off the dock after dinner…there's a big lake in the back with so many fish. "
"Yeah Bae, id love-" her happy expression turned into a shocked one as she backed up in her chair. Gretchen looked down and let out a shriek. A very large, slimy black snail, about 2 feet long slowly slid across her feet, leaving a rather disgusting trail of slime behind.
After Bae saw the object of her torment, he rolled his eyes, compelled to slam his fist into the table. It's not that he wanted to direct his anger at her, but at his prankster Father, at the moment acting so immature and abusing his magic.
He ran over to his date, peeling the snail off her foot. He huffed as he picked up the very heavy snail. The thing had to weigh about 15 pounds.
He hated how his Father used his weapon of choice in the form of snails. Ugh, why couldn't he just tell embarrassing baby stories of him instead of this. Well, that's what you get when the Dark One is your father…
Bae came back to the table.
"Gretchen, I'm sorry, I put the snail outside. Like I said…some nights the castle is worse than ever. I, I hope you can over look this." The lovely blond nodded her head as Bae smiled.
As the two attempted to dig eagerly into their mouthwatering meal, they dropped their forks upon realizing the cornished hen's shrieked. Yes…they shrieked, as if they were stabbed and in dire pain. It was more of a very miserable filled cawking and squawking.
Bae's jaw dropped and Gretchens eyes bulged out as soon as the hens got up into a stance and ran to each other, suddenly outstretching their withered wings, there drumsticks out skittering side by side. Suddenly, the hens stood in front of the other, their wings reaching in, there drumsticks moving in and out. The hens danced victoriously in the form of the "Charlston."
Gretchen could not take anymore. She got up so fast, her chair flew backwars, taking Bae by the hand running to the entrance. She needed to leave.
"Bae, I'm sorry, but why don't we meet at my home, where there is no magic. This is to crazy. I am so frightened. Meet me at the forest where we meet and will figure something out. Oh, at 12:30…alright? I'm so sorry." She then turned and ran, shrieking as a slew of bats came after here. The bats then flew back into his home.
Bae was very tempted to punch a hole into the wall. It wasn't the castle that did anything to him though, he needed to retaliate to another source…his father.
"PAPA! SHOW YOURSELF!"
The Dark One strutted into the room, giggling harder than ever. He stopped once he looked at his angry son.
"Papa, what did you do! Why? That was…I liked her for so long, and I finally got her to come! Why do you always have to prevent me from having friends, let alone a date! I am 15 now! I am a man! I worked so hard on that dinner! I scrubbed half the castle! I even polished the pier because we were going to fish! What is the matter with you! Why do you have to torment me!"
"Now that you finished Bae, I will answer," he said in the most obnoxious tone, still giggling.
"Because…I can, and I will!" Bae clenched his fists and stormed off yelling.
"UGH…YOU ARE IMPOSSIBLE!"
THE ENDNEHAHAHAHAH!