Once It's Gone
~O~
A man unwilling to fight for what he wants deserves what he gets.
In places of business like pubs and taverns, Rumpelstiltskin preferred the tangible kind of clamor that rendered him invisible, in which colors and noises blend and particulars are lost; silence, he believed, spotlighted him, and also unsettled something inside of him.
Today, the tavern was quiet, and his thoughts were stentorian and inescapable.
"What ails you, sir?"
Rumpelstiltskin acknowledged the abrupt inquiry with a slow, unencumbered exhale, and then replied softly, "…My perpetual sense of dread."
"Ah, an unfortunate state of mind, sir. Another round, then?"
His wary glance roved from the eyes of the barkeep to his own hands, speckled with sunlight—the inherent, mechanical movement of nonconfrontational men—and inclined his head in agreement. Liquid courage, he admitted privately, and accepted the second tankard of ale from the bartender. Bringing it to his lips, he added, A second dose, for good measure. Momentarily, the mug was empty and the man was not, and he closed his novel with a tipsy flick of his wrist.
Surprised, the barkeep asked, "…Another?"
Embarrassed by his own alacrity, the man paid the barkeep and quit the tavern for the fetid streets of a seaside town inundated with fish and other raw things.
He inched toward the harbor.
Sprinkled with salt and the entrails of fish was a complex expanse of docks, latticed with rotted wood and rusted nails that signaled the looming decline of a hoary, overused town. Rumpelstiltskin traversed the decay gingerly, his steps alternating between crush and squish, until his boots were caked with acrid layers of blood and mineral; the putridity sickened him, and only upon clasping a hand to his mouth did he realize that the effects of the ale had lifted.
Fear is a sobering emotion, he told himself, tugging diffidently at his satchel.
Hardly intrepid and nearly retreating, Rumpelstiltskin approached a hodgepodge of seamen loitering at the end of the harbor and politely inquired of a pirate with a winsome grin and a rolling gait: had Captain Killian Jones recently visited the town, and had a woman called Milah accompanied him?
There was an edge in his voice, and his hands shook.
"Ah, did the cap'ain steal yer trollop, little lion man?" wondered one sailor, his inquiry followed by an explosion of cackles and guffaws.
Immediately cognizant of his own transparency and the dead weight of his own helplessness, Rumpelstiltskin turned to flee; he then pictured Milah, however, and hesitated. Milah with a book. Milah with a paintbrush. Milah with Bae. A man unwilling to fight for what he wants deserves what he gets.
Quickly and not very fluently, Rumpelstiltskin repeated the question; he was rewarded with a reply in the negative.
Pirates preferred healthier ports, the seamen explained, with pillaging potential and an excess of resources. "So, no, the cap'ain ain't been in," a sailor added, the obligatory cackle trailing his statement. "But 'ere, buy yerself a new harlot."
He pelted Rumpelstiltskin with three coins and then boarded a vessel with his crew.
"…Much obliged," mumbled the man, grateful for their departure.
Oddly contemplative, Rumpelstiltskin noted that the encounter had somehow rendered the harbor smaller—smaller, and lacking in something. Again, a fruitless inquest, he acknowledged ruefully, and then quit the docks, leaving the coins to the passerby whose fortune it was to find them.
~O~
Rumpelstiltskin had always lived his life frozen with fear, and the onerous process of thawing often left him agitated and deeply sentient of his mortality.
Papa, how did you meet Mama?
…I taught her how to read.
Did Mama like to read, Papa?
No, son, she didn't.
Why not?
…Reading made her wistful.
Due to fear, traveling was akin to wading through honey for Rumpelstiltskin: he lacked the vim and buoyancy of most successful travelers, and his feelings of dread greatly checked his sense of adventure—what little there was of it.
Papa, do you like to read?
Oh yes, son, I love to read.
Why, Papa?
…Well, books are the only adventures I know that have happy endings.
Thoughts of Milah's fate, however, had both heightened the fear inside of him and allowed him to temporarily overcome it; thus he had slowly inched his way from port to port, aching for news of the captain and his captive, until he had come to a halt at another seaside town sinking into the waters of obscurity.
Again, the tavern was empty, and even the barkeep was in repose with a snifter of brandy.
For the tenth time in five years, I'll return to Baelfire a failure, Rumpelstiltskin admitted as he sipped his tankard of ale, realizing that his travels had succeeded only in cementing his feelings of impotency. Enough of this fruitlessness, Ru. This is your last trip.
Coupled with the warmth from the hearth and the effects of the ale, the tavern had reached a state that was nearing cozy for Rumpelstiltskin; it reminded him of Milah, of the warm embraces he had sometimes received from her, and as the tavern's soft glow grew more pronounced, he realized that what he was feeling was something very much like longing. He missed his wife, and he wished he had fought for her. A man unwilling to fight for what he wants deserves what he gets.
Then, a voice sounded.
It was haughty, it was certain. It was the voice of a man who knew power, and it made Rumpelstiltskin turn cold with fear—the kind of fear that reminded him that he was mortal.
The voice sounded again, and the tavern turned arctic.
Captain.
Killian.
Jones.
With trembling hands, Rumpelstiltskin drew his cloak over his head and hunched forward, willed by the subconscious urge to blend in with whatever was insignificant—the wooden bar, the stucco walls. But this was a needless effort; Jones sauntered into the tavern without acknowledging anyone, patron and barkeep alike, and beelined for the cupboard of reserves perpendicular to the bar where Rumpelstiltskin sat.
"Ah, here's where the rum's gone!" he laughingly exclaimed, taking a dark bottle from the cupboard of liqueurs. He proceeded to drink from it, and the barkeep ignored him as he drank his fill.
Rumpelstiltskin was unable to breathe.
They were wrong. The seamen were wrong, he realized with horror. Were they misinformed, or did they lie? He did not know and, he thought sensibly, it did not matter. What mattered was Milah, what mattered was Bae.
What mattered was revenge.
As Jones drank his fill of rum, Rumpelstiltskin shot a furtive glance at the bow and the quiver of arrows occupying the seat next to him—active only in his laughable dreams of heroics—and willed himself to breathe. Turn around, he ordered himself. But his actions never quite lined up with his thoughts, and he remained frozen to the barstool, locked in the kind of inertness particular to those who are not just afraid, but petrified.
Milah. Bae.
Because his heartbeat was as apparent in his head as it was in his chest, Rumpelstiltskin did not immediately notice the tavern return to its former quietude. But as his heartbeat softened and the silence became more pronounced, the inkling that something was wrong began to take hold of him. Terrified but resolute, he told himself again, Turn around.
He turned around.
Jones was gone, the sunlight piercing the limpid surface of the abandoned bottle of rum that rested on a table near the entrance of the tavern. Had Jones known of his presence and fled, wondered Rumpelstiltskin, alarmed by the pirate's sudden disappearance. But the absurdity of this thought made him reconsider it, and then abandon it altogether a moment later—Jones, he correctly surmised, had simply drank his fill and then left.
With legs atremble, Rumpelstiltskin began the arduous task of standing up, his plan of action inchoate and uncertain: trail Jones and somehow, if his own haplessness did not impede him, avenge Milah.
~O~
A man unwilling to fight for what he wants deserves what he gets.
Whenever Rumpelstiltskin imagined the duel between himself and Jones, Jones was always the victor, and as he traversed the waterlogged town in search of the pirate, his diffidence held: he imagined the duel, and then his own inevitable defeat. Thus Rumpelstiltskin did not intend to duel Jones; rather, he intended to take his revenge from afar.
He located Jones at the end of town.
Wide, anxious eyes watched as the pirate turned into an alleyway, and then shifted their glance upward toward a swollen, black sky that singled not an end to things, but an exacerbation of them.
Looks like rain, Rumpelstiltskin noted nervously as he crept after Jones. Hurry, Ru, hurry.
Predictably, the alleyway led to an enclave near the entrance of the harbor, where a crew of unruly swashbucklers waited for its captain, with tankards of ale in hand; noticeably, Milah was not among the crew. Should I be alarmed or relieved by her absence? wondered Rumpelstiltskin, dithering in uncertainty as he slipped into a shadowy stairway adjacent to the enclave.
"To the high seas, men!" clamored Jones, producing a flask of rum from his jacket; this was followed by a cacophony of hardy cheers and clanking tankards.
Something like disgust suddenly stirred inside of Rumpelstiltskin, forcing him up the stairwell and to the rooftop with an alacrity that revealed not only his fear of Jones, but his hatred for him, too. He took my wife. He took Bae's mother. So, I'll take…his life, Rumpelstiltskin decided, and relinquished his cane, the symbol of his trepidation and weakness—and more a mental than a physical crutch. Then, he unhooked the bow from his back and drew an arrow from the quiver at his side.
Papa, did you love Mama?
Yes, son, I loved her.
Was Mama your true love?
…No, but…
But what, Papa?
…But she was close enough.
Rumpelstiltskin glowered at Jones as he nocked the arrow and pulled at the bowstring, telling himself, "A man unwilling to fight for what he wants…deserves what he gets." His hands shook, his body shook. Everything always shook—this, he wearily assumed, was his one and only constant.
But as Rumpelstiltskin watched the pirate, an abrupt thought overtook him with the force of a convulsion:
If I challenged Jones to an actual duel and won, would I kill him?
Images of the duel, and then the victory, and then the decision to give or take life hit Rumpelstiltskin with the strength of an epiphany rising, and he immediately paled.
…No.
He froze, shocked into breathlessness.
No. I'd spare him. The benevolent gesture of the better man. But realistically, I'd never actually emerge victorious in our duel; he'd kill me and keep Milah. And if I face Jones from afar, how can I both spare him and rescue my wife?
As Rumpelstiltskin sank to his knees, the clouds burst, and he was grateful for the sudden rainfall that enveloped him—because he was crying.
I've lost her forever.
At his weariest, his mind sometimes offered him happy, albeit fleeting, images of whatever remained of his family—brief flashes of his wife at her easel or of his son with a novel. But now, as Rumpelstiltskin sat alone on the rooftop in the rainfall, only viscous images of the pirate pervaded his mind and clung to its depths—Jones with his ship, Jones with his sword, Jones with Milah.
Jones with Milah. Jones with Milah. Jones with Milah. All this, because Rumpelstiltskin was a man who loathed senseless slaughter.
Forgive me, Milah. Please.
Suddenly, the pirate sounded, followed by the dissonant clomping of his crew; Rumpelstiltskin was motionless as Jones quit the enclave for the harbor, vaguely pondering his departure and its everlasting consequences.
Papa, did you fight for Mama?
…
Papa, did you fight to be with her?
…
Papa…?
"…Sail, Jones, sail until you fall off the edge of the world," Rumpelstiltskin muttered with a slow inclination of his head.
He closed his eyes, unable to picture Milah or Bae or anything of substance; his mind was blank, a temporary void, and he let the rainfall render him wholly indiscernible—the baptismal rainfall that seemed to erase all sins but his own.
~O~
Due to the downpour, the tavern was bursting with the liveliness of conversation and drinking, and Rumpelstiltskin was, after days of exposure, finally hidden; he lounged at the bar with a novel, cloaked by the clamor of the pub—until the barkeep spotlighted him, bearing a snifter of brandy.
"For your bravery, sir."
The voice jolted Rumpelstiltskin out of his trace, and he looked up warily. Leery of the barkeep and suddenly anxious, he slowly uttered, "…My bravery?"
"Yes, sir. You followed Captain Killian Jones out of my tavern yesterday, didn't you? Most men run from him. You ran after him."
Yes, but to no avail, Rumpelstiltskin thought, casting a lugubrious glance at the snifter of brandy. "A pointless endeavor. He couldn't give me what I wanted." Just admit it, Ru, you ran from him. Again.
"Well, that's life. What matters is that you made the effort."
"…Is that what matters?"
The barkeep nodded knowingly as he left to assist another patron.
Rumpelstiltskin aligned the snifter of brandy with the seat adjacent to him, and then returned to his book; he briefly considered drinking the liquor out of politeness, but by the late afternoon, it remained untouched.
Creeping about his subconscious was the feeling that the drink did not belong to him.
Startled, he realized, I'm waiting for Milah to join me. And then suddenly, he imagined Jones with Milah. Jones with Milah. Jones with Milah. And then, just Jones with his laughing, arrogant grin. A man unwilling to fight for what he wants deserves what he gets.
Rumpelstiltskin was just able to quit the tavern before he began to vomit.
As he heaved up his ale, he thought, I'm coming home, Bae. The coward's coming home. When he had finished, he blankly watched the road ahead of him and then willed himself to walk—slowly, one step at a time.
The coward's coming home, Bae.
Thoughts of Jones plagued Rumpelstiltskin as he began the trek onward, the bombastic voice of the pirate on repeat inside of his head:
A man unwilling to fight for what he wants deserves what he gets.
The pirate, Rumpelstiltskin decided resignedly, was inescapable—and this is what he deserved.
-Fin