A/N: This is the official sequel to my first OUAT fanfic Beauty and the Imp, that can be found on Deviantart (you don't have to read it to follow this story) just note that instead of the name Belle I use Beauty, this story is kind of a OUAT next generation . Slight OUAT season 5 spoilers but not many. Please enjoy and review
When she stepped down from the carriage, the freshly fallen snow crunched beneath her elegant gold toed boot. "Wait for me here." She told the driver putting up her cloak hood and running towards the prison with vigor. She took the steps two at a time and could hear the wicked laughter of her twin ringing upwards towards her. How many times had her and Penelope been through this song and dance? Daughters of the dark one., ever at odds, ever strangely drawn to be inclined to help each other.
King Henry the second had always questioned why Bethany continuously helped the monstrosity that was her twin and was carrying on the seamless trade of their father Rumpelstiltskin. Bethany had no answer for her nephew, only that the ties of love ran deeper than the ties of distain at Penelope's actions.
Bethany had acquired that from her mother Beauty, the ability to love... Without doubt, without reason. Even though impish blood coursed in her veins. Penelope's eyes met her own and Penelope clicked her tongue mockingly, gold skin and merky eyes glistening. "Well, well, well I was able to pull the pretty pretty princess away from the ball after all."
Bethany remained patient and level headed as she asked the guards to release her snickering sister. They did so reluctantly because Bethany had the standing graces of the Charming family as the future queen of Ulaxa. "I swear this is the last time." Sighed Bethany to the guard praying that this time Penelope wouldn't make a liar out of her.
When Penelope stepped out from behind the jagged bars she was clad in leather from head to foot; scandalously, beautifully. Her body had the curves of an hourglass, flecks of gold on her skin, pouty red lips and dark hair. She could have been a goddess. She waved a black nailed finger at her sister. "Don't make promises you can't keep Bethy." Her voice was a singsong as she looked seductively back at the guard.
As they begun to walk towards the steps a young boy suddenly emerged from the shadows to join them taking both women by the hand. Bethany's eyes widened in horror and then snapped to Penelope in anger. "You brought Milo?" She snapped. "You promised me, you promised mother that you wouldn't-"
" I work in deals dearie, not promises."
She was able to rejoin the others before the coronation ceremony actually commenced. The elder generation was seated at their respected places among the round table, younger generation to the right of each ruler of the connecting dominions, ready to take their places in council. Bethany after fixing her brother's hair shuttled him off to join Princess Alexandra's younger siblings before looking up to see if her sister had remained to watch this momentous moment of her life. she had not, nor did she see her father. A pang went through her heart that was hard to dismiss. Bethany bit her lip.
Queen Beauty could almost sense the pain in her daughter as if it were her own. Once Bethany was at her side, standing at perfect attention Beauty took her hand secretly and kissed it. It gave Bethany courage. Her mother's lips were warm and full of love.
King Henry II was the first to arise, he had been commenced as head of council long before any of the new members. Emma was more than ready to let him rule the Charming throne when he was of age; Queen Regina, Queen Snow and King David had all been in agreement as well. They stood behind his seat at a distance to watch over the major change. Henry spoke. "Friends, fellow leaders of the land today is a remarkable ending of an era and beginning of a new dawn. For today, my generation joins me in council to carry on the work and lineage of our parents and grandparents. It is a passing of a torch per say, for not long ago-"
As the speech continued on Bethany could feel beads of perspiration gather along her brow as panic threatened to cease her heart. She squeezed her mother's hand as the responsibilities of being a true noblewoman thrashed in her brain like horrible titans. " Don't panic! Do not panic! Its okay, I can handle it" she told herself as her legs buckled and threatened to give way. Breathing shakily.
"Elders resign your selves to peace, kindred royalties and trusted adversaries join me!" he opened his arms welcomingly. In unison the elegant changing of places took place and the elders stepped back, away from their heirs proudly. Bethany was quick to claim the seat and felt as if she crashed into it rather than sat. when she looked across the table her friends Princess Alexandra and Princess Fredericka sniggled at her in secret.
"Let the meeting begin."
"You looked as if you were going to faint." Alexandra had her left arm as they strolled through the garden maze of the castle, listening to the reception that took place just outside the mossy walls. Bethany had placed a hand over her still thundering heart and laughed. "I felt it." She then turned her bright eyes nervously, to the daughter of Ella and Thomas. "Do you think anyone noticed?" her eyebrow arched.
"No one important." Assured the blonde.
Bethany sighed as they continued walking, worry filled her eyes again that she tried to remove. "My mother has left such big shoes to fill." She stated as she rounded the corner and the music of violins grew louder. "Yet how do I keep Penelope from alliancing with the wrong people? I know that Prince Neal's reign of terror has just begun and as children they were always drawn to each other."
"Isn't your father trying to teach her to control her powers?"
"Control?" Bethany repeated. "It is not lessons on control that she needs, its self control! And with Papa it is like the blind leading the blind" she looked up at the stars then at her friend. "Milo is beginning to be enticed by magic also."
Alexandra let go of her hand when they reached the festivities her father catching her eye wanting to dance her around the floor. Alexandra was eager to go but bit her lip so that she could have the patients to listen to what else Bethany had to say. The younger princess noticed and nudged the blonde forward. "Go dance with your father!" she smiled.
"You sure?"
"Positively, it will keep until tomorrow." Bethany always had the most assuring ways even when she herself was unsure. Alexandra bounced and fluttered to the moonlit floor to king Thomas' out stretched hand. Bethany sighed and leaned up against the maze opening, letting her fingers dance against the greenery. She heard the footfall behind her and knew the rhythm in a moment.
"I wish grandpapa Maurice were alive." She addressed her mother as graceful, white fingers wrapped around her shoulder. Beauty laughed and it was like music, she had never truly aged nor had honorary royalty changed her. She was still that bookish inventor's daughter; modest and true. So modest in fact that she still at times went by her Storybrooke name of Arabella.
Beauty wove her fingers into her daughter's chestnut hair and picked out some small green leaves that had become tangled there. Like her and her father, Beauty and her daughter had become an entity of their own. The non-magic weavers. Rumple loved them to that there was no doubt, he just couldn't connect with them, power still meant more to him. Penelope too. Beauty had never meant to favor one child over the other, but somehow the favoritism had been the choice of Rumple. When it came time for magic lessons she had to pull the weaker of the two back by the hand as her sister was whisk away into adventure. But Bethany adored her father as equally as if he would have taken her. Penelope on the other hand had no true regard for her mother. Not really. It hurt Beauty. Bethany's abundance of love was always her comfort.
Beauty had remembered when the girls had turned 16… Bethany truly had wanted to go on the exhibition to the Nilian Jungle with her friend Jane Porter, see exotic flowers, help people. but she took one look in her mothers eyes, saw pain there, knelt beside her throne and vowed "I will not go". And stayed.
It was ironic Beauty had longed for adventure her entire life, and she had found it in her little girl; her heart, her soul, her oxygen. She had a hard time being parted from her even for a moment, not without terrible feelings of forboading and emptiness.
"Grandpapa would have danced with you until your feet fell off." It was the truth. Missing her grandpapa she rested her cheek against her mother's hand. She knew he wouldn't have known the moves but he would have tried, which was more than her father did for her or her mother. Milo ran up and slid under their mother's other vacant arm.
"Come on." Beauty coaxed as convincingly as she could. "Maybe Mrs. Pots has some birthday cake at home."
Her bare foot skimmed along the dirt as she pushed the wooden swing gently to and fro lazily. Bethany looked up at the candlelit chambers of her parents. Their silhouettes pacing back and forth obviously in argument. "There's going to come a day when she doesn't want you around anymore!" she heard her mother say.
"You've been saying that for years and it hasn't happened!"
"It will. This was one of the most important days of her life and-"
"Why can't she be more like Penelope and understand what I do I do to protect our kingdom, our family! Besides she has never brought it to my attention that my presence is missed."
"You don't know her at all do you!"
Bethany turned her head away and squeezed her eyes shut, she couldn't hear this argument again. She just couldn't. she sighed and let the fork dangle in her hand above the elegant plate she held. "21st" that was what was piped in blue icing on the piece of cake she had not touched. She rested her head against the garland that tied the swing to the oak tree and continued to feel the dirt cool beneath her toes.
She looked out at her beautiful garden. For she had loved flowers the way her mother had loved books and her father had loved power. Every time anyone she knew would go somewhere exciting she would always ask them to bring her back a seed of an exotic flower for her garden. Bethany supposed that it was her way of seeing the world without leaving her mother's side. It was the most beautiful grounds in all the realms, cultivated in true and secret loneliness. That was her magic. Making beauty grow in less than ideal circumstances.
The plate suddenly disappeared from her lap and the fork from her hnd she looked up to see Penelope digging in. "Happy birthday." She said quietly. "Ditto." Said the more impish of the identical twins in a Scottish accented growl. "You know what your problem is Bethy?" asked Penelope snidely. "Do tell, Penelope."
"Daddy dearest likes me and Milo best because know who we are. You are never away from mum enough to ever find out who you really are. You even talk like her!"
Bethany looked down at her hands now folded in her lap. "Mother doesn't define me." she met her sister's merky gaze. "Unlike Prince Neal who uses you as a puppet."
Penelope grinned. "He prefers the name Scar, because of that dear little forget-me-not Henry gave him."
"King Henry. Penelope, Neal is using you for a pawn to gather a cult following! He kills innocent people, good people, villages of our people!" Bethany was desperate, desperate to make her understand. She stood up and reached out. "Please, sister."
Penelope jerked away. "You've never been in love, you don't know anything!"
"You're right, I haven't." she swallowed and clenched her first steadfastly. "But if it means loosing who I am, the goodness in me…I never intend to be. No man is worth that!"
They heard something break in the chambers above and looked up. "I've never seen mother so… angry." Mused Bethany putting her fingers to her lips. Penelope arched an eyebrow and then crossed her arms.
"Its because of that deal with Hades papa made so many years ago."
Bethany turned as a child-like fear came over her, imagining black horns and blood red eyes. She trembled. "That was only a fright tale papa told us when we were children to get us to behave. Surely it wasn't true."
The clock begun to strike and they both waited with baited breath; I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, XII
Twelve. Penelope snorted and begun to walk away, slightly disappointed it and anticlimactic with a silent night sky. "I guess it was just a fairytale dearie."
Bethany was finally at ease, among the flowers, alone.
The sunlight danced across her eyelids with kisses of warmth, she removed her wrist from her forehead and sat up, she had slept in the garden again in the orange poppy patch, she sat up slowly as she heard Mrs. Pots ring the gong for breakfast, a tinny echo on the light breeze that was sweeping through. Her real work begun today, she would see her godmother Morgana about her sister and Scar as Neal was now known as, and arrange some plans with neighboring lands for strategies.
She stood and smoothed out her fawn and dusty-rose colored ball-gown that had been meant to mock the natural coloring and luster of blackhills gold. It had flicks of dirt and she imagined that it wouldn't please anyone for her to come to the table disheveled.
Bethany went to the cool crystalline fountain and sat upon its edge. Removing the now stained white gloved she dipped them into the coolness and shivered before running her hand up the length of her arms. As she was preening herself she swore she saw a new flower in her garden, a stranger, a foreigner. That must have simply blossomed overnight, she stared at it. It was beautiful.
Suddenly a shadow coming from the stable had caught her attention and brought her to her feet. "Odd." She thought as she made her way across the grounds and onto the cobblestone. "I didn't hear anyone ride in." whomever it was, was disturbing the mares greatly, she had been surprised that no one else had heard the thrashing and whining it was so frantic.
She pushed the stable's double door opened hesitantly and witnessed the mares cowering to get away from something, she had been tempted to comfort them if she had not shared their feelings when she saw that black stallion that resembled a skeleton with a transparent cloak of what looked liked the night sky as a sort of skin. It seemed to have flames for eyes. Her lips parted, the stable felt like death, cold, endless death. She reached out to touch the creature out of blind curiosity.
"Pluton's horse." She whispered.
"His name is Thanatos if you really want to know." The icy voice that eclipsed her thoughts made her wheel around with a hitched breath. She stood before a gentleman; that she could tell by his tailored suit. A handsome elongated face, dark red hair, a cool passive stance leaning against the wall. but his eyes…something about his eyes frightened her, they were unearthly but not in a divine way…in a hellish way.
"Thanatos." She repeated with a trimmer. "Greek for death, Thanatos. Is that not correct Pluton?" It was as if she was reciting for a test of sorts, her heart panged. He stepped forward with a half-smile, arms crossed.
"You are correct Madame." He hissed in an almost heated whisper. He begun to circle her slowly, menacingly. She kept her eyes matched to his though she had no defenses, she had to be brave, she had to not panic. "Its been a long time, Persephone." This was not a man this was a demon and she knew it.
"Too long." She added
"Thanatos…" he said again, smirking.
She closed her eyes and opened them again. "Are you here to see the king and queen? Breakfast is just being served-"
"I think you know why I'm here." He stepped closer to her, towering over her.
"I am but a humble servant to Queen Beauty, if you allow me to get her."
He begun to snicker and it was smooth like leather and sent chills coursing through her. the corner of his mouth twitched, as he tilted his head condescendingly. "in that dress? Please. Didn't your mommy teach you not to lie Persephone? Or should I say." He paused and she waited, he fingered a ringlet and drew it away from her ear, she felt his hot breath against the skin. "Princess Bethany."
She arched her eyebrow and shook her head as she pulled away. "Who are you? Why are you here? What do you want with me Pluton?"
He was laughing now with outstretched arms as he took steps backwards. The horses begun to rally again as blue flames danced like a crown atop his head. "Please Bethany, Pluton is so formal, call me Hades."