06/01/06; 7:55 p.m.

Standard disclaimers apply.

The Secret Ball

By Ninetails

Chapter 1: Once upon a time…

… Maxwell of Gaul found himself lost in a towering primeval forest. Although he had not wandered far from his military encampment, he was now strangely at a loss as to how to return to it.

While camped with his fellow soldiers, he'd spied a boar rustling through the underbrush. He immediately imagined the wild, tusked pig roasting over an open flame, a succulent meal for hungry men. Withdrwaing his knife from his belt, he also grabbed his spear and set off after the creature.

He'd learned his experrt hunting skills from his grandfather, who had been a Roman legionnaire during the last days that Imperial Rome ruled over his counrty. slaying this boar promised to be an easy task.

Yet every time Maxwell came within striking range, the boar mysteriously reapperaed several yards farther on. Frustrated, but determined, he continued to pursue the animal, convinced that the wavering, dappled light filtering through the ancient trees was simply playing tricks on his eyes. He chased the boar over a hill and down an embankment that led to a place less densely crowded with trees.

The boar stood in a patch of sunlight as if awaiting him.

Maxwell halted, perplexed. What was happening? Why had the elusive animal suddenly grown so still?

Before Maxwell's astonished eyes, the boar began to roll on its back and belly, its tusks flashing as it grunted frantically, and while it performed this frenetic act, a glistening pond began to spread underneath its portly, graceless body.

Spear raised, Maxwell cautiously approached the scuffling boar. With each step, the ground beneath his boots grew increasingly muddy. In a moment, he stood in an ever-deepening puddle of water. He gazed around, dumbstruck with wonder, as the puddle became a knee-deep pond and then rapidly continued to increase for a great distance.

Slabs of land where trhrust up at odd angles under the force of the expanding water. a tremendous flat boulder heaved up from beneath the creacked earth, jutting into the new lake and forming a natural dock.

So great was Maxwell's amazement that he momentarily forgot about the boar. When he finally checked for it, he saw that, in the place where it had been, a woman now stood in water that rose to just below her bosom.

White blond hair waved down to her slender shoulders and fanned out around her on the water. Vivid blue eyes shone from her beautiful pale face. An almost sheer, powder blue shift, banded under her breast with golden cord, clung to her. Her form beneath the clinging fabric was increasingly visible as she moved toward him through the shimmering lake.

When they were face to face, with the water swirling around them, the woman ran her hand along the sleeve of his rough tunic and rested her head on his shoulder, her hair cascading down. "I knew you would come," she said softly.

Maxwell put his hard soldier's hand on the back of her neck and stroked her impossibly soft hair, his once untamed heart now completely captive.

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Maxwell was never certain if his great love for Helena was real or a magical enchantment. He didn't much care, either.

With his own hands, he built a home of stone and wood there in the ancient forest beside the lake that had appeared on the day he'd first encountered Helena. When a traveling monk came to them one day, desperate for directions back to the road, Maxwell prevailed upon him to perform a wedding, uniting the two lovers as husband and wife. As soon as the marriage ceremony was completed, the monk stumbled away from them, suddenly seeming to know how to leave the forest.

Within nine months, Helena gave birth to twin daughters whom they named Iria and Eleanore. The next nine months brought another set of twin girls, Saens and Elana. In three years more, Helena gave birth to Sumire and Nozomi, Gayle and Ayame, Anna and Margarette. The last pair of twins were boys, named Duo and Quatre. Twelve children in all, six sets of twins. In little less than five years, Maxwell became the father of twelve children all under the age of five.

Helena ran her lively, sometimes chaotic, brood with astounding ease. A toddler - oftentimes Duo – leaning too far out a window was mysteriously drawn back inside with a firm look from Helena. Any crancky cry was instantly soothd by the melodies she crooned to them in her lilting, crystal voice.

For his part, Maxwell worked ceaselessly, hunting, farming a small plot in the front yard, and fishing in the magical lake beside the house. He loved this life and his only source of concern was that Helena sometimes left for periods of time, usually in the evening once the children were asleep. She would step out the back dorr and walk off into the forest. When he questioned her upon her return several hours later, she always answered him in the same way: "Sometimes there are things I must do. Have no worry, dearest love. my heart is always with you and my princes and princesses."

Maxwell loved and trusted his wife, so he didn't question her further. For ten years she left from time to time, but always came back. As long as Helena returned to him, Maxwell was satisfied.

Except that one day she did not return.

Leaving the younger children in the care of the older ones, Maxwell went out to search for Helena. Two days later, hoarse from calling her nbame, he stumbled out of the forest and trudged down a dirt road. He walked until he collapsd from lack of food, water, and sleep.

When he awoke in a monastery another two days later, the monk, Brother Ethan, who had found him, claimed he'd been talking while he slept. "You were calling for a woman."

Maxwell asked the monks if they knew anything of his wife, Helena. "It's a name we have heard tell of in myths and local legends," Brother Ethan said. "We believe you have been bewitched by a forest spirit."

"But I have children," Maxwell objected, pulling himself upright on the plain cot on which he was lying

"Most likely, you dreamed them," said Brother Ethan. "Forget about them. stay here with us and count yourself blessed to be back in the world of reality."

Maxwell was instantly on his feet, heading for the door. Before he was over the threshold though, he collapsed once again.

The monk tended to him and in a day more, Maxwell was once again strong. Although the monks of the monastery implored him to stay, insisting that his children were not real, Maxwell was determined to get back to them.

Heading down the road, he recognized the spot where he had been encamped as a soldier ten years earleir. He entered the forest there and easly found his way toward his house. It seemed strange to him that he could have ever lost his way; it was so clear to him now. indeed, it did seem as though some sort of fog had been lifted from his mind.

When he came over the embnkment near where he lived, he stopped, a terrible fear gripping him. his house was below, where he had built it. but the glistening lake beside it was gone. Only the jutting boulder remained.

An overpowering terror seized him as he recalled what the monks had said. Perhaps these past ten eyars with Helena and his twelve perfect children had never happened.

What if, all these years, he had been no more than a madman under a spell?

Maybe there never had been a lake in this spot.

Maybe there had been no Helena. No children.

With a pounding, frantic heart he raced down the hill, scattering leaves and branches in his desperate need to know the truth, no matter how terrible.

Throwing open the front door, he was greeted by the questioning gaze of twelve sets of hopeful young eyes seated at various places around the room. "Did you find mother?" Iria asked.

Words choked in his throat. He was so overcome with relief to see that his children were indeed real – to observe some small resemblance to their mother in their expectant, upturned faces – that he collapsed into a chair and became engulfed with great, heaving sobs.

In that moment he somehow knew that these twelve children were all he had left of Helena. Despair mingled with relief as he dropped his head into his hands and continued to sob disconsolately.

One by one his children came to him, stroking and hugging him with their small, tender, consoling hands. This great figure of a heaving, sobbing man, their father, was all they had left as well.

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Four months passed and Maxwell finally stopped looking out the door at twilight, hoping for Helena's miraculous, improbable return. With his once fervent hopes at last fully faded, he decided to pack away her clothing and other things.

It was while cleaning out Helena's possessions that he came upon a carved wooden box hidden at the bottom of a trunk. Opening it, he discovered brilliant blue sapphires and gleaming diamonds inside. Pouring these gems into a leather hunting pouch, he traveled by foot to the nearby town to see what this unexpeced treasure would buy him. The children followed him as far as the front doorway. "Stay put. I will return," he told them as he bolted the door.

Within two days he returned on horseback, leading a veritble army of artisans and ox-drwan carts carrying every sort of building supply. In the lead of this strange procession were axe-wielding men who hacked a wide swathe through the forest.

The twelve children watched, both excited and a bit worried, while day after day the ground shook as additional trees were felled and the land cleared. The air rang with the hammering and banging of working men. Each day their lovely cottage expanded and grew, climbing higher here, widening there. Soon the original cottage lay in the center of a grand manor house. Masons surrounded this new home with a wall nearly ten feet high

When the building was done, Maxwell still had sapphires and diamonds remaining in his puch. He used them to obtain marble flooring from Rome, mirrors framed in gold from the mines in the high cliffs, carved furniture from faraway lands, and pottery and dishware imprted from Asia. He procured linens, weavings, bits of odds and ends, and dyed woolens from the men who traversed the seas. His children would want for nothing.

Except freedom.

When the building and furnishing was finished, Sir Maxwell shut the ornate, ten-foot wrought iron gate that connected both sides of the wall, bolting the lock with a resounding clang. Nothing would get in – and no one would get out.

Only Maxwell would come and go from this lavish prison in the forest. Furninshing his new home had made him familiar with the ways of importing. Being so close to the Main Channel gave him easy access to the ships that arrived with goods from other places. With his remaining gems to start him off, Maxwell was soon a thriving merchant of imports.

His twelve children, once so used to runnng barefoot through streams and building mud people beside their now-vanished lake, were shut in. having lost Helena to the forest, Sir Maxwell was determined to suffer no more losses.

TBC

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A/N:

So much for a bit of the story's background. Heh. Christmas break is coming soon (ok, two weeks is not 'soon' but I'm trying to be optimistic) and I hope I could work on my fics at that time. Toxicity rules my life these days. Gomen. Hope you're starting to have the gist of this story…