Some Soul of Goodness
Chapter 7
Therefore to be Wooed
AN: References to non-consensual sexual activity in this chapter
The Solstice had passed. The tension between them had begun to dissipate and their lives had continued but now things were on a different level, a warmer level. They still often kissed and spent more and more time together. She often complimented him - for the improvements in his reading, in his cooking, in the state of the stables, in the growth of the kitchen garden. She seemed . . . kinder, warmer, more human-like to his mind. He would sometimes catch brief glimpses of a young woman when she spoke to him, a young woman, not a witch or demon.
"Tell me of your wife," she asked him one evening. There had been yet another snow of the season. The obdurate black castle gleamed in sharp contrast to the sparkling white blanket that covered the land. The snow soothed the hard edges of the grounds that had been left by the frenetic winds of the fall. The Dark Lady and her servant were dressed warmly with fur-lined cloaks, hats and gloves and were leaning against the fence that enclosed the horses. The three horses were frolicking in the snow running back and forth in their enclosure.
"She was very beautiful and I thought myself the luckiest man in the village when she accepted my suit."
"You were happy?" the Dark Lady asked him.
"I think we were . . . at first. Then I was called away to fight in The War . . . I never quite knew why we were fighting although I heard we were battling ogres. They don't share that type of information with peasants. I was fortunate, I guess. They judged me too slight to manage a weapon so I was assigned to an officer, to help him with his horse, keep his tent clean, do his laundry, fetch his food, that type of thing. I could do those types of things as you well know," he said with a smile. "I don't know that I would have been very good at fighting," Rumple confessed.
He continued, "The officer I was assigned to was no better, no worse than any of the others. I don't know that he knew why we were fighting. He told me one night that he had thought war would be glorious and exciting but he was finding it dirty and dull.
"One night, there was a surprise attack. The enemy came roaring into our camp. They came in on large fell beasts that I did not recognize. I was knocked down . . . and . . . I was knocked out. The next memory I have is coming to in a burning field. My ankle had been injured but I began to look for other survivors." He paused a moment. "There was much smoke and fire. I kept tripping over . . . things . . . bodies . . . parts of bodies. Most had been trampled but many also had saber wounds." He stopped a moment, reliving the painful experience, choking up as the memories welled up. "Some of the men had bite marks, I guess from the beasts the enemy rode upon. Some . . . most were men I knew, men I had been friends with. I . . . looked a long time, but could find no one alive . . ." his voice broke. He was surprised when she laid her hand on his arm . . . as if to comfort him.
"I began to walk back the way we had come out. I had bound up my ankle as best I could. I knew I needed to see a physician . . . but there was no one. I walked for three days, drinking water out of ditches, eating roots and leaves. I finally made it back to the main camp." Rumple stared out for a long time without saying anything more.
"But they thought you had deserted. They didn't believe that you had just happened to survive," the Dark Lady surmised.
"Yes ma'am. I guess they wondered how an illiterate, untrained peasant could have survived a massacre that killed their best officers, their best fighting men. They assumed that I must have run away as the enemy came in. There was even talk that I was the one who had betrayed our soldiers. I could give no evidence to the contrary and soon enough I was dishonorably discharged and had to limp home. I was branded a coward, possibly a traitor. When I got home, my wife . . . she was not glad to see me. She left soon after, leaving our infant son to me to raise.
"The war had taken so much from our country. My village had suffered, although perhaps no more than any other village. There were few men to go around but I was not even welcomed to help. I did my best to provide but being crippled and without a helpmate . . . it was hard. My son was five when my Aunt Marjorie, one of the two women who had raised me after my father had abandoned me, came to live with us. She was . . . very welcomed, very helpful. I had more to provide for but I now had more time to do so. I was able to plant a bigger garden and had more time to spin."
"So why were you on the road . . . when you sought refuge here?" she asked him.
"I had to take my wares, my yarn, to sell in a bigger market. Even if the women of my village would have had the money to buy from me, they would not have. So I had begun to explore other places. The market at Milledgeville was the biggest and furthest away I had ever been and . . . I was successful there."
"Yes, I remember. You offered me your purse," the Dark Lady nodded.
"Milady," he hesitated, quite conscious of her power, her position. "May I ask? How did you come to live here?"
There was a long pause and he had a moment of panic. Was she angry at him for presuming familiarity, for thinking he had any right to ask?
"I remember . . . " she began. "My father's kingdom was being attacked by monsters, ogres they were said to be. There was no help from our allies. They refused to send armies. They refused to even send advisors or food or medicine or anything for our people. There was no help from the Fae. The Blue Fairy had simply refused to answer our call. I never knew if she didn't have magic that would work against our enemies or if we just were not worthy in her eyes. Our sorcerers had no spells. Our clerics had no prayers. Finally, in the depths of desperation, my father called upon The Dark One. He came, a slimy creature, more like a frog with large bulbous eyes and clammy hands. He kept a stench about him, the odors of rotting flesh and backed-up sewage. He agreed to help us . . . for a price."
Rumple closed his eyes in sympathy. "And you were his price," he whispered, now confirming his suspicions of what likely had happened. He understood that great magic, such as ridding of kingdom of an ogre invasion would require a very high price.
"Yes, I agreed to sacrifice myself to save my people. I went with him . . . willingly."
"Milady, I am sorry if I have brought up something painful," he began. He was concerned. Her face had become impassive, her voice tone flattened. Her gaze was fixed on the air in front of her. She reminded him of other men and women who had managed to live through the most harrowing circumstances – when they talked about what had happened to them, they would disconnect, as if they were telling about something they had seen happen to someone else, someone distant.
It was as if he had not spoken. "He brought me to this place. It was somehow darker, smaller than it is now. There were no roses. There was no bathing chamber. He pushed me to the floor in the great hall and held me down. He lifted up my skirts and petticoats and he . . . . he took my maidenhood. There was blood and pain. I cried. I remember crying." She took a deep breath. "He took a vial and saved some of the blood. It was valuable to him."
"I'm so sorry," Rumple told her and without thinking it through, he drew her to himself and hugged her. She clung to him, burying her face in his shoulder. He kept forgetting how slight she was, how delicate, how she barely came to his shoulder. She was shaking and he thought she might be crying.
"He brutalized me, Rumple. He would keep me in the dungeon room off the kitchen and oft I had no food, no water, no protection from the cold. He would often visit me, to force his attentions on me. He had me drink a potion so that I would not conceive a child by him. He would beat me if I did not please him and sometimes, I think, for his own amusement."
"My brave girl, so brave to have survived," he muttered, saddened and horrified to hear of her experiences. He stroked her hair still holding her close.
"In time, he would let me out of the dungeon and have me do simple tasks for him. I knew little enough how to do such things for I had been raised as a princess. I knew nothing of cooking or laundering or even simple cleaning. I often would burn food or ruin clothing and he would berate me and punish me for my lapses. Over time, I did get better and he allowed me more freedom to move about the castle, but not to leave the grounds. I think he thought I would die or fling myself from one of the towers but I . . . stayed. I was determined to survive. I began to learn more about the Dark One and . . . eventually, I discovered something . . . and I was able to kill the beast but . . . by doing so, I took the Dark Curse onto myself." She pulled away from him for a moment, gazing up into his eyes.
He saw there were tears in her eyes. "Milady," he said, gently, gently placing his lips onto hers. Realizing what he had done, he pulled back.
"Before you came, I was so full of hate." She smiled at him. "But you have been so kind, so gentle, so clean," and she stood on her tiptoes to kiss him back. "Rumple?" There was a question in her voice. "I don't want you to feel that you have to . . . " She raised her hand to touch him on the cheek.
He put his hands on the sides of her face. "I made the choice to stay with you," and he kissed her again, gently, his lips barely grazing hers. "I find you beautiful," and he kissed her once more. "If . . . if you will have me . . . I would be honored."
The Dark Lady looked at him, tears streaking down her face.
Maybe this man would cleanse her, remove the taint, the stain . . . the memories. The Darkness had buried these feelings, these memories but now the thoughts were back, the dark ugly thoughts.
Rumple felt things begin to swirl and they were abruptly up in his lady's chambers. He realized that she had used magic to transport them. She pulled away from him and dropped her cloak, hat and gloves. He did the same.
"You have often said that you found me beautiful," she said slowly pulling on the straps of her silver dress and all the thin undergarments underneath.
"You are, Milady, the most beautiful woman I've ever seen."
She dropped her dress along with her lacy petticoats and they landed in a frothy puddle around her feet. Awestruck and humbled, Rumple sank to his knees before her and leaned forward to place a kiss on one of her toes. He did not stop, placing a kiss on her ankle and then the inside of her knee. She leaned down and raised him up so that he stood in front of her. She pulled his shirt up over his head. He ducked his head.
"I'm . . . I hope I do not disappoint, Milady," he whispered to her. She guided him over to the bed.
"We shall help each other, I think," she told him and undid the button on his waistband, loosening them up so that the pants fell down around his ankles. He stepped out of them and sat on the bed next to her.
She traced down his torso and up his arm with her blackened nail. He had gained weight since coming into her service and his overly thin frame had filled out. The work with the horses had built up muscle and, although he was still slender, there was now a man's strength in his arms. She found his compact form appealing – not the soft, bulbous mass The Other had been.
Carefully, slowly, he ran his fingers up her arm to her shoulder and then to her neck, leaning in to kiss her. He felt her shiver and felt a surge of satisfaction. He knew he could please this woman, satisfy her. Sitting next to her on the bed he felt her lips on his chest, kissing, licking, using her tongue to explore the taste and texture of his skin, her small hands with her long nailed fingers splayed and touching him. He ran his fingers through her silken ebony hair and then pulled her down with him to lay on the bed. He rolled her so that he lay partially on top of her, one of his legs over hers. He lifted himself up so that he could look down on her. For all that her skin was tinged blue with a silvery sheen from the tiny scales that covered her body, she was very lovely to his eyes, so feminine, so desirable.
She seemed almost shy with him, turning away. "Milady," he whispered. "I would not hurt you. I wish only to bring you pleasure. You must tell me if you wish me to stop." He kissed her and continued, "if you want me to continue," and he kissed her again. "Or if you want me to go faster . . . or slower. . . "
The Dark Lady giggled. "I like you touching me. You are . . . desirable to me."
That was all the encouragement he needed. He laid a hand on her breast, marveling at its softness. It was a paler blue than her arms which intrigued him. He leaned in so that he could suckle at her nipple. She did not flinch back from him or clench her stomach muscles. She did give out the smallest moan. "That's so nice," she told him and he felt her fingers in his hair.
He lent his mouth to the other breast and was rewarded with her squirming beneath him. With his hand he played with the other breast, teasing the nipple with his fingers then gently massaging the soft, sensitive flesh. She made little mewing sounds of pleasure and, emboldened, he dropped a hand to her stomach. She clenched up. He stopped and kept his hand still, returning his mouth to her breasts, using his lips, his tongue, kissing, suckling, pulling. She relaxed and again he dropped his hand this time to brush against her soft curls.
"Milady, I would taste you," he told her.
"I . . . I . . . I've never . . ." her pupils had dilated but this time he was not sure if it was fear or desire.
"Then I will be your first," he told her quietly and slid down, kissing his way along her body, down her stomach, down her abdomen, down. He pulled her legs apart and settled himself, holding onto her slender thighs. He kissed and licked first on the inside of her thighs and stopped her from wriggling away from him. He stilled his own movements, allowing her to adjust to the new position. "I won't hurt you," he promised and began to kiss his way to her center. He used a hand to brush her and she flinched. He brushed his fingers against her, finding moisture and then rubbed his fingers gently upon her, parting her nether lips. When he touched his tongue to her, she yelped.
"Did I hurt you?" he immediately asked.
"No, no," she told him breathlessly. "I just wasn't expecting . . . "
"All right. I'm going to kiss you again," he told her and this time she stayed still. He heard her sigh as he continued to use his lips and his tongue, tasting her distinctive delicious flavor. He spent some time just licking her, all the while using his fingers to rub all around her most sensitive nub. He felt it harden and could see it jutting out her moistened folds. He touched her with his tongue and she cried out. He felt her fingers in his hair, pulling him towards her and he obliged, this moment no longer licking and kissing but gently, gently sucking her into his mouth.
She screamed his name as her body convulsed and he was flooded with her essence. He continued tugging and pressing on her until he felt the shivers subside and then he pulled himself up her body.
"Please, Belle. Are you ready?' he asked her. "May I . . .?"
"Please," he heard her and her hands went to his shoulders. "Please, I want to feel you. I need to feel you inside of me," she told him. He rolled himself onto his back and pulled her on top of himself allowing her to control their joining. She took a moment to position herself and as she pushed down, he surged up into her. They both stopped for a moment adjusting, accepting each other. The Lady caught her breath and he reached up to hold her face in both hands, gazing up into her darkened eyes.
"Bring your legs up," he directed her and she trembled but complied, placing herself so that she was kneeling over him. He began to rock into her, pulling away and pushing himself back up. She was snug but very wet and he had never felt such perfection. She answered his movements and they quickly found a satisfying sweet rhythm. They were made for each other.
He kissed her again all the while thrusting himself into her, moving faster and harder. He felt her nails dig into his shoulders and he heard her scream his name yet again and then the walls of her passage contracted around him. He barely held on for a moment before he was overcome with his own release and felt himself pulsing his life stream into her. She collapsed onto him and he vaguely felt her hands clasping him to her.
It took him a moment before he had the strength to open his eyes. She was smiling at him.
"That was wonderful," she told him. "Stay with me, please."
He didn't feel he could go anywhere if he had wanted to. He was as relaxed and as satisfied as he had ever been. He wrapped his arms around her and as she uncurled her legs he gently rolled her to one side. She snuggled up against him. Together, their arms around each other, they fell asleep.
The morning light filtered into the top tower room. Rumple stirred and there was a moment of disorientation.
"Where. . ." and he remembered. He was in bed with his Belle, Milady, the Dark Lady. He had . . . they had made love to each other. He remembered.
He thought it had gone well. He remembered tasting her and burying himself in her. It had been glorious.
He looked down and her eyes were opened, the cat-eyes now in slender slits. She smiled at him.
"If I had known how talented a lover you were, I would have invited you to my bed so many weeks ago," she told him. "You are wasted in my kitchen, I think."
"Not wasted, Milady," he told her. "My time in your kitchen, in your sitting room . . . I think we learned to care for each other. And when you care for the other person, things in the bedroom are much better."
She considered. "When did you get so wise?" she asked. "Perhaps you are right. I was never inclined to take a man into my bed before getting to know you. For a very long time I was repelled by the idea of intimacy."
"After what you suffered at the hands of the previous Dark One . . ." he began, but she was shaking her head.
"The Darkness made it possible for me to put aside the pain and grief I suffered from being The Others victim." She tried to explain, "The Dark Curse that is upon me makes it difficult for me to have feelings, any feelings. There is only darkness and cold inside me. But since you came, I feel some lightness of spirit and the warmth of the sun is no longer unpleasant to me. You are changing me Spinner Rumple."
"Am I?"
She gave him the sweetest of smiles.
Things had changed between them.
There were certainly those things that had remained the same. He continued working in the kitchen, the garden and with the horses. He continued keeping the main tower clean and tidy and with the laundry and the cooking. The Lady continued her own work in the Dark Tower, continued to go on occasional errands that would take her away for a day or several days. They worked together on his reading and he would try to teach her how to spin – wool, not golden thread.
But at night, he would share her bed and they would take turns delighting each other.
Belle was out again, her magics having detected excessive activity from the fairies which was always a cause of alarm for her. She had tracked down and had decided to confront Blue within the holdings of King George. Blue was up to her usual mischief, interfering in a match between the King's son, Prince James and the daughter of King Midas.
"I am curious, why do you care about these people?" Belle had stepped from the shadows to talk to Blue alone. The two women stood in one of the castle's council rooms complete with a large dark wood table, heavy chairs with plush cushions and a single door, ornate and inlaid with golden filigree. The room was royally appointed, as suited a petty functionary like King George who thought of himself as much more important than he was.
Blue had startled. She had not sensed the presence of the Dark One and that was most alarming in itself. And now she had to deal with the Cursed One. "That damn Curse you created, that Regina will cast to take us all to a Land Without Magic, I want to be sure there is a way to break it," Blue had told her warily.
"Do you think I created a curse that could not be broken?" Belle asked silkily. "You think highly of my skills. Surely you know that all curses can be broken either through Time or through Love."
"Why did you create it in the first place?" Blue asked getting between the Dark Lady and the door.
"I didn't. Remember I am but a single entity in a long line of Dark Ones. One of my successors, one who was angry with you began work on it. Each of us have added to it over time." Belle yawned as sat down in one of the large wooden chairs that surrounded the meeting table. "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that there has yet to be a curse so dark, so devastating that someone is not willing to cast it, to use it against everyone. But I am curious as to how you intend to get your little loophole inserted into the Curse."
Blue slouched just a little, just a bit. "I don't know. I haven't precisely worked that part out. I guess I'm just hoping that it will be powerful enough to work without being incorporated into the fabric of the Curse," she confessed.
"Pretty sloppy," Belle told her.
Blue suddenly perked up. "You don't want this Curse either!" she suddenly realized. She stepped towards Belle. "I know we don't, we can't, trust each other, but perhaps on this one issue. . . could we work together?"
"You want me to . . . "
"Would you insert it into the Curse? You're the only one Regina is likely to let close to the scroll. You could do it. You could save us all," Blue spoke earnestly.
Belle considered. "There is still a problem."
"Yes," Blue admitted. "The loophole would work best if we could somehow imbue it with True Love, but no one has ever been able to contain, to grasp True Love. It's so rare, so special, so . . ."
"It can be done," Belle cut her off.
"How?" Blue asked.
Belle had to smile. "Interesting that the Dark One knows of a way to bottle True Love but the Light Fairy does not." She stood. "Get me a hair from each of your lovers. I can do it with these." She turned to go, "Oh yes, there is a price for my help."
Blue frowned, "Of course, of course. The Dark One does nothing without charging for it."
"In this new land, if ever I ask you for something, if I say 'please,' you will grant my request."
Blue considered. "We are all to lose our memories if this Curse is ever cast, you know."
Belle looked at her. "I know, so it will make no difference, will it?"
Blue nodded. "It's a deal."
And now, Dark Lady Belle would sometimes invite her servant, her lover Rumple up to her Dark Tower, each time using her nail to cut herself and then pressing her blood against the door to open it. Here, in the Dark Tower, he would be able to view his family, watch his son grow. The village seemed to be prospering. When he questioned if she had a hand in the village's recovery, she would shrug. He would sometimes glimpse other people, soldiers dressed in the Dark Queen's livery, but these men seemed to be friendly and well-liked by the villagers.
Here, in the Tower, she would also show him some of her magic. She explained that she drew on dark forces, fear, hate, suspicion, turbulence and confusion. She would sometimes have him try but he wasn't able to cause a flicker of change.
"Ah, you draw on light forces," she suddenly realized. "Love, friendship, peace and harmony."
He drew back. "Oh, I could never do magic, Milady, any kind of magic."
"Of course you can. You already do. You just don't recognize it as such. And even the most untalented, can do potions and plant magic. If your village had a midwife, she would most likely have drawn on such magics," she explained.
"The healing magics? That could be useful," he admitted to her.
"I can teach you some of that," she told him. "There is much on such magic in some of my books. I will help you as I can."
So now Rumple embarked on applying his new reading skills to peruse her books looking for healing potions. He already knew the names of many of the plants in her herb garden but there were some discussed in her books that he did not know. There were also some plants that only grew wild, refusing to domesticate in well-manicured little herb gardens. Sometimes the Lady would bring back unusual plants that he would study and oft times try to cultivate, oft times successfully. He found he could coax most plants into thriving in what had once been a shabby excuse of a kitchen garden.
It was a warm afternoon. He was on his knees working with one of the wilder plants when he noticed its nose. He stilled and waited. Very slowly, very slowly a soft grey head followed the nose.
It was a young rabbit.
Moving cautiously, he held out a leaf to the rabbit. The young bunny, more hungry than careful, hopped forward and began to eat from his hand. Rumple pulled his hand back and the bunny followed. It time the rabbit had crawled into his lap, allowing itself to be held, petted and fed.
"You have Slow Magic."
Both he and the young bunny startled, the kit bolting off his lap. He turned to look at the Lady. "Milady?"
"I had wondered before but I see it now. It is very, very rare and one of the strongest of magics," she told him.
"What is it? I don't understand. I have no magic," Rumple was confused.
She shook her head. "You, like so many others, think of magic as sudden and flashy, there and done," she explained. "But not all magic is like that. One of the most powerful magics is Slow Magic. The growth of plants, the wearing away of stone by water, the changing of a village into a town. Slow Magic. Most wielders of Slow Magic never know they have it. They can change the rate that tasks are accomplished, speeding up some things. I have never seen it before but watching you tame the little rabbit . . . "
"But that only took a moment and it was a young and stupid rabbit," he protested.
"You have been here for more than an hour. Did you not know?" she asked him and he shook his head. "You shifted a task that would take others weeks into that time. You are very powerful Spinner."
"But what good is it?" he asked.
"Ah, like those who use Earth Magic, you can make crops thrive. Like those who use Air Magic, you can alter weather. Like those who use Water Magic, you can change the very landscape. Like those who use Fire Magic, you can conjure passion." While she told him all this, he shook his head.
"Then why, why was my village so impoverished? Shouldn't I have been able to improve our lot there?"
She looked at him and slowly smiled. "But Rumple, you did. You did all that. Sometimes with Slow Magic, the path to change is tortuous and difficult to follow."
He remained sitting in the soil of his garden. He had always thought that things just happened.
He was beginning to realize that they happen for a reason.
And sometimes, he now understood, he was the reason.
It was a late summer day. Rumple was helping the Lady clean her North Tower Room.
It was actually a dangerous job.
Very dangerous.
No telling if things might explode, sending him reeling across the room or dropping to the floor in slumber. Other things would just poof and he would find himself drooling or retching or turning green or sneezing uncontrollably. Occasionally some things would freeze him in place or cause him pain or tickle him or . . . well, there was just no predicting.
She was focused on moving some of the books back to the library and had left the room with a stack of volumes that had somehow worked their way up to the Tower. She had been gone awhile and he smiled to himself. Likely she had opened one of the books and, as if she had encountered an old friend, she was probably down in the library re-reading a forgotten favorite. He was alone when he found . . . IT.
It was a plain box, set on a high shelf. He was standing on a short step-stool pulling things off the shelves when he pulled the box down. He blew the dust off the box and opened it. Inside was an oddly shaped doubled-edged knife with a wavy blade. The blade was emblazoned with the name "Belle."
He picked it up.
He heard her behind him. She was watching warily, tenseness in every muscle.
"What is this?" he asked her holding it up.
Thank you, thank you to my very faithful reviewers: orthankg1, Wondermorena, TheGoldenHawk, musicbean2, CharlotteAshmore, Grace5231973, Erik'sTrueAngel, and Aletta-Feather (Chapters 3 and 4). As always appreciate your reviews (love hearing from you people).
Be thinking of us this week. We have an ice storm threatening (we have a wintry mix pelting down at this moment). An ice storm means very dangerous driving and trees and ice taking out power lines. The power company has already geared up and some schools in the mountains have already been called off. As long as we keep power, we'll be fine, but otherwise, things get dicey. -twyla
