The story that Regina gave her to work with was unsettling. Apparently they were not the only people that Emma had brought home. She'd brought all of Camelot as well, horses, chainmail, swords and all. But it wasn't like it had been when they'd come back after they'd been in Mist Haven for a year and the Merry Men were gathered together in the woods with tents and general supplies. They'd been scattered around the woods, without memories, without understanding of where they were or even who they were. "So…their memories are even more far gone than ours are?!"
"Yeah, either that or Leroy doesn't leave much of an impression," Regina answered carelessly. According to her Arthur and a couple of his knights had stumbled upon the dwarf in the middle of town, very lost, very confused. When they'd made themselves known, Mary Margaret and David "the royal crusaders" as Regina called them, ran fearlessly into the woods to help them, like always. They delivered supplies, tents, and round as many of them up as possible into a camp until they could figure out what to do with them beyond that. "Robin and I went to help and while we were in the woods…something just attacked him. Only Robin! No one else! Roland was right there and it didn't pay any attention. It was like it only had eyes for him."
She nodded. "I dont' suppose you got a description of those eyes that might actually help me with identification?"
Regina shrugged. "Pale skin…black clothes-"
"Emma?" she assumed.
"Not Emma, but..." she corrected with a distant look in her eyes, as if she was seeing the scene again in her mind. "It flew through the air and had a scream like a banshee, but it wasn't one."
She closed her eyes as she tried to fathom what she'd said. It made no sense. What she'd described…it was a banshee! "Right…looks like a banshee, sounds like a banshee, but not a banshee?" she blanched.
"No red hair."
"Ah! Not a banshee," she concluded. Trying to pry information out of Regina was like trying to channel magic in a thunderstorm. Possible, but frustrating and difficult.
"But it did have red eyes," Regina added suddenly. "Black clothes, pale skin, and odd limbs, like it was made of branches, and…its teeth were sharp. I only caught a glimpse…but I'm sure of it."
"Wraith?" she suggested.
Regina shook her head. "Too distinct. And taking Robin isn't exactly ordinary Wraith behavior. It would have just killed him on the spot. Why would a thing like that take him? If it's going to kill him why take him?!"
Her eyes widen as she watched Regina. Her eyes were so wild, her gestures so frantic she didn't realize… "You're bleeding," she muttered.
"What?!"
"You're nose. It-it's bleeding." Regina reached up to touch it and it was only when her hand came away bloody that she snapped to attention and grabbed some tissues for her to use. "It's fine," Regina dismissed as she took the tissues and held them to her face. "Can you help me or not?!"
Of course she could. And she did. Against her better judgement and with her bell jar in hand she left Rumple and went to the library to collect books. It wasn't hard to decide which ones that she needed and it wasn't so much a research project as it was a search project. Regina had given her a description, she just needed to figure out who or what matched the description and what that meant for Robin Hood. It was like looking for the Chernabog all over again...though she quickly discovered that Killian had been a much better assistant.
Regina helped at first. She helped look through page after page in book after book she set before her, negatively identifying something called a Gnarl, because it was too masculine looking, and something called a Dementor, because it was too much like a Wraith and not enough like what she'd seen. As the hours passed she gave up looking and started to irritate her by pacing back and forth as well as looking out the window every three seconds like she might see this creature flying through the sky with Robin at any moment.
"It you're not going to help then at least do something other than pace," she mumbled as she turned another page and-
The picture was odd. But it showed black and white, with lines that could have been tree branches. She turned the page back to find the beginning of what she'd just found, but found the explanation went back farther than just the figure on the page. "Charon," she muttered as she read.
"Charon is one of the deadliest and weakest of the Underworld. A ferryman, cursed forever to do Hades bidding in the mortal world, he is tasked with ferrying souls with unfinished business from the mortal world to the Underworld, the place every soul must pass, at least for some time, before moving on to a final resting place.
"Every night, at the moons Zenith, the portal to the Underworld opens for Charon. Portals can be created from bodies of water that are big enough to contain the boat, but still enough that the boat does not overturn, for if it does, life and death itself would be overturned. Once Charon has arrived he collects the souls of the dead using a special lamp, given to him by Hades himself. The souls seek out it's light, and he transports them to the Underworld where they make the choice to move on.
"Charon is cursed to never leave his boat, only at the rare and special permission of Hades is he permitted to walk on dry land, therefore for certain cases, Hades has gifted Charon with an army of female bounty hunters called 'Furies.'
"A Fury is, quite simply, an inferior goddess of vengeance turned demon that Charon uses to help claim souls that belong to Hades when they have not yet passed, typically souls that are owed for the price of unpaid for magic. Released from the Underworld every sunrise, the Furies responsibility is to find the undead soul and take it to the nearest body of water so Charon and claim it. Once at water the Fury removes the undead's soul before Charon and uses it as passage back to the Underworld. Only the equivalent of a human soul will do for passage. And should a fury see a second sunrise without safe passage to the Underworld, she will fade, and her soul will be devoured by Cerberus for her failure. A sister Fury will go forth the next sunrise to do what the previous Fury could not.
"Charon is relentless and will not stop his search until he has a soul to replace what was lost, for Charon lives in fair that should Hades not be given his due, the fate of the soul will become his own."
She looked over the picture and felt her stomach flip over. The explanation was clear and yet puzzling at the same time. A life for a life. That was essentially what it was saying. Charon wouldn't stop hunting until he had a soul to pay the price of magic that someone hadn't. Robin was the one they'd chosen, but if she'd read it right, it wasn't required to be his own. He'd take any soul. But…
If this was the creature then what on earth had Robin gotten into to owe his soul to Hades?! Was it something that Robin had done for someone else? A deal he'd made? Or had someone else made the deal, and Robin was an innocent bystander? And if this was true why come after him now?! Why not back in the Enchanted Forest?! Why not in Camelot?! Well…there was the water issue. Charon needed water, and if this were true, then the Fury would only have had the time from sunrise to the moons Zenith to get Robin to the portal and take his soul. Maybe they hadn't been close to water?
No…they'd been in Camelot! She could remember walking across a bridge over water, a moat, to get to the castle. That was plenty close. Why would Charon have needed a Fury?
Unless they weren't there the entire time…unless they'd moved or left…
Or it wasn't the Fury at all.
She looked at the picture drawn before her. She didn't know the right answer. But she knew that there was a way to get it. "Regina?" but when she looked up Regina was missing. She looked around the shop but she wasn't in the front room. A floorboard creaked in the back room.
Rumple…
Her heart raced as she picked her book up and went to the curtain. When she'd told Regina to do something other than pace she hadn't meant go into the back! She could hear her voice in the back, talking, saying…something. "You're the reason no one believes in me! But I'm going to prove you wrong. I'm going to prove them all wrong! Just…"
She let herself into the back. "Regina!" she called as she sat there on the cot with Rumple. She didn't know what all that was about, she didn't know where it had come from but she knew that if there was a chance that Rumple could hear her as she spoke, as she liked to believe, then she had to accept that he could hear everyone, Regina included. And even though what Regina was saying had some validity, Rumple's soul was struggling to hold onto something. There was no need to make him want to let go further. "I uh…I found something!" she informed her, making the motion for her to follow her out into the front room. She had the book with her, but she didn't need Rumple to hear all this.
"I want you to look at a picture and tell me if it's what you saw…" she opened the book between them and pointed at the picture.
Regina reached out and grasped it, her knuckles white as her fingers curled over it and she examined it before declaring "that's it! That's what took Robin!"
Her stomach turned over. "I was afraid of that," she mumbled reaching out and removing the book from her hands before she could bend it. "So…Robin isn't gone yet. The creature you saw is a bounty hunter of sorts. It works with Charon, the ferryman of the Underworld. He can't leave his boat, or water, so he sends something in his place to bring to him in exchange for a ride back to the Underworld. I can tell you that the kind of water it needs for it's portal is very specific. Still water. Lots of it. So, a very large lake or bay. Not the ocean, not a river or stream. That's where you'll find Robin, that's where she took him to wait for Charon and prove she's taken a soul. It's called a Fury."
"A Fury?!" Regina blanched.
"A demon sent from the Underworld to collect the unpaid price of magic."
"Someone used magic in Camelot and didn't pay up."
She nodded. Probably Robin since it was after him, though she didn't say that because the truth was that she didn't know for sure. Magic and who paid the price for what wasn't an exact science. It was complicated. And frankly Robin using magic sounded just as unlike him as Robin not paying a price. It made sense except when it didn't.
"Yeah but Regina the Fury doesn't come for just any price. It comes when the price of magic is a life."
Regina's faced seemed to melt from confusion into sadness. "Robin…" she cried. What on Earth had Robin gotten himself into? What had they gotten themselves into? She didn't know. That was the awfulness of it! Had something happened to Robin and someone hadn't paid the price to save him? Or had something happened to Roland, or Regina, or Henry even and Robin hadn't paid the price. She had no idea. "You mean…that demon is here to drag him to the Underworld?" Regina clarified loudly.
She nodded. Crude…but essentially, yes. "Yeah…but!" she was quick to add, the one thing that might be helpful in all of this. "The portal only opens when the moon reaches it's Zenith." Which gave them time, but not a lot of it. It was already dark outside.
"Then there's still some time to stop it!" Regina realized moving out from behind the counter and going to the door before she could finish.
"Ah, it's…it's not that simple!" she insisted reaching out and grabbing her arm to stop her. Despite what she'd heard her say to Rumple, she did believe Regina could figure this out. She had to because she didn't want anything to happen to Robin. Regina was right he was her friend, and they'd been known to solve bigger problems than this in less time. But if they were going to fix this they needed every last piece of information that they could get. Every last damning piece of information. "I'm afraid there's only one way to save Robin Hood…someone has to give their life in his place."
Shake my head at scenes that don't make any sense. Aside from the Regina/Belle thing which we handled in the last chapter. So...we're supposed to believe that all the while Regina is in the back room yelling at Rumple Belle is just out front totally chill with it? Come on writers; Belle doesn't even let people who kidnap her get treated like that, are we really supposed to believe that she's going to let Regina do it while Rumple is in a coma? I couldn't accept it, so what was enough to distract Belle to it? A good bit of research. It wasn't great, but it was the best I could figure seeing as how there was no sound of the bell chiming. If I'd heard that I would have sent her to the library.
Thank you, Grace5231973, Fox24, Curly J, Rumbellefan, Teresa Martin, Kathryn Claire O'Connor, Carlyle23, and Ladybugsmomma for your reviews. I'm always pleased to hear when people are enjoying the fiction. I hope that you will continue to enjoy it even with the silly mistakes like these. I promise, in a couple of episodes it'll get better. Peace and Happy Reading!
