10

Discovery

Knossos amphitheater

Three days later:

Rumple had decided that he needed to attend this lecture, in hopes of discovering something about other magical objects that might help him find Bae or get to Neverland. Perhaps this Belle could shed some light on the subject for him . . . if she was as knowledgeable as she claimed. Or Tink claimed. He took his color-shifting multi-colored cloak and swirled it around himself. The cloak was enchanted and made him seem like an ordinary man when he put his hood up. It was only when he put the hood down that he resumed his normal appearance—the beast he had become from the dagger's curse.

The amphitheater was crowded with over a hundred people, more than Rumple would have expected, given the nature of the topic. There was a sign out front on a board that read The Enchanted Origins of Many Magical Objects and Beings discussion given by Lady Belle Fleur de Lis, with a degree from the Ars Magica University. Lecture to be held at 7 in the evening, question and answer session to follow immediately afterward, time permitting.

Based upon what the lady spoke of, Rumple was going to attend that session.

Tink would have attended as well, but just this morning, the young fairy had been summoned back to speak with her superior, Rheul Gorm, who probably wanted to know just what she'd been doing these past four days. The fairy went, though she said that she'd be back. "Don't worry about me, Rumple! I'll be back in a twinkle . . . or maybe it's a wink . . . hmm . . . well, whatever . . . I won't forget I'm supposed to help you find your son. A fairy never forgets." Then she shook her head so the bells that seemed to continually surround her rang.

"Best you worry about yourself, Tink. For I have a feeling your superior will be none too pleased to find out you've been trying to help me," the sorcerer warned her.

"Oh, pooh!" Tink shook her head violently, till the bells jangled. "I told you and told you, Rumple—the pixie dust never lies! And I'm supposed to help people . . . even people like you . . . because you need me . . . and that's what helping people is all about . . . who needs me."

Rumple just shook his head then. He feared the poor idealistic young fairy was about to get her wings chewed off, and he wished her luck with Rheul Gorm. But right then he had a lecture to attend. He teleported himself to Knossos after having Tink fly there and tell him what it looked like, because no magician, however powerful, could teleport himself blind, unless he wanted to end up in a wall or a floor and die a hideous death. He had the memories of other Dark Ones to tell him that, and so he had Tink scout for him before she returned to wherever fairies had their headquarters, leaving Rumple to attend the lecture alone.

Page~*~*~*~*~Break

Neverland:

Bae and Griffin decided to forage for nuts and coconuts and bananas that day, since they were sick of eating porridge. Peter had stolen a sack of oats from some luckless farmer using his shadowmancy, and thus far they'd been eating it everyday, for breakfast, lunch, and sometimes dinner as well. One of the Lost Boys had found a tree with some sort of dates in it, and had picked enough to add to the porridge and another had found stalks of sugar cane and Peter had used his magic to cut them in half and then dribble the juice into several containers. So they could sweeten the porridge, but everyone was getting heartily sick of it, and that's when Bae and Griffin decided they needed to find other things to eat before they turned into mush.

"I wish we had seed cakes with honey," Griffin said longingly as they walked through the lush tropical paradise. "My mama used to make them on feast days." He licked his lips.

"I wish I had roasted chicken," Bae said, thinking of the wonderful one Rumple had made him a few weeks ago . . . at least he thought it had been a few weeks ago. But time ran differently here and he couldn't be sure. He pushed his way through a stand of vines and looked up to a large tree filled with brown nuts. "My papa makes the best roasted chicken with crunchy potatoes and carrots in butter with pepper and salt."

Griffin groaned. "Bae! You're making me hungry!"

"You started it," the other boy said. Then he looked up at the tree. "Okay . . . let's climb up there and get some nuts."

Griffin sighed. "I can't climb so good."

"Okay, Then you stay here and gather the nuts while I climb the tree and shake it," Bae told the younger lad. He grasped the bark and began to climb, shinnying up the tree easily.

After about five minutes, he reached the top and shook the branches hard, and bunches of small brown nuts fell down around Griffin, who scurried about to put them in a burlap sack he'd brought for that purpose. Griffin gathered about fifty nuts before Bae said the tree was tapped out and climbed down. Then they moved on, looking for another tree. When they had filled the sack nearly full, Bae said it was time to look for coconuts and other fruit.

Neverland had an abundance of fruit trees, if one knew where to find them. There were bananas and papayas and pawpaws, even pineapples in bushes as well as sweet little purple berries, though you had to be careful how much you ate of those, else you get a bellyache and diarrhea for a day, which poor Griffin had learned to his chagrin after stuffing himself on a bush.

Peter had just laughed and shrugged it off, like it was a joke, which maybe to him it was, but it was Bae who looked out for the little boy, bringing him water and porridge until he was better.

Most of the other Lost Boys were rather useless when it came to doing anything other than playing games with Peter, Bae thought angrily. They preferred to laze around all day in their treehouses and stay up till all hours, drinking fermented coconut milk or barley beer, and playing war games or other things, without paying attention to who was getting food, or water, or even keeping the camp neat.

Peter just waved a hand when Bae complained about that, and said, "You're so worried about it, Balefire, you deal with it."

It made Bae grind his teeth and long to take a stick and beat some manners into those lazy boys' backsides, for whenever he assigned a boy to do some chore around the camp, they grumbled and complained and did a terrible job. Except for Griffin, Wart, and Mikey. Those three seemed to understand that they also needed to live as well as play games, and helped him with the tedious but necessary chores.

Soon Bae and Griffin had another sack filled with pawpaws and papayas, then Bae found a coconut tree, and then a banana tree as well, and gleaned the fruit and coconuts from each. By then Griffin was panting in the heat, and Bae said they could rest. "Here. Eat a banana and a papaya," he urged the smaller boy.

Griffin peeled a banana and chewed it, his little face solemn. Due to being out in the sun so much, the boy had become brown like one of the nuts he'd just gathered. "I wish . . . I wish I could see my mama one last time," he lamented while he ate the pale yellow fruit.

"I know. I wish I could see my papa too," Bae agreed. "But someday we will. You have to believe that, Griffin."

The other boy sighed. "But what if she's dead, Bae? What then? I don't have any other family. My dad died and well . . . it's always been me and my mama."

"If that happened, Griff . . . then I think . . . I think maybe my papa could take you in. If you don't mind living with a dark sorcerer."

"I don't care, Bae. Long as he feeds me and gives me a place to stay. And doesn't beat me all that hard," Griffin said.

"Did your mama?"

Griffin shook his head. "No. But Master Stibbins did once. He was our steward. He caught me snitching some pastries and stuff for a feast and hells, did he have a flaming fit! You'd have thought I stole the crown jewels the way he went on, and then he walloped me. Mama had a fit when she found out, but it was too late. It was about three days before I could sit down."

"My papa doesn't believe in beating children," Bae told his friend. "He's only spanked me about a handful of times, and when he does he only uses his hand and it hurts, but only for like ten minutes after." He flushed recalling the last spanking he'd received from Rumple, and sighed. "And he doesn't do it over nothing, or stuff like eating pastries. It's only if you're really bad or disrespectful, so you ought to be fine, Griff."

"Does he . . . magic you if you're bad?"

Bae shook his head. "No. He . . . he's under a curse, see, and it . . . makes him do things . . . like make deals with people, but normally he's not evil . . ." And Bae began to tell Griffin the story of the Dark One's dagger and how Rumple came to be cursed with it.

He had just reached the part when Rumple had been forced to stab Zoso when they heard an odd little cry coming from some brush near the river. Bae called the river Waingunga, after the name of a river he'd read in a book Rumple had traded for. It had been a book about a boy raised by wolves, and a lame tiger, and a bear and a panther, all of whom could talk, or rather the boy could understand them because he spoke the languages of all the creatures in the jungle. Bae wished he had the book now, and could read it to Griffin.

"Bae? What's that?" Griffin asked nervously.

"I don't know. It sounds like . . . a baby crying," Bae said, frowning.

"A baby? Here on Neverland?"

"Yeah, that' s crazy," Bae agreed. "Well, it sort of does. Maybe it's a wild animal."

"Like what? I've heard birds and seen some uh . . . monkeys, but what else lives here?"

"I've seen a crocodile," Bae told him seriously.

"A crocodile!" Griffin gasped.

"Yeah, once. That's why I told you not to go in the Waingunga that time."

The cry was repeated.

"Listen! There it goes again!" Griffin cried.

"Now it sounds sort of like . . . a kitten meowing," Bae said, listening harder.

"Let's go see what it is," Griffin said, standing up.

"Okay, but you follow me, and if . . . if there's anything dangerous, you run like hell, you hear me?" Bae said, and he picked up the thick knotted staff he'd made from a sapling and carried with him just in case on these foraging excursions.

"But Bae, I ain't no coward!" the little boy said stubbornly.

"I know, but this isn't about that, it's about living to fight another day," Bae told him. "So you do like I said. Because if you don't and something eats you, I'm following you to the afterworld and spanking the blazes outta you for not doing like I told you. Got me?"

Griffin gulped. "Yeah, I hear ya."

"Okay, c'mon."

Together the two boys crept through the dense brush that grew along the riverbank, and when they peered through the trees, they found a strange and wondrous sight.

"Look, Bae! It's a baby panther!" exclaimed Griffin.

For there, curled up in some bulrushes was what looked like a fuzzy black furball, a baby panther. Except . . . Bae saw something else as it was lying there.

"Griff, that's no panther. It's got wings, see 'em?" Bae pointed out.

The little boy squinted, then hissed, "You're right. It does! What is it?"

"It's a magical creature," Bae said with some authority. "It's called a gwenllyan. I know 'cause my papa had a big book of all magical creatures, with pictures in it. I've read some of it . . . and drawn some too. A gwenllyan is a magical cat, it can fly and blink from place to place. That's why some sorcerers keep 'em as pets and guardians. And sometimes . . . sometimes they skin them for their pelts, because a gwenllyan's fur can keep out the bitterest cold, even magical cold, and turn away the sharpest arrows and swords."

"That's terrible! I wouldn't want to kill it!" Griffin stated. "What are we gonna do with it, Bae?"

"Do? We're not gonna do anything. That's a baby, and it's mama's probably around here somewhere. We're gonna leave it alone. Unless you want to become cat food."

"Aww, but Baelfire!"

Bae grabbed the younger boy and shook him. "Listen, you numbskull! That baby's mama will eat you if you try and touch that cub. So you stay away from it."

"How do you know that?" Griffin demanded, his lip sticking out in a pout.

Bae rolled his eyes. Nobles! Sometimes they didn't have the sense the gods gave a goose! "Because it's what any wild animal would do . . . and every kid in my village knows you don't pick up or touch a wolf cub or a bear cub or anything like it . . . unless you want to get yourself chomped on."

"But . . . it looks so fuzzy and helpless . . . what if it's all alone?"

"Well . . . then you could pet it and stuff . . . but till then . . . we leave it be," Bae said.

Just then the little cub gave another piercing cry, sounding very much like a baby wailing.

"It's crying!"

"I know. But we can't go near it . . . not yet. Let's wait and see if its mama comes back," Bae reasoned.

The two ducked back behind the screening brush and sat down, waiting for what seemed like forever, but in reality was really only an hour.

Finally Griffin shifted restlessly. "Bae, I gotta pee."

"Well, don't do it here. Go down there," he waved a hand along the riverbank downstream a ways.

"Okay," the other boy said.

"And watch out for snakes," Bae called as Griffin trotted away. He had determined during the first few days he'd met the boy that Griffin was smart as far as books went, but knew almost nothing about wandering in the woods, like Bae and half the other boys from Hamelin did.

Griffin found a convenient tree and quickly used it. But as he was pulling his trousers up, he saw something lying in the bushes closer to the riverbank. Fearing it was a crocodile, he peered hard through the bushes . . . and then noticed it was dark . . . and he saw what looked like a paw lying there.

"Bae! Bae, you gotta come see this!" he yelped.

Bae heaved himself to his feet. "What now, Griff?" He trotted over to where the other boy was. "Quit yelling. You want half the island to hear you?"

"No, but . . . lookit!" the child pointed to the black paw lying on the riverbank.

Bae frowned . . . then he inched slowly down towards the paw. As soon as he got close enough, he grimaced. "Ugh! Griff, don't come down here."

"Why? What is it?"

"It's the mama gwenllyan. Or what's left of her," Bae answered.

"I wanna see!" cried the younger boy and before Bae could stop him, Griffin scrambled down the embankment. He halted and cried out in horror. "No! Bae . . . she's dead!" Tears gathered in his eyes.

"I told you not to come down," he remonstrated, patting the other lad on the shoulder.

"How'd she die?" Griffin sniffled, staring at the body of the once proud creature.

"Guess she got in a fight with the crocodile . . . and the crocodile won," Bae sighed. The gwenllyan was partially eaten.

"I think I'm gonna puke," whimpered Griffin. Abruptly he started to cry.

"Don't look, Griff," Bae said sadly, turning away himself.

Griffin suddenly vomited all over.

Bae went and held his head. "Shh. It's okay."

Griffin retched and cried softly. "No, it's not. She's dead and it's . . . horrible!"

"Hey . . . sometimes it happens like that," his companion said softly, patting the other boy's back. "Okay, now?"

"Yeah." Griffin sniffled and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. "Now that poor gwenllyan cub ain't got a mama."

Bae sighed. He knew where this was going. "I know. And that means we can take care of it."

Griffin's eyes shone. "All right!"

"Only you can't tell anybody else about it," Bae cautioned. "Like Peter or Felix or anybody."

"I won't. Cross my heart," Griffin promised, making an X over his heart.

"Then let's get the cub," Bae said, and together they went and Bae picked up the cub, which squalled and tried to bite him with its tiny milk teeth. "Hey! You quit that! No biting!" he ordered, and gave the kitten a firm tap on the nose.

The gwenllyan whimpered and looked startled. It had great green eyes, that were almost too big for its little face.

"Bae, why'd you do that?"

"You want her biting you?" the other boy asked sharply. "It might not hurt now, 'cause she's a baby, but when she gets bigger . . . we have to teach her now when she's small. Like my papa did our sheepdog when she was a pup."

"How do you know it's a her?"

"Look," Bae said, and turned the cub around, showing the other boy her hind end. "See, she doesn't have balls. So that means she's a girl."

"Oh. You know everything," Griffin said in awe.

"Hardly," Bae snorted, thinking most of what he knew was common sense. He winced as the little cub tried to climb his shoulder. "Oww! Hey, little girl, your claws are sharp. I'm gonna have to trim them or something, otherwise you'll put holes in me like a sieve." He shifted the cub, careful to avoid crushing her wings, which were downy golden fluffy things.

"Cam I hold her, Bae?"

"No. Not now. We need to find a place to put her . . . and some way to feed her. I wonder if she can eat solid food yet?"

"What if she can't?"

"Then we're in trouble. Because there's no goat to get milk from here," Bae told him, and they started to walk back the way they had come. "We can hide her in the Echo Caves. The other boys don't like to go there."

"'Cause it's haunted," Griffin shivered.

"No, it's not. It's just weird, listening to all the echoes," Bae disagreed. "Besides, it's safe there. No crocodiles and no Lost Boys."

"Cept us."

"Yeah. C'mon."

They hiked up to the caves, and Bae made the little gwenllyan a bed from soft leaves and moss he gathered inside the caves. The little cub gave another cry and Bae sighed. "She's hungry."

"What do we feed her?"

"She probably eats meat, I mean she is a cat . . . sort of. Or fish."

"Then let's catch some," Griffin said eagerly.

"Right." Bae unraveled some string from his tunic and tied it to the top of his staff, turning it into a fishing pole. Then he went and fashioned a hook out of some strong briars and put a wriggly worm on it. "Okay. Now let's see what we can catch in the lake."

There was a small lake near the caves, and Bae had fished it before. He cast his line out and then sat down to wait for a bite.

Meanwhile, Griffin played with the gwenllyan cub, petting her fuzzy coat and teasing her with a string he'd ripped from the bottom of his pants. The little cub batted at it, rolling on her back. The little boy giggled and let the cub bat his hand as well as the string.

Suddenly, the gwenllyan grabbed his hand and nipped him.

"Ouch! Hey! That hurt!" he yelped. Then he shook a finger at the cub and tapped her nose. "Bad kitty! No biting!"

The little cub cocked her head, startled. Then she began chewing her paw, giving a soft mew of distress.

"Aww! I know, you're hungry. Bae's gonna get you some fish. Least I hope so," Griffin told the cub. "Now we gotta think of something to call you." He thought about all the names he'd read of in his books, but nothing seemed to fit.

Finally, after half-an-hour, Bae had a nibble on his line, and then he pulled in a good sized fish, very similar to a trout. He quickly killed it with a rock, then gutted it, throwing the entrails back into the lake. He filleted part of it, then cut the pieces finely with his small hunting knife of obsidian.

Once he had gotten the fish cut up, he put it on a large leaf and brought it over to the squalling cub. "Here you go, girl. Try this."

Then he waited to see what the gwenllyan did.

The cub sniffed the cut up fish curiously, poking it with a paw. Then she nosed it, and licked some with her tongue.

"See? It's good. Eat it!" Griffin urged.

The cub shook her head. Then she experimentally licked it again. Finally she seemed to realize this was food, and began to eat.

"Bae, she's eating it!" Griffin cried happily.

"That's good." Bae said in relief.

The cub devoured the fish and Bae cut up more with his knife. After the third piece, the cub seemed to grow sated, and stopped gulping the fish down. Bae brought her some water in another deeper leaf, and the little cub drank, her small belly rounded with the food she had eaten.

"Okay. Now let's see if she has to go pee before we put her in her bed," Bae said, recalling that was what they'd done with their sheepdog puppy back when they lived in their village. He picked up the cub and brought her into the trees near the lake.

The cub yawned and pounced a bit at the leaves on the ground, playing with them.

Bae and Griffin waited patiently, until the cub suddenly went and scraped at the dirt, then squatted there. Afterwards, the cub pawed dirt over the spot, and then jumped at their ankles.

The two boys laughed and played with the cub, whose wings fluttered when she jumped at them, until at last they had tired her out, and she flopped over, purring softly.

"Looks like she's sleepy," Griffin observed.

"Yeah. Time to put her to bed," Bae agreed. He picked up the little cub and carried her back into the cave.

"Bae? What should we call her?" asked Griffin.

"Uh . . . how about . . ." Bae thought for a moment. "Macha? She was a war goddess in an old book I read. A magical war goddess."

"Macha. I like it," Griffin nodded. He bent and kissed the little gwenllyan on the nose. "Good night, Macha. Will she be all right by herself?"

"Yeah. We can check on her tomorrow. But we'd better go back to the camp now," Bae said. "Before Peter sends someone out to find us."

Griffin smirked. "Okay." He picked up the sack of bananas.

The two waved goodbye to the sleeping Macha before departing the cavern, and Bae reminded Griffin again to keep quiet about their discovery.

But for the first time since coming to Neverland, Bae found he was actually looking forward to the next morning, and he glanced back once at the gwenllyan curled in a ball with her tail over her nose before he left, shouldering the sacks of nuts and fruit over his shoulder.

Page~*~*~*~*~Break

Rumple settled down on the long low bench and prepared to listen to the woman who had mounted the stage before him. She was about twenty-five or so, only a few years younger than he was, he mused, and a beauty with dark hair with auburn highlights and brilliant blue eyes set in a heart-shaped face. She wore a fine satin gown of gold, with a lacey bodice and neat stitching around the waist and sleeves. The darts in the bodice emphasized her tiny waist, which Rumple noticed because he made clothing, and could tell who had a good seamstress or tailor. Whoever had made the dress had been a very good one, he thought, and noticed that the hem came down to just covering her ankles. She also had on satin shoes with pearls on them, fancy heels that called attention to her small feet.

Rumple found himself unable to look away, thinking that here was a very desirable woman indeed, and no wonder her father had been quick to marry her off. But then he looked into her eyes, and he saw that they were piercing and intelligent, unlike many women's eyes he had seen over the months he had been the Dark One.

And as their eyes met, he felt something like a lightning shock run through him.

It was gone in the next instant, but he couldn't shake the feeling that somehow he . . . recognized her.

Then he snorted at his own foolishness, and settled back to listen to her, as the lecture was beginning.

Belle gazed out at her audience, knowing that this was probably the last time she would ever address such a gathering again. This was her last lecture, since her fiancée Gaston would never permit her such liberties once she was his wife. She hid a grimace of disgust at the thought, for Gaston might be handsome as sin, but he didn't value a woman for much except bedsport and getting heirs. Belle's keen mind was not an asset to him, and so her days as a scholar and intellectual were at an end.

Still, she was determined to give this last lecture her best, and make it as interesting and informative as possible.

"Welcome, friends, to Knossos library, and tonight's discussion on magical beings and objects. I am Lady Belle Fleur de Lis, and hope you will hear what I have to say with an open and curious mind."

There followed instant applause from all corners of the room.

Belle smiled out at her audience, then took two steps forward and leaned upon the rostrum.

"There are many objects in our myths and legends that grant power to those who possess them, I shall touch upon a few of them tonight, and discuss their origins and powers which I have learned through careful and painstaking research. For instance, the legend of the Dragon Orb of Dionaras the Dragon Lord, which was a quartz orb that he wore as a pendant about his neck. Legend says it could transform the wearer into a dragon, and indeed it did so. Dionaras devastated the region of the South Marshlands, our neighbor to the east, destroying many villages and killing over a thousand people, until he was defeated by the Dark One Tiamat over a hundred and thirty-seven years ago. . . "

Rumplestiltskin straightened on the bench, now keenly interested in what Belle had to say, since it concerned his own curse, of which he knew almost nothing about, save what it imparted to him in brief flashes of magical knowledge. But he knew nothing about the true origins of the dagger or the curse it bore, and he listened intently as Belle began to speak.

A/N: Sorry for the long wait, but the holidays and such have kept me busy, as well as trying to figure out Belle's lecture, which will occur in the next chapter. Thanks for being so patient! The name Macha is taken from the Celtic war goddess of legend.