Cold prickled in needling lances upon Belle's fevered cheek as she raced through the deserted, forlorn streets of Storybrooke. Tendrils of her amber mane fluttered through the frigid breath of winter as though old man winter combed his gnarled, icy fingers through her hair.
The streets leading down rows of neatly built New England houses, all tucked away in their own cozy berths, sat barren and flanked with heaps of dirty snow. Only a few small paths upon the gray sidewalk were plowed through allowing the beauty to make a moderately fast pace through the thick, sleety blankets of precipitation and away from the master.
Where she was headed was a mystery even to herself, but anything seemed better than to be in the home with the furious Dark One prowling the dim halls. She shivered slightly even recalling the wild, beastly rage that flashed in his eyes and the stinging feel of his hand slamming into contact with her face.
Snow drifted bitingly upon the softly howling wind, chilling the beauty's tears into small crystalline droplets upon her glowing flesh. The icy bite was a stark contrast to the inner heat still lingering upon her cheek like embers from a warm hearth.
To Belle, the burn branded more painfully upon her mind more than the heat that agonizingly scorched her flawless flesh.
Why had he struck her, she pondered numbly, her mind unable to truly think clearly? Why had he reacted so to the worn picture of the boy?
Another fierce wind wailed relentlessly down upon her, making her body tremble violently. Her mass of curls danced like tassels in the wind and glued upon the new, warm tears streaking her cheeks. Numbed fingers wrapped her thick coat tightly about her body, but the wind cut through every fiber with its icy breath with ease.
Tilting her head down to the perilous, slushy walk before her, she contemplated where to go. A dark frown tugged upon her aching face making her wince. Where exactly could she go? Her first instinct was to dash with all haste to her papa's trailer, but even as the bright, relieved thought entered her mind, she cast it away like spoiled garbage.
If she sought her father for blessed sanctuary he would see the bruise and draw his own conclusion. While her father was not a stately man in their new realm, not even a favored and influential member of society, part of him, deep down in the curses sinister labarinth of webs still lay the heart of a proud king.
Without a doubt she knew he would go seeking Rumpelstiltskin's blood for vengeance or at the very least call Guy Stone to arrest the Dark One or worse. Knowing Guy he would be excitedly pleased for any excuse to arrest the fiend and use as much unnecessary force as possible.
Why shouldn't they? The angry, bitter thought whispered through her head vilely, snapping away the cold numb dwelling upon the corridors in her mind. Fire filled her thoughts with dreams of glorious vengeance towards the man that had harmed her.
Placing a hand to her heated cheek, Belle winced at the ever growing tenderness. Even without a mirror she knew an ugly bruise was already mottling her skin and from the corner of her mouth she could still taste the iron tang of her dried blood.
Why shouldn't he pay for what he'd done?
A sigh and a banner stream of opaque vapors escaped her pursed lips at the succulent morsel of revenge now laid before her. One call to Guy, and a subtle hint to hurt the fiend would be all the inclination her needed. Oh that would indeed make her master pay dearly!
Saddened, the beauty remorsefully shook her head, abandoning the thought like the first.
If her papa or Gaston ever found out what he did, they would not just seek to harm him, but go for his life and make him suffer a thousand fold. Ruby was not an option either since she would most assuredly call Sheriff Graham or go down to his dusky pink manse to raise Cain despite the consequences.
While she was angry, furious even towards her master, part of the beauty hesitated to see any ill fall upon him. She was not afraid of what would happen to her if she took action, but more of what would happen to him.
"This isn't right." A choking sob erupted from her lips, the sound echoing over the snow packed ground. Bleared eyes welled with tears afresh as she wallowed in misery and confusion and staggered through the wind and snow. Her heart felt sheared down the middle from anger to hesitation from seeking him harm. "I should be calling the police, I should be planning how I can never see him again, I should be going to Papa and telling him what happened…."
But she couldn't she knew invariably. She couldn't bear to see him hurt if she sought revenge.
One lost, lonely sea gull left behind in the push south shrieked luridly overhead pulling Belle from her dour reprieve and thoughts on what route to take. Looking up frigidly, she found herself at the waters edge of Storybrooke. Had she truly been lost in her reprieve of thought so long?
Frothy, white capped wave curled wild and restless upon the choppy harbor waters. Each alabaster tip of the surf that washed upon the shore or dashed upon the gray rocks, glistening with the icy sheen of salty brine
Where the beauty stood, every angry wave that erupted into mounds of white looked purer than the snow layering the surrounded, crescent land where surf and sand met snow. Every inch of water was a steely gray that reflected the skies leaden charcoal tint perfectly. The liquid expanse meandered from the womb like harbor seemed to drift into eternity upon the gray horizon.
With every crashing wave, the waters enveloped the ice and sleet hurtling from the sky into its folds and tossed the anchored boats like children's paper rafts in a gutter.
Iced salt and frigid surf assailed Belle's nostrils with it's slight sting, but in an odd way that calmed her. The rich scents of water and briny air made her think of home in her father's water side kingdom where the tradesmen flourished.
Out of all the things she missed from home when she sold herself to the Dark One, the fragrance of the sea and the salt driven air coiling about her senses was second only to her papa.
"Far too cold out here miss, for that little jacket." A voice from behind observed. "Wouldn't want you to lose any fingers or a nose to the freeze."
Not bothering to wipe her chilled, crystal tears from her face, Belle sniffed and remained staring at the gray waves as their endless plying away to the land. She curled her frozen fingers tighter about the thick wool of her coat and hunched further to keep warmth. "Your concern is touching, but I just want to be alone right now."
"Alone in the cold." The voice supplied blandly. Snow crunched under boots as the male stepped beside her. A half frown stretched upon his neatly trimmed beard as he dug his hands deep into his coat pockets and rocked back and forth sagely on his heels. Shrugging he continued. "Some people don't have any choice but to be cold and alone. You don't look like one of those people."
Turning her eyes slightly to the tall figure, Belle studied him curiously. He was average height with dark brown hair that swayed into the chill wind and a neatly trimmed brown beard with flecks of russet red. A tired, haphazard raggedness engulfed him as though he was high strung and hadn't slept in weeks. He looked only a bit older than her, but his face displayed an age well beyond his years. From his head to his boots he was garbed warmly in thick forest green clothing like a hunter.
Briefly he himself turned his piercing, dark gaze from the harbors, encompassing salty domain to face her. He had to do a double take at the painful sight.
A grimace lined his lips. "Ouch, that's quite a nasty bruise you have there."
"Oh…." Belle came to her wit's a moment later realizing all and sundry could see her injury. Bashfully she slapped her hand over the contusion. A hiss of pain squeezed from her lips as she felt the pain all over again for placing her hand upon the tender bruise so roughly.
"Who did this?" He asked evenly not showing surprise or anger. "Would you like me to call the sheriff?" The stranger spat the last word with a bit of contempt and loathing.
Belle shook her head fiercely, her eyes strafing back out to the rebellious sea. "No. No police." She decided finally.
The stranger's eyes hardened as though repulsed by her decision. "Ah, one of those things." His lips thinned.
They beauty stiffened at his accusatory tone, though the wind made her wish to shiver. "No, not one of those things. I am neither desperate, nor afraid of who did this." She retorted truthfully, her tone clipped.
Even after what her master had done, she felt no fear for him. In truth she had fled in confusion and the claws ripping her heart asunder, never in fear.
"Then explain if you will while you're out here nearly blue with frost instead of in warm sheriffs stations relating what happened to you?" He asked. His dusty boot kicked a small stone sending it tumbling down to the rushing waves clashing upon the rocky inlet. The stone fell with a peculiar plop and was seen no more upon the waters.
The beauty chewed her bottom lip anxious before replying; feeling her heart like the stone sinking into the icy, gray depths. "Because I don't want to see him hurt."
"But he hurt you." The stranger pointed out, causing Belle to wince as though struck once more.
Closing her eyes to block out the drab image of the steely surf raising their liquid, cold fingers up to desperately snatch at the land, she took a deep calming breath that ached her lungs. Calm, brittle as the feeling was, shrouded over, and prodded her courage back to life as ember could be coxed back to an inferno.
"And yet, I love him." A disparaged laugh tumbled from her mouth. "You must think me a foolish woman. Part of me would readily agree. Maybe I am foolish; maybe I am an idiot who does not have enough sense to see trouble right in front of her nose. But I am not afraid of him nor am I desperate. I love him still, though every bone in my body tells me we should not love. At this moment I could have half the town out for his blood, I should be out for his blood, but I love him and that's what makes this…." She gestured to the bruise weakly, her voice cracked sorrowfully. "Hurt the most."
What he did was inexcusable, but that did not mean her love had diminished. After she fell to the carpet of his study, she expected to feel burning hatred for him flare to life like same ancient primordial spirit. Part of her was waiting for the loathing and seething, in finally seeing what she was blinded to those months shared in mutual affection and yet she did not.
If loving him was a spell, its effects were a powerful one indeed for not even the bruise upon her face could quench the love for him.
Beside her the stranger draped in dappled forest green sighed as though slightly annoyed. "Well that's a pity. I was hoping your newly found hatred for Mr. Gold would help me avoid breaking any more major laws Miss French."
Belle swiveled to him curiously that he spoke her name. One of his hands held a picture of her. His thumb circled over her smiling face in the photograph as though he were pondering a deep, troubled thought.
"How do you know-?" She began, but halted suddenly.
A click echoed from his pocket where his other hand remained tucked away, making the words turn to ash in her throat. The outline of a pistol showed through his dark green jacket pointed at her body.
He smiled, halfway regretful through his thick beard and stuffed the photo away in his other pocket. "I've been watching you closely Miss French and I'm sorry it had to come to this. I can't live in hiding anymore, I need some leverage on Mr. Gold to get him off my back, and you are the perfect tool. I was hoping seeing as half your face is swathed in a contusion you'd be willing to aid me, but I see you actually do care for him." He barked a half insane, exhausted laugh. "I dare say you are the only woman who could care for a monster such as Gold."
"W-who are you?" Belle whispered warily, her eyes slowly shifting from his obsidian eyes to the concealed gun and back again. Blood chilled in her veins like the very waters below.
"Christopher Locksley." He introduced smugly with an impertinent bow. "Your employer's attacker."
Locksley… the name nagged at the edge of her mind like an unrepressed thought, still recalling their old realm. Locksley now where had she heard that…Hood! She drew the memories from the dusty annals of her mind. In the old world his name was Robin of Locksley.
When he forsook his title and rank many branded him Robin Hood. One of the only other princesses she knew, Miriam, or Mary Anne in their new world was rumored to be in love with the notorious noble turned outlaw.
In the other world he was known for his fair and honorable ways of thievery to help the poor, now his self righteousness seemed tainted almost deranged. There was a dark wildness to his eyes, as though he had become calloused to his crimes.
Snow drifted heavier upon the wind until the sky was crowded with flakes. The criminal squinted against the crystal pieces melting upon his bearded face and turned his head up to the sky.
"Come on now. Don't make this difficult. I'd hate to harm you, seeing the day you've had and all." He jerked the gun to an unmarked car waiting at the end of the road. "I won't hurt you so long as things go as planned. You have my w-"
Before he could utter another word, another ragged breath, a streak shot out from behind like a flash of gray lightening. Fifty pounds of lanky, snarling fury assaulted the criminal with sharp claws and jagged fangs that bit and scratched at the thick padding of winter wear like sheep's wool.
Yellowed fangs tore and bit into the thick jacket with a rabid vigor to seek the soft flesh beneath to snap in his jaws. Claws like sharpened ice flashed in the paltry sun that broke through the gauzy veil of leaden clouds. His growls rang murderous through the air as he attacked Belle's would be kidnapper.
Bandit! Belle could have cheered the ferocious beast, but raced with all speed back towards the road. Snow tossed upward in every direction as she galloped to the proper highway. Her breath came in large, gray puffs telling the tale of her laborious exertion through the drifts.
She lost her balance once and fell upon the soft snow, but jumped to her feet and plowed onward through the banks of frost and flakes. Hope surged in her heart like the warmth of spring itself as she trudged through with every bit of strength her body contained. If she could make it to the street, if she could but just make it to one home she would be safe.
Behind her she dared not look back at the scuffle between man and beast. The snapping maw of Bandit and the cries of her abductor were already enough to fuel her never ceasing imagination. Bandit could be ferocious when the mood took him, his ancestry with wolves springing to life at a moment s notice.
Abruptly a solitary gun shot rang through the air stilling her thoughts with an un-calming quite.
Flocks of snow birds tittered in alarm at the noise. Their downy plumed wings flapped through the air as they fled.
An echo lingered though the air as though the world held the noise close to its breast. The sound seemed louder than the ringing of a church bell on a quiet evening. Snow crunched loudly as Belle came to a halt. Lady's love had saved her, she had to at least turn and see what had occurred.
A gasp slipped from her lips as she saw only a livid Locksley racing in her direction, and quickly closing the gap. Even if she hadn't looked back he would have caught her.
Blood splotched the frozen, blanketed ground and melted the snow with every step the criminal took, but Bandit was no where to be found.
Only a few claw scrambling marks were visible in the snow right upon the precipice of the edge where the waters crashed.
He must have fallen into the water when the shot rang out, Belle concluded dismally, her heart wrenching at the loss of the brave beast.
"Not a step further or a shoot." Hood warned in a curse and aimed the gun directly at her head.
Even from the oh so brief clash, blood matted his dark brown hair and dripped from the ends of his fluttering locks in a steady stream. A patch of his beard was torn out by fangs and one of his coat pockets where he kept her picture was ripped showing a menagerie of horrid gashes and deep claw marks in areas of angry red, torn skin upon his side.
"You killed him." She sobbed in a sharp gasp, her eyes glimmering with tears, not for herself, but for Lady and her lost love.
Christopher growled and clamped his hand violently about her upper arm. "He attacked me and you nearly escaped." Jerking his head to the vehicle, his tone was laced with murder. "Now get in the car before I toss another carcass into the sea…."
~8~8~
Rumpelstiltskin frown grimly as he hefted the large, near to bursting, packet of bills in his calloused grip and stared at the other four hefty bricks of cash and one document upon the kitchen table all in a neat pile.
In total, the sum amounted to 50,000 dollars, the deed to Moe French's shop and an eternal promise he rehearsed over and over in his head to swear she would never be in need of income or anything if he could so help it.
Before him in their plain yellow packets the money and title all looked so baseless and pointless and paltry, which it was in every insufficient way. He could cut off his own hand and still his actions would not be mended, but at least giving her a bit of money to help her upon her way would help a little, he figured dourly.
The Dark One was under no illusion what little they had once lovingly shared was over. After the inexcusable actions he'd wrought he felt lucky if she'd even come back for her things so he could give her his cowardly pittance.
While a portion of his soul begged to go out into the snow buried town of Storybrooke and look for her, to see if she was safe, and give her the money, part of him sincerely wished she would never return to his forlorn home or want to see him again.
Perhaps his wish was selfish but he could not bear the thought of seeing the blackish purple bruise he induced upon her porcelain flesh; knowing his wrath had gotten the better of him even to his darling Belle. If he could harm her then truly, truly, he was a monster all and entirely.
If she did not show, he would give the money and the note for her eyes only to her father, and do his best never to run into Belle for 28 years. A weak punishment compared to the pain he should have been subject, he knew, but one that he rightly deserved. To never feel her lips again, to never see hear her lovely laugh or seek her smile, would be torment that he would inflict upon himself daily. He had to be held impugned for his actions, but there seemed no other recourse beside for going to the sheriff himself and admitting his crime.
Sighing disgracefully, the fiend struggled to get up from the chair and finish the arrangements that would at last free Belle from his thrall.
Abruptly, a weak whining and scratching at the front door snatched him partially out of his dire melancholy.
Lady, who lay depressed and worried at the Dark One's feet leapt up as though the piteous whine was as familiar to her as a voice was to a human. A small, alarmed bark rankled from her throat as she scrambled to the door.
Following the now softly whining Lady who nosed at the threshold as though she could opened it, he eased the portal ajar.
The fiends muscles knotted in tense cord, prepared for any tricks. His eyes widened in abject surprise to see the mangy, bedraggled gray fur of Bandit.
The poor beast shivered violently as the stench of salt sea water dripped from his patched hide. His left back leg was slightly above the ground in testament to the pain he endured. An oozing gash where a bullet had deeply grazed his right shoulder dripped vibrant blood upon the dirty snow.
Bandit's marble black eyes glittered pain and alarm any human could read. In his tight jaws a scrap of some photo and tattered remnants of some dark green fabric lay trapped in his fangs.
Kneeling down, the fiend ran his calloused fingers upon the pulp, half ruined already torn photograph. Through the blurred, ruined state of the picture he could identify Belle's warm, smiling face.
Fear tightened in his gut as she lay the ripped picture aside and examined the piece of sopping material. The cloth was drenched in water, but the dark forest green was not to be diminished by the fronds of frost beginning to crinkle upon it.
Worry beetled his crinkled brow as he began to surmise, to his frightfully spiraling horror, what had occurred. Bandit wouldn't have brought him the cloth unless…
"Someone has Belle." He murmured dazedly, his mind growing cold with terror and desperation. To think, some one had his Belle sent icy shivers mercilessly trailing down and down his spine far worse then the cold ever could.
Perhaps it was simply Rumpelstiltskin's cunning imagination but the wounded hound seemed to nod faintly in acquiescence.