.
Larry had no time to make a response to Rose before Lars' footsteps reached audible proximity. He might have told her that most people were suspicious of strangers in the interest of self-preservation, considering even the most innocuous person could be dangerous in the right situation. The stooge was muted, however, by the appearance of the man in the doorway.
Listening to the two of them talk was enough to fill the air, and aside from the minimal small talk answers, Larry said practically nothing. The food was warm but aside from that, the prince really had no opinion on the taste. His mind was on the look that Rose had just before being cut off by Lars' approach. It didn't escape him how some emotion seemed barely contained under the facade of politeness throughout dinner. He regretted arguing with Rose but felt no remorse in not trusting the man who would feed them and put them up for the night. The figurative last nail in the coffin of trusting Lars had been struck home the moment Lars called the prince's father "Beast", even if Larry didn't particularly recognize that bias in his feelings.
They shouldn't fight, Larry thought, worried about metaphorically being a house divided.
Larry followed the procession upstairs and tried to fake some gratitude to being allowed to sleep in a stranger's bed. He stopped at the door and opened it, seeing nothing obvious in the room that he could use as evidence of Lars' insidious nature if he had one. Somehow, he knew that there would be nothing. Either Lars was careful or Larry was wrong about him. But on the principle of how dangerous it was to Rose's health that her trust was freely given, he felt he wasn't wrong.
"Merci," Larry murmured, watching the old man turn and leave. He was almost afraid to look at Rose and meet her eyes in the end. She was still angry. Being unapologetic in the moment, Larry internalized his own indignation at someone being curt with him, and almost retreated into his allotted room without hesitation. Larry had stepped one foot inside and then felt some sense of dread at Rose being out of his sight. He spun on his feet and ducked into Rose's room before she could close her door.
Scanning the room, he realized he hadn't thought much past this point. "Uh," he stammered, floundering a bit, "Er... I..." Why was he really in here? Because he couldn't stand to be at odds with the third friend he had ever made? Because he'd been uncomfortable with what happened between him and her doppelganger since it happened? "Um, I... I owe you an apology, Rose." That? That was his reason? "I'm sorry about... about the catacombs... and everything that happened down there." Blanket apology though it was, Larry felt like he couldn't just say that he was sorry that he and her evil-twin-person-thing had almost done the do.
The guest room was rather plain. A bed, a dresser and a display cabinet full of ornamental plates were the only furniture, though the vivid green curtains hanging on each side of the window did give it some colour.
Before Rose had time to take in any more of her accommodations, however, Larry just burst in after her. She was too startled to react at first, just watching him stand around nervously. When he mentioned an apology, her first instinct was to cut him down by reminding him that Lars was the one he needed to apologise to, but then he finished his thought with the catacombs. Annoyance instantly got replaced by surprise, and all she could do was blink at him for several seconds, trying to process the statement. Where did this come from?
At the end it was with a sad glance at the floor that she said, "What's done is done, Larry. If I'm being honest, I just want to forget that it ever happened." If only she could. "We don't have to talk about it."
Why was he bringing this up? Why here, why now?
"I think we should talk about it. I won't push it, but this—" Larry gestured between the pair of them, "—is why I feel like we should. I damaged your trust in me, and I've kept my distance because I haven't known how to apologize." And because the recurring memories or dreams of the doppelganger seemed to keep refreshing his shame daily. The prince wished that reconditioning himself to associate the pain of breaking his leg with dreams of a Rose-look-alike was easier, but Curly healing the leg had meant much less time in pain and a dimming sense of what it was really like.
"I'm sorry I left you in that place. I would have never done it if I understood what would come of it. I shouldn't have let her distract me, and I absolutely should not have done anything remotely similar to..." His eyes found his toes, guilty again. "But especially not with someone masquerading as you. I wish I could take it back because I can feel how uncomfortable it's made things. And I feel like it's led to this evening being the way it's been, directly." Larry looked at Rose again. "I still don't know if any apology will be enough, but I couldn't let it go for longer without saying something."
Rose didn't want to talk about it. She didn't want to think about it. Or rather… she didn't want to knowledge that it happened. But, being cornered like this… she simply had no choice.
Unable to meet his eyes, she leaned back against the closed door, let out a small sigh, and spoke softly. "I don't want things to be uncomfortable. I don't want you to keep your distance. I just want us to go back to the way we were, but we just… can't seem to move on. I've tried. Really, really hard, in fact, to act normal, to carry on like it never happened, but it's… it's not the same. No matter how hard I try to pretend it is. I want to trust you again, completely, like I did before, but every time I try I get reminded of what happened, and I just… can't.
"I know it's not a fair comparison, I know the way you feel about me isn't even on the same scale, but I can't help but wonder sometimes if you'd have done the same if it was someone else. If it was Moe down there, or Curly. Would you have left them?" Rose flinched at how unfair that was. They were his best friends. She didn't have any other friends to equate it to, but it wasn't like that for them. The Stooges had something truly special between them, and it was really, really not her place to bring that bond into this. "You know what, you don't have to answer; this was a really unfair question. Forget I said anything." She couldn't, shouldn't expect him to show her the same level of consideration. It was a very selfish thought.
Rose took in a shaky breath. If she was going to confess... she might as well tell him everything.
"I'm sorry I never said anything. The truth is that I was afraid... because I didn't want to lose you. It was my fault we went down there in the first place, and I thought you might get angry at me, because you helped me out of the goodness of your heart, because you went out of your way like this, and I should be happy you came at all, not... not complaining and... expecting things from you. I was terrified you might just say that I was being ungrateful, that it wasn't worth it to be friends anymore, and..." She sighed. "I didn't want to risk it. So I thought it would be better if I carried on as best I could, try to forget and be glad we all made it out alright."
She paused. Her right hand rose to gently grip her upper arm in an unwitting gesture.
"It's just… you left me to die, Larry."
That was too much. She knew it. It wasn't fair, and it was painful to even say outloud, but there it was—the raw truth of her feelings. Tears stung the corners of her eyes, but she bit back on them.
"I guess I thought that if I told myself enough times that it didn't really matter, it would be okay."
But it mattered.
Infinitely.
Larry's stomach felt like it took on the consistency of lead and plummeted to his toes as she talked. It was worse than he could have prepared himself for; Rose was hurt deeply, personally. She thought he left her on purpose. He didn't. By the time he realized that the not-Rose was not Rose, he was a bug caught in a spider's web. As misunderstood as he thought that was, it wasn't important. The importance was that Rose felt like he abandoned her, and that she felt like she couldn't trust him. The damage was real.
Feeling rather like the wind had been knocked out of him, Larry moved to and sat on the edge of the bed. "I'm sorry," he said, at a loss for better words. He wouldn't pretend like his feelings mattered more than hers, but what could he say to that? He had left her to her fate while her look-alike did her best impression of a lap dance on him while they were standing. The guilt was doing its best to eat him alive in that moment.
Dragging a hand down his face, Larry looked up at Rose. "I'm so sorry I left you alone. If I could take it back, I would."
Worse still was that she thought that the situation would have been different if it had been Moe or Curly in the Catacombs. It might not have ended with Larry deciding to break his leg rather than have sex with the doppelganger in the hypothetical situation. Might, because Larry hadn't expected that in the first situation. "I haven't known you as long as I've known Moe and Curly," Larry began, his words pausing for a few beats without his full attention. The thought swam on a swarm of memories he had made with the pair of princes in the years he had known them. Snapping out of his mental tangent, Larry finished his thought, "But you're important to me, just like they are. I can't excuse anything I did down under the school. But you're my friend in a way I've never had before, and if you and I stopped being friends, I would lament it as the calamity it would be. I just want you to know that I'm sorry I let you down."
His eyes met hers as he apologized, hoping she knew how much he really meant it.
Rose looked away.
"I know."
She could hear it again, that sincerity in his voice. Even when he was cheesy and spoke in that flowery language, it still carried in his words—that was why she had come to believe him so unconditionally, until...
Slowly, the princess made her way to the bed and sat on the edge as well, taking a moment to collect her thoughts. He was right next to her, but it felt like they weren't even in the same room. There was an invisible wall between them, thick, cold, unyielding. Rose looked down to her lap and took in a breath.
"I'm sorry I got the others involved, that was not fair," she said. Rose really did regret mentioning them. "But I don't know if you can even understand... what this all means to me." The only one who truly would was Moe. Still, Rose tried her best to explain it to Larry. "You and I... we're so alike, aren't we? But there's one big difference between us: the way we were raised. You... you've been everywhere, you've seen so many places, cultures, people. And through all of that, you always had your parents, and even if you didn't make truly close friends until the Stooges, you were never..." She paused, looking for the right word. "Alone."
Her fingers gripped the edge of the bed, tightening around it slightly. Then she continued, voice growing a little bit quieter. "Me... I've never not been alone. I haven't left my castle since I was six. The servants were forbidden to talk to me. My parents were too busy running a country. I've never had anyone to befriend before, anyone to care about. Anyone to be abandoned by."
'Betrayed' might have been a more accurate word, but she didn't say it. Tears tightened her throat again, but she pushed them down. Rose never cried in front of others. Usually that would be because it was not proper, because it was unladylike. But with Larry there... her reasons were different. Because he had told her once that she was strong. That she was brave. She wasn't, of course, and knew it very well, but Rose wanted to be this person her saw her as, this better version of her. She wanted to live up to that image, even now.
"I wish I knew the right way to phrase it, the right way to explain to you what you mean to me, but I've never been in this situation before. I'll... try to make it simple. If you think I seek an apology—I don't. If you think you need to excuse your actions—you don't. The truth of it is this: your friendship is something I'm not prepared to lose, and it doesn't matter what you do," or how much it hurt her, "because I will always forgive you." Her eyes remained glued to her knees, even as she said all of that. "I'm not looking for any sort of retribution from you, Larry," she said softly. "But forgiveness is a conscious choice. Trust isn't."
Rose dropped her gaze and Larry felt as substantial as chalk; he hoped her words wouldn't break him. As she sat down on the bed, Larry felt much the same as she did—that the distance stretched between them and was vast and deep like a gulf. It was disconcerting, but, Larry could swim the distance if it meant closing the gap.
The prince listened in silence, thoughts jumbling up as Rose spoke, but losing most in the light of her explanation.
'Abandoned' stuck out. Larry could have shrunk to an eighth of himself and still not have felt as physically small as he did emotionally.
Not realizing it until his vision was practically swimming, Larry put a clamp down on the wriggling emotions, attempting to not make Rose feel anymore beholden to him than she said she did already. If he made her feel bad about saying what she did, he would feel twenty times worse. "I've lost your trust?"
Of course, he had. What part of 'abandon' didn't destroy trust?
Larry dropped into a crouch off the bed, getting in front of Rose but not touching her. "I will work to earn your trust back, Rose. I will not abandon you again," Larry said, his whole body settling on that statement. "Please," Larry said more softly, "Don't say anything... I'll let you sleep, though, alright?"
He stood, and wobbled. The wobble was probably just his feet having gone to sleep, but... he took another step and the floor seemed to tilt under him. When he reached out to catch himself, he caught empty air and landed on his chest. His head seemed to spin until a darkness swallowed him whole.
When Larry crouched in front of her, Rose finally looked at him. She wanted to say no to that first question, to reassure him, deny feeling that way… but it would be a lie.
So, when he asked her not to speak, she didn't.
Her fingers tightened around the edge of the bed once again as he stood to leave, and though she didn't want to leave things this way, the princess remained seated. What would she even say? But then, as she saw him fall, all thoughts of silence were pushed to the background.
"Larry!" In an instant, she was next to him, shaking his back. "Larry, are you okay?" There was no response.
Then, the world suddenly shifted. Her head spun, the image of his still body swimming in and out of focus. Before she could figure out what was happening, Rose lost consciousness, falling to the floor beside him.
~O~
The first thing Rose registered when she came to was that she was still lying on the ground, and for a moment, it seemed like she had only closed her eyes a second ago. However, as more and more of her awareness returned, she started noticing some alarming changes.
Firstly, she couldn't move. Looking down at her body, Rose saw a thick rope encircling her, binding her limbs together. She manoeuvred herself into a sitting position, with no lack of effort, and managed to sit up, but found that the end of the rope still kept her from standing up, keeping her firmly attached to a tall refrigerator.
Next, it was daylight. The sunshine was streaming through the open windows, illuminating the spacious kitchen. A fire was crackling in the enormous fireplace, and there, poking the embers with a cheery tune on his lips, was Lars.
Rose tried to call out to him, but what came out was only a muffled jumble of sounds. It was then that she realised that she had been gagged.
The sound must have been enough to draw his attention, because he turned and noticed her.
"Ah. You're awake." He stood up from his spot in front of the fireplace and came to crouch down next to her. "That means your friend should be coming to as well." His eyes diverted to the ceiling, and Rose's widened in horror. Another garble of sounds left her throat as she tried to ask about Larry, but Lars only put his hand on top of her head, petting it gently. "Hush now; don't cause a fuss. He's perfectly fine. He'll wake up soon in his bed and think whatever he was doing in your room was all just a dream. Then he'll come down to the den, and I'll tell him you went ahead, then send him off on his merry way. There's no need for him to get caught up in this, is there?" He gave her a smile she suspected was supposed to pass for sympathetic. "You wait here like the good little duckling you are. We have a common friend who asked for a batch of swan pies. I always was a sucker for those big brown eyes, even when she was a kid." Rose's startled eyes shifted to the fire, widening with the panic his implication sparked inside her. "Oh no, don't worry about that," Lars said kindly. "I wouldn't roast you alive. That would ruin the taste." He nodded to the table in the middle of the room, and the princess could see a sharp butcher's cleaver shining on its surface. She didn't know if that made her feel better or worse.
Footsteps echoed above them.
"He seems to have woken up," Lars said, standing up. "This shouldn't take too long."
He picked up his cane, which had been left leaning against the table, and walked to the door, shutting it behind him. As soon as he was out of sight, Rose struggled frantically against the ropes, but it was clearly hopeless. She leaned back against the wall, trying to fight the desperation and panic clawing up inside her.
Waking slowly, Larry had a moment where he hovered just over the black mists of "sleep"; the blissful unawareness of that limbo was so comfortable but also fleeting.
He noticed the sun first, lifting into the sky, filling the room and making him just a little too warm. Larry looked where he could without moving a muscle, seeing his shoes still on his feet, and the lack of blankets or covers on him at all. No matter where he slept, those two things never greeted him in the morning.
The cottage. The old man. Rose. Their discussion the night before. The sudden turning of the room. Flashes of the evening came back to Larry until he lurched to his feet. Where? Where was he? Where was she? How did he end up in this room? On this bed? Drugs? The pies that Lars fed them? Larry wobbled, but steadied himself, taking stock in the light of day.
Why had he been drugged? Nothing was apparently wrong with him now. He had no cuts, scrapes, bruises. He was completely unharmed.
He wasn't the target, then. Rose was. Rose had been oddly intent on following her hat all the way into the woods, just to bump into an old man who had a place for them to stay overnight. Why couldn't he just trust his gut?
Larry called Lars filthy things in his head, in every language he knew.
The prince forced his feet to carry him to the door, and from the door, into the hallway, and then into the room where he last saw Rose. His stomach dropped when she wasn't there—when there was no sign of her being there at all—numb all the way to his numb toes. Where was she? Something was wrong. Something was very wrong.
"Rose?! Rose, where are you?!"
He backpedaled out of the room and flew down the stairs, meeting Lars in the den, almost running into him headlong.
"Where is she?" Larry asked, his anger instantaneous, carried over from the night before.
Lars seemed immune. The old man blinked plaintively and said in calm tones, "Your friend's long gone by now. She headed out before you, this morning. Should be back at that fancy school of yours by now. Why don't you run along, too? I can't spare breakfast for you, but if ya hurry you might make it back before they close the kitchens."
While Larry let Lars speak, he took stock of the situation. The man had obviously been awake for some time. Was he wearing the same clothes as before? Probably. Yes. Lars had a blush like heat across his cheeks, but not a runny nose, so it wasn't from a chill to the morning air. Larry didn't see dirt clots on his shoes, either. There were no signs that he had been outside. So where was the fire? The den was too cool to have any sort of heat in it.
"Rose?!" Larry yelled, pushing his way past Lars to run into the next room, "Rose?!"
Lars was faster than the prince expected him to be, catching up enough to swing the walking stick at the back of Larry's head. He fell to the floor heavily, a jolt racing up his wrist where he tried to catch himself.
"Ya just couldn't leave well-enough alone, could ya?" Lars asked, picking something heavier than the stick up off a surface in the room, "Ya had to play the hero. Had to save the girl. I'll make quick work of ya, kid. Someone'll like a hero pie."
The swing came down but didn't connect. Larry rolled away in time for the object to meet the wooden floor only. "Agh!" Lars cursed, "Fucking quick bugger."
Larry scurried to his feet, and into the next room, following the heat of a fire. There! On the floor tied to the old refrigerator!
"Rose!" he exclaimed, just in time for Lars to come surging after him. Swinging to face him, Larry ducked another swing of the cane, throwing his arm up to catch the backstroke Lars aimed for his skull.
"Hold still! I'll make it quick!"
Lars looked insane, white hair flipped every which way, murder in his bright eyes. Another swing, but this time, Larry stepped into it and caught hold of the stick. He hoped the wood wasn't too dry and poured magic into it, forcing a rather violent explosion of roots to ensnare Lars' arms. The old man hollered in alarm, attempting to free himself from the sudden grip of his own walking stick.
Larry took the window his distraction had caused to try and free Rose. The rope was too thick and too tight to wiggle off of her, so he looked for anything to cut it away with, finding the butcher's cleaver on the table. What would Lars have used it for? There was no time to dwell; the man was still yelling and struggling with the cage his stick made around him.
Larry cut the rope in a heavy swing where it tied Rose to the refrigerator, looking for any spot to cut next that wouldn't hurt Rose where she was tied.
Merde! Merde! Merde! The rope was tight around Rose in every spot he wanted to cut through. He needed better control of the situation. Lars had seen what Larry was trying to do and stopped his screaming long enough to run at the pair of teens on the floor.
"NO!" his wild voice boomed, "YOU'RE NOT GOIN' TO ESCAPE THAT EASY!"
Larry lifted the cleaver in defense, recoiling when Lars ran into them with the intent to kick or stomp the pair of them, putting the point of the cleaver into the old man's foot. Lars really started to scream. He hopped and howled, losing his balance without the use of his arms, wheeling straight into the cupboards. Some sort of large kettle fell on top of him, silencing the old man suddenly, and his body sank into the fire blazing in the fireplace.
All that Larry could do for a solid moment was look at the flames as they licked up Lars' clothes. He was going to be sick. Maybe later. Rose was still tied up. He looked at her with unfocused eyes. Crawling the distance to the body, Larry pulled the cleaver from the man's foot and wiped the blood on the pants above the shoe.
He tried not to cut Rose as he cut through the rope, freeing her just as the fire seemed to creep out of the fireplace and down the legs of the body in it. "We should leave," Larry said, "He's dead. This place is going to burn, I think." He pulled the rope until the coils were loose enough for her to push away. "We need to get out of here."
Rose freed herself from the rope and removed the piece of cloth which prevented her from speaking. She stood up hastily, her eyes darting to the fireplace, and she moved without thinking, scrambling over to the two feet poking out of the flames.
She reached down, but the heat was too strong, causing her hand to flinch from the pain, returning to her side. "No, he could still be—"
But she knew it was pointless before even finishing that sentence. Having been treated like she was made of glass all her life, Rose had had to sit through many safety-related lectures, and knew that as soon as Lars fell into the fireplace, he would have inhaled the fire as well as the smoke, causing the lung tissue to burn away, and asphyxiation would have occurred within seconds. There was no saving him.
No, Rose wasn't stupid. She knew Lars was going to kill her, and Larry, and probably had lured them here for that purpose in the first place. It wasn't like she held any warm feelings for the man, and she knew he had played her, that he was planning on ending her life all along, and had probably drugged the food or the drinks she had been so foolish to accept. But... he was still a human being, and... and she had to try.
The fire was rapidly spreading out of control. Rose quickly wiped away the wetness that was starting to pool at the edges of her eyes.
"Let's go," she said, standing up once more and looking away. The smell made bile rise in her throat.
They had to leave, while they still had a chance.
"Oui," Larry forced out. He reached out for Rose's hand, not wanting to get separated, but also needing the reassurance. He didn't feel like he could turn away from the man burning in the fireplace, but eventually, he peeled his eyes away.
On numb legs, Larry wound through the cottage. He stopped at the front door, blankly staring at the locks for a moment, then urgency flared in his brain again. Escape the house fire, he thought, then have a moment of existential crisis. The more important thing was to leave. Locks were time-consuming, and who was to say there wasn't a problem with them, anyway? Larry put the hand he had free to the door and forced magic through it, until with a great cracking noise, the door busted from its frame and fell flat onto the porch on the other side.
"After you, Rose," Larry offered. They had time to walk and not run out of the house.
Lars killed himself. It was self-defense. Larry had sense enough to know that. Lars would have killed Rose. He would have killed Larry. They were lucky to be alive. It was just... seeing someone die. For the first time. Larry wanted nothing more than to go outside and puke all he could of the food from the night before up. Maybe it wouldn't be such a bad idea.
Rose let Larry lead her through the empty house, which was quickly starting to fill with black smoke. Once they were outside, putting a safe distance between them and the burning building, she stopped and turned, casting one last glance at the cottage as the fire consumed it. The ground was too hard and the early spring weather too chilly for the entire forest to go up in flames, which was good. Then she looked at Larry, and a million thoughts ran through her head.
He was still here. He could have so easily walked away, but he hadn't; could have gotten angry or bitter after what she said last night, but he hadn't. Instead, he'd fought a murderous maniac to save her. He'd risked everything for someone who had just admitted she couldn't trust him anymore.
Right then, Rose could have said a lot of things. How stupid she had been for choosing to believe a complete stranger over him, for example. Or how sorry she was to have gotten him into this nearly lethal mess. Or how guilty she felt, because for a second there, she truly did fear he might leave her again, and he hadn't even hesitated to come after her.
But none of that made it to the surface. Her hand squeezed his, and the only thing she managed was a choked, almost whispered, "Thank you."
Larry pulled Rose into a quick, tight hug. "Anytime, Rose."
He shifted his eyes back to the cottage. There was hardly any sign that it was burning on the outside, other than the smoke rolling out of the chimney. Larry felt uncomfortable standing there, and then he realized that his wrist was throbbing. He must have sprained it in the fall. Another injury for Curly to heal.
"I don't want to watch it burn. The police and fire department will be here before long, anyway. Let's go back to the school and get checked out at the infirmary. Maybe we can have the Fairy Godmother call them if we need to answer any questions—death investigations..."
He just really wanted to leave.
The hug startled her, but it only took a second for her to relax into it. Her eyes started swimming again, but she buried her face in his shoulder, refusing to let the tears fall.
"We can't tell the school about this, Larry," she said quietly, staring off in the same direction. "If my parents knew... I'd never see any of you again." Her father would pull her out of the academy before he'd even finished listening to the story if he knew she'd been in such danger.
"Let's just go," Rose added in agreement, wanting to be anywhere but here. "You said before that you could get us back to the school." She gestured to the woods. "Lead the way, then."
"What if the fire doesn't destroy the evidence we were there? They'll find us anyway, right? We might be in... less trouble..." he trailed off because he finally thought through what Rose had said. "Would your father really do that?"
He didn't want to be investigated as a murder suspect, but if they did, wouldn't his story match with Rose's and wouldn't it be obvious at the scene? Larry worried, but it wasn't worth Rose being sent home, permanently. His parents would pay for the best lawyers if it came to that. He hated thinking that way, but he knew he could count on them.
"I can use the roots to take us back. They'll show me the way."
He walked to the nearest tree and felt out the general direction that the forest would end in. At the other end of that would be the school. "We'll go this way."
Rose nodded in answer to his question. The only reason her dad agreed to send her here in the first place was because he was convinced that the Fairy Godmother's mere presence guaranteed her safety. Clearly, that was not the case, but if he knew that she would be back behind the castle walls. Especially if he knew Odile was close by. Rose hadn't lied to him about it… she had just failed to mention it. Her grandfather knew of all her escapades, so it wasn't like she was hiding it from the adults in her life. She was just… telling specific adults. It still counted.
"We didn't leave behind any evidence," she pointed out. Excluding her poor hat, which would surely burn.
When Larry gave her a direction, she simply nodded again. "Okay. How far away are we?" She hoped it was less than a day's walk. All she wanted to do was curl up in bed, maybe with a good book and a cup of tea, and forget this awful experience.
It was stupid for him to argue. The fire would probably claim the house and everything in it. Hair, fingerprints. The odd book.
The odd book.
He suddenly had the vaguely self-destructive urge to run back into the house after the book. The door to the house was open, his irrational and Curly-like inner voice told him, and the fire probably hadn't spread to the living room. Maybe he could just get it if he ran in and out. But Rose would be out alone, and the fire could burn faster and hotter than he might think and... it might only take two seconds. Maybe Rose would understand? He'd never seen the book before. He couldn't have thought of it before they left the house because survival was all that was on his mind. Turning his head to look at Rose, he said, "We'd be there at about noon if we left soon. But... the book from last night... Rose, I think it might be important for us to have it. Do you mind if I go and get it? I could be back in a minute. I won't leave you alone—if you don't want me to go back...?"
Why the book was so tempting, Larry couldn't guess. He really wanted to take it, though.
"What?"
Rose had been in something of a dazed stupor since Lars had fallen into that fireplace, everything appearing muted and sad in light of the fact that she couldn't save him. But what Larry just said made something inside her flare up, causing the mist around her brain to retreat. Was he serious?!
"Of course I mind, the house is on fire!" she exclaimed incredulously. "You are not going back in there for a book, Larry! A minute is more than enough for you to inhale that smoke and lose consciousness!" And then die in the fire. He must've been crazy if he thought she'd let him risk his life like that. "And what if the support beams give out and the roof collapses on top of you? Absolutely not!"
"I..." Larry looked at the house, and something inside seemed to be lightening up, and he weighed Rose's words.
What was he thinking?
Of all the stupid...
"You're right," Larry agreed. He put a hand to the crown of his head, eyes narrowing at the house and then at the ground, "I don't... know what came over me." Why did he need a voice of reason? Was it because he was usually everyone else's? He shouldn't put Rose in that sort of position; he knew how it felt. But now he knew how it felt to be in need of the voice of reason—how it was to put three sails to the caution-less wind and blow through all the normal stops for consequences.
He could find another copy of the book. The money, time, and effort to look for it would be his summer project, if it was really that important.
"We should go..."
Rose almost sighed in relief when he agreed with her, a smile accompanying the feeling.
"Yes, please," she said, reaching for his hand. "Let's just get back to the school." All she wanted was for them to be somewhere safe, and to get as far away from his awful house as possible. The book was inconsequential; what was actually important was right there with her. "You said last night that I should ask you about how you met Moe and Curly. Will you tell me the story?" she added, pulling him in the direction he'd indicated earlier. It was half to get his mind off the book, just in case he tried to pull a Curly and run back in anyway, and half to get her own off Lars' burning cottage. It seemed surreal somehow to be asking him to slip into such an ordinary topic after what they'd just been through... but she felt like it was what they needed. Just something else to think about. Anything else.
Larry let himself be pulled along, unable to start speaking until the house was swallowed up in the trees. "How I met Curly and Moe..." he drew, lost for a minute in a wild swirl of thought and memory. He wanted to talk and think about anything but the house that was slowly burning in their wake, but he had a hard time disconnecting the image of Lars falling into the fireplace.
"I never made friends... before Curly and Moe. I had books and that was enough for me... I worried that my parents thought I was defective, but I wasn't aware of what life could be like... with."
They branched to stay on course, and Larry paused to check their progress and make sure they were headed in the right direction. "It was summer camp, the year before we started at Andover. We all ended up at the same summer camp. That I agreed to go at all is a small work of magic..."
Magic. He had to explain the mark the Enchantress put on him.
"How much do you know about my family? Anything at all...?"
Larry' mind still seemed a little preoccupied, but he was moving, which was good. As Rose drew him further and further into the forest, she could almost see the cogs in his head turn behind his eyes, searching for the story. What he said about the camp aligned with what little bits Moe had divulged, and Larry's thoughts about books were so similar to her own, that she was once again reminded of how alike the two of them really were, despite the difference in their upbringing. It brought a slight smile to her face.
Though the French prince did follow along willingly, Rose truly considered the distraction a success when he asked her the question about his family. "Mostly I know what you've told me," she replied. "And I know the story, of course. How your dad was cursed to be a beast until he found love, and how he ended up finding your mother. Then they sort of travelled around; you mentioned once that they actually got married in Agrabah, I think. Why was it a miracle that you went to camp? Did you not want to?"
"I packed two suitcases for camp, and one of them was full of books," Larry said, a small smile pulling at the memory, "So... no. I didn't want to go. But I did to humor my parents.
"When he was eleven, my father lived in a castle alone with a retinue of servants. He was spoiled... and not in the way that is laughable and easily corrected. He had been well on his way to becoming a cruel man. A woman—a very old and ugly crone—appeared at his castle door on a cold night, and asked for shelter in exchange for a very lovely rose. The servants stalled until my father came to check what was more important than him, and upon seeing the old woman and hearing her barter, rejected her. She warned him not to be deceived by appearances—that beauty was found within—but he only sneered and refused her again..."
Honestly, even though his father was ashamed of his actions and how he was before the curse, Larry always felt like his father liked to tell the story of the night that he was transformed. Some of it had rubbed off.
"The old woman was really a disguise. When my father looked at her again, she had transformed into a beautiful enchantress. My father said that he was so afraid of her that he felt to his knees and attempted to apologize. The Enchantress said she had seen that there was no love in his heart, and cursed him to be as ugly on the outside as he was on the inside as punishment. She gave him ten years to learn his lesson; ten years to find someone to love and who could love him in return."
Larry had to look at Rose every so often as he spoke, hoping to gauge her reactions to his parents' tale.
"After my parents broke the curse and were married in Agrabah, they traveled more and eventually decided to have an heir. I was born in my father's castle, and that same day, the Enchantress showed up again. She gave me my power that day, although my parents didn't know for months that she had done anything to me. As I grew, they saw how much I loved to escape into books and how little I valued the company of others, and they were... afraid. The Enchantress was always a threat to them where I was concerned. If I didn't meet her idea of a well-rounded child, they were afraid I would face the same curse as my father. On my tenth birthday, we were in Agrabah, hoping to throw her off our trail, but she was there, anyway. She asked me a few questions, but I asked her about a million more in the twenty minutes she talked to me. She told my parents there was nothing to fear—I just hadn't met the right friends yet—and that she had put a mark on my wrist that would disappear when I met my true friends.
"It disappeared when I met Curly and Moe."
He smiled, and it was a full, brimming-with-happiness smile. How excellent had it been to meet the pair of them at a summer camp? Well, hindsight being twenty-twenty, it was excellent, but Larry, at the time, had been highly suspect of the prince from Corona and the shy semi-prince from Oz.
In all honesty, Larry could be reading from an outdated phonebook, and he would still have Rose's undivided attention. He was the best storyteller she knew, and as he spoke, she could almost see the scene unfold before her: the ugly, shivering crone, the begging prince, down on his knees, and the curse taking effect, transforming his hands into clawed paws.
Rose completely understood his parents' fears - after all, this was what had happened to her. For a moment she imagined little ten-year-old Larry being turned into a monster, and for the first time ever, she felt a fierce gladness that he was not like her.
"You had a mark?" She held up his wrist curiously. "And it just went away when you saw them?" It was so odd to imagine the Stooges before they met... unnatural somehow. To even think of a time when they weren't friends, it was just impossible to Rose, because she had always thought of them as three parts of the same whole.
Then Larry smiled so brightly it was impossible not to smile in return as the young princess' heart swelled with affection for the first friends she'd ever made. "I'm so happy that you found each other," she said. "I can't imagine a world where you aren't together. I'm actually a bit... jealous, to be honest," she admitted. "I wish I had a bond this strong with someone."
As Rose examined Larry's wrist, the gentle touch warred with the feeling in the other, injured, wrist. He'd have to have the infirmary check and see if anything was broken.
"Oui," Larry said, still smiling, "It was like a rope knot. Small, but highly visible to me. When it disappeared, we had just been made a team by the camp counselors, and I hadn't met them until then. I almost didn't believe it when it happened. I thought: 'These two? Really?' But the magic was sound; if the Enchantress' magic had loopholes, my father and his staff would have found them long ago. I kept close to Moe and Curly, even though I was baffled as to why them.
"Even though I knew they were true friends, I was afraid to both let them in and let them go. Curly had so much energy, and Moe was just the opposite. Then there was me: thinking with my head instead of my heart. There was a bear, in a cage. Some sort of attraction-type gambit, not too far from the summer camp. Curly convinced me and Moe to go with him to free the bear. It would be wrong of us to leave it, Curly said, and I believed that the danger was worth the risk. We opened the cage... and it charged.We ran, but a bear is just too big. I got us into trees, but the bear wouldn't leave us alone, and it was close to knocking Moe down. Curly yelled, 'I wish the bear would leave like it was supposed to!' and Moe's magic kicked in. The bear wandered off, but Moe fell from his tree, and he was hurt. You can imagine who sprung into action, can't you? Curly healed him, and we went back to the camp, dirty, and tired, but alive and... well, friends. We've been close ever since."
Larry paused in their walking and turned to Rose. "We all want to be your friends, Rose. But, even if it's not with us three, I believe that at some point, you'll meet that someone that makes you feel like anything is possible when you're with them. Curly and Moe made it clear to me that even if you think you can do it all on your own, having friends opens up all sorts of unexplored possibilities." He gestured with his head, saying, "We're only an hour away, I think."
Rose didn't even attempt to hide the exasperated shake of her head upon hearing the bear plan. Of course Curly would come up with something so insane and drag the other two along.
"A bear. You freed a bear? If it was that close to your camp, didn't it occur to any of you that it might wander in that direction and hurt someone? Not everyone can manipulate trees to their convenience or just make wild animals leave them alone. Oh, honestly..." She didn't know whether to laugh or to cry, though the smile wouldn't leave her face for some reason. "Why is it that when something happens, it's always you three?"
Then Larry stopped and turned to her, and Rose gave him a slight smile, nodding in response to his words. "Maybe," she replied vaguely. Oh, she wouldn't trade what she had with them for anything, but what they had between them was wildly different. This sort of thing didn't just happen every day or to anybody, but it was alright if she never found it. There were a lot of things the princess of Oloria knew she would never get to experience, but friendship—even it if wasn't on that level—that, she knew of. Thanks to them. And to her, that was enough.
Her eyes soared behind Larry. "Good," she said, though she only half-meant it. It was good that they'd be at the Academy soon, but she knew that as soon as they separated, her mind would be free to replay everything, to dwell on mistakes and missed opportunities, to remember the taste of the gag in her moth and the light reflecting off a blade meant to end her life. A shiver threatened to shake her body, but Rose kept herself still as she shifted her gaze to him once again. She couldn't avoid being by herself, no matter how she may try to put it off, and what was truly important was getting them to safety. "Let's hurry. Before we come upon something—or someone—else. I think I've had enough of nature walks for a while."
"In our defense, we were... twelve?" Not that they had changed all that much in four years. Curly was still having wildly dangerous ideas. Moe and Larry were still being talked into wildly dangerous ideas. "But I've been asking myself the same thing since then," Larry added with a grin.
He couldn't guage just what Rose was thinking when she said maybe, but the prince was happy she didn't just shoot down the possibility. It would mean a lot to him if she had someone she could rely on-better than him, at any rate.
Where her mind went, Larry's also slid. He would be alone with his thoughts, which had no draw to it. Lars falling into the fire was almost seared into the backs of his eyelids, so whenever he closed them, he saw the man on his way down. They needed a new topic for the next hour. Anything to keep them talking.
"How was the date with the Charming prince? The senior?"
Larry didn't know much about Isaiah, but he knew Moe had... something for the prince's twin sister Iolanthe.
"It was… okay," Rose said as they walked along, dry twigs and leaves crunching under her shoes. "I mean, I found him rather intimidating at first. A senior, the prince of Andover… and he wanted to spend the afternoon with me – a person he's never met before. I really don't understand this dating thing." Again she thought to herself that she really needed to find a book on the subject. Or two. Or ten. "Still, for a first ever date, I think it went well. He asked me where I wanted to go, so we got to visit the Planetarium. Have you ever been?" Her eyes shone at the memory, and, unable to contain herself, she continued without waiting for an answer. "I was simply breathtaking! I could see the stars so clearly, and they were so different than the ones above Oloria, but still recognizable, and I had so much fun re-discovering my favourite constellations and finding them in this new sky! I told Isaiah a bit about them, but I don't think he was all that impressed… to be honest, I was rather afraid I might bore him to death," she admitted. "And… I think I might have? He was very polite, though, so if I did, he didn't show it. He was very… princely, a perfect gentleman; even tried to compliment me a few times, but you know how I feel about flowery speech patterns." Rose shot Larry a look, unable to hide her smirk. He had dialled it down quite a bit since the first time she told him that, and it had made it so much easier for her to relax around him.
"Yes," Larry answered, even if it wasn't a question, "I know how you feel about flowery speech patterns."
It sounded like a nice date – as if he had any real experience. His date with Tamsin had been really fun, but it was more of a mini-vacation-show-and-tell. Under no circumstances had there been any feeling aside from friendship between them. Larry had too strong a sense of self-preservation not to; Amar would have crushed him had Larry's romantic side made a move. And anyway, just being friends was enough. Not to mention, Larry had had enough of fumbling teenage bad-decisions.
"No, I've never been to the Planetarium," Larry answered, remembering that she had asked. "Maybe I'll go sometime..." If he was being honest with himself, the stars never interested him much. He'd rather read star-related folklore than try and decern "shapes" from a pattern of dots. His parents hadn't been star-gazers, and it carried over.
"Oh, we could go together!" Rose offered excitedly. "Isaiah had reserved the whole place for us, so maybe we'll be able to catch a show. I've always wanted to, but my parents wouldn't let me go. Too risky to have me in a dark place surrounded by a crowd, you know? Makes it easy for enemies of the crown. I still loved observing the stars at night and reading about them, though. Did you know that many constellations were actually named after legends, even the zodiacal ones? For example, you are a Taurus, right? The constellation Taurus, according to Greek myth, represents the bull-form taken on by Zeus when he became enamored by Europa, princess of Phoenicia. She was impressed by the beauty and gentleness of the bull, and the two played together on the beach. Eventually, Europa climbed onto the bull's back, and he swam out to sea with her. He took her to Crete and revealed his true self. There's a meteor shower in November that seems to originate from the constellation, too, it's called the Taurid meteor shower.
"My personal favourite is the legend of Andromeda, which gave names to both a very prominent constellation and the nearest to us galaxy. Andromeda was the princess of Ethiopia, daughter of Cepheus and Cassiopeia. Cassiopeia was a boastful woman, and foolishly bragged that her daughter was more beautiful than the Nereids. In order to avenge the insult to his nymphs, Poseidon sent a sea monster to ravage the Ethiopian coast. The desperate king consulted the Oracle of Apollo, who announced that no respite would be found until the king sacrificed his daughter, Andromeda, to the monster. The brave Andromeda volunteered herself as an offering to save her kingdom and was chained to a rock on the coast, ready to die. Luckily, the hero Perseus was passing by at that time and slayed the monster. He set Andromeda free and married her, in spite of her having been previously promised to her uncle Phineus."
Rose knew a lot about the stars. More than anyone probably cared to hear, but right now talking about this was easy, and it helped her ignore the tight knot in her chest and push back on the thoughts still hanging over her like a dark cloud. Ever aware of them, she fastened her pace, as if it were possible to escape it, and kept prattling on.
"There is also a Swan constellation in the sky, Cygnus, and one of the legends about it states that the swan was once the pet of Queen Cassiopeia. And did you know there is a constellation called Corona?"
Larry listened and kept them on their path. He liked how Rose seemed happier and more excited about her star stories than he thought he had seen her recently. Considering their most recent experiences, it was strange that either of them could muster any enthusiasm. "Am I a Taurus? I hadn't ever really paid attention," Larry answered, although it wasn't necesary. He wondered how it was that Rose knew when his birthday was. When had he told her?
"No...? Is there a story to that?"
"Yes, but it's quite a long one. It doesn't really have anything to do with Curly's kingdom, though."
In order for him to understand where the name of the constellation came from, Rose had to tell Larry the entire story of Theseus and the Minotaur. Most people knew the part where King Minus sacrificed people by throwing them in a vast labyrinth, but what many legends omitted was the king's daughter, who gave Theseus a ball of yarn so he could find his way out. This was actually what had inspired Rose to take yarn on their little expedition in the catacombs. The story continued for quite a bit after Theseus defeated the Minotaur, as he promised to marry Ariadne, King Minus' daughter, but at the end abandoned her on a deserted island, where she was found by non other than Dionysus, the god of wine. He wiped her tears and took her into his arms, then proclaimed he himslef would marry her. He took the crown from her head and threw it into the heavens, where it became Corona Boreallis.
It was actually very easy to find in the sky. When she looked for a constellation, Rose usually started at Cygnus, the Swan, and found whatever she was looking for by proximity. Yes, she disliked anything swan-related, but Cygnus was a very bright and extremely easy to identify, and Corona was just north of it, right on the other side of Hercules.
Happy to waste time talking about myths and stars, Rose almost didn't feel the gloomy weight of her thoughts. By the time she was done telling the legend, she cloud see the towers of Andover looming over the trees. Dread settled in her stomach. She really, really didn't want to be alone right now, but Larry probably needed rest.
"Are you... going to be okay?" she asked when they made it to the main entrance.
The Minotaur from the story of Theseus had been mentioned few times in their family life, and Larry when he was younger thought little of it, but as he aged had come to think that his father, who had lived as a man trapped in the body of a beast with the threat of becoming that permanently looming overhead, simply felt it hit too close to home. Gaston would have been Theseus, Belle would have been Ariadne, and he would have been the Minotaur, killed, beheaded, and mounted on someone else's wall. Larry's mother had been a coup de grace to her husband, who's time had been nearly run out. But maybe that had just been Larry's take on things.
He let her talk without interruption as he navigated them back, and as the school came into sight, her question caught him off-guard. His first reaction was to say that he would of course be alright. But then he considered a few things, and he was very afraid of being alone. Diplomatically, Larry said what came to mind; "I'll have to be." He smiled at his companion, though it didn't make it to his eyes.
There was something off about his smile. Rose couldn't put her finger on what it was, but it seemed… sad, somehow. She had the urge to reassure him, to do, to say something to make him feel better. Only one problem – Rose had no idea how to be reassuring. She didn't know how to handle this, how to make things okay again.
As it often happened when she was in a bind, her mind turned to the many books she's read, and a quote came to mind, one said by one of her favourite authors – Earnest Hemmingway.
'If nothing comes to mind, all you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.'
"You're not alone, Larry," Rose said softly. She reached for his hand, hesitantly, and gave it a light squeeze. "Do try to remember that."
Moe or Curly would be at the dorm. There was no way they had somehow missed Larry's absence, and Rose had no doubt that they were worried and would shower him with questions. How much he told them was up to him; she herself did not feel up to talking about this at all, but maybe talking with his best friends would lessen the burden for him. Or so she hoped. If nothing else, the princess could always count on them being there for each other, and she smiled slightly, knowing that if the three of them were together, everything would turn out okay.
"I'll see you in class on Monday. Get some rest," Rose added, letting go and climbing the steps to the entrance hall. The trek to the girls' dorm would be a long one… and the day that awaited her – even longer.
The melancholy that set in as Rose left off was not a creeping and low-lying animal, but something that he could see in the periphery of his mind, looming large, waiting impatiently to be alone. Larry watched Rose disappear into the castle and felt almost immediately like finding someplace to sit down and have a wildly emotional panic attack, but also the sharp pain in his wrist that he had been ignoring. It all stole his breath away, and he put the hand on his unhurt wrist to his chest with a wince. He had to get to the infirmary, but he also had to calm down enough to lie smoothly about tripping on stairs or some nonsense to the nurse. Breathing would be a good start. He concentrated on that and on the sound of the wind in the trees and the feeling of sunlight touching his skin. He would be okay, Rose would be okay. Things were going to be okay. They'd survived.
He just had to deal with it. Eventually, Larry went up to the infirmary and had his wrist healed–"Just a sprain; you'll be better in no time."–and then into his shared dorm to fall into bed and know nothing else.