AN~ I give up. Updates will happen when they happen, guys, and I'm sorry they're so few and far between, but this appears to be the new norm. On the plus side, I DID update!
QotU: If you read this and you know it clap your hands! (Seriously guys I'm running out of ideas for these...)
Old QotU Winner: Ultimatefreakofnature, who wanted Puckabrina. I figured that way it's like you all win.
Daphne was just starting to get worried about how long it had been since she'd heard from Sabrina when the news came.
This news came in the form of a group of Sneaks appearing in Artisa's castle without warning, led by the Wolf, a man Daphne had never seen before, and someone she'd expected never to see again- Pinocchio.
She wasn't sure how to react to this. Sabrina would have punched him first thing. But she wasn't Sabrina. And her grandmother would have taken this as an apology and forgiven him immediately. But Daphne wasn't her grandmother, either. So she decided to withhold judgement temporarily.
At the moment, Billy, Snow, Daphne, the newcomers, and a few of Billy's advisers were all gathering in Billy's council room to find out what exactly was going on.
Once they were all seated around the long oval table, Billy looked at the Wolf and said, "Explain."
He did. As he spoke about the new man- Daphne's banished uncle, apparently- what had happened to Pinocchio, and why Sabrina hadn't sent her any letters lately, Daphne's stomach sank further and further down her torso, until it felt like it was sitting near her hips, and it was full of lead. Sabrina was captured. Sabrina was in Magica. Sabrina might die.
"We have come to ask your assistance," the Wolf told Billy. "We are the only ones who can be spared to rescue the Queen and the Trickster King. If we go now, without reinforcements, we will fail. But if Artisa were to back us up-"
"Absolutely not," Billy said, slapping a hand to his table. "Artisa is staying out of this fight. We. Are. Neutral!"
"Billy," Snow said softly.
"I can't, Snow," he said. "I can't involve my people in something like this. It has nothing to do with them. I can't send them to die just because the little girl in charge of Sneak went and got herself kidnapped."
Daphne burned inside at this comment. He made it sound like Sabrina had done something stupid to get kidnapped. From the sound of it, she'd done the best she could.
Snow glared at the king of Artisa. "Excuse me?" she demanded.
Billy babbled something, shrinking under that glare.
"That 'little girl,' as you call her, is my queen!" Snow snapped. "And not only that, she's one of my best friends, and family of more of them! She's been ruling her kingdom as best she can for years, and doing a fine job of it, too! If she's been abducted, it's not because she made some silly mistake, it's because she was overwhelmed." She glared at him. "I'm going, even if you won't help."
She stopped for a second, and everyone in the room stared at her. There was a moment of silence. Everyone looked at each other, confused.
Then Snow stood up and said, "And besides that- do you really think they're going to stop with Sneak? With Trickster?" She shook her head. "Once they've conquered those two, they'll move on to Artisa- and they'll probably have a way to force the people they've conquered to help fight. Artisa will be overrun. At best, after they got done with those two, they'd move on to Scholar before they came here. But they will come. I've been there, Billy. I know the people running this kingdom. They will not stop until they've eaten the world." Her glare grew fiercer and she said, "Even if you won't help for a fellow royal, or because she's my friend, you should help because nobody can be neutral here. You're either fighting them or you're already part of them and you just don't know it yet."
Snow sat back down, the fight gone out of her eyes. Everyone in the room stared at her.
"If you won't fight now, Billy," she continued, "then you're not the man I fell in love with. I'll go with them, and no matter what happens, you'll never see me again."
Billy stared at Snow. He wasn't the only one. In fact, Daphne and Snow were the only ones looking at him. Daphne hoped he'd agree. He had to help save her sister. Sabrina couldn't die! She was to important! And if he didn't help save her- well, someday she'd be queen of Sneak (even if it meant she had to destroy every single person in all of Magica), and she'd make sure he paid for not helping.
Billy deflated with a sigh. "It's not that easy," he said. "I'll have to talk to the council, and we'll have to reach a formal decision. I'm not the only power in the kingdom, and they might say no."
"You can authorize a group of soldiers to go into Magica on your own," Daphne piped up. She knew how this worked. "You only need the council's approval for a full-on war."
"An excellent point, Daphne," Snow said with a smile, still looking at Billy.
Billy threw his hands into the air. "Fine!" he snapped. "I'll help your foolish little queen out of her problem, and when we all die, I'll blame the whole thing on you!"
"As long as I get my sister back, I don't care," Daphne muttered.
Snow patted Daphne's arm sympathetically.
"Meeting adjourned," Billy said, voice full of exasperation. "I have a council to round up."
One by one, the people in the room stood up to leave. Daphne waited until most of them were gone, then went to find her uncle. She didn't have anything better to do at the moment, and she was a bit curious about why he'd been gone for so long.
"Hey, peanut," the man said, giving her a crooked smile as she approached him outside the council room.
"Peanut?" Daphne asked, deciding to overlook the nervousness under his grin. She'd be nervous, too, she supposed.
He shrugged. "I give people nicknames. You look like a peanut to me."
"Why?" she asked.
He shrugged. "You were the shortest person in that entire council room. Like a little peanut surrounded by a bunch of people. And you didn't even care."
"I'm used to being smaller," Daphne said. Up until Basil had been born, she'd been the youngest. And he'd disappeared so soon after he was born, Daphne was the youngest one all the time. It made it hard to get people's attention, but she managed.
"I bet you are," her uncle said.
Daphne's eyes widened. "I don't even know your name," she said.
"It's Jacob," he said, "but you can call me Jake." He swallowed, eyeing her. "You don't mind me calling you peanut, do you?"
Daphne shook her head. "It's fine," she said. She thought she might get to like it, eventually.
They were silent for a while.
"So," Daphne said eventually, "You've been watching us this whole time? Ever since you were..." banished, she almost said, but she stopped herself.
"Well, not the whole time," he said. "First I traveled around for a while, got the itch out of my feet. But then I heard Hank had a baby, and I decided that if I couldn't come see her, I could at least be her godfather from afar. Keep her safe, send her presents, things like that." He gulped. "I never heard- did your parents actually give you godparents?"
Daphne shook her head. "Granny wanted to do it, but Mom said there wasn't really a point except to have someone else to give us fancy presents, and we'd be spoiled enough already."
Jake grinned. "That sounds like your mother, all right. I liked Goldie well enough, but your father married the right girl, in the end."
Daphne had heard about Goldie from Sabrina's letters, so she didn't question. She had a vague idea that her father's former fiance had something to do with why her uncle had left in the first place, and she didn't want to bring that up. He could tell her if he wanted. But she wanted to like him. Finding out what he'd done might make that harder, and it was obvious that he was sorry for whatever it was.
"Mom's awesome," she agreed, finally. "I want to be just like her when I grow up." Not that she'd done a very good job of it, botching her first diplomatic mission like she'd done.
"Well, you certainly look a lot like her," Jake said. "A lot like your dad, too, though."
Daphne nodded. "Sabrina looks more like mom in the face."
They were silent again for a time, and then Jake said, "I suppose you're wondering about why I've been away so long. Unless they told you?"
"They didn't," Daphne said, "but you don't have to tell me unless you want to."
Jake grinned and ruffled her hair. "You're a good kid," he said.
Daphne grinned back. She was petty sure she liked her uncle.
"And 'cause you're such a good kid, you should go talk to Pinocchio," he continued, nodding to the boy in question, who was lurking around the corner of the hall, peering at the duo.
Daphne thought she might like her uncle a little less than she'd thought she did.
"Go on," he said. "He's... well, he's not really a nice guy, but he's really beating himself up about the way he treated you, even if he doesn't want to admit it to himself."
Daphne sighed and gave Jake a look that very clearly read do I have to. He just kept grinning at her, so she slunk her way down the hall to the boy who had been one of her closest friends for nearly a year.
For someone who supposedly wanted to talk to her, Pinocchio was excellent at making himself scarce. By the time she'd made it to the spot sh'd last seen his face, the boy was gone, and she spent the rest of the afternoon pretending she wasn't looking for him and worrying about her sister. It wasn't until dinner that they ran into each other again.
They were placed next to each other at dinner, and from the looks Snow and Uncle Jake were giving each other across the table, Daphne had an idea it was no accident.
This wasn't a conversation Daphne wanted to have in public, though, so dinner was... very awkward, to say the least.
"Are you worried about your sister?" Pinocchio asked at one point.
Well, of course she was. If they'd captured Sabrina, then they were definitely bad news. Sabrina was tough. She could handle normal threats. And Daphne had seen Magica's dark side. She knew Sabrina was stronger than she was, but if they threw her in there with monsters in the dark... Of course she was worried! She'd have to be insane or completely naive not to be!
But all she said was, "Yes."
"Oh," Pinocchio answered softly.
Daphne bit back a comment about how if Pinocchio hadn't betrayed her, then Sabrina might be safe right now. She'd already decided this wasn't the place to have this talk.
Those were the only words the duo exchanged through the whole meal.
After dinner, though, Daphne grabbed Pinocchio's arm and clamped down on it. He wasn't getting away from her this time! She pulled him into another room and shut the door with satisfaction. Now they were alone. Now they could talk.
"I suppose you want to yell at me," Pinocchio said morosely.
"Well of course I do!" Daphne snapped. "But that's not why I'm here- my uncle said I should talk to you. Otherwise I'd be avoiding you. I don't like traitors." She glared at him. "The only reason I even listened to him is because he said you were sorry. Well, I don't see it."
"How did he know?" Pinocchio demanded. "I never said-"
Daphne didn't bother to point out that her uncle had done something so bad he got banished from his home. If he wasn't thinking clearly enough to see that, it wasn't her job to enlighten him. Instead, she focused on the fact that Jake had been right. "So you are sorry?" she asked.
He swallowed and looked very steadily at a portrait of Billy's dead brother that hung on the wall behind her. "I treated you unfairly," he allowed.
They stood there in silence for a minute, and then Daphne started to get annoyed. Here he was, pretending like he didn't want to apologize, and yet he'd come all this way to help, so he had to want her to forgive him, or he had to be trying to stop feeling so guilty or something, and he was just acting like he was too good to ask her forgiveness, or something!
So she demanded, "If you're not here 'cause you want me to forgive you, then what on earth did you come for? You might as well just have stayed in your stupid Scholar place! That's what you wanted, wasn't it? To be a Scholar and be alone with your books all the time?" She gave him an icy glare that he couldn't have missed, even if his eyes were still focused squarely away from her. "Because books and learning can't hurt you, can they? Not like people you care about."
"Why should I bother asking forgiveness if I know you won't give it to me?" Pinocchio exploded.
"To show me you care!" Daphne snapped back. "To show that you're not a heartless jerkazoid after all, and that the year we spent together actually meant something to you, that you were maybe actually my friend once, not just using me to get what you wanted. To prove that you're a human being and yeah, you made a big mistake and maybe I'll never be able to forgive you for it, but at least we were friends once!"
He was looking at her now, and he said very softly, "You're crying."
She was. She hadn't noticed. With a sigh, she slumped against the wall and slid down it until she was sitting on the floor. "I've never had a lot of friends in Sneak," she said softly. "I mean, everyone was nice, and polite, and they didn't exclude me, but I never quite fit there, and I was the youngest all the time. I thought- I thought I'd finally found someone who liked my company for who I was, not because I was the princess, or because I was lonely. And then you went and did that."
"See?" Pinocchio said, kneeling in front of her. "You'll never forgive me. I've hurt you too much."
"You can still apologize," Daphne whispered.
Pinocchio looked into her eyes, nodded, and took a deep breath. "Daphne," he said, "I am profoundly sorry for the way I hurt you. I will never be able to repair the damage I did to our relationship, not if I were to wait on you hand and foot for a thousand years. I know it is no excuse, but I could think of no way to get what I wanted besides turning you in. I justified it to myself at the time- I could get out and learn everything, and perhaps even find my father, if I cared to; and besides, you had broken the law, and your family would ransom you, or break you out. You would be fine. And I would get what I wished for. I did not take into account the pain I would cause my own soul by crushing yours. The look on your face when you found out I had betrayed you has haunted me these past months, and I cannot escape it. I know I will never be able to repair our friendship, but I will do penance as best I can- I will make sure your sister is freed. And then I will go away and you will never have to see me again."
It was such a Pinocchio apology, and she was so tired and afraid for her sister and wound up inside, that when he said that, Daphne couldn't help but laugh.
"What's so funny?" he demanded. "Don't you like it? I practiced it for hours. What do you want me to do, kiss your feet?"
"I know," Daphne said, choking down on her laughter. "It's just... of course you'd make a speech." She saw that he was blushing very brightly, and even though she hadn't forgiven him, she said, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to laugh. It's just... It's been a very difficult day."
Looking mollified, Pinocchio gave her a glance. "Do you... do you want to talk about it?"
Did she? Daphne thought about it. It would be a relief to let it out, in a sense. But with Pinocchio? She'd already poured her heart out to him once tonight, and she didn't think she was ready to trust him with anything else. And she was worried that if she let herself think about how afraid she was for Sabrina, she'd never be able to stop. And she didn't want to spiral into that terror. If she could just hold it off until she was ready to go help get her out, then everything would be fine. But she needed to hold herself together until then. So she shook her head.
"Oh," he said softly, "I understand."
Part of Daphne was burning to let him think it was because she was still angry at him- she was, after all, still very angry- but another part of her remembered the way she and Sabrina had fought when they were younger. Sabrina would do something stupid, and Daphne would respond by giving her sister the cold shoulder, which she knew hurt Sabrina incredibly. And nothing got solved that way. It just made things worse, actually. It wasn't her job to punish people for being stupid.
"Oh, no, it's not-" she started. "It's- I can't talk about it. If I let it out, then I'll be useless. And I need to be useful to get my sister back."
Pinocchio raised his eyebrows at her. "Do you actually think they're going to let you go in and help?" he asked, incredulity overflowing in his voice.
"There's not 'letting' about it," Daphne said, her voice full of steel- like Sabrina's would have been. "I'm going." She smiled- a tiny expression, full of ice. "I'd like to see them try and stop me."
Pinocchio gave her a thoughtful look. "You know," he said, "I think that would be rather amusing, actually- you're stronger than people give you credit for, Daphne."
"I have to be," Daphne said. "I'm the youngest- people don't pay attention to me unless I'm powerful." She stood up, dusting off the back of her skirt. "Well?" she asked, looking down at the boy on the floor. "Are you just going to draw my sister out of jail by the power of your guilt? Or are you actually going to do something useful with yourself?"
Pinocchio gave her a small smile and pushed himself off the ground, following her to start planning.
AN~ Well this chapter didn't go the way I planned it at all. I'm not sure I'm happy with it- it's kind of dialogue-heavy, without enough tension for something so close to the climax. And I forgot most of the ways I wanted them to say things, it took so long between planning the scene and actually writing it. What do you guys think?
Feature: A Bidding Assassin by Gothic-Emo-Bunny
A remake of her old story that I'm pretty sure I've already featured (A Spy's Secret), there's only one chapter of this fic so far, but it looks great!
Many Review Replies:
1-2-4: Uncle Jake has been in the background this whole time. I'm going to make it more clear that he's been pulling strings when I edit this. Did I really? I just finished the rough draft of a novel in present tense and I like it and I keep slipping into it but I thought I caught all my mistakes and fixed them...
Chicly: I don't do songfics anymore because they're technically illegal, but if you check out my fic "Background Music," I can see if I can put a story BASED around that song in there. Glad you liked the chapter!
girl known maybe: No, he's not, really. Pinocchio's always known he wanted to be a Scholar. It was just that he couldn't figure out how to get there without becoming a traitor.
SilSha: I'm really sorry. School was impossible (I figured that happened with a lot of people- not a ton of reviews this chapter). I guess it might have been kind of rushed, but I wanted the sections to be shorter, to be honest. They came out a lot longer than I intended. What does Rapunzel have to do with anything? QotU: I wasn't planning on getting rid of it... I'll totally check you out (that sounded wrong). Talk about feeling weird, I'm turning 21 in April! Good books would be easier if I knew what you'd already read. I'm writing a fanfic, though, so it's not a book and nobody needs to die.