It's taken the rest of the night and fragile first hours of morning to rig up a wagon and ready two horses without one of the stable boys seeing.
"Ready a horse! I have a ring and a bandit to track down!" he hears. Blast David's single-mindedness! Hopping into the wagon, he winces as he slips underneath a blanket, straw all over the place. He can barely spit it out without making a sound. Leaving just an inch of room to see out, he watches the two little stable boys gawk at the hitched-up horse with David right behind them.
"Sir, do you want some company?" one of them asks. The wagon shifts slightly, David's weight pulling it in one direction as he climbs up into the driver's seat. Well, lads, he's about to have company whether he wants it or not, he thinks.
"Tell Princess Abigail I will be back as soon as I've secured my belongings."
Cocking his head, he rolls onto his stomach and brings his arms up to place his chin in, shielding it from all the bumps in the road. He could launch himself out of this hiding place, knock David out, and ride to Regina's castle, its dungeons not difficult to find. He could, he thinks, sniffing, but then that would mean leaving David and Snow to chance, and he's seen firsthand how well that works out. He's only heard snippets before, but if he remembers correctly, David catches her in a net and, and...something about a bridge...
Curling into himself, he holds his breath when the wagon creaks to a stop. He never figured David for one who often talked to himself, but it would be nice to listen to some narration of how long this would all take, just what he planned to do once he caught a runaway princess.
Killian never cared much for hunting, the long hours of required stillness not boasting that much appeal. He stays close to the wagon in case David returns to go find a new location, but a series of surprised cries and grunts tells him the moment has finally come. Crawling from tree to tree, he watches the net swing this way and that with Snow inside, mumbling and cursing herself. David's laughter echoes throughout the woods.
"I told you I'd find you. No matter what you do, I will always find you." He enjoys this David, all leather-clad and posturing like he's invincible. After hours of lying in a cart and then more hours just sitting and waiting, he finds the prince's good mood contagious enough to stand up and stretch his legs.
"Is this the only way you can catch a woman? By entrapping her?" Snow counters from the net.
"It's the only way to catch thieving scum."
"Aren't you a real Prince Charming?" Ah. So that's where it comes from, the snark. He smiles, reminded of someone.
"I have a name, you know."
"Don't care. 'Charming' suits you. Now cut. Me. Down. Charming."
"Now why would I do that?" He ought to step out and say something. It's a little more delicate a situation than Killian would care to admit. Emma's imprisoned, execution a certainty. And yet, if they don't get much chance to interact, he doubts a wedding and subsequent progeny will be in the future. He watches David produce one of the Wanted posters out of his doublet, Snow's face finally showing anxiety.
"Snow White. Relax. I'm not going to turn you in. All I want is the ring you stole," he says, folding it back up.
"Not the jewelry type."
"Indeed. I noticed." He'll have to step out soon. He can't see Snow trying David's patience enough to go back on his word and turn her in anyway, but...
"I don't have your ring!" she shouts. This is getting circular.
"And why don't I believe you?" He lets out an amused sigh. Well, now's as good a time as any.
"You should," Killian says, strolling out from behind his hiding place. "She's telling the truth, mate." Ah. Bewildered faces at his presence, David ready to inflict some damage on him—it's like old times already. Except they're seeing some dowdy stranger in prince garb and not their favorite handsome scoundrel.
"Prince Charles," he introduces himself after a beat with some hurried royal flourish. "Lovely ball the other night. The mutton was a tad overcooked, but that happens. Snow White doesn't have your ring, but I know who does. My princess. And I need your help to get her back." David lowers his sword and places it back in its sheath, taking a moment to exchange a confused look with Snow. That must be a good sign, and, hell, if they bond over neither one fully trusting him, then that's a step closer to marriage and conception than bantering through a net.
"She has my ring?" David asks. He nods, only finding David rolling his eyes to feel unnatural for a second or two. "That's two women who robbed me. Where is she?"
Nowhere special, just languishing in a dank dark dungeon until it's time to be killed—deep breath, mate. This is still David, brave, selfless, jump-in-front-of-danger David who probably knows a thing or two about chivalry. Just tread lightly. He gives a small shrug.
"Well, that's the problem. The Queen's castle."
"Actually, that's not a problem at all!" Snow calls down to him, her gloved hands gripping the netting. She waits for them to glance up at her, the wheels in her head turning behind familiar shining eyes. "I know it well. It used to be mine. I can get us in there, but not from up here, so...you let me down, and you get your princess, you get your ring, and I never have to see your 'charming' face again!"
He'd always found Snow a little off-putting, never knowing where the line is with her, as she's so capable of tracking and fighting, and yet usually so gentle and sweet. Until now, he decides. From this point on, Snow White is one of the dearest people in the world to him. David's not exactly reaching the same level of sentiment, he notices, but he does seem impressed enough with her to nod and show a flicker of admiration. In an instant, he frees his sword and swings away at the rope holding up the net, sending Snow down to the ground with a scream.
"Charming and a gentleman," she mutters, freeing herself and dusting off her trousers.
"And helping retrieve stolen property doesn't negate the fact it was stolen in the first place," David counters, motioning for them to get this...whatever this is...started. "We'll take the wagon and should arrive there before nightfall."
As decent a plan as any, and he supposes he shouldn't worry considerably. Stories did exist of Snow raiding the Queen's castle at least once, and in a rescue mission of her own, he recalls. A little girl growing up in such a cavernous place would have explored every corner of it, perhaps learned dozens of secret ways to slip in and out under her parents' eyes. The corners of his mouth turn up. Maybe Swan would have enjoyed that kind of life more than she thinks. He lifts his arms to hoist himself up into the wagon.
"Oh no, you don't." David slaps a heavy hand onto his back. "She's your princess. You drive." He raises an eyebrow at him. "What's her name?"
"Leia." Probably some relation to Marty McFly. He'll ask Swan later.
"No, no, no. You." Snow looks right at him with a deliberate expression. "Your one job this entire journey is to keep him as far from me as possible."
On the contrary, his job is to do the precise opposite of that.
"Sorry, love. He's the one with the sword." Shifting, he climbs up into the driver's seat and waits for them to begrudgingly climb into the back. Snow murmurs something about there being two swords as she makes her way up.
This is good, he tells himself, steering the horse through the brush and back onto the road. They're back there, interacting, and he's closer to rescuing Emma than he had been this morning, so, all in all, it should work out. Relaxing in the seat a little, he waits to hear some chitchat, that kind of conversation that gradually turns into hitting it off, but only the birds above them fee like chattering right now. Blasted stubborn asses, he thinks, not noticing the bump in the road ahead. The wagon bounces, Snow answering it with a grunt.
"Apologies, lass!" he calls back to them, David laughing.
"You are really enjoying this, aren't you, Charming?" she snaps from the back of the wagon.
"It is not my fault your face is plastered on every tree in the forest. What's that around your neck?" He tries to crane his head to get a glimpse of what has piqued David's curiosity. "I thought you weren't the jewelry type."
"Don't worry about it," she mutters.
He hears scuffling sounds, the wagon swaying too and fro. One of them has to be moving back there. Snow cries out, David laughs—like traveling with a horde of children, he thinks, half-tempted to tell them to pipe down back there.
"Careful! That's a weapon!"
Bloody hell, he is not about to die at their hands here. Not now. Not ever. Noting the rest of the road on the horizon looks smooth, he steals a glance over at a small bag David proudly holds up in his hand.
"Dust?" David asks.
"Fairy dust. From a dark fairy. It transforms the most fearsome adversary into a form that's easily squashed." The way she says the last word coupled with the wagon's jostling indicates she's recovered her weapon. Thinking back on the snippets of the story as they'd told it in the diner, he wonders what she ended up using it on, decidedly not Regina. David saves her from guards. She saves him from trolls. Well, if he were attacked by trolls and could squash them easily, he'd seize that opportunity. Mystery solved.
He blocks out the softer discussion taking place back there now, apparently fairy dust being just the catalyst in order to spark some conversation. Just in time, too.
"We're here," he announces, stopping the horses. The castle, albeit seated in a sunny clearing, carries an air of menace about it, its design resembling a claw bursting out of the ground ready to snatch anything in its path. It's meant to look impenetrable, foreboding. Countless spells might have been placed on it to keep certain fugitive princesses at bay, but then, as eager as Regina was to catch and kill Snow, maybe not.
"We're going to need help to get past her guards," Snow says, looking up. "Wait here. We go at night. I'll be back then." Hopping out, she lands on the ground on her feet and dashes out into the woods.
"You think she's right? This isn't some ruse for her to escape?" David asks him, standing up in the back.
"We've brought her this close to the Queen's castle. If she truly carries a magical weapon with her...didn't mean to eavesdrop...then escaping now would be nothing more than a wasted opportunity."
"In that case..." David trails off, leaping out of the back of the wagon himself and walking around to the horses. "Help me get them over here in the taller trees. We can hide along there and build a fire. The sun will be setting soon."
He doesn't doubt David's ability to rough it, or to forage, but this is bordering on hilarious—the two of them waiting on Snow to return with whatever reinforcements she thinks she can round up on such short notice, dwarfs, most likely.
"Charles, was it?"
"Ay—yes." He pauses. "Why?"
"Well, no offense, but you come across as about as much a prince as I do, and I'm just..." He veers off for a fallen log and starts snapping off some of the thicker branches.
"Just what?"
"Oh, never mind. I, I don't think it's a good time to get to know each other all that well. You know? I mean, here we both are conspiring with a thief and about to break into a queen's castle, a rather nasty queen if her reputation is anything to go by."
"Is it, and point taken," he says, watching David start a fire like he's done it a million times. Not a prince. He wasn't born one, anyway, his youth spent elsewhere and this James business...gods. Gods, the man had mentioned a twin brother he had never gotten to know! And Rumpelstiltskin arranged this marriage between him and King Midas' daughter! It's all an elaborate hoax, David, real David, being a commoner, one well-educated in several non-princely pursuits, although not on the other side of the law. No, he'd have heard of him had that been the case, and he doubts David would have ever lowered himself to that. A farmer, maybe, huntsman or a shepherd.
"What's funny?"
"Hmm?"
"You looked like you were about to laugh. I doubt you can make a fire quicker?"
"Oh, my apologies, mate. I was, I was cheering myself up remembering a...a friend." Swan was safe until morning. No one scheduled executions at night for fear of being haunted, the victim's soul trapped on the castle grounds and wreaking havoc for all eternity in revenge. That and he is sure no executioner wants to be summoned in the middle of the night just to light a torch or cut off someone's head. They could wait for Snow until almost sunrise. He would give her more time.
"Prince Charles of what?" David asks.
"Of a kingdom."
"No. Where?"
"Oh, well, I thought we weren't going to spend any time getting to know each other." Shrugging, David toys with a stick. They can't really get to know each other, he tells himself, inhaling. He wears another's face. He's in a vastly different role than he would have been at any other time. Why not play the role of an adventurous prince? David certainly was. Killian picks up a stick as well, and then tosses it to the side.
"Excited for your nuptials?"
"I'm marrying Midas' daughter. What's not to be excited about?" he answers in one breath, a recitation rather than an answer. Poor sot. He'd be kicking himself if he knew he'd ridden in the back of a hay wagon with his wife and hadn't rolled around in it with her even once.
"I don't mean to pry, mate, but you don't exactly look like a man who's doing this by choice." David inhales and stares at the fire, choosing his words carefully, but honestly.
"I always thought I'd marry for love, and here I am, about to enter into what amounts to a business transaction, a merger of two kingdoms." It's a far cry from whatever life he knew before, something simpler, less bogged down in trivial matters. "I don't know. This whole ordeal makes me wonder if there even is such a thing as True Love."
A surreal...and heartbreaking...sensation overcomes him, this man, the one who often speaks so freely about love and hope and all those fine things flirting so dangerously close to cynicism. Ha. Looking back, there would probably be a great many people who never thought Killian Jones would reduce himself to such a cynic either, never thought he'd become an enemy of honor. You just can't be your best self when cynical, he wants to say. You can't believe those things until...
"I once felt as you did, mate, and all it took was meeting the right person and everything changed," he says.
"Princess Leia, the one we're rescuing?"
"Aye." It might be cowardly now, since he lacks his own face, but he's overdue to voice his intentions to her father. "I'd go to the end of the world for her. Or time."
"And she for you, I take it?" David asks.
"I don't know," he settles on, torn between shaking his head, laughing, and recounting every single moment since the day he'd met her just to listen to a third party's opinion. She could. She's even acted like she wants to at times and, gods, the way she watches him now. It's not reading. It's...like she wouldn't know what to do without him. That may be self-flattery, he thinks, but it's how it feels. The way she fights off melting at times, the way she doesn't back away from him, the way she's sought him out more and more. Good. Come back to me.
"What's the problem?"
"There are...many complications."
"Family?" David nods, giving him a knowing look. "Because my father is making things quite difficult for me."
Oh, well, he can't resist that.
"Aye, there's that. I'm not sure her parents approve of me." He won't go into detail, but there was talk, at the point of a sword, how her father...stubborn ass that he is...swore he'd see to it he would never even have a chance with her... For a moment, he wonders if David somehow knows that happened, like he could see into the future, the two of them trudging about in Neverland at each other's throats. He just looks so ponderous.
"Given the lengths you've gone to to save her, they'd be crazy not to." Crazy. His word, not Killian's. He'll hold him to that.
"I hope you remember that," he mumbles, stifling his grin. That would be a marvelous fantasy, Swan excitedly telling her father that they're together or in love or whatever her world calls it...his heart literally skips a beat just thinking about it...and then quoting the man himself as soon as the first signs of shock show on David's face.
Something blocks the firelight for a split second. With the fire and a full moon, it doesn't take much to find a blacker spot out in the darkness.
"What the hell was that?" David asks, leaping to his feet and drawing his sword.
"I think we're about to find out." They wait, swords in front of them.
"Hey! Who the hell are you?" David demands of...Ruby. Cloaked in red and carrying a basket, but Ruby.
"Name's Red. I'm a friend of Snow's," she says, setting the basket down and looking at their swords without fear. A wolf, she wouldn't need to fear them. Werewolves, he knows next to nothing about, always believing the full moon had something to do with their transformations. Ruby, however, must be able to change at will, for surely if she were undergoing a transformation now, she would look a little less calm and collected. "She sent me to help get you into the castle."
"How?" he asks, not lowering his sword. If she can't change at will, that could mean she can't control herself in her other, wilder form.
"You'll see," she says vaguely, removing her red cloak. Eyes widening, he backs up, knowing just to expect the unexpected, which is more than David can rely on for now. He follows his lead, however, backing up and giving her a wary look.
"It's called letting the wolf out," she says with a smirk, letting out a deep breath. "When you need it, throwing the cloak back over me will change me back." Her eyes cloud over until her large brown irises take on a more golden hue. Brown-gray waves of fur begin sprouting up on her throat, her arms. Her head juts out, accompanied with sounds like she's about to retch, until her nose and mouth have elongated into an opened snout framed with shiny narrow teeth. Letting out a piercing howl, she leaps toward the castle with inhuman strides.
A/N: Yes, I'm well-aware the chapter title is similar to the one called "Snow White and Prince Charming." That is intentional. Coming up? Attempting to whack a ladybug has never been so epic.
