It wasn't easy convincing the men to let her go along. She was a girl, after all, with little training, no skills, and frankly the dress hadn't helped her cause. In an act, she suspected, to trick her into not coming the leader had told her that they were leaving tomorrow at first light. If she wanted to go she should be there, because they wouldn't wait if she was late. With an excited smile she'd run down the street to the library that she had been working for. Although it was night time, she found the friendly man and explained the situation to him. His warm brown eyes had watered when she told him that she wouldn't be coming back, but he'd wrapped his wrinkled hands around hers and told her that she would need something far more suitable than her current attire for an adventure like this. It killed her to admit it, since this was the only thing he'd given her that she still had, but he was right, it would do her no good now. The dress would have to go.
He'd taken her upstairs to his son's room and he and his wife had frantically pieced together an acceptable grouping of clothes. The pants had come from their son when he was younger. The boots, gloves, and scarf were his wife's. The top was a little more complicated. They wanted her to be warm and protected but his wife had also insisted with a gleam in her eye that a woman, pretty as she was, still needed to feel like a woman, no matter what she was doing. So they found her an undershirt, sewed a hood onto it for cover from the rain, then a purple bodice that the woman separated from one of her own dresses with a slash of a knife, a warm jacket and belt was added and as she stared in the mirror before her, tying her hair back and out of her face, she was almost happy to see that she didn't recognize the woman staring back at her. She looked like a hero, she just wished she could feel like one.
But there, behind her, her blue dress and tan shoes sat upon the bed, looking lonely and dull without her. She felt guilty looking at them there. Getting rid of them wasn't easy, and following her gaze the librarian's wife held the fabric. "I doubt this will last on the road," she said in her frail but kind voice.
She had to take a long swallow and deep breath before saying "you keep it" as she reached behind her and removed her mother's necklace, placing it in her shoulder bag for safe keeping, at least she could keep something that was hers. But the old woman wouldn't agree to her request. She shook her head, saying she couldn't and that it wasn't right but she only smiled and said, "keep it, sell it for your trouble, you've helped me so much and I'm sure you can get a good price for it." The words felt like a knife to her gut, but she'd said them and now it was as it should be. Now she really was someone new.
The old lady only smiled sweetly again. "I'll keep it here for you. For when you come back."
She opened her mouth to argue, but no words came out and she found tears of relief and gratefulness fill her eyes and "thank you" was what followed instead. Whether or not she ever came back to this place, at least it would be safe. At least she'd know where it was.
The next morning it was obvious that the men didn't think that she would show up, and there were many that weren't happy that she had, but despite their looks and objections she climbed aboard a wagon and opened anew the book that the librarian had shoved into her hands before she left. He'd kept the translation for himself but he'd given her the original. It didn't make a difference to her, she was just grateful. Everything she-they would need to defeat the Yaoguai was in this book, he had essentially given them a road map to victory. And with it she finally felt like she was on her way to a new life.
At first it hadn't been too bad. The men looked at her with disbelief and sneers of disgust but for the most part left her alone...during the day. When the night fell, when she got a tent to herself and she saw the horrors of being the only woman among a group of men, especially drunk men. But fortunately, after a few encounters that were too close for comfort, she learned how to handle it. She camped in the woods away from the men, retired early each night, bound the tent flaps shut, snuffed out the candle, and slept with one eye open and a dagger in her hand just for extra measure.
But as time wore on, it got easier. Apparently, some of the men had missed the part about having to travel to a "far away land." Though they had once started with about thirty men, horses and wagons galore, and enough supplies for everyone soon they were down to a man riding on horseback and four of them on the back of their last wagon drawn by two horses. The few men that were left were harmless, but as the number dropped they'd gotten more comfortable with taunting and teasing her. They never hurt her or threatened her physically, but she'd heard a conversation through the fabric of her tent while they were talking by the fire last night, one that had put her on guard.
They were strained and stressed and like anyone they began to look for the cause, whether or not one existed. She was an easy target. They had decided that all the misfortune they'd encountered so far was her fault. They thought they would have moved faster, been abandoned by less of their companions, even have one more tent, if only they hadn't been cursed to have a woman with them. She'd hoped to be a hero, but instead, they'd made her out to be a villain, and she'd listened sadly from her tent one night as they hatched a plot to get rid of her. She knew that they were looking for a busy village, somewhere to leave her, lose her in the crowd, so that she wouldn't cause problems but also wouldn't leave a black mark on their conscious for abandoning her in the middle of nowhere; a place that she might die. It was fair to them, it was unimaginable for her.
Yet she refused to give up. As a result she'd been keeping her nose in the book, trying to find something, anything, that would convince them that she was useful, that she would be helpful when they arrived. Somehow this trip had become more important to her than she'd ever imagined, and the thought of being left in the country, rejected again, made her stomach turn. Until they abandoned her, she was going to work as hard as she could to prove herself. Maybe she would prove to herself that she could be this person as well.
"What's that?!" asked the man named Alistair. He was the one that had recruited them all in the first place, and he'd been the one that seemed to enjoy taunting her the most. He thought of himself as a leader, and his voice had been loudest as they'd plotted against her. As much as she knew she should just ignore him, not add another reason to get rid of her, she found the answer automatically falling from her lips. She wouldn't just roll over and be quiet and calm for them. She just couldn't be something she wasn't.
"Ah, a book!" she answered, slightly annoyed with the man. She didn't particularly like him, but she couldn't dislike him entirely either. She figured this was what it might be like to have an irritating little brother. But she had a lot of experience dealing with people like that. She knew how to fight fire with fire. "I trust you've seen one before?" she asked, looking at him with false innocence. Her words had been carefully chosen, but it was still enough of an insult that it reminded him she wasn't an easy target and he wasn't the worst thing she'd ever come across. Her point made, she turned back to the book to translate the next set of glyphs before her.
"You expect to face the fiercest creature in the land with a book?" Alistair continued to tease her.
Claude chimed in too, adding "Maybe she means to bore it to death." The others erupted in laughter.
They were wrong about that. The Yaoguai was not the fiercest creature in the land. She'd already faced that and lived to tell the tale, even if it was only a half life. She forced the thought away and told herself not to think about him. She should just keep translating, they laughed now, but it was her they'd be thanking when they knew how much they needed her and this book. They would regret ever considering getting rid of her.
"It will tell us how to find the Yaoguai!" she shouted over their laughter. It silenced them and they turned so they could hear her. She was sick of being seen as useless. It amazed her how unintelligent these men were. They could be experts in swordsmanship and hunting but it wouldn't do any good if they didn't know where the creature was in the first place. Didn't they see that?!
She turned back to the book. But instead of leaving her alone Alistair suddenly tore it from her hands. She gritted her teeth together and she looked straight ahead, trying to control her temper, to remember that yelling at them wouldn't help anything, it would only get her kicked off the wagon. She was wrong.
"These are just scribbles," Alistair pointed out, reminding her of that long ago time when she was a child and another child had asked her how she could read when there were no pictures. Her anger flared again at his ignorance. Then again, maybe it would be better if this was a task she could do by herself. At least she wouldn't have to deal with them or their behavior all day long.
She grabbed the book back from him. "It's called another language," and this time she found herself hoping he was insulted. Her temper was wearing thin but after a glimpse back she realized he was staring at her with some interest. Finally she'd gotten him to see reason. "And one that I know how to translate," she added turning back to the so called scribbles, realizing she had stumbled upon an important section and as soon as she translated it she would know exactly where to find the creature. "Huh!" she said drawing Alistair in further. She wished she didn't need them to slay the beast for her, because with this information she felt like she could go after it on her own. But it was a silly idea. She would die, surely. She'd never handled a sword and the small dagger she'd gotten from the supplies wouldn't be enough…would it?
"What?" he asked, looking over her shoulder distracting her from her courageous dreams of grandeur.
She closed the book and set it in her lap. "Nothing, just scribbles," she answered purposefully getting on his nerves and giving him a taste of his own medicine.
It appeared to have worked. "We're here to protect the land girl," he said in a chastising voice, the anger for her clear in his voice at the world "girl". She wanted to correct him, to tell him that she'd lived already more than most women her age ever would in a lifetime. But she kept the thought to herself. She was not a girl. She was a young woman capable of more than what any of the men in her life, past or present, thought. Suddenly her earlier thoughts didn't seem so ridiculous. What was a beast compared to what she'd already faced? She could do this. She could be a hero. "That book tells us where to go you shall share it with us," Alistair insisted.
She looked back at him proudly. She'd arrived at where she wanted to-convincing him that she had important information. Only suddenly she was wondering if this was where she really wanted to be after all. And there was something else. She didn't like the look on Alistair's face. It told her that she had overstepped, and she had finally over stayed her welcome. A small family farm caught her eye and she could see him glance quickly over to it as well. To him it was much more than a family farm, it was their ticket to good fortune. It wouldn't be as smooth as they'd hoped, but at least they wouldn't leave her alone. Her time was up, it was written plain as day on his face. If not now then it would be, as soon as she gave up that information. And if she refused then it would definitely be sooner rather than later, then her heroic dreams would be over before they ever really got started.
She looked at the path unfurling behind the wagon. Maybe there was a third option. They were stronger and could track better. It was silly. They would beat her there before she even figured out where she was. But, maybe if she chose her words a little more carefully… She turned the sentence she'd just translated over in her head again and again. It would be a shame if she misread one of the symbols…for them at least. But it might actually give her the time she needed to get ahead of them, to find the Yaoguai on her own and figure out a way to kill it herself. She sighed, her mind made up. "It says we'll find the Yaoguai by the lake," she offered, loud enough so that they could all hear her instructions clearly.
"The lake you say," Alistair verified with interest.
"Yes," she set the book down beside her, trying to figure out her next move, the next step to enact this plan that she had forming in her mind.
"You heard her Claude, we're going to the lake!" she heard Alistair call over his shoulder.
Suddenly she felt a boot at her back and the cart beneath her vanished as she hit ground with an unprepared thud. She watched them go on without her. She had known they were going to leave her but she hadn't expected for them not even to stop the cart! Or that they'd take her belongings with them. "Wait!" she called as they moved on. That book was her only chance, she needed it back!
As if reading her thoughts Alistair picked up the book and tossed it into the air calling "don't forget your book" in a final taunting voice.
It landed beside her and she could hear them laugh as she reached out to grab the important object. With relief she stood up again and began brushing herself off, the rest she could bear to part with, but so long as she had this book, and the dust Dreamy had given her, she wasn't without hope. Nevertheless she opened the book and found the passage that she had been examining only moments ago. Nervously she double checked the glyphs just to make sure that she had read them correctly. She smiled to herself when she saw that she had.
"Enjoy the lake!" she called after them, making a final jest of her own, before looking back at the glyphs. "The Yaoguai prefers mountain habitats to all others," she smiled looking at the picture of a dark cave etched into the paper. They'd figure it out eventually, she had only bought herself time and nothing more. She'd have to hope that there would be courage that she could pick up between here and there.
Belle's a smarty alright. I'm sorry for how this chapter turned out. Sometimes they do things for dramatic effect on TV that don't make sense in real life, like the whole "if Belle didn't know she was going to be pushed off the cart then why would she lie to them"? There really is no good way to make that make sense, but I did my best with the idea that perhaps she knew they were going to leave her there with the farm family (not kidding there is actually a farm there in the story) and that's why she did it. Risky, but it also makes her look good when it works the way she wants it too so...win for Belle?!
Skitzoeinhoven and Katido thank you for your awesome reviews! I love them and I'm so glad that you are with me in this to the bitter end. I promise, after this little adventure then Moments Seen and Unseen comes up pretty quickly and she and Rumple will be reunited. Just get through this last little arc and you are home free! Peace and Happy Reading!
