Author's note: Dang, it's been a while. Sorry! I should be posting more regularly now. (I was hoping to finish the first draft for NaNoWriMo 2020, then hoping to finish in December, then... you know how it goes...)
"A party! How delightful!" Rumplestiltskin didn't bother with gates or gate guards. He stepped straight out of the shadows into the banquet hall of Regina's castle. She wasn't there, but Ursula was, sampling the feast laid out for guests who had already met a grisly end.
"You!" Ursula tossed a half-eaten slice of venison at him. It missed, falling instead onto one of the corpses littering the floor, by the look of him a nobleman without the sense to avoid an invitation from the Evil Queen.
Rumplestiltskin grinned, lifting a hand to throw the sea witch across the table with a burst of magic force, dishes and crockery flying everywhere. "But I find your celebration a wee bit premature. Stealing from the Dark One? A fatal mistake."
"I don't know what the hell you're on about," said Ursula, lurching back upright in a swirl of tentacles.
"Yes, you do, dearie." Rumplestiltskin curled his fingers and squeezed. Ursula choked and rose into the air.
"Gatecrashing again? Sad little man, never invited to the best parties." A tall, slender woman with striking black and white hair stepped out of an alcove.
Without dropping Ursula, Rumplestiltskin turned to the new arrival. "Cruella! Thought I caught a whiff of gin and desperation."
Cruella snapped her fingers. Two tigers slunk out from behind her, feline eyes nailed on Rumplestiltskin. "Now run along, Dark One, before Fluffy and Moppet decide it's playtime."
"Cat and mouse games?" sneered Rumplestiltskin. A wave of his other hand sent the tigers into a deep slumber. He had already deduced Cruella's involvement with the wolves, and prepared the spell before his invasion. "I don't think so."
Without her animal minions, Cruella had little magic of her own. Rumplestiltskin had been careful to keep to his more human form, and warned Cogsworth to stay out of her way. Soon Rumplestiltskin had both Ursula and Cruella by the throats.
In her desperation, Ursula managed to free herself enough to choke out a sentence. "She isn't dead, but she will be if..."
"Regina," hissed Rumplestiltskin. "Regina has her..." And must have fled with her hostage.
"And your little bride will be dead before you catch up to her," Cruella found her voice in Rumplestiltskin's moment of distraction. "Oh, look at that face. What's a prank or two between friends?"
"Tell me where she went!"
"Should we let him sweat a bit more, Ursula, darling?"
"He deserves it, after leaving us to the Chernabog," growled Ursula.
Rumplestiltskin felt the balance of magic shift as they named the debt. He couldn't kill them now without incurring a backlash from fate because he had wronged them at Bald Mountain. He couldn't afford to waste the energy to fend off whatever unexpected consequence fate might throw at him, not when Belle's life was imperiled, so he nodded. "Fine. Tell me where Belle is, and you two can keep your wretched lives."
"Regina thinks I don't know," Ursula said at last, the bargain sealed only after a show of bluster and gratuitous insults. "But nothing that touches the sea is hidden from my kin..."
Cogsworth met him on the desolate hilltop outside the castle. "No sign of them."
"Keep looking. I've sent Ursula and Cruella on their way," said Rumplestiltskin.
"...alive?" Cogsworth sounded faintly surprised.
"They may be useful later." The last thing he needed was for people to think he'd lost his edge, so he added, "If they get in my way again, it's easy enough to kill them. They told me where Regina took Belle. They didn't mention anything of Lumiere or the griffons."
"There was no trace of their scent anywhere in this vicinity," said Cogsworth. "I suspect they may not have been taken at all."
"That's as may be, but Belle can't wait. She's in danger every moment the Evil Queen has her."
"But the Evil Queen is no match for the Dark One," Cogsworth pointed out. "You find Belle. I will seek insight from the Wood for the others."
"Fine." Rumplestiltskin conceded the logic of Cogsworth's plan, and the two parted ways.
According to Cruella and Ursula, Regina had taken refuge in a sea-washed fortress off the coast of Yrkandos. It had been abandoned when the shoreline had eroded and the border shifted farther to the west. It was little more than a ruin now, but the constantly moving salt water around it had magnified the effect of Regina's wards, strongly enough that Rumplestiltskin might never had found it without help.
Luckily for him, Cruella and Ursula were no more loyal to Regina than they were to anyone except each other, a dark partnership that Rumplestiltskin had no interest in prying into. Even so, he made sure that he hadn't been followed, and took the time to check for traps and ambushes before venturing in. One mistake, and Belle could die between one heartbeat and the next.
Regina had grown overconfident, thought Rumplestiltskin as he picked an invisible hole between the weave of her protection spells. She was skilled, but did she really think she could get away with this? Not this time!
He found her and caught her in a dank corridor in the dungeons. Water pooled on the floor and dripped from the ceiling. The roar of the surf drowned out the angry words they flung at each other, until finally Rumplestiltskin closed in and wrapped his hand around her throat, while her hand gripped what she thought was Belle's heart. Belle herself lay unconscious in the cell beside them, sealed off with magic too powerful to break through before a heart could be crushed.
"Stop!" gasped Regina, her face a mask of steel, with only a hint of fear in her eyes. He didn't need to read lips to comprehend the next words from her mouth: "Or the wench dies..." Her fingers tightened around the soft, red lump.
Rumplestiltskin laughed. "You think you can save yourself? After what you've done?" He wrapped the fingers of his free hand around the one that held the heart. "You think you can stop me?"
"I know you, Rumple," hissed Regina. "Under that scaly exterior, you're weak enough to think you can love someone. My mother told me—"
"Shut up!" Rumplestiltskin cut off the rest of her air supply, but the defiant smirk wasn't so easily silenced. "You think you have leverage over me?" He closed his hand suddenly, the Dark One's strength easily crushing both Regina's fingers and what they held. Regina's eyes widened in shock and pain. When he loosened his fist, dust leaked out in a fine stream. "You have nothing..." Savoring the terror now in her eyes, Rumplestiltskin eased his grip slightly. "...except your last words. Anything to say, dearie?"
"You... monster."
"No, no, try something more original," Rumplestiltskin taunted.
"You... you don't want to kill me." Regina recovered enough of her poise to spit out the words loudly enough to be heard over the sea.
"On the contrary, I think I'll enjoy it very much." He increased the pressure again.
"I have information. Valuable information about the Author!" she shouted.
"The what?" The question slipped out before he could school his face into cold indifference.
Regina saw his ignorance, and pounced. "Oh, I'm not talking about your common, garden variety scribbler, but the Author, the one whose pen controls our destinies."
"You're lying."
"Haven't you ever wondered why fate seems set on punishing certain people? It's because someone else is writing your story." Regina's eyes now gleamed with triumph. "He's the only one who can write you a happy ending."
"Villains don't get happy endings," Rumplestiltskin said flatly, knowledge carved deep in his bones, but he couldn't help wondering.
"Well, you certainly won't, not unless you can persuade the Author to change your story," Regina purred.
"L-lies," stammered Rumplestiltskin. Bae? What if it's true? What if he can save Bae? "If he's so powerful, you would have commissioned your own happiness!"
"Not even the Author can bring back the dead," Regina said more somberly, unable to hide the misery behind rage. "What was it you like to say? 'Dead is dead.'"
"Ah." And not only said it, he had gone to great pains to demonstrate it to her.
Regina took a deep breath, her skin shivering under his loosened grip. "But you, it's different for you, isn't it? Is there a story you'd like to change?"
"Of course not," snapped Rumplestiltskin, but he knew she didn't believe him. "Still, I am curious. Who is this Author? Where can I find him?"
"That's something of a secret. A valuable secret." As Rumplestiltskin's fingers tightened again, Regina warned him, "The kind of secret one takes to the grave!"
"Tell me!" He shook her with tooth-rattling violence, the darkness wanting to rend her limb from limb and rip the information from her heart, but he knew she would go to dust before telling him.
"Promise," she choked out. "Promise you won't kill me, and I'll tell you his name and where I met him last."
"Agreed," he ground out at last, dropping her with no more warning than that.
Regina staggered back, rubbing at her throat. "He calls himself Isaac Heller."
"And how did you happen to meet him?"
Regina shrugged. "Cruella and he have something of a history, it seems. We found him at the Wren's Nest tavern in the Sherwood Forest."
Rumplestiltskin gave her a long look, still half-convinced she was lying. But if she wasn't, that could mean everything he had hoped for. He could change what he had seen in his visions. He need no longer rely on the dangled promises of the Wood Beyond. He could free Belle to live the life she deserved: she had long since repaid the price of saving Avonlea from the ogres with her years in the shadow of the Dark One's name.
On that thought, he unraveled the spell keeping Belle prisoner and teleported her to safety.
Regina gave him a look. "Planning a nice funeral for her? You really are a monster."
Rumplestiltskin chuckled. "Oh, she isn't dead."
"Impossible!"
"Someday, if things go well, perhaps I'll teach you about a trick I learned from my father, that he called 'Follow the Lady'." He paused for a moment, then said darkly, "If things don't go well, or if you dare threaten or harm Belle again, the only thing you'll be learning is how much pain is possible for one soul to suffer as they burn in hell." He transported himself away, not bothering to wait for Regina's reply.
Belle woke up in confusion, opening her eyes to darkness and cold, still air. She lifted a hand towards her face, but her arm was lighter than expected and she hit herself in the nose. "Ow!" Even her voice sounded strange.
She lowered her arm cautiously. Why had she thought it would be heavier? Then she remembered. The shackles!
Shackles? She shook her head, trying to clear it. She summoned light to her hand, the small globe illuminating a familiar room, one much the same as a hundred others she had stayed in. She recognized the painting on the wall as a Skapsian landscape. The brazier under the table was dark, its fuel consumed hours ago as far as she could tell. She was in the inn in Skapsia, not a crumbling fortress. She was on a bed, not a muddy stone floor.
Had it all been a dream (a nightmare)? The memory was vivid. She had been a prisoner, chained to the wall, her senses numbed from whatever force blocked her magic. A woman had come to gloat, her voice brimming with barely restrained murder. Regina. The Evil Queen of the White Kingdom. She must have known who Belle was all along — if it had been real.
"Lumiere? Otulissa? Eskereye?" No answer, and no sign of their presence. Then she saw the cuts and bruises on her wrists and gasped. Shackle marks? But the leather band was gone, the one stitched with sigils of power. A strange numbness had emanated from it, deadening her magic. She remembered, then, calling out for Rumplestiltskin.
He hadn't answered. Or had he? She was here and not in the cold, wet dungeon. Belle touched her sleeve to her nose, closing her eyes and sniffing. She smelled traces of salt water, sea air, in the cloth. It was real. It had happened. She looked around the room, the room that wasn't a dungeon cell, and a glint of metal caught her eye. There, hanging around the bedpost behind her, her crystal pendant. The queen took it from me, she remembered. Someone had returned it to her.
"Rumplestiltskin?" Belle whispered the name tentatively. When no one answered, she slipped the chain back around her neck. "If it was you... then thank you. Thank you for saving me."
Nothing.
Belle sighed. She could feel traces of his presence when she touched the crystal. Who did he think he was fooling? Why wouldn't he talk to her? What had happened to the Evil Queen? Surely she wouldn't have allowed her prisoner to be taken without a fight. What had happened to her companions? Belle had been alone in her cell, and Regina hadn't said anything about any others.
She glanced at the window to see that the sky was beginning to turn light, and the first stirrings of the day could faintly be heard from outside. She eventually made her way downstairs to speak with the innkeeper, to find that days (days!) had gone by, but someone had already paid for the room and the stabling of her horse. It hadn't been Lumiere. Further questioning revealed that neither he nor his 'pet griffons' had been during Belle's absence.
Belle remembered Lumiere's magic lessons and decided to try a basic divination spell. She had accumulated her own small map collection, as was the practice for any self-respecting scribe-messenger in the guild. She didn't have anything belonging to her friends, but she wrote their names on pieces of paper, which she folded up into origami birds. But no matter which map she tried, the birds refused to settle. She fell asleep somewhere into her third time going through the maps.
Daylight found her trudging through the woods, retracing the path she had taken before. The snow had erased all traces of her passage, but by now Belle had trained herself to remember a path once trod. It was a matter of pride for guild members not to get lost no matter what obscure hamlet they were sent to.
This time around, she noticed when the forest changed around her. The Infinite Forest. Belle suppressed a shudder at her own carelessness. This time around, she had also taken the time to cast a few protection spells on herself before venturing out. Finding the spot where she had fallen into the Evil Queen's trap, she set up the components of the divination spell again.
Before she could cast it again, familiar voices called out to her from through the trees.
"Belle! What are you doing out here again?" It was Lumiere, followed by Cogsworth, Otulissa, and Eskereye. "You will be catching your death of the cold."
"Looking for you," Belle said, a bewildered smile growing on her face. "I thought the Evil Queen had taken you."
"We are not such easy meat for the wolves," said Lumiere proudly.
We ran away, admitted Otulissa. We thought you were dead...
"A trick. Did I not say so?" huffed Lumiere. His eyes gleamed in relief. "But even so I am glad to see you with the breath still in you."
Not much use in saying things, when you can't do anything about it, Eskereye perched on a branch above them. Got us lost in a mold-infested shadow labyrinth for months, didn't you?
"Months?" Belle squeaked in alarm.
"Months for them, mere days for you," said Cogsworth. "Our Queen has mastery of the threads of time where our people are concerned, and these two griffons have been to Nevethe, so they were able to tag along on sufferance."
"In the event, you were the one in danger, Belle," said Lumiere. "Cogsworth told me what happened. It is good to be seeing you safe and well."
Cogsworth looked around. "Where's Rumplestiltskin? Shouldn't he be here?"
Belle frowned. "I haven't seen him at all. Was he here? Rude of him to poof away without even a hello. I hope he isn't like that after we get married!"
Cogsworth and Lumiere exchanged glances, and small sighs.
"One would hope not," agreed Cogsworth. "I'll have a word in his ear. Well. Until later, then." He vanished into the shadows.
After that, they decided to put more space between themselves and the Evil Queen.
"Besides, I'm sick of cold and snow," said Belle. "Let's go to Opona." Opona was a kingdom to the south, on the other side of the Middle Sea. Her guild wasn't recognized there, but the sunny climate and exotic cuisine were worth it. Winter in the north meant endless salt meat and tubers and pickled vegetables, but in Opona, fresh produce was available year-round.
Having made sure that Belle was safe, Rumplestiltskin turned his thoughts to the Author. He had heard rumors of such a thing, but dismissed it as a fanciful personification of fate, much like the three sisters sometimes called the Morai. If it was possible to speak or bargain with them, he had never succeeded, and not for lack of trying. But Regina claimed to have spoken to the man. No doubt it was a trick, if not on her part than on this so-called Author's. It wouldn't be the first time she had fallen for an illusion, after all.
Fate's power is real enough, came the resentful whisper of the darkness. Meddle with it at your peril.
Speaking from experience? wondered Rumplestiltskin.
The darkness muttered and growled, throwing up indistinct memories from his predecessors. Rumplestiltskin had wished for such power ever since a Seer's words had changed the course of his life and even more so now, after seeing the visions of his son's death, but that was one wish beyond his reach. Only the gods had the power to forge instruments capable of manipulating fate, the Shears of Destiny being the prime example. Too bad they were lost, and by their nature impervious to any seeking magic. It was remotely possible that the Author was, or wielded, another such divine instrument. Rumplestiltskin couldn't discount the possibility, or the possibility that Nevethe had hidden the knowledge from him in order to manipulate him.
He waited until Cogsworth was otherwise occupied, then slipped away to the Sherwood Forest where Isaac Heller had last been spotted. The man wore the guise of a common peddler, but otherwise made little attempt to hide his tracks. Rumplestiltskin followed his trail from inn to village to inn through the Sherwood Forest across the border to a market town in the Maritime Kingdom. Rumplestiltskin hid his face under his hood and watched Isaac from a dark corner of the tavern.
He was engaged in a drunken game of cards, and by the look of him, no more honest than Rumplestiltskin's own father. Chance turned Isaac's gaze in the Dark One's direction. Rumplestiltskin saw him turn and mutter something to his companions, then slip away. He wouldn't get far, thought Rumplestiltskin. Not with the spell cutting the tavern off from the outside world. There would be no escape out the back door.
After a moment, Rumplestiltskin stood up and followed Isaac. After another moment, he forgot his errand completely, the spell silently dissipating as if it had never been. What was he doing here in the back of the inn? Was it only to empty his bladder against a wall?
That done, his thoughts turned back to the purpose of his expedition. His pair of lovebirds, so painstakingly cultivated, had fled their nest. Snow White's face was plastered through all the kingdoms of the Enchanted Forest over a price in gold, and her Prince Charming, the ersatz James, had been disowned by his adoptive father. He wasn't a complete idiot, which was why he had smuggled his mother out of Prydania to the remote backlands of the Maritime Kingdom.
Rumplestiltskin's original plan was past salvaging. Curse caster or not, he would not stand for Regina threatening his family. His family? When had he started thinking of Belle as his family?
She has a family already, and it doesn't include you. She doesn't love you. She doesn't even know you.
Rumplestiltskin gritted his teeth against his own dark thoughts. He was here to see if the runaway royals could be any use to him. Regina could still be manipulated indirectly. There was still a chance.
The shepherd prince had settled his mother into a farm in a mountain valley, one prosperous enough to hire extra workers. He and his princess stayed just long enough to get married in a commoner's hand-fasting ceremony. Rumplestiltskin watched from a distance, hidden under a glamour as an ordinary farmhand. He couldn't help but feel a twinge of envy at the sight.
He shook off the thought. What was there to envy? They parted the next week from the only family left to them, for fear that their presence would be a danger. Regina and George had a long reach: a promise of gold could turn a stranger or a friend into a traitor, and while George couldn't spare the gold, his spies and assassins were among the best in the realm.
Rumplestiltskin left them to their fugitive lives and returned himself to the Dark Castle. A few months later they turned up on his doorstep. Rumplestiltskin had long ago set enchanted paths through the Infinite Forest to let prospective clients find their way from any kingdom in the Enchanted Forest to the Dark Castle — if they were desperate enough. Each of them had visited him before, separately, but this time they came together to demand the Dark One's assistance.
"We heard you've broken with Regina," Snow White said. "And you've helped us before..."
"For a price, dearie!" Rumplestiltskin paused his spinning to turn and grin wickedly at her. "I hope you're not here to waste my time again."
Snow White scowled at him, her hand going to her throat, even though she wore no necklace for him to snatch this time. "I'm here for the sake of my kingdom. The longer it takes to defeat the Queen, the more people will suffer."
Rumplestiltskin glanced at the prince. "Why don't you ask your dear father for help? His army is by all accounts far superior to Regina's."
"He's no father to me," David said grimly.
Rumplestiltskin tittered. "Oh dearie dear, how unfortunate!"
"George may have a better army, but Regina has magic." Snow glared at the Dark One accusingly. "Magic you taught her."
Rumplestiltskin twirled a hand. "Shame to let talent go to waste. How she uses it is up to her."
"She uses it to murder people!"
"Tch. And you want me to stop her?" Rumplestiltskin considered the fragments of the future he had glimpsed. Regina wouldn't be queen for much longer, but what part would he play in her fall? He had already taught her the folly of trying to play the hostage game against him, and only left her alive because she might be useful to him later. (If he had ever had another reason, he no longer remembered it.) He hopped to his feet and turned to face the two primary targets of Regina's ire, pondering possibilities.
"She's trying to murder Snow." David shifted forward protectively in front of his wife.
"Hmm." Their love blazed to Rumplestiltskin's sight, a power that could move worlds. He had finally succeeded in bottling the magic of that love, which was half of what he had wanted from them. As for the other half — a Savior to break the darkest of curses — he only needed them alive. "And Georgie-boy is trying to murder both of you, yes, yes. Tell you what, you can become citizens of Schlaraffenland and you'll naturally be under my protection. Quite, quite safe!"
"No!" Snow White looked horrified. "We'll never sell our souls to darkness."
David nodded firmly. "Of course not."
Rumplestiltskin gasped in mock offense. "Please. All the souls in my care are well looked-after, which is more than I can say for some deities I could name!"
"We won't stand here and listen to such blasphemy," said Snow firmly.
"Then by all means, have a seat!" Rumplestiltskin twirled a hand, conjuring two wooden chairs to his 'audience chamber', which with its bookshelves and spinning wheel and work benches had more the feel of an alchemist's lab or study than a nobleman's receiving room.
Snow White and David eyed the chairs warily, declining to sit down.
"Not to your liking?" twittered Rumplestiltskin. "Looking for something more majestic to rest your royal bottoms on? The throne of the White Kingdom?"
David opened his mouth.
"Na na na! If that's what you twuly desire, that can be arranged. At a price."
"What price?" asked Snow.
"Why, nothing more than your firstborn child. Your heir." Rumplestiltskin cackled with glee. It wasn't a serious offer, not for these two, who were far too heroic for such a trade.
"Never." David's hand went to the hilt of his sword.
Rumplestiltskin ignored the implied threat. "Your mother wasn't so squeamish, and lucky for you she wasn't."
"Don't listen to him, Charming," snapped Snow. "I've heard the stories. This is how Cockayne fell under the shadow of the Dark One. I'll never let that happen to the White Kingdom!"
"There was a bit more to the story than that," murmured Rumplestiltskin, but he could see the royal visitors were not in any frame of mind to listen. "But if you want the throne for yourselves, then it's up to you to take it and hold it."
"You refuse to help us, then?" asked David.
"No help, no hindrance," said Rumplestiltskin with a wave of his hand. "It's not the Dark One's role to play kingmaker, dearie." If people would just think for half a minute, they ought to know better than to play this game. If the Dark One could be bought to overthrow one king or queen, what was to stop the next would-be ruler from buying his services as well? There was a reason traitors tended to die soon after the regimes they betrayed. The Dark One wasn't so easily killed, but no one who owed their rule to him would ever sit comfortably upon the throne.
Snow frowned. "The Frontlands and Cockayne were free kingdoms once. Now they're part of your 'Schlaraffenland'."
"Free?" Rumplestiltskin chuckled darkly. "That depends on one's point of view. If you're here to overthrow the Dark One's rule..."
"Not today, but good always triumphs over evil in the end," declared Snow White. "Come on, Charming, we don't need his help. We'll find another way."
"Yes, yes, of course you will." Rumplestiltskin shooed them to the exit. "Give my regards to Regina!"
"I don't understand," complained Snow White once they were (presumably) out of earshot of the Dark One, here on the road that led down to the village in the valley beneath the castle. "He was willing to help me before, when I wanted to kill the queen. He gave me an enchanted bow."
"Which you shot me with," David reminded her. "He's the Dark One. He was trying to darken your heart..."
Snow White sighed, thinking it had to be more than that. "Then why did he tell you where to find me?"
"Who knows what's in that twisted mind of his?"
"Nothing good, no doubt," said Snow White. "He did steal my mother's necklace last time, when I thought you had made a deal with him for Excalibur."
David's eyes lit up. "But I hadn't. Everything we did, we did on our own that time. Remember? You almost surrendered to your stepmother, but we showed you that we could fight back. And we did, together."
"And then King George sent his soldiers after us, and now all our friends are scattered and in hiding." Snow White clung to hope as best she could, but every ally had been whittled away one by one, until she had thought the Dark One was their best chance of victory. Now that was gone, too.
"What about the fairies? They've helped your family before, haven't they?"
Snow White shook her head. "It's all they can do to keep our friends from being slaughtered. They aren't powerful enough to take on armies directly."
"We can rebuild ours." David nodded at the village they were fast approaching. "Surely there are people here who want to be free of the Dark One. If they join with us, we can offer them a place in your kingdom, Snow."
"If we win it back from my stepmother." Snow took a breath, forcing herself to have faith.
"And we will." David smiled, taking her hand. "What was it you told me? Hope is a powerful thing, and not even the Evil Queen can take that away from us."
"You're right, Charming." Snow looked at the pair of beggars lounging by the village gates. The village walls were old and crumbling, the watch tower fallen into ruin, a testament to over a century of peace ever since the Frontlands and Cockayne had joined their borders and become a single nation. But peace didn't necessarily mean prosperity, or why would there be beggars? At least Snow could offer them better than that, she thought, and approached them with her best friendly smile. "Good day to you."
The beggars, two men in patched rags leaning on wooden staves, watched them with faces that gave little away. One of them held out a wooden bowl, mumbling, "Alms, alms for the poor?"
David glanced at Snow, then reached into his waistband and extracted a few coins to drop in the bowl. "Here you go. Look, I know what it is to be poor; I was poor, once. But we can help you."
"Oh yeah?" said the other beggar. "How's that, then?"
"Snow here is the rightful queen of the White Kingdom," explained David.
Snow nodded. "My stepmother has usurped the throne, and rules the land through terror and magic. If you're willing to help us win back our kingdom, we can promise you'll have a place there. You won't have to beg anymore."
The beggar's mouth twitched in a sly grin. "Ah, well, we have a place here, m'lady. This is our home."
Snow and David exchanged glances. David said in a low voice, "Is it the Dark One? We can help..."
The first beggar, the one with the bowl, chuckled. "Now, seems to me that mostly you folks come out here wanting him to help you..."
Snow made a face. "He turned us down."
"Oh, aye? So now you're coming to us, instead?" The beggar smirked. "Coming down in the world, your lordships. You must be hard up, to be begging the beggars."
"We're not begging," insisted David. "We're asking for all good people to stand together against the evil in the world."
Snow winced at hearing her stepmother called 'evil' out loud, but she didn't contradict him. "Regina murdered my father to take the throne of the White Kingdom. The longer she rules, the more cruel she's become. We need to stop her."
"The world be a cruel place, sure enough," said the beggar. "But we does our bit here, and that's our life."
The other beggar coughed, "Ah, it's no use, they're just like the others. Desperate enough to ask the Dark One, not desperate enough to pay the price he asked. Happens. If the day comes you're past that, then, well, there's always a deal to be made."
"Not with you two, clearly," said Snow sadly. "Come on, Charming, maybe some of the villagers will listen. We can try the tavern."
The tavern was, if anything, worse. The locals gave them looks of weary amusement as Snow tried to inspire them to rise up against evil, whether here or in the White Kingdom. Snow and David finally gave up and retired to an inn room, deciding to rest for a night before making the trek back to their homeland.
"I don't understand." Snow was bewildered by their failure to recruit even a single villager to their cause. "You'd think they'd be eager to free themselves from the Dark One's dominion."
"It's what they're used to," said David. He seemed less surprised by their reception. "They don't seem too unhappy. To ask them to risk everything to run off to a foreign kingdom under the flag of a foreign queen..." He shrugged. "It's just too much of a risk."
"But we're trying to build something better," argued Snow.
David reached out to take her hand. "I know. And I trust you, but these people don't. How could they?"
Snow sighed. "You're right. It takes time."
"Maybe time better spent in our own country," said David. "We'll go back and try again."
"Spoken like a true hero." Snow smiled fondly.
"We can do it, Snow. They want you as their queen, not Regina. They're just afraid. We have to show them we can fight back, and they'll join us."
"I hope so."