Author's Note: If you've read the Outlander books (or at least the first one), this will have some familiar events and dialogue in it. I'm pulling direct quotes and trying to imitate Diana Gabaldon's style as best I can.
If you have not read the books but are enjoying the new show on Starz, this story is going to move well ahead of the show and end up spoiling major events for you.
You have been warned!
People go missing all the time. Infant girls get left on the side of the road by their parents. Watch-thieves don't show up at the predetermined location. Criminals jump bail.
Most of those people are found, and there is a good explanation about why they went missing.
Usually.
.
"Neal? Come to bed," I called, snuggling into the down-filled blankets. After years spent in sunny Tallahassee, Inverness in October seems particularly frigid.
"Just a minute, Ems," my husband replied. "I think I've found something…"
His voice trailed off as he flipped through the box of old papers and reports the priest had given him. He pulled a small leather-bound journal out and moved to the chair by the fire.
I sighed If he'd gone to the chair, he was certainly not coming to bed anytime soon. With a muffled curse, I curled up into a ball and shivered myself to sleep. I'd gotten used to sleeping alone while Neal was in prison. After five years apart, we'd become different people. The trip to Scotland had been pitched to me as a second honeymoon—a chance to get to know one another again, but Neal seemed obsessed with genealogy all of a sudden.
.
In the morning, Neal was immediately off to investigate some bit of lineage that apparently couldn't wait until after breakfast. I spent the meal with Mrs. Baird and then wandered the town on foot until tea time. Neal still hadn't returned to the bread and breakfast, so I took tea with Mrs. Baird, and she offered to read the leaves at the bottom of my cup. Finding them contradictory, she asked to see my hand. I snorted when she told me what my large thumb meant and blushed when she pointed out my generous mound of Venus. The rest of her readings seemed silly.
.
I was honestly surprised when Neal told me he wanted to go watch the witches.
"Witches?" I asked, raising an eyebrow at him.
"Yeah, the vicar's housekeeper is one of them," he said, rubbing his hands together as though that news was somehow exciting.
I'd always thought of Neal as a down-to-earth guy, but since he'd gotten out of prison, it seemed like he was starting to believe the fairy tales he'd told me one drunken night when we were first dating.
.
Late that night—and it was Halloween, of course—I found myself creeping through bushes and shrubs to spy on a group of women dressed in bedsheets dancing in a ring of standing stones. We stayed until sunrise and made love in the heather before heading back into town. It wasn't until after supper that I realized my Swan necklace was gone.
I searched through our room and asked Mrs. Baird, but she hadn't seen it. Neal and I searched the car, and finally, I thought it must have come off during our romp near Craigh na Dun. Neal had plans with the vicar again, so I asked Mrs. Baird if I could borrow her car. She consented easily, and I drove myself back out into the highlands. My necklace wasn't to be found in bushes near the road where Neal and I had dallied, so I climbed the hill to the circle of stones.
They were humming.
I saw a flash of silver near the largest stone, the one with the cleft through the middle. Bending to fetch my necklace, I placed my hand on the stone.
The stone screamed.
I can't really describe what happened next. Nothing moved, and yet I felt as though I did. My vision blacked, and when I arose again, everything about me felt different.
I heard the sound of people fighting. Without thinking, I headed toward the sounds.
A group of people in some sort of costumes ran past, pursued by men in strange black armor. Had I wandered into some Halloween frivolity? Was there a Renaissance faire nearby? I pushed my way through the trees and ran directly into someone who'd been hiding so well, I would have gone right past him if he hadn't grabbed my arm. His other hand covered my mouth, and then he shoved me against a nearby embankment.
"Neal!" I said, but as soon as the name was past my lips, I realized my mistake. The man was too old to be my husband, though there was a strange resemblance, like they were related. "You're not Neal."
"Indeed, I'm not," the strange man said in mocking tone, his eyes roving over me.
"Who are you?" I demanded, my hands balling into fists.
"Who am I?" he asked as though the question was ridiculous and then giggled. "I might ask the same question, dearie, and with considerably more justification."
We stared at each other for a moment, weighing, measuring.
"Who the hell are you?" I asked again, meaning to sound confident but sounding frightened instead.
He grinned as though the idea of someone not knowing him was an exquisite novelty.
"I, dearie, am Rumpelstiltskin," he said in an amused, confident tone. He made an elaborate bow.
My internal lie detector didn't register, and that made my blood run cold. This madman seriously thought he was Rumpelstiltskin.
I broke and ran. I fled blindly, running hard, just trying to get away from the crazy person. A heavy rock struck me in the back, and I tripped, stumbling to the ground. The madman was on top of me in a moment, flipping me over to stare down at me indignantly.
"What the hell did you run for, dearie?" he demanded, looking of all things, perplexed.
"Get off me," I said, my voice shaking. I tried to squirm out from beneath him, but he held firm. He was significantly stronger than he looked.
"What's your name?" he asked slowly, enunciating each words as he narrowed his eyes at me.
A moment of panic seized me. Something deep in my gut told me that I couldn't let this man know my name. I struggled with the instinct, thinking it was strange, but I knew at least I could protect Neal if I didn't give my married name.
"Swan," I said, my voice surprisingly calm. "Emma Swan."
"Emma?" he said, recoiling as if I'd struck him. He scrambled off me and backed away, his face contorting in fear. His gaze travelled over me as I pulled myself up to my own feet.
He was so intent on me, he didn't see the large man step out of the trees behind him. The big guy cracked the creep across the head with a club of some kind and reached for me.
"This way," he said, grabbing my arm.
"And who the hell are you?" I demanded, but I let him pull me along. He'd come to my aid, after all, when he could have snuck past.
He had kind eyes. I wasn't expecting him to hit me with his club, too.
.
I came to with an aching head and vertigo. I felt like I was upside down and swaying. Opening my eyes, I saw that my internal gyroscope hadn't been malfunctioning. I was slung over Big Guy's shoulder as he carried me into an honesty-to-goodness thatch-roofed cottage.
What the actual—?
"What is it you have there, Little John?" a blue-eyed man said from somewhere inside the cottage. I tried to peer around my captor's hip, but he decided just then to set me on my feet.
"I'm not sure, Robin," the big man said. "But the Dark One was attacking her, so it seemed the right thing to rescue her."
The blue-eyed man nodded, and something clicked in my possibly concussed head.
"Robin Hood, seriously?" I said, "you've got to be kidding me."
My outburst seemed to amuse Robin, and he came around the table to get a closer look at me.
"You've heard of me," he said with a grin. "Then you have me at a disadvantage, Miss..?"
"Swan," I said, repeating what I'd told the older man, in case Little John had overheard. "Emma Swan."
"Miss Swan," he said, dipping his head politely. When he straightened up again, he gave me a serious look. "Are you a spy for the Dark One or the Evil Queen?"
"What?" I said, blinking in confused shock. "No."
"She could be lying," a weasel-faced man said from the other side of the room.
"She could be," Robin said. "but we can figure that out later. We must do something about Killian, first. He can't ride in his current state."
All eyes turned toward the hearth, and I noticed the young, dark-haired man sitting beside the fire for the first time. His shirt was torn, revealing a clearly dislocated left shoulder. I flinched reflexively. I'd had my own shoulder dislocated while working as a bail bondsperson, and I knew how uncomfortable it was. I'd had to help Neal set his once when we'd still be living on the streets, and it had been educational, but unpleasant. Later, I'd learned how to do it properly in a first aid and defense class I'd taken while Neal was in prison.
"We can't wait for a healer with so many black knights nearby," Robin said gently to the injured man. "We'll have to force it back in, Killian."
The dark-haired man lifted his head. His face was sheened with sweat, his hair plastered to his forehead over eyes even bluer that Robin's. His face was pale from the pain, but he managed a tiny smirk.
"Won't even buy me a drink first?" he said in a slightly shaking baritone.
Robin laughed and handed Killian a flask. The injured man uncapped the flask with his teeth and took a long pull. Then he nodded solemnly and handed the flask back to Robin. Robin nodded at a couple of the men in the room, and they approached Killian from different angles, preparing to hold him still and try to force the arm. The angle was wrong, though, and I knew from experience that they were just going to injure him further.
"Don't you dare do that!" I exclaimed, stepping forward. I knew I could have kept quiet, I might even have been able to slip outside while they were distracted, but I just couldn't let them hurt the man out of ignorance.
"What do you mean?" Robin said, his and all eyes, including Killian's turned to me.
"You'll break his arm if you do it like that," I snapped, stepping through them and crouching across from the injured man. "You have to get the bone lined up properly first, or you'll do more damage."
I took Killian's arm in my hands and gently moved it around until it was where it needed to be. He winced, but his eyes never left mine.
"This is the worst part," I said softly, getting ready to pop the ball of his humerus back into the socket.
He gave me a ghost of a smile.
"It can't hurt much worse than it does now, lass," he said bravely. "Get on with it, aye?"
I nodded and did what had to be done.
The bone reset with a loud pop, and Killian's face contorted in pain and then relief. His eyes hadn't left mine for the duration. He gave a huff of breath, his whole body sagging a degree.
"It doesn't hurt," he said, his eyes closing for a moment. He opened them and grinned at me before inspecting his shoulder with his other hand.
I started reciting care instructions for a recently dislocated shoulder as I made him a sling out of his ruined shirt. Killian continued to watch me with his impossibly blue eyes.
"Can you ride?" Robin asked Killian when I'd finished my speech.
"Aye," he said, nodding.
I was jostled away from Killian by some of the men who wanted to examine my handiwork for themselves. I took a moment to catch my breath and try to process what was going on. Rumpelstiltskin. Little John. Robin Hood. It didn't make any sense. If they were some kind of role-playing club, why wouldn't they have a medic or break character to tend to their injured friend?
I didn't get much time to think about it. The merry men decided to take me with them, and I couldn't really complain, since my options seemed their rather friendly company or solitude in wherever the hell I was. They were travelling by horseback (of course) and didn't have an extra steed for me, so they put me in the saddle with Killian, since he was injured.
I watched him mount the horse with surprising grace considering his immobilized arm. Robin had given him a short cloak to wrap around his shoulders since his shirt was ruined. The heavy wool ended at his waist, so I had an excellent view of his muscular thighs and perky posterior as he swung up into the saddle. His trousers looked like they'd been as white as his ruined shirt at some point, but they were quite dirty now, stained and ripped in places, tucked into his knee-high black boots.
Robin helped me up to sit in front of Killian. The dark-haired man shifted behind me, making a soft ooph before reaching around me with his good arm to take the reigns. We rode in silence for nearly an hour before it started to rain. The sudden downpour surprised me. Killian fidgeted again, pulling on his cloak.
"What are you doing?" I hissed. "You're going to hurt your shoulder worse!"
"I was trying to get my cloak around you, lass," he said, continuing to shift against my back. "It's surprisingly difficult to do one-handed."
"So now you're being a gentleman?" I muttered. Rain was dripping down the collar of my red leather jacket, but I was surely better protected than he was. "I'm fine."
"I'm always a gentleman," he murmured, continuing to tug on the material until it was draped around me as well as him. He pulled me tight against his chest so that no more water slid down the back of my neck. Rain rolled off the wool of the cloak in little rivulets, leaving us dry and very warm pressed together in our little cocoon. I hadn't known wool was waterproof.
.
We were riding near the front of the caravan, and as the rain thinned to a drizzly mist, I tilted my head back to look up at the narrow band of sky over the trail. I saw something strange in one of the trees, and I straightened up, peering into the foliage to see what the odd shape could be.
"What is it, lass?" Killian murmured, shifting against me when I moved.
"I'm not sure..." I muttered, scanning the trees and then the trail. There was a dark mass in the branches was near a place where a smaller tree had been knocked across the trail by the storm. A slightly muddy detour around the blockage would put us right underneath the… Oh. I gasped and turned my face to whisper to KIllian. "It's a trap!"
Killian sat up straighter, pressing firmly against me.
"Where?" he asked, and I pointed out what I'd seen. He made a little clucking noise at our horse, nudging it forward to where Robin was at the front of the group. He brought our black steed up alongside Robin's pale one and both men slowed their horses as they leaned together for a very brief conversation.
We were nearly to the fallen tree, and Robin made a kind of short whistle, using his hands to help shape the sound. Killian steered our mount roughly to the side and then shoved me unceremoniously into the bushes, hissing for me to keep quiet. I cursed under my breath as I rolled through the prickly branches to crouch at the base of a tree.
With me safely deposited, the ragtag group of riders surged forward, drawing swords and axes and crossbows. Black-clad men with silly plumes of feathers sticking out of their helmets met the riders, and the fight began in earnest. I watched long enough to verify that these were no role-players. Then I turned and ran.
It was instinct, really. I had nowhere to go. Some primitive lizard part of my brain had seen a man's throat slit and put my feet on autopilot. My breath came in great gulping sobs-hysterical, really. Breaking into a clearing with no idea of how long I'd been running, I dropped to my knees and just let my body shake as I tried to slow my breathing. I heard a twig snap and bolted upright, spinning to see what had caused the noise. I desperately wished I had some kind of weapon. I was decent at hand-to-hand fighting, but how could I defend against a sword or axe?
"Relax, lass, it's just me," Killian said, stepping into the clearing.
"That's what I was afraid of," I muttered, though I felt a surge of relief.
He approached me warily, making slow, deliberate movements, like he was soothing a spooked animal, which I suppose in a way he was. He stepped into a pool of light, and I saw the dark stain of blood across the tatters of his ruined shirt.
"You're hurt!" I exclaimed, eyes wide.
He laughed at that.
"It's not my blood, lass," he said with a grin, "well, not most of it."
"Oh," I said, swallowing hard.
"Robin and the others are waiting for us," he said, taking another step forward.
"What if I don't want to go with you?" I said as defiantly as I could. We were alone and he was injured. I could probably get away.
He seemed to be able to read me like an open book.
"You have no idea where you are, and these woods are full of black knights," he said in an almost diplomatic tone. "I think you're rather better off with us that on your own, lass."
I frowned at him.
He reached for me with his good hand, wiggling his fingers. I ignored it, so he hopped forward and grabbed my arm, tugging me as he turned and walked out of the clearing. He had a strong grip, but I knew I could break it if I really wanted to. With a sigh, I let him lead me back to the others, and then let them help me back onto the horse with Killian.
A flask was passed around, and Killian offered me some. I refused at first, but he reminded me that we'd along way to go before our next meal, and the booze would help us endure the ride. I took a long pull from the flask after that, making him grin when I didn't flinch at the taste of raw, harsh liquor of some kind. It tasted like paint thinner, but I took it without complaint. The alcohol did help me relax a little and let my tiredness loosen my limbs. Killian seemed tired, too, after the skirmish, and I could hardly wonder why. He'd certainly re-injured his shoulder. It would take longer to heal. He breathing became labored after another hour or so of riding, and then he began to lean, his whole body slowly going limp behind me.
"Stop. Stop!" I called. "He's going over!"
Killian slid off the horse head-first, but there were arms ready to catch him thanks to my warning. Little John laid him out on the wet grass near the path.
"Is he dead?" asked the weasel-faced man who'd accused me of lying.
I forced my way through the men who seemed to have no inclination of what to do. I knelt down and felt for a pulse.
"He's alive," I said. "I think he fainted."
I pulled his cloak back and saw that his tattered shirt was still wet with blood, meaning whatever wound he had was still open. I gently prodded him until I found the injury, a laceration along his ribs.
"He's losing blood," I said. "This wound needs to be disinfected and dressed."
"Disinfected?" one of the men said as if they'd never heard the word.
I stared at their blank expressions for a moment in shock.
"Disinfected," I repeated, enunciating clearly. "To clean out any germs."
"Germs?" Robin said, blinking thoughtfully.
"This isn't a game," I snapped. "He need an antiseptic and clean bandages. Maybe stitches. He needs to see a doctor!"
There was a moment of silence again, and then Robin spoke.
"I'm not sure where you've come from, Miss Swan," he said, "but we haven't got those things or the time to find them at present. We're a good five hours ride from a safe place. We can't linger here and risk the black knight patrols."
"Who the hell are the black knights?" I exclaimed, earning another moment of silence and some slack-jawed stares.
Robin held his hands up as if to soothe me.
"We can rest a moment and let you bind the wound, but that is all," he said. "If he can't ride…"
"I'd rather die clean than be taken by the black knights," Killian said.
I hadn't realized he'd woken up. His hand shifted to lay over mine where I was still touching his ribs. I frowned at him and started dressing the wound. I flushed it with whatever they called the beverage in their flasks, making Killian flinch.
"What is this supposed to be, anyway?" I asked him, shaking the flask at him before re-capping it and tossing it aside.
"It's rum," he said in a strained voice, "and a bloody waste of it."
I snorted at that and started ripping fabric from the hem of my shirt. It seemed the cleanest option.
"What sort of idiot gets himself knifed and doesn't even stop to take care of it?" I muttered as I worked. The anger helped me focus. "You're lucky you're not dead. Couldn't you tell how bad you were bleeding? Hold still."
He looked almost contrite, flinching as I drew the dressing tight around his waist. I let him drink some more of his so-called "rum" before Robin and I helped him back to his feet and into the saddle. I tried again to argue for staying put so Killian could rest, but my protests fell on deaf ears. Even the man himself seemed to disagree with me, so eventually I gave up, pulling the edges of his cloak around my shoulders so I could at least keep him warm in case he went into shock or something.
By comparison to the first half of it, the rest of the trip was surprisingly uneventful. We rode all night. When the first light of dawn peaked over the horizon, I got a glimpse of our destination: A tall, regal castle sitting on a cliff overlooking the ocean. The sight of it made my breath catch.
There were castles all over Scotland—I'd read the brochures. I'd looked through pictures and reviews of all of them in preparation for the trip, and the castle in front of me wasn't one of them. There wasn't anything like it in England, or Germany, or anywhere I'd ever heard of. Coupled with the strange things I'd already seen and the way my various captors had acted, there was only one conclusion I could draw.
I sure as hell wasn't in Kansas anymore.