Belle made herself busy, tired as he could see she was. The room seemed to make her truly happy, and she seemed willing and determined to spend what she had left of the night fixing it so that she could sleep in an actual bed for the first time in months. He told her not to worry about dinner, that he had some work to keep him busy and she was obviously tired. Her busyness worked for his business. With a wave of his hand, he sent the books that he recognized as his own back to his tower and then let his magic carry him to the place he needed to go. It was a place that she need not know about, a place that she would hopefully never discover he'd gone to so long as she remained busy and tired: the swamp.
He sat himself up on a tree limb and looked down into the depths where the strange dying boy he'd welcomed into his castle yesterday now trudged knee-deep in water. He smiled, amused at his circumstances. Watching him now, he considered that this punishment might have been better than killing him.
"Enjoying yourself?!" he piqued from his branch.
Waves rose up and rippled across the water from the splash his legs made as he turned to find him hovering in the tree above him.
"Where have you taken me, Dark One?!" he roared.
"I promised Belle I wouldn't harm you, and I haven't," he noted with a shrug. "I've delivered you someplace safe, and that's all you should need to know! What I need to know, however…that's only just beginning. Now…" he used his magic to maneuver himself off the branch, to stand in the muck in front of him so close he could smell the sweat on his brow. "Tell me what you wanted with my dagger," he growled.
The boy, Samuel, Belle had called him, opened his mouth but closed it quickly. On his face, there was a look of utter shock which transformed to fear as he realized that whatever lie he'd been about to tell would do him no good. Oh, he did love it when they realized that.
"Oh yes, Belle told me," he assured him. "She told me of your map and your drawing, she told me all about how you longed to take the dagger for yourself and force me to overturn half the Enchanted Forest for you. Now, I want you to tell me if she missed anything."
Samuel swallowed hard but kept his face angry and unmoving as he stared back into his eyes. Foolish bravery. "It sounds like you already know everything."
"Everything?!" he questioned with amusement before letting his face go serious again. "Did you tell her anything else about my dagger."
"She's already told you more than I ever did!" he screeched. "I don't know how she found out to tell you, but-"
"Well, that's the problem with smart women, dearie! One should always assume they know everything! And lucky for you, that's the case and I believe it!" he shouted. He hid his relief at Belle's lack of knowledge well enough, even if he felt like it was unnecessary. Whatever she knew…he trusted her. "Now go on and scuttle away back under a rock where you belong. I've nothing more to ask of you."
"I can't make the same claim!" he insisted, taking a step closer as if he was going to be intimidated by such a step and cower. He could remove his legs with just a thought if he so willed it, shrink him down to the size of a leprechaun, or curse him to never harm another soul as long as he lived. He wasn't afraid of him. "I demand that you release Belle to me."
"Demand?!" he chuckled. "That's quite a word given your current situation!"
"Release her!"
"Why? She's content!"
"She doesn't know any better! She knows nothing of the world besides what her parents showed her! She has no idea what she is, much less what true contentment is!"
"'She knows nothing'…" he mocked, laughing at him. The idea that someone didn't know what contentment was seemed a ridiculous notion. It wasn't something that was taught; it was something that was felt. And he was fairly certain she felt it with him if only because for the first time in centuries, he felt it too when she was around. Samuel didn't scare him, but that fact did. She scared him. "Sounds like someone who doesn't know her at all."
"I've known her since we were children!"
"People change!"
Samuel took a breath, he closed his eyes and collected his thought as he breathed through his nose and his nostrils flared. "She knows nothing of this world, of what it really is, I am of the same class she was born into! I grew up with her, I can teacher her what she needs to know about living in the world. I'll take care of her."
"Sounds to me like she'd be trading one father for another."
"I am nothing like her father!" he growled through clenched teeth and passion-such passion. Where was that passion, he wondered, when he'd come and taken her away? When her mother had died? When she was betrothed to Gaston?!
"You just confessed you were of the same class! The same class that would have seen her sold off to a brute of a prince if he offered the highest price."
"My people, yes, but I would never have seen her go with Gaston."
"And you did everything in your power to stop such a match? By…running away, I presume?"
"This isn't about me or what I did wrong. I'm not the one holding her against her will now!"
He allowed darkness to overshadow his face at that comment. He took a step closer to the boy, when he didn't back down he took another step just to watch him have to take a step away from him. His heart finally began to race with adrenaline. That was good. He wanted him to feel scared. He wanted to watch him quake in his shadow.
"She's content," he reiterated. If he could repeat himself to make a point, then so could he. "I've seen the smiles to prove it. This life suites her."
"A life where you hold her captive."
"Odd choice of words when just a few weeks ago she confessed to me she was no prisoner."
Samuel let out a nervous breath of laughter. His smile was weak and false. There was a shift of power between the pair of them. "You've brainwashed her."
"A woman like that?!" he questioned. It was the stupidest thing he'd ever heard where Belle was concerned. "She's the most stubborn person I've ever met! Not to mention well educated. It would be a task indeed to turn the brains of a woman like her to mush. You claim to know her, did she seem brain-washed to you?"
"She just doesn't know what it's like to live, truly live in this world, outside of the castle she was born in."
"And you do? What will you offer her?! Love? The opportunity to cleave herself to you instead of her brutish fiancé?"
"What do you offer her besides captivity?!"
"Work!"
"That you pay her well for, I'm sure."
Oh, but it was the other way around wasn't it…
"We had an agreement."
"To get the ogres out of our home, yes, I'm well familiar with the agreement that led her to be with you. But the ogres are gone, and Belle remains."
"That was the deal," he snapped. Anything else would have been magic for free and all magic came with a price. "Perhaps you are not as familiar with it as you think you are. And if you think that she's miserable in her new life, then perhaps you don't know her as well as you think you do or as well as you did."
"And you do?"
A challenge. He never backed down from a challenge.
"We've come to know each other fine enough over the last few months."
"It's a façade! She's doing what she has to do to survive."
He let the words wash over him for a moment, allowed himself to question whether or not that was true, but the conversation that they'd had just a few moments ago seemed to deny it. If it was a façade, why would his trust mean so much to her? If it was a façade, why would she blush the way she had, why would her heart race, why would she smile when she thought he wasn't looking? There was just too much that couldn't be explained by that theory. And he included himself on that. For a hundred years he'd known people, he'd made deals had interactions, and yet not once had he ever felt like he knew someone the way he knew her. It was simple to explain. She was the first person that he'd lived comfortably with for an extended period of time. But was there more to it? The visions and fantasies poured into his head all over again. Was there another reason he felt like he knew her so well?
"She likes being organized, enjoys cooking and even cleaning, not that she was ever given the opportunity to explore such hobbies and habits prior to her arrival so what she feels on those subjects you would never know," he spat back at her "friend."
"She openly admits that she hasn't seen enough of the world and revels in the stories I tell her of it while still keeping her opinions. She corrects me at times, an annoying little habit but one that endures. When she's not doing her chores she tends to her library and reads by the fire. She doesn't sit still well. She enjoys keeping busy."
"-and you enjoy keeping her-"
"Once a week she goes to the village," he went on, ignoring him. "She walks the entire way all by herself and comes back, all by herself. Never once as she attempted to run and trust me…I would know if she had."
"You're a monster."
He reached out and shoved the boy. He shoved him so hard that he lost his footing and fell into the swamp with a splash. It was a response from himself that he didn't understand, and that meant this was dangerous. Coming to speak with him always was dangerous, but he was suddenly aware of just how dangerous it was. That last comment threatened to be the final nail in the coffin. He wanted to hurt him. He wanted to take his head and hold it underwater until his lungs filled up with the swamp and that was that. But he'd promised Belle he wouldn't harm him, not on this encounter at least. If he didn't go home to her soon, it was entirely possible he would break that promise. It was lucky for the boy that she was so caring.
"I promised Belle that I wouldn't harm you, as far as I'm concerned that courtesy extends to this moment only. Stay away from my property and stay far away from my Belle, or else I'll use the dagger you so desire to teach you an entirely different definition of the word 'cleave'."
"What about Belle?!" he called from where he lay sprawled in the water.
He sneered down at him. What about Belle? Wasn't that the question he was asking himself all the time these past few weeks? What was he going to do about Belle if what he was feeling was genuine, if the future the Seer tried to warn him about was true?! He still hadn't decided. But he knew that for now he was going to go home. He was going to see her in the morning for breakfast as he always did, and they were going to go on as they had all these months. And as for Samuel…
"Well, you know what they say; if you love something, let it go! If it's meant to be, then it'll come back. Though after today…I very much doubt that'll ever happen."
I freaking loved writing this chapter. For so many reasons but overall the simplest reason is it really is a "pissing contest". It's not magic against magic, Rumple would obliterate him if it was. Instead, he resorts to simply being a bit of a brute and a bully. Magically he could whoop his ass, instead he pushes him down. And Samuel and Rumple...the thing about their argument is that they're both wrong while both being right. They are both talking in circles here. For Samuel, it is outdated and rudimentary because the truth is that he doesn't know her anymore. For Rumple, it might be up to date, but I think he is struggling with what Samuel is bringing to the surface. He likes having Belle around but she's not really free and therefore isn't really there by choice. I do think that's something that bothers him here, maybe for the first time. It's something he doesn't like and will begin to haunt him. But at the same time I think he's afraid to free her because God only knows what will happen then.
Thank you Alarda, Grace5231973, and Jennifer Baratta for your reviews. We've only got one last chapter from the comic, obviously we have to do something with Pandora's Box and the book that he got. I must say, I hope you like all of this chapter, I hope it caps the comic story nicely and maybe comes to you like the surprise it came to me. There's some good stuff here. I'm sort of partial to one line, in particular, I hope you don't overlook. Favorite line in this entire thing, when Rumple unintentionally admits his true feelings comes at the end. He claims her. "Stay far away from my Belle." That's not meant to be necessarily in a possessive Gaston sort of claiming. It's just meant to show that he feels protective and part of him accepts that what they are becoming is more than what they are. It's sort of like accepting that she might be meant for him just as he is meant for her. Love it. I hope you will too! Peace and Happy Reading!