A/N: Okay, it's been a bad week. I think my profs are conspiring against me and I owe about $600 in speeding tickets and related fines. And I don't have a job ::starts whimpering and crying pitifully:: And do you know when it's due? The day after my birthday! They're going to start charging interest after that. Stupid insurance company and stupid traffic cops.
So, yep, I'm still super busy and March is going to be the month from hell. I can't promise you that I'll continue updating regularly during this time (just bear with me, we'll make it through to April, I swear we will!). Don't come threatening me or throwing things at me if you don't hear from me for a couple of weeks.
As for the details of the plot and the various questions you've all posed… I will tell you nothing! You'll just have to wait and see. ::giggles maniacally:: This is how I get my jollies. This and that one day during the year when I fly all over the world and drop toys down chimneys. Oops… I wasn't supposed to let anyone know about that. Forget I ever said it.
Anyway, make my day and leave a review.
Little Miss Dove ~ You need to enter in the story id, which appears in the top right corner of every part. I know, it really threw me off too when they changed it.
Jenny the chica ~ What happened to your epiphany? You really have my curiosity going.
Chapter 19
Intersections: "Reluctant hero"
In the moments following Valor's discovery, all hell broke loose. Both groups—Lillith and Luke, and David, Virtue, Nora, Terrence and Rebecca—arrived at the scene at roughly the same time, everyone looking equally flustered and disoriented.
"What happened?" demanded both Lillith and Virtue simultaneously. Lillith continued, "Where's Vivienne?"
Valor ran a hand through his already ruffled black hair, and gave her the bracelet. "I don't know. I came out here and looked all over, but I couldn't find her. I was just about to go back in when I found this."
Lillith stared at the bracelet with a little 'o' of surprise. "Vivienne was wearing this earlier."
Virtue shrugged, not seeing reason for the panic. "So? Maybe she just dropped it. She could have gone back in without any of us noticing."
Valor shook his head and looked at the group uneasily. His gaze lingered especially on the two youngest members. David took the hint, and placing Rebecca on the ground, turned to his youngest brother. "Terry, could you please take Becca back to the ballroom? Take her to mom. We'll all be right in."
Terrence knew when he was being 'dismissed' and why. Of course something big had happened and he and his sister were considered too young to be kept informed. "Aw, David," he began, but one look from David and he snapped his mouth shut. Clearly he was in no mood for argument.
Terrence nodded and took Rebecca's hand. "C'mon Becca. Let's go." Rebecca turned worried blue eyes toward her eldest brother.
"What's going on Davey?" she inquired. "Where's Vivi?"
David crouched down before her and caught her gaze. "We don't know right now, Becc, but we're going to look for her. You just go with Terry and don't worry about Vivienne. She'll be fine. Alright?"
Rebecca nodded although she looked doubtful. She followed Terrence away from the garden. When they were a fair distance away but still in sight, David added, "Luke, you go with them."
Luke turned incredulous eyes on his brother. "What? You can't possibly think I'm too young for this."
With a sigh, David regarded him. "No, but if someone or something took Vivienne, I don't think it's too safe to let Becca and Terry make the trip by themselves."
Luke looked like he was about to put up an argument, but then he realized the logic of the statement and thought better of it. "Fine," he said, abruptly taking off after the pair. Say what you would about the rest of his personality, but Luke valued his baby sister's safety as much as either of her other brothers.
"Okay, shoot," Virtue demanded as all attention turned back to Valor.
"Well, um, I don't want you to panic or anything Lillith, but…" he paused uncertainly, a little frown on his face.
"What?" Lillith asked in apprehension.
"I found some blood on the bracelet."
"Blood?"
"Just a little bit," he quickly amended. "She must have just cut herself on it when it came off."
"But of course, that means she couldn't have not noticed that it came off," Lillith supplied, drawing the connection. "And if she knew it fell, she should have at least stopped to pick it up… unless she couldn't."
There was a silent pause as everyone considered the implications.
"So you think she was abducted," Virtue finalized.
"Oh this is awful!" exclaimed Nora in a harsh breath. She had remained quiet so far, the whole experience seeming to have left her looking rather pale and drawn. "I mean, who would want to abduct her? And why?"
Lillith shrugged absently, her brow drawn up in little worry lines. "It could be anyone. It's not as if there's someone in particular who would be coming after her."
"Wait a minute," David interrupted, his rational side demanding attention. "Don't you think that the best thing to do right now would be to inform the guards, and the parents? Maybe someone saw something that might help. They might not have even gotten that far away yet."
Valor looked a little relieved as he nodded in agreement. "Definitely. We need to tell your parents," he said to Lillith, "And ours too, so they—we—can decide how to respond." Then he shook his head and muttered under his breath, just low enough so no one could make out his words, "They'll probably find some way to blame me for this."
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
As it turned out, none of the parents blamed Valor, nor were any of them particularly surprised by this turn of events. Of course, they did a splendid job of acting otherwise. They already had a half-blurted rambling story from Rebecca, which had been only slightly clarified by Terrence while Luke looked on silently, making no effort to help sort the confusion.
Well, it wasn't as if he knew anything anyway, he told himself. Why waste his breath?
He helped himself to some hors d'oeuvres. Wait until the others came back, and then everything would be cleared up just fine.
~*~*~
"Vivienne's bracelet! Oh dear," moaned Queen Ella as she held the little piece of jewelry in her hand. Her daughter rushed on in her explanation of the events that had led to their current conversation.
"Wait," Ella said, interrupting Lillith once again. "There was blood on it?" She frowned.
Lillith gave her mother a strange look but decided not to comment. Why should she be concerned that Vivienne had cut herself when they had the much larger issue of the kidnapping to deal with?
"So what are we going to do?" Virtue demanded as she stalked the length of the room to which several members of the three royal families had excused themselves.
Both of Vivienne's parents, Queen Snow, Valor, Virtue, Lillith, David and Luke comprised their little group. Queen Rose had opted to look after her youngest two children, and her husband had stayed to help her. Rebecca was especially upset by what had happened, even though they all refused to give her the details. Snow's husband, the second Charming, had declared that at least one member of the hosting couple should remain at the ball, so as to avoid suspicion. He was fooling no one—he just didn't want to leave the room with all the alcohol.
"Well ending that little party out there might be a good start," Luke offered wryly. He had followed the group in because at least now he would hear the details that he had been forced to miss earlier. Knowledge was the key to success—not the kind you attained from readings books and learning to count, but the practical sort. What happened when and where and why, and who was doing what with whom. He always preferred to stay informed.
"But do we tell them all what happened?" Valor inquired before ducking discreetly into one of the various chairs. He was trying to remain inconspicuous just on the off chance that his mother decided to end her generous mood and demand to know how he could have let something like this happen right under his very nose. He was surprised that so far she had not even hinted that he might be at fault. But he wasn't willing to try his luck. Some prince he made, he thought with a sigh. Couldn't even keep his potential future bride from being kidnapped out of his very home.
"How do we even know this is a kidnapping?" Everyone looked toward Luke, in question. "Maybe whoever took her doesn't intend to return her. Not alive, anyway," he added with a shrug.
Lillith paled visibly and turned back toward her mother, her gaze demanding reassurance.
Meanwhile, Virtue looked at David pointedly, who only shrugged helplessly. Then she gave him a "fine, if you're not going to do it, then I will" expression and discreetly cuffed Luke across the back of the head.
"Ow! What—" Another smack and he fell silent.
"Oh dear, I'm sure that's not true," Ella told her daughter.
"That's right honey," her father chimed in, resting an arm across her shoulder comfortingly. Luke's words hadn't worried them, but they couldn't really tell Lillith why that was.
But Lillith was not going to be so easily consoled when who knew where her sister was, and how she was doing. "How do you know?" she demanded.
"Well, uh," Ella fumbled for an answer. A knock on the door saved her from answering.
Valor leapt from his seat and rushed forward to answer. A guard stood just outside in the hall, a piece of paper in his hand. "This just appeared, my prince," he explained, handing it over. "Like that, it simply fell out of thin air, landing right into the middle of the main entrance. The sentries posted there saw it arrive."
Valor thanked the man and closed the door. He handed the note to his mother, who shared a secret look of puzzlement with her friend before opening it. "It's a ransom note," she announced.
"A… ransom note?" Ella repeated. Then, "What does it say?"
Snow read aloud: "If you wish to retrieve the princess, send a hero of true courage to face me. Send him to the Drunk Man's Dive, tomorrow morning, where he'll find his first clue. Make sure he comes alone."
"What's the Drunk Man's Dive?" Lillith questioned.
"It's a tavern." The reply, of course, came from Valor. "It's about two miles away from here, to the west." He'd been there a fair number of times before, having been introduced to the place by his "uncles," the dwarves. It was far enough away that he wouldn't be recognized for who he was by appearance alone.
"So who are you going to send?" Virtue said, glancing from her mother to Ella.
Snow looked directly at her son, whose eyes widened as they met her own. "Me?" he choked out. He shook his head adamantly. "It says a 'hero of true courage.' I'm no hero. That can't be me."
"It depends entirely on how you define the term 'hero,'" his mother corrected. "I doubt this means in a literal, proven veteran of war sort of way. Just someone who fits the image."
"You mean like a prince," Lillith supplied, nodding her head in understanding. "A prince who comes to rescue the princess would be the typical hero… you know, this whole fairytale thing. Wouldn't he, mother?"
Ella stared back at her daughter, her brown eyes gleaming proudly. "So you have been listening all this time. I thought everything I said went in one ear and out the other when it came to you and your sister."
"Oh, this is all good and wonderful," Valor interrupted, "But it doesn't change the fact that even if I did go, I wouldn't have any idea how to face off against whoever took Vivienne. By the way, has anyone figured out just who the perpetrator is? I don't remembering hearing a name signed to that note."
No one had the answer.
"Well, who else would we send?" Ella demanded as she looked at him. "There isn't exactly an abundance of 'heroes' in that ballroom. And we need someone now… who knows what could happen in the time it would take to recruit a professional?"
Another knock at the door interrupted Valor's next line of protests before they could even begin. This time it was Virtue who went to answer. Another guard stood there with a small scruffy boy, perhaps Terrence's age, at his side.
"Excuse me princess," the guard greeted her. "But this boy claims to have seen something related to the—incident—that might be of some use."
Virtue moved aside and let the pair enter the room. The boy looked about the room nervously, scratching his brown head. He made no move to speak.
"Hello son, what's your name?" Charming inquired gently.
"Matt," he answered in a squeak. He had a skittish look about him and seemed as if any moment he might just run back out the door through which he'd come.
The king smiled kindly, and put a hand on the boy's shoulder. "Well, Matt, what exactly did you see?"
"Um, you see sir, yer highness, I's in the kitchen with my mum—she's one of the cooks—an' she tol' me to take out the trash… chickens heads an' feet an' feathers… the sort of stuff that makes the room stink if kept inside too long." Matt rambled on, seemingly oblivious to the grimaces of several of the room's occupants. "Anyway, I's takin' out the stuff to the big bin where Lou, the head gard'ner, would get to it an' use it fer fertilizer…"
A few shudders were felt throughout the room, especially from those who had just come from the very garden where "Lou" would have disposed of the parts.
"An' then I sees this shadow in the sky… this monstrous shadow! So big, it blocks out all the stars… I think it were as big as the castle itself… I thought it might just swoop down an'—"
"Matt," King Charming interrupted, cutting the boy's rambling short.
Matt looked at him sheepishly. "Yes sir, yer highness. Um, oh yeah, so it swooped 'cross the sky an' flew off."
"Which way did it go?" Ella asked.
"Um…" the boy thought hard, his nose scrunching up and his eyes narrowing into slits. "West," he finally replied. Then he nodded his head more confidently. "Yep, definitely west."
Virtue shook her head, confused. "Alright, this might seem like a stupid question, but what was it?"
"Oh, right!" Matt exclaimed, hitting his head as he realized he'd forgotten that part of the story. He shook his shaggy brown hair and finally supplied, as if it were the most normal thing in the world, "A dragon."
There was a moment of silence as the occupants of the room regarded that bit of news with varying degrees of shock. Finally, Luke broke it with a small whistle and a pitying look in Valor's direction. "Glad I'm not you."
TBC