Thank you museofmirth, Jay and Brigit for the reviews!
Thanks to Sakura Taichou and GrangersTwin666 for adding the story!
As a reward, this chapter has been posted mega early. Like, five seconds after the last chapter.
Playlist: 'A River Flows In You (Feat. Katie Pellak)' by Joy Appel.
4
I gave me away, could have knocked off the evening
But I was lonelily looking for someone to hold.
In a way I lost all I believed in, and I never found myself so low
And you let me down. You could've called if you'd needed
But you lonelily got yourself locked instead.
At least, it felt unbreakable until I was actually inside the room, and I caught sight of him lounging contentedly in the newly heated water, raking the bar of soap across his immaculately shaped torso.
Dignity and strength. Dignity and strength. This isn't half so scary as a troll. This isn't a tenth as scary as Ravenna.
Bracing myself with these continuous thoughts, I forced out a weak smile.
"You're awful." I insulted.
"I'm honest. Besides, it's very different for me." he raised an eyebrow mockingly, "I don't have so many things to cover."
"No. You don't." I glanced at the grubby braies thankfully covering him. It had been such a bad idea to invite him to wash. "I'm glad I invited you to wash."
"Why?"
"Because you're filthy. You could stay in there for days and still have mud on you."
I didn't know how these things were coming out of my mouth.
I hardly knew what I was saying.
But it was covering the true conflict going on between my squirming gut and my protesting thoughts, and that was fine by me.
"Bethany, could you hold the towel up while I dress?"
Greta was in a towel now, thank god. I started to feel warmth towards her again.
Rosaline quickly grabbed the fresh set of underthings that were waiting in a neat pile to be put on me. A pair of snug, short braies and a wonderfully soft, sweet-smelling chemise. I slid them on with a relief unmatched even by the battle's ending today.
I tried to forget that these very undergarments belonged to Ravenna.
I told myself that she had probably never worn them - she had so many things.
One of her neglected dresses was also destined for my body. It was too elaborate for me. Too feminine, too decorative. And it was still the plainest they could find.
It was a deep scarlet, velvet thing with embroidered carmine-coloured roses. The sleeves were puffed and gathered around my upper arms, becoming tight-fitting and buttoned from the elbows down.
A dainty pair of leather shoes were placed with care upon my feet. The girls towel-dried my hair quickly, and apparently I was complete, for they all stepped back and sighed. Even Greta, who had scrambled into another spare dress, came to fawn over me.
"It brings out the colour of your lips."
The words were spoken in a low masculine manner that didn't come from any of the maids.
I peered around them to glare at the huntsman.
He wasn't smiling any more.
In fact, he looked upset.
I frowned at him curiously as he continued to drag his striking cyan halos over my body. Dammit, huntsman! Why did I still feel naked, covered shoulders to toes in more than appropriate materials?
He just seemed to see through everything.
It was more than the clothing; he was trying to peer past my outer self. He was - looking straight at me as though he were seeing something more than me. As though there was a different me, a more intimate version of myself, that he was really communicating with.
Or rather, communicating at. Because I wasn't receiving whatever it was he was silently telling me with those solemn, world-weary eyes.
How could he look so like an arrogant youth one instant, and such an ancient, grieving soul the next?
"Your lips look even redder than usual." he repeated, in almost a whisper.
His tone was wistful. Why was it wistful?
How long had I known this man? A week? Perhaps closer to two?
"Huntsman." I retorted sharply, "I shall put you in a red dress, if you don't stop teasing me."
It didn't catch. Apparently he had sunk into some kind of reverie, sparked off by the coincidental colour coding of my mouth and my stupid showy garment.
He was thinking. I could see him staring not just into me, but right through me now.
I looked at the floor. Pointed my toes in their new shoes that didn't feel right. Did some thinking myself.
When I glanced up, he was still thinking.
Great.
"Could we have some privacy?" I suggested to the four girls quietly.
I could sense the huntsman stiffen suddenly at my words. I had no idea what he was anticipating. What was so bad about being left to talk to his friend, that had made him turn into a suit of armour?
The nosey females fluttered out of the door - rather, the maids fluttered. Greta trudged, like I would have.
At their disappearance, I magically became much braver. I was annoyed, more than afraid, at this man whose moods changed like the tides and whose orbs were still fixed very much on me.
I seated myself upon the edge of the tub. Tub? Arena was a more fitting description.
'A River Flows Through You'.
For the first time, I noticed the way the hundreds of candles illuminated him. It hadn't been significant when shed upon Greta or the others. It was just light.
Flickering and playing along his bronzed skin, soaking into his hair with the soap he applied to its matted strands - it took on new meanings for me.
It seemed to tell me things about him. It showed me the creases in his brow. It brought a new shade into his eyes, making them darker, more alluring. It glistened and shimmered upon the droplets of water in his stubbly beard and on his rounded shoulders.
"So. That scarlet dress. I'm sure the Queen will have a selection to spare, though we may have to take it out a little for you."
I was rattling on with a joke that hadn't worked the first time. I couldn't seem to find anything else to say to him, despite my determination to give him a small piece of my mind, and the fact that I'd just turned everybody else out specifically to talk to him.
What on earth was there to say, honestly?
I really appreciate you not killing me in the Dark Forest, huntsman.
I am really glad that I scared off that troll for you, huntsman. And no, I didn't think it made you look emasculated.
When I was dancing with Gus, I was half-imagining that I was dancing with you, huntsman.
I regret that now. I would give my right arm to dance with Gus just one more time.
When you came back to the burning village, huntsman, my heart jumped in my chest.
You killed Finn. You killed the man who tried to love me. You killed him so brutally. I didn't know what I thought about it, except that a true man was replacing the oppressive figure who had been in my life for so long.
And then William was there, huntsman. And then William took over.
"It took you a long while to answer the door." he commented quietly, saving me the trouble of trying to follow up my awful jest with a genuine remark.
"Yes. I was thinking with my ears in the water."
"What about?"
Why was he so interested in what went on in my head?
"About how being like a turret roof would help me to be a wise monarch."
He snorted, actually amused this time.
"How so?"
I explained. His face lit up even further.
"You had too much time alone in that dungeon, girl. You think very deeply."
Now, that stung. I appreciated his familiarity at all times, but never insensitivity.
"Yes. I spent years in that cell. I don't care to be reminded of it."
"Snow White." he said pointedly.
"Huntsman."
"My name isn't 'huntsman'. Who's being rude now?"
His comment brought me up short.
The small victory obviously amused him, but it inflicted an unintentional feeling of shame upon me.
"Fine. What is your name?" I tilted my chin defiantly.
I despised arguments. I hated aiming jibes and having to come up with retorts. But he chafed me, and for once in my life I didn't feel like apologising or stepping down.
"Rumplestiltskin."
At that, my jaw dropped in real indignation.
"I am on the verge of hiding your clothes and letting you walk around in wet braies for the rest of your life. You are absolutely impossible."
"How dare you!" his voice rose, and his eyebrows slanted away from one another in a look of pure embarrassment and despair, "How dare you mock me for my mother's awful sense of humour! I can't help it."
I gauged his visage carefully, and finally my stomach jolted with guilt.
"You're being serious?"
"Deadly serious."
He couldn't hold it in any longer. He loved my gullibility.
As he guffawed to himself, I hit the water with my palm in rage, soaking his face thoroughly.
"If Muir were here, he would have your head for that."
"Only because he adores you."
"I am the destined - thing! Show some respect."
"You were the destined thing. You've already fulfilled your role. I have no more reason to respect you than I would Gort."
"Queen!"
"Not yet, you aren't. And I thought you were afraid of that word."
How did he know that?
"We were having such an unusually enjoyable time." I snapped back, "And you had to bring that up."
"We're allowed to enjoy ourselves. We are the victors."
"There's a lot more to think about than that."
"Yes, tomorrow. I don't know about you, but I haven't had reason to smile since -" a pause, which I didn't need filling in for me, "Here I am, smiling for you. Don't you prefer it this way?"
"You were the one who interrupted our lighter topic."
He couldn't get around my logic with only his jesting arrogance. He gave in, beaming.
Yes. I did prefer it this way.
I preferred him this way. There was no comparison between the gruff, tough man in the woods who seemed to feel a very strong desire to abandon me, and this chirpy fellow who just wouldn't get out of my way.
"What's your real name, then?" I steered the conversation back towards shallow waters, allowing myself to be a bit cheeky too.
"I've said the cursed word now. My lips are sealed."
"What?"
"You have to guess, I'm afraid. I don't create the rules. Now that I've said 'Rumplestiltskin', I can never reveal my true identity. Not unless you get it yourself."
"Will you vanish in a puff of smoke if I'm correct?"
"No."
"Then what will happen?"
"I suppose we shall have to find out. I've never done this before."
Neither had I. I couldn't remember the last time I had played a game of any sort.
The last game I had ever played must have been with William. There wasn't really anybody else.
Not until now.
"Well then, Rowan." I said hopefully, and sighed when he shook his head, "I have to fetch you some new clothes. Or the bath will have been sadly pointless."
"Clothes? Where from?"
I paused at the door, only half-turning to reply, keeping my eyes fixed on the floor.
"From my father's chamber. Wherever she has hidden them." I muttered.
I didn't wait for a reply, but fled quite suddenly, past the gossiping maids and Greta, past the small maze of corridors and doorways, wiping just a couple of rogue drops from my eyelashes and pretending they were bath water.