Belle's slender figure, hardened with toil, flinched violently as another blood chilling screams pierced the drafty airs of Cora's deplorable citadel. Her calloused hands clenched over the handle to the broom as she held the item to her chest to keep the cleaner from tumbling out of her hands for the forth time that morning. The sound clawed into her ears and her heart and dug into her stoic soul with rending talons that thrashed away heedlessly at her conscience.
Every time without fail she jumped at the sound of the poor soul locked in the belly of the castle desperate shrieks. His screams were dirges that lanced afresh in her heart. Never could she get accustomed to such cries, so filled with blood and pain and wanting of relief.
Never.
For two long, hellish days crawling through the abysmal hours in her mistress' wicked keep, the screams were a mainstay. Night and day, morning and noon, the shrieks resounded through the black stone walls and echoed down the forlorn corridors like ghosts wailing the tale of their last demise to any that would hear.
No one, she knew, no matter what they had done deserved to be tortured so, especially by Cora's vile hands. Torture was wrong, without any narrow alteration to the fact, and yet there she stood with a tormented soul under her feet.
Matters didn't help much that he lay in the stone cell just to her left. At night, even curled up against the other corner of the thick black wall that divided them, she could hear him in the throes of torment. Rusted chains jangled in a chorus of disoriented moans and pleas of impossible aid from blood stained lips. Faint coughs, like bloody wheezing, sputtered from his mouth sometimes, echoing about the chambers and on the odd occasion she heard him heaving up some bile or whatever other fluid that his body still retained.
Her heart ached for her fellow prisoner who shared her hell, but there was nothing she could do to relieve his torment. She'd have a better chance of sprouting wings from her back and soaring over the black walls of Cora's citadel before she ever convinced the witch of any clemency for their prisoner. With her luck if she dared tried such a insane thing she just might have ended up next to the tormented thief if she dared broach anything of the sort to her volatile mistress.
But something had to be done.
Somehow the screams had to stop. Somehow.
Cool, golden dawn light slanted in faint oblique gray rays through the crimson windows of Cora's wicked keep. Streamers of pink and rose wove ribbons through the creamy clouds and the sun barely kissed the tops of the accursed trees spindly, near barren limbs. Summer was fast failing in the realm of Cora and chilly fall was taking hold of the earth.
The days were cooler with every dawn, frost encrusted the earth with glimmering jewels of opaque alabaster, and what leaves did gird the trees were changing to russet and orange and crimson. Frost brought a deeper chill to the castle, but a magical cold, not the bitterness the winters held in the rending teeth of ice.
For Belle, the morning would have been a rare delight with the early task of sweeping the main hall and letting the sunlight warm her skin had her mind not been cast upon the tormented thief. Her tactile thoughts swarmed about the unfortunate prisoner as she set things aright in the main hall. Hands working automatically to her back and forth task, she tried to work out some aid.
Perhaps she could sneak him some bread and water, or perhaps make some poultice to rub on his skin to keep his wounds from infection. There had to be something she could do to ease his suffering if even for a few moments. In five years there had been no one to alleviate an inkling of her misery until… him.
Would she condone the same simply because of her mistress wrath? Certainly she did not wish to rouse Cora's fury, but could she go on trying to block out the screams until the sweet kiss of death plucked him from his torturers?
"Good morning Belle." The Dark One greeted almost pleasantly as he slid into the main hall like a fast fading, mischievous shadow slipping through the chamber. A small, almost puerile smile tilted his gray lips as he appeared in the grayish light. His black depths practically glowed in their sockets as he stared at her humble beauty in the dawn blush. Even catching a glimpse of her in the light made his heart leap errant in his husk of a chest.
He looked as he did many a morning, his black and brown clothes of leather and twill tightly formed about his skinny figure. There was nothing out of the ordinary about him save for a bloody apron garbed over his flamboyant vest and breeches.
Streaks of gorge rising gore stained the leather butchers wear in vibrant splotches that spattered the entire gray fabric. Copious amount of ichor swathed the leather, holding testament that Cora was not the only one who enjoyed the torment of their guest. Truly with the apron about his body he seemed the frightening monster whispered through all the realms.
Averting her sapphire gaze from the barbarous sight, the beauty turned her head back down to her simple task. Her eyes focused on the pile of dust gathering at the end of the tawny broom stalks. Wary disgust marbled her lovely features, but she hid them behind the thick curtain of her umber tresses.
Feigning concentration of her chore she tried to sound cheerful. "Good morning Rumpelstiltskin."
"I have a surprise for you." The fiend grinned widely, stalking forward excitedly to the woman he'd gotten to know for a few months. A brief tinge of something amiss snaked in his dark heart, but he ignored the bite upon his calloused soul. "I and Cora are departing for a while very soon."
Flourishing his wiry talons, he called magic in his blood to heed his command. A purple cloud veiled his fingers for a brief moment before fading away in a swirl of paled haze.
A book sat in his blooded grip ready and waiting for her perusal. The cover was dark brown tanned leather and felt like bovine hide. Impressively thick and bound by an expert hand, the book looked like some sort of delicately balancing upon his black nailed fingertips all for her.
"Here." The magical monster held the tome out to her in a gentlemanly like fashion. "I thought you could skim through the pages whilst I and Cora were gone." A secretive smile graced his scaled visage.
After their last discussion he found himself eager to drop a gift here and there to her. Seeing her face alight with delight made his black blood pound through his veins and his lips to twitch into a grin that would not depart for hours upon his scaled visage.
Slowly taking the book from his hand, the beauty managed a ghost of a smile. "Thank you." She replied hollowly and clutched the book to her chest. To be sure she was more grateful than he could ever possibly imagine, for is kindness but the gift seemed sullied with the sight of him bedecked in the apron of mutilated gore all about his person.
He seemed like two people, the one who enjoyed to talk with her and aid every so often in her plight of eternal slavery and the one Cora adored in her malice.
A shiver spiraled up Belle's spine to see the two face crushed into one visage. Seeing the cruel and the kind together in entwined coalesced unity was not a pleasant sight to her eyes.
Strafing her cobalt orbits down the enslaved beauty could into help but stare at his scaled hands. The same talons that doled out kindness to her also coaxed out pain from the prisoner with magic and brute force. Dried blood rested under the black nails and the pads of his fingers were swathed in gore. How could the kind man and the cruel be one and the same?
As though sensing her thoughts, the Dark One's smile fell. His lips molded into a pencil thin line. Confusion doused with alarm glazed over his sable depths with a faint hint of alarm. "You don't like it?" He queried lowly, his voice troubled.
Did he not know her enough to choose a book she might enjoy?
"No, not that. Never that." Belle tossed her head fiercely. Taking the gifted tome, she clutched the treasured book close to her troubled heart. "It's just…." The beauty paused and worried her bottom lip, her heart torn to the root.
Should he really know what guttered so brightly in her heart, what fire he would find if she opened the furnace and let the shadow of the slave girl fade into nothingness? Would he grow cross with her?
"Yes?" The Dark One prodded the silent words on tip of her tongue to life, his concern genuine. If there was something amiss he, though his black heart berated him, would do everything in his power to correct what was wrong. If there was anything now he detested in his life, he loathed seeing her unhappy in any way he could fix.
Belle swallowed hard, caught betwixt fear and courage vying for dominance. Wariness flagged her courage into a tiny ember through the darkness, but she refused to stop. "It's the prisoner." She admitted warily, her eyes cast away from him to the dark broom handle in her grip.
"What about the prisoner?" The fiend's low voice became cool as the mountain peaks near his home. He perched a curious brow. "If the noise bothers you at night I shall speak to Cora about moving him elsewhere."
Tossing her amber honey hair, the beauty forced herself to look in his bottomless onyx eyes. They had reached some point in there… whatever they had. Surely she could face him and not be afraid of what would follow.
Still, her heart fluttered like a wary deer tremulously in her chest. Though he was kind to her, he still was the Dark One, and that no matter how much his kindness, that could not, would not be foolishly overlooked by either of them.
Taking a deep breath, the beauty brought her courage back to a bright flame in the murky darkness of fear. Her terror receded in front of him, showering her soul with her eternal bravery. "No one deserves to be tortured." She exhaled shakily, the words finally out. "I would much rather you spoke to the mistress about setting him free."
"Out of the question." The Dark One huffed lightly. A frown pulled at his thin gray lips even at the thought. Never mind if Cora would have wanted to set him free, though the thought never crossed her mind, he still wanted to peel the skin from the man who dared, foolishly shoot him. This was one thing where Cora and he were in the cruelest of accords.
"It's wrong." The brave beauty explained flatly, her words firm and resolute from her quivering heart pattering in terror. There was nothing he could say to justifying torture of any sort.
The fiend's eyes narrowed into black slits. "That's not for you to decide." He bit back tartly. "Perhaps you've forgotten your place here." Rolling his sable eyes his mouth curved grimly towards the beauty. "Forget about the prisoner. He is none of your concern."
Turning about the Dark One unloosed the long gray strings to the apron. Anger, ignited by the ember of her staunch sense of justice flickered rampantly in his beastly heart. Her spark set off his own fire but not for clemency. How dare she ask him something like that, for some… prisoner. Perhaps she saw him as some sort of hero in need of aid, or perhaps she wanted him to be free with the knowledge he had landed a hit upon the monster of nightmares.
All but tearing off the faded gray apron from his body, the fiend flung the gory mess upon the oaken table. Fresh blood stained the table like ruby claw marks scored upon the wood umber polished. The straps dandled off the edge like morbid streams and fluttered when he stomped passed the edge of the table towards the door leading to the vestibule.
Surly, the beast growled to the enslaved beauty without looking back to her. "Have that clean when I get back." The malicious fiend spat, trying to end the matter.
Fire filled Belle's brave heart as he ordered her about so coldly like her mistress. Though she should have been cowed, or at least dampened by his frigid refusal and his blistering anger running rampant through his dark heart, she felt her courage rise to peaks they hadn't reached in five years. If anything his stubbornness brought out more of the woman locked away since her slavery.
"All this because he tried to steal a magic wand?" Belle challenged in the face of his already foaming fury.
Inside her heart slammed wildly against her chest for refusing to let the matter lie. Never had she tried to broach such important matters to him. They had always been subtle things or little inane talks they both cherished, not the dealing of prisoners or plots for their vile will and machinations.
The Dark One angrily stabbed a black nailed thumb at his scrawny flamboyantly garbed chest. "No, because he shot me in the heart and tried to steal from my lover. I allow no one anywhere close to my person much less an arrow meant to end my life."
"I neared you the other day. I sullied your clothes in spilled food." Countered the brave beauty, facing the danger of is ire. "Cora even told you to punish me and you refused to lift your hand."
Pausing for a moment, the Dark One started thoughtfully at the bright, enslaved woman who dared argue with him. Even free peoples did not squabble with the Dark One, much less people with no power or important positions.
Waters of her infallible courage sluiced forth and doused part of his anger flickering wildly through his dark heart. His wrath departed in hissing steam from the inferno of his raging soul to be replaced with a pulsing heart that beat only for her in the most peculiar of ways. He always liked when he saw past the servant to the fearless woman beneath. There was something so utterly free about the fiery Belle, something made him wish to smile no matter the argument.
Frowning hard, the Dark One waved the matter off. "That was different." The fiend snipped back crisply. "You didn't try to kill me." Flourishing his hand in his usually impish bravado, he stared back at her defiantly. "Try that and you get skinned alive, everyone knows that!"
"No, actually, they don't." Belle informed the grandiose monster stonily, her eyes marbled glaciers. True, barbarous legends had once circulated about him, but no one had ever mentioned finding anyone skinned alive.
At her words, the fiend felt his wall of showy, impish delight crack. How could she tear down his bravado so fast, he contemplated uncertainly in the face of her severity. Already he could feel his vile humor evaporating under her un-amused frown and the chill of her cobalt depths as cold as a winter sky.
Gathering up the remnants of his surety, the Dark One snickered. "Well they will after they discover the body." The beast chirped and turned away to hide his features from her perceptive perusal. No matter what mask he donned upon his visage, she could some how always see beneath to the true emotion lurking under his ugly gray-gold flesh.
As he departed, Belle felt the thrill of magic hum through the forlorn castle like a chill. The aura of magic that permeated the castle when they were there fled from the thick walls and dark halls like mist shredded by the sun. The magic was hard to tell when both had gone, but she was measurably certain they had both departed.
Leaning the knobby broom on a corner the beauty stared at the last place the Dark One had habited. Despite what he said and how he brushed off her words torture was never justified and never would be.
Courage and rebellions burst in dazzling array in her heart with the fire of their small tussle. Her jaw tightened stoically and work calloused hands balled into twin fists by her sides.
Even in the face of the two most powerful sorceresses in the realms she could not let their atrocities go unanswered. What type of person would she be if she were to let the thief languish in the agonizing limbo of death and torture? Had she not always wanted to be brave, to be a hero?
No, she had to do something.
Forcing her fear away from the forefront of her mind, the beauty raced through the dark halls of the dreadful castle. Though fear thrilled through her veins and squeezed her heart, she knew what she had to do. For five years her courage had hidden beneath the insipid husk of a slave girl. Now, however, that woman adumbrated in the shadows could at least aid another less fortunate that she.
Oh yes, she was going to do something.
~8~8~
This really was a terrible predicament.
The dire thought dangled in the swampy marshes of blood and pulsing agony in Robin Hoods mind as he hung like a butchered cows carcass in the cold dungeon. Rusted black chains, hanging from a hook on the ceiling, dug fiercely into the chaffed skin of his bloodied wrists. His hands and arms hung numb over his head giving him no leave to protect himself from whatever his vile tormenters assailed upon him. The thief's brown booted feet barely scraped the stone floor, leaving him in the agony of standing on tip toe or risk his wrists or arms being dislocated from their already stiff sockets.
His cloak of dappled green and umber was long gone leaving him in a ragged undershirt and his breeches and boots. Crusted blood, old and new, stained his body and the clothes they had left on him in his sessions of torture. The streaks of crimson soiled his garments in long, disgusting lines that told the tale of his abject torment at their hands. His lips, crusted with the burgundy of his ichor were cracked and thin and his throat hoarse from screams they coaxed from his pained body.
Yes, he supposed inwardly with a sliver of his humor still intact, at present he truly was in a less than pleasant predicament.
Head down, the mutilated thief hummed a bucolic tune through his cracked mouth. The eerie sound of one awaiting pain and death echoed about the thick stoned room back at him in mocking cheer.
How he was going to get out of the prison alive was a mystery that gnawed at his heart, but he still held a faint glimmer in his blacked out heart. Fate had always shined upon him, and he held all faith the wheel of good fortune would spin his way again.
Abruptly, the door vapidly creaked open to his prison. A slant of bright orange light stole though the darkness and crafted a shadow upon the back wall he was turned to.
Peering at the shadow that formed upon the wall, the thief's bloody features crinkled with confusion. The form was not of the witch or her beastly companion. This figure was like some ephemeral being floated inside.
Flinching despite himself, Hood managed a half cocky grin and feigned being none the wiser. "Back already? I thought you had run out of vile implement to rend against my skin."
"I'm not here to harm you." Belle assured the thief as she hurriedly walked in front of his vision.
Turning his eyes up for the first time in two days, the thief espied the beautiful servant. Tenderness and concern danced in her stunningly blue eyes for him. Her maple hair was bound back and she looked as though she'd seen too many days of hard toil. In her hands, a wooden beaker sat in her gripped, filled with glorious water.
Blinking in disbelief, the archer stared upon the beauty come with a gift from heaven above. Had he not had his own love he might have been smitten by her.
Was she a mirage? Was she the angel he saw before his death?
Blinking beads of stinging sweat from his eyes, the thief stared at her. "Who are you?" The words came out in a raspy croak.
"A friend." Belle exchanged bravely. Putting the wooden rim up to his lips she tipped the cup to his cracked mouth. "Here, drink this."
Needing no second bidding, Hood gulped down the liquid greedily. Streams of cool water dribbled down the sides of his mouth, and kissed his itchy, blood swathed skin as he quaffed down what he could.
After the cup was empty, he breathed in deep. Never had he tasted such a fine drink and never was the drink served by a more beautiful face. "Thank you, milady for your kindness."
"No time for thanks." Belle raced over to the pin holding the chains to the swinging hook on the ceiling. Jerking the thick iron pin out, the beauty stood back. The black chains made a crinkling, whirling sound as they released their burden from the painful limbo of tiptoe.
"No one deserves to be tortured. It's inhumane." She growled out determinedly as the chains reeled out their cargo.
With a thump, the thief fell in a hard heap of blood and agony to the cold stony ground. Pain erupted in his tormented body, but that was nothing compared to the high elation of freedom. Adrenaline and glee swept through his heart, transforming his pain to nervous energy.
His feet, weary, refused at first to support his weight as he desperately tried to rise. Growling out in defiance, the thief rose and shook of the chains coiled about his hands. His body lurched as he stumbled about like some drunkard, but he refused to fall.
Shaking his head, Robin hugged the threshold for support as his legs became accustomed to walking again. "Well, they may beg to differ." He breathed out raggedly in reply to his savior. "And while my life may be saved here, yours is surely in peril. I fear they will turn there wrath on you." He held out a swollen hand. "Unless… unless you come with me."
Belle paused at the kind offer, her eyes locked upon his hand. A freezing spell from Cora could not have stilled her more than his words. Free from the cold castle, from her hellish life, from her eternal fate? Oh yes the thought was very tempting indeed. Taking his hand could open a multitude of windows.
Still, she shook her head. "I can't. I've made a deal to stay here so that my home could survive. I might leave unscathed, but my homeland would surely perish."
"You're a brave woman then." Hood averted his eyes from the enslaved beauty in pity. For the woman who had just saved his life, he would have loved to free her in turn, but determination glittered in her eyes. She made the choice to stay and if she so willed to remain he would not tempt her further. "You have my luck." He offered kindly. His fingers, curled over the coarse stone to keep himself up, loosened as strength endowed his legs again.
Terror filled the beauty's heart with his words, but shook the trepidation away. Bravery forced a smile upon her lovely face as she nodded. "Thank you. Now go. I do not know when they shall return. Don't let my actions be for nothing."
Standing in the dark cell, as the thief Robin Hood made his escape, the beauty let her back hit the cold, porous wall of the black cell. Dull footsteps rang softer and softer as he climbed the stairs with all haste. Soon he would reach the main hall and then find his way to sweet freedom through the accursed forest and back they way he had come through the haunted fens and monster laden paths.
And she… she would be left to face Cora's blazing wrath.