Chill wind wisped about all the realms in herald to the full arrival of glorious fall. Autumn was in full reign and every object in nature proclaimed such jubilation. The towering trees painted russet and gold and crimson arrayed the cool world with the splendorous colors of their impending death. Fields were lush and tawny and ripe with harvest. Orchards bowed low with their burdens, ready to be plucked and stored for the bitterest of the winter days.
Busy serfs and peasants toiled in hardy delight to bring in the goods for their lords and barons. A sense of cheer permeated every heart the bright autumn sun touched. Soon there would be feasts and celebrations to take their minds of the hard summers behind and the harsh winters before them. Lead by their kind leaders who wrought peace to all their realms, the year looked to be a fine one indeed.
All certainly seemed bolstered with happiness save for one blot of darkness rolling down a forest path.
Black tack and harness jangled in a jaunty rhythm of leather and steel as the carriage of Cora the cruel lumbered through the forest of Sherwood. The carriage was all forged all of black, like the owners heart and opened wide for light travel. Trimmings of gold embroidered the edges, flaunting affluence from the sable leather. Four black horses plodded with an unmanned coachman through the dirt tracks through fen and forest with only a goad and whip of magic to steer them through the autumnal trails.
Despite the terrible journey to seek someone's blood she was forced to endure, the beauty allowed the brilliant sights of autumn to encase her in surreptitious delight. The smells and the colors enraptured her in awe she held close to her brave heart.
Ever since she made the bargain five long years ago she was locked in Cora's foul home without leave to view the world from outside the gate. Now, even on a route to shed blood she would enjoy the rare privilege of being out in the cool, sunny day.
Head down, her dark amber hair veiling her features, Belle cast only the faintest glances up at the world lest her mistress catch her staring. Her tightly shackled hands sat folded delicately in her lap with Cora holding the lead loosely in her black gloved grip.
Sadness filled the beauty's every pore as she stared at the dark links swaying to and fro with every rumbling of the fine carriage. The chains were more of symbolism than anything else. At all times, the witch wished her to know she was not free and would never be free again.
"We're losing track of him." Cora piped up thoughtfully for the first time in three hours since their journey to revenge had begun. Staring out into the world passing them by in a blur, her astute words were calm and low almost as though the fact bothered her none at all. If she were frustrated the dire emotion never showed to her pallid features.
The ride through the realms had been mostly quiet one, with only the Dark One and his lover exchanging a few spare, conspiratorial words. Silence pervaded their carriage which allowed the massiveness of the fall flared forest engulf them with the awe of autumns reign.
They had been on a straight course for a long time, but even Belle could feel the twists and turns come more often and the uncertain lurch of the possessed stallions. Once in a while the horses pawed to a halt as though to get some bearings before racing off again like hell hounds on the scent of prey.
A grimace forged upon the Dark One's lips at her all too true words. The life force of the thief they followed flickered intermittently with their magical senses. Only magic could track the fool, but even magic had limits.
Heaving his shoulders in a shrug, the beast cast a spare glance out of the side window. The world flew by in a menagerie of vibrant fall hues, but there was nothing his senses could pick up past the errant fox or chattering squirrels heart beat. "This forest is too thick." The Dark One replied in distaste.
"Perhaps… perhaps we should turn around then." Belle broached bravely to the magical fiend.
Since the moment she allowed Hood free, her courage had taken abundant growth that could not be stifled. Her fearlessness that once consumed her bright heart began to devour that cowering maid twisted to life by Cora's cruelty. Little by little the woman kept away for five years was coming forth to the light without a hint of backing away once more.
Anger braced Cora's pallid visage in a pinching vise that narrowed her features. "We were not addressing you slave." She hissed tartly. Before the Dark One could interfere, she gave the girl a stinging slap aside her head. "Keep your tongue behind your teeth unless you want me to rip it out. For what you've done you're lucky I haven't made you run bound behind the carriage."
Mollified by the witches threat and the warning strike, the enslaved woman bobbed her head obediently. Cora could do just that and she had no wish to see her tongue taken along with her freedom.
Secretively casting her eyes to the Dark One, the beauty searched him. A frown of disapproval deeply scored his mouth as he darted his eyes to his lover. His scaled hands gripped at the edge of the carriage as though he stopped himself from some action.
None the wiser of the foul glint in his onyx orbs, the witch shifted slightly in her rattling seat. "I'm afraid we need some information about this place; someone who knows the area." Cora primped her done up raven hair.
Even as the words left her glossy, scarlet lips the whinny of horses filtered through the chill air. Horses hooves clopped luridly upon the stone cold dirt road and rustled the fallen leaves scattered about path.
Lifting a hand, the Dark One brought the carriage to a halt with a mental prompt. The ebony horses brayed and nickered as the carriage lurched to a stop. Snorting an pawing the frightening beasts shook their heads and stilled upon their quest.
Stepping out of the carriage, the magical monster proffered an ugly hand to his lover. With a smile the witch hitch up her flowing dress with one hand and entwined the other gloved appendage with his as he helped her down.
Belle jolted from her seat as her mistress climbed down to the earth. The thought of Cora letting her stretch her legs had not even crossed her mind. Her chains jangled raucously, making her flinch as she awkwardly stumbled about to be free from the confines of the light.
"Well don't dawdle, slave." Cora snapped tritely and gave the lead a cruel tug.
Scampering awkwardly to save herself from falling on her face in the dirt, the beauty did her best to get down on her own.
Surprise laced her lovely features as she saw the Dark One's hand still extended for her to grasp. Though he was angry, what bit of a gentleman there was in him was for his lovers slave as well.
Tremulously taking his hand without a hint of disgust, the beauty stepped down from the black carriage. Cobalt eyes down, she cast a clandestine glance to her mistress. Surely she wouldn't be happy to have her fun ruined.
Bitterness puckered her ruby lips as though she had eaten something explicitly sour. Her almond eyes pinioned upon the fiend who tactfully did not meet her gaze. He too knew precisely what his actions had wrought against her cruelty.
"What do we have here?" A nearly drunken voice slurred from behind their carriage. A trio of horses cantered cautiously near the empty carriage and the travelers upon their murderous quest.
Two of the fellows wore the mail war gear of guardsman whilst the leader wore only leather finery.
The man in the lead of the tri was an oily sort. His brown leather attire, though fine, was rumpled and disheveled upon his form as though he'd slept in them for many a night. A sword, ill kept, dangled by his waste and a bow with a broken string hung limpidly in the horses black saddle.
His dark brown hair was lanky and fell in wet strands about his face as though he'd been caught in some rains. Red rimmed his narrow, blue eyes and scruff of a grown beard raggedly donned his face. His body was like some limp stringy weed, wiry but tough to break.
Sniffing deeply, the cur all but slipped off his mount pawing mount. Almost comically, he tried to look serious as he lumbered forward in almost a military style.
Stepping forward politely, Dark One and dark mistress smiled pleasantly at the lout eyeing them. "Pardon the intrusion, sheriff." Cora spoke for them both, her tone light as though careless. "We come to these woods seeking a thief. He stole something very valuable from me."
"I know of whom you seek." The sheriff nodded and took a stumbling step forward. "The same man who stole my love and ruined me. The same man who made a mockery of me as sheriff."
The witch folded her hands in front of her, a smile tipping her crimson mouth. "Good. That makes this so much easier then. Where is he?"
"While I know who you seek, I also know who you both are." The sheriff informed them almost officiously. "I know your infamous reputation as dealmakers and I wish to strike a bargain of my own."
Looking to her dark lover, the cruel witch eyed him for any disapproval. Seeing none, she turned back to the sheriff, her lips still a wide grin. "And what would that be."
Wiping his nose with the back of his wrist, the sheriff pointed behind them both. "A night with your wench." He demanded flatly.
Belle froze as the price for the information they sought tumbled past his ale stained lips. Terror froze her courageous heart to a perilous standstill that threatened to end her very existence. The blood in her veins was like cold water sluicing through her form. Her hands, gripped tightly together, squeezed in a wringing vice that took the bite of the chains away.
A night with her. That's what he wished, a bed warmer that would not shy away from him. A woman he would not feel the least bit of guilt about if he held down whilst she pleaded for freedom.
Rage swelled like liquid fire in the Dark One at the request. His fingers twitched to dig into the drunks chest and rip his foul heart out and stomp the organ beneath his boot, but he held himself in check. This was Cora's bargain, not his.
"A night." Cora scoffed at the outlandish offer. "I don't have a night for you to lay with her. I want this thief by the time the sun has fallen."
Scratching the back of his lice ridden, oily strands, he shrugged, more than ready to bicker for a good price. "An hour." The sheriff tried to reason sensibly as though he were not bidding for a woman's dignity.
Oblivious to them all, the Dark One's rage grew into an inferno in his chest.
Cora perched a plucked brow with the new suggestion. The offer was better but she wasn't keen on loitering about for an hour behind some shack waiting for him to defile her slave girl.
Lowering his voice, the sheriff leaned in a bit closer outside the hearing range of his men. "Twenty minutes?" Reasoned the drunkard.
"Twenty?" The evil witch mulled the words over thoughtfully. In twenty minutes they could be done their whole business with the thief and be back in time. "Seems fair enough. So long as you tell us where he is first." Jerking the chain that held Belle's wrist, the cruel witch brought the terrified woman to the fore. Careless of the fright and pain marbled upon her slaves features she held out the lead chain like a new prize for the sheriff to take. "After you relate to us the whereabouts of my quarry, you may take her and do as you will. We'll be back to collect her later."
Stumbling forward on numb legs, Belle's chilled heart sank into the roiling lake of her stomach. Her mouth dried into a desert as she watched in silent horror at the foul exchange of flesh.
Had her mistress just whored her? Out of all the cruelties she had lashed upon her slave, this was by far the cruelest.
Before the witch could seal the accord, the Dark One stepped in. A gray-gold hand curled about her upper arm as he dragged the witch back a pace from the lascivious sheriff. "We don't have time for this." Rumpelstiltskin hissed lowly to his lover. His sable eyes studied her carefully, looking for any measure of agreement.
"Of course we do." The vile sorceress scoffed almost pleasantly, her smile a wicked rose grin. "This deal is golden, Rumpel. We slaughter our thief and punish the slave all in the same instance." Her eyes flickered to the terrified girl. "She'll learn never to try and defy me again."
Starring at the pure wickedness of Cora, for the first time in centuries something akin to hate scorched his ardor for her. In her eyes all he could see was endless blackness of loathing he held in her heart.
Though he was furious, the thought of doing something so foul to the girl seemed an atrocity. Never would he have left her in the groping hands of such a brute who would take every advantage of her. Nothing she ever did would ever make him even consider such an action.
A fierce protectiveness he couldn't explain washed over him in a tidal wave of righteous rage. There was no way, the drunkard pig would have her. Not even if the bargain was Cora's deal.
Annoyance traced the witches pale face. "Well what do you suggest?" She inquired icily, ready to hear in better means of getting their information.
Smiling, once more in his element, the fiend stepped back towards the expectant sheriff. Oh he had some ideas to gather their information alright.
Looking from Dark One to frightened beauty, the sheriff grinned evilly at the fiend, oblivious to his sweltering fury. "So do we have a deal then? My information for the girl?"
"How about a new deal." The Dark One chuckled manically. Flicking a scaled hand through the cool air he summoned magic to his expert command. Dark purple tendrils of power fled eagerly from his dexterous talons like serpents unleashed.
The vines of magic slipped down the drunkards throat and wormed through his nose in the worse possible way. A puff of dark vapors scourged the sheriffs features before drifting away on the winds of fall.
In an instant, the sheriff wriggling tongue sat in the beats hand. The pink muscles flicked about like a worm trying to escape his talons.
Hands clasped over his throat the sherries coughed in astonishment. His eyes were as round as full fall moons as he stared at his own tongue twisting and writhing in the fiends black nailed grip.
Holding out the tongue like some prize, the fiend grinned. "New deal!" He trilled in mock happiness. "Tell us where the thief is and you get this back. Do we have a deal?"
Nodding rapidly the sheriff accepted with all haste. Out of everything, he had not expected his own life to be in peril from those of like minds and dark hearts.
Satisfied, the fiend flicked his hand lazily. Another puff of lavender spurted through the air as he returned his tongue.
Gagging for air, the sheriff sucked in the cool autumnal winds. Furious, the corrupted official cast the Dark One a scathing glance. How dare he interfere with his chance for pleasures!
Glaring back at him, Rumpelstiltskin snarled towards the man, his teeth flashing past his thing gray lips. His ebony eyes glittered like brimstone in a fierce protectiveness that told of a ready will to take more than a tongue. If he thought a dirty look would quail the Dark One he was oh so wrong.
Cowed, like any coward the sheriff pointed lamely to the woods. "His camp resides in the forest. He normally lingers about the road to Nottingham. You will find him there."
"Thank you, sheriff." The Dark One chirped just as jovially as before though a hint of danger skirted his falsetto timbre. He waved a hand languidly at the defeated shell of a man. "You may go now."
Without another word, the man retreated back to his guardsmen. With all haste, and without daring to look back, they made their way out, leaving the Dark One and the two women alone.
Anger glittered like diamond in Cora's eyes as the trio departed into a dull pounding of hooves down the trail. Fury sang just beneath her flesh telling of her disapproval. "You ruined a perfectly good deal, Rumpel." She accused viciously, her voice dark with blistered, cheated rage.
The deal was more than good. The deal was excellent. They would have killed two birds with one well placed arrow. Unless, the sudden though shot through her vile mind, unless, he hadn't wanted both birds.
"Have you sunk so low, you'd peddle sex?" The Dark One parried in a succinct snort of disdain. A form of carefully contrasted haughtiness veiled his features as he challenged her. "It was my belief we had not sunk that low than to offer what can be cheaply bought on every street corner in Nottingham. I thought we dealt in gems and magic; the rare and impossible."
Deep red tinted the sorceress' normally ghostly flesh as she stared him eye to eye in their disagreement. The words to refute him sputtered like a spark on wet tinder upon her tongue. In an infuriating way he was right. They were not some normal peddlers and swindlers of the common. Had she forgotten in all the months with the lack of deals, was she too eager to strike a bargain no matter how crass?
But then again, the girl was merely a slave who needed to learn a valuable lesson in crossing her betters. That in turn wrought the question why he had not agreed with the bargain to see her punished.
Abruptly, the same odd feeling she had felt for the longest time came back in a rush that nearly overtook her senses. The feeling was so poignant the aura nearly rattled her bones with pain. Something was truly more amiss than she thought.
"Is that really all, Rumpel?" She inquired lowly, her words questioning, probing for the truth hidden behind his ugly skin.
Keeping his scaled features a strict neutral of insouciance, the Dark One gazed fully into her orbs. "Yes." He lied coolly showing nothing that lay engraved upon in his black heart.
Almond eyes boring into his, the witch stared him down like a lion facing a tiger. Part of her knew not to believe him, but she had no evidence to suggest otherwise. He was always an odd sort. Perhaps the distaste of sinking so low for a mere bargain did truly irk him.
Snorting, her mood for killing spoiled, the witch waved a spell worked hand dismissively. "Fine." She spat and turned away. "I grow tired of this hunt Rumpel. I'm going back home." Haughtily shifting her velvet blue cloak about her slender person, she frowned as she beckoned magic to wing her away. "Make sure you bring the head of the thief back, and make certain the slave watches."
Snapping her fingers, the witch enshrouded her self with raven feathers of magic and disappeared back her dreaded citadel.
As the fragrance of strong ammonia flitted away upon the chilled autumn wind, the fiend dared to breathe again. Cold air burned his lungs as he greedily inhaled life. For a few moments facing her he had not even dared to draw breath, not wishing to give away the uncertainty lingering like dark mists cloying at his heart. One curtain amiss and she would know without a hint of doubt the lies in his soul.
Letting his shoulders slump, the beast allowed relief to rattle through him. That was one more hurdle passed.
"Thank you." Belle voiced breathlessly as she felt the last tingling of Cora's black magic depart. Gratefulness welled in tears in her eyes. Her orbs were blue crystal as she stared at the Dark One. He had spared her from a fate worse than torture, a fate that plucked away the last ounce of dignity she owned to herself.
Turning to her, the malicious fiend snorted. "Not another word about it." He swiveled to the direction of the forest looming the side of the narrow stretch of road. The last thing he need was her thanks or the giddiness in his heart that sprung from her words. "Let's find my thief and be done with this."
After what he's just done, the darkness prowling the recesses of his heart wanted recompense. There had to be some form of payment to dilute the heroism he showed in constantly saving the girl from his lover's evil machinations.
"Surely you can't still think of killing this man." Belle followed him close into the dim, thick forest. The chains about her wrists jangled raucously as she stumbled and scurried about the moss strewn land. Bits of refuse and leaves snagged upon the chain that trailed the ground as she tried her best to follow.
Rolling his black eyes, the Dark One stopped in his tracks. Did she ever stop? Turning about quickly, he grasped Belle's hands in his own before she could come to a quick enough halt.
Holding her hands, for a moment his black heart stilled. His dark nailed talons ghosted tenderly over her skin that housed the bright soul of Belle. For a moment, the fiend could not help but stare at the contact of his skin and his. His scaled talons looked horrendous next to her delicate flesh that had given up freedom for her people.
Ugliness swathed his soul as he studied her skin and his own next to one another. Why did she have to be so beautiful inside and out. At least Cora's dark, ugly soul made him feel as though close to one of his own kind, but Belle… Belle was a ray of light inside and out and he but a foul shadow. Her beauty did not stop at her skin but filled her entire form.
Casting the foolish thought away, the fiend stared down at her tightly shackled wrist, exacerbating her clumsiness. Disapproval narrowed his gray lips into a pencil thin line as he inspected the dark links. The shackles were tight about her wrist adding pain with every jolt.
He had not wished for them upon her, but Cora was adamant. If something occurred with a rouge wand, the last thing she wished was for her servant to make an escape.
"I can't stand these." The fiend spat hatefully towards the iron links. "You've no need to be bound and the sound will do nothing to make our coming easily heard." Slowly running his talons over the links, the fiend summoned his magic to do his bidding.
One by one the iron transformed into lavender fog that drifted upon the wind leaving her hands free. The chains would be in Cora's residence one more but if she did not check then she wouldn't know.
Shock laced Belle's features as she stared at her free hands lightened from their cruel weight. Gray and blue bruises dappled the skin where the iron bracelets once bit into her flesh but that was the extent of the injury.
"Rumpelstiltskin." The beauty found his sable eyes.
Why was he so kind to her?
Quickly turning from her, the beast stomped off through the dying greenery once more. "No." He snapped back, his voice a dangerous growl. "No thank you, not gravitated. Nothing.
"But Rumpel." Belle followed closely, not to be stymied from the words pounding like blood through her heart. Clinging like a shadow to his sinewy form as they walked, she spoke lowly to the man who seemed to always be at her rescue. "You've shown me that there can be a kind man behind the Dark One. Why not show the same clemency to your thief?"
Annoyance darkly blotted his befouled soul at her brave insistence. Ducking beneath a heavy branch, the fiend clicked his teeth irksomely. "Because he is a thief." He answered simply, hoping in vain to end her words.
Trudging up a knoll littered with oaks and beeches the fiend focused on the task ahead for slaughter.
"And I was the slave who let the thief go." Reaching out her hand, Belle grabbed the Dark One by his twill sleeve. Her toil had made her strong, but she knew perhaps the try in vain to hold him still for a moment.
Leave rustled as the fiends froze where he stood in the glade of tall beeches and oaks. Her touch was like a jolt of magic making his legs numb from knee to ankle. Fronds of magic could not have stopped him so fast like her touch.
By her will or his own, he turned to her. Disbelief filled his black orbs at her willfulness and bravery.
Pleading filled her cobalt eyes as she stared bravely into the Dark One's own pitiless black depths. "Cora sought to punish me in the cruelest of fashions for believing I had simply let him walk away. In less that a day you've lied for me, saved me from torture, spared me the indecency and humiliation of being whored." She held her bruised wrists up. "And even taken away my chains. Can you not find it in your heart to spare one thief?"
Before any words could leave his mouth, leaves rustled at the base of the hill. A low voice muttered something akin to a prayer below them.
Without either viewing the speaker, master and slave knew they had found their thief. The voice was too similar Rumpelstiltskin knew immediately as the sound echoed faintly through the forest. They had found Hood.
Dismissing her case of clemency for the thief, the Dark One swiveled on his heel and crept to the apex of the knoll. His steps were like those of a hunter nearing a skittish grazing deer.
A curse fell from Belle's pink lips as the sound filtering about the trees. She had been close, but fate seemed to have other plans of claiming a thief's life. The time for talking was nearly done.
Carefully following the beauty stood a few steps back from the Dark One but still well enough to view the bottom. Sure enough there thief sat at the base of the hill near a narrower road that snaked through the iris of the forest.
Another patchy green and forest brown cloak donned his weedy figure that squatted in the ditch. A bow, not his original, but certainly a fine piece was strapped behind his back with an array of arrows. An anxious look swathed his face and between his pilfering fingers the wand rested casually in his hands. Slowly twirling the wand, he anxiously looked down both sides of the road.
"He looks like he's waiting for someone." Belle whispered to the Dark One as she crept forward. Part of her wished to scream a warning to the thief for his life, but that would make her master shoot without any more thought to the matter.
Perhaps, there was a little crack left in the door to dissuade his murderous intent.
The beast huffed caustically, sending a plume of chilled gray vapors thought he air. "To a buyer no doubt. Probably nobleman who wants a bit of magic under his belt against foes. You'll see, Belle." His mouth grimaced hatefully. "Your thief is nothing but a scoundrel."
Even as the words left his mouth, noise echoed wildly down the road. The clattering of a ramshackle cart and mules plodding down the narrow lane responded in echoes throughout the entangled forest. The cries of a coachman barked out orders to the beasts of burden as the cart slowed near the thief.
Close to the Dark One so that they were nearly akimbo, the beauty stared down better at the hillside. Inside, her heart flittered with errant trepidation. Was she wrong about the thief? Was he only stealing the wand for a few golden coins?
A relieved smile traced Hood's lips as the cart rattled to a stop next to him. Lying in the base of the rickety wooden cart was a pale, haggard woman. Her raven hair sat in matted tangles and her skin was paler than even Cora's hue. Death lingered about the woman in a fog that threatened to steal her last breath at any spare moment. Even a commoner could tell she was ill unto death.
Hoards of old pillows and tattered blankets heaped the cart to make her warm but her body still shook. Her body was akin to a gaunt shift of muslin lying on the sea of comfort, ready to slip into the afterlife.
Pity filled Belle's stalwart heart for the ill woman. "See." Belle pointed needlessly as the thief jumped unto the cart. "He's using the wand to heal her."
Darkness bit ruthlessly at the beast's heart at the sight of such loving devotion. Part of him was almost moved to compassion. Almost. "He's still a thief." He murmured lowly, his voice filled with murder.
The intentions mattered nothing. A thief he was and a thief he would die.
"Rumpel you…." She took a step forward but was stopped short by the wave of his scaled hand.
Immediately, Belle felt her body amiss. What step she was about to take became locked in place. Refuse of the trees and yearly mulch covered half her figure pinning her to the earth. The ground seemed to swallow half her form into the forest then stop keeping her firmly in place like some sapling.
Pulling as though she could haul herself up, the beauty struggled in the helpless venture to free herself. Her work calloused fingers clutched at the moist, cold ground as she tried to pry and claw herself free from the earth. "Rumpel please… you can't do this."
Deaf to her please, the fiend drew and arrow from the thief's own quiver and touched the enchanted bow. Taking a breath, he pulled at the oiled string and aimed to the man hovering over his sick love.
Oblivious to the archer of death atop the wooded knoll, Hood stroked his loves tangled hair. His lips moved in silent words of love as he doted upon her with hope. Pulling the covers from her form, the thief slowly pried away the blankest.
A swollen belly wreathed in the soft folds of a dress came to light. Her belly was rotund with child as she laid there close to deaths door.
"Look." Belle breath, her struggling stopped. "She pregnant." Her eyes turned to the Dark One ready to let the shafts free. "You are not the type of man to leave a child fatherless."
Was he?
Pain squeezed the Dark One's heart in a vice at the sight of the budding family tenuously in the balance of death. Pregnancies all too often came with complications. The man who had stolen the wand had been desperate to save both, not choose between mother and child.
Was he not the same once upon a time? Had he not risked cowardice to be with his family?
Inside the darkness cursed him a weak fool. That life was over. He was no longer the kind, thoughtful cur of old. But… he was kind to Belle. He could be kind, all he had to do was let the feeling free.
Eyes hard as rock, the fiend loosed the shaft.
Hissing like a serpent ready to strike, the shaft sang trough the air. The tip glinted in the sunlight like a beacon to show death the way.
Belle covered her mouth to hold in a scream as the arrow flew. Tear sparked in her cobalt eyes to see the shaft loosed. How could he have done such a thing? Was she wrong about the Dark One? Had her heart lied?
In an instant the arrow sank deep into the ground beside a cart wheel. The feathers quivered as the shaft caught into the hard earth. Frightened mules keened with the hint of magic eager to be off.
The thief looked up sharply but could see no one. "Someone has found us." He whispered urgently to his love. His sharp brown eyes scanned the ridge of the forest threatening to overtake them. "We should make haste."
Motioning his hand to the driver, the thief scanned the woods. The cart lurched to a roll as the made all haste out of the area, a family.
"What happened?" Belle asked tenuously, her eyes roved in disbelief to the monster.
Ignoring her inquisitiveness, the beast allowed his magic to release the beauty. A sigh fell softly past his lips as he stared at the arrow lodged firmly in the dirt track. Despite the darkness in him, he all but released the thief with his life intact and the wand still in his grasp. Cora would not be pleased in the very least.
Belle gasped as she felt the earth's deep vines release their gripping hold upon her legs. In an instant she felt herself atop the soil she was once plunged in. Trembling forward on wary feet, the beauty neared the aimlessly staring fiend.
Raising a hand he cleared his throat imperiously. "Back to the carriage. I'm bored of this forest."
"What happened?" Her insistence fell upon his ears once more.
A grimace slashed his gray-gold features. "I missed." He lowered the bow slowly as though he couldn't believe the thief was not dead and bleeding on the hard dirt. Why had he spared him, because of the words of a slave?
"That bow has magic in it, it never misses." The beauty deadpanned matter-of-factly. In the tumult she had not forgotten the words of the thief that foolish day he found his way into Cora's web. There was no way the Dark One could have missed his target least, he perform his own to disabuse the arrow sight.
With a curse the fiend turned to her to offer a biting retort to his much too perceptive servant. "Well perhaps the magic just wore…."
His breath caught like a fist in his chest. Azure eyes glittered merrily with something… new. Something he could not comprehend. The sordid black heart, lodged like a forgotten treasure in his chest, pulsed with a foreign emotion long lost to his vile, beastly senses.
"Off…." He finished numbly, his black eyes riveted to her as he managed to form the words and let the last portion fall from his lips.
Happiness surged in a wave through the beauty with the thought that her masters former quarry still lived. His clemency proved there was someone behind the Dark One, someone who was not as dark as people claimed in hated, frightful whispers and in the dead of night beneath the cloak of darkness.
Taken by emotion of the faint glimmer of goodness in him, a glimmer somehow she always knew lurked in his form, the beauty wrapped her arms about his neck. Her slender body pressed close to his gray-gold skin without a hint of revulsion to his vile figure. To see him as more than the Dark One brought a new facet of his ever changing being to light. He was much more, she knew, and now she held the proof as physical truth instead of only the whispers of her heart.
Stepping back the beauty looked coyly at the frozen Dark One. He seemed witless, as though not knowing what recourse to take after her touch, let alone hugging him. "Aren't you coming?" Her mouth tipped in a faint, demure smile.
A smile weakly twitched upon his lips as he followed the girl back to the awaiting carriage on the other side of the trees. Words tumbled from his mouth in an amiable tone as he walked step in step with the beauty. Chatting like old friends once more renewed in a deeper friendship, master and slave spoke freely to one another as they slowly traipsed through the forest enjoying the afternoon.
Starring down from her clandestine perch above her slave and lover's knoll, Cora's deplorable pet raven clacked his silver beak darkly at the spectacle. His ruby eyes, enchanted by his mistress caught every moment.
Looking through the ravens eyes at her keep, the witch took in every moment the ravens eyes displayed. Anger roiled and stewed darkly in her vile husk of a heart as her almond eyes in the iris of her ravens followed them through the veil of thick trees. The curtain of stalwart beeches and ancient oaks did little to hide their close companionship, and little more to stifle the pleasant words to one another that came all too easily from their smiling lips.
Her spell clever fingers clutched tightly into twin fists at her side, turning paler than the first snows soon to fall over the realms. Though she couldn't have disproved his words when he stared her in the face and assured her is reasoning for taking the sheriffs tongue, she was not naive enough, to simply take him on his word.
Though she made all haste back to her dreaded citadel, she employed her raven to follow above their own hunt; to view his actions alone with the girl from the canopy of the trees. Looking down from above on a gnarled perch, she witnessed all that transpired from the freeing of her slaves chains to the unwarranted clemency of the Dark One.
A hard frown scoured her pallid face as she stared at the last place they had been together. By the looks of his choices, the odd feeling in her bones and her suspicions were indeed correct. Something was truly amiss and she now knew what.