3

Her family often teased her for being a dreamer. They were warriors, all of them, and rarely stopped to think before swinging a sword. They were coarse and direct, their laughter was loud and their steps heavy. She always looked odd amongst them – too small, too quiet, and too beautiful. Of course they doted on her – she was their lovely little princess, yet she did feel sometimes that they didn't think of her as a human being, but as a sort of domestic pet, rather: a pretty kitten, or something like that. It was difficult for her to blend in with them – from the very early days of her life she felt she was somehow a bit brighter than most of the adults around her. Sometimes, staring at the sky at night or sitting by her window listening to the rain (she loved to do that) she would get a feeling that the world is a much greater and complicated place than it seemed at the first glance, that it is a mystery to be explored. The wind on her face felt like a breath of something beyond the obvious. Yet she could never explain that feeling to any of the people close to her. When she'd mention it, they would just say: 'But of course the world is big, you should just cross the mountains to see how vast the next plane is, little Belle', and they would toss her hair, and walk away smiling at the 'silly little princess'. She couldn't make them understand that she meant something beyond mountains and planes and forests. She felt frustrated at not being able to explain herself. At first she thought the problem is with her – she is weird. Then she discovered books and realized that there were other people in the world who knew what she meant, and had similar feelings and thoughts. Only none of them happened to be members of her family. So she read more and more, talking to the people on the pages rather than to her family, and gradually came to think of herself as an essentially lonely person. She knew that none of the things she finds important and exiting interest people around her even in the slightest. Everything that mattered to her, mattered only to her, and that was that. So she stopped trying to talk to her family – she kept herself to herself, always escaping to the dream world of her books, were imaginary people understood her.

She was not naïve, she knew that books are books, and the stories in them are made up. She never expected her life to suddenly become like one of the stories. She did not dream of adventures really happening to her, and she did not expect a handsome prince or a dark stranger to enter her life. Her life, her real life, was structured and simple and very predictable. She had a fiancée, and he was a nice young man; nothing exiting, just a very decent fellow, rather like a brother to her. He was almost a brother – a cousin, actually, he was deemed a suitable husband for her because he was close to the family. Her father had no sons, so she was supposed to marry Gaston and bear him children so, when her father died, there would be heirs to the throne – she could not become the queen, but her male descendants could inherit the kingdom. She was content with this arrangement – she knew her duty, and she planned to live a quiet life, helping the men run the state as best as she could, enjoying her simple pleasures, and gathering wisdom from her books. She was, to some extent, a person divided in two; there was a practical, sensible girl living a life amongst the people. And there was a dreamer, yearning for strong emotions and interesting things and adventures. These two girls were aware of their separate existence; they looked at each other with a quiet detachment, akin to the feeling one gets while looking into somebody's lighted window at night: you see life going on there, inside, and you like it and feel fascinated by it, but you just observe without interfering. The two girls living inside her mind were happy together: the practical girl never spoiled the dreamer's fun, and the dreamer never let her imagination run too wild.

She was not happy, perhaps, but she was content with her life. She did not expect it to turn very exiting, yet she never thought it would bring her anything unpleasant, too. She expected her life to run smoothly as an unbroken tread till her dying day. If someone told her that her life will change completely and irrevocably in one instant, she would never have believed it. She would never have believed that she would change it herself – with her own words and actions and decisions.

Yet, when it happened, it seemed like a completely natural thing.

She must have been out of her mind to step forward when that strange creature offered his deal, and agree to it. Perhaps the reason for that sudden action was that she was unbalanced by all the recent troubles – scared of the ogres, worried sick for her father, who seemed to collapse under strain, frustrated at not being able to help the men in any way. Here was her chance to help, to do something, to solve all their problems at once.

Her own promise to come away from her family with… That thing didn't look like a problem then. It was something she was going to do, and she was completely accustomed to the fact that nobody cared what she does, for they never understood her words and actions, anyway. So, when her father and her fiancée voiced their protest, she was surprised and even slightly irritated by them. It was her decision and her problem, why should it concern them? After all, she was doing her duty, protecting the kingdom, as any princess should. Saving the kingdom must have been their priority, as well. They have asked the Dark One for help, they dragged him all the way to their kingdom, and then they started squabbling over the price? Didn't they know how these things are done – didn't they realize that there is always a price for magic? Didn't they know that this person they called in to help always asks for something unexpected? Well, perhaps they did not know that, or never thought, never made a connection between previous cases and their own. One has to be in a habit of thinking to make a connection like that, and none of the men around her were very good at thinking.

And now they were fussing around her, drawing swords, shouting angry words. They were like little kids… What would their swords do to a person who can defeat the ogres? It was ridiculous, really – no wonder he sneered at them. The more they fretted, the more irritated with them she grew. She suddenly saw her life as it was going to proceed if the deal would fall through: the ogres would win, the castle will be destroyed, her father, and most of his people, would be dead. Gaston will save her – he had king's orders to get her away if danger became real. So, she'd have to flee her country with a fiancée she didn't fancy, seek protection in some other kingdom, and live in exile with a husband that she had to marry to provide heirs for the fallen throne. That was not the fate the practical side of her wanted or expected; and the dreamer in her didn't want to observe that fate coming true in silence. This time, just once, the dreamer spoke up, and said that she had a right to make her own decisions.

So it was all a bit of a teenage rebellion, actually. Not a heroic deed, not a conscious sacrifice – these considerations entered her mind, as well, but they were not the real reasons for her actions. They were the reasons she had to honor the offered deal. Her need to act on her own was the reason she wanted to honor it.

Her heart was beating madly, though she tried to look calm, and she felt she had to act quickly, for the Dark One was about to leave. He didn't seem to be very insistent on his conditions and didn't look as if he really needed her for something – it seemed that, asking for her, he acted out of sheer boredom.

She stepped forward to stop him leaving, and spoke to him, and he turned to face her, and she had a first proper look at him, up close.

She couldn't say that she felt frightened, not really. She was just thoroughly shocked. He didn't look scary or very ugly (ogres looked much worse), he was just so very strange. The greenish skin glinted with specs of golden dust. Rumpled locks looked like moss. He was all green and brown and grey, as if he belonged to the forest and was part of it – a gnarled stomp of a tree that came to life, somehow, or some animal that acquired a human voice. Well, the voice didn't sound very human, too – it was more like a sort of screech, not very natural, slightly affected, even.

He was a completely bizarre creature, and she did wonder what did he want from her. He did not look as if he was going to ravish her in the darkness of his castle – he looked much too ironic and detached to even imagine him doing something of the sort. Yet she very seriously doubted him needing a caretaker, either.

She looked into his eyes, trying to figure him out, and thought how strange it was that this weird creature had human eyes. Well, they were not human, really – they were filmy and green and unnaturally still, like the eyes of some reptile that only blinks once in an hour, but their expression was entirely human. There was no mockery in his eyes as he looked at her; on the contrary, he looked a bit sad and very kind as he warned her that their deal was forever, and she didn't feel any danger from him.

So she promised him what he asked for. And, as she pronounced the word 'forever', that's when she felt it – the abrupt change of her destiny. Her life as she knew it was over, at that very instant. The course her life was meant to run – the course on which she married Gaston, had children, lived at home, grew old, read quietly by the fireplace watching her family have fun, that course disappeared from the imaginary landscape of her life, and instead of a comfortable road she found a bleak and vast wilderness of the unknown spreading before her. It was deserted, empty and dark, it was filled with chilly mist, and she knew not where she should go or what she should do. There was only one thing solid and clear in this new and frightening world were she imagined herself – He, The Dark One, was standing by her side. He was the only living thing to keep her company in the darkness. And she couldn't find anything comforting or reassuring in that – she was frightened, she was chilled to the bone by what happened to her. She never felt anything of the sort before, but she guessed: that must have been magic at work. If so, then she was not sure she wanted to have anything to do with it. It felt dangerous.

As her family protested anew, she stood by her… companion and cast him a brief glance. He looked a bit shaken, too. He looked as if something unexpected happened to him as well. She thought it was strange – he was the magician, surely the way magic worked wouldn't disturb him.

She watched her family wearily – she suddenly felt exhausted, ready to drop off her feet. Why were they screaming so, why did her father protest so hotly, insulting the man who came to help him? Nothing could be changed now – even He couldn't change anything. The change that came over her fate, leaving her in a desolate darkness and binding her to this man, could not be undone – she was irrationally sure of that.

She felt a chilly and damp breath of the mist covering her imaginary wilderness as she silenced her father with a sad 'It has been decided'. And then she felt surprisingly hot breath of her new master on the back of her neck (she expected his breath to be cold, somehow), as he came up behind her and whined, grinning at her father: 'You know, she is right. The deal is struck. Oh, congratulations on your little war!'

And with that, he marched her out of door, gently nudging her on the back with an unexpectedly delicate touch of an unexpectedly warm hand.

She felt empty and lost as she walked beside him. She looked at her feet, watching every step.

In her mind, she was just entering the darkness of the wild place her life has become.