Soft Spots, Hard Hearts

A blonde woman in a tattered grey dress made her way through the woods, her hand, pale and thin, coming up to rest on a tree or two as she passed them, using them to help push her onwards as she continued her trek. It was nearly dark, the dusk just beginning to settle over the land, yet the woman was walking through the forest. It was a dangerous time, that particular branch of the Dark Woods home to a score of deadly and vicious animals, yet the woman seemed completely unaffected by the threat, just walking on.

She paused a moment beside a rather gnarled oak tree, straightening more and turning, pulling down her hood and looking into the distance behind her. She closed her eyes a moment, allowing the sounds of the forest to drift over to her, and smirked. She could hear them, hear the faint melodies of nature and animals around her. Where others would be spooked by the noises of the forest, the creaking of the tree branches, the rustling of the bushes, the howling of the wolves in the distance, she found them…comforting.

She was the Pied Piper after all, and animals were far more easily controlled than humans.

She feared none of the animals that lurked in the darkness, confident in her music, in her magic, in the pipe resting in her boot that she would be able to defend herself against them. No, not just defend herself, control them if need be. Perhaps she should consider that, reaching her destination with a horde of ferocious beasts hers to command, a little show of her strength and power to the person she sought. But the idea quickly left her, with the way fate seemed to mock her, she would appear with the horde and be incinerated by a fireball.

That is, if the rumors of how evil and cruel the Dark One was said to be held any truth at all.

She was unsure of it, of just what the man was like. All she knew of him was hearsay, the encounters of others that had fallen victim to his 'deals' or that had found themselves the target of another's deal. She did not trust the word of those men, most appeared scorned. From the tales she heard, most men either did not get what they bargained for, in which case, shame on them for not being more specific in their requests. To make a deal with the devil one must be prepared to deal with the devil in return. Those men were not as bright as they liked to imagine themselves if they could not think that someone as powerful as the Dark One would try to find a way to make the deal benefit himself as well. They all seemed under the impression that the Dark One would do as they requested, exactly as they wanted, with little to no benefit to himself. It was a fool's belief.

It was one reason she was prepared to offer something first, offer him a benefit that he would be hard pressed to refuse, control the amount of loopholes he would undoubtedly try to put into the deal. If she gave him something, offered up what he would be given in return right at the start, perhaps he would stick more to their bargain, if he accepted it.

The other men, though, they were the even more foolish. They were the men that had made a deal and, through the course of seeing it fulfilled, changed their minds and tried to back out of it. She would not be so daft as to make that mistake, not with someone like the Dark One. Nor would she ever think to do it with any other as well. She always upheld her end of a bargain, she had had more than enough people trying to outwit her or trick her into a better deal for them or refuse to pay her for her services. They all suffered the consequences for it. She understood what it was like to have someone try to back out once a deal was struck, she would not subject someone else to the same folly. No, if she was to make this deal, it would be in place for a very long time and she would NOT be the one to back out first, that much was certain.

She looked up at the sun, able to see it starting to set in the distance. Not that she could actually SEE the sun, not through the thick trees around her, not with it so low to the ground now, but from the sky above the trees. It was going to be dark very soon, something she was looking forward to.

It was easier to travel in the darkness, at least when one did not fear the dark nor those that dwelled within it. In the daylight it was easier to see her moving through the woods despite her brown cloak and hood, she was still visible. And with the sun beating down it could be unbearable to keep going with so little supplies as she had. She was nearing the end of her water as well, not having come across a stream recently. The dark was better, let her feel the strain of the journey less than if she was making her way in the day. She was practically invisible at night, there were less people in the woods, and the only 'danger' out there were the animals but they paid her no mind if she hummed the right tune to ward them off.

She sighed, turning back to her path and taking a breath, starting to do just that. It was not that she didn't mind coming across a beast or two, they were so entertaining to spook off, but she was tired and she would rather not deal with any other nuisance till she'd reached the Dark One's castle. Being in a sour mood or too exhausted would be sure to cloud her judgment and she needed to be as close to her best as she could be when confronting a man as tricky and slippery as the Dark One was rumored to be.

And so she hummed, using the music both as a way to protect her and calm her. There were times where using her songs could make her tired, when she used too much energy, when others fought back against her magic, but more often than not, the small humming was just that, humming. It was a smaller amount of magic used and as it was more internal, there was nowhere else for the energy to go than inside her, it was like a loop in that sense. She'd used it in the past to give herself an energy boost.

So lost in her music was she that she didn't hear a rustling in the bushes nor the approaching song till she'd heard a gasp behind her.

She paused in her trek, not one for gasping or letting others see her reaction. She couldn't think of the last time she'd really let another person see what she was truly feeling, she'd come so far from the pitiful princess she'd been to the woman she was now. She would not give anyone the advantage of seeing her startled. So she stopped walking, she tilted her head to the side and listened a moment, frowning at the music she heard, before she turned entirely…

And saw nothing there.

No, that wasn't entirely true, she could make out the outline of a person, a small person, hiding behind a tree but not having the sense to NOT peek out from behind it. She could make out a small form in the dying light, but even if she couldn't, the song itself was enough to know it was a child standing behind the tree. There was something about the song of a child that couldn't be matched by adults, like a whimsy in their tunes, it gave a feeling of innocence. The only person she knew that had an even slightly whimsical feel to their song as an adult was Snow, but her song had matured just as all children do when they grew. This one though still had that light feel to it, it was truly a child and not a rather small adult.

"Come out from behind there," she called, internally wincing at the sound of her voice. One side effect of humming for so long was that her voice sometimes sounded quite hoarse after, "I know you are there. Come out."

There was a shuffle, but the child moved more behind the tree.

Piper let out a long, quiet breath, "I mean you no harm," she offered.

But still the child remained hidden, which, she had to admit, was quite smart of them. No one should trust a random stranger that said they wouldn't hurt you, more often than not they did.

She looked around, trying to think of something that would get the child out from behind the tree and closer to her. It wasn't…she shouldn't care. She really shouldn't, she should just turn her back and keep on her path and get to the Dark One like she planned. The child shouldn't matter. An adult wouldn't, if it was an adult she would have likely incapacitated them into a stupor for following her and been on her way. But that was just it, wasn't it? It wasn't an adult, it was a child.

A child wandering the middle of dangerous woods, at night, clearly frightened which could very well mean the child was lost.

And as much as she wanted to, as much as she desired to just turn her back on the small person and walk away…she couldn't.

She knew what it was like to be a child and be frightened, never in the woods and never of the dark, but she'd been scared as a child before and…children…as much as she'd hated the other children growing up, she had somehow developed a fondness for them now that she was older. Perhaps it was their songs, a breath of light in the dreary sounds of the monotonous world around her.

Or perhaps it was because they didn't automatically fear her like everyone else did.

Adults looked at her, at how she held herself, at her expression, at the aura she gave off and stayed away. They just sensed something wrong with her, something…not human, and wanted to keep back. Children didn't have that prejudice, they were adept at sensing things, but they were also kinder, more towards adults than each other that was certain, but they didn't look at her as though she was a monster. It was funny, that, how the children looked at her, when she'd been a child, as something inhuman, they saw her on the same level as themselves, yet children NOW, as she was older, saw her as something different but not an alarming different, they looked up to her, they…were curious about her, they even seemed to enjoy her company at times, especially not when she started to play her pipe and make animals dance and…

"Hmm," she hummed, a thought striking her. She leaned down and pulled her pipe from her boot, keeping her eye on the tree as she brought the pipe to her lips and began to play a gentle tune.

She looked up only when the sounds of flapping grew louder than her song, and smirked to see small, colorful butterflies descending, flying around her in a circle, before she nodded towards the tree, the little insects swarming towards the child, spinning around her while the music continued.

A little girl, it was a little girl that stepped out from behind the tree, her hands out as though to try and touch the butterflies though they kept quite far from her reach.

Piper waited a moment more before letting the song drift to an end, the butterflies scattering the moment the music stopped.

"Did you do that?" the little girl turned to her.

Piper eyed her, she was small, likely quite short for her age, with black hair in pigtails, in a peasant's night gown, a simple white, long nightshirt. The girl had probably snuck out after her parents put her to bed.

"I did," Piper nodded.

"Can you do that again?!" the girl beamed.

"No."

The girl pouted at the simple yet firm answer, "How did you do it?"

"Magic."

"You have magic!?" her eyes widened.

"Yes."

"In you pipe?"

"Yes," Piper offered, not about to explain to the girl exactly what she was. Sometimes children knew what a Siren was, sometimes they didn't, almost always when they did know they saw it as a dark creature, which it truly was, and were frightened of it.

The girl frowned, "Do you always give just one word for an answer?"

"No."

The girl huffed at that, making Piper smirk.

"What are you doing in the woods so late?" Piper continued.

The girl looked away, "I…I saw a wisp," she answered, "Out my window. I followed it but I got lost. I couldn't find my way back. But then I saw you walking through the woods and mother always said if I get lost to find someone that can help me back," she looked at Piper, "Can you?"

"Can I what?"

"Help me back?"

"Back where?"

The girl crossed her arms, "You're answering questions with questions now," she pointed out, but sighed, "Back to my village," she clarified, "It's…it's not good to be in the woods at night and it's…" she looked at the sky, the hues now nearly a dark purple, "It's nearly dark. I don't want to be in the woods. There are monsters here!"

Piper stiffened at that a moment, till she realized the girl was completely unaware that SHE was a monster standing before her, technically, by her Siren blood…and by the copious amounts of deceit, destruction, and death she'd brought ot others of her own freewill so…perhaps best not to mention any of that to the child. If she breathed a word of what she was or what she'd done or who she was, the girl would run off and she DID understand the woods were dangerous to most others, especially to children. The beasts that lived in the woods wouldn't care if she was a child or not so long as she was tasty.

"Then we should return you home with haste," Piper sighed.

The girl smiled and held out a hand to Piper, who eyed it a moment, before stepping closer and taking the girl's hand, the two of them heading off into the woods.

~8~

The girl had to have wandered very far, by Piper's reckoning, if it was taking them this long to find her blasted village that the darkness of night had already fallen. She should have expected it though, the wisps could lead people leagues away from their homes if the person fell for it long enough. It was good the girl had gotten distracted and ventured off, it might have saved her life in the end.

"Does any of this look familiar to you?" Piper asked.

The girl had been trying to backtrack, and had completely missed the footprints she'd left in the dirt. Piper had spotted them though and gotten them on the right path for the moment, but she wanted to know if any of it was a sign they were close to the village. She wasn't a tracker, not at all, but she had learned a trick or two about covering her tracks, something the girl hadn't thought to do which was lucky for them as she hadn't been able to hear the songs of a group of people just yet so they still had to be quite some distance.

"No," the girl sighed, glancing up at Piper as she held the woman's hand, "Do you think we're lost?"

Piper shook her head, "We are following the steps you took that led to me, we shall just reverse them back to your village."

"Why do you talk like that?"

"Like what?"

The girl huffed, thinking she was answering questions with questions again, "The long way. You keep saying 'we are' instead of 'we're' or 'we shall' instead of 'we'll,' it's annoying."

"My apologies," Piper smirked, "It is merely how I talk."

The girl rolled her eyes and let go of Piper's hand, moving over to the edge of a set of bushes before them, leaning in to look at them as though trying to see if they were familiar to her, "Well it's really annoying."

She almost laughed at that…when another song began to grow louder just ahead of them, a song that was getting louder and louder far too quickly. Something was running towards them, "Get behind me," she ordered the girl.

"What?"

But Piper ran for her and pulled her back right as a large bear came racing out of the bushes ahead of them, roaring. The girl screamed at the sight, the bear rearing back on its hind legs and roaring loudly at them, swinging its arm right for them. Piper jumped back but the front of her cloak had gotten swiped, tearing it. The bear dropped down onto all fours to growl at them menacingly, snarling, his teeth bared.

"Cover your ears," Piper told the girl, not even waiting to see if the girl would question her as she grabbed her hands and pushed them over her ears, yanking her pipe from her boot quickly and playing a tune.

She didn't have enough time to try and lull the bear to sleep or make it calmer, there was no time, not with the girl behind her, not with the fear in the air to keep it excited. So she played a high pitched note, blaring it out of the small pipe, making the bear roar, this time more in pain, and thrash back and forth, shaking its head as though trying to keep the noise out. It started to back up, wanting to get away from the sounds, but Piper followed it a few steps, the bear, letting out one more vicious roar before it collapsed to the ground.

"Is…is it dead?" the girl asked, slowly lowering her hands from her ears when she saw Piper lower her pipe.

"No," Piper remarked, "But it will not remain down for long," she turned to the girl, holding out her hand, "We must go, now, and quickly. I do not doubt that there are other bears close by and they will come because he called."

The girl ran to Piper's side and grabbed her hand, the two of them racing off through the trees this time.

~8~

Piper had never been more relieved than to hear the buzzing start in her head, a sign that a very large crowd was nearby. She led the girl towards it, her hand firmly grasped in her own, though the girl was sticking very much closer to her than she had been, which she did not blame her for at all. The near attack from the bear, the fact that if she hadn't been pulled back when she had, the bear would have harmed her severely, had made the girl all the more frightened and seeking protection.

Well that was a first, someone seeking protection from the Pied Piper instead of wanting to be protected from her.

She shook her head, now was not the time to think of that, not when the village was so close, she could see it now, through the trees, the large huts and small cabins that had made up the little settlement. She could hear the songs louder now, causing a bit of a headache, but nothing she hadn't experienced before. What's more…she could hear the actual voices of the villagers, all of them shouting, rushing about, seeming in a panic.

The girl winced as they reached the edge of the village, stepping out past the tree line and into the cleared area, both of them had the suspicion that the panic had been caused by her disappearance. Judging by the light, by the clarity of the stars above them, she had been missing quite some time, long enough for her mother to discover her bed empty and sound the alarms or frantically request help to find her. Of course the village would search among themselves first, what if she'd run off to see a friend in another hut? What if she was sneaking into the storerooms? What if she was pulling a small jest against an 'enemy?'

It appeared they'd reached the point of realizing she truly was not in the village any longer and were starting to organize a search for the girl into the woods.

"Shall we?" Piper looked at the girl as she seemed hesitant to enter the village now.

She could only imagine why. She and Snow had pulled a trick like that once, wandered into the woods or somewhere and fallen asleep, hadn't meant to be gone so long and returned to the guards about to launch a massive search for them. The scolding alone was something she would never forget, no child wanted to endure being yelled at by their parent, nor be the cause of such panic among their friends and fellow villagers.

The girl just gave a small nod and started to lead the way through a small alley between two little cabins and into the middle of the village. Well, it was quite a small village from what Piper could see if going between two homes brought one to the center of the area. She could see a large gathering of adults by a bonfire a few feet away, none of them seeming to have noticed the two behind them.

Not wanting to dally any longer from her quest, Piper brought her fingers to her lips and let out a shrill whistle, making the adults flinch and turn quickly, "I believe I have something that belongs to you?" she gestured down, tugging at the hand still holding hers to get the girl, who had hidden behind her legs, to step out from around her.

"Mary!" one of the women, the most frantic of the lot, her eyes shining red from tears, broke free from the others and ran for the girl, who ran for her as well, dropping to her knees and gathering her daughter into her arms, hugging her tightly, "What were you thinking?!" the woman pulled back, shaking Mary by the shoulders slightly, "What were you thinking leaving your bed?!"

"I saw a wisp," the girl, Mary, whispered, tears in her eyes, "I just wanted to follow it. I'm sorry."

"Oh my darling," the woman hugged her tightly, "Don't do that ever again, do you hear me? Never again. Scared me half to death!"

"I was fine though," Mary tried to defend, "My new friend found me wandering and brought me back!" she cheered pointing to Piper as she lingered in the back, not speaking, "She even saved me from the bear!"

"What?!" one of the men jumped at that, "A bear? How?" he looked at Piper intently for that, not seeing a weapon on her.

"She used her magic," Mary said simply, "She has this playing pipe that has magic in it. She played it and the bear stopped chasing us. She used it to bring the butterflies down too!"

Piper tensed at Mary's words, seeing the men and women of the village look up at her with wide eyes. She could make out the exact moment when they all realized just WHO she could possibly be if she had a 'magic pipe' and was powerful enough to stop a bear in its tracks. She could tell the exact moment…because it was when Mary's mother stood and yanked the girl back behind her.

"You!" the woman screeched, everyone's expression darkening as they worked out it wasn't a 'new friend' standing before them, not some helpful individual, but the Pied Piper herself.

There was only one person in the Enchanted Forest that had her magic, her calling card in a pipe. It seemed her reputation very much proceeded her if even a little village like Mary's knew of her.

"Get out!" the same man as before spoke, shouting at her, "Get out and leave us be!"

"We don't want your kind here," another woman yelled.

"My kind?" Piper's eyes narrowed at that, not sure if they meant Sirens or something else, though a part of her brain reminded her that there was no way they could know she was part Siren unless they knew who she really was.

"You sorcerers," an old man spat at her, "We don't need your magic, we don't want your magic, get out!"

"I do believe you are forgetting that I saved the life of young Mary there," Piper pointed out, "You are being quite ungrateful. And I do not appreciate that."

"As though you weren't going to take her like you did the other children?" Mary's mother glared at her.

"Why bring her back then?" Piper countered, eyeing them all with narrowed eyes.

"Payment," the old man glared, "You always want payment. Well we woulda found Mary just fine, we don't need your help. We aren't going to be 'paying the Piper' for something we didn't ask for, so leave!"

Piper shook her head at them, these…humans…being so ungrateful for her help. Without her Mary would have been attacked in the woods ages ago, long before they could have organized anything close to a search party for her. And they had the audacity to tell her her help wasn't even appreciated? That they didn't care if she had saved Mary's life? And the assumption that she'd want payment? She knew she had a reputation for wanting to be paid, but for a service that was agreed upon by both sides first. These men and women were truly so prejudiced that they wouldn't even THANK her for saving a child's life and bringing her back when they were very much right in that she could have kept Mary away from them but didn't.

That should have been evidence enough for them that this was a unique instance, but they were ignoring all of it.

"You have gravely insulted me," Piper warned them, her voice dropping so low and deadly that the men and women finally seemed to realize what they'd said and how it had sounded, "And I do not appreciate that at all. Perhaps, instead of a payment I never asked for, I should seek reparations for the slight against me. You value Mary's life so low that you claim to not appreciate my help in saving it?" she shrugged, "Then I do not suppose you value the lives of your other children…or even your own?"

"Don't…" Mary's mother begged, clutching Mary tighter behind her.

"What?" Piper tilted her head, "Do not take the children, relieve you of them? Do not end your own miserable lives for the insult you have given me? Do not cause you to burn your own village to the ground? Please, do tell me what you wish me not to do."

"Mother let me go!" Mary managed to finally struggle out of her mother's hold, dashing from around her and right over to Piper, ignoring the screams and cries of her mother and the other adults as they tried to stop her, all of them making a move to grab her until she'd reached Piper's legs and hugged them, causing them to freeze…now she had the leverage.

Piper looked down at the girl embracing her legs with an odd frown on her face, "Mary?"

Mary giggled a bit at that, before looking up at her, "Questions again, always questions with you," she smiled, "Thank you," she told the woman, "For saving me from the bear and helping me get home," she glanced over her shoulder at the others and back to Piper, whispering, "Grown ups are stupid sometimes," she told her, as though imparting a secret, "Mother gets scared and she gets angry and she says the wrong things. She doesn't mean them, and she says sorry later, but she does it," she stepped back, "Don't be mad at them, they were just worried about me. And they don't know you like I do," she beamed, "You're my friend no matter what."

Piper blinked at that, glancing between Mary and the villagers and back. She felt her heart tug inside her and let out a long breath, half frustrated, half resigned, before she eyed the villagers again, "I spare your town," she told them, "For one reason, and one reason alone," she gestured at Mary, "Because a child has more sense than any of you, and I do not murder children."

And with that, she turned and stalked off back to the woods, her hands in fists at her sides. She never harmed children, not when she was bigger than them and more powerful. Oh there had been a time or two when she had been a child and defended herself from other children, sometimes attacked them due to slights they gave Snow White, but the older she got the less she felt the desire to harm other children. They were innocents, they looked at her with innocence, they didn't see what other children had when they were the same age.

Mary had proven that.

And for that reason alone, she would spare that village, because Mary lived there, and Mary had been…kind to her.

And no one had done that, shown her any kindness, in…so long.

A/N: I think FF might be glitching again, the last few days I've updated the stories and it's taken like 2 hours, sometimes even more than 12 hours, to actually have an email alert sent out :/ I haven't gotten a single alert since about 3pm yesterday either for anything :/ I'm going to try to update this story at around 8:30-9am Eastern Standard Time (NY time) as a reference though in case this glitch continues. It's a little annoying to post and then only have the alert go out the next day :(

But I hope you liked this chapter :) I wanted to sort of show Piper's interest in and soft spot for children, it wasn't always using them as bait but also how they treated her, without the prejudice of adults :) I feel like the exception, the children that did treat her poorly, were the ones when SHE was a child too, they could see something much more off in her while the same age as her, while she's an adult though the children see her more as something else ;)

Some notes on reviews...

Very interesting theory for what might happen with the banishment ;) I can't quite see Piper crying and begging anyone to do something though, but we'll have to wait and see how that incident comes about }:)

I can say we'll find out a little bit on why the songs aren't mixing well very soon ;) The Elsa-Piper tension will die down a little bit the more Piper (and Emma) get to know Elsa and her past and her magic, but for that first meeting, I couldn't see her being uncaring that Emma was in danger because of Elsa ;) Oh there will be quite a few Gold-Henry bonding moments to come ;) I'll be expanding some scenes from the show and maybe adding an original one or two ;) But thank you for the link! :)

That would be very interesting if August was the Author, though I can't see him having allowed some things that happened to Piper in her past to happen if he cares for her as a mother-figure, he'd probably have tried to protect her more ;)