Race Through Time:
Darwin's Goons
"I don't think it worked, Maurice," Rosetta sighed as she gave Maurice his book of mystics back. After two days of traveling on the river, they finally managed to enter the depths of a forest, which meant that Rosetta and the pilgrims had finally managed to leave the Eastern Highlands. Based on the owl clerk's recent calculations, traveling through the river would speed up the amount of time it would take to reach the shrine. By foot, it would have taken about a week or two, but sailing would most likely take them to their destination in about a week and a half.
Due to Rosetta's seasickness, they chose to take a small break and throw the anchor on a small isle located in the river, which grew bigger the more the convoy went further away from the Eastern Highlands. Rosetta literally hugged the dirt once she put her feet on the small isle's beach.
While the other pilgrims set up camp, Maurice offered to help Rosetta find a way to communicate with someone from Storybrooke using a spell from his book of mystics. The young demigoddess had tried to send a telepathic message to Fidget, but no response came.
"Plus I think I accidently sent him a blast that knocked him unconscious," Rosetta added as her head showed her a vision of the Batrishan falling unconscious on the floor of Mr. Gold's pawnshop after saying: 'Uh. I wonder if this happens to anyone in this town on a regular basis.'
"That's part of the spell's effects," Maurice said.
"Moe! What did we say about telepathic spells?" Harry scolded. The monk walked towards the two with an empty basket and a fishing rod at hand.
"I said I wouldn't use it on you!" Maurice defended himself. "And she did the spell, not me!"
"Sure, go ahead! Blame a kid for giving someone else a migraine!" Harry's comment made Rosetta scowl at Maurice. What the heck was it with that clerk, making a kid do his spells for him?
Harry then offered Rosetta to join him and Eglantine to go fishing in a small creak about five minutes away from the camp. Feeling like she could use a break and learn how to fish (she never could before due to her parents overprotectiveness), Rosetta accepted the monk's offer and walked with him across a few thickets to the creak, where Eglantine was standing, with one hand holding up her dress while the other managed to catch a fish. Should it be a surprise that the prioress was a swan?
"There you are, Rosie!" Eglantine said. "Would you please check the pile of clothes I placed next to my basket?" She pointed at a basket, with a couple of sea bass in it, standing by a set of rocks. Rosetta walked towards it and noticed the pile of clothes next to it. She picked them up and realized that they were child-sized.
"I thought you could use some fresh clothes since yours have gotten dirty ever since your arrival," Eglantine said as she tossed the fish she caught to Harry.
"Since when do you carry clothes for kids?" he asked as his bear hands caught the fish and placed it in his basket.
"All the sisters in my convent keep outfits for children in case they meet young girls who are to be placed in the convent," Eglantine explained.
Eglantine had made a point though about Rosetta's clothes being dirty. Now that she looked at them, the child couldn't believe how she had failed to notice their disgusting nature since she fell from the portal, jumped into a river, and threw up on a ship. The outfit Eglantine offered consisted of a medieval grey peasant dress and boots. It wasn't like the little dresses she wore during her early years back in the Enchanted Forest or the Storybrooke Public School uniform she loathed to wear or the other uniform outfits her parents had her wear in order to avoid getting attention.
"I'm going to need to take a bath first," she said.
About five minutes later
The dress fit Rosetta very well and her black, red-streaked, hair was tied in a ponytail. She chose to help Eglantine catch fish in the creak and thus kept her boots on the rocks while her bare feet walked in the cool water.
"You look like a farm girl who's been living a peaceful life," Harry commented. He was sitting patiently on the rocks while he waited patiently for the hook of his fishing rod to catch a fish. Rosetta hadn't paid attention to the bear's comment, for as a novice, she struggled to catch a fish with her hands and kept falling in the water whenever she tried to catch one. Eglantine helped Rosetta up on her small feet.
"You need to relax," the prioress said as she held her hands close to her. "Let the water flow through your skin." Rosetta watched as the prioress' webbed feet put themselves in a relaxing pose. "Let the water fill your mind with a blank slate." She stood stiff, saying nothing, until her hand darted into the water and caught a passing sea bass. Eglantine threw the fish straight into her basket, which would have made any basketball player envious in Rosetta's opinion.
Harry whistled. "That's a neat trick, I'll admit."
"It's nothing really, just another meditating trick the nuns back in my convent taught me since I moved there." Eglantine gave an encouraging look at Rosetta. "You try it."
Rosetta took a deep breath and tried the swan's trick: she brought her hands to her chest, feeling her homesickness flow away from her heart. Her feet posed on the creaks watery rocks as she felt its water flow away the pain she endured for being treated abnormally. She let the water turn her visions into a blank slate.
An average-sized salmon began making its way and Rosetta's small hands did not miss their catch.
"Very good, Rosie!" Eglantine clapped her hands as the child passed the salmon to Harry, who licked his lips.
"Looks like we'll be having salmon for lunch today," he chuckled.
Later
Sometimes, Rosetta felt like nothing could stay peaceful. I mean, sure you'd think that a demigoddess with advanced foresight powers would never take a break from being kidnapped, sucked into portals, hunted by goblins, nearly drowning in holy water, and being chosen by gods to tell them everything that occurred in her head.
But seriously, why did she, Eglantine, and Harry had to come back to camp with a great amount of fishes just to see the other pilgrims get kidnapped while Tristan was trying to fight off a bunch of medieval ninjas with tree symbols on their armors?
"They kidnapped the others!" Tristan shouted as he kicked one ninja in the stomach while sword dueling another at the same time.
"Darwin's goons!" Harry muttered as he grabbed a nearby stick and began to use it as a bo staff against the ninjas. "He never learns to leave us alone!"
"Who's Darwin?" Rosetta asked as Eglantine tried to bring her to safety. One thing she was certain is that they couldn't be referring to the English scientist who had the big evolutionary theory and the last time she heard the name, Isaac made it sound like this Darwin wasn't friendly.
"An evil warlock who clearly doesn't want us to reach the shrine of Canterbury before he does!" Eglantine held Rosetta fiercely as they and the two other pilgrims ended up being surrounded by the goons.
"There's too many off them!" Harry shouted. "We can't hold them much longer!"
"Rosetta!" Tristan got Rosetta's attention. "Isn't there any sort of power that you might have inherited from your father that could help us?"
Rosetta pondered until she came up with an idea. It was one spell that her father personally didn't enjoy doing unless it was necessary and she never thought she'd have to use.
"COVER YOUR EYES!" The pilgrims did what she said while the goons looked confused as they watched the young child hold out her hands, her brain focusing on her targets. Her eyes brightened with immensely bright rays of light and her hands summoned glowing hieroglyphics that began to swirl around Darwin's goons with cyan, neon light. Screams of a dozen men were heard, and by the time it was safe for the pilgrims to uncover their eyes, all they saw surrounding them was a pile of withered corpses.
"God forgive me..." gasped Eglantine. Rosetta glared at her own hands in horror.
"I'm so sorry! I didn't think my father's mummification spell would work!" She nearly cried until Tristan gave her a reassuring pat on the shoulder.
"Don't worry," he told her. "You won't ever have to use that spell ever again. I promise."
"What are we going to do?" Eglantine freaked out as Harry scavenged through the mummified corpses of Darwin's goons. "That stupid warlock kidnapped our friends and we're barely a week away from the shrine!"
"Darwin must have been clever enough to figure out that we'd reach the shrine much faster than him," Tristan concluded. "Obviously, by holding our friends hostage, he'll have us delay our pilgrimage."
"Guys, I found this in one of the dead goons' hands!" Harry came back with a scroll in his hands. "It's intact and guess whose familiar handwriting is on it?"
"I'm not gonna bet ten silver coins that it's from Darwin." Tristan shook his head while Harry read the scroll to them.
"Pilgrims, if you wish to see your comrades alive and in one piece, I am ready to strike a deal. If you take your boat further into the river, there will come a part where it splits in half. Take the left one, which leads straight to sundown and meet me at the ancient ruin of the destroyed civilization by moonrise. Your powerful one, Darwin The Warlock." Harry passed the scroll around. "I'm willing to bet my own silver coins that we're headed for a trap."
"Well we don't have a choice," Eglantine said determinately. "We pilgrims made a pact when he united one another on this journey: we stick together no matter what. Trap or not, we will rescue our friends."
"Ok, but we don't even know the exact place he wants us to go. 'Ancient ruin'? It could be anything!"
"Not necessarily." All eyes turned on Rosetta, who had just finished reading the scroll. "He says the rendezvous is at the ancient ruin of the destroyed civilization, and as far as I know, there's only been one extinct civilization in the East of the Enchanted Forest." She looked at Tristan, who instantly got the message.
"My motherland," he nodded. "Darwin wants to meet us at the Batrishan Sanctuary."