Race Through Time:
Lucretia's Bed Sheet
"Rosetta's with who?" Marion asked once they gathered in Mr. Gold's office. Emma was cuddling baby Amanda in her arms while Belle searched through her books and Henry explained to the adults what he managed to discover at the library with Violet.
"The Canterbury Pilgrims," Henry said. "I mean, I don't know much about them..."
"But which pilgrims are they specifically?" Hook interrupted. "I've heard for many years from other pirates and tavern patrons that going on a pilgrimage towards the shrine that will solve any of their problems would be the greatest treasure in their lives. Probably ten out of a million individuals back in the Enchanted Forest are trying right now to do such a pilgrimage!"
"Well Violet mentioned that her dad knew a tapiser named Dwight back in Camberley who dreamt of finding the shrine."
"That narrows things," Gold said. "I've heard about a troupe of eight unique pilgrims who left for Canterbury and were lucky to be stranded in the East when Regina casted her curse, thus sparing them."
"And the last we heard, Rosetta was transported to the Eastern Highlands!" Marion grabbed her husband's hands. "Anubis, she might be with them! Rosie might..."
"Have moved with them towards the shrine in the hopes that the shrine will grant her desire to come back home," Anubis said hopelessly. "What are the odds that she'd stay in one place to wait for us to get her? We can't even ground her to keep her still in her room for even an hour!"
They all stayed quiet, knowing that Anubis was right about his daughter's restlessness.
"I found more information about the Lustful Curse." Belle pulled her nose up from her book. "For instance, once a person has gathered all four ingredients into a lotion and tied his lusted target onto an altar in the middle of the woods during a full moon, the person must apply the lotion on his lips and force a kiss onto those of the victim in order to make the curse irreversible."
"Well that's never going to happen," Killian said flatly. "I highly doubt that Fitzgerald would let himself be caught off guard by that blasted alicorn again."
"Not to mention we saw a force field around his cottage after Mary Margaret and I tried passing by," David said. "Clearly he doesn't want any visitors lately."
"Kiss aside, I managed to find out what are the last two ingredients Midnight Sparkle needs to create the Lustful Curse: Lucretia's Bed Sheet and..."
"Lucretia's Bed Sheet?" Marion frowned at Anubis. "Isn't that the Roman woman who was famous for the rape that led to the Romans rebelling against the rapist monarch and creating the Roman Republic?"
"Ugh, don't remind me," Anubis groaned. "The Greco-Roman gods were bickering nonstop about who was to blame from Cupid and his arrows to Zeus and his jealousy of not getting the girl. The arguments were loud enough to be heard all the way across the Mediterranean Sea and past the Nile to the point where none of the Egyptian gods could sleep. And earmuffs didn't exist back then."
"That must have hurt," Henry said.
"Gee, you don't say." Anubis rubbed his ears. "I still have to clean my ears ten times a day just to soften my eardrums from the noise." He changed the topic. "Anyway, Lucretia's Bed Sheet is sacred because it was on that bed sheet that Lucretia got violated by Prince Tarquin and stabbed herself on the next day. You can imagine how half of the universal immortals reacted when the rebels raised the bed sheet above the usurped palace like a stained white flag and shouted that this is what happens when you let a tyrant and dictator rule you. Soon, he starts ruining your wives, daughters, and sisters.
"Lucretia's Bed Sheet became such a symbol of the consequences of lust that whoever was the idiot who made the Lustful Curse decided to cut off some of the fabric to use in the curse. So now, if anybody wants to use Lucretia's Bed Sheet for the deed, they'd just need like a handkerchief size of it."
"So what's left of it and where can we find it?" Emma asked. "If it's in Storybrooke, maybe we can find it and burn it before Midnight Sparkle gets her hands on it."
Meanwhile, at Archie's office
Dr. Archie Hopper, aka Jiminy Cricket, was known for having many patients of all sorts to talk to, from dwarves like Leroy to even the ex-Dark One.
But honestly, the last thing he ever assumed was that the dark Batrishan who caused a lot of trouble lately in town would actually bother to come knocking at his door.
"I need someone to talk to," Fidget the Bat said. And what a state he was in! He had dark marks under his strange eyes, hinting that he had trouble sleeping. "Please?" he pleaded.
"I don't have any upcoming patients coming up right now. Do come in." Archie kindly let him in and watched as he easily walked and sat on the couch with his peg leg as if it were an actual limb and not a wooden crutch to walk on. The psychiatrist then proceeded to make some oolong tea and brought the tea set over to the table. "So, what's troubling you today?" he asked.
"Well for one it has nothing to do with my issues with the Charmings and the rest of the do-gooders," Fidget said in between tea sips. "It's...more personal. There's kind of...a girl."
"Rosetta Anubisia Romanov?" Archie had heard that his youngest patient was occasionally spending friendly times with the villain that was sitting on his couch at his moment.
"Heavens, no! I'm no pedophile!" Fidget exclaimed in shock. "No, it's about a much older girl who's looks like she's my age physically, but probably older than that since she said she does part-time teaching."
"I see." Archie put aside his teacup on the table and grabbed a notepad from which he began to take notes on. "And are you telling me that you're feeling some sort of attraction towards her?"
"That's the problem," Fidget confessed. "I don't know if I am."
Archie looked up from his notes and sat a little more upstraight. "Could you elaborate?"
"Well..." Fidget sighed and pondered. "How can I explain it? Should I go from the start?"
"That can help." Archie nodded. "Exploring past memories can help you understand what you're dealing with in the present."
"Alright. You probably heard the stories already, but I was born in almost three hundred years ago and raised by Aldoradian noblemen rather than my people. As a military leader and a close childhood friend of Queen Florencia, my father used to take me to the castle for parties in which I'd mostly spend time playing with the queen's children, Prince Pablo and Princess Isabella.
"I guess you can say that Isabella and I were secretly crushing on one another when we were kids. She even showed me her personal secret garden." Fidget chuckled at the memory. "We were still below ten when she told me about her fantasies of having a happily ever after...with me. They almost became real when I proposed to her when we were sixteen after I got her mother's blessing."
Archie nodded with a small understanding smile at the Batrishan while he continued to take notes and glance at his patient, who was starting to lose his happy face.
"But then there was an...incident involving an expedition for the collaboration of Aldorada and the kingdom in which the codfish, excuse me, Killian Jones, served as Lieutenant. I'd rather not get into further details of the accident, but I can tell you that it cost the lives of my father and Isabella- she was acting as a royal diplomat during the trip- and for me to cripple my wing." Fidget looked at his right wing, which still looked in its usual half-flesh, half-mechanical brace appearance. "I ran away and woke up in the cottage of a sorcerer's apprentice who not only told me about my injury but told me about the Elixir of Nine Lives, which could grant me eternal immortality at the price of loved ones' lives. I assumed that I wouldn't have to pay the price since I lost everything from my family to my home, so I swore I would never fall for another weakness like love and I drank the Elixir." Fidget paused to look at a golden ring with an emerald he had on his index.
"So you're worried that if you are indeed attracted to this girl, the one here in Storybrooke, the Elixir's price will come back to haunt you and you might get her killed?" Archie asked.
"There's that." With his fingers, Fidget turned the emerald three times, revealing his ring to also be a locket. He brought his hand close to Archie for the psychiatrist to see the picture of a blonde young woman in her late teens with beautiful green eyes and lovely regal clothes meant for a princess from the Enchanted Forest.
"Was this your ex-fiancée?" Archie asked and saw the Batrishan nodding. "Isabella looked like she was a very charming lady."
"She was." Fidget pulled back and closed his ring's locket shut. "And for some reason, the girl I'm currently interested in looks exactly like her even after 283 years except for the dyed streak the one from here has. They also seem to share the same kind personality towards me. After Rosetta, the blonde one from here is the only one who has been really been genuinely nice to me ever since I came to Storybrooke.
"The Elixir of Nine Lives' price aside, I guess the other thing that's bothering me is if I would be dishonoring Isabella, the only other woman from Aldorada I loved more than anything else after my foster mother and my childhood nurse, by falling for a look alike." Fidget huffed and slouched on his seat. "This pretty much concludes my depressing history with love itself, and now there's a crazy villain out there who wants to use a Lustful Curse on me just because I tricked her with false emotions in order to trap her into Pandora's Box for a deal with the Dark One."
"I see." Archie stopped taking notes and clasped his hands together. "From what you have told me, I managed to conclude that the thing that is preventing you from making a choice is your fear of moving on. You look like you like the kind of person who spent and sacrificed so many years of his life just to get to an unachievable goal, and when you find out about it, you find it impossible to just put an end to the madness and find out what may lie out there, waiting for you to move on. And I think that perhaps the reason you are seeing this girl in Storybrooke with the same appearance and kindness of your lost love is perhaps because it's an old memory reminding you of how you were happy before you became what you are and maybe if you slow down, you can get another chance of happiness close to the one you were hoping for."
"So, you're saying that I should go to the girl from today and shoot for another chance at happiness even if it means searching for a way to get rid of my immortality so that I don't get her killed?" Fidget asked Archie. The psychiatrist patiently nodded, leading to a pause of five seconds until the Batrishan grinned. "You know what, you're probably right. Once I put my issue with the other villain, I'm going to go straight to her. But of course, with baby steps."
"Well, I'm glad that..."
A crash was heard coming from the front door downstairs. Archie and Fidget got up from their seats and glanced at one another.
"This can't be a friendly patient," Archie said nervously. Pongo, who had been napping all along under Archie's desk, got up and began barking at the sound of steps ominous beginning to walk slowly up the stairs. Out of instinct, Fidget waved his hand at the door of Archie's office, making the door close tight with its inner locks and protected by a force field. They waited patiently until they saw the doorknob turning and shaking violently as it would when somebody is trying to force his way into your house.
"Maybe it's that Leroy dwarf coming back from work at the mines?" Fidget suggested. A kicking noise coming from behind the door made it shake even harder than the doorknob. Pongo barked louder.
"Open up, you miserable bug!" a familiar voice shouted as the door continued to bang.
"That voice..." Fidget realized in a whisper. "It's Midnight Sparkle. But what is she doing here, attacking us at your office?"
"I don't know!" Archie said desperately. "I never met her in my life!"
"Ok, grab your dog right now! Just do it!"
Without protesting, Archie grabbed Pongo and got grabbed by the collar by the Batrishan. Fidget got on his feet, sprung his wings, and flew straight at the window, breaking the glass in the process. The force field he had put on the door disappeared as soon as he flew away from the building, leaving another poor door to suffer Midnight Sparkle's kick. She stepped into the office and growled as she saw that what she was looking for wasn't around.
Back at the pawnshop
"Apparently Fidget was seen flying above town..." Emma said after answering an emergency report on her phone. Her sentence was unfinished because the back door leading directly towards Mr. Gold's office broke open and in came Fidget with Archie and Pongo.
"Archie, what happened?" David asked as he and Hook helped Archie get up and sit on a nearby chair while Fidget frantically locked the door and pushed nearby shelves to block the door.
"And just what do you think you are doing?" Belle asked the Batrishan as he snapped his fingers to summon a small field of bear and mice traps around the mountain of objects that were now blocking the back door.
"Midnight...attacked...Hopper's office," he panted once he was done and collapsed to the ground.
"But why would she attack Archie?" Killian asked as he knelt down next to Fidget.
"How should I know codfish?"
"And what were you doing with Archie in his office?" Emma asked suspiciously.
"Why, it's a crime for me to see a shrink when I need one, Swan? Do you ask your kid what he writes in his diary?" Fidget pointed at Henry to further his point.
"But why would Midnight Sparkle attack Archie's office?" David asked.
"Then again, she attacked my father in his flower shop," Belle commented as she gave Archie a glass of water and a bowl for Pongo. "It wouldn't surprise me."
"Wait, what was she doing at your father's shop?" Fidget frowned.
"She found one of the other ingredients she needed at Mr. French's flower shop," Killian explained. "Now she only needs two more."
"So that's why she attacked." Everyone looked at Anubis as he put his hands into Archie's pant pockets and pulled out from one of them a papyrus yellow colored handkerchief with sewn cricket designs on it. Ignoring Archie's protests and demands on getting his property back, Anubis took a deep sniff at the fabric. "The last remains of Lucretia's Bed Sheet. Dr. Hopper's handkerchief is made out of the last fabric scrap of the next ingredient Midnight Sparkle needs to create the Lustful Curse."
"That can't be!" Archie protested. "Pinocchio made it for me as a present when I began to be his conscience back when he was still a puppet and me a cricket! This handkerchief means so much to me!"
"But if we don't get rid of it, Midnight will still use it for the curse and you'll still never see it again, Archie!" Emma protested.
The adults began arguing until they heard baby cries and saw that Amanda had woken up from her nap and was beginning to cry from all the shouts.
"I'm so sorry, dearie!" Mr. Gold apologized to his daughter as he picked her up in his arms and tried to cradle her back to sleep gently, but it didn't stop Amanda at all. Belle had him pass the baby over to her so that she could try to cradle Amanda back in peace...which did not work.
"Not getting used to baby handling as I see," David remarked.
"You have no idea," Mr. Gold said drily above the cries.
"Oh, for crying out loud..." Fidget muttered. He got up a walked towards Belle. The woman looked baffled as Fidget managed to carefully pull the crying baby out of her arms and gently cradle her in his own.
"I need none more light than the sun's. I disdain every king's glittering gold. Not even the night's coolest breeze can replace thee, my little demigod so bold."
None one expected Fidget to actually start singing to soothe the baby, who actually stopped crying and began to giggle happily at the sound of the Batrishan's surprisingly captivating voice.
"There may be knights who need fair maidens fresher than thy spring's newborn lily pod. but nothing can replace thee, my beloved demigod."
Amanda's giggling began to turn into soft yawns. Fidget's golden medallion began to glow a bit as he finished his lullaby. "I don't need Cupid to make me love thee, just as I disdain every king's glittering gold. There's no other treasure that can soothe me but thee, my little demigod so bold."
Finally, all they heard from the baby were small sounds of happy snoring.
"Wow, I didn't know you had it in you," David said quietly as Fidget gave Amanda back to Belle, who silently thanked him in order to avoid waking up Amanda again.
"I used to volunteer at orphanages back in Aldorada." Fidget shrugged. "For some reason, all the little ones ended up falling asleep every time I sang that lullaby my mother used to sing to me when I was little."
"Singing to sleep..." Marion pondered. "I think I may have an idea to delay Midnight from her quest."