After an aerial survey of the city to triangulate the location of the Blue Fairy, they landed on a rooftop just inside the evacuated sector, after confirming that she was indeed in there somewhere, along with the ghost that haunted the city. Belle had to sit down hastily on the slippery tiles and grab at the chimney for balance, still not quite used to the shift between one form and another. Rumplestiltskin stood up next to her, his concealment spell flickering briefly when he took human shape again.
"Steady on," he muttered to Belle, then raised his voice to observe, "Looks quiet enough, if a bit run-down."
"Maybe the ghost only comes out after sunset." Belle checked the angle of the sun. They were well past the long days of summer and on their way to the darker half of the year. "That's, what, in three or four hours?"
"Ghosts are intrinsically creatures of dark magic," said Cogsworth. "Sunlight is a kind of light magic in itself, so naturally ghosts will avoid it."
Belle nodded. She looked at Tiger Lily, who was still hovering in the air in her smaller form. "So, I wanted to ask earlier... Why didn't Flora Knotgrass stay to help? Was it because she knew her predecessor was already here? Or...?"
"I don't know. I wasn't here and it wasn't as if she consulted me in Neverland," Tiger Lily bit back, even though Belle had done her best not to make her question sound like an accusation.
Belle sighed. "Sorry. I didn't mean..." She trailed off, knowing she had meant it, at least a little bit. After hearing what had happened to Rumple and his mother, Belle couldn't help but feel some resentment towards the fairies. She tried again, in a more conciliatory tone, "Well, but did you know her? What's she like?"
"It was a long time ago," said Tiger Lily slowly. "I remember she tended to a hands-off approach. It was a point of contention between her and Blue."
"What do you mean?" asked Belle.
"Flora didn't like to tell people what to do. She preferred... a more enigmatic approach."
Rumple snorted. "Is that what you call it?"
Tiger Lily looked at him, and Belle thought it had probably been as much of a shock for her to see what her godson had become as it had been for him to meet his fairy godmother and learn the true circumstances of his birth. "The fairy order is meant to uplift the human spirit towards goodness, but what that involves in practice and how to define goodness..."
"There was disagreement among your ranks?" guessed Belle. People were people, whether they were human or not, and that was how it was.
Tiger Lily nodded. "Flora believed in a natural order to things, that one reaps what one sows. She said mortals needed to learn to solve their own problems rather than depending on fairy magic... but she couldn't just tell them the answers, because 'unearned knowledge' was dangerous."
"Well, maybe." Belle thought about it, then thought about all the books she had read, and how much more ignorant she would have been without them. "But how would we ever get anywhere if we had to solve everything from first principles every time?"
"I asked her about it once, and she said, 'If we just tell them what to do, they won't be doing it for the right reasons, and they won't learn anything, so it would be meaningless.'"
"It would mean something to people if she helped them rather than spouting useless platitudes," growled Rumple. "Fairies! One as bad as the other!"
Belle rubbed his back soothingly. "Never mind. Tiger Lily is trying to help, isn't she?" She looked at the fairy. "So you think Flora Knotgrass is trying to teach the people here a lesson, and not just pulling back because she sensed Blue's presence?"
Tiger Lily nodded. "She wouldn't have kept that a secret, or said what she said if she knew Blue was involved."
"That does simplify matters," said Cogsworth. "Though in my experience humans have a tendency to learn the wrong lesson given the opportunity. Her words, if the report was accurate, were rather vague."
Rumple waved a hand in dismissal. "Her lessons are neither here nor there. We're here for Reul Ghorm." He held up the amber-encased fairy. "Reul Ghorm, Reul Ghorm. The Dark One summons thee..."
Belle could feel the ripple of the name radiating out from them. She closed her eyes and listened with her inner ear for any response.
Nothing.
The Blue Fairy either couldn't or wouldn't answer the call.
What met their ears was a more mortal hubbub, from the other side of the barricaded section, up by the river that ran past the tanneries before it emptied into the sea. They tracked the sound to a small public square. From the relative safety of a rooftop, they watched as a squad of city guards dragged a young woman, scarcely more than a girl, to the pillory set up on a platform in the middle of the square. An enthusiastically jeering mob surrounded them, pelting the prisoner with rotten fruit and animal droppings. With her head and arms locked in the boards, she could neither dodge nor block.
One of the city guards hung a placard detailing her name and crime to the post next to the pillory, reading it aloud for the benefit of the half-illiterate crowd. "By order of the city master of Halborg, may he rule in honor and wisdom, the woman known as Gan Urut is sentenced to two hours of upon the pole that all may know of her shame and thereby cleanse all thoughts of corruption and defiance from their own hearts..."
It seemed the prisoner had been caught trying to sneak into the forbidden sector. And for that... she deserved the scorn and hatred of the mob? Belle watched with a sick feeling in her stomach, though the prisoner made no outcry audible over the shouts of the crowd.
"Why? Why would she try to break in? Why... why would they punish her like this?" Belle turned to Rumple. His expression was pale and tense.
"Let's ask her, shall we? Wait here..." Rumple vanished from view.
Belle bit her lip, hoping he wouldn't do anything too reckless. To her relief, he reappeared on 'their' rooftop a few minutes later, Gan Urut in tow. Belle blinked, looking back down at the square where the prisoner remained locked in the wooden frame of the pillory, enduring her humiliation stoically. "Wait..."
"The one down there is an illusion," said Rumple. "Halborg may be a great port, but it's lacking in magical talent."
Gan Urut scowled, but kept a brave face as she looked them over, her gaze lingering on Tiger Lily. "A fairy? What's she doing here?"
"She's here to help," said Belle, studying Gan curiously. By the cast of her face, her accent, and her hair and clothes (now stinking and stained with filth), she was not a Halborger, maybe not even an Ulsteader. Seeing the girl wipe a dirty sleeve across her face, Belle hastily cast a cleansing spell on her, restoring her to a more dignified state. Judging by the well-worn state of the clothes and her gaunt, starved look, the girl could ill afford replacements.
Gan's eyes widened. "And you're a witch?"
"Never mind that, dearie," snapped Rumple. "We had a deal."
Gan made a face, and now Belle could see that the fists gripped at her sides were shaking slightly, so maybe she did know who he was, but she answered steadily enough, "And a deal's a deal, yeah. Well, it's simple. That's my home, and they aren't taking it away from me, not this time."
"This time?" wondered Belle.
Gan explained. She was born into one of the semi-nomadic clans that had already been living in this land when the tribes who had become the present-day Ulsteaders had settled here, driving the clans to ever more marginal ground. Now the survivors scrabbled to hold onto the hills. Gan's clan, the Urut, had lost that fight over a decade ago, scattered to become beggars in the tents of the other clans. Some, like Gan, came to the cities to join previous waves of outcasts in hopes of scraping a living and sending something home to help their starving families.
And now, because of this 'ghost', they had been driven out of the one foothold they had clawed out in Halborg. The displaced clans were resettled by order of the city master in houses provided by the charity of the great and the good, or so they said. In fact, the evacuees were forced to pay rent (to cover expenses, or so they said) — rent they couldn't afford.
"They made us slaves," Gan said, eyes burning with fury.
"There's no slavery in Ulstead." Belle remembered what Phillip and Aurora had told her of the kingdom. But they had never mentioned the hill folk, either. Perhaps it was a sign of how little regard the nobles of Ulstead had for the clans their people had displaced.
"As good as," spat Gan. "A debt is as good as a chain, when it has a sword behind it, when no one but your debt-holder will hire you, when you have nowhere else to go, except one place..."
Belle followed her gaze. "But... you can't! It's too dangerous, surely? They said people have died..."
"People die all the time. Especially our people," said Gan darkly. "But it's home, we made it home, and they can't take it from us."
"You made it too well," said Rumple. "Your people, far too at home here for the comfort of the 'great and the good'. I don't doubt they fear you more than any ghost, and the poor lost soul is merely an excuse to break up your power."
"The dead don't belong in this world," said Tiger Lily. "And we need to find Blue. Whatever the machinations of mortals in the city, perhaps it's better not to meddle..."
"I don't meddle." Rumple grinned nastily. "I am asked, even begged for my help..."
"I never asked!" Gan reminded them.
"No, it was my son who asked..." Rumple's grin faded.
"I am grateful for your help," Gan said stiffly. "Is my debt paid?"
"Not yet. You have yet to tell us about the ghost."
"We call her the little match girl..." Gan paused, then shook her head. "Truth be told, we called her a lot worse, to our shame, but that was before..."
"Before?" Belle would have thought the worse would come after, since ghosts were almost as bad as demons, as far as most of the Enchanted Forest was concerned. Or was it that they were afraid of the ghost, and that made them more polite? "You mean people bullied her?"
"Eh, I was too young, barely knew two words to put together, but I heard." Gan sighed, looking shamed. "See, she was a strange girl, from a strange place. The story goes — I can't swear for its truth, mind — once upon a time, a woman came crawling out of a rabbit hole, a child in tow — that would be the match girl's ma."
"A rabbit hole?" Belle boggled.
Gan shrugged. "It's to say, they came from nowhere without nothing to their name, and nowhere to go."
"Or they meant it literally," said Rumple. "Sometimes a rabbit hole is just a figure of speech, but sometimes it's a portal to Wonderland."
"I wouldn't know about that," said Gan.
"But you knew they weren't one of you, is that it?" Rumple pressed her. "That's why you called them nasty names?"
"Yeah, well, the Ulsteaders thought they were from the free clans, but we know our own. They couldn't find nowhere to let them stay except in this quarter, and even here people had their own kin to think of, and weren't happy to have more mouths fighting for the same platter of meat."
"So you tried to drive them away?" It was human nature, but it always saddened Belle when they couldn't rise above it. "At least you didn't try to use force."
Gan shrugged. "Didn't make it easy for them, did we? The old granny died, so who else was there to care for a motherless girl? The man who she had to call 'father' sent her out to sell matches."
"Hence the nickname, yes, yes," said Rumple.
"Well, the truth is, there's no living to made in a boxful of matches, unless you sell a bit on the side to go with it, if you see what I mean."
"Sell... wait..." It took Belle a moment to understand. "You mean... her body? How old did you say she was?"
"Old enough, in the eyes of Halborg. But she wouldn't. Too proud, too scared, who knows?" Gan sounded half-mocking, half-admiring. "Even on a frozen winter night, when the only way she would be sleeping under a roof was in the bed of someone with the coin to buy her."
"And her father sent her to sell herself?" Belle didn't care if he was her father by blood or not, if the man was responsible for a child, then he was meant to protect her! Even Belle's own father had done what he had done to her out of a bone-deep conviction that marriage to the Dark One was a fate worse than death.
"It happens," hissed Rumple. "Tis the way of the world, when you have no money, no land, no power..."
"It happens," agreed Cogsworth gently. He glanced at Belle. "But not so much in Schlaraffenland."
Gan snorted. "Fairy tales. I suppose the fences there are made of sausages, and the rivers flow with milk and honey?"
"Not exactly," said Rumple. "But the other thing. The Beggars Clan... they see to it that children don't have to whore themselves or freeze in the streets."
Belle nodded. She knew her friends from Avonlea had seen hard times themselves, and she was glad to imagine them helping other children in turn.
"Well, this is Ulstead, not Schlaraffenland," said Gan. "All the doors were closed to her and no one gave her a cent. She didn't even have shoes on when they found her, frozen in the snow, all the matches in her box burnt through and not enough to warm her."
"Gods," Belle whispered. But no, no gods had taken mercy on her, any more than the mortals. No wonder she became a ghost.
"We should have done better," confessed Gan. "Weren't we strangers in this city, too? Did a clan name matter to us so much? So if she haunts us and her spirit demands wergild, it is no more than she is owed."
"Death for death? Surely there must be a better way," Tiger Lily protested.
"And no doubt the blue nuisance is nattering at her ear of some 'better way'," said Rumple. "Let's see what she has to say about it, shall we?"
They avoided the attention of the guards stationed to guard the barricades and slipped down to street level. Here, instead of the cobblestones used in the older parts of Halborg, they walked on dry packed dirt with wooden planks half-sunk in — Belle imagined for the times when rain or melting snow turned the streets to mud.
"What did you mean, 'blue nuisance'?" Somehow, without quite being invited, Gan Urut had joined their party.
"Another fairy," explained Belle.
Gan pointed her chin at Tiger Lily. "That's the first fairy in these parts... I thought you lot didn't muck about with commoners or barbarians."
"We can't be everywhere," said Tiger Lily, but she sounded regretful, even ashamed. "Too few of us. So the council chooses those in seats of power where our influence may have the most effect..."
"Blind idiots," muttered Cogsworth. "Snobbery is what it is, when a fairer analysis..."
"If they were interested in fair, this world would be a very different place." Rumple glared at Tiger Lily.
"Perhaps it's time for a change," Tiger Lily conceded.
Looking around at the ramshackle hovels packed one against the other, the heavy stench of overcrowding and inadequate sanitation persisting even after the inhabitants had been forcibly evacuated, Belle thought change could start here. Ulstead was a rich enough land, with plenty of resources, as documented in the series of trade agreements they had with Avonlea — yet the wealth was selectively shared, it seemed.
Then she realized the chill she felt wasn't just from her dark thoughts. A whisper of ice banished the summer heat, casting a shadow over the sunlight.
"Ah," breathed Rumple, reaching out a hand to Belle in warning. "Careful, we're getting closer."
Belle slowed, uneasy. Was it a girl's voice in the breeze? She glanced around to find the source, but to her alarm, she saw Gan Urut slumped against a doorway, eyes closed, frost glinting on her hair. "Gan!" Belle reached out to catch her before she fell, and a line of frost seemed to run up her arms from the point of contact, as if they had stumbled into a winter night. Ice held her, trapped her, isolated her. She would freeze alone in the dark. She would die nameless and unmourned.
No! This can't be real. She fought for a memory of sunlight to banish the ice. As light filled her thoughts, the numbness receded from her limbs. She blinked at Gan, who must still be trapped in that cold. Belle tried to shake the other woman free of the spell. "Gan!"
Then Rumplestiltskin snapped his fingers under Gan's nose. "Wakey-wakey!"
Gan's eyes startled open. "...cold. So cold..." Then she shook herself all over. "For a moment I thought I was her..."
As Gan straightened, the heat returning to her skin, Belle released her and stepped back. "What was that?"
"A dream. Or a memory," Cogsworth mused. "A rather persuasive one, it seems."
Gan wrapped her arms around herself. "It was so cold. Snow was falling..."
"No snow today," said Rumple.
"But if she believed it," said Tiger Lily slowly. "Like a wish, perhaps."
Rumple turned sharply. "That's fairy magic you're talking about." He brandished the chunk of amber in the air. "No use hiding, dearie. Come out and show yourself!"
The darkness deepened around them. Belle lost her grip on the sunlight, watching helplessly as the shadows swallowed up dust and crude walls, leaving behind a pale sheen of ice and the smell of smoke and new snow. She and the others instinctively clustered together, facing outwards to meet the threat implicit in the air.
Eyes blinked open in the shadows, the height of a child, colorless eyes reflecting the flaring flame of a match. The shape behind the eyes floated, insubstantial, but seething with a resentment that roiled the ether.
"That's not Blue," hissed Tiger Lily. "Where's Blue?"
A whisper of a laugh rippled through the shadows.
"Who are you? What's your name?" demanded Rumple.
"Guess!" chortled the ghost. "Guess right and you can talk to her. Guess wrong and I'll have your bones for soup."
"Really, dearie?" Rumple waved a hand, conjuring a fireball to his fist. "I don't think so..."
"No, wait." Belle caught his arm. "Rumple, please. She's just a child..."
"No one threatens the Dark One," he snarled, but Belle could tell he didn't really mean it.
And neither did the ghost. Belle could see it in the lost look in her eyes — and why did she ask for her name? A name was important, wasn't it? To give someone a name was to care who they were, and no one had cared for the little match girl after her family was gone. No one had known her, no one had seen her to offer her a helping hand. She remembered what she had felt in the grip of the spell, inside the ghostly memories. "It's not a threat. It's a plea."
Rumple swiveled to face her. "Belle..."
"How long do you think it's been since anyone called her by her name?" Belle said softly. The little match girl, Gan had said, and worse. How long since she had heard anything but cruel nicknames spat at her? "No one even wrote it on a grave marker for her when she died."
Rumple seemed to deflate, the fire vanishing from his palm. "Yes, everyone has a right to their own name at least. But we're all strangers here, except for you." He jabbed a finger at Gan Urut.
Gan backed away a step, gaze shifting nervously between them all. "I... I don't... I don't remember... Maybe I heard it once, a long time ago, but I was just a child, then..."
Cogsworth stepped in, cutting off her retreat in his detached, nonthreatening way. "That's all right. We can help you remember."
Drawing upon Timer magic, which pulled memories from across time and reality, Cogsworth found the name in Gan's mind.
"Adele," whispered Gan Urut at last. "I remember. Your name was Adele." More than that, Gan offered her own name. "I'm Gan Urut. We... we didn't open our doors to you then, and it's too late now, but... I wish it wasn't. My house..." She gulped, then continued, "It's not far from here. If you want, you — all of you — can come in. It's not much, but, well, it's all I have."
And that was how the four living and one ghost crowded into Gan's hovel for a cup of tea. It wasn't even tea, but a kind of dried flower that the free clans of Ulstead steeped in hot water. Adele couldn't drink, but Gan poured her a cup anyway, and the ghost seemed to bend her head over it to absorb the steam.
"Well, this is lovely, but we had a deal," said Rumple at last, setting down his empty cup. "Release the blue gnat."
Adele's eyes blazed and a chill sank into the room. "I said you can talk to her, and you can, but she's mine. You can't have her!"
"We'll just talk, then," said Belle, giving Rumple a warning look. No need to take out his anger at the Blue Fairy on a ghost who had never even met him before!
He sighed and said in a more conciliatory tone, "I don't want your damned fairy, but I do have things I need from her." He gestured at the air. "Let's see what she has to say."
Rumplestiltskin had never enjoyed a conversation with a fairy, and this was no exception.
Reul Ghorm had been no more pleased to see him, of course, her translucent little face scrunched up in disapproval at the Dark One. He was more surprised at her coldness to Tiger Lily.
"You can't blame her," Belle, being far too kind for her own good, spoke up to defend the other fairy. "She was trying to help. And she's right! Rumple should have a chance with his mother..."
"The Dark One and the Black Fairy?" Blue looked aghast. "Their powers combined would be far too dangerous..."
"And what about yours?" Rumplestiltskin couldn't stand the hypocrisy anymore. "It's your power that's been haunting this city and freezing people, isn't it? Just when did you arrive here?"
"What difference does it make? Two and a half years, or thereabouts."
"Coincidentally, when the deaths began. Or perhaps not a coincidence." Rumplestiltskin bared his teeth, knowing he had her. "The Blue Fairy. Always making things worse..."
The apparition grew paler. "That's not... I came here to help the child move on to a better place."
"But you knew better than to listen to a fairy, eh, Adele?" Rumplestiltskin half-smiled at the ghost, who had been hanging back and watching the conversation intently. "If only all children possessed such wisdom. What did she say to you, dear?"
Adele's eyes narrowed and instead of speaking, deepened the shadows around them, pulling them into the frozen winter night she haunted. The Blue Fairy's disembodied voice muttered through the darkness, speaking of light and goodness.
...grandmother is there, waiting for you. See how grand and beautiful she looks. There she is with the gods, where there is no fear, no hunger, no cold. How joyful to meet your loved ones again...
But the ghost would have none of it.
Why can't I have all that, joy and beauty and all you say, here in the world where people live?
The fairy's answering sigh was sad, but unwavering. Child, it was your fate. You must accept it.
Oh, must I? My fate, you say, was to die in this city with a smile on my lips as an inspiration to others? Go to hell, fairy!
This is hell, child, this torment you insist on! Let go of your darkness, and a great reward awaits you in the heavens...
A great reward! Well then, if it's so great, then it'd be selfish to keep it to myself. No, no, no, I'll share my reward with all the good deserving folk of this great city!
The struggle that followed was fiercely fought in flashes of fairy light and ghostly shadow, in flurries of conjured snow thick with anger and resentment.
Rumplestiltskin dragged himself out of the memory before he was himself trapped. The ghost child was shockingly strong, to be able to capture the Blue Fairy's spirit and bind it to her own will. He blinked, shaking off winter and returning to summer. He looked around at the others, who looked as dazed as he felt. "So that's how it was."
"That's how it is," said Gan Urut. "Adele's right. In this world, joy and beauty are for the great and the good. People like us only find happy endings when we die!"
The Blue Fairy seemed to quiver in protest at this, but the ghost's binding was too tight.
Rumplestiltskin looked at Adele. "I take it she doesn't agree."
The ghost scowled back at him.
Rumplestiltskin shrugged. "Clearly, she's doing no good here. Better let me take her off your ectoplasmic hands..." He concentrated on the amber encasing the blue bug's physical form, intending to summon her spirit back to her body.
"No! You said you wouldn't!" shrieked the ghost, yanking back hard on the fairy's spirit and clinging tight.
"Rumple, there must be another way," Belle pleaded.
Rumplestiltskin pondered. "Well, how about a deal? I'll take you both. You'll be alive, in a way, sharing the flesh with the blue gnat."
The Blue Fairy's eyes bulged in silent outrage.
Rumplestiltskin pointed a finger at Blue. "Ah, ah, ah. You meddled in her death, and now it's her turn to meddle in your life! See how you like an unwelcome buzzing stuck in your head..."
"Yes," said Adele, ghostly eyes glinting with glee at the idea. "Do it."
Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Tiger Lily frowning uneasily and Cogsworth watching intently, but Belle only sighed and nodded in appreciation, and that was good enough for Rumplestiltskin.
He bound ghost and spirit into flesh, drawing on the amber itself as a potent magical component for his spell.
Then Gan Urut stood up, blocking the door. "Wait. If she is a ghost, she is our ghost. If there was vengeance due, it was vengeance due to the people of this city! If you mean to take her away from us, you owe us..."
"Because you think she can give you power..." Rumplestiltskin mused.
"It's better than nothing. They've taken everything else of value from us."
"All magic comes with a price," Belle said. For a moment, she almost sounded amused. "She's right, Rumple. You'd better make a deal with her, too."
"With her, with the whole damn city, maybe the kingdom," grumbled Rumplestiltskin. He had seen it all before. Oppression, exploitation, rebellion, and the chaos that followed. He looked at Gan Urut. "If you start down this path, you'll not easily step off."
"I've heard the tales of the Dark One," said Gan. "It's still better than the 'deals' forced on us by the Ulsteaders. They grow fat off our land, our labor, our flocks."
"It's because they have the strength of numbers and unity in their numbers," said Rumplestiltskin. "Easy to pick you off one by one, one clan against another, one desperate soul against another. But even should you unite at last, it is the way of the world that some stand up to speak for the rest, and once your leaders have a taste of power, they wield it for themselves..."
"But it doesn't have to be that way," Belle protested. "It's not like that in Schlaraffenland."
"A state of affairs achieved through unnatural means." Rumplestiltskin held Gan Urut's gaze. "Are your people desperate enough to make that deal with the Dark One?"
"What...what 'unnatural means'?"
"A bit of blood magic, a bit of soul craft." Rumplestiltskin twirled his hands in a flourish. "A leader woven out of the threads of your myriad individual fates."
"No! Don't listen to him, child!" The Blue Fairy surfaced, taking control of the body she now shared with the frozen ghost. "This is darkest necromancy. Would you trade trivial comforts in this world for eternal damnation in the next?"
Rumplestiltskin snorted. "Easy for you to say."
Then the fairy shuddered violently, and Adele's voice took over. "I died for lack of your 'trivial' comforts! It's her you shouldn't listen to, Gan."
Gan Urut drew a knife and pointed it at the fairy. "We were going to take them down to hell with us... but if the Dark One can offer us a chance at life, then why shouldn't we take it?"
Tiger Lily fluttered up to take Blue by the arm. "Don't forget who he is, beneath all the darkness... It's possible he can save them in the end."
Blue fought back to the surface. "His fate was severed!"
It was all nonsense, Rumplestiltskin thought. Fate had a sick sense of humor. "I'm not here to save anyone. I make deals, and if someone has the wit to take advantage, that is their own doing."
"She said 'eternal damnation'." Belle looked at him, worry shading her eyes. "You never said before. I thought..."
Rumplestiltskin couldn't meet her eyes. "It may be... the gods will not have us. Belle..."
"All magic comes with a price," she said again, the trace of amusement gone from her voice. "The question is, is it worth it, and is there any other way that doesn't come with as steep a price?"
Foolish woman, hissed the darkness, reminding Rumplestiltskin that nothing of value ever came cheaply.
But Rumplestiltskin had married her in a leap of faith. He wouldn't doubt her now. She could always see things that he couldn't.
This time was no different.
Miracle of miracles, after winning Adele over, Belle dragged an answer out of the Blue Fairy, by pressing her on what she would have done for one of her perfect little princesses.
"A song in her heart?" Rumplestiltskin was incredulous. But he couldn't deny that music was powerful, powerful enough to move hearts and unify souls. And it was a human magic at its root, unlike his own magic or even Belle's.
"A song. A song can save us?" Gan looked equally dubious, but it turned out that the fairies knew a spell to harness that power. Reul Ghorm refused to cooperate, but Tiger Lily agreed to help them.
"Tanjack," said Tiger Lily after listening to Gan sing various songs of the free clans. "The mythical hero, who belongs to no clan or all clans... a name any of you can claim. Tanjack the open-handed, whose tent is open to anyone of good heart. A light burning from the past that may not exist, a torch to light the way to a future that may not ever come... well, it'll be up to you."
"I know," said Gan. "I will pass the song to the others..."
"But that's only half of it," Rumplestiltskin reminded them. "It's time the Dark One squeezed some justice out of those self-satisfied bastards that rule this city..."
"Rumple, wait..." Belle again.
Rumplestiltskin whirled on her impatiently. "Wait? For what? For them to change something that benefits them merely out of the goodness of their hearts? That's too long to wait for anyone who isn't immortal!"
"No, I know, but you don't have to threaten them." Belle touched his arm, smiling a little at his expression. "The rulers of this city listen to fairies, don't they? And we happen to have two fairies with us..."
One and a half, he thought to himself, if they were lucky. But Belle was right, and Tiger Lily was more palatable to the city master and the provincial governor and every other greedy lord with their feet on the necks of the conquered people of Ulstead. The laws were changed, however reluctantly, and with the song to push behind the laws, the balance of power changed.
"For the better? We can only hope." Rumplestiltskin could offer no more guarantee than that. But he had others closer to his heart to worry about. "Reul Ghorm. We haven't finished our conversation yet."
Unlike previous conversations, this one was conducted on Rumplestiltskin's terms. She resisted, but in the end, she capitulated, and gave them the location of her private vault.
Author's note: Not exactly the little match girl from the Hans Christian Andersen tale, but then we could say the same about the OUAT version of the little mermaid! As for Ulstead, we see from the second "Maleficent" movie that they were a bunch of racist, genocidal warmongers and exploiters, but since the fairies are so different in OUAT, I took some liberties...