Chapter 4 Choices Made
The dragon was stuck. He squirmed this way and that, yet could not get out of its predicament.
Then Rumple saw it. A gash in the soft spot of his scales that most likely had caused his eventual crash into the rocky area.
Despite the creature not being able to move, an eye was on him. A great and terrible looking eye. When Rumple pulled the dagger out of his bag, the Blue Fury squirmed all the more and that same eye went all wide and frightened. Rumple's heart beat hard in his chest. This would be it. To kill a Blue Fury would be just the thing he needed to gain the respect of the village, of his father, even. The dragons killed their sheep, and would just as soon kill them. The dragon was right there, unable to strike back, he was ready for the slaughter. He raised the dagger, ready to aim to kill.
He couldn't do it.
He couldn't stab the living, breathing dragon when its eye looked at him like that, and had no way of fighting back. He was more than a coward, he was truly pathetic. Here was the opportunity to take out a Blue Fury and he couldn't do it. What was he if he couldn't even take out a dragon when it was served to him on a stone platter? There was only one thing he could do now and just pay the consequences.
Pushing over the rock that pinned down the dragon's head, he then ran as quickly behind the bigger boulder and pulled his arms over his head and waited for the heat.
It never came. He could hear the dragon break out of the rocks, he could hear the flapping wings, but then nothing. Opening one eye, then the other and taking one arm down to see, he realized that the dragon was standing a few feet away, looking directly at him.
Fear cascaded up and down Rumple's spine and he couldn't have moved if his life depended on it. This was it then, now the dragon would kill him.
Minutes that felt like hours passed and the dragon looked at him in a curious way, until at last he went off, flying a little ways, though low to the ground until he was out of sight. Rumple couldn't believe it. He was still in one piece.
The rest of the walk home was in surreal silence. He was too full of thoughts and feelings to think them through very well, and he slept hardly better than he had the night before. The next morning was a dash to the arena, dead last to arrive.
"Thought you might have been too much of a coward to show up today." Gaston commented.
Belle gave him a small smile that looked apologetic, and the others were too far away to have heard the comment. It wasn't anything worse than what he had heard before, so he didn't think it would do any good to try to comment on it.
"Through here, everyone." Hopper appeared from the side and motioned everyone back to the armory.
This time every single one of them waited for details (Even Gaston, who reluctantly waited to hear from Hopper, all the while looking intently at a very large sword).
"Now that you've faced your first dragon, I want to hone in a few of the skills you already have, and train you to skills that need to be improved, obviously. In the arena a few of the villagers have helped me set up a practice dragon. It is made out of wood, perfectly harmless, but we've figured out a way to have it swing from one side to the next. Your goal is to attack it using whatever weapon you choose (And for you magic users, I do want you to try magic first) before it swings to the other side. The one who attacks it the quickest, in its weak point (which means you must know where the weak point is–I've not labeled it but it will look like one of the dragons in your book, so we shall see who actually read, like they were supposed to), wins this round. Those who fail to attack before it swings upwards, will use the rest of the time practicing on the dummy dragon. Those who do attack, and attack correctly, can go home early. Do you understand?"
They all nodded their heads, and began looking around for which weapon they would choose this time around.
"I can finally use this!" David picked up the large sword that Gaston had been eyeing (though Rumple had also seen David eyeing it as well when he wasn't being distracted by Snow).
"Hey! I had my eye on that. You can't do that, it's not fair." Gaston whined.
"You have magic, I didn't think you would…" David began.
"So you don't think I would need a sword. That's just like you and you magicless ones!" Gaston spat. Gaston left in such a state that David looked around, embarrassed and followed after him.
Snow looked around for a good long time, turning to the rest of them and saying in a sweet and smiling way (that looked nothing like how she was dressed–all serious and warrior-like) "I don't know how I'm supposed to get close enough to the thing, or what freezing it is supposed to do." And in the end picked a large bow and a handful of arrows, telling them that she enjoyed target practice with it at home.
Hatter looked utterly confused, and Belle didn't look much better.
"What do you suggest?" She looked at Rumple with questioning eyes as he reached and grabbed a smaller sword. He knew he didn't have the strength to wield anything bigger, and he had very few hopes of even being able to hit the blasted wooden dragon before it swung, much less do anything better than hit it in its 'weak spot'.
Belle was looking at him like he ought to have some sort of an idea about any of it, like his opinion about it might be valuable and it had him tripping over his words.
"Oh, I don't know…" Each word stumbled out as his eyes roamed the room frantically in search of something that he thought Belle might could use. His eyes lit on a small sword, even smaller than his own, with a sharp, sharp point. He didn't want to suggest anything she couldn't hold properly yet, wanted to make sure she had a good chance of actually hitting the thing. "...maybe that?" He was still unsure, but pointed lamely at the small weapon.
Belle went to go pick it up, getting the feel of it by pointing it, and moving it around in her hand a bit. She almost stabbed Hatter, as he had done a test with his hat and an ax, trying to see if he could disappear at one edge of the room and appear at the other side. Unfortunately, Hatter appeared at their end at precisely the same moment that Belle began practicing with the sword.
"Ah!" Belle jumped when she realized the blade was mere inches away from his neck.
"Exactly my luck." Hatter chuckled as he took a step or two back as quickly as he could. "Get nicked by a student instead of a dragon."
Belle's cheeks were bright red and her free hand had come up to cover her mouth.
"And don't start, it's my fault, little bookling." Hatter cut her off before she began apologizing, which was what she looked as if she was about to do. "Still not exactly competent with this." He waved his hat around violently.
"That's alright." Said Belle encouragingly, taking the hand that had covered her mouth and put it on Hatter's shoulder in comfort. "I suppose we ought to join the others." She sighed and gave them both a small smile, and they both followed her in silence, Rumple because he had nothing to say, Hatter because he was too busy trying to go through the hat and appear just a bit in front of her again and again, until Rumple was almost dizzy from watching him.
"Thank you for helping me." Belle turned to him a little before they entered the arena, Hatter having gone ahead and appeared with the others on his latest disappearance trick.
Rumple shook his head, his heart racing just from her speaking to him.
"Don't thank me yet." He even managed a small smile. "I'm no expert." Disappointing Belle might be as bad as making her sad, he thought.
Belle smiled and bit her lower lip a bit. "Well, I know nothing about any of it! Didn't really want to know either." She mumbled the last bit.
Rumple thought that he ought to ask her what that meant. Ask her why she was in dragon training if she didn't want to learn how to kill a dragon (he didn't exactly want to be there either, but he desperately hoped her reasons weren't the same as his).
Losing his chance to say anything, they entered where the other students were and awaited their turn to defeat the wooden dragon. They were taken to a little corner where they could not see what was going on by the person currently in the arena. Hopper did not want them looking at certain students and making judgment calls based on what they did. Instead, he brought them one by one, and so they did not know what sort of dragon was painted on, or where to hit it until the exact moment the dragon would be revealed.
Rumple was the fourth person to go, and he stepped into the empty, silent arena (except for Hopper, who stood on the second story looking down and another person who stood ready to let loose the dragon), palms sweaty, heart racing, knees shaking. It wasn't even a real dragon and he was shaking all over! Perhaps it was the pressure to perform at least good enough not to be dead last, or to be one of the ones who would have to stay behind for extra practice (which didn't seem like such a bad thing, except that everyone would know that he had missed, just by being one of the ones that had to stay behind).
He stood for a few agonizing seconds before he watched as the wooden dummy was let loose and Rumple had very few moments to decide where to hit the dragon, when, and how forcefully. He remembered this one. His soft spot was right between his belly and hind legs and he went charging, or at least it felt like he was charging, instead he kept questioning himself on the best way to charge as he was charging, which cost him several precious seconds of getting the sword in the right place. In the end, he did get it in, very horribly done, but done nevertheless, and before the dragon swung to where Hopper caught it, and pushed it towards the waiting villager.
"Well, you hit it, that's something." Hopper tried to speak encouragingly, but Rumple heard it exactly the way it was intended–you hit it but that's about it. He wasn't completely dejected, but still embarrassed by his lack of sword holding skills.
He made his way back outside to the grassy knoll where the students who had already gone through were waiting: David, Snow, and Belle.
"Well?" David looked up at him when he came out. "How did you do?" The three of them all looked at him at once and Rumple got all nervous again.
"I hit him, that's pretty much it." He put his hands around himself, already having put the sword back where it belonged before he had come out. "You?" He was very unused to interaction with his fellow man (which didn't involve direct insults) so he stumbled around attempted politeness.
"Got it straight away, amazingly enough." David said with honest and yet true humility at the same time, his shock at doing well being obvious. This caused Rumple to take an instant liking to him.
"Yes, wasn't it lucky that I made you go over the weaknesses of the dragons before we handed the book over yesterday, hmmm?" Snow nudged David who then turned shy as he shrugged his shoulders. "That's what I thought. No appreciation for my methods!" Snow rolled her eyes then gave him a gentle shove.
"Did you have any difficulty, Snow?" Belle asked, smiling at the two's banter.
She rolled her eyes again, but this time buried her head in her hands when she finished. "Knew the dragon, knew the weak spot, but how am I supposed to freeze the arrow and shoot it in time? I froze, and not literally, I guess, trying to figure out the best way to use my magic. My magic is pointless unless I can reach out and touch the dragon."
"Maybe we should join forces there, icey fingers!" Hatter joined them with a huge grin on his face.
"Did you vanquish your dragon?" Belle asked, giving an encouraging smile.
"If you mean that wooden thing out there, no. Hit my head trying to get closer and didn't even get a hit in before it swung away, and only barely remembered to go back through the hat before I fell on my backside." They were all giggling at the description (Rumple even found himself smiling) and he imagined none of them felt guilty for it, since Hatter was laughing with them, rubbing his forehead that was still red from the hit.
"Can't believe you came out smiling then. I felt horrible after I delayed too long." Inserted Snow.
"A thing happens whether you smile or cry, if you can do the one, surely you can do the other almost as easily." There were a good few seconds that passed as they all took in what he had said. Belle spoke first.
"That's a good way to think about things, I think." She smiled again, but this time there was a sad twinge to it that made Rumple wonder what was behind it. Rumple didn't think he had a whole lot to smile about, and had no desire to smile manically at everyone in hopes that they thought he was happy. He could see that Hatter's eyes were not smiling, neither were Belle's.
"It's not quite so honest is it?" He found himself saying. He felt hot all over as soon as he realized he had said the words aloud. All eyes were on him, a mix of brown, gray and blue. Belle's, the ones he was particularly nervous about seeing on him, looked thoughtful.
"I think maybe what Hatter is saying (please correct me if I'm wrong), is that sometimes we can help the inside by directing the outside to do our bidding. If the world is smiling because I am smiling, perhaps things aren't as bad as I think they are." Belle bit her lips, her eyes now darting from the ground to Hatter and then to him.
"Poetic, little Bookling. I wish that was what I had been saying, but it sounds good so we will just go with that." And the large grin was plastered back on his face again.
Rumple, for his part, thought it was too optimistic. He wouldn't begrudge Belle or Hatter their optimism, but didn't think he could smile to the world, when most of the world had only been cruel to him. While he always felt (because he had been told so often by his father) that what had happened to him was all he deserved, it didn't make the whelps hurt less or the sneers less mortifying. He said none of this, however, one, because he felt he had said enough for one day, and two, Gaston came out loud and obnoxious to the knoll.
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