A small child wandered out of his home as his mother slept soundly. Deep in the throes of a nap, the woman was unaware of her son's absence.

The boy was dressed in scraggly clothes that had been passed down from grandpa to great-uncles to father to brothers to cousins. Faded and worn.

The three-year-old's brownish grey eyes lit up when he saw a giant mushroom. He made an exclamation and clapped his hands. He'd always wanted to touch one, but his mom wouldn't let him. He was finally tall enough to reach their doorknobs at the trailer-sized house he'd just left.

On short legs, he toddled determinedly as a man-eating plant confined near the ten-foot tall mushroom licked its lips hungrily.

A woman wearing an exaggeratedly innocent expression—haphazardly naïve for a woman her age (thirty-one)—and outlandishly low-cut yellow ball gown yelped, "Someone help him!" She saw the kid and plant from her location a mile away but wasn't close enough to do anything but part her cherry red lips and yell. Not that she wanted to get her hands dirty. She liked to sit on her porch railing in ball gowns. Watch other people do the rescuing. Especially if they were men.

A white horse bearing a helmeted knight galloped up. The woman gasped, parting her lips in a way she knew—from staring in the mirror to perfect her expressions—made her appear equally attractive and stupid.

An ogre came, yanked up the man-eating plant, and ate it whole. Roots and all. The ogre turned to the little boy.

The Ogre Slayer whipped out his weapon. Light magic streaming from his finger. He shot it at the creature's matted, hairy chest. At the same moment the little boy touched the giant mushroom and stroked it. His eyes shone like a kid first experiencing candy. He very much liked the squishy exterior of the mushroom's stem.

"Any barbarian who wishes to harm children answers to me," asserted the Ogre Slayer as the ogre crumbled in a dead heap.

Turning to the boy, Rumple asked, "What's your name?"

"Gerald." The boy did not look Rumple in the eye. He was still gazing up at the underside of the mushroom's head.

"How old are you?"

"Three."

"You," he started to say "be careful" but stopped himself. This was a normal, healthy boy who did not realize he'd almost been eaten by two creatures. Rumple would not inject the boy with self-shame.

Instead, he gave the child a magic ticket. "Any time you need help, stroke that three times."

The boy took it and put it in his back pocket. It didn't matter if he was careless with it. It'd show up when he needed it.

Rumple led the white horse away, thinking how sad the boy's mother would have been to awaken and find her son missing. Never knowing for certain what became of him. Unless the woman in the yellow ball gown spread the word in town and the mother heard the gossip chain.

The Ogre Slayer shuddered.

Sensing his distress, the beautiful stallion trembled too.

Rumple tried to gallop on past the wench's house, but she slipped off her porch and into the middle of the dirt road. Rumple tugged the horse into a halt.

The wench had big blue eyes she batted at him. "That was," she uttered dreamily, "so heroic. You, sir, deserve a medal." Her cheeks turned crimson on cue. "And on top of that…you're handsome!" She unleashed a flirtatious giggle then wrapped her reddish brown hair around her finger, grinning goofily.

"I have my moments. In certain lights. But I'm ugly," he uttered politely, waiting for her to dismiss him.

Shaking her head fiercely, the woman refuted, "No! You only think that! Why do you think that?" she pondered, her passionate tone slowing to thoughtful.

"Because people have told me. A prince with a twin. My ex-wife, who abandoned our son to get away from me. Captain Blackbeard's apprentice—I'd call him a pirate, but he's allergic to rum. Your betrothed."

The woman's eyes widened. "You met Gaston?"

"Yes."

"Ugh. I don't want to marry him. My father bullied me into accepting his offer. He's a prince, and we're poor. He offered my father gold for me, but I'd rather marry a heroic vagabond…like you."

"You hardly know me," Rumple rebuked. "Trust me. You do not want to marry me."

The woman in the yellow ball gown's eyes flashed with the thrill of the challenge. "I'll have you for my husband. Make no mistake about that."

Rumple only shook his head. "My son's older than you," he confided.

At that moment, thirty-three-year-old Baelfire came, riding astride a red roan he coaxed into a majestic rear. "Come on, Papa. Even a hero needs dinner."

The woman's lips were parted with attractive disbelief as she envisioned having the knight's baby.

She knew a jilted man would not fall easily. It would take a lot of coaxing to bring him around without twitching ears and eyes dancing for an escape. She estimated a good ten years of gentling him would be required to keep him from refusing the bit.

She could play a slow game. More importantly, she would.

That night, she gave Gaston his ring back. It was a beautiful, pricey ring with diamonds running up and down the sides. He did his best to dissuade her. But more than money, the woman in the yellow ball gown longed to sit behind the knight on the white horse and travel all the kingdoms. The world was a lot larger than the land she'd been born in, Prince Gaston's realm.

When she told her father, smoke sifted from his ears. He kicked her out. "You have committed the worst of sins! Prince Gaston—at last!—is ready to take a bride at age thirty-five. It's incredible that he picked a woman like you, with air between her ears. And you have the nerve to call the wedding off for a man older than I am?"

His daughter slumped on her leg. "Well, I mean…"

"You have disgraced your family. I never want to see you again, Angela."

The yellow ball gowned woman was glad to leave. As she grabbed Her Handsome Hero, she called, "It's Belle now."

Her father never saw her again.