Author's note: Oops, I got distracted and wrote some other stuff and didn't update this in over a year. Sorry! Finally decided to finish this for my peace of mind, whether or not anyone's still around to read it...
A blink and a breath, that was all she could allow herself before she forged the path back to Schlaraffenland. The Dark Castle took shape around them, vague blobs coming into focus — the familiar hedges and lawns of the gardens, the flower beds dark and bare under patches of melting snow.
Home, thought Belle, followed by a jarring sense of unfamiliarity. They stood in the shadow of a mulberry tree. It was larger than the straggly thing (a bit of disorder in the northwest corner) she remembered the Lost Boys planting not so long ago (longer than it ought to be). For a moment she swayed, disoriented by the difference between expectation and reality.
"Careful," whispered Rumple, catching her by the arm.
The tree wasn't the only change. New spells hung over the castle, and she could sense the tug of an alarm being tripped. A beat later, the air throbbed with magic and a flickering net of enchanted silver dropped over them, followed by the arrival of the castle guards.
"Good to see they're not sleeping on the job," Rumple muttered under his breath.
Good or not, it wasn't what Belle needed to see. Was it true? Did it happen as shown in the vision? How could Rumple just stand there when their child needed them? She forced back her impatience. Picking a fight wouldn't help.
The questioning came as expected, and Belle shot back her answers without really hearing them, her own questions interspersed with increasing urgency. "Where is she? Where is Niobe? Are they here?"
And then, at last—
They met in the great hall, each staring at the other, all at a loss for words. Belle felt Rumple's fingers tighten around hers, even as the toddler clung to the woman's skirts.
"Is that her? Is that... our child?"
The woman — it was Niobe — rested a hand on the toddler's head.
"Ma-ma?" The child in question looked up at Niobe.
"My daughter," said Niobe. "Birthed into my arms, fed milk from my breast."
"But..." Belle's protest faltered at the look in Niobe's eyes. "We had a deal..."
"You failed. Olympus stands. Zeus and his misbegotten brood survive." Niobe took a breath, then said softly, "The child is mine."
Belle's heart cried Thief! but that would be unjust. They had lost their child before Niobe ever came into the picture, and it was only by her efforts that they had this chance at all. She let out a ragged breath. Their daughter had another mother now—
"The child. What is her name?" whispered Rumple.
—and another name.
"Sophia."
Wisdom, thought Belle. She swallowed the pain and studied the toddler. Her aura was vibrant, no signs of illness or unhappiness. Sheltered inside the Dark Castle, the turmoil of the outside world had not touched her yet. More than that, Belle could sense the bond of love between the child and the one she called "Mama". Even if they had the power to separate the two, how could it be right? To be the cause of fresh tears for She-Who-Wept? "Please... she is our daughter, too."
"You say we failed. Maybe that's not entirely true," argued Rumple, but Belle could hear the desperation in his voice as he grasped at straws to spin into gold. "Olympus may not be toppled yet, but it's only a matter of time. Trapped in their eternity, without faith to give them life, what are the gods but marble statues, icons of a lost past? That faith is undermined now..."
"Cold comfort," said Niobe.
"Revenge is like that," said Belle. "But there's so much more to live for—"
"No." Niobe cut her off. "It's not enough. I should have known you were too weak. Just like this kingdom of yours."
Belle flinched, murmuring, "It's not weak."
"It's not a kingdom." Rumple kept a tight rein on his emotions, hiding them behind a stony facade.
"It matters not." Niobe shrugged. "I am her parent, the only one she needs. The one she loves the most. This was meant to be. The blood of the gods runs thin in you, Belle of the House of Avonlea. Mine, spilled on our tree, will restore the child's fate!"
Wait, what? Belle stared at her in incomprehension, her mind refusing to parse Niobe's gibberish, until—
"You would sacrifice yourself?" Rumple's appalled whisper rose to a near-growl.
—the gruesome image took shape in her imagination.
"No! No, you can't mean that." If there was a tree, that meant it was true love. If the love was true, how could she even think it? "She's just a child. You can't..."
"Children grow," said Niobe.
"If you love her, how can you turn her into a murderer?" Belle watched the other woman pick up the small figure, holding her easily against her chest. Sophia stared wide-eyed at Rumple, as if captivated by his strangeness. One tiny hand grabbed onto a dangling strand of hair, while the other stuck a thumb into her mouth.
"It's not murder. It's justice." Niobe's voice was calm, even soothing, as long as you paid no attention to the meaning of the words. "Or did her seven sisters and seven brothers die for nothing?"
"Not a burden to wish on any child, much less..." Rumple trailed off, the rest strangled by the knowledge that this was not his child, not anymore.
"What burden?" Niobe retorted. "My daughter will sit on the throne of Olympus as is her destiny. She will rule with wisdom, to the good of mortals and immortals alike."
"But you won't be there to appreciate it. What you're proposing, it would burn up your soul!" Belle wanted to shake her. To think that she, Belle, had sympathized and seen something of herself in Niobe! But now... To love and be loved, only to twist that love into a tool to warp fate? What kind of hate-maddened scheme was that? Isn't that what you wanted, for people to shape their own destinies? came the ironic thought. Yes, but... but not like this! "Don't you think she'll grieve for you? That she'll be weighed down by guilt?"
"There is no guilt for a gift I freely offer."
"This plan of yours, to replace one tyrant with another..." Rumple was too calm, the words slow and considered. "Well. You can plan all you like, but the choice will be hers."
"And why wouldn't she choose to become a god? To become their queen. Who would refuse that power?" The question was rhetorical. Niobe spoke as if the answer was obvious and irrefutable.
"The throne would become her prison," said Rumple. "Is that what you want for your child? Endless eternal misery on top of that mountain... one more slowly crumbling statue."
"What would you know about it?" Niobe shot back. "Have you ever been to Olympus?"
Belle had to shake her head. "But we've seen it on fate's loom, and we've walked through enough hells to recognize another one."
That gave Niobe pause. "Hell?"
Rumple waved a hand. "Oh, Olympus may look pretty enough, but underneath the shiny surface, it's nothing but a haunted forest. It's dead, they just don't know it yet."
Belle bit her lip. What Rumple said was true, but not all of it. It was a glorious illusion of immortal divinity.
"The mortal shades may be dead, but the gods..." Niobe looked unconvinced.
"Are not exactly living," said Rumple. "And every mortal soul carries by nature a speck of time, so even a great mountain will erode to nothing in the end."
"It's true." Looking at Niobe, Belle felt that she was talking to a figure out of the distant past, someone who still remembered the gods as a familiar presence, only a generation or two removed from herself. Change had passed her by while she was trapped as stone on a lonely hillside. "Think about it. What children have been born on Olympus in the last thousand years?"
Niobe frowned. "I don't know..."
"None." Belle looked at Rumple for confirmation, and he nodded.
"Hercules was the last," he said. "Eleven hundred years ago."
Just before Merlin's time, thought Belle. Well, they were not the first to try to change things. She and Rumple were only the latest after Merlin, Nimue, Nevethe, and Prometheus. Or was it the Olympians' own paranoia about being replaced that had made them wary of spawning any more rivals? "You freed yourself from stone. You have a chance to make a new life. Don't waste it. Please, your daughter deserves better."
However much it burned her tongue to acknowledge the your, Belle refused to lie to herself.
"It's not for you to decide, either!" Niobe shook her head, but Belle could see that her resolve had begun to crack. "Will you tear her from my arms? I thought such deeds were outlawed in Schlaraffenland."
"And you have nowhere else to go... nowhere safer, at least," said Rumple. "As the Protector of the Tongueless in Schlaraffenland, it falls to me to adjudicate her best interests."
"And are we to trust in your impartiality? I think not!" Despite her show of rage, Niobe had implicitly conceded the point. Difficult enough for a woman raised to be a queen to go into lonely exile in a hostile land, much less with a small child in tow.
"The High Archon," said Belle, because Niobe was right. If Rumple tried to force the issue all to their benefit with no thought for her rights, it would make him another tyrant abusing his power. No matter how much they wanted their daughter back, she deserved parents who would do the right thing. And if Niobe couldn't or wouldn't... "Let the High Archon judge between us."
"Fine!" Rumple's snarl was met with a terse nod from Niobe.
They were none of them monsters. So judged the High Archon in naming all three of them as Sophia's parents. Custody would be split, with the child alternating weeks between them, as was the custom in Schlaraffenland for parents who had separated.
"At least she's weaned," noted Belle, half her mind running towards the practicalities of their arrangement. "That will make feeding her easier." She didn't give voice to her hope that in time, Niobe would come to appreciate the life they had, and give up her mad scheme of sacrifice and apotheosis.
Rumple nodded his understanding. He gave Niobe a twisted smile. "Well, dearie, now that's settled, we should see about securing her future..."
And that meant bringing some kind of peace to their realm. Despite Niobe's disdain for what she called Schlaraffenland's 'weakness', she had chosen to stay there — because out of all the kingdoms in Misthaven, it was the safest. But that safety was precarious if all the other kingdoms were in turmoil.
Turmoil was an inadequate term. The Titans and the gods were an elemental part of their reality, and their conflict had damaged the structure of the mortal realms. That damage was being repaired by the Timers.
"That means we won't get much help from Nevethe right now," said Rumple.
"They can do their part. We'll do ours." Thinking about that, Belle was grateful that Niobe was a mother in more than name to their child. Then she considered who else she hadn't seen on their return to the Dark Castle. "But where are Otulissa and Eskereye?"
The Fates had not shown them everything, and to her relief, the two griffons were alive and well.
"They're at the Prydanian border with Baelfire," reported the castellan.
"What? Bae is where?" came Rumple's startled response.
"Is he all right?" Belle knew Rumple had sent his son to the safest place he could think of, but she knew Bae was not likely to sit on his hands if he thought someone needed help — and in times like these, someone always needed help.
"He is well according to the latest reports," the castellan said hastily.
Not that Rumple was going to take anyone's word for it.
The refugee camps at the border were overcrowded, makeshift towns that had sprung up on the near side of the river. The trade road crossed on an old bridge, two forts facing each other across the water. Not that many came by the road these days, not with both sides on high alert with full garrisons and regular patrols shutting down normal traffic. Instead, most had trickled in by night over the mountains or risky river crossings, spotted by Schlaraffenland's scryers and flying scouts.
Not all the refugees were Prydanian. As it turned out, Baelfire had brought the Jolly Roger to land here, carrying the surviving human population of Camelot and Avalon. Dreadfully few had survived, but the numbers were overwhelming when arriving en masse.
Rumple didn't stay to listen to the full report. Belle gave the Schlaraffenland agent (one of the beggar-spies she had crossed paths with once or twice before) an apologetic smile and shrug, then followed Rumple's trail of magic to the wharf where the Jolly Roger was moored. Its shape was distinctive, a sea-going vessel among the river boats.
Belle felt an odd moment of disorientation as they approached, a whiff of salt air and a sense of vastness, as if they floated in an invisible ocean. She blinked the illusion away and focused on the figure in front of them. It took her a breath to recognize the boy she had first met. He had grown taller than his father and carried himself with a steady confidence.
"Bae!" Rumple rushed forward to meet his son, reaching out to grip his arms as if to reassure himself that this was no vision, no dream. "Bae..."
Baelfire chuckled breathlessly, all at once a boy again. "Papa! It's you, the real you! You're alive!" He glanced at Belle, shooting her a tentative smile. "Mama..."
Belle joined them in a hug. "Oh, Bae. You're all right?"
Bae ducked his head in a nod. "I'm fine."
"What are you doing here in the middle of a war?" scolded Rumple, relief warring with the anxiety of losing his son again.
He's here, he's safe, Belle thought soothingly at him. She smiled at Bae.
"People needed us," Bae said. "We had to help." He shook his head as Rumple started to argue. "No, no, I already had this argument with you. Well, not you-you, but..."
"Wait, what?" Belle asked, seeing Rumple fall into a confused silence.
"It's a long story." Bae looked around. "Um, maybe we can sit down somewhere and we can talk... like, what happened to you two? We thought..."
"You thought we were dead," sighed Rumple. "I'm sorry, son. We didn't mean to be away for so long."
It wasn't easy to find a quiet room in the midst of the chaos, and Belle didn't want to displace anyone in greater need, so they ended up in the captain's cabin on the Jolly Roger. The ship's internal geometry had grown strange, part of the enchantment Belle had sensed before. The area below decks extended sideways into improbably dimensions. It reminded her of the bone roads of Tartarus.
"So that's how you managed to fit everyone from Camelot and Avalon on one ship." Rumple looked around with a professional's appreciation for magic. Then his eyes widened. Belle felt a tug of surprise and recognition from him. "Impressive... you did this, Bae? I see your mark in the spell."
"Me and Cathan — that's the ship's mage."
"Cathan trained at the Winter School." Rumple frowned slightly. "This is no magic taught there... How...?"
Baelfire grinned. "No, I didn't learn it from Cathan."
The look on his face, the familiarity of the magic, his cryptic remark earlier about already having argued with Rumple — the pieces slid into place in Belle's mind, and she burst out, "You learned it from Rumple, didn't you? The one we met in the pit of Tartarus."
Baelfire nodded.
"Ah," breathed Rumple. He dropped his head, hands covering his eyes. "I'm sorry, Bae. I abandoned you again... you and your sister... It seems my fate to always fail my children."
Belle leaned closer to him, pressing his shoulder gently. "We did what we had to do, to give them a future..."
"No, I understand," Baelfire said, the laughter fading from his voice. "You... you did the brave thing, Papa. You did it to save all the children."
"At least you had some... some ghost of me to look after you?" whispered Rumple. He finally raised his eyes to look at his son. "Where is he? I should thank him."
This time it was Bae who dropped his gaze. He swallowed, then said softly, "He... he's gone. When the sky barriers broke, and the divine light was burning Avalon, he stood between heaven and earth and... the light burned through him."
Belle sighed, but was unsurprised. Her husband, in his many iterations, would always stand between any danger that threatened those he loved, when it came down to it, despite thinking himself a coward. "Perhaps it was a mercy. To go out quickly rather than be slowly obliterated in a dark pit of hell..."
"If he saved you, then..." Rumple swallowed, leaving the rest unsaid. It was worth it. He shook his head. "Our endeavors, on the other hand... running up and down, running away, what did we accomplish? Who could we save in the end?"
"You did your best, I know you did," said Bae stoutly. "And... he showed me, the other you. No one saves the world all at once, not alone. You're only two people. It's all the things that add up."
But Rumple had lived many times longer than a mortal man, thought Belle. That meant more chances, more little things to add to the sum. Had it made a difference? When she asked the question, it felt as if the ghost of the other Rumple answered through Baelfire.
"It could have been much worse. Schlaraffenland survived in freedom, with backing from the Wood Beyond. Because of that, no immortal power could completely dominate Misthaven..." Bae took out a map and explained the state of the world as he knew it. He and Emma had found each other again. She had gone with Lily and Maleficent to put together an alliance of mortals, gods, and Titans in the east. "A lot of deals to be made..."
Belle glanced at Rumple. "The Dark One, trendsetter, huh?"
He shrugged. "Schlaraffenland was built that way, one deal at a time. People can get used to anything."
"I didn't used to like it, all those deals you made," Bae admitted. "But compared to the alternatives, where might makes right, or where gods speak and mortals obey, a deal isn't so bad. It means everyone gets something they want, and both parties have a choice to accept or not."
Belle nodded. To make a deal with someone meant that you saw that someone as a free agent — a person with a choice. Never mind being an evil sorcerer or a demon, that was the precedent Rumple had set: everyone potentially had a seat at the table.
"For a deal to be struck, each party must have something the other wants," noted Rumple. "I'm curious, what did Mal have to offer the Titans, not to mention the gods?"
"Funnily enough, that's another trend you set," said Bae. He made a face. "The Dark One, infamous for trading in infants..."
"Wait, what?" Belle boggled.
"Ah, it's like this..." Bae launched into his explanation.
The immortals had found hope in Lily, the first one of them born in a long, long time. She was a sign that Olympus's grip on their realm was loosening, showing a path forward where the different races walked on the same ground. The gods of Yrkandos, who had come out of seclusion to protect their own people, joined forces with Maleficent and her kin from Tartarus. Aurora, now queen of Yrkthera, made her peace with the dragon, their old feud abolished with the rise of this new generation.
"It turns out Lily's father was some kind of land spirit," said Bae. "The soul of the Infinite Forest. Don't ask me how that works. That makes her a Titan, supposedly."
"A good thing she's not still carrying a double dose of darkness, then," huffed Rumple. "We could have had another Typhon on our hands."
"We'd be in for a bad time, yeah." Bae rubbed his chin. "On the other hand, I met her when she still had that darkness, and she seemed all right..."
"That was during peacetime. War has a way of bringing out the worst in anyone... well, you saw what I became because of the ogre war." Rumple grimaced in remembrance.
Belle's focus was still stuck on— "Typhon. Do you think he'll come back?"
"Typhon... I saw him. In the loom." Rumple's own gaze went distant. He spoke slowly, as if retrieving his words from the bottom of a deep pool. "Impaled through the heart by a holy spear. Discorporated and returned to the Dark Realm... to rise again, freed of old entanglements, in a new world still raw from the fires of creation." He blinked away the vision. "Makes sense. The orignal Titans were beings of primordial chaos. Out of that chaos, the mortal realms were born."
Bae nodded. "Mal said something like that. 'When the world burns, he will devour the ashes... but that day is not yet. May it be long in coming.' Let's hope she's right."
So it seemed the Titans had two paths to follow: Typhon's, into a younger realm, or Lily's, into a more complicated future. Or perhaps three, if you counted those in Tartarus seeking oblivion, who remained unmoved by events in the upper lands.
As for the mortals, they also had new paths to forge, now that the human kingdoms of Misthaven had fallen into chaos. Prydania no longer had a king. The victorious coalition had declared their homeland a republic, modeled after the Oponan Free States. Belle had her misgivings about how well it would scale up to a much larger population and territory.
"One can hope," said Rumple. "Between the Oponan Free States and Schlaraffenland, people can see the possibility of change."
"Change for the better!" Belle smiled, allowing a glimmer of hope to spark. That was easier than asking about the fallen kingdom closer to her heart. But it was worse not knowing, so she took a breath, bracing herself. "And... what news from Avonlea?"
"Ah." Bae let out a breath, not quite meeting her eyes. "After the divine barrier around Avonlea fell, we began to get refugees coming in. Marceline and Alec went back, to see what they could do..."
"With a child in tow?" Rumple sounded half-accusing, half-guilty. "That can't be easy."
"No. But they said it was their home, and also..." Bae trailed off, glancing at Belle sadly. "Because people were saying the royal house of Avonlea had been destroyed... that that was why the divine barrier was broken."
"Why the divine barrier... I don't understand." Her mind shying away from the implications of "destroyed", she clung to the technical details.
Baelfire explained as best he could. It seemed that the barrier that had kept Rumple and Belle out of Avonlea had been created by the clerics, led by the archbishop's supposedly divinely inspired visions.
Belle nodded, remembering the glimpses she had seen in the loom of fate.
Archbishop Octavius had decreed a return to the old ways as the only way to protect Avonlea from the threat of the Titans. That meant the ritual sacrifice of the king and queen on the altar of the gods: the royal right to rule came with the royal duty to die at the appointed time.
"But my grandfather was never the pious sort, how could he let them...?" Belle said distantly even as her heart sank to finally learn how they had died. "Did Amaury...?"
Bae nodded. "The clerics got to him, I guess. The archbishop must have been persuasive."
Rumple flinched. He whispered, "My fault. It was my curse on him. I'm sorry, Belle."
Belle's hand tightened around his. "No, he chose that path... it's not your fault."
"I made him afraid. Fear makes people desperate, as I should know."
Belle shook her head. "But he only had power because so many others shared his fear... and that's not on you. I wanted the Titans freed."
"Yeah, but who cast them down into a pit to cook up thousands of years worth of hate?" Bae put in. "We all saw what it was. It wasn't right."
"So many people were hurt." Or worse. Rumple gave Belle a sad look. "So, that uncle of yours went along with the clerics..."
"But then he regretted it. Tried to go back on his deal," Bae continued.
It seemed that Belle's parents (her mother, thought Belle) had convinced Amaury to recant, but their revolt was put down violently by forces loyal to the church. Amaury had been sacrificed in turn, with his younger brother Yves set on the throne as a puppet king. Belle's parents and sister had been put under house arrest in the family's mountain villa.
And then came Yves's disastrous coronation feast. Strife between gods was not easily borne in mortal realms. Humans and animals went mad. Storms and earthquakes battered the land.
And a remote mountain villa was swallowed up in a slide of mud and broken timber.
"No survivors were reported," said Bae quietly. "I'm sorry."
"They're dead?" Belle said blankly. Then, "What about Yves?"
"He's still alive." Bae reported what he had heard: blind and crippled by the mob, Yves had been stripped of his crown and left half-dead to recover or not in obscurity in a remote monastery. "They say he's joined them and taken a vow of silence."
Belle nodded. Growing up, Uncle Yves had never had much to say to her. Now he probably never would. She wondered what he had been thinking to do as he had. Did he mean to save Avonlea or only himself? Had it been ambition or desperation that put him on the throne? Not that it mattered anymore.
"If you want to go back..." Rumple offered softly.
Belle shook her head. She swallowed the lump in her throat and said, "We should see things settled here first."
And so they stayed, for a while at least, lending the weight of their names and magic to the deals being brokered. It was only after the treaty was signed between Schlaraffenland and the new Republic of Prydania that Belle let herself think of her old homeland again. An invitation to a new coronation, the third in a short few years, was all the excuse she needed.
"That cursed ground!" Niobe had nothing good to say about Avonlea. "A scrap of poisoned meat ripped to shreds by two packs of mongrels."
"A scrap of meat cooked into a new stew by none other than dear Marceline," said Rumple. "If the people of Avonlea insist on a royal arse to warm their throne, I suppose they could do worse."
Belle nudged his arm in mild rebuke. "She's done a lot to help in the reconstruction."
Niobe scoffed. "My daughter could have ruled."
"She still could," said Rumple. "But it would be her choice, and that of the people. Not up to you, dearie!"
"Anyway, I thought Sophia could meet her little cousin. They're family, a smaller thing than it used to be," said Belle.
"Some family members one is better off without," said Niobe darkly.
Belle knew she was thinking of the ones who had murdered her children: Niobe's Olympian cousins. "Marceline isn't like that."
"And if she was, we would protect our children from her," said Rumple.
"Sometimes to build trust, you have to show trust," said Belle. "And beyond personal reasons, a formal visit including the children is a gesture of peace and friendship between Schlaraffenland and Avonlea."
Niobe scowled. "My daughter is not one of your political pawns. Are you not a hypocrite. making your own plans for her while decrying mine?"
Belle opened her mouth, then closed it again. "Well, you can meet my cousin, too. Since we're all family now. Her beloved is, was, a Fury."
Niobe snorted. "I've heard the rumors, that Implacable Anger has been placated at last. That was certainly a surprise." Saying so, her opposition faded and she agreed to the trip.
But the biggest surprise to Belle was the sight that greeted her alongside her cousin Marceline.
"Mother! Father! Sylvie!" Belle broke away from the staid procession to meet her sister as the latter rushed forward for a hug. Half-laughing, half-crying, she gasped, "You're real. You're alive. How...?"
"It was Gwion," explained Sylvie. She twisted her head around for a quick nod at the crowd. Belle ahed at the sight of the vaguely-remembered face lurking at the back. "He and his pack saved us. They hid us in the Infinite Forest for a while, said it was because they owed you a favor."
Meeting her eyes, the werewolf nodded slightly. A favor returned.
Belle had nearly forgotten it, caught up in the rush of events that had followed the Evil Queen's trial, but it had been their lives in question at the time. Belle's intervention had once saved them, and now theirs had saved her family.
Upon such deals was their happily ever after built.