"Balisford is fallen," the messenger reported.

The news came as no surprise to Belle, but she had still hoped her sacrifice would not be in vain. So much for Gaston's army... She glanced at her fiance, the man her father had sold his daughter (and the future of their tiny kingdom) to in return for a promise of military might. Avonlea's augmented army had seemed impressive at the start of this war, but the past months had sent them reeling with one shocking defeat after another to the point of numbness.

"The ogres will reach us in two days, three at best."

Gaston's face turned ugly. "My men will make them pay for every step."

"Gods willing," muttered King Maurice under his breath. He moved a token on the map spread across the table at the heart of the council chamber. Behind the crude abstraction, the reality was clear: their own forces decimated, the enemy advance inexorable. "Our walls are strong."

Gaston nodded. "My men have orders to burn everything behind them. These monsters will starve before they can break us."

"So will our people. Our stores will not be enough! Come winter, hunger will kill us even if we survive the ogres." Belle spoke up desperately. Maybe this time they would listen to her. "This is a defeat for everyone. Surely we can negotiate a truce with the ogres..."

"Ogres are not men!" spat her father.

Belle shut her eyes in despair. No, of course not. Ogres were treated worse than animals. They were tortured and killed by the king's soldiers, their heads planted on pikes as an warning to their kin. Not even a child was spared. She remembered the demonic glow in Gaston's eyes, revealed in the shard of the magic mirror. In her darker hours, she wondered if his viciousness had sparked this war. If I hadn't left him alone with that ogre child, if I had been brave enough to free him on the spot... Instead of letting Gaston force our hand, maybe we could have learned their language. Maybe Mother could have talked to them. Maybe we could have had peace.

"Truce? Ridiculous," scoffed Gaston. "They can't even speak a civilized language. Might as well send a pig to grunt at them."

"That's not true. Mother had a book—" Belle had helped her mother track it down, a journal from the empire beyond the eastern forest that chronicled trade with the ogres. Where there was trade, there was communication. But they had run out of time to decipher it. After the ogre raid, nothing of the library had remained, much less a fragile old manuscript. Her mother had died that day. Ogres could and did tear humans limb from limb, eating their enemies as readily as they would eat a sheep or a cow. It doesn't have to be like that, her heart insisted, but she had to acknowledge that everyone had lost too much to back down now.

"My wife is dead at the hands of those beasts! What use were her books?" Maurice turned back to Gaston. "We'll take in as many of our folk as we can. The rest will have to fend for themselves in the hills. Our supplies will be stretched thin."

Gaston nodded. "I have an idea about that. Kills two birds with one stone..."

"What about the Dark Lord?" Belle broke in. "I know what people say about him, but so many lives could be saved—"

"No!" her father shouted. "Avonlea will never submit to that demon."

"His magic is powerful—"

"It's evil." Maurice glared at her. "Better a clean death than to damn our souls."

That was what the clerics taught. And it wasn't as if Belle wouldn't have preferred to call upon light magic from the fairies. It was just that the fairy auguries were unfavorable, meaning that they had written off Avonlea as a loss. This war was not worth wasting their precious fairy dust on. Belle could only grit her teeth and seek out other possibilities. But with the smell of smoke in her nostrils, she feared it was too late.

"War is a man's business," Gaston said in what was, for him, a kindly tone. "If you have no stomach for it..." He glanced at the door.

"I'm staying." Neither her father nor her fiance had wanted her here in the first place. She had persuaded them on the grounds of morale. In her golden gown, she served as a kind of mascot. No one took her seriously, but she had to try. "No, I don't relish the thought of more death and suffering, but my digestion is irrelevant. It's you who don't have the stomach to swallow your pride and ask for help!"

"'Help'!" snorted Maurice. "It's not help, my girl. He's been eyeing our territory ever since the war began, that vulture. I won't let five generations of the royal house of Avonlea come to an end because we're afraid of hardship."

"He won't kill us, Father." Belle had read enough reliable accounts to say so with confidence. Kings and nobles of the Dark One's newly acquired lands were stripped of their titles, but he didn't necessarily execute them, instead exiling them to the so-called "Isle of Kings". How was that worse than being eaten by ogres?

Thunder rumbled in the distance. Belle's heart stuttered, and she glanced out the window: was that the ground shaking from the march of the ogre army? But no, the smoke-reddened sky was darkening, heavy clouds threatening a downpour. Common enough this time of year. She tried not to take it as an omen. At least rain would douse the flames consuming the countryside.

"Enough." Maurice shot her a silencing look, then turned to Gaston. "You said you had an idea? Let's hear it, my boy."

A night passed, and another day. That night Belle barely slept. Gaston's plan was too cruel. She had to stop it. That was why she switched places with one of her maids and made her way in the darkness into the lower kitchen, making use of the keys she held as the ranking lady of the castle. Now she sought the door that matched the last on the ring, a plain bronze key that she had never tried before. Her mother had told her it was here in the third storeroom on the east.

She peered warily around the shelves, an oil lamp lighting her way. A shadow moved unexpectedly — there was someone there!

Belle gasped, lamp swinging wildly as she followed the line of motion. "Who's there?"

A pause, then a thin figure limped out from behind a pile of crates, soft scuffling footsteps accompanied by the tap of a stick against the wooden floor. A man emerged, head bowed, face hidden behind a fall of hair. His clothes were stained and sooty, threadbare and patched. One hand gripped a sack that was slung over his shoulder.

"A thief," Belle stated the obvious. She didn't recognize him at all; he must be one of the refugees seeking shelter behind the last walls still standing between Avonlea and the ogres. She frowned. "I know it's tight, but surely we can still feed..."

"Only those that can fight," mumbled the man. "Please, mistress. It's not just for me. There's children starving and homeless."

"What?" Belle swallowed her shock. "Whose order...?" But she knew. She named her fiance in a hiss, "Gaston."

He was that ruthless, she knew. Fourth prince of the Marchlands, the mountainous kingdom to the southwest, he had limited prospects at home. After the betrothal, he had regarded Avonlea as good as his already, clinging tenaciously with the small army allocated to him by his father. But with so many fallen to the ogres, he could ill afford to lose more. Hence his 'incentives' to force the refugees into his plan.

They were being sent to die. Gaston was a hunter. He knew how to set out poisoned bait, such tactics being used against the wyverns and wyrms that infested the southern mountains. Their flesh was bitter and foul to dogs and humans alike, making them unsuitable targets for a traditional hunt. Instead, a poison-laced goat would be staked outside their lair as bait. The poison was designed to kill slowly, as only live prey would be taken. Ogres were not known to be so picky, but they were not foolish enough to dine at an enemy's table! Corpses looted off a battlefield were a different matter, hence this pretense of a fight.

Under the guise of a toast to the 'brave volunteers', they would drink the specially prepared wine Gaston provided, then throw themselves against the ogre encampment wielding farm implements and sticks, armored with whatever clothes they could afford to wrap themselves with.

It meant nothing, because they themselves were the only weapon that mattered.

The scene had replayed itself over and over in Belle's mind: the makeshift army stranded on the field when Gaston's soldiers retreated back behind walls and a locked gate. She imagined the desperate screams as the pitiful, doomed group was smashed down by the ogres and turned into dinner. Then the ogres themselves would die a gruesome death by poison. If enough died (if, if the poison was strong enough, if enough of them took the bait, if they didn't notice in time, if, if, if...) Avonlea would have its victory.

As long as we're willing to sacrifice all these innocent people. Belle looked at the thief. He stood humbly, not meeting her eyes, only the tightness of his grip around his staff betraying his fear. "What's your name?"

"I, I... they call me Hobblefoot, mistress," he stammered.

Belle sighed. Not a proper name at all. But it only made her more determined to save them if she could. "I'm Belle. Look, there's a door hidden somewhere in this cellar. If you can help me find it, it'll be a way out for everyone..."

"A door?"

Belle nodded. "My mother told me. It's an old secret, a tunnel that leads into the Infinite Forest."

That forest gave the realm of Misthaven its nickname — the Enchanted Forest. It insinuated itself into dark corners of more mundane woods, defying ordinary geometry. People who wandered in by accident might never find their way out. It had swallowed the original exit of the tunnel, which was why it had been abandoned.

"That's, that's almost as bad as, as ogres," said Hobblefoot. "There's wolves. And, and wild boars that would kill you as soon as look at you..."

"It's a chance," Belle countered. "Or do you think we can win this war?"

Hobblefoot sucked in his breath. "Then you'll be going with us, mistress?"

She shook her head. Her father would never give up his kingdom. He had agreed to Gaston's plan. "This is my home, my family. I can't abandon them."

"They say the walls won't stand, not this time," said Hobblefoot. "Everyone inside will die."

"My father and Gaston have a plan," Belle admitted. "But it's monstrous. We can't..."

"'Monstrous,'" echoed Hobblefoot faintly. "But if it would save your people, your kingdom? What is this plan, mistress?"

On impulse, Belle explained everything to this quiet stranger, the first person since her mother had died who seemed to actually listen and care what she had to say.

"So that's how it is," he said at last.

"To lie and trick and give people false hope while sending them out to be eaten by ogres, it's wrong!"

"Even if it works?"

Belle shook her head. She couldn't condone it.

"Even if you tell them the truth, some might still be willing," he said. "Not everyone is a coward, and Avonlea is their home, too."

"Would you do it, given the chance?" She gave him a considering look.

"Are you offering, mistress?" He sighed and leaned on his staff. "But I am a coward. Always have been..."

There's a story there, she thought, but she had no leisure to pry. No, he was right; commoners had as much right to choose their fate as the nobility. They had the right to know the price to be paid, but she knew her father and Gaston would never agree. It was up to her. "Then let's find this hidden door first."

With the addition of a fresh pair of eyes, it didn't take long. Belle held her breath as she fit the key into the old lock. To her relief, a forceful twist turned the mechanism and it thunked open. Stairs led down into the darkness below. "Look, you and the others can shelter in the tunnel. If the castle falls, flee into the forest. Take what rations you can carry with you."

If it came to that, better it went to the surviving humans rather than the conquering ogres.

Hobblefoot nodded at her instructions. "As you say, mistress."

With the tunnel secured, they went to talk to the rest of the refugees. As he had predicted, many of them were willing to sacrifice themselves, whether for revenge or to save their families. Seeing their bravery, Belle knew she had to answer them with equal courage. She couldn't ask them to do something their leaders weren't themselves willing to do, and as a daughter, she couldn't put the burden on her own father.

That was why she pretended to accept Gaston's plan and offered to pour the blessed wine for their rag-tag militia.

Before she could think better of it, before anyone could stop her, Belle lifted the first poisoned cup to her lips and downed its contents in one gulp.

"Belle!" Her father leaped to his feet in horror. "What have you done?"

Gaston was just as aghast. He gaped at her in incomprehension, and Belle would have laughed if she weren't utterly terrified.

Belle poured the next cup with a shaking hand. Then the next. "It's done. I will go with them. Soon I'll be with Mother."

Maurice clenched his jaw visibly. Belle knew he didn't dare admit that what she had drunk was poison, that he and the future king had coldly condemned their own people to an ugly death.

Gaston recovered first. "The battlefield is no place for a woman of noble birth. I'm sure the people appreciate your gesture, but it's enough to join them in spirit. My dear, you look overcome. Best retire to your chambers. His majesty and I can take care of everything here."

"Yes..." Maurice nodded stiffly. "He's right."

Belle stepped back as her father waved the servants forward. She hastily picked up the spear she had borrowed from the castle stores. "I said I'm going to fight. It's been decided."

"Perhaps she has a point." Gaston spoke up when Maurice wavered, cold calculation barely hidden beneath a facade of caring. The three of them knew that Belle's life was already forfeit. Win or lose, Gaston didn't need her anymore: Maurice had no other heirs. This way, her sacrifice could be used to burnish the reputation of the royal family with no additional cost to Gaston. He raised his voice and swept his gaze over the crowd. "A shining example for us all! Let us salute her highness, your princess Belle!"

A confused cheer answered his call.

Then Maurice nodded once more, heavy resignation lining his face.

Belle stared at him, knowing this to be the last time she would see her father. Then she bowed and saluted him with the spear before taking her place among the newly-assembled militia. Turning his eyes from her, Maurice issued the command to open the gates.

It wasn't much of a march. Belle felt light-headed. She hoped it was merely fear and lack of sleep, and not the poison acting prematurely. Surely they would have enough time to at least reach the ogre encampment. It lay in a hollow, just over two bow-shots from the town walls. The sun beat down at the back of her head. It was just before noon, when the ogres should be least alert. Perhaps a sneak attack...

But they were untrained, ill-armed commoners and one princess, not soldiers. Their collective terror was too much to bear in silence. A primal instinct seemed to take over and they broke into a run, yelling at the top of their lungs once the ogres were in sight. Belle charged forward with the rest, lagging behind in the confusion as those with longer legs surged forward.

Her head spun as she screamed and aimed her spear at the enemy. The edges of her vision closed in. No, no, not yet, came her frantic thought. The poison. It must be. She tried to hold back its effects by pure force of will, but it was useless. All around her, people stumbled and tripped.

The ogres were turning towards them. Close. Too close.

Then everything went black and she knew no more.

Author's note: Fantasy world magical poison: don't expect realism here. Not that OUAT was realistic with its handling of war, medicine, technology, economics, ecology, or anything at all really...