Archive of Our Own

The kingdom of Avonlea lay at the confluence of several rivers and close to the shore of the Endless Ocean. As such, it wasn’t necessarily a strategic kingdom, but in resources it was richly arrayed with much fertile farmland and ample fishing.

Although a kingdom, Avonlea had no king, for George would allow no other to hold that title, save Midas, and grudgingly David, husband of Queen Snow, and that is a tale for another time. Avonlea was ruled, therefore, by Prince Maurice, beloved of Collete the Compassionate, but had earned no such epithet for himself. Collete, beloved hope of her people, had been slain in her own library, in an increasingly bold attack by ogres, who took the summer palace with an ease the people say, in hushed tones behind their hands, that was a clear dereliction of duty by the prince to protect his family. Some whisper, even more quietly, that it suited him not to have to share power with so beloved a queen as Collette had been, and that her loss had finally begun to tame his wayward daughter, Belle.

Belle was as headstrong as she was beautiful, having inherited her mother’s chestnut hair, and soulful blue eyes - the depths of which rivaled the waters of the Endless Ocean itself. She was small, and slender, and strong. She had also inherited her mother’s understanding and compassion for her people, which was probably why she was currently fighting her father on his decision to raise the taxes so that the kingdom’s soldiers, already wealthy because of their service to the crown, could be even better paid.

“We must either raise the taxes, Belle, or find a strong kingdom with whom we can ally…” he gave her a pointed look, one meant to remind her that she was of more than marriageable age.

Belle sighed and looked up from her book. Sitting in the window seat of her tower room, she looked down on the practice ground where her father’s soldiers and their knight commanders conducted their drills, and honed their skills with swords and bows.

Her eyes were drawn, as always, to one in particular of her father’s knights. Her mother’s knights she corrected herself.

Before her mother’s death, Sir Rumplestiltskin had been their constant companion. Whenever they visited the market or the fair, whenever there was reason or need for them to be protected, there he was. Always gallant, always gentle; not large, bulky and clumsy like others of his kind, but shorter, with a wiry strength that always seemed echoed and amplified in the warmth of his amber eyes.

Today he was armored only in a leather vest over the billow of a black, high-collared shirt, with leather pants. It was the most casual Belle remembered ever seeing him and she found she could not take her eyes from him.

She sighed again, pressing the heel of her hand to her belly as though the touch could calm the butterflies that had taken flight within.

Down in the courtyard, Rumplestiltskin paused in his drill and glanced up, then looked up at Belle’s window and stood watching for a time as she turned the pages of her book, her hands white against the darkness of the leather binding.

He wondered whether she had received the flowers he had sent today; that he sent every day - a symbol of the promise he made to Colette to keep her daughter safe, where he had failed to protect the queen.

He would forever feel the guilt of that, but he bore another, more secret guilt, and one that could destroy him if any came to know of it. He held a yearning in his heart to know the love of the maiden he watched over, and protected; to be hers as more than just her knight protector.

“Come now, Princess.” Belle looked up as her nurse bustled in with an expression that told Belle she would accept no nonsense from her today.

The old woman, Granny - to all who knew her - had been Belle’s nurse since she lost her mother, doing her best to be, for Belle, all the parts of a mother that Belle would need. She taught her manners and how a lady should behave. She taught her about life, and all the things that life as a woman, and a wife, would entail, and soothed her fears when silly gossips filled her head with nonsense about how it was between a man and a woman, but most of all, she loved her in a way no other did, or could.

Certainly her father loved her, but he did so in a different way, in a man’s way - the way of a father who had the weight of a kingdom on his shoulders.

Granny hurried in, trailing servants who carried steaming jugs of water, and fine clothes and ribbons for her hair.

“Granny, what’s going on?” Belle set down her book and swung her feet around to the floor just as Granny reached for her, drew her away from the window and quite unashamedly stripped her bare, and set about encouraging Belle to take her morning ablutions. She dismissed the servants who all began to sound like geese, gaggling with embarrassment as they hurried away.

“Your father has found a match for you, my girl,” Granny said. “And you’re to meet his ambassador today, as soon as you are fit to be seen. Would you look at the state of you. When was the last time you brushed your hair?”

“A match?” Belle asked.

“A husband; a strong lord with whom you can make a good alliance for the benefit of the kingdom.”

“I know what a match is,” Belle protested, “I just wondered with whom?”

“His name is Gaston,” Granny said. “He’s tall, a brooding kind of face, but handsome. All the girls swoon over his looks and his strength.”

“And he encourages it, I suppose,” Belle sighed. “He sounds hideous.”

“Never-the-less, he’s to be yours and you’ll be his wife, and do honor to the kingdom as is the duty of a princess.”

“But what about love?” Belle asked.

“Love?” Granny answered. “You’ve been losing your head in too many of those books of yours.”

Belle walked slowly that evening, so much so that on more than one occasion Rumplestiltskin found himself at her side, and not walking behind her, as his duty dictated.

Duty be damned, he told himself the third time he fell into step with the beautiful princess, and offered his arm to her.

“You seem… distracted, Princess,” he said as she laid her hand delicately onto his sleeve and smiled her thanks.

“Sorrowful, not distracted,” Belle answered, and not for the first time he felt his heart twist in his breast to hear her say so. “I wish I were distracted, or that this was all a nightmare.”

“Princess Belle?” he asked with concern. Bad enough she was sorrowing, but nightmare?

“I’m still waiting to wake up,” she said, and then looked up at him with a sigh. “My father… wants me to marry.”

“It is what most father’s want for their daughters,” Rumpelstiltskin said, trying to keep his suddenly roiling emotion from his showing in his voice.

“No, I mean now,” she said. “I met his man today, and two days hence, Papa said, he’ll be here to take me home with him, and I’m not ready. I’ll have none of my things, and—”

Rumplestiltskin bristled, and heard no more of what Belle said. Why was it only now that he was hearing of this? As her Knight Protector, should he not have been told. There were preparations to make, things to do. He had to prepare for the journey, and he assumed there would be a journey for when had Prince Maurice ever come between him and his duty to Belle as promised to his late wife.

“Rumplestiltskin?”

Hearing her call his name as a question brought him out of his smoldering thoughts, but not to full awareness of himself or his place.

“Sweetheart?” he answered, without thinking, and when he looked down at Belle there was a blush upon her face.

“What if I don’t want to marry Gaston? What then?”

He took a breath, “What… do you mean?” he asked slowly, trying to catch hold of his thoughts and emotions that were still reeling.

“What if there were… another, on whom I thought softly,” she asked, meeting his eyes with the blue of hers which he realized shimmered with tears, “and who… I think… feels the same?”

“I think,” he began slowly… carefully, lets he put ideas into Belle’s head that might, in the end, cause her harm, “that if two people are meant to be together, the gods will find a way to make it so - no matter what they must face in the meantime.”

“But… Rumple—”

“Belle! Princess?” Granny’s voice sounding through the garden cut off what she had been about to say. Rumplestiltskin heard her footsteps coming, however unsubtly, through the garden toward them, and took a careful step away from Belle, a respectful distance.

I will try, my Belle, he thought but did not say. I will try and find a way. I promise.

The following morning, the castle was all abuzz with activity and excitement, and patrols along with road were sent out at hourly intervals as escort to the expected Lord.

Belle sat, morose, in her chambers, suffering the attentions of her servants, and of Granny who primped and painted, and dressed her body and her hair in the most ridiculously lavish of ways. She wanted no part in it; did not want to go down to the hall and meet this man who was bringing such disruption and upset into her life.

Waiting to be called upon felt like waiting for her execution, and not even sitting at her window, watching the guardsmen and knights at their training could ease her suffering, because Rumplestiltskin was not there.

The call, when it came was terse, and delivered by a steward she had not seen before. “Lord Gaston demands the presence of the Princess Belle in the great hall.”

“Demands?” Belle half questioned, half exclaimed, and turning to address the steward, whom she assumed must be one of Gaston’s own, she said, “You would do well to remind  Gaston,” she would not even do him the courtesy of granting him an honorific, so outraged was she, “that he is a guest in my father’s halls.” She waved a hand to dismiss the steward, and then as an afterthought added, “And tell him that I will be down anon.”

She walked to the door behind him and all but slammed it, turning to lean on it and let out a growl.

“That probably wasn’t a good idea, my sweet,” Granny said softly.

“I don’t care,” Belle answered petulantly. “I will not answer to such brutish discourtesy.”

She did care, however, when, several moments later, the door flew back on it’s hinges, and with a face as red as any sunset, a tall, dark haired man - who had a wicked scar down the length of his otherwise handsome face, which, so the gossip said he’d received while hunting a wild boar - stormed in and grasped her by the arm in an uncompromising, and quite bruising grip.

“I said come down,” he snarled.

Though she tried to pull herself free, he was unyielding, and dragged her bodily from her room, and all but threw her down the first few steps of the stair. But for the fact that the stair turned a spiral, she might well have fallen, but she managed to catch herself against the wall, where, a moment later, Granny’s soft touch helped her to straighten up again, murmuring about the wisdom of remaining in the good graces of one’s husband, especially one like Gaston seemed to be.

With as much dignity as she could, given such an ignominious beginning, she descended the rest of the stairs and walked toward the great hall, with Gaston clomping along behind her.

Her father sat, unmoving, on his throne, with such an expression on his face that as soon as she saw him, Belle was moved to race across to him, but he caught her eye, and his own said, ‘no.’

Instead she moved across the hall to take her own seat on the dais at his right hand side, one that had once been occupied by her mother, trying to ignore the chests from which spilled gold and fine fabric, and other trinkets. Her bride price.

Gaston, for his part, bodily lifted one of the heavy wooden chairs from the table  and carried it to the dais, where he set it beside her father between him and where she sat.

“There now,” he said as he sat. “All is as it should be.”

Belle bit her tongue to hold in her retort, and what should have been a gathering with an atmosphere of good cheer, was stilted and awkward, and tense.

The proceedings of acceptance were almost complete, when Rumplestiltskin, resplendent in his knightly finery, entered the hall, and called out to Prince Maurice for recognition.

“Sir Rumplestiltskin,” Maurice answered, “Of course and always. Come forward and tell me what is on your mind.”

“Well, Your Highness,” Rumplestiltskin began, and Belle noticed that he was fighting the urge to look in her direction as he spoke. “As you are well aware, with her last breath, the late queen charged me with the role of knight protector to the Princess Belle. It is a duty and an honor to do so and as a knight must always fulfill his vows, I crave your permission to accompany the princess to her new home.”

“Well said, Sir Knight,” her father answered, and she could see some of the tension leave his shoulders at Rumplestiltskin’s request. “And of—”

“No!” roared Gaston and was instantly to his feet, had descended the dais, and had all but drawn cold steel against Rumplestiltskin, before Belle also came to her feet and cried out for him to stop.

“I will not have blood shed on the occasion of this audience,” she said as formally as she could. Rumplestiltskin at once removed his hand from the hilt of his own sword, and he would have defended himself, she knew, and wondered if perhaps she should have let them continue, but no. It would be unseemly.

“And I will bear no insult,” Gaston spat at her, “nor the suggestion that I am not man enough to protect my wife.”

“Not yet your wife,” Rumplestiltskin growled, and bared his teeth like a loyal hunting dog after prey. “Lest you forget it.”

“Soon enough,” Gaston murmured softly and Belle assumed the words were meant for Rumplestiltskin’s ears alone, for all that she heard them, clear as summers bells. He was baiting Rumplestiltskin. “Then we shall teach her some obedience, and the proper position of a wench.”

The rest of the occasion descended, if it were possible, into a horrible free for all. Tempers frayed, insults were exchanged, and finally with an expression of abject apology on his face, Rumplestiltskin quit the hall, just as Belle, herself, wished to do.

Rumplestiltskin left the hall seething and wanting nothing more than to tear the upstart Gaston limb from bloody limb. Even a visit to the stable to tend to his beloved horse could not calm him, and as the evening grew late, he finally made his way toward the narrow stair that led to his quarters, as honored Knight Commander.

The scuff of a foot on the stone of a stair was all the warning he received that anything was amiss. Instinct alone prevented him losing his head - quite literally - as the steel blade, wielded by a man above him on the stairs, swept across, to kindle sparks from the opposite wall.

In the next moment he drew his own blade and the battle was joined.

Gaston, for so it was lurking on the stairs, held the immediate advantage of higher ground, an advantage of which Rumplestiltskin was happy to relieve him, launching a blazing routine of sword play. More sparks flew in the narrow confines of the stair well. Neither man scored a hit that the other did not score in their own turn. The fight was vicious, and brutal… and dirty.

Gaston was the stronger, but Rumplestiltskin was the faster and more skilled, but even that amounts to nothing when your opponent in the fight is as corrupt as a bog in the heat of summer. As Rumplestiltskin lunged for what should have been the final play, that would disarm Gaston, and leave him on his back with Rumplestiltskin’s sword at his throat, Gaston threw his arm forward and flicked his wrist. From cuffs hidden beneath his shirt two great, sharp prongs extended, and in an instant slipped between plackart and fauld of Rumplestiltskin’s armor and twisted deep and hard.

Pain erupted through Rumplestiltskin’s side, stealing his breath, and leaving him staggering on the stair, allowing Gaston to find his feet again. A second time the piercing strike entered Rumplestiltskin’s side, just above his hip, and this time with a hand across his throat, Gaston pinned him to the wall.

The man leaned in to hiss words into his face, all the while jerking and twisting the metal that was embedded in Rumplestiltskin’s flesh.

“Thought you could take my Belle from me, eh?” Gaston hissed. “Thought you would deny me access to the line of succession in this land?”

Rumplestiltskin tasted blood in his mouth, and gathered it together with saliva on his tongue before launching it in Gaston’s face. Spitting “Bastard!” along with the mess of his blood.

Gaston laughed.

“My brave Sir Knight,” he mocked. “Not so brave all those years ago, when the ogres sacked the castle, and you lost your beloved queen?”

“You were told of that day?” Rumplestiltskin gasped, confused.

“Told of it,” Gaston laughed anew. “I remember.  I was there.”  He leaned forward then to whisper into Rumplestiltskin's ear. “It was not ogres. I was the one who gave the killing blow when Queen Collette died.”

Rumplestiltskin’s mind reeled. Not ogres? But the library was sacked. Nothing remained.

“They were hidden beneath the table and toppled bookshelves. I grabbed her ankle, pulled her from safety and looked into the despair in her eyes. I killed the queen.”

As he said the last word, Gaston twisted the cruel blade inside of Rumplestiltskin one more time before tearing it free, and laughing, descended the stairs with an almost jaunty spring in his step, leaving Rumplestiltskin to die.

Rumplestiltskin fell to his knees, tried to call for help but could not find the breath. He fell forward, supporting himself for a moment on an arm that trembled like corn in the autumn breeze before it is cut down at harvest.

“Oh, my Belle…” he breathed, and then… darkness.

Jubilations swept through Avonlea the following day as the procession of wagons and horses gathered in the courtyard of the keep. To Belle if felt more like a funeral procession than embarking on a new life, in a new kingdom, as its queen.

She scanned gathered crowd, her eyes filling with tears again when she did not see Rumplestiltskin anywhere.  Surely he would have come to bid her farewell, no matter how he might have felt toward Gaston and the others.

As if she knew what she was thinking Granny shook her head.

“If he could be here, my pet, he would,” she said. “I’m guessing the Prince told him to stay clear so as not to cause a scene.”  Granny pointed to the walls around the city. “He’s probably up there somewhere, watching in secret.”

Belle sighed, and took a kerchief from her pocket and dabbed at her eyes. It was the one she had embroidered not long after her last birthday, with lace along the edge, and birds and flowers in the corners.

“Far too beautiful to spoil with tears,” Granny said.

Belle looked at it, and ran her fingers over the sprig of rosemary stitched into one corner: constancy, she knew. She leaned down just as the carriage began to move and pressed the kerchief into Granny’s hand.

“Give this to him,” she said. “It is my token, and my favor.”

No sooner than the caravan was out of sight, Granny turned on her heel and set her steps toward the barracks and the knight’s quarters.

How dare he play with her heart that way. Didn’t he know how she felt?

Not finding him in the barracks to give him a piece of her mind, she stormed across the training ground towards the knights quarters. She wouldn’t have taken him for one to sit indoors and sulk, but…

As soon as she opened the door, Granny knew there was something wrong… something terribly wrong. The metallic scent of blood hung heavy in the air, and from somewhere above the steady, sickening drip, drip, drip of something hitting the stone of the steps.

She took them two at a time, and as soon as she saw Rumplestiltskin crumpled face down at the top of the stairs, with a spreading, deep red pool around him, she went down them just the same, and catching the eye of one of the squires in the yard called out, “You! Fetch a healer. NOW!”

Then, she went back up to where Rumplestiltskin lay, feeling for a pulse and relieved when she found one, however faint it was.

“Oh, you foolish man!” she snapped, starting to unfasten the straps that held the armor in place. “What did you do?”

The darkness that had suffocated him began, slowly, to release its hold on him. Voices, muffled and as though coming from far away began to register, at first softly, and then too loud, drawing a moan from his lips.

Everything was pain. Everywhere hurt, and he felt at once hot, and cold.

His eyelids were heavy, too heavy to open, and his lips, in spite of the drips of sometimes cool, sometimes warm fluid, were drier than the deserts of Agrabah.

“Belle,” he managed, after what felt like the effort of several lifetimes.

“Easy now,” Widow Lucas’ voice. He’d served with her husband. A good man, as she was a good woman. “Take your time, Rumple, my boy.”

“No time,” he murmured, trying to wet his lips. He was rewarded by a longer drip of water into his dry mouth, and he swallowed greedily. “Danger.”

“Time enough for the telling of tales when the danger to you has passed,” she told him firmly. “The healers said to rest, and I haven’t watched over you these past hours only to have you keel over now.”

“But…”

“No buts!” Granny said. “You need to rest, and get well. Then we’ll get to the bottom of this.”

When they stopped for the night on the first day of the journey, Gaston reached inside the carriage and pulled Belle down without any consideration to letting her find her feet.

Consequently, she ended up on the ground.

“Get up, girl,” he spat. “You’re not in your father’s halls now. We’ll do things my way.”

“Bastard,” she said, climbing to her feet.

“So I’m told,” he answered and gave her a mocking laugh as he stepped toward her. Instantly she stepped back.

“Don’t you touch me!” she snapped, and in the next moments was back in the dirt, the side of her face a mass of fire where Gaston had delivered her a backhand slap.

“Talk to me like that again,” he warned, “And it’ll be more than your face that smarts!” For good measure, he kicked out, and caught a glancing blow against her hip. “Now get up and go see to my comfort! Bring me food and ale. You can go eat with the dogs.”

Fighting back tears, and with her hand over the bruise that was already forming on her cheek, Belle hauled herself upright, and began to stumble toward the fire, where the food was cooking.
 

“You can’t let her marry that animal,” Rumplestiltskin rasped, when Granny brought Prince Maurice to Rumplestiltskin’s chamber.

“Rumple,” Maurice began. “I understand you have feelings for her, my boy, but—”

“You don’t understand!” Rumplestiltskin slammed his hand down upon the top of the bed in frustration. “Gaston, murdered Collette!”

For a moment both Prince Maurice and Widow Lucas looked at him in horror. Granny Lucas was the first to recover her wits enough to speak.

“What?” she said simply.

“He told me… no,” Rumplestiltskin corrected himself, “he gloated that he’d done it. How he’d killed her, before he did this.” He gestured to his bandaged side where even now, blood seeped through the tight bindings. Not as badly as before, but enough to keep him confined to bed, when all he wanted was to mount his horse, fly off after them and bring Belle home. “I suppose he didn’t expect me to survive so saw no harm in telling me.”

Maurice paled, and then colored brighter than a brand heated in a forge fire. Then, turning to the steward in attendance roared, “Bring me my armor, saddle my horse and assemble the men. I will not suffer that blackguard a moment more to live!”

He turned and started for the door, was almost there before Rumplestiltskin had gathered breath enough to speak, and when he did it was the wisdom of his many years of service.

“My Prince,” he began, “You cannot, nae, must not leave to pursue him, for doing so would bring risk to the kingdom and leave the people without their prince. It is what Gaston wants.” He took another breath then, as Maurice stopped, and sagged a little before turning back to him, obviously knowing he was right. Then he begged, “Allow me, my lord, to go in your stead. You have my word I will bring the Princess safely home.”

Maurice took his hand and squeezed tightly, “Sir knight, I know your heart is true, but I cannot allow it. You are barely well enough to sit, let alone to stand or ride - and surely not to fight.” He sighed then, “We will pray on it, and petition the gods to guide us in the path of right.”

When the camp was quieter - as Belle nibbled at the hard crust of bread and sipped at the gruel in the bowl they’d given to her - she looked around at the ragtag camp. The flickering of the many small campfires along the caravan line did little to illuminate the faces of the men-at-arms and the others of Gaston’s small army that he had brought with him. What expressions she could see showed few that she could say were genuinely content. It contrasted in such a way to the emotions that had accompanied her father and their family, even on the longest of journeys, and she found it troubling in the extreme.

“Wench!”

The derogatory call was all the warning she received before the bowl of gruel was knocked from her grasp and sent tumbling away into he dark.

“Sitting idle while your lord and master calls for you. Didn’t you hear?”

“No, I—” she truly hadn’t heard anyone call and was honestly baffled.

“Or perhaps you chose to ignore—”

No shrinking violet, when Gaston raised his hand to her, along with his voice, she flew to her feet and cut him off, loudly enough for others to hear, intending to shame him.

“My lord,” she derided the last word, “is far too ready with his hands.”

“Far too…” Gaston spluttered as though he could not comprehend that anyone would dare to speak out against him.

Belle saw the moment comprehension of the words caught up to him. Her reflexes were fast enough to allow her to duck the incoming blow that proved her words, but did not expect that he would grab a handful of her hair and twist it around his fist.

“You’ll learn, woman, not to speak back to me.”

She reached up to grasp his wrist to try to relieve the painful tightness in her scalp as he began to drag her from where she had been, toward one of the wide, covered wagons she had seen them preparing for the few nobles in his entourage.

“And  you’ll learn to thank me for my attentions.” For a moment Belle, in her turn, stared uncomprehendingly at him - but then she raised her booted foot and brought it down hard against his shin.

“Bitch!” he snarled.

Uncowed, Belle dug her nails into his hand - the one that held her by the hair - until he let go, then she stepped back a way, snatching the knife from the sheath at his waist.

“You certainly are treating me as one,” she spat, “A hard crust and gruel? My father treats his prisoners with better courtesy than I’ve been shown, and I’ll thank you to remember I’m not yet your wife, and you will keep your hands off me until that changes!”

Gaston stared at her for a moment, then looked between her face and the knife in her hand. Then, he laughed.

By the following morning, when Rumplestiltskin had shaken off the fatigue of his wound, if not the pain of it, he called for a steward to bring him word of Prince Maurice.

The steward blanched.

“What is it, man? Speak!” Rumplestiltskin demanded.

“Well, my lord,” the man began, “His Highness left the castle just before dawn.”

Rumplestiltskin snarled a curse.

“Damn fool,” he added, pushing himself up to a sitting position, pressing a hand against his bandaged side. “He’ll get himself killed. Send for my squire.”

“But my lord—”

“Fetch my squire or so help me I’ll get him myself!”

Rumplestiltskin took a breath and braced himself as he stood.

“You’ll do no such thing!”

Rumplestiltskin turned awkwardly, and winced, forced to catch himself against the frame of the bed as Widow lucas’ voice came from the doorway. In her hands she carried a fresh pile of clothes and supple leather armor.

“Get out, lad,” she told the steward, “I’ll deal with this dunderhead!” The steward scampered away as though someone had lit his behind on fire.

“Dunderhead?” Rumplestiltskin snapped.

“Tell me,” she answered, that you are not planning on rushing off after that idiot prince of ours, and I’ll take it back.”

He couldn’t, and so snorted instead as she came closer and began to reach for the hem of the long shirt he was dressed in.

“Thought so,” she said, and setting the clothes down on the bed, she took up a bandage. “In which case, you’ll let me tend you, and armor you. The princess would never forgive me if she thought I’d let anything happen to you.”

Belle gripped the edge of the seat as the carriage came to an abrupt halt amid shouts, and the commotion of horses’ hooves.

Her heart skipped as she heard her father’s voice ring out from among the ring of metallic jingles that surrounded them; horse tack, she presumed.

“Gaston Legume!” he called out the other man in a bellowing voice. “Show yourself, you faithless cur!”

“Oh,” Gaston laughed as he spurred his horse forward and dismounted. “The old man finally grew balls and a backbone!”

Belle winced.

“Save your posturing,” her father scoffed, then accused, “murderous bastard!”

Belle had never heard her father say such things in all the years of her life and a feeling like a knotted cord settled in her belly. There was something she didn’t know, and as much as she didn’t know it, she knew the fear of it. That fear came to be realized when Gaston answered, laughing.

“So… your faithful dog survived my little visit,” he said, “at least long enough to tell you the truth of your queen.”

Belle had heard enough, and as quickly and deftly as she could, she flicked open the door of the carriage so fast that, as distracted as were her guards by their master’s verbal sparring, managed to slip past them, and take off running toward where she could see her father, faced off against Gaston, who was preening even as he paced back and forth in front of Avonlea’s prince.

“Did he tell you how she begged for her life? Whined and pleaded for her sake!”

Gaston spun on his heals and pointed, unerringly, at Belle, who realized as he did that her father had not known she had come forth from the carriage when he told her to go back.

“Oh no, lady Belle,” Gaston invited, sarcasm dripping from every syllable he uttered. “Do stay…”

As he spoke, she felt herself suddenly caught by the arms, and almost lifted from her feet so that she could be restrained; prevented from moving forward, yet held in place so she could not retreat

“…and watch me kill your father the way I did your bitch of a mother.”

“Don’t listen to him, Belle,” her father told her, so obviously trying to speak over Gaston. “He’s only taunting you.”

“With the truth?” laughed Gaston. “I think not.”

Faster than a minnow skimming just below the surface of a pond, he pulled a throwing knife from a sheath on his arm and launched it at her father. Belle yelped in warning, but Maurice had already seen the danger, and managed to dodge aside, drawing his own blade as he did.

“This is the way you want to play it,” Gaston mocked, “old man.”

Belle cried out, and struggled harder against the men that held her captive as Gaston drew steel upon her father, and quickly engaged. It was a bitter battle, and though Maurice had the more experience than the younger man, age slowed him, and it was soon clear to her that her father was losing ground, in more than just the literal sense.

Blow by blow that Gaston rained upon him, though her father parried, he was forced to retreat, his parries barely fast enough to catch and deflect the blows. Gaston, too, had seen, and like a cat toying with a mouse, began to tease and feint, calling out mocking jibes, and to Belle, lewd promises of how he would no longer wait to make her his.

“I shall wet both my blades with blood of Avonlea today,” he growled at her, cupping himself before the assembled onlookers, “and trust me, girl, I shall make a perfect sheath of you thrice over.”

Belle renewed her struggles, unbidden tears streaming down her cheeks even as animal, angry snarls, like an enraged lioness, escaped her.

“Maybe I should leave your father with enough life in him to see me pluck the last sweetness of innocence from your between your soft thighs.”

Belle saw her enraged father suddenly lunge toward Gaston, his flank open in the blindness his anger had caused.

“Papa, no!” she cried out, already knowing it was too late, he was committed, and to what would be a killing riposte from Gaston. She had watched the men at arms training often enough to know the dangers of anger in a fight.

Gaston’s stroke never fell, at least not upon her father.

The air was suddenly filled with the ringing sound of fine steel and sparks briefly illuminated the surprise on Gaston’s face as, seemingly out of nowhere, Rumplestiltskin had put himself between him and the struggling prince, sword raised to catch the killing blow.

“You so much as breathe another word of such a thing and I will relieve you of the ability even to pleasure yourself,” he hissed, but Gaston laughed.

“Says the supposed knight so impotent he could not save even a wench, let alone his prince,” Gaston mocked, “or even himself!”

As he spoke the last word, Gaston dropped one arm from holding the sword aloft against the press of Rumplestiltskin’s defense, and aimed his elbow at Rumplestiltskin’s injured side in what would have been a vicious jab, but the knight was ready for him, and twisted aside

Then, with a great cry of, “Enough!” Rumplestiltskin threw Gaston back, unlocking their blades, and swung his sword in a great horizontal arc between them, forcing the other man to give further ground.

At this, Belle saw her father draw himself up again with a great breath, and begin to take a step toward the two now battling in the middle of the two armies of onlookers, but at Rumplestiltskin’s command, two of Maurice’s men moved to hold their prince back.

“This is my fight, Highness,” he said, throwing the words almost over his shoulder, before launching another merciless series of attacks, driving Gaston further away from Prince Maurice, and more importantly, Belle realized, from her.

“Your fight,” Gaston spat, “and your death!” 

Gaston’s repost came swift and brutal. Belle’s heart leaped into her throat as she watched the way the battle went back and forth, turning like the tide, first Rumplestiltskin seemed to be the one with the advantage, the next Gaston, then Rumplestiltskin again, but Belle could see that Rumplestiltskin was slowing, and from beneath the bottom of his tunic, she saw the ever increasing drip, drip, drip of blood that looked dark against the leather of his pants.

Gaston, too, saw his struggle and pressed his advantage, driving Rumplestiltskin hard, pushing back, striking fast, and fighting dirty.

Rumplestiltskin gasped as Gaston ducked under his next slash and followed with the momentum of the move to thrust his shoulder, hard, into his side, which he knew was already bleeding. He was having trouble catching his breath, and black spots were floating at the edges of his vision.

A spasm of pain shot through him, radiating out from his wound, to consume the whole of him, stealing his strength. He felt his knees buckle, and the stabbing pain in his side became a sliding, tearing feeling, and as he began to fall, he saw that from Gaston’s gloved fist, an evil looking spike - red with his blood and flesh - protruded.

“Should have stayed abed… old man,” Gaston sneered. “So now you’ve failed twice, and I kill the father, and take the girl anyway.”

Rumplestiltskin tried to rise, pushing on his arm as he fell forward to try and get back up again; to try and stop him from closing in on Belle, but finding himself unable.

Belle let out a cry, as Rumplestiltskin fell to his knees. The trickle of blood she had seen falling from beneath his armor running faster now, and spray of it as Gaston pulled back his gloved hand from what she had believed was merely a punch, revealed the spike gleamed red in the sunlight.

The words that Gaston uttered as a curse mattered nothing to her. Her knight, the man she had watch daily, who had protected her faithfully, was falling, dying in defense of her family, in defense of her.

“No,” she spat, redoubling her efforts to free herself from the men holding her back, but to no avail. They held her either to protect her, or to keep her for Gaston. Either way she fought like a bee defending its hive. “Let me go!”

“Or maybe,” Gaston grandstanded for those around but, she suspected, mostly for her father and for Rumplestiltskin, who even now was struggling to stay upright, though on his knees, as Gaston turned his back and began to stalk toward where she was held. “Perhaps, I’ll do it the other way around.”

He was almost at her, almost on her, hands reaching for her, when from across the distance, Rumplestiltskin’s voice rang out, obviously pained, but strong enough to carry. A single word, a single challenge.

“…Gaston…!”

The man turned, as spinning end over end it came, fast and true, Rumplestiltskin’s sword flew, unerringly towards Gaston. Too slow, Gaston raised his armored forearm to deflect the sword, and the tip of it passed beyond, to bury itself with a sickening thud, and half way to the hilt, in the man’s chest.

“No… one…” Gaston tugged, without effect on the impaling blade, “fights… like…” Then he could say no more. Blood spilled from his mouth, his knees gave way, and like a rock in deep water he sank. Finally falling to the side, his own name dying on his lips as the life ebbed from his eyes.

Across the distance, Rumplestiltskin, too, lost his battle to remain upright, and began to topple backwards.

He did not hit the ground.

In the chaos that followed, with pain the likes of which she had never known searing through her, body, blood and bone - deeper yet, Belle found the strength to snatch herself from the arms of those who restrained her, neither knowing, nor caring on whose side they were.

She let out the most unearthly cry and as though wings bore her to him, flew to Rumplestiltskin. She caught him in her arms, sinking to the ground to cradle him, speaking his name over and over again.

“Rumplestiltskin… Rumple… please,” she wept and pleaded as though her words alone could anchor him to life. “Don’t go… don’t close your eyes. We need you, valiant knight. I need you.”

She felt arms surround her, but shook them away. Words reached her ears, but she refused to hear them, only rocked Rumplestiltskin in her arms.

“Belle, my girl,” he father’s voice, “my love, you have to let him go. He’s gone.”

“No, no!” she snarled, as though the words were a blasphemy. As though she forbade them to be true. “Rumplestiltskin, no!”

“B…elle…”

Her name was barely a breath, like a dying wind.

“Sw…eet… hea—”

Silence; a silence that stretched toward eternity.

Then she was falling, tumbling toward a darkness so complete there was no finding the beginning of it, nor the end, and all there was was Rumplestiltskin and the sacrifice that he had made for her family, for her mother - for her.

Her lips found his - still warm - and she willed him to feel all the love she held for him, poured everything of herself - for it was truly his - into the soft, sweet, lingering kiss.

Thunder out of nowhere and a flash of brilliant lightning split the sky; announced the passing of a service so faithful, and so true - more gallant than any given by a knights, in all the realms.

The space before the flower strewn altar - white for purity and red for the love that none could deny - was filled with the people of Avonlea, from the loftiest noble, to the lowliest serf, none were denied the honor of attending such a solemn occasion. 

Already, the faces of many among those gathered were wet with tears, and the rite had barely begun, with the benediction of remembrance for the fallen, and the charge of the gods intoned by the priests.

The Procession of the Royals followed, with none other than King David to stand among the celebrants, and Queen Snow carrying garlands of flowers.

Next came a young squire carrying the sword, and a lady’s maid, just rounding with the glow of pregnancy, carrying the cup, and last the Widow Lucas, who carried a silken silver cord upon a pillow of ebony velvet.

Finally, there fell a hush upon those gathered, before a fanfare of the purest sound regaled the moment that Belle of Avonlea, princess and beloved, appeared behind the throng, a moon rise in a dress of shining silver-white.

From where he was, kneeling at the altar, and with the assistance of King David, Rumplestiltskin rose to his feet and turned to face the people of Avonlea. With a nod to David, he took his place, still leaning on a gilded cane to steady himself.

The words, whispered from ear to ear, were that Princess Belle forbade him to die, and as her loyal Knight Protector, Sir Rumplestiltskin had obeyed. The king and queen who stood beside Belle and Rumplestiltskin as they came together at the altar knew the truth of it was rarer by far, but which, by the ending of the day, were certain that all there present would feel the blessing of it, and see before their very eyes, the tangible proof that such magic existed. The only magic that could transcend realms.

Words were spoken, blessing chants sung, and the sword and cup placed into the hands of the bride and her groom.

“For, as the sword is to the man, so is the cup to woman, and together, so joined, bring forth the blessing of life.” The priest raised his hands as Rumplestiltskin slowly lowered the tip of his blade into the wine that filled the cup that Belle held steady in her hands, held thus for a moment before being taken by younger priest.

The Bride and Groom smiled at one another as they joined their right hands together, which were gently bound by the silver cord, as vows were given and received, then, as each drank of the blessed wine in the cup, and spilled the last upon the sacred stone upon which the altar stood, the priest raised his hands once more above the couple, now garlanded with the flowers Queen Snow had brought.

“Let it then be known among all the realms that Princess Belle, and Sir Rumplestiltskin, knight and Prince of Avonlea, are now one as husband and wife. The gods have joined them and accepted their marriage, so let no mortal man or woman denounce their holy union. Go forth in peace, and blessed be.”

Rumplestiltskin tenderly drew Belle closer, and with their free hands they cupped each other’s cheek, leaning closer yet to share the love they felt, each with a kiss. 

As their lips touched, and their eyes closed, a pulse of brilliant prismatic light and the silence of love’s holiness, radiated through all the gathered wedding guests, and throughout the myriad realms of the Enchanted Forest and beyond.