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intrikate88seasons turning in waltz time, Once Upon a Time (Belle/Rumpelstiltskin), 2,000 words.
They dance around each other as the months turn winter into summer.
“So what’s today’s spell?” Belle asked, running a rag along the bookshelves. His tower of alchemical wonders was generally messier than the rest of castle, and he had resisted letting her in to clean it longer than anywhere else. There had been words. About dark magic, and dangerous influences, and books bound in human skin. They had disagreed. She had prevailed. There was no reason dirty plates should be left to grow their own life forms in the dark tower of wizardry, she claimed.
“Concrete mold,” he answered with a small titter. “Or that’s the best description, anyway. Sticks and grows on ships like algae or barnacles, grows through the cracks, splits ships apart. Favor for the sea king, since he just found out the ogres have discovered ship-building.”
“So you’ll sneak onto an ogre ship and let one infect them all?”
“I’m sure with my face I can convince them I’m just a baby ogre, don’t you think?” He grimaced at her with his gritty, green-gold face, and she shrugged.
“I haven’t seen many baby ogres, so I couldn’t say. You’re also looking fairly normal to me, by now. It might be worth having a backup plan, just in case you’re not quite as beastly as you think. It would be terrible to find out you don’t look that bad when you’re surrounded by a horde of ogres.”
“Just a wee bit, yes,” he said. “There’s also that fact that I happen to be the Dark One and can probably manage to fight them off.”
“I’m sure that will help. Though I was thinking something more like an invisibility cloak.”
“Which I won’t have until I get the sea king’s treaty to get a few sirens under control, and the duke who owns the waterway where his sailors keep drowning themselves to get at the sirens gives up the cloak.”
Belle considered this. “Well, I do hope you won’t get ripped apart by ogres before you can get the cloak that might have kept you from being ripped apart by ogres. That would be inconvenient.”
“I’m touched by your concern, dearie.” He muttered a few words over a large bowl of grey powder, and they shimmered slightly, and seemed to shrink and grow all at once. Belle hoped it didn’t drift around. She wanted the place to stay dusted for at least a day.
“I might miss you,” she said, genuinely, and notices the briefest of pauses in his movements. She quickly added, “And I presume this castle was built mostly by magic and if you get eaten, it will all probably fall on top of me.”
“Wouldn’t want to have all that cleaning be for nothing.” He grinned up at her.
“Certainly not.”
“Then I shall do my best to not be eaten,” Rumpelstiltskin promised her. “Will you fetch me that vial of yeast from the shelf by your left hand?”
She searched a second, and saw it, next to the bottle labeled Virgin’s Blood. After picking up the yeast and handing it to him, she asked, “Really, Virgin’s Blood?”
“Yes, the magic of a virginal maiden is important to many spells.”
Belle made a somewhat unladylike sound. “I’ve known a few ‘maidens’. I’m fairly certain you’re exaggerating.”
“It’s fetal calf blood. Are you happy now? Ruining all the magic of it?” He huffed.
“There isn’t much magic to it when you’ve been to a few balls and know all the hidden corners of the castle everyone wants to dance in privately as the night wears on.” She tucked back her hair demurely. “It looks even less magical than actual dancing.”
“My, my, aren’t you a woman of the world.”
“No, I think I just prefer dancing. It takes much less effort than finding an unoccupied dark corner.” She ran her dusting rag along the shelf of vials and bottles. “What about you?”
“In this castle, I’ve never found any shortage of dark corners,” he said, and he didn’t have to smirk for her to know what he said concerning his rather large estate. She swatted him on the elbow with the rag and he mimed great injury.
“I meant,” she said, “do you dance?”
“Been around a long time, dearie,” he said, checking a book and then adding a green potion to the mixing bowl. “Think you can assume I’ve done most things.”
“Yes, well,” she said, lifting a pile of books to be returned to the shelves, “you don’t exactly strike me as the sort to have been invited to any balls recently.” Belle checked the titles, put them back in the appropriate spots. They used to be shelved merely by size but now she has them organized by subject and title, and that only because most of the authors declined to have their works recognized by their name (presumably because publication would shortly be followed with a horde of peasants with pitchforks and torches to drive them out of town). Rumpelstiltskin raged at her for two days before he figured the new system out, and then grumpily thanked her for making the books actually capable of being found.
“I went to a ball just last week!” he said, taking a small mechanical device from a box.
“Yes, to turn a prince into a frog. Did you dance?”
“Wouldn’t wanted to have drawn attention,” he answered.
“Yes, because turning the crown prince into an amphibian didn’t draw any at all.” She shelved the last book. “I haven’t been to a ball in ages. No dancing since the men went off to the borders.” Belle leaned on the edge of the table, watching the spell come together. Rumpelstiltskin wound the little device, almost like a tiny music box, and it vibrated erratically. He placed it next to the goopy mixture in the bowl. “Come on. Dance with me,” Belle said.
“Belle,” Rumpelstiltskin said in a pained voice, raising his head to look at her, “I’m trying to resonate concrete.”
She held out her hand. “And it’s resonated. Look, your clockwork stopped. Show me what kind of dancing would have drawn so much attention.”
Belle held her hand out a long moment after, feeling very vulnerable as Rumpelstiltskin looked at her, as if wondering why his housekeeper should ever make such a request. Then ever so slowly, he put his hand in hers. “We have no music,” he protested, as she led him around the table, to where the floor of the tower was clear.
Humming, she took his other hand and set it on her waist. “We don’t need it,” she said, singing the melody of an old song she knew. They began moving, Belle letting Rumpelstiltskin lead her into a waltz in time with the melody. She drew closer to him, but he gently pushed her back, spinning her around before drawing her back in to a comfortable distance. Perhaps more his comfort than hers. She was learning not to question her own level of comfort around him.
“Do you know the words to that song?” he asked, turning them into a patch of sunlight streaming in through the glass windows.
“In Scarlet-town, where I was born, there was a fair maid dwellin’, and every young man cried well away, for her name was Barb’ry Allen,” Belle sang softly, then stopped. “It’s a very sad song, actually.”
“Ballads aren’t usually sung about happy endings,” he said, moving his hand further around her waist.
She hummed a little more, moving her feet in time to the song. “It’s about a man named William, who is dying for the love of Barbara Allen. But she refuses to have sympathy on him, because he had rejected her before, and after she leaves him she hears the bells ringing and knows he’s died. And then she knows she can’t go back.”
They danced in silence for a few steps before Belle sang again. “Oh mother, mother, make my bed, both make it long and narrow. Sweet William died for me today, and I’ll die for him tomorrow.”
“She was buried in the old churchyard, and he was buried nigh her, and out of his heart grew a red, red rose, and out of hers, a briar,” Rumpelstiltskin murmured, almost tunelessly.
“You know it!” said Belle, surprised.
Rumpelstiltskin dipped her backwards. “As I said, dearie,” he replied, his hold keeping her from falling, and off balance, “I’ve been around a long time.”
He held her that way a moment, and a moment longer; she felt that she could have pulled herself up again, but she didn’t. He wouldn’t let her fall. She met his gaze, and his expression was the same as before, mixing together a complicated potion: intense concentration coupled with confusion as to if it was working at all. And then he raised her back up again, spun her around once, and released her into the sunlight, as he stood back in the shadow. “It’s rather gruesome, I suppose,” said Belle, looking out at the spring turning into summer in the gardens. “That we know so well a song about two lovers who could never have a happy ending during their lives.” She turned back to look at Rumpelstiltskin.
“Perhaps it gives people hope that the blooms on their graves meant that they made it right in another world,” he replied, staring past her. Then he refocused on her, and let out an impish chortle. “Or perhaps they just want to feel superior by repeating the story of two stupid youngsters who died for love.” He pronounced love as if it were a profanity.
Belle pressed her lips together, trying to keep them from twisting into a smirk. “Yes, you nearly convinced me you’re as cynical as you pretend to be,” she said, stepping into the shadow with him. “You must spend most of your time away with gullible fools, if that attempt was adequate.”
“You’re too clever for your own good, my- Belle,” he informed her. “Just wait until I actually do bring home some children for you to skin.”
“And when you do, I won’t be shattering any porcelain by accident,” she told him sweetly. “Because it will be aimed directly and rather accurately at your head.”
He gave her a crooked grin. “I would expect nothing less, dearie.” He clapped her on the shoulder and steered her back towards his working table. “Now hold this bowl while I mix in the last ingredient,” he ordered.
She did as he said, looking down at the grey goop. “Why do you need me to hold it?”
He stirred in a powder. “Because if it explodes, I need to be near the stairs. Being blown up might not be too good for my looks.”
Belle looked up at him, and then pretended to let the bowl slip from her hands, only catching it a fraction of a second later when he jumped back, alarmed. “A quip!” he said, eyes wide. “Gods, Belle!”
“I know,” she said, unable to contain her laughter. “Your face.” He bared his teeth at her. “It’s your fault, you know. Who else am I going to pick up bad habits from?”
“Point taken, even if I do feel like throwing you in the dungeon awhile.” He removed the bowl from her hands and put it on the table. “I think it’s time we left explosive substances aside and thought about how wonderful it is that I’m never going to unleash you on the world. I’m not sure the world would survive the encounter.”
“Very possible,” she said solemnly.
He shook his head, a laugh escaping him, and motioned towards the steps. “Ladies first, dearie. Think I want to keep an eye on you.”
As she set off down the stairs, he looked back at the lengthening patches of sunlight where they had danced, as the afternoon passed and the spring turned to summer. “And there they twined in a true lover’s knot, red rose and thorny briar,” he found himself humming, as he followed Belle down the stairs.
They dance around each other as the months turn winter into summer.
“So what’s today’s spell?” Belle asked, running a rag along the bookshelves. His tower of alchemical wonders was generally messier than the rest of castle, and he had resisted letting her in to clean it longer than anywhere else. There had been words. About dark magic, and dangerous influences, and books bound in human skin. They had disagreed. She had prevailed. There was no reason dirty plates should be left to grow their own life forms in the dark tower of wizardry, she claimed.
“Concrete mold,” he answered with a small titter. “Or that’s the best description, anyway. Sticks and grows on ships like algae or barnacles, grows through the cracks, splits ships apart. Favor for the sea king, since he just found out the ogres have discovered ship-building.”
“So you’ll sneak onto an ogre ship and let one infect them all?”
“I’m sure with my face I can convince them I’m just a baby ogre, don’t you think?” He grimaced at her with his gritty, green-gold face, and she shrugged.
“I haven’t seen many baby ogres, so I couldn’t say. You’re also looking fairly normal to me, by now. It might be worth having a backup plan, just in case you’re not quite as beastly as you think. It would be terrible to find out you don’t look that bad when you’re surrounded by a horde of ogres.”
“Just a wee bit, yes,” he said. “There’s also that fact that I happen to be the Dark One and can probably manage to fight them off.”
“I’m sure that will help. Though I was thinking something more like an invisibility cloak.”
“Which I won’t have until I get the sea king’s treaty to get a few sirens under control, and the duke who owns the waterway where his sailors keep drowning themselves to get at the sirens gives up the cloak.”
Belle considered this. “Well, I do hope you won’t get ripped apart by ogres before you can get the cloak that might have kept you from being ripped apart by ogres. That would be inconvenient.”
“I’m touched by your concern, dearie.” He muttered a few words over a large bowl of grey powder, and they shimmered slightly, and seemed to shrink and grow all at once. Belle hoped it didn’t drift around. She wanted the place to stay dusted for at least a day.
“I might miss you,” she said, genuinely, and notices the briefest of pauses in his movements. She quickly added, “And I presume this castle was built mostly by magic and if you get eaten, it will all probably fall on top of me.”
“Wouldn’t want to have all that cleaning be for nothing.” He grinned up at her.
“Certainly not.”
“Then I shall do my best to not be eaten,” Rumpelstiltskin promised her. “Will you fetch me that vial of yeast from the shelf by your left hand?”
She searched a second, and saw it, next to the bottle labeled Virgin’s Blood. After picking up the yeast and handing it to him, she asked, “Really, Virgin’s Blood?”
“Yes, the magic of a virginal maiden is important to many spells.”
Belle made a somewhat unladylike sound. “I’ve known a few ‘maidens’. I’m fairly certain you’re exaggerating.”
“It’s fetal calf blood. Are you happy now? Ruining all the magic of it?” He huffed.
“There isn’t much magic to it when you’ve been to a few balls and know all the hidden corners of the castle everyone wants to dance in privately as the night wears on.” She tucked back her hair demurely. “It looks even less magical than actual dancing.”
“My, my, aren’t you a woman of the world.”
“No, I think I just prefer dancing. It takes much less effort than finding an unoccupied dark corner.” She ran her dusting rag along the shelf of vials and bottles. “What about you?”
“In this castle, I’ve never found any shortage of dark corners,” he said, and he didn’t have to smirk for her to know what he said concerning his rather large estate. She swatted him on the elbow with the rag and he mimed great injury.
“I meant,” she said, “do you dance?”
“Been around a long time, dearie,” he said, checking a book and then adding a green potion to the mixing bowl. “Think you can assume I’ve done most things.”
“Yes, well,” she said, lifting a pile of books to be returned to the shelves, “you don’t exactly strike me as the sort to have been invited to any balls recently.” Belle checked the titles, put them back in the appropriate spots. They used to be shelved merely by size but now she has them organized by subject and title, and that only because most of the authors declined to have their works recognized by their name (presumably because publication would shortly be followed with a horde of peasants with pitchforks and torches to drive them out of town). Rumpelstiltskin raged at her for two days before he figured the new system out, and then grumpily thanked her for making the books actually capable of being found.
“I went to a ball just last week!” he said, taking a small mechanical device from a box.
“Yes, to turn a prince into a frog. Did you dance?”
“Wouldn’t wanted to have drawn attention,” he answered.
“Yes, because turning the crown prince into an amphibian didn’t draw any at all.” She shelved the last book. “I haven’t been to a ball in ages. No dancing since the men went off to the borders.” Belle leaned on the edge of the table, watching the spell come together. Rumpelstiltskin wound the little device, almost like a tiny music box, and it vibrated erratically. He placed it next to the goopy mixture in the bowl. “Come on. Dance with me,” Belle said.
“Belle,” Rumpelstiltskin said in a pained voice, raising his head to look at her, “I’m trying to resonate concrete.”
She held out her hand. “And it’s resonated. Look, your clockwork stopped. Show me what kind of dancing would have drawn so much attention.”
Belle held her hand out a long moment after, feeling very vulnerable as Rumpelstiltskin looked at her, as if wondering why his housekeeper should ever make such a request. Then ever so slowly, he put his hand in hers. “We have no music,” he protested, as she led him around the table, to where the floor of the tower was clear.
Humming, she took his other hand and set it on her waist. “We don’t need it,” she said, singing the melody of an old song she knew. They began moving, Belle letting Rumpelstiltskin lead her into a waltz in time with the melody. She drew closer to him, but he gently pushed her back, spinning her around before drawing her back in to a comfortable distance. Perhaps more his comfort than hers. She was learning not to question her own level of comfort around him.
“Do you know the words to that song?” he asked, turning them into a patch of sunlight streaming in through the glass windows.
“In Scarlet-town, where I was born, there was a fair maid dwellin’, and every young man cried well away, for her name was Barb’ry Allen,” Belle sang softly, then stopped. “It’s a very sad song, actually.”
“Ballads aren’t usually sung about happy endings,” he said, moving his hand further around her waist.
She hummed a little more, moving her feet in time to the song. “It’s about a man named William, who is dying for the love of Barbara Allen. But she refuses to have sympathy on him, because he had rejected her before, and after she leaves him she hears the bells ringing and knows he’s died. And then she knows she can’t go back.”
They danced in silence for a few steps before Belle sang again. “Oh mother, mother, make my bed, both make it long and narrow. Sweet William died for me today, and I’ll die for him tomorrow.”
“She was buried in the old churchyard, and he was buried nigh her, and out of his heart grew a red, red rose, and out of hers, a briar,” Rumpelstiltskin murmured, almost tunelessly.
“You know it!” said Belle, surprised.
Rumpelstiltskin dipped her backwards. “As I said, dearie,” he replied, his hold keeping her from falling, and off balance, “I’ve been around a long time.”
He held her that way a moment, and a moment longer; she felt that she could have pulled herself up again, but she didn’t. He wouldn’t let her fall. She met his gaze, and his expression was the same as before, mixing together a complicated potion: intense concentration coupled with confusion as to if it was working at all. And then he raised her back up again, spun her around once, and released her into the sunlight, as he stood back in the shadow. “It’s rather gruesome, I suppose,” said Belle, looking out at the spring turning into summer in the gardens. “That we know so well a song about two lovers who could never have a happy ending during their lives.” She turned back to look at Rumpelstiltskin.
“Perhaps it gives people hope that the blooms on their graves meant that they made it right in another world,” he replied, staring past her. Then he refocused on her, and let out an impish chortle. “Or perhaps they just want to feel superior by repeating the story of two stupid youngsters who died for love.” He pronounced love as if it were a profanity.
Belle pressed her lips together, trying to keep them from twisting into a smirk. “Yes, you nearly convinced me you’re as cynical as you pretend to be,” she said, stepping into the shadow with him. “You must spend most of your time away with gullible fools, if that attempt was adequate.”
“You’re too clever for your own good, my- Belle,” he informed her. “Just wait until I actually do bring home some children for you to skin.”
“And when you do, I won’t be shattering any porcelain by accident,” she told him sweetly. “Because it will be aimed directly and rather accurately at your head.”
He gave her a crooked grin. “I would expect nothing less, dearie.” He clapped her on the shoulder and steered her back towards his working table. “Now hold this bowl while I mix in the last ingredient,” he ordered.
She did as he said, looking down at the grey goop. “Why do you need me to hold it?”
He stirred in a powder. “Because if it explodes, I need to be near the stairs. Being blown up might not be too good for my looks.”
Belle looked up at him, and then pretended to let the bowl slip from her hands, only catching it a fraction of a second later when he jumped back, alarmed. “A quip!” he said, eyes wide. “Gods, Belle!”
“I know,” she said, unable to contain her laughter. “Your face.” He bared his teeth at her. “It’s your fault, you know. Who else am I going to pick up bad habits from?”
“Point taken, even if I do feel like throwing you in the dungeon awhile.” He removed the bowl from her hands and put it on the table. “I think it’s time we left explosive substances aside and thought about how wonderful it is that I’m never going to unleash you on the world. I’m not sure the world would survive the encounter.”
“Very possible,” she said solemnly.
He shook his head, a laugh escaping him, and motioned towards the steps. “Ladies first, dearie. Think I want to keep an eye on you.”
As she set off down the stairs, he looked back at the lengthening patches of sunlight where they had danced, as the afternoon passed and the spring turned to summer. “And there they twined in a true lover’s knot, red rose and thorny briar,” he found himself humming, as he followed Belle down the stairs.
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no subject
Date: 2012-03-04 06:08 pm (UTC)“Belle,” Rumpelstiltskin said in a pained voice, raising his head to look at her, “I’m trying to resonate concrete.”
You wrote my new OTP by quoting my older OTP! Everything is better with Doctor Who quotes *nods*
no subject
Date: 2012-03-04 06:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-04 11:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-04 06:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-04 06:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-04 07:56 pm (UTC)LOL. Rumple fancy himself for Nine? Awesome!!! XD
no subject
Date: 2012-03-05 12:32 am (UTC)