Into the Lion's Den, Ch 1, part 1
(Intro: This started as a collaborative effort between me and someone else on RPoL whose name I can no longer recall, who disappeared before it really went far. I managed to grab the transcript before the game was archived, then later deleted, from the main site; although I need to redo the heroine's intro at some point. Right now, I want to go ahead and post this (edited for coherency) to get opinions on how it flows, and maybe ideas on how to continue once I have it all edited and up. I decided to put this behind LJ cuts for brevity on friends' pages. =D Enjoy!!)
Sunlight cascaded through the canopy of tall trees whose long branches extended as if in supplication towards the heavens above. Much of the forest's natural scent was covered in the wake of the recent ice storm, though the evergreens' scent was still powerful enough to penetrate the lone girl's senses. With the white blanket of snow and chilling veil of ice, Isabella had been futilely searching since just after breakfast for the ground crawling vine that had nigh miraculously eased her father's suffering just the day before.
Bella's papa was such a strong man. How had it come to this? It was almost as if some sinister force had been at work in the travelling father and daughter's lives ever since they'd entered the outskirts of the province of Wald und Höhle. Strange that such should be the case, when it was the realm's purported bounty that had drawn the two of them there in the first place.
After a time, the forest grew still though the sun was yet high in the sky...
Bella had eaten a hearty breakfast that morning, expecting to be back after dusk, and a small bag with multiple pockets rested on the hip opposite her rapier. It was filled with dried berries and nuts, as well as a few pieces of cured meat, in one side, and she had the other side of the bag for carrying what she'd found to be the most useful part of the vine. Some of the food in her bag was for her companion, Coeur, as much as herself, and he occasionally climbed up her skirt to steal a small mouthful before jumping down and going back to sniffing around the woods. She had the little ferret to thank for finding the vine, as he'd brought her the first few leaves of the strange plant with their sharp medicinal smell. Bella still didn't know what it was called, but she knew it would help her father, and that was the important thing.
"Coeur, don't wander too far," she chided the small animal for the third time, as the day wore on. "I don't believe the stories Lisette was telling last night, but that doesn't mean there aren't things in these woods that won't snap you up in a heartbeat, dear." She kept an ear and an eye out for anything out of the ordinary as she walked, remembering last night...
"Madame LaRoche, where did you find that vine?" Lisette asked as Bella prepared water in the hearth to steep the leaves.
"I found it in the woods surrounding the village, Lisette. I think these are just the thing to help Father." Thinking nothing of it, Bella dropped another few leaves into the almost-boiling water to strengthen the tea, picking up the remains of the vine and bundling them by the door. It was too cold to take it out to the compost, but she'd do it in the morning before she left, she knew.
"Oh, okay. Your father's... wait, what? Madame, you should not have gone to those woods. They are dangerous! The forest is haunted by a ferocious Beast that kills anyone who steps into the woods! Please, Madame! Promise me you will not go there again!"
"Lisette, if this manages to help my father, I don't care about the danger to myself. He's all I have. Besides, I can take care of myself, and what you're telling me sounds like not much more than folklore. I've heard and read enough of it in my travels."
"Madame LaRoche! This is not a folk legend! I know this Beast has attacked the village within my lifetime!"
"Even so. If this helps, I should be able to find more along the edge of the woods. Would that satisfy you?" She took a sip of the brew with her mixing spoon and wrinkled her nose. Nasty stuff, but she'd give it a try. She spooned it into a cup and set it on top of the hearth, letting the mug cool off before she took it to her father.
"I do not even trust that, Madame, but if you must go, please stay to the edges."
The concoction had helped her father. By morning, his head had been cooler to the touch, and his skin not quite so clammy; but Jean LaRoche still wasn't waking up, and the only thing Bella had found so far to help him...
"...Is this," she finished the thought aloud to herself, bending down when she saw the familiar leafy vine crawling along the ground. There weren't very many leaves here, but maybe if she followed it further into the forest...?
By midday, Bella knew she hadn't found enough of the leaves to make an extra-strong brew tonight, and she was completely out of sight of town. Lisette's words rang in her head, and oh! If only the sweet girl's older brother, Romeo, knew where Bella was! Thoughts of turning back despite herself vanished from her mind as a smile crossed her face. She'd like to see Romeo try to stop her from gathering the leaves!
A snapping branch to her right had Bella's hand on her rapier in a split second, until a rabbit came hopping out of the undergrowth, followed by her ferret, who chased the hare across the nearly-overgrown path. Bella chuckled in relief. "You're starting to get jumpy, Little Izzy," she said, to break the sudden eerie silence in the forest with Coeur's and the rabbit's departure, and using the pet name her father occasionally used for her. "Blame Lisette." She started following the vine again, calling out for Coeur to follow her... but something told her not to let her hand stray far from the hilt of her blade.
It was the hare that caught the scent first. It froze instantly, it's ears raised and cautiously rotating, its nose twitching as it scented the air further. Danger! Danger enough to stop its game of chase or fox-like flight. Danger enough to make the forest become eerily silent...
*******
At once majestic and fearsome as its hulking weight sagged between its front and back limbs, the beast stood perfectly still. A portion if its tawny mane that darkened from brown to black dangled against the snow just beneath the spot the creature's umbilical cord surely once was. Its tail was low, only the tufted tip curled upward as its body language betrayed its attentiveness.
The beast, a great cat the likes of which should not be so far removed from arid lands and open plains, seemed not to breath as it looked upon the beautiful maiden with calm, seeming indifference reflecting in its intelligent orange-eyed gaze.
*******
Bella was instantly able to pick up on the deep-seated animalistic fear in the rabbit, and froze. Her eyes were the only thing that moved other than the soft fur lining the outside of her wrap and the loose ends of her hair in the slight wind, and her hand slid incrementally closer to the hilt of her rapier. Searching the surrounding woods with all senses on alert, Bella called out in the softest non-whisper she could manage...
"Coeur, get over here now."
She couldn't see what had the immediate area -- it felt like the entire forest -- on edge all of a sudden, and her mind tried to tell her it was one of the village kids playing a trick on the new girl... but that wouldn't be cause for the whole forest to stop moving. She felt like, if there was something out there, the pounding of her heart was giving away her position to it, and inhaled slowly and quietly, holding it in as much as she could once she had a full breath to try and slow her heartbeat.
A minute, then two, passed, with Bella like this, and finally she couldn't stand it any more. The little ferret had inched his way back to her and was resting at the hem of her skirt; when she turned, it was slowly, and she exhaled her held breath silently. Her head moved to take in more of the trees, and what lay beyond, as she gathered up her courage.
With barely a tremble to her voice, she called at a normal speaking volume:
"Whoever is there, show yourself." If it was, in fact, one of the villagers trying to scare her, Bella would have to give them more than an earful. Something told her it was more than that, though. Something... primeval and fundamentally dangerous.
*******
The huge lion's pupils narrowed into tiny slits.
She does not see me...
The maid needn't her sight to tell that the beast was there. The forest betrayed the great cat with its silence.
The knowledge made the black tip of the beast's tufted brown tail flick in irritation, but other than that, the creature did not move, did nothing to reveal its position.
It watched...
*******
With no response from the woods after five minutes or so, Bella lowered her hand from the hilt of her sword and relaxed ever so slightly. "Coeur, stay by my side, dearest. I think it may be best if we gather what we can and get back to town." Prank or not, it wouldn't do to scare herself even worse. The ferret climbed her skirt in his familiar way, twining himself around her neck beneath her furs with an annoyed chatter. How dare she cut his fun short, his chatter said, although she knew he wasn't serious. Ferrets rarely were, in her experience.
She followed the vine carefully further into the woods for another two hours, finding as many of the leaves as she could and gathering them. By then, she noticed, the sun was lowering in the sky and casting the forest into more shadows. Judging how far she'd travelled on foot, she guessed she would be back to town within an hour and a half at a normal pace... and a normal pace she would hold to, whoever had attempted to frighten her be damned!
"If you're out there and you hear me, you haven't scared me off. My father may need more of this herb, and if he does I will come back tomorrow." Feeling a little silly talking to an empty forest, nonetheless Bella had an instinct that told her something out there could understand her words... more, understand her intent, and her determination beneath the intent. She would not be scared off by some folktale that Lisette or any other villager told her!
She wouldn't!
Checking the bag at her hip and securing its remaining contents, Bella started walking as calmly as she could manage back the way she had come.
*******
It had stalked her silently as the afternoon passed, cursing the damned forest for giving its presence away. The maid was unwise, removing her hand from the hilt of her rapier as she had done.
Absently, the beast wondered if the weapon were just for show, to ward off highwaymen or thugs. It was of little consequence. Cold steel would have to be well-placed indeed to bring the great cat down.
It considered then what it might be like if the maid were to end its pain, were to stain the snow covered earth with the rich crimson of its life. The thought was selfish and invoked a low, deep snarl in the great cat's throat as if it were rebuking itself!
She would not be the one! He would not allow it!
The beast's shoulders clinched as it realized its mistake. Had the maid heard?
*******
When a low growl resounded through the forest after her first few steps back toward town, Bella whirled toward the sound, startled, and her hand went back to the hilt of her rapier, stopping her draw at an inch of steel. Playing the sound over in her head, she realized it sounded like a lion or some other sort of wild cat, and her eyes went wide. If it was a lion, what was one doing this far north, and out of its den in this weather? Was it injured? Lost?
Tiny claws dug into her flesh through the bodice of her dress, and little black eyes jumped from shadow to shadow from within Bella's furs as she took a cautious step in the direction the sound had come from. Soon she was off the nigh-overgrown path and stepping her way gingerly through the undergrowth. After a few yards she checked her direction, then took a few more steps, reaching out with all her senses to find the cat and see if anything was wrong with it. She couldn't bear to see anything suffer if she could help it; but she'd be stupid to approach it without some defense if it was a wild cat, and her hand stayed tightly around her rapier.
Bella let her senses lead her onward as the squirming beneath her furs got more frantic. Obviously, Coeur smelled whatever she was sensing, and was telling her in his own ferret-y way to get her ass back on the path and back to town; but she wouldn't have any of it.
*******
The forest be damned! Now it was the stark white snow that would give it away!
The giant cat mentally struggled. While in this form, it was difficult for the beast to harness its thoughts and maintain its focus. The predatory instincts that surged through its veins rebelled against a man's reasoning even as the man trapped within the lion's husk was himself uncertain of which one of his human instincts to obey.
Too close... Too close...
She smelled delicious, her scent a siren's call to the ravenous beast. It had kept its distance throughout the afternoon not only to avoid detection but also to avoid the allure that now made the great cat's mouth water, arousing the appetites of both beast and man.
If it moved now, it would further risk being seen. If it moved now, perhaps it would escape unchecked. If it moved now, perhaps the rapier-wielding maid would witness its retreat and be discouraged from keeping her foolish vow to return again tomorrow.
It should have run, should have avoided confrontation all together, but it was not in the beast's nature to give ground. It simply could not summon the force of will necessary to do so!
Angry with itself and agitated by the maid's advance, the beast was unable to prevent the mighty ROAR! that tore loose from its fearsome maul.
"Foolish girl! Why do you pursue me?! Have you not the sense to leave?!"
At the mighty roar whose echoes through these silent woods knocked snow from the surrounding trees, Bella stumbled back, fear and adrenaline causing her legs to wobble beneath her skirts and her hand to lose its grip on her rapier. Thankfully it was still in its hilt. Stumbling on a root she had just stepped over on her way in, she screamed as she fell, landing hard on the frozen ground.
When she recovered her wits a little, she called aloud in the direction the roar had come from, "I was worried you were hurt. Sense I have, and in abundance. I came searching for something in these woods to help my father, and meant no offense crossing your domain." She tried to get up, but slipped on the ground and fell again, landing just so on her leg, and a cry of pain escaped her lips. Great. Now she was injured AND up against an unknown. She trusted fully in her strong empathy with beasts, but had never had to barter for her life with a predator! Pulling the scabbard of her rapier up across her lap, she began moving herself backward along the forest floor to the path. Her ankle, from its feel, was too tender to stand upon for a few moments, much less walk the hour and a half back to the village. She might be able to make a splint, if she could find sturdy enough twigs on the forest floor, but her first concern was the owner of the mighty voice which had emanated from the woods ahead.
*******
This was not happening. The beast would scarcely admit it to itself, but in truth the great cat had stalked the maid not only out of curiosity and longing, but also out of a futile desire to protect.
The beast shook its head, its shaggy mane cascading as if in disbelief. How had he allowed this to happen?
Overhead came a solitary bird's cry - a raven cawing not unlike a crow, not unlike laughter.
ROAR
"NO!"
Doomed! Doomed since the day she set precious foot in Wald und Höhle!
Impossibly, the forest grew even more still then -- dreadfully so...
*******
The caw far above sent a chill down Bella's spine, as did the last roar she heard of the lion. It sounded defiant, indecisive, and... lonely? No, it couldn't be. She was putting too much into it. Had to be.
When the lion remained quiet and unresponsive after that, and the temperature dropped a few more degrees toward nightfall, Bella had pulled herself back against a tree, starting to select twigs from the ground around her and as quickly discarding them as too flimsy to support her ankle. She was cold, she was hurt, and while her pride wouldn't let her admit it, she was quite frankly scared.
Several minutes passed, how many Isabella could not know for certain. Was it there? The lion whose mighty roar had shaken the snow free of the tree's limbs? Shadows stretched languidly across the frozen earth, heralds of the dropping temperature. How long would it take for young Bella to make splint? Would she even be able to find the materials that she needed, or would they be just as elusive as the vine she so desperately needed to get back to her ailing papa?
It came then, the crunch-crunch-crunch of footfalls crushing snow, soles -- not paws -- grinding ice into the frozen earth. A man emerged from the growth, his warm green cloak furling behind him, a crossbow held at the ready. "Signorina!" he compassionately exclaimed as his gaze swept over the fair maid's fallen form.
Had she fainted at the sound of the lion's roar or... "Signorina? Are you hurt?" He would have liked to have run to her, to have knelt at her side, but he spied across her lap the rapier.
When the not-too-far-off cry of signorina reached her ears, Bella had just resigned herself to not being able to make a splint out of the twigs around her and had decided to just curl up and pray she survived the night. But the sound of a person's voice made her feel relieved. Something inside told her to be wary, and so her hand didn't move from her sheathed rapier. Coeur stirred against her breast, warm and comfortable beneath her furs, unharmed in her fall, and poked his head out to sniff the frozen air.
"Bella?" the stranger softly asked.
When the stranger uttered her name, she had a brief start, and tried to place his handsome face among the few townsfolk she'd met outside of Lisette's family. She couldn't; then she remembered that in the local dialect, the shortened version of her name could also translate to beautiful. She decided to play this tack, and responded to the man with a small, timid smile, forcing her hand to release its grip on her rapier hilt. It fell to rest beside her good ankle, beneath whose skirts was the hidden boot-sheathed dagger. Better safe than sorry. "Good sir, I thank you for the compliment, although I am not at my best right now. I had a start while searching for... something, and fell and twisted my ankle badly. Were I to have access to my medicine kit, I could ease the pain quickly; alas it's back at my house, and I'm here." The timid smile that had graced her lips developed into a sardonic one.
At that, a slow easy smile spread across the stranger's handsome features. "Then you are not so bad as you look." He surmised aloud, deciding to let the maiden make of that what she would and sensing that distressed tho the damsel may be, she was not one to take herself so seriously as to bear avoiding when it came to jests, even should they be unfairly made at her undeserving expense and during her hour of need. Who knew? A chuckle or a rosy-cheeked smile might warm the maid against the cold's cruel embrace. Likewise, a fiery flare of temper could just as easily do the same. Either way, his purposes would be fully served.
Again in the hopes of amusing the maiden and distracting her from what had quite literally been her unsettling experience, the man lowered his crossbow whilst blatantly exercising far more caution than was likely truly necessary. "I trust that you will not hurl your blade at me should I be so daring as to put away my own weapon?" He smiled in a fashion likely meant to be infectious. The stranger's words and demeanor were a further extension of the olive branch that the hapless maiden had so graciously set before him.
"It would be silly of me to threaten what is possibly my only way out of this forest this evening, wouldn't it?" And she did indeed chuckle at the gentleman's comment. Isabella gave a furtive glance in the direction from where she'd heard the lion, then turned that smoothly into a movement to get up, pushing her hands against the ground and using the trunk of the tree for extra support. "I don't know what you are doing in these so-called cursed woods this close to dark, sir, but as you're here would you mind ever so much escorting a lady back to her house?" As she got up on her good foot, Bella leaned against the tree to catch her breath before arranging her rapier to be out of the way, resettling it on her left hip as it was her right ankle that was injured. She was taking a risk by allowing herself to be supported home, but the way Bella saw it there was no help for it unless she wanted to spend the night in the forest.
The stranger followed the maiden's furtive glance in the direction from where she had heard the lion, but said nothing of it. At least, not yet... "Ah!" The stranger replied with a bemused smile. "It would seem that Fate has brought me here so that I might rescue you from yourself." He glanced down at her booted feet. "Or at the very least, to rescue you from troublesome roots that rise up from the ground at inopportune times."
The man spoke the latter jokingly with a warm undercurrent of mirth in his trilling voice, but his ode to the roots of the towering oak against which Isabella now leaned could very well have been made in all seriousness by a certain young village girl.
Was the stranger also superstitious? All others that Isabella had encountered since crossing into Wald und Höhle had undoubtedly been so. Was the man who stood before her now warning Isabella in a gentle, nigh rational (or as rationally as one could warn about superstitious beliefs) manner that this wood, the Don's forest, was an evil place? Or was the stranger genuinely joking to put Isabella further at ease? Was he a disbeliever, every bit as imperious to the lore of this realm as Isabella would have liked to think she herself was?
His crossbow secured upon a harness across his back and beneath his billowing green cloak, the stranger stepped towards Isabella, gracefully extending to her a single hand as if inviting her to dance. Willing to escort the signorina home as she had requested, the stranger then waited for the maid to reach out to him in acceptance of his offer of aid rather than familiarly set his hands upon her as if he were a clumsy oaf.
"Alas," he continued. "I had rather thought I might hunt this day... In a fashion, I suppose that I did. For here I have ensnared you!" His teasing smile was brilliant. "I fear the truth is, signorina, that I lack the heart to do more than simply watch my prey. There is not so much sport to be had in killing as there is to be had in observing. At least, there is not for me. Not this day..." The stranger (who was indeed dressed in the rustic colors of a huntsman) waited patiently for the signorina bella to take his hand.
Indeed she did take his hand after another moment, hopping her way down from the trunk onto the overgrown path beside him. The gentleman hunter's skin was cool to the touch, but Bella did not find that unusual given the weather, and she was grateful for his support when her lack of grace nearly caused a second tumble to the forest floor.
With his spare hand, the stranger easily caught the maid about the slender waist. In that instant, his gaze met hers. "Excusi, signorina."
Bella... Beauty...
The wind seemed to whisper the soft caress across the maiden's ear for never were the words spoken aloud. A blush warmed Bella's cheeks ever so slightly when she heard her name seemingly whispered on the wind, but in the fading light it could have easily been mistaken for rosettes of cold on her cheeks.
The stranger did not blush, nor did he look away as propriety may have demanded. Instead, he continued to gaze unflinchingly into Isabella's eyes until it was she who broke the contact. Meanwhile, his one hand remained steadfast at her waist while the other still held hers. Again, the illusion that the pair were poised in a prelude to dance was created.
Coeur made his presence vocally known, breaking the pregnant silence, as the two started their journey out of the forest; Isabella tried to calm him with her free hand by stroking his head, but he continued to chatter at the monsignor. "Sorry, signor. It seems my dear Coeur is either as grateful as I am for your arrival, or he is taking his usual dislike to strangers." In truth, Bella knew Coeur was chattering at this man because he smelled something off about him, but Bella didn't understand what Coeur was talking about. Not a man? What was this? Of course the gentleman hunter was a man! What else would he be?
It was then that the man and woman's positions shifted. Unexpectedly, the stranger pulled Isabella to him, pressing her tempting body securely to his solid trunk before releasing her hand and agilely stooping to slip his suddenly free arm beneath her knees. Without warning, Isabella found herself quite literally swept from her feet and engulfed by a pair of strong arms, her wounded form neatly tucked against the foreign warmth of a stranger's chest.
"For both our sakes?" His brows were raised, his expression purposefully innocent to the point of being child-like as the handsome youth again gazed down upon Isabella. "It would not do for you to send me tumbling to the ground as well." He surreptitiously pointed out. "Then where would we be? You and I both rendered lame. Your medicine kit, alas, at home. And friend Coeur, rife with despair, chittering away at us until the wee hours of the night."
The stranger smiled warmly at the maiden whom he held so cozily compromised. Whereas before he had been careful not to play the clumsy oaf, he now seemed content to play the would-be knight in huntsman's clothing.
Finding herself swept off her feet -- literally -- was an experience that Bella had never before had, and some secret part of her thrilled at the second's feeling of flight she had before the stranger's arms settled around her body. Her rapier was on the hip facing away from the monsignor, so it was not digging into his stomach. As he settled his arms around her, she instinctively wrapped her right arm around the back of the gentleman hunter's neck. "Merci beaucoup, monsignor. I would have not thought of that." Feeling slightly awkward in this position, Bella found herself suddenly shy about being treated like a helpless maiden, and bit her lower lip.
After a few moments of (to the maiden) slightly awkward silence during their journey, Bella finally spoke up. "Signor, I have forgotten my manners." She looked up to find his eyes on her, and quickly looked away. Not normally shy because of her occupation, she found this unusual; but the attentions of a man usually caused an instinctive increase in her level of modesty... as modest as a girl like her could be, with a rapier slung to her hip and a ferret snuggled to her breast. "My name is Isabella, and the little furball is Coeur; pray tell, may I ask for yours in exchange?"
“Ah! Then I had it right!” The stranger enthusiastically complimented. “Bella...” He spoke the word in nearly a purr and again the maid could feel an ethereal caress upon her ears.
Easily slipping into the vernacular that Isabella had used, the handsome youth then continued with a formal greeting of his own. “Enchanté, mademoiselle Isabella, and bonjour to you, piccolo Coeur.” Perhaps embarrassingly, the man seemed to grin at the maid's bosom, though it was the ferret that had drawn his attention and not the soft mounds of her flesh. Looking back into Isabella's face, the man considered how he found the becoming flush in her cheeks to be not unlike the bloom of tiny rosebuds. “I am Mephisto.” His words, though an introduction, somehow seemed more a declaration as they rang in the continued eerie stillness of the cold evening air. “And for this, you are most welcome.” Mephisto graciously acknowledged as he shifted Isabella's weight not out of fatigue but rather out of a desire to illustrate his point.
He looked up, sparkling emerald green eyes scanning the area. “Now to find Forks...” Mephisto's tone was thoughtful as if suddenly he were unsure of which way they should go. He glanced down at Isabella to see if her reaction would be dismay and then unveiled a charming smile. “Fear not! I am not so foolish as that. I know our way. You shall be safely home in short order.”
Mephisto began to walk, his footfalls making the same crunch-crunch-crunch that had heralded his arrival only moments earlier. “So tell me, Isabella. Did you find what it was you were searching for? And is it worth this?” He was teasing, nay, flirting with her.
"Yes, signor, it is very much worth it. To be perfectly honest, I would be willing to go through any hardship if it means--" Should she be saying this to a complete stranger? She wasn't sure, but she was already committed. "If it means helping Papa. He is all I have in the world, and I am all he has."
When Isabella spoke of her fierce commitment to her father, Mephisto fondly smiled and commented. "Yours is the hears of a lioness. Your father should be proud to have a daughter such as you, Bella. Truly you are a blessing and a comfort."
The maiden tried to quickly change the subject as they continued on the path. "I came in pretty much straight along this path. It gets hard to follow at places, but it is what led me in here." If he was asking how to get back to Forks, was he even from Forks? But who would come to a small town like that?
People like her and her father, of course.
Mephisto nodded when the beauty in his arms told her of how she had come to be in these woods, yet he strayed from the path seeming to carry her deeper into the forest. "Long have I poached these lands. There are ways known to me that are not so clearly marked. Trust my word when I vowed to see you safely home in short order." He looked down upon her, smiling reassurance and wondering if she might be frightened as he carried her further and further into the unfamiliar.
Then Bella realized what the hunter had said his name was. "Mephisto? Like in Faust?" Chuckling, she went on, "Your parents must like fiction to have named you that. It's a good book, although I prefer Utopia to Faust. It's more light-hearted if you don't read a lot into it." With that, she was started on one of her favorite subjects, and Monsignor Mephisto would be lucky to get a word in edgewise as Bella went on about authors from Homer to Shakespeare.
For the briefest of instances, tension flooded his arms (whereas before there had been none) even as the stranger's pulse quickened. The reaction was fleeting and well masked in the man's handsome features if not his body and voice.
An icy chill blew through the trees. "Mephistopheles," he corrected, a undeniably annoyed edge to his tone. Mephisto took a breath and then seemingly a moment to compose himself before again he was the comforting would-be knight in huntsman's clothing that Isabella had first encountered.
"You are well read," he complimented. "Yet another reason your father should be proud. Perhaps you are familiar with Frost?"
The crunch-crunch-crunch of Mephisto's footfalls against the snow and ice covered ground seemed an accompaniment to the verses he then quoted.
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
Obscurely: "What do you think, Isabella?" There was something in Mephisto's narrowed gaze, something that seemed to be testing her though on the surface he seemed only to be making conversation.
Bella looked around a little nervously as the gentleman took them off the path. Her sense of direction was generally pretty good, but from her vantage point she couldn't tell if they were headed back to the village or not.
She had to trust him, though, or spend the night in the frozen forest. A shiver ran down her spine when she told herself this.
Trying to keep her mind off concern about where he was taking her, she picked her side of the conversation back up. "I don't know Monsieur Frost as well, but that is a lovely poem. And very appropriate to the circumstances we find ourselves in, Monsieur. Did he not also write one about travelling through the woods?" Looking at their surroundings, she grinned. "It seems that one is also appropriate, given our situation."
Thinking for a moment, she went on. "I love to read anything I can get my hands on. 'Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to my conscience, above all liberties.' The only way I know how to do that well is by reading. Papa and I have spoken in discourse about many authors. I think one of my favorite books of all time is Alice in Wonderland. It's so fantastic, and so much is built into it. Let's see... how does it go...
'You are old, Father William,' the young man said,
'And your hair has become very white;
And yet you incessantly stand on your head--
Do you think, at your age, it is right?'
'In my youth,' Father William replied to his son,
'I feared it might injure the brain;
But now that I'm perfectly sure I have none,
Why, I do it again and again.
"That one always makes me laugh. Have you read that book?"
"There was nothing so very remarkable in that; nor did Alice think it so very much out of the way to hear the Rabbit say to itself, `Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be late!' (when she thought it over afterwards, it occurred to her that she ought to have wondered at this, but at the time it all seemed quite natural)..."
"Yes, I am familiar and you are of course right, Frost wrote many lines of prose appropriate to our current setting." As Mephisto spoke, he stepped through one last particularly thick cluster of trees and nigh miraculously out of the wood and onto a road that (depending on which direction one chose to go) sloped either up or down.
"'But when the Rabbit actually took a watch out of its waistcoat-pocket, and looked at it, and then hurried on, Alice started to her feet, for it flashed across her mind that she had never before seen a rabbit with either a waistcoat-pocket, or a watch to take out of it, and burning with curiosity, she ran across the field after it, and fortunately was just in time to see it pop down a large rabbit-hole under the hedge.
In another moment down went Alice after it, never once considering how in the world she was to get out again...'"
Mephisto chuckled at the quote, a spark of mirth in his brilliant green eyes. It would seem he too was a fan of the tale of young Alice in Wonderland.
"Bella?" He asked. "Tell me, has no one warned thee not to enter these woods?"
Bella looked around as they emerged onto the road and started heading down the hill toward Forks, which also meant that towering somewhere far above them was the Palazzo Innerer Burghof. With a little "Hmmph" of surprise, she realized where they were, then raised herself up to look over Mephisto's shoulder back at the edge of the woods. She noticed that mere seconds after their exit, she couldn't tell exactly where they had come out.
"Well, in truth, Monsieur, the young girl I hired to help care for my papa mentioned something about a dark beast roaming the woods, but almost every village I have travelled through has had one fairy tale or another to tell. I'm likely the last person who should be, but I have found myself to be somewhat disbelieving of most of these homegrown legends, told to bring fame to an area or keep the children out of the woods... Or to hide something else. Every place has a story to tell, and I think someone might fare well to write them all down in a collection, like the Grimm brothers did."
By now Coeur had resettled against Bella's breast, but had kept a wary eye on the hunter. Now that they were out of the forest, though, Mephisto could likely feel some of the tension drain from the girl's body.
"'Tis always a treat to find someone as well-read as you on my travels, Monsieur Rescuer, rare though it may be, and Lady Fortune herself must have smiled upon me today that you should be there to help me." Favoring Mephisto with a smile, she gestured with her free hand at the village below as they approached. "My house is on the outskirts of town; we should be coming up on it soon."
Mephisto listened as Isabella somewhat judiciously gave her thoughts and opinions on lore and legend. "I believe that all such tales are born of truth." The handsome youth confessed. "Though the sources of those truths and the need to cling to the knowing have sometimes passed on."
Mephisto looked down at the beauty he carried in his arms. The village was just coming into view. "Take you and me for example, Bella." He illustrated. "What might the people of the villaggio who were to spy us now, what might they say? What might they think they see? A husband and his newlywed bride?" Mephisto did not blink at his suggestion, though there was a certain intimation to his discourse. "A highwayman and his captive prize, mayhaps? A brother and his wounded sister? A father and his daughter?"
"There is a truth in all these tales. Today, a paesano saw a man carry a woman down the hill and into the villaggio. The rest are flights of fancy, some more fanciful than others." When Mephisto mentioned the rather imaginative ideas that, first, they were husband and wife, then a highwayman and his captive prize, Isabella's cheeks turned two shades of red, first from embarrassment, then a little bit of self-righteous anger. She calmed herself down, though, telling herself that it was just a fantasy. And he was right. Any passerby from the village who didn't already know her could easily mistake the pair as possibly a new husband and his bride, as opposed to the reality of an injured girl and her rescuer. "I understand your point about the fairy tales, and that would make for interesting subject matter... to find the root of villages' legends.”
Mephisto's gaze shifted from Isabella's and moved back towards the seemingly encroaching village. "But you know something more of the truth. The truth these good people tried to warn you of, the truth they each fear yet do not fully understand." Lower, more subtley: "Or perhaps do not even begin to know." As Mephisto spoke, his tone was cautious, very much akin to a fireside story on a stormy night heralded by harbingers of evil.
"It is that truth that caused you to stumble, your ankle to turn sharply. I know that you heard it, Isabella." Mephisto's now measuring gaze expectantly moved back to Isabella's exquisite features as if glimpsing to see if she would play coy and feign that she had not heard the beast's roar.
Bella nodded in reply to his words. "There was something else in the forest... a lion, I think, from the sound. Lions are quite unusual this far north, and this time of year, are they not?" She threw the assumptions of legend back in Mephisto's face, a sweet smile softening the blow.
Clearly unoffended, Mephisto again smiled easily at Isabella. There was a glimmer of something in his sparkling emerald green eyes. Amusement perhaps? Delight? Glee? It was not an altogether settling expression; but it quickly faded, becoming more... normal.
"And have you much experience with lions, Bella?" - Beauty.
Again, there was something in the huntsman's narrowed gaze, something that seemed to be testing Isabella though on the surface he seemed only to be lightly bantering with her. Bella shook her head in response to the hunter's question, icy fingers leaving a trail down her spine when the word "beauty" was whispered on the wind itself.
"Lions are not at all unusual here in Wald und Höhle, hence Lisette's warning," Mephisto went on. Briefly, Bella stiffened in the huntsman's arms. She had not mentioned Lisette's name to him once since meeting Mephisto, nor uttered it since entering the woods. As they continued on down the lane, her house coming into view with a lamp outside burning brightly, Bella let her intelligent mind chew on this for a moment. "These woods are not safe, not even for one so brave as yourself, Isabella."
"That as may be, Monsieur Mephisto, but we can't all stay in padded rooms or be kept on a shelf as a prize for our entire lives. I imagine that would get rather boring, and I would prefer to see the world outside any gilded cage. Incidentally, how did you know it was young Lisette whom I had hired? There are many other young girls in the village. Are you a friend of her family's?" Carefully, Bella kept her tone neutral when she asked her rescuer these questions, and watched his face for a reaction.
"I know many things..." Mephisto's expression as well as his tone was warm, amused. There was a knowing in his eyes as he gazed down upon Isabella that seemed to say that he had been expecting her questions. Would he have been disappointed if she had not asked them -- his wise little beauty?
"I know that the don's woods are guarded by hungry lions who would just as soon make a meal of you than not. I know that the don's woods are no place for you to wander alone, no matter how brave you are, Isabella."
Mephisto paused, studying Bella's lovely features and wondering if his words were grating on the proud girl's nerves. In any other wood she could roam freely with little fear of beast and (glimpsing her obvious tenacity) likely man. But the woods of Wald und Höhle were not any other; and so it was that Mephisto risked causing offense.
The man sighed and Isabella could feel his shoulders slump with the exhalation. "You will return to the wood if the plant brings relief to your papa?" The words were spoken as a question, though that too was something he knew. But he had not answered her questions...
Sunlight cascaded through the canopy of tall trees whose long branches extended as if in supplication towards the heavens above. Much of the forest's natural scent was covered in the wake of the recent ice storm, though the evergreens' scent was still powerful enough to penetrate the lone girl's senses. With the white blanket of snow and chilling veil of ice, Isabella had been futilely searching since just after breakfast for the ground crawling vine that had nigh miraculously eased her father's suffering just the day before.
Bella's papa was such a strong man. How had it come to this? It was almost as if some sinister force had been at work in the travelling father and daughter's lives ever since they'd entered the outskirts of the province of Wald und Höhle. Strange that such should be the case, when it was the realm's purported bounty that had drawn the two of them there in the first place.
After a time, the forest grew still though the sun was yet high in the sky...
Bella had eaten a hearty breakfast that morning, expecting to be back after dusk, and a small bag with multiple pockets rested on the hip opposite her rapier. It was filled with dried berries and nuts, as well as a few pieces of cured meat, in one side, and she had the other side of the bag for carrying what she'd found to be the most useful part of the vine. Some of the food in her bag was for her companion, Coeur, as much as herself, and he occasionally climbed up her skirt to steal a small mouthful before jumping down and going back to sniffing around the woods. She had the little ferret to thank for finding the vine, as he'd brought her the first few leaves of the strange plant with their sharp medicinal smell. Bella still didn't know what it was called, but she knew it would help her father, and that was the important thing.
"Coeur, don't wander too far," she chided the small animal for the third time, as the day wore on. "I don't believe the stories Lisette was telling last night, but that doesn't mean there aren't things in these woods that won't snap you up in a heartbeat, dear." She kept an ear and an eye out for anything out of the ordinary as she walked, remembering last night...
"Madame LaRoche, where did you find that vine?" Lisette asked as Bella prepared water in the hearth to steep the leaves.
"I found it in the woods surrounding the village, Lisette. I think these are just the thing to help Father." Thinking nothing of it, Bella dropped another few leaves into the almost-boiling water to strengthen the tea, picking up the remains of the vine and bundling them by the door. It was too cold to take it out to the compost, but she'd do it in the morning before she left, she knew.
"Oh, okay. Your father's... wait, what? Madame, you should not have gone to those woods. They are dangerous! The forest is haunted by a ferocious Beast that kills anyone who steps into the woods! Please, Madame! Promise me you will not go there again!"
"Lisette, if this manages to help my father, I don't care about the danger to myself. He's all I have. Besides, I can take care of myself, and what you're telling me sounds like not much more than folklore. I've heard and read enough of it in my travels."
"Madame LaRoche! This is not a folk legend! I know this Beast has attacked the village within my lifetime!"
"Even so. If this helps, I should be able to find more along the edge of the woods. Would that satisfy you?" She took a sip of the brew with her mixing spoon and wrinkled her nose. Nasty stuff, but she'd give it a try. She spooned it into a cup and set it on top of the hearth, letting the mug cool off before she took it to her father.
"I do not even trust that, Madame, but if you must go, please stay to the edges."
The concoction had helped her father. By morning, his head had been cooler to the touch, and his skin not quite so clammy; but Jean LaRoche still wasn't waking up, and the only thing Bella had found so far to help him...
"...Is this," she finished the thought aloud to herself, bending down when she saw the familiar leafy vine crawling along the ground. There weren't very many leaves here, but maybe if she followed it further into the forest...?
By midday, Bella knew she hadn't found enough of the leaves to make an extra-strong brew tonight, and she was completely out of sight of town. Lisette's words rang in her head, and oh! If only the sweet girl's older brother, Romeo, knew where Bella was! Thoughts of turning back despite herself vanished from her mind as a smile crossed her face. She'd like to see Romeo try to stop her from gathering the leaves!
A snapping branch to her right had Bella's hand on her rapier in a split second, until a rabbit came hopping out of the undergrowth, followed by her ferret, who chased the hare across the nearly-overgrown path. Bella chuckled in relief. "You're starting to get jumpy, Little Izzy," she said, to break the sudden eerie silence in the forest with Coeur's and the rabbit's departure, and using the pet name her father occasionally used for her. "Blame Lisette." She started following the vine again, calling out for Coeur to follow her... but something told her not to let her hand stray far from the hilt of her blade.
It was the hare that caught the scent first. It froze instantly, it's ears raised and cautiously rotating, its nose twitching as it scented the air further. Danger! Danger enough to stop its game of chase or fox-like flight. Danger enough to make the forest become eerily silent...
*******
At once majestic and fearsome as its hulking weight sagged between its front and back limbs, the beast stood perfectly still. A portion if its tawny mane that darkened from brown to black dangled against the snow just beneath the spot the creature's umbilical cord surely once was. Its tail was low, only the tufted tip curled upward as its body language betrayed its attentiveness.
The beast, a great cat the likes of which should not be so far removed from arid lands and open plains, seemed not to breath as it looked upon the beautiful maiden with calm, seeming indifference reflecting in its intelligent orange-eyed gaze.
*******
Bella was instantly able to pick up on the deep-seated animalistic fear in the rabbit, and froze. Her eyes were the only thing that moved other than the soft fur lining the outside of her wrap and the loose ends of her hair in the slight wind, and her hand slid incrementally closer to the hilt of her rapier. Searching the surrounding woods with all senses on alert, Bella called out in the softest non-whisper she could manage...
"Coeur, get over here now."
She couldn't see what had the immediate area -- it felt like the entire forest -- on edge all of a sudden, and her mind tried to tell her it was one of the village kids playing a trick on the new girl... but that wouldn't be cause for the whole forest to stop moving. She felt like, if there was something out there, the pounding of her heart was giving away her position to it, and inhaled slowly and quietly, holding it in as much as she could once she had a full breath to try and slow her heartbeat.
A minute, then two, passed, with Bella like this, and finally she couldn't stand it any more. The little ferret had inched his way back to her and was resting at the hem of her skirt; when she turned, it was slowly, and she exhaled her held breath silently. Her head moved to take in more of the trees, and what lay beyond, as she gathered up her courage.
With barely a tremble to her voice, she called at a normal speaking volume:
"Whoever is there, show yourself." If it was, in fact, one of the villagers trying to scare her, Bella would have to give them more than an earful. Something told her it was more than that, though. Something... primeval and fundamentally dangerous.
*******
The huge lion's pupils narrowed into tiny slits.
She does not see me...
The maid needn't her sight to tell that the beast was there. The forest betrayed the great cat with its silence.
The knowledge made the black tip of the beast's tufted brown tail flick in irritation, but other than that, the creature did not move, did nothing to reveal its position.
It watched...
*******
With no response from the woods after five minutes or so, Bella lowered her hand from the hilt of her sword and relaxed ever so slightly. "Coeur, stay by my side, dearest. I think it may be best if we gather what we can and get back to town." Prank or not, it wouldn't do to scare herself even worse. The ferret climbed her skirt in his familiar way, twining himself around her neck beneath her furs with an annoyed chatter. How dare she cut his fun short, his chatter said, although she knew he wasn't serious. Ferrets rarely were, in her experience.
She followed the vine carefully further into the woods for another two hours, finding as many of the leaves as she could and gathering them. By then, she noticed, the sun was lowering in the sky and casting the forest into more shadows. Judging how far she'd travelled on foot, she guessed she would be back to town within an hour and a half at a normal pace... and a normal pace she would hold to, whoever had attempted to frighten her be damned!
"If you're out there and you hear me, you haven't scared me off. My father may need more of this herb, and if he does I will come back tomorrow." Feeling a little silly talking to an empty forest, nonetheless Bella had an instinct that told her something out there could understand her words... more, understand her intent, and her determination beneath the intent. She would not be scared off by some folktale that Lisette or any other villager told her!
She wouldn't!
Checking the bag at her hip and securing its remaining contents, Bella started walking as calmly as she could manage back the way she had come.
*******
It had stalked her silently as the afternoon passed, cursing the damned forest for giving its presence away. The maid was unwise, removing her hand from the hilt of her rapier as she had done.
Absently, the beast wondered if the weapon were just for show, to ward off highwaymen or thugs. It was of little consequence. Cold steel would have to be well-placed indeed to bring the great cat down.
It considered then what it might be like if the maid were to end its pain, were to stain the snow covered earth with the rich crimson of its life. The thought was selfish and invoked a low, deep snarl in the great cat's throat as if it were rebuking itself!
She would not be the one! He would not allow it!
The beast's shoulders clinched as it realized its mistake. Had the maid heard?
*******
When a low growl resounded through the forest after her first few steps back toward town, Bella whirled toward the sound, startled, and her hand went back to the hilt of her rapier, stopping her draw at an inch of steel. Playing the sound over in her head, she realized it sounded like a lion or some other sort of wild cat, and her eyes went wide. If it was a lion, what was one doing this far north, and out of its den in this weather? Was it injured? Lost?
Tiny claws dug into her flesh through the bodice of her dress, and little black eyes jumped from shadow to shadow from within Bella's furs as she took a cautious step in the direction the sound had come from. Soon she was off the nigh-overgrown path and stepping her way gingerly through the undergrowth. After a few yards she checked her direction, then took a few more steps, reaching out with all her senses to find the cat and see if anything was wrong with it. She couldn't bear to see anything suffer if she could help it; but she'd be stupid to approach it without some defense if it was a wild cat, and her hand stayed tightly around her rapier.
Bella let her senses lead her onward as the squirming beneath her furs got more frantic. Obviously, Coeur smelled whatever she was sensing, and was telling her in his own ferret-y way to get her ass back on the path and back to town; but she wouldn't have any of it.
*******
The forest be damned! Now it was the stark white snow that would give it away!
The giant cat mentally struggled. While in this form, it was difficult for the beast to harness its thoughts and maintain its focus. The predatory instincts that surged through its veins rebelled against a man's reasoning even as the man trapped within the lion's husk was himself uncertain of which one of his human instincts to obey.
Too close... Too close...
She smelled delicious, her scent a siren's call to the ravenous beast. It had kept its distance throughout the afternoon not only to avoid detection but also to avoid the allure that now made the great cat's mouth water, arousing the appetites of both beast and man.
If it moved now, it would further risk being seen. If it moved now, perhaps it would escape unchecked. If it moved now, perhaps the rapier-wielding maid would witness its retreat and be discouraged from keeping her foolish vow to return again tomorrow.
It should have run, should have avoided confrontation all together, but it was not in the beast's nature to give ground. It simply could not summon the force of will necessary to do so!
Angry with itself and agitated by the maid's advance, the beast was unable to prevent the mighty ROAR! that tore loose from its fearsome maul.
"Foolish girl! Why do you pursue me?! Have you not the sense to leave?!"
At the mighty roar whose echoes through these silent woods knocked snow from the surrounding trees, Bella stumbled back, fear and adrenaline causing her legs to wobble beneath her skirts and her hand to lose its grip on her rapier. Thankfully it was still in its hilt. Stumbling on a root she had just stepped over on her way in, she screamed as she fell, landing hard on the frozen ground.
When she recovered her wits a little, she called aloud in the direction the roar had come from, "I was worried you were hurt. Sense I have, and in abundance. I came searching for something in these woods to help my father, and meant no offense crossing your domain." She tried to get up, but slipped on the ground and fell again, landing just so on her leg, and a cry of pain escaped her lips. Great. Now she was injured AND up against an unknown. She trusted fully in her strong empathy with beasts, but had never had to barter for her life with a predator! Pulling the scabbard of her rapier up across her lap, she began moving herself backward along the forest floor to the path. Her ankle, from its feel, was too tender to stand upon for a few moments, much less walk the hour and a half back to the village. She might be able to make a splint, if she could find sturdy enough twigs on the forest floor, but her first concern was the owner of the mighty voice which had emanated from the woods ahead.
*******
This was not happening. The beast would scarcely admit it to itself, but in truth the great cat had stalked the maid not only out of curiosity and longing, but also out of a futile desire to protect.
The beast shook its head, its shaggy mane cascading as if in disbelief. How had he allowed this to happen?
Overhead came a solitary bird's cry - a raven cawing not unlike a crow, not unlike laughter.
ROAR
"NO!"
Doomed! Doomed since the day she set precious foot in Wald und Höhle!
Impossibly, the forest grew even more still then -- dreadfully so...
*******
The caw far above sent a chill down Bella's spine, as did the last roar she heard of the lion. It sounded defiant, indecisive, and... lonely? No, it couldn't be. She was putting too much into it. Had to be.
When the lion remained quiet and unresponsive after that, and the temperature dropped a few more degrees toward nightfall, Bella had pulled herself back against a tree, starting to select twigs from the ground around her and as quickly discarding them as too flimsy to support her ankle. She was cold, she was hurt, and while her pride wouldn't let her admit it, she was quite frankly scared.
Several minutes passed, how many Isabella could not know for certain. Was it there? The lion whose mighty roar had shaken the snow free of the tree's limbs? Shadows stretched languidly across the frozen earth, heralds of the dropping temperature. How long would it take for young Bella to make splint? Would she even be able to find the materials that she needed, or would they be just as elusive as the vine she so desperately needed to get back to her ailing papa?
It came then, the crunch-crunch-crunch of footfalls crushing snow, soles -- not paws -- grinding ice into the frozen earth. A man emerged from the growth, his warm green cloak furling behind him, a crossbow held at the ready. "Signorina!" he compassionately exclaimed as his gaze swept over the fair maid's fallen form.
Had she fainted at the sound of the lion's roar or... "Signorina? Are you hurt?" He would have liked to have run to her, to have knelt at her side, but he spied across her lap the rapier.
When the not-too-far-off cry of signorina reached her ears, Bella had just resigned herself to not being able to make a splint out of the twigs around her and had decided to just curl up and pray she survived the night. But the sound of a person's voice made her feel relieved. Something inside told her to be wary, and so her hand didn't move from her sheathed rapier. Coeur stirred against her breast, warm and comfortable beneath her furs, unharmed in her fall, and poked his head out to sniff the frozen air.
"Bella?" the stranger softly asked.
When the stranger uttered her name, she had a brief start, and tried to place his handsome face among the few townsfolk she'd met outside of Lisette's family. She couldn't; then she remembered that in the local dialect, the shortened version of her name could also translate to beautiful. She decided to play this tack, and responded to the man with a small, timid smile, forcing her hand to release its grip on her rapier hilt. It fell to rest beside her good ankle, beneath whose skirts was the hidden boot-sheathed dagger. Better safe than sorry. "Good sir, I thank you for the compliment, although I am not at my best right now. I had a start while searching for... something, and fell and twisted my ankle badly. Were I to have access to my medicine kit, I could ease the pain quickly; alas it's back at my house, and I'm here." The timid smile that had graced her lips developed into a sardonic one.
At that, a slow easy smile spread across the stranger's handsome features. "Then you are not so bad as you look." He surmised aloud, deciding to let the maiden make of that what she would and sensing that distressed tho the damsel may be, she was not one to take herself so seriously as to bear avoiding when it came to jests, even should they be unfairly made at her undeserving expense and during her hour of need. Who knew? A chuckle or a rosy-cheeked smile might warm the maid against the cold's cruel embrace. Likewise, a fiery flare of temper could just as easily do the same. Either way, his purposes would be fully served.
Again in the hopes of amusing the maiden and distracting her from what had quite literally been her unsettling experience, the man lowered his crossbow whilst blatantly exercising far more caution than was likely truly necessary. "I trust that you will not hurl your blade at me should I be so daring as to put away my own weapon?" He smiled in a fashion likely meant to be infectious. The stranger's words and demeanor were a further extension of the olive branch that the hapless maiden had so graciously set before him.
"It would be silly of me to threaten what is possibly my only way out of this forest this evening, wouldn't it?" And she did indeed chuckle at the gentleman's comment. Isabella gave a furtive glance in the direction from where she'd heard the lion, then turned that smoothly into a movement to get up, pushing her hands against the ground and using the trunk of the tree for extra support. "I don't know what you are doing in these so-called cursed woods this close to dark, sir, but as you're here would you mind ever so much escorting a lady back to her house?" As she got up on her good foot, Bella leaned against the tree to catch her breath before arranging her rapier to be out of the way, resettling it on her left hip as it was her right ankle that was injured. She was taking a risk by allowing herself to be supported home, but the way Bella saw it there was no help for it unless she wanted to spend the night in the forest.
The stranger followed the maiden's furtive glance in the direction from where she had heard the lion, but said nothing of it. At least, not yet... "Ah!" The stranger replied with a bemused smile. "It would seem that Fate has brought me here so that I might rescue you from yourself." He glanced down at her booted feet. "Or at the very least, to rescue you from troublesome roots that rise up from the ground at inopportune times."
The man spoke the latter jokingly with a warm undercurrent of mirth in his trilling voice, but his ode to the roots of the towering oak against which Isabella now leaned could very well have been made in all seriousness by a certain young village girl.
Was the stranger also superstitious? All others that Isabella had encountered since crossing into Wald und Höhle had undoubtedly been so. Was the man who stood before her now warning Isabella in a gentle, nigh rational (or as rationally as one could warn about superstitious beliefs) manner that this wood, the Don's forest, was an evil place? Or was the stranger genuinely joking to put Isabella further at ease? Was he a disbeliever, every bit as imperious to the lore of this realm as Isabella would have liked to think she herself was?
His crossbow secured upon a harness across his back and beneath his billowing green cloak, the stranger stepped towards Isabella, gracefully extending to her a single hand as if inviting her to dance. Willing to escort the signorina home as she had requested, the stranger then waited for the maid to reach out to him in acceptance of his offer of aid rather than familiarly set his hands upon her as if he were a clumsy oaf.
"Alas," he continued. "I had rather thought I might hunt this day... In a fashion, I suppose that I did. For here I have ensnared you!" His teasing smile was brilliant. "I fear the truth is, signorina, that I lack the heart to do more than simply watch my prey. There is not so much sport to be had in killing as there is to be had in observing. At least, there is not for me. Not this day..." The stranger (who was indeed dressed in the rustic colors of a huntsman) waited patiently for the signorina bella to take his hand.
Indeed she did take his hand after another moment, hopping her way down from the trunk onto the overgrown path beside him. The gentleman hunter's skin was cool to the touch, but Bella did not find that unusual given the weather, and she was grateful for his support when her lack of grace nearly caused a second tumble to the forest floor.
With his spare hand, the stranger easily caught the maid about the slender waist. In that instant, his gaze met hers. "Excusi, signorina."
Bella... Beauty...
The wind seemed to whisper the soft caress across the maiden's ear for never were the words spoken aloud. A blush warmed Bella's cheeks ever so slightly when she heard her name seemingly whispered on the wind, but in the fading light it could have easily been mistaken for rosettes of cold on her cheeks.
The stranger did not blush, nor did he look away as propriety may have demanded. Instead, he continued to gaze unflinchingly into Isabella's eyes until it was she who broke the contact. Meanwhile, his one hand remained steadfast at her waist while the other still held hers. Again, the illusion that the pair were poised in a prelude to dance was created.
Coeur made his presence vocally known, breaking the pregnant silence, as the two started their journey out of the forest; Isabella tried to calm him with her free hand by stroking his head, but he continued to chatter at the monsignor. "Sorry, signor. It seems my dear Coeur is either as grateful as I am for your arrival, or he is taking his usual dislike to strangers." In truth, Bella knew Coeur was chattering at this man because he smelled something off about him, but Bella didn't understand what Coeur was talking about. Not a man? What was this? Of course the gentleman hunter was a man! What else would he be?
It was then that the man and woman's positions shifted. Unexpectedly, the stranger pulled Isabella to him, pressing her tempting body securely to his solid trunk before releasing her hand and agilely stooping to slip his suddenly free arm beneath her knees. Without warning, Isabella found herself quite literally swept from her feet and engulfed by a pair of strong arms, her wounded form neatly tucked against the foreign warmth of a stranger's chest.
"For both our sakes?" His brows were raised, his expression purposefully innocent to the point of being child-like as the handsome youth again gazed down upon Isabella. "It would not do for you to send me tumbling to the ground as well." He surreptitiously pointed out. "Then where would we be? You and I both rendered lame. Your medicine kit, alas, at home. And friend Coeur, rife with despair, chittering away at us until the wee hours of the night."
The stranger smiled warmly at the maiden whom he held so cozily compromised. Whereas before he had been careful not to play the clumsy oaf, he now seemed content to play the would-be knight in huntsman's clothing.
Finding herself swept off her feet -- literally -- was an experience that Bella had never before had, and some secret part of her thrilled at the second's feeling of flight she had before the stranger's arms settled around her body. Her rapier was on the hip facing away from the monsignor, so it was not digging into his stomach. As he settled his arms around her, she instinctively wrapped her right arm around the back of the gentleman hunter's neck. "Merci beaucoup, monsignor. I would have not thought of that." Feeling slightly awkward in this position, Bella found herself suddenly shy about being treated like a helpless maiden, and bit her lower lip.
After a few moments of (to the maiden) slightly awkward silence during their journey, Bella finally spoke up. "Signor, I have forgotten my manners." She looked up to find his eyes on her, and quickly looked away. Not normally shy because of her occupation, she found this unusual; but the attentions of a man usually caused an instinctive increase in her level of modesty... as modest as a girl like her could be, with a rapier slung to her hip and a ferret snuggled to her breast. "My name is Isabella, and the little furball is Coeur; pray tell, may I ask for yours in exchange?"
“Ah! Then I had it right!” The stranger enthusiastically complimented. “Bella...” He spoke the word in nearly a purr and again the maid could feel an ethereal caress upon her ears.
Easily slipping into the vernacular that Isabella had used, the handsome youth then continued with a formal greeting of his own. “Enchanté, mademoiselle Isabella, and bonjour to you, piccolo Coeur.” Perhaps embarrassingly, the man seemed to grin at the maid's bosom, though it was the ferret that had drawn his attention and not the soft mounds of her flesh. Looking back into Isabella's face, the man considered how he found the becoming flush in her cheeks to be not unlike the bloom of tiny rosebuds. “I am Mephisto.” His words, though an introduction, somehow seemed more a declaration as they rang in the continued eerie stillness of the cold evening air. “And for this, you are most welcome.” Mephisto graciously acknowledged as he shifted Isabella's weight not out of fatigue but rather out of a desire to illustrate his point.
He looked up, sparkling emerald green eyes scanning the area. “Now to find Forks...” Mephisto's tone was thoughtful as if suddenly he were unsure of which way they should go. He glanced down at Isabella to see if her reaction would be dismay and then unveiled a charming smile. “Fear not! I am not so foolish as that. I know our way. You shall be safely home in short order.”
Mephisto began to walk, his footfalls making the same crunch-crunch-crunch that had heralded his arrival only moments earlier. “So tell me, Isabella. Did you find what it was you were searching for? And is it worth this?” He was teasing, nay, flirting with her.
"Yes, signor, it is very much worth it. To be perfectly honest, I would be willing to go through any hardship if it means--" Should she be saying this to a complete stranger? She wasn't sure, but she was already committed. "If it means helping Papa. He is all I have in the world, and I am all he has."
When Isabella spoke of her fierce commitment to her father, Mephisto fondly smiled and commented. "Yours is the hears of a lioness. Your father should be proud to have a daughter such as you, Bella. Truly you are a blessing and a comfort."
The maiden tried to quickly change the subject as they continued on the path. "I came in pretty much straight along this path. It gets hard to follow at places, but it is what led me in here." If he was asking how to get back to Forks, was he even from Forks? But who would come to a small town like that?
People like her and her father, of course.
Mephisto nodded when the beauty in his arms told her of how she had come to be in these woods, yet he strayed from the path seeming to carry her deeper into the forest. "Long have I poached these lands. There are ways known to me that are not so clearly marked. Trust my word when I vowed to see you safely home in short order." He looked down upon her, smiling reassurance and wondering if she might be frightened as he carried her further and further into the unfamiliar.
Then Bella realized what the hunter had said his name was. "Mephisto? Like in Faust?" Chuckling, she went on, "Your parents must like fiction to have named you that. It's a good book, although I prefer Utopia to Faust. It's more light-hearted if you don't read a lot into it." With that, she was started on one of her favorite subjects, and Monsignor Mephisto would be lucky to get a word in edgewise as Bella went on about authors from Homer to Shakespeare.
For the briefest of instances, tension flooded his arms (whereas before there had been none) even as the stranger's pulse quickened. The reaction was fleeting and well masked in the man's handsome features if not his body and voice.
An icy chill blew through the trees. "Mephistopheles," he corrected, a undeniably annoyed edge to his tone. Mephisto took a breath and then seemingly a moment to compose himself before again he was the comforting would-be knight in huntsman's clothing that Isabella had first encountered.
"You are well read," he complimented. "Yet another reason your father should be proud. Perhaps you are familiar with Frost?"
The crunch-crunch-crunch of Mephisto's footfalls against the snow and ice covered ground seemed an accompaniment to the verses he then quoted.
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
Obscurely: "What do you think, Isabella?" There was something in Mephisto's narrowed gaze, something that seemed to be testing her though on the surface he seemed only to be making conversation.
Bella looked around a little nervously as the gentleman took them off the path. Her sense of direction was generally pretty good, but from her vantage point she couldn't tell if they were headed back to the village or not.
She had to trust him, though, or spend the night in the frozen forest. A shiver ran down her spine when she told herself this.
Trying to keep her mind off concern about where he was taking her, she picked her side of the conversation back up. "I don't know Monsieur Frost as well, but that is a lovely poem. And very appropriate to the circumstances we find ourselves in, Monsieur. Did he not also write one about travelling through the woods?" Looking at their surroundings, she grinned. "It seems that one is also appropriate, given our situation."
Thinking for a moment, she went on. "I love to read anything I can get my hands on. 'Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to my conscience, above all liberties.' The only way I know how to do that well is by reading. Papa and I have spoken in discourse about many authors. I think one of my favorite books of all time is Alice in Wonderland. It's so fantastic, and so much is built into it. Let's see... how does it go...
'You are old, Father William,' the young man said,
'And your hair has become very white;
And yet you incessantly stand on your head--
Do you think, at your age, it is right?'
'In my youth,' Father William replied to his son,
'I feared it might injure the brain;
But now that I'm perfectly sure I have none,
Why, I do it again and again.
"That one always makes me laugh. Have you read that book?"
"There was nothing so very remarkable in that; nor did Alice think it so very much out of the way to hear the Rabbit say to itself, `Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be late!' (when she thought it over afterwards, it occurred to her that she ought to have wondered at this, but at the time it all seemed quite natural)..."
"Yes, I am familiar and you are of course right, Frost wrote many lines of prose appropriate to our current setting." As Mephisto spoke, he stepped through one last particularly thick cluster of trees and nigh miraculously out of the wood and onto a road that (depending on which direction one chose to go) sloped either up or down.
"'But when the Rabbit actually took a watch out of its waistcoat-pocket, and looked at it, and then hurried on, Alice started to her feet, for it flashed across her mind that she had never before seen a rabbit with either a waistcoat-pocket, or a watch to take out of it, and burning with curiosity, she ran across the field after it, and fortunately was just in time to see it pop down a large rabbit-hole under the hedge.
In another moment down went Alice after it, never once considering how in the world she was to get out again...'"
Mephisto chuckled at the quote, a spark of mirth in his brilliant green eyes. It would seem he too was a fan of the tale of young Alice in Wonderland.
"Bella?" He asked. "Tell me, has no one warned thee not to enter these woods?"
Bella looked around as they emerged onto the road and started heading down the hill toward Forks, which also meant that towering somewhere far above them was the Palazzo Innerer Burghof. With a little "Hmmph" of surprise, she realized where they were, then raised herself up to look over Mephisto's shoulder back at the edge of the woods. She noticed that mere seconds after their exit, she couldn't tell exactly where they had come out.
"Well, in truth, Monsieur, the young girl I hired to help care for my papa mentioned something about a dark beast roaming the woods, but almost every village I have travelled through has had one fairy tale or another to tell. I'm likely the last person who should be, but I have found myself to be somewhat disbelieving of most of these homegrown legends, told to bring fame to an area or keep the children out of the woods... Or to hide something else. Every place has a story to tell, and I think someone might fare well to write them all down in a collection, like the Grimm brothers did."
By now Coeur had resettled against Bella's breast, but had kept a wary eye on the hunter. Now that they were out of the forest, though, Mephisto could likely feel some of the tension drain from the girl's body.
"'Tis always a treat to find someone as well-read as you on my travels, Monsieur Rescuer, rare though it may be, and Lady Fortune herself must have smiled upon me today that you should be there to help me." Favoring Mephisto with a smile, she gestured with her free hand at the village below as they approached. "My house is on the outskirts of town; we should be coming up on it soon."
Mephisto listened as Isabella somewhat judiciously gave her thoughts and opinions on lore and legend. "I believe that all such tales are born of truth." The handsome youth confessed. "Though the sources of those truths and the need to cling to the knowing have sometimes passed on."
Mephisto looked down at the beauty he carried in his arms. The village was just coming into view. "Take you and me for example, Bella." He illustrated. "What might the people of the villaggio who were to spy us now, what might they say? What might they think they see? A husband and his newlywed bride?" Mephisto did not blink at his suggestion, though there was a certain intimation to his discourse. "A highwayman and his captive prize, mayhaps? A brother and his wounded sister? A father and his daughter?"
"There is a truth in all these tales. Today, a paesano saw a man carry a woman down the hill and into the villaggio. The rest are flights of fancy, some more fanciful than others." When Mephisto mentioned the rather imaginative ideas that, first, they were husband and wife, then a highwayman and his captive prize, Isabella's cheeks turned two shades of red, first from embarrassment, then a little bit of self-righteous anger. She calmed herself down, though, telling herself that it was just a fantasy. And he was right. Any passerby from the village who didn't already know her could easily mistake the pair as possibly a new husband and his bride, as opposed to the reality of an injured girl and her rescuer. "I understand your point about the fairy tales, and that would make for interesting subject matter... to find the root of villages' legends.”
Mephisto's gaze shifted from Isabella's and moved back towards the seemingly encroaching village. "But you know something more of the truth. The truth these good people tried to warn you of, the truth they each fear yet do not fully understand." Lower, more subtley: "Or perhaps do not even begin to know." As Mephisto spoke, his tone was cautious, very much akin to a fireside story on a stormy night heralded by harbingers of evil.
"It is that truth that caused you to stumble, your ankle to turn sharply. I know that you heard it, Isabella." Mephisto's now measuring gaze expectantly moved back to Isabella's exquisite features as if glimpsing to see if she would play coy and feign that she had not heard the beast's roar.
Bella nodded in reply to his words. "There was something else in the forest... a lion, I think, from the sound. Lions are quite unusual this far north, and this time of year, are they not?" She threw the assumptions of legend back in Mephisto's face, a sweet smile softening the blow.
Clearly unoffended, Mephisto again smiled easily at Isabella. There was a glimmer of something in his sparkling emerald green eyes. Amusement perhaps? Delight? Glee? It was not an altogether settling expression; but it quickly faded, becoming more... normal.
"And have you much experience with lions, Bella?" - Beauty.
Again, there was something in the huntsman's narrowed gaze, something that seemed to be testing Isabella though on the surface he seemed only to be lightly bantering with her. Bella shook her head in response to the hunter's question, icy fingers leaving a trail down her spine when the word "beauty" was whispered on the wind itself.
"Lions are not at all unusual here in Wald und Höhle, hence Lisette's warning," Mephisto went on. Briefly, Bella stiffened in the huntsman's arms. She had not mentioned Lisette's name to him once since meeting Mephisto, nor uttered it since entering the woods. As they continued on down the lane, her house coming into view with a lamp outside burning brightly, Bella let her intelligent mind chew on this for a moment. "These woods are not safe, not even for one so brave as yourself, Isabella."
"That as may be, Monsieur Mephisto, but we can't all stay in padded rooms or be kept on a shelf as a prize for our entire lives. I imagine that would get rather boring, and I would prefer to see the world outside any gilded cage. Incidentally, how did you know it was young Lisette whom I had hired? There are many other young girls in the village. Are you a friend of her family's?" Carefully, Bella kept her tone neutral when she asked her rescuer these questions, and watched his face for a reaction.
"I know many things..." Mephisto's expression as well as his tone was warm, amused. There was a knowing in his eyes as he gazed down upon Isabella that seemed to say that he had been expecting her questions. Would he have been disappointed if she had not asked them -- his wise little beauty?
"I know that the don's woods are guarded by hungry lions who would just as soon make a meal of you than not. I know that the don's woods are no place for you to wander alone, no matter how brave you are, Isabella."
Mephisto paused, studying Bella's lovely features and wondering if his words were grating on the proud girl's nerves. In any other wood she could roam freely with little fear of beast and (glimpsing her obvious tenacity) likely man. But the woods of Wald und Höhle were not any other; and so it was that Mephisto risked causing offense.
The man sighed and Isabella could feel his shoulders slump with the exhalation. "You will return to the wood if the plant brings relief to your papa?" The words were spoken as a question, though that too was something he knew. But he had not answered her questions...