"Where have you been? Bae, I told you not to stray too far from the cart!"
Rumpelstiltskin put his hand on the boy's shoulder, sighing nervously. The sun had long been hidden behind the hills on the horizon, and he began to worry. Usually Bae was an obedient child, and if he was told to return before sunset, he always said goodbye to friends and returned to his father long before the last rays of sun slipped through the fields.
Today was market day, the first one after the spring floods, and Rumpelstiltskin brought to the city's shopping area a cart full of yarn, hoping to gain all that he did not get in the previous month. Morning trade was brisk and Bae barely had time to count out change to customers.
Trading in the city, they consistently sold more than back in their village, where many turned their noses up at their goods. Their yarn was not poorer quality than any others – they just did not like Rumpelstiltskin here. Nobody wanted to deal with a lame old pauper, being branded a village coward.
Finished with the greater part of the goods before lunch, Rumpelstiltskin and Bae bought a pair of soft, fragrant buns with cheese from a nearby tray. Today they could afford such a luxury, with the purse full of coins for the yarn they had sold. Having finished with his bun, Bae sat with hands folded on his knees by the cart, showing diligence with all his looks and tossing occasionally sly looks at his father.
"Let me guess: Oliver and Finley are here too?" Rumpelstiltskin suggested, leaning on a stick and rising up heavily from the log, on which they put their lunch.
"Yes! Oliver with his aunt at the other end of the row sell fabric and Finley recently came, his mother sent him to the pharmacist with herbs. Can I go play with them? If you do not mind, of course..."Bae smiled sheepishly.
"Go, but do not run away and come back before sunset, so that we won't have to go home in the dark." Rumpelstiltskin could not deny the boy, and his help was not needed anyway. He disheveled his hair, and turned to the came up buyer, eye tracking, as his son ran away to the end of the series, where a tall blond lad was waiting impatiently for him.
Bae always had been always loved by both children and adults. Despite the notoriety of his father, they all melted before the natural charm and sharp wit of ten year old boy.
Now he stood quietly in front of his father, his shoulders slumped dejectedly. Rumpelstiltskin frowned - had he feared a punishment? Why would he? He was never harsh with the boy, and his tardiness, though regrettable, did not cause big troubles. Together they took the handle of a considerably relieved cart and hurriedly drove along the road to the village, towards the house.
"If I knew half of a day of playing with your friends would make you so upset, I would not let you go with them." Rumpelstiltskin smiled encouragingly, head cocked; trying to look into his son's lowered face.
"Oliver is no longer my friend!" Bae said angrily. He sniffed irritably and pushed the cart even faster.
"You had a fight? What happened, son?"
Rumpelstiltskin had always encouraged Bae's friendship with the village children, because in his own patient experience he knew how hard it is to go through life alone. Until now, he had never heard of a quarrel within the company of the three coevals, although Oliver grew up in a family of wealthy merchants and differed significantly by marital prosperity from the almost mendicant spinner's family.
"Papa, I did not think that Oliver may be evil but his aunt, she is injurious! She drives the poor away from their threshold with a broom, but Oliver was my friend, not like that..."
"Did he hurt you, son?"
Rumpelstiltskin was afraid of this, afraid that people will turn away from his prodigious Bae because of his father, because he is not like everyone else.
"No, Papa, not me. But it would be better if it was me. I am a man; I can fight, if necessary, I will defend my name against all insults in a fair fight!" The boy lifted his chin proudly and continued with indignation. "He hit a girl! And she could not even defend herself, and there was no one to stand up for her. And neither could I, Papa, I'm sorry! I know, as a knight, I should have been there to protect the girl, but I couldn't..."
Bae looked at his father, tears gleaming in his eyes, as if afraid that his Papa would scold him, that he would remind him of his duty to those who are weaker. But Rumpelstiltskin was silent. He was not the one to tell anyone about courage, no matter how much he wished for the opposite.
"What happened, Bae?"
"You know the town weirdo, who lives in a barn between a butcher's and a chemist's? You probably don't, you don't often leave the counter when we come here. She is off her rocker, she rarely speaks, when she does – they are very quiet, strange speeches, but most of the time she does not speak at all, keeps silent. As if she is sleeping with her eyes open. Here, people don't like her, don't talk to her, even though to me she seems nice. She's not ramp to people like that crazy old man at a fair last year, just sits there quietly, out of anybody's way. Her eyes are beautiful. Blue..." Bae smiled with the last sentence. "I was looking at a canned eye in a glass jar at the apothecary, when I heard Oliver yelling something outside. Papa, they threw stones at the girl! Four town kids and Oliver with them. Heavy stones!"
Bae's voice trembled with indignation and sympathy. He clenched his hands on the hilt of the trolley so that his knuckles turned white.
"Her blood ran all over her face and her palms, she just shielded herself with her hands and that's all. She did not run away, did not defend herself in any way, just sat there and rocked back and forth. They threw stones at her and yelled, called her names, called her obsessed, crazy and much worse! And adults, Papa, even the adults were doing nothing but giggle!"
Rumpelstiltskin's heart sank when he imagined a poor orphan, even a mentally deficient one that had no one to protect her. He wouldn't wish such a fate on anyone. For that, for saving his only child from that, he gave up a lot: his pride, health, respect of his wife.
"I'm sorry, Bae. Adults ... they, too, are unfair and heartless. What happened then?"
"The boys ran away, and Oliver with them. I ran to the girl and Finley with me, but Oliver said we were weaklings and we can't even beat a nutty. He then ran back into town. Well, Finley is not like that. He offered to take her to the pharmacist's, where he was relegated to sell his mother's herbs. He's such a funny old man, not a boring one, and he did not mind us bringing her to him. He said that this is not the first time, and he often finds her beaten, and helps her with her injuries. Father, I have never thought that Oliver could so brutally beat a defenseless person! I'll never be anything like that! I will always help the weak, I will become a true knight!"
Bae stopped abruptly and grabbed the sleeve of the old cloak of Rumpelstiltskin's, making him trip and run into the trolley.
"Papa! I have to start becoming a knight! I have to help her!" Bae almost shouted, looking at his father with a challenge and a plea in his eyes. "Please?"
"Hush, hush, now the wolves will come running to your voice" Rumpelstiltskin looked around nervously, eyeing the dark edge of the forest, impenetrable by an eye in the twilight, which their way into the village skirted "They'll eat you up, and you will become not noble knight, but a hearty lunch. Do not run ahead of yourself, kid. If you want to help, you have to think of the way by yourself. What is the name of your damsel in distress?"
Rumpelstiltskin was not happy with the idea that Bae wanted to communicate with another outcast, besides his own father. But he could not bring himself to deny the boy in his good intentions, because this was what he wanted his Baelfire to grow up into – a strong, brave and just man. If it brings him joy, so be it.
Belle, father. Her name is Belle.