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A/N - Hiya! First Ever After fic here so please be gentle. I thought I should write one seeing as I used to live in Hautefort and was there during filming. Note: one of the extras in the courtyard scene is in fact my piano teacher. So sit back, relax and enjoy...
Don't panic about the French bits in this story, they're not important I just added them for effect.
Summary - A distant descendant of Henry and Danielle moves to central France to stay with relatives. But the land contains far more than fairytales and she soon gets entangled in the events of her heritage.
Disclaimer - I do not own Ever After or any of the characters, plot lines thereof.
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Rebecca stepped off the plane at Bergerac airport. Well it said airport but it was more like a field with a shed on the edge. She could have sworn that man in the control tower was shouting instructions to the pilot as they landed. Her luggage was soon thrown at her by a part time flight attendant and her passport was checked, stamped and checked again. Only then did Rebecca emerge blinking from the tiny customs building into the glaring mid-June sunlight of the wine country. There she was greeted by the smiling wizened old faces of her great aunt and uncle, André and Marie de Barbarac. Soon she was overwhelmed by welcomes and questions from her elderly relatives.
"How are you, my dear? It's been such a long time. When I last saw you, you were only this tall! How's you mother and father and your brother?" It was all quite hard to understand at first because they had such a strong southern accent. Sure she was bi-lingual but she wasn't that bilingual.
The drive was turbulent and bumpy in the back of their old Renault but then the sight of the farm reeled from around the corner, ethereal against the cerulean sky. It had always seems endless when she was a child and the fields would stretch on forever but ten years later it had shrunk to something more realistic but no less breathtaking.
"C'est belle, non?" said her uncle proudly. "Tu souviens la ferme?"
"Yes, I remember." said Rebecca. "It's wonderful."
"This land has belonged to our family for over five hundred years, Becky. So did that big house over there until it was destroyed in the war." her said, unlocking the front door.
"Your kidding!"
"Not at all. In fact we're also descended from the French royal family, not like that sort of thing is important anymore."
"So what you're saying is that my great, great, great, great grandfather was the king of France." cried Rebecca with amazement.
"Actually the King of France was more of a cousin than a grandfather but that's the basic idea of it." said Marie happily. "King Henry to be more precise."
"Wasn't he the one Leonardo DaVinci was working for before he died." Rebecca said excitedly.
"I don't know. You're the one taking Art History at college." her aunt smiled at her niece's art obsession. She was certain that if Rebecca had to interview someone like Mick Jagger her first question would be 'What was Andy Warhol like?'
"This is brilliant! Please tell me more." Rebecca pleaded with her relatives, almost sounding like a six year old girl again.
"Dinner first. Then I'll tell you our family history." said André happily and led the young girl to her room in the attic.
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That night, Rebecca learned everything her uncle could tell her about her ancestors
after a wonderful dinner of chicken casserole and fruit tart. She learned how the house
of Barbarac were middle class merchants until one of the women married the crown
prince of France and was the inspiration for the brothers Grimm version of Cinderella.
She especially liked the bits with DaVinci in them and the end when the evil Baroness
and her daughter got what was coming to them.
"And now I have something that you might like." said André mysteriously and unlocked an old oak cupboard in the corner and pulled out something tall and flat that was swamped by protective packaging.
"What is it?" she whispered.
"Un cadeau." said André "The law says that when we die we must split all our goods equally among our living relatives. Well no one knows about this except Marie and I and now you. Not the government, not the auditors, not even your dear parents." and with that he pulled away the last bit of the wrappings and revealed the painting in all its glory with its famous signature for all to see.
"Uncle! This has to be a trick! You can't just have an original Da Vinci painting lying around the house!"
"Not anymore, Cherie. It's yours now."
"But this is unbelievable! This should be in a museum, uncle! It's worth millions,
more than millions! This is a part of history itself."
"And that's exactly why I'm giving it to you." said André "Anyone else would just sell
it at face value and sell it to the highest bidder but you understand how important it is.
You feel the true genius of its painter. You can keep our heritage alive! Tu
comprends, ma petite."
"I don't deserve this!"
"Of course you do. No one will love this painting more than you will."
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The first week passed like a blur. Rebecca would walk in a dreamlike state, thinking about what her uncle had told her and the amount of trust he had placed in her.
"I just don't think I understand it enough, though." she thought to herself as she wandered through the thick woodland with only her iPod and a bagfull of books for company. Finally she came to the edge of a precipice and stared down at the Dordogne river a hundred feet below. It was so quiet here. It could almost be prehistoric, the way the river roared powerfully and the buzzards swooped in the sky. She skipped a few tracks until the peaceful voice of Cat Stevens started and with her reading glasses perched on the bridge of her nose she began her latest book, Thomas Moore's Utopia.