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What's in a name?	By : jinna1979 Category: Fairy Tales, Fables, Folklore, Legends, and Myth > Fairy Tales Views: 16599 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction,I do not own Rumpelstiltskin. Any resemblance of characters to actual persons,living or dead, is purely coincidental

Chapter List
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Although Rousset ordinarily did not involve himself in court politics, he could not ignore the recent events that were happening around him. Millicent herself had been remarkable enough. Although she intimidated him, we wished he had had more opportunities to study her interesting magic. As for his uncle, the king, Rousset was unsurprised that he would want to take advantage of Millicent’s abilities. Even though court finances were managed by the court treasurers, Rousset had copies of all the financial documents, and he was well aware of his uncle’s immense debts. Once word got out that the king had a new fantastical source of wealth, all the creditors seemed to come flocking to the palace. Of course, they were able to come under the pretense of wanting to enjoy the upcoming royal wedding, but the king and Rousset knew the truth.

Wealth ordinarily did not interest Rousset, but he was also aware that the books that he so dearly loved were worth fortunes. As for the king’s many creditors, who ranged from nobles to tradesman to certain underground contacts, most of them seemed to be motivated by greed. Though he did not indulge in gossip, word had reached Rousset that the creditors did not even want to wait to have the straw melted into coins. Like ravenous beasts, they fell upon the gold straw, until the king’s coffers were near depleted. Their actions did not disgust Rousset. Rather, he considered them with a sense of distant and rational curiosity. He was interested in more than just theory and the natural sciences - human nature fascinated him as well.

Since the announcement of the royal wedding, the palace had seemed to be in a state of chaos. Although the world seemed to ordinarily ignore Rousset, he could not help being aware of manic fervour that seemed to fill all the inhabitants of the palace. He might not noticed if the servants forgot to bring him a meal once or twice, but he was certainly aware of it if none of them had brought him any food the entire day. Thinking of food made him think of Carine, and with those thoughts came that strange squeezing pain in his chest. He had read about love in his books of course - he was well aware of how the poets spoke of the joys and pains of their enamoured state. Yet, could this pain he felt be that exalted feeling? He did not feel as though he were walking upon clouds. He simply felt empty and sad that she was gone.

His uncle seemed to be in an unusually good mood on the days leading up to the wedding. Rousset had been throwing himself into his books with increased intensity, trying to escape the pain of Carine’s absence, but he was well aware that the his uncle had spoken to him more than usual. He even mentioned purchasing new books now that he had a fortune in gold. Rousset did not feel any particular closeness to his uncle. His uncle had made it more than clear that he only kept Rousset around because Rousset’s knowledge was useful. Moreover, he was well aware of his uncle’s cruel nature, even though it was rarely ever directed at him. However, despite his uncle’s cold-nature and various shortcomings, Rousset was also grateful that his uncle took him in when his parents died.

On the day of the royal wedding, when it was discovered that Millicent had disappeared, the chaos seemed to reach new heights. The king had gone to the queen’s chambers in the late morning to find servants running around in a state of panic. The king had not gone to see Millicent out of any kindness or concern - rather, he wanted to ensure that her appearance and manners would not embarrass him, so his visit was intended as more of a critique.

  “Announcing his most magnificent imperial majesty,” the servant had called out in tones of condescending self-importance. The king swept past the herald.

  “Well, my future queen -” he stopped when he saw the number of servants who suddenly stopped and stared at him with frantic, frightened eyes. He looked around the room, but there was no Millicent in sight.

  “Where is she?” He asked, his tone of voice low and quiet, and all the more frightening because of it. A part of him assumed she was taking advantage of her new lofty station, and was lounging another room like a slugabed. He gazed at the terrified servants as though each were personally responsible for this situation. For a moment, there was silence - none dared to answer. But prolonged silence would certainly be met with punishment, and someone had to speak up.

   “We cannot find her, your majesty,” a courageous maid explained, although she could not help the wavering of her voice. Her eyes were downcast, and her legs felt like jelly. She almost expected to be killed on the spot.

  “What?” His voice was still terrifyingly quiet, but his eyes seemed to glitter with promises of pain and death.

  “We’ve searched everywhere,” another servant explained. “In all the chamber, and in the halls.”

  “If you’ve searched everywhere, then you would have found her!” The king suddenly bellowed in rage. “You fools! Guards! Arrest them all!”

The bellowing did not end there. The king could not conceive of the notion that any woman in her right mind would leave him. He assumed that all women were, on some level, conniving and ambitious creatures who were always grasping for more and more. Rather, it was his firm conviction that one of the guests in the palace had kidnapped her, wanting her magical abilities for themselves. It was a reasonable assumption to make - Millicent was comparable to a goose that laid golden eggs. The kind of wealth she could offer would attract both those who wanted riches as well as those who craved the power that wealth could buy.

However, as desperately as the king wanted her back, he could not go around antagonizing all his guests. Many of them were powerful people, and would make very dangerous enemies. Moreover, many of them brought their own company of guards, and a fight in the castle would result in a complete bloodbath. The king’s guards were sent to search every corner of the castle and to try and search out all the guests rooms. Although the guards were not permitted to break into any of the guest rooms, they had to note which guests permitted entry, and which guests refused.

The guards had even scoured Rousset’s rooms, knocking over scrolls and books, and making a general mess of everything. Rousset was rather disturbed by the situation, but he was also intrigued. From his studies, he was aware of which guests were rich and which were impoverished. He was aware that certain nobles had greater political ambitions, and some were more scheming than others. In his mind, he was already compiling a list of suspects of who might have taken Millicent. However, unlike the king, Rousset also considered the possibility that she may have run away. Though many women would have endured anything for the chance to be Queen, he knew that not all women were ambitious and power-hungry. He had gotten the impression that Millicent was not a social-climber. Additionally, he had noted the friendship between Carine and Millicent, and when Carine left, perhaps Millicent decided to follow her friend.

As the day passed, the king’s dungeon seemed to be filling up with inhabitants. Servants were viciously punished, and when it was discovered that the guard at Millicent’s door had left his post during the night, he was immediately sent to be tortured. When the guard revealed that an ugly servant had told him about all the dropped gold in the halls below, it only fueled the king’s suspicion that there had been a plot to steal Millicent. Despite the flurry of activity, Millicent was nowhere to be found. By the end of the day, the king had been given a list of which guests had barred entry into their rooms, and king had his advisors write out a royal proclamation that hindering the king’s search would be tantamount to treason. None were permitted to leave the palace, and those who did were punished with immediate execution. The situation in the palace was frighteningly tense for all involved.

Upon the following day, word had reached most of the citizens in the city that the queen-to-be was stolen. Although the people were disappointed to not have a royal wedding to celebrate, the events were good for trade. Many travellers had come to the city for the wedding, and inns were all booked to full capacity. Since none were allowed to leave, it meant more income for the city folk. Merchants eagerly sold their wares to the many visitors, and thieves took advantage of new prey. Bards played to new crowds, who were restless, and eager for entertainment. Throughout the city, mead and ale flowed freely, as the visitors sought ways to whittle away their time, trapped in the city. Still, there was no sign of the queen-to-be.

The previous two days may have seemed like the most excitement that the city had seen in decades, however, it was the next day that all hell seemed to break loose. All the new visitors were still trapped in the city and the palace, but not enough time had passed for them to become angry and restless. Ale still flowed freely, and there was still a general feeling of optimism in the city due to the influx of wealth. None could have anticipated the events that were to come.

Not only were the wedding guests still at the palace and city, but the king’s previous creditors were as well. They were the first to notice that sometime that day, their golden straw was reverting back to regular straw. Naturally, their first reaction was confusion and distress - after all, they were watching wealth slip away before their eyes. But this soon turned into anger. None would have believed that the king did not intentionally give them fake gold. The creditors were convinced that the king had duped them, trying to pass off fake gold in order to free himself from his obligations to them. When the creditors started speaking amongst themselves, they all realized that their ‘gold’ was no longer gold. Combined with the indignity of the king’s guards searching through their chambers, their emotions soon became whipped up into a fury. Though the tradesmen may not have had the power to harm the king, the nobles and underworld contacts did. Conveniently for the nobles, many of them had their own guards on hand, and combined with the soldiers of the other nobles, they made up a sizable force - certainly one that was capable of rivalling the king’s own guards.

The confrontation between the nobles and the king was tense and frightening. Tempers were already frayed for all parties, and everyone was ready to assume the worst. There was no chance at all for diplomacy - none but Rousset were emotionally calm enough.

  “Give us our gold,” the nobles demanded, backed by their force of soldiers once they came face to face with the king in one of the halls. It was crammed with people. The king, who was already suspicious and furious kept guards with him at all times, and he refused to be intimidated by the nobles. If either party were in a reasonable state of mind, they would have gone down to the royal hall to speak, but their fury demanded an immediate resolution.

“What are you talking about?” The king replied angrily. “You stole the queen!”

  “The gold you gave us was fake!” one of the members of the crowd called out.

  “Yeah. Fake!”

  “You deceived us!”

  “Liar!”

  “Cheat!” Soon the calls became too chaotic to distinguish, as the nobles yelled out their furious indignation. Yells eventually became pushes. Those in the back of the hall wanted to move forward to where the action was. Those in the front felt as though their dignity had been assaulted when they felt themselves being pushed. The king did not look at all repentant, but instead, only angry. From the back of the crowd of nobles and soldiers, someone threw a shoe towards the king, although they missed him by a wide margin, and hit one of his guards instead. Yet, that was the spark that seemed to ignite the explosion. Before anyone knew what was happening, swords were drawn, and battle calls were screamed.

Fighting in the narrow confines of the hall made the situation awkward and uncomfortable. Neither the king nor the nobles wore armour, and most of the guards wore only leather armour. As people reached for their swords, their elbows went flying, knocking into their neighbours. The king and some of the nobles, who were at the center of the confrontation became lost in the flurry, and as swords slashed the air, they were soon cut down. The confines of the hall made it nearly impossible for anyone to tell what was going on, and few realized the king had fallen. The battle continued in fury, filling the hallway with blood and limbs. Screams filled the air, and bodies began to pile up. The soldiers of different noblemen did not recognize one another, and many allies killed allies. The conflict spread throughout the halls, and servants and guests ran away in terror. Random mobs of soldiers ran through the halls, screaming for the blood of the king, not realizing that he lay dead under a pile of corpses. Some, of the more opportunistic soldiers took advantages of the situation to rob the palace, or rape innocent victims.

The only thing that kept the chaos from spreading out into the city was that some had finally discovered the body of the king. In a gruesome act of barbarism and bloodlust, the king’s head was removed and placed on a stake, and the crowd marched through the halls, yelling triumphantly, “The king is dead! The king is dead!” They waved the bloody stake around, as though it was some trophy of their success, untroubled by splatters of blood that dripped from the head. However, that did not mean that all was peaceful and calm in the city. Although the situation there did not become out of control as it did in the palace, there fights and riots that broke out in random areas throughout the city - though it was largely limited to the seedier parts of town.

As for Rousset, amazingly, he had survived the riotous events of the day unscathed. The battle had mostly occurred on the lower levels, and when Rousset heard the yells and screams, his first instinct was to protect the books. Thus, despite the fact that he had been in the castle on the day that the slaughter had happened, he heard about most of the events secondhand. He was mildly saddened to hear of the death of his uncle - after all, even if he did not like him, he was still family. He was also relieved that no harm had come to his beloved books. But surprisingly, what brought him the greatest relief of all was that Carine had been long gone, and she did not have to suffer the violence and chaos that had befallen the castle. As much as he missed her, he could not help thanking the gods that she was far away and safe.

By evening, colour was starting to return to Rumplestiltskin’s cheeks, and the wound on his arm was knitting itself together. Millicent was delighted to that he was looking better, and she would have been more delighted still if she realized that beneath the bandages, her friend’s wound was rapidly healing. However, despite the magic that was repairing his injured appendage, he would still have a large scar to show for it. Ordinarily, the fey did not scar, but his wound had been left unhealed and gaping for too long. They fey tended to disdain scars - scars were seen as a mortal failing and weakness. But none of the fey were going to criticize his scar when faced with his ugly face and body. It would simply be yet another indignity heaped upon a mountain of indignities.

Millicent also noticed that her friend’s breathing was getting more even, and when she touched his face, his skin was warmer.

“He’s getting better!” Millicent called to Carine, who was supervising Olivie as she drove the wagon.

“What?” Carine exclaimed, startled. Considering how terrible the man had looked, she was certain that he was unlikely to survive. To hear that he was getting better was disheartening, to say the least.

“Yeah!” Millicent called out happily, unable to repress the sparkle of hope in her eyes, and the buoyant tone in her voice. “There’s colour coming back to his face, and his breathing is improving. I think he might wake soon. I’m so relieved!”

  “Oh. Well, thank the gods. It seems a rather miraculous recovery.” Carine did her best to keep the disappointment from her voice.

  “Maybe it’s magic. He is, after all, a magical being. I don’t understand how it works, but I’m glad for it.”

  “Hm. Well, I think we ought to find some place to stop for the night. I haven’t seen a farmhouse for a while, and I’m not certain that we shall come across one. Should we just stop our wagon by the side of the road? Ollie-dear, how about that spot over there, by the trees.” Carine directed Olivie’s attention to what looked like a sheltered grassy patch, adjacent to a small copse of trees, and surrounded by thickets. Once they had the wagon in place, Millicent unhitched the mule and tied him to a tree. They did not have much to set up camp with. Their cloaks would be their blankets, and since they could not all fit into the wagon, they decided to sleep in the ground. Millicent tried to convince Carine and Olivie to sleep in the wagon, since Carine was pregnant, but Carine firmly refused.

  Millicent went to gather some branches and wood for a fire, and Carine used her steel and flint to get the campfire started. Once the kindling caught, they sat around the fire, gazing into its flickering depths.

  “Have you ever slept outside before?” Carine asked Millicent. She did not want to talk about the unconscious man, and she did not want all of Millicent’s attention focused on him.

  “I grew up in the countryside, Carine. Of course I’ve slept outside.” Millicent laughed warmly. “This is heavenly compared to the castle.”

  “Even without that big, queenly bed?”

  “Especially without that big queenly bed. I’d rather the wind at my face, and the stars for my blankets, then down pillows and silk sheets. Have you ever slept outside before?”

  “I used to climb up on the roof of my parents house when my ma was drunk and trying to beat us. I would stay up there all night, and even if it was cold, I felt like maybe the gods could see me better from up there, and take me away from that life.” Carine’s gaze became distant. “It was my special place, until one of my older brothers found out, and took it for himself. But by then, I had Olivie to take care of, and she is more important than some spot on the roof.” Carine smiled at Olivie and stroked her hair, and Olivie smiled back at her.

  “I’m sorry that things have been so difficult for you,” Millicent said with empathy. Although her time with the king had been the most difficult of her life, she knew that she had spent most of her childhood and adolescent years indulged by her parents. When faced with details of Carine’s life, Millicent found it hard to find the right words to say.

  “It’s in the past now. Olivie and I have a fresh new start. What matters is that we’re together. Right Ollie-dear?” Olivie smiled, and hugged her sister who sat next to her, burying her childish face against Carine’s side. Then, in childlike curiosity, Olivie tilted her head against Carine’s pregnant belly, as though listening for the life form inside.

  “Sister,” Olivie said in a high pitched, girlish voice.

  “Yes, I am that,” Carine replied with a smile.

  “No.” Olivie shook her head emphatically. She pointed at Carine’s belly. “That sister.” Carine looked down at her stomach, unsure of how to respond.

  “It might not be a sister, Ollie. It might be a brother. Or rather, a nephew or niece to you.” Carine rested her hand gently on her stomach. Olivie’s words had bewildered her, but they had also given her an idea. Now that she was away from the pressures of the palace, and had her own small fortune, perhaps it would not be a bad idea to keep the babe. Additionally, if she were to keep the child, then perhaps the man would end his engagement with Millicent. After all, Millicent had said that he was the one who wanted to adopt the baby, and if he could not have it, perhaps his disappointment would be great enough that he would break his engagement with Millicent. At the moment, she was unsure of how she would use the idea. If the man were to awaken, she would wait in see. In the meantime, Millicent was speaking, Carine had not heard half her words.

  “-always wished I had a brother or sister.” Millicent was saying. “In my childish mind, I somehow thought that if I had a sibling, they would stay home and do all the chores, and I could wander the woods to my heart’s content.” Millicent laughed, and Carine laughed with her, picking up on what she was saying.

  “Having brothers is not as fun as you might think. They like to pull your hair, and call you names, and blame you for everything. Sisters are nice though.” Carine’s eyes twinkled with amusement. “Hm. And I believe it is time for this sister to get to bed, right Ollie? You have been yawning all night.” Olivie nodded sleepily, and Carine smiled.

  “Good night, miss Millicent,” she said, warmly.

  “Good night Carine. And good night Olivie!” Olivie looked away shyly, but Millicent thought she heard the young girl whisper a ‘good night’ and she smiled.

A/N: that whole section with Rousset ended up getting out of control. In my outline, it was just one sentence, but I kind of wanted to give that perspective. Please review! I'm also welcoming constructive criticism. Bear in mind that everything before chapter 19 was written in 2011-2012, and everything after was written this year
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What's in a name?