"Yes." Cinderella's eyes roamed to the so-called Princes Charming and Alluring. "And you know our ideas of my happy ending differ drastically. For we have already had this discussion, and I am tired of talking to you."
With a small laugh that looked less than humored, Grimm cast his eyes to the ground at his feet, looking up again with a piercing stare Cinderella found far more honest than his attempts at civility.
"Step forward to me, Cinderella." His invitation was still polite, and Rapunzel's arms tightened around Cinderella's waist in drastic measure.
"Cin, please do not." Rapunzel's head burrowed against the back of her neck. "Please."
Grip desperate, but relenting, Cinderella pried it free, slinging her leg over the neck of the horse, and turned to face Rapunzel. The tears pooling in them made her eyes sparkle, and, battered, exhausted and afraid, Rapunzel still possessed greater strength, and gave Cinderella more strength, than she knew.
"You are the most incredible thing I have ever known," Cinderella declared, fingers whispering over a fading bruise on Rapunzel's jaw. "I love you."
"I love you," Rapunzel sobbed back, and Cinderella pressed a firm kiss against a mouth that would offer more protest if given the chance, jumping from the mount before Rapunzel could further resist.
Turning toward Grimm, hand wrapping anxiously around the hilt of Prince Salimen's sword, Cinderella took only a few steps before a blade she recognized by feel pressed between her shoulders. Wondering just how many times she would come into contact with the same piercing chunk of silver, she glanced back, eyes skimming the familiar design of the dagger before alighting on Queen Ino's proud countenance.
With a flick of her hand, the queen knocked Cinderella's own hand from the hilt, and she pulled the sword from Cinderella's hip, tossing it back to a waiting soldier.
"Be as smart as I know you are, Cinderella," Queen Ino advised her. "Listen to your creator." Then, the queen gave a hard thrust forward with the dagger, and Cinderella choked back a howl of pain as the blade split the fabric of her dress and sunk deep into her flesh. Yanking the dagger free, Queen Ino's smile looked unmistakably cruel, and Cinderella realized she was at the mercy of her enemies as she marched to meet Grimm.
It was the yell of Rapunzel that halted her approach once more, and she turned as Queen Ino dragged Rapunzel from the stallion's back, wishing it was illusion, knowing it was not. The dagger's point threatening against Rapunzel's throat, Cinderella could see her own blood upon the blade, as more enemies stripped her friends from their mounts.
"This, My Jewel, is what defeat looks like," Grimm casually informed her, and Cinderella pulled her gaze from the fear in Rapunzel's eyes to look at him. "It is unfortunate really, as far as you have come, and incredible the brave face you still manage to put on, even when you stand at your end."
"If the choice is living under your rule or death, death will be a pleasure," Cinderella replied, though her thoughts with Rapunzel at her back, she did wish more time.
"You think I am going to kill you now?" Grimm sounded appalled by the prospect, and Cinderella swallowed, more at ease when death was the paramount threat. With all she had already endured at Grimm's hand, she could only imagine the tortures that lived inside his mind. "How many times do I have to prove to you I do not want to get rid of you? You are my masterpiece."
Reaching out, his fingers feathered against Cinderella's hair, and she knocked his arm away, groaning as it made painful contact.
"Ah, see this." Grimm smiled, even as he cradled his arm against his chest, fingers rubbing out the pain Cinderella knew must throb through it. "We are not just illusion to each other anymore. Can you believe it? I invented a magic powerful enough it transcends worlds." He was so delighted, he looked almost a child, and Cinderella could not understand how a man so happy to create could also be so happy to destroy. "Do you not want to live in such a mastery of creation, Cinderella? Do you not want to be happy here?"
"I want what is real," Cinderella countered, ground suddenly shuddering with a force that sent Grimm to his knees, as a slender crack opened the earth between them.
· · ·
Eyes following the jagged formation, Grimm smiled at the metaphor.
"Whatever it is you want, Cinderella," Grimm stated, pushing back to his feet. "You are a foolish girl to think you know what is best for you. You will want what I want."
"A foolish girl?" Cinderella's laughter was hollow. "Of course. Does it not shame you then that I am such a threat to you?"
"You are no threat to me." Grimm's humor diminished.
"No?" Cinderella took a step closer. "You sent a prince for me. I outran him. You sent guards for me. I escaped them. You sent butterflies to take my friends from me, and they failed. You tried to rip a cottage of treats out from under our feet, but you were too late. You took those that Sawyer and Christophe and Stace love, thinking they would blame me, but they do not. You sent five people to kill me, and one to my rescue. I escaped them all. You took Rapunzel. I got her back. You have come after me again..." Cinderella's hand pushed against his chest. "And again...." She pushed harder. "And again..." Grimm stumbled, looking around the clearing at the witnesses as he lifted himself back to full height. "And I survived you. Strange..." Cinderella shook her head. "Now that I say it out loud, I sound quite like a threat to you."
"You could not have done all that alone," Grimm declared. Anger growing at her insolence, he wondered if he was being too kind in sparing her life. Perhaps, he was just too tenderhearted.
"You are right." Cinderella nodded, realization narrowing her gaze as she stepped closer. "I did some of it. My friends, they did some of it. There is no way that alone, though, I could have opened the kingdoms. That, I imagine, was my mother. You see, Grimm, you can write about a mother's love, but that love will always be stronger than any words you can put on a page.
"There is no way that alone," Cinderella continued against Grimm's wishes. "I would feel unaffected by the Gulf's effects, as I do now, as I did before. Without Norco and Togo, whom it is clear to me you did not create..."
Breath catching at the mention of the two strange creatures, Grimm looked for them around the clearing, exhaling in relief when he saw them nowhere.
"We would have passed a terrible first night in the forest. It seems to me, someone with power has been on my side from the very start. Knowingly or not. If I am wrong about that, I suspect I shall suffer the consequence, but if I am right..." Cinderella paused, and Grimm could not read her expression, the strange amusement upon her face mixed with rage. "Then I. Can trust. The queen. And we shall all be free."
Front of his vest seized, Grimm had no time to react as Cinderella swung him to the Gulf floor. Staggering back to his feet, he nodded for Queen Ino to act, for despite Cinderella's erroneous belief, he had the advantage of fact. When the queen created the spell, he was right at her side, helping pen the perfect ending.
Dagger twirled upon skilled fingers, Queen Ino hurled it toward him, and the blade pierced Grimm's chest, stopping his heart in an instant.
Glancing down at the decorative handle, Grimm let forth a hoot of joyous delight at how the queen had fooled Cinderella. She drew his blood with precision, as she promised she would, and now he need only to pull the blade from his own chest and bury it into Cinderella's, where it would not kill her, but change her. A most wicked spell, he admitted. For, when his blood flowed through Cinderella's body, she would feel his desire, adopt it as her own, want what he wanted for her, conform to his plan.
Greedy fingers closing around the dagger, Grimm felt strength fail him. His tug upon the hilt weak, the dagger slid only a fraction in his chest, causing a flare of pain he was not supposed to feel. Lifting his eyes to Queen Ino, he stumbled forward slightly, bubbles rising through him.
"I will want what you want?" Cinderella stepped into his path as Grimm bowed beneath the pain. "How would you make that happen? Some sort of blood magic?" she queried. Grimm looked up, tried to see her, but her face fell
into shadow. "Like, perhaps, your blood entering my veins? What would happen, Grimm, if my blood was upon the blade first?"
"No," Grimm whispered, suddenly aware of the Gulf's chill, as he shoved Cinderella out of the way to cast his angry gaze to the queen. "No! She was to want what I want!"
Argument was futile, though, he knew, for he had stood with the queen to pen the perfect ending, and had been quite adamant that the spell be irreversible. Watching those the queen had rallied to the fight release their captives, Grimm realized he did not want to argue. He wanted what Cinderella wanted. He wanted them to feel, to exist beyond him, to find their own paths through his world.
He wanted his creations to be free.
Yet, another part of him struggled against those desires, holding tightly to the legacy he had so worked so hard to create. Hands closing around the dagger's handle, he made a last attempt to pull it free, and when Cinderella rushed up to him, hand on the hilt driving the dagger deeper, he cried tears of joy, for she was free enough to end him, and it was everything he wanted for her.
"The others," he whispered, hands clutching Cinderella's on the dagger. "They have been erased. They are no more. They will die with me."
Cinderella's eyes growing distraught at the declaration, Grimm felt like a father as he patted her shoulder in comfort.
"No," she uttered. "There must be a way..."
"I am sorry," he whispered, feeling all energy leave him.
The ground shaking, Grimm hissed as they stumbled together, the dagger cutting deeper into his chest. "It hurts," he said, but Cinderella paid no mind to his pain. She looked only toward his end, which, he thought, was fair.
Her eyes scanning the sky as a shadow fell over the whole of the Gulf, she dropped her gaze to his once more. "Perhaps, an effective form of mining," she uttered, ripping the dagger from Grimm's chest and a howl of pain from his throat.
The bloodied hand of the queen rose, and Cinderella flew backward out of the way, before a violent wind sent all his creations tumbling. At the sound of breaking limbs, Grimm glanced up to see a mammoth fist bearing down upon him and had only the time to smile.
· · ·
Screams coming from everywhere, Cinderella collided with bodies mid-air, feeling the earth move beneath her as she finally skidded to a stop. "Rapunzel?" she called, echoing the panic she heard in numerous other voices around her.
"I am here." A gentle hand moved across Cinderella's waist as Rapunzel lifted her head beside her.
Sitting up at once, Cinderella tugged Rapunzel into her arms, the solid feel of her assuring Cinderella they were both still in existence, as, behind Rapunzel, Queen Ino stirred to push her hair back from her face, leaving an inadvertent trail of blood against her cheek.
"Marlinchen!" Christophe cried out suddenly, pushing off the ground and running full-force into a young woman with darker hair, but the same fair complexion and eyes, who received the near attack with a tearful smile.
"Christophe," she said.
"Father!" Christophe shouted again, and a man rushed to them, wrapping them both up tightly.
"Sawyer." A familiar face appeared above him, hand falling tenderly upon his shoulder, and, whirling, Sawyer jumped to his feet.
"Rhian!" He grabbed the queen of Ceres in a hug.
Amazed gaze moving around the clearing, Cinderella saw more people she knew. Stace's grandmother, and, Cinderella assumed, the girl's missing mother cried as they hugged her, and Ruth held George tightly against her side as she watched their believed betrayer approach.
"Oh, Ruth." King Balten went to his knees before them, removing his crown as if it was of little importance in the face of his wife and son. "I have searched everywhere for you, always praying I would find you. Is this my son, George?"
Eyes casting about in fear, Ruth's panic eased when she saw Cinderella and Rapunzel.
"It is all right, Ruth," Rapunzel assured her. "He does not mean you harm."
Trusting Rapunzel more than her husband, Ruth at last allowed King Balten her hand, which he pressed tearfully to his lips.
Feeling the queen move again beside them, Cinderella watched her retrieve her dagger from where the blade was buried nearby in the earth, residual fear radiating through her as the queen wiped the blade upon her fine skirts.
"Do you still desire to kill us?" she asked, and the queen's mouth quirked at once.
"I have expended my energy, it seems," she returned. "Perhaps, killing you will wait for another day, Love."
If not for the sly gaze that accompanied the statement, and the queen sliding the dagger back into its sheath, it might have sounded a threat.
"How did you know this would work?" Cinderella questioned.
"The magic is strong," Queen Ino declared, though the fact did not seem terribly pleasing to her. "Blood has much power. With Snow White's, I could shield Grimm's eyes so he did not see me changing his story, right there in his own library." She smirked with some pleasure. "With yours, I could change a man's heart. Your heart beats strong and pure, Cinderella. That is your beauty."
The queen's eyes uncommonly gentle upon her, Cinderella remembered hearing similar words once before, and turned her attention to the throng of bodies.
"Where is Caratasa?" she whispered, but the sound of the brigade rushing in drowned out any answer, as King Balten's guard at last arrived with additional troops.
"Ah, the cavalry," Queen Ino declared, rising to her feet and dusting herself off. "Late, as usual."
The crowd thinning around them, Cinderella stood, helping Rapunzel to her feet, and was met at once with a terrified shriek.
"Look out!" Snow White cried, and Cinderella moved to shield Rapunzel as the light of the sorceress' curse flew past them.
Striking Queen Ino with deadly accuracy, the queen gave a cry as she fell stiffly upon the ground.
"What do you think of my power now?" The sorceress made her approach, and King Balten's troop drew their bows, but the sorceress was undeterred, moving to stand over Queen Ino as she rolled to her knees and threw her head back, fingers digging into soft soil as an agonized howl carried from her throat. Body convulsing with the pain, she fell to her side, suffering an unseen affliction, and Snow White rushed to her, pulling the queen's head onto her lap.
"I did tell her I would show her my power." The sorceress grinned.
"She was not even looking at you! She had no chance!" Snow White cried.
"She freed us all," Cinderella added, lifting her gaze from the queen's writhing form to the sorceress, and the blackened smile dropped from the sorceress' lips.
"And I made her a martyr," she said, holding her hand out before them. "Rapunzel, would you like to come with Mummy?"
"No," Rapunzel replied, her anger trembling in Cinderella's ear.
"Come with me! It is not a choice!" the sorceress shouted, pointing her staff over Cinderella's shoulder.
Turning to block the sorceress' aim, Cinderella was trapped in the middle as Christophe, Sawyer and Jack came suddenly to her sides, their weapons drawn upon the sorceress as if they could do her any damage.
"I would rather die than go back with you!" Rapunzel replied.
Staff shifting, Cinderella stared at its round, wooden tip. Dull and benign in appearance, she knew it was dangerous in the secrets it harbored.
"And her?" the sorceress questioned. "Would you rather she die?"
Choked sob escaping Rapunzel's throat, Cinderella felt the shift of Rapunzel behind her, and held her in place.
"I would rather it," she replied.
"That can be arranged!" The sorceress glared at her with utmost loathing, utterances that made no sense falling from her lips, and Cinderella struggled with Rapunzel as she tried to push in front of her, trying at the same time not to trip over the dwarves suddenly at their feet.
An arrow flying past them, it struck the sorceress' shoulder, and, eyes flashing, she raised her staff to the king's army as a slew of well-aimed arrows poked into her like a hum
an pin cushion.
At the approach of hoof beats in greater number than before, the sorceress turned to the army that emerged on the other side of the Gulf, each arrow and blade aimed directly for her as they recognized the threat. Seeming to accept that she could not kill them all before someone took her head or the arm that threw the spells, the sorceress glanced back to Cinderella. "We shall meet again," she promised, going up in a cloud of gray smoke as the army closed in upon her, and, across the way, Prince Charming and Prince Alluring retreated with the others, uninterested in making enemies of an army.
"Snow White!" The man who rode center to the army jumped down from his steed and ran for her.
"Daddy!" Snow White returned, looking up, and Snow White's father burrowed through the people and dirt to pull his daughter into his arms, squeezing her so tightly Cinderella was sure it must hurt, but Snow White only looked happy to be found.
When the king turned his attention to his wife, the queen reached for him with surprising affection, and Cinderella realized at once how lonely it must have been for the queen. Her own life was devoid of affection, but the queen's was far worse. For Cinderella could hope for love to one day find her, as it had, but to fight the craving, the queen must have been forced to fight love at every turn.
"What happened?" the king asked, taking the trembling hand.
"The sorceress," Snow White sobbed, turning her eyes back to the queen. "Do not die," Snow White pleaded, pressing a kiss to the queen's blood-stained cheek. "Not now. Do not die now."
"You would have preferred it earlier, I should imagine," Queen Ino breathed.
"I never wanted you to die." Snow White shook her head.
"That is because," Queen Ino said softly, "You did not truly know me."
Approaching the queen's feet, Gurr towered over the dwarves, who had gathered with rapt curiosity.
"You..." The queen laughed lightly upon seeing him. "You were wise to flee. You saved your daughter a most horrible fate. I should say you were dealing with nothing short of a monster."
Taking an unsteady breath, the queen released it, and, even at a distance, it sounded like death. Her expression most serene, it was like Rapunzel's in the snowstorm, like her mother's the night she died, and Cinderella could not watch. Tears filling her eyes, she glanced away, gaze alighting on something she could not believe, but her heart could not deny.
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