Chapter Text
Belle gritted her teeth as she painstakingly lowered herself down the stone side of her tower, her palms sweaty against the makeshift rope made of her bedding. Her leather trousers, linen tunic, and burgundy jerkin kept the worst of the chill autumn air at bay as she neared the ground, her pack swinging on her back with every move.
Once her feet were on solid ground, she took off at an immediate run, smiling to herself as she heard the shrieks of her ladies-in-waiting as they discovered her absence. Hurrying to the stable, she found Philippe already saddled and ready, his great hooves stomping in anticipation of a ride. She slipped a silver penny into the grinning stable boy’s waiting palm, mounted her horse, and was off. Philippe’s hooves kicked up a swirling cloud of dust in their wake.
For nearly an hour Belle rode, following the worn dirt trail through the field and into the Enchanted Forest. Further she rode, until she reached a familiar fork in the road.
She considered her options. To her right was a bright, sunlit path, which led to a fragrant, flower-filled clearing. The clearing boasted a large tree overgrown with the softest moss Belle had ever felt, so pillow-soft that she’d spent many an afternoon nestled under its shade, losing herself in a book. And to the left… a dark path, sunlight choked off by overgrown vegetation. Even the path itself was being reclaimed by the forest, by shrubs and ferns and roots jutting up from the ground, threatening to trip an unwary foot.
Belle had never been down the left-hand path. Not for any lack of interest, but because the Blue Fairy had warned her father that a great evil, an impenetrable darkness, lurked at the end of that road. Rheul Gorm’s face had held all the sobriety of the grave when she’d warned Belle never to traverse the darkened left-hand path.
For the first time since she’d heard about the darkness lying in wait at the edge of her kingdom years ago, Belle tugged Philippe’s reins left. The great draft horse resisted, tried to lead her down to the familiar clearing with the crystal-clear spring and the sweet grass he enjoyed.
“Come on, Philippe,” Belle cajoled, urging him toward the obscured, plant-choked path. “Where’s your sense of adventure?”
Philippe snorted, as if to say he was perfectly happy with no sense of adventure, thank you very much, but allowed himself to be guided to the less desirable path. Slowly they went, Philippe picking his steps carefully over protruding rocks and roots on the overgrown, abandoned trail. His ears remained pricked, turning left and right as if he was afraid of some evil lurking beyond every shrug or tree stump.
They traveled for another thirty minutes that way. The very forest seemed to grow closer and closer around them. Belle fancied that the trees themselves seemed to reach grasping hands out toward them, trying to snag a stray flap of Belle’s cloak to keep her from moving forward.
Just when the trees grew so oppressively, suffocatingly close that Belle was considering turning back, the road suddenly opened up. Her face lit up in delight as she found herself in a peaceful, sunlit clearing, perfectly circular in shape. Sweet-smelling grasses and flowers grew in a perfect ring, in the middle of which was a flawlessly round lake. And at the lake’s center was a circular islet with a round stone tower that jutted up toward the sky.
She gazed at the clearing consideringly. It certainly didn’t look like the sort of place that housed a great evil. Everything looked… orderly. Flawle no ss, even.
She peered closer. Yes, flawless - too flawless. Even the flowers themselves were sorted by color in concentric rings, not a single petal out of place. This entire place was orderly to the point of peculiarity. Dismounting her horse, Belle reached out to touch a flower, half-expecting to feel artificial silk petals at her fingertips. But no - it was real.
Either this place was maintained by the kingdom’s most obsessive gardener… or something unnatural was afoot here.
With caution in her every step, Belle circled around the small lake, one hand on the grip of the small silver dagger she carried at her belt. Philippe, ears still pricked warily, grazed on a patch of grass.
When she reached the far side of the lake, Belle caught sight of a small, rickety canoe on the shore. Already, her imagination buzzed with the possibilities. A tower on an island at the center of a lake, said to house a great evil. And a single boat as the only way on or off the island.
She should go no further, she knew. She should turn around, mount her horse, and ride back the way they came. But as her mother used to say, her curiosity always got the better of her. So she climbed into the canoe and paddled toward the islet at the lake’s center.
The small island was as flawlessly formed as the rest of the clearing, with a thin strip of sand ringing the verdant grass growing around the stone tower. Climbing out of the canoe, Belle approached the tower’s one wooden door uncertainly. After all, it was one thing to explore a sunny lake clearing; barging into a tower that might be someone’s home - someone who had taken great pains to go undisturbed - was another.
Then again… the canoe had been beached on the lake shore. Not the island at the center. Didn’t that imply that whoever came to this tower was a visitor, and not a resident?
Still, she knocked on the door, just to be safe. From the window at the top of the tower came a strange, wordless, garbled cry.
Well… perhaps “cry” was the wrong word. “Squawk” might be more accurate.
Whatever it was, it was clear that someone was up there. Someone who might need her help. Someone stranded on this island, with the boat kept on the far shore. What sort of a person would she be if she ignored a person in trouble?
Pushing the door open, she poked her head inside. The tower was a dark, lightless place, empty but for a spiraling staircase leading to a room at the top.
“Hello?” she called cautiously. “Is… is anyone here?”
A strange, sonorous wail echoed down from the chamber above. Belle’s indecision vanished like a pricked soap bubble. Steeling her resolve, she took the stairs at a quick pace. When she reached the door at the top, she pushed it open… and paused.
The room was perfectly circular, unsurprisingly. There was an open window in each of the four cardinal directions. At the base of each window was a metal hoop, and attached to each hoop was a glittering, silvery-blue chain, no thicker than her boot laces.
And standing in the perfect center of the room, with all four chains tied to a silver collar around its neck… was a black swan.
Belle was no fool. She recognized the glow of the Blue Fairy’s magic in the chains holding the elegant creature prisoner. This swan must be the evil of which she’d spoken.
Still, her heart ached for the bird, as it would for anyone held so callously captive. With all four chains stretched taut, the swan was forced into a constant standing position, not allowed to rest itself on the cold stone floor. The metal manacle around its neck had rubbed many of its iridescent black feathers away, exposing skin that appeared more greenish than the normal pinkish gray she’d expect. There was no food, no water, no soft bedding to be seen in the empty room.
Perhaps this evil had no need of food or drink. But all things needed and deserved kindness. Even the “evil” ones.
In some cases, especially the evil ones.
Truly, Belle was unsurprised at the Blue Fairy’s cruelty. She’d long seen a he’d, frigid wall of ice underneath Rheul Gorm’s goodly facade, one that the rest of the kingdom seemed blind to. That a force of good could imprison anyone without even the freedom to move or the comfort of a blanket on the floor… it was monstrous. Even convicted murderers were treated with more decency back home.
That decided her. Drawing the knife at her belt, she approached the black swan.
The bird, apparently, thought her a threat; drawing itself to its full height, it flapped its wings and hissed angrily. Its eyes were riveted to the blade in her hand.
“Oh, hush,” she scolded, holding the knife with its short, three-inch blade for the swan’s perusal. “I’m not going to hurt you. This knife should cut through your bonds.”
The swan subsided, ruffling its feathers as it folded its wings at its back. It tilted its head at her curiously, as if trying to decide whether it could trust her. Eventually, it nodded.
“So you can understand me,” Belle realized. When it nodded again, she couldn’t stop a triumphant giggle from bursting past her lips. “Alright then. As I was saying - this blade is cold iron. It neutralizes fairy magic.”
The swan made an inquisitive squawk.
“Let me guess: you’re wondering why I’d keep something to neutralize a good fairy’s magic?” The swan nodded again. “Let’s just say that I know firsthand that there are times when evil can be right and good can be wrong.” The swan’s eyes - large, expressive, and a shade of amber she’d never seen on a swan before - watched her assessingly. Under its piercing gaze, she suddenly felt small and insignificant. Awkwardly, she cleared her throat. “Anyway, I’ll have you out in a minute, Mr. Swan. Or… are you a Miss Swan?”
A deep, rhythmic trumpeting issued from the swan’s beak - a beak that should have been scarlet, but was a mottled grayish-gold. The cadence of it sounded familiar, almost like…
“Are… are you laughing at me?” she demanded.
Another nod.
With a roll of her eyes, she knelt beside the insufferable creature and began sawing her blade through the first chain. One by one, she cut through the thin, silvery bonds, the blade sliding through like a hot knife through freshly-churned butter.
As the knife cut through the last of the four chains, three things happened at once. The swan trumpeted, batting Belle with its powerful black wings. The knife slipped, the blade sinking into Belle’s palm and wetting the swan’s silver collar with her blood. And the room lit up with a brilliant flash of silvery-blue light.
Gradually, the light faded, revealing the diminutive form of the Blue Fairy. Her face, normally placid to the point of apathy, was a mask of fury.
“Foolish girl! What have you done?” the fairy demanded. Without waiting for an answer, she summoned a glittering blue wand from thin air. Brandishing it at the swan, she shot a beam of pure magic at the creature.
To the surprise of everyone in the room, the magic deflected off the silver collar, fizzling out like a guttering candle. The swan didn’t waste a single second; with a triumphant call, it burst through the nearest window, flying off into the clear blue sky.
In the blink of an eye, the Blue Fairy grew to human size. She rounded on Belle angrily. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” she snapped.
Belle raised her chin proudly. “I released a creature that was being held in inhumane conditions, as any decent person would.”
“If the conditions of imprisonment were inhumane, it’s because the prisoner is inhuman!” Bright spots of red bloomed angrily on the Blue Fairy’s cheeks. “Because of your misplaced kindness, the Dark One has been unleashed on the land once more!”
The blood drained from Belle’s cheeks. The Dark One. The scourge of the ten kingdoms. The villain in bedtime stories her mother had told her as a child. Magic and malice wrapped in an enigma unknown even to her oldest books.
She’d never heard that the Dark One was a swan, though.
She swallowed down her apprehension, raising her chin stubbornly. “Kindness is never misplaced,” she insisted, “and cruelty only begets more cruelty. I’d think a good fairy would know that.”
The fairy’s mouth opened and closed a few times, but no sound came out. Eventually she pursed her lips in silence.
Belle nodded, her suspicions confirmed. The Blue Fairy was far more concerned with upholding her own ideal of order than she was with showing compassion and mercy to those who might need it.
“So why aren’t you going after it?” she asked. “You caught the Dark One once; surely you can do it again.”
“Foolish girl,” Rheul Gorm said a second time. She snatched Belle’s left wrist in an iron grip, not seeming to notice when Belle tightened her right hand’s grip on her cold iron dagger. Holding the left hand aloft, Blue pointed to the still bleeding cut on Belle’s palm. “Through the power of blood and cold iron, the blessing I placed upon the Dark One is now bound to you. I can neither alter nor break it.” Shrinking down to her usual diminutive size, the Blue Fairy regarded Belle gravely. “For better or worse, the fate of the entire land is in your naive hands.”
As the fairy vanished in a flash of glittering light, Belle chewed anxiously on her lower lip. The Dark One. The Dark One was loose upon the lands. Because of her. Belle remembered with a shiver all of the tales she’d been told of the Dark One when she was a child: bone-chilling stories of a malevolent beast who stole away any willful princesses who didn’t mind her governess or finish her greens. Tales of being forced to spin straw into gold until her fingers bled, of her skin being ripped from her bones and fashioned into his clothes when she inevitably failed.
Belle had told the Blue Fairy that kindness was never misplaced, and she believed that still. But if her kindness freed a being who ripped children from their loving parents… then the Dark One’s deeds would be her responsibility. Any death and devastation left in his wake would be her fault.
She didn’t regret showing mercy to a creature robbed of freedom and basic decency. Only time would tell whether others would suffer for her kindness.
As it turned out, she wasn’t left wondering for long. Too disturbed by the morning’s events to enjoy her book, she returned to the castle, where her father was furious with her for sneaking off again. She accepted his lecture without complaint, her troubled thoughts drowning out every last word. Even enduring the company of her would-be suitor, Gaston, wasn’t as agonizingly dull as usual. How could she possibly be bored by droning, tedious tales of his latest hunt when her mind conjured up countless dreadful phantasms of the horror she’d unleashed?
Finally, exhausted from the toll her heavy thoughts took, she retired to her bedchamber early. When her hair was brushed and plaited in a braid down her back, she changed into a pale blue silken nightgown and curled up in bed with her favorite book.
The sun just barely touched the rim of the horizon when a tapping came at her window. Glancing up, she saw a large, dark shape through the murky glass.
Belle rolled her eyes. Gaston seemed to think it was charming to climb the tower to her window at night and try to cajole his way into her bedchamber. No matter how many times she rebuffed him, he still tried night after night to get her to unlatch her window and let him in.
Still, usually he was smart enough to wait until after dark. It wasn’t like him to come when it was still light enough to be seen.
“Go away,” she called irritably.
There was a pause, and then again - tap tap tap.
“I mean it, Gaston! I’m in no mood!” A third set of taps sounded against the glass. Belle grabbed a nearby throw pillow and, appropriately enough, threw it at the window. “Go away, or I’ll tell Papa just how chivalrous you are to his maiden daughter!”
The dark shape at the window shifted, spreading into… wings? The light from the setting sun hit the glass in such a way that she could see the delicate curve of a black swan’s neck, see the sharpness of its gray-gold beak as it hit the window.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
No ordinary swan would rap on her window with such restraint. There could be no doubt: the Dark One had found her, and he was requesting entry to her bedchamber.
Her first instinct was to ignore it and hope he went away. Her second was to call for her guards. But… the Dark One was powerful - some said even more powerful than Rheul Gorm, though the Blue Fairy denied those rumors. He could have forced himself in if he meant her harm. He hadn’t. She had to believe that there was a reason for that.
Praying she wasn’t making a horrible mistake, Belle climbed out of her bed, padded across the room to the window, and threw it open. The swan came inside with a trumpet and a flutter of its wings.
For several long moments, the two of them simply watched each other warily. When the swan made no move toward her, she tentatively decided that it probably meant her no harm.
Probably.
Still, its strange, amber gaze was awfully unnerving. With a shrug, she took a step toward the door.
Immediately, the swan puffed up, extending its neck to a considerable height. It’s golden beak opened, and a hiss issued from its throat.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” she assured it. She gestured toward the door. “I was just going to go - “
It hissed again, flapping its wings in agitation.
“You… don’t want me to go?” she guessed. The swan nodded. “Okay. And if I stay… can you promise no harm will come to me? And my loved ones?”
The swan hesitated, then reluctantly shook its head.
Belle’s heart sank in her chest. So the swan did mean her harm, then. Oddly enough, the Dark One’s honesty was reassuring. He… she? It?… could have lied to her. Gaston certainly would have, and she wouldn’t rule out the Blue Fairy, either. But this evil creature told her the truth, even knowing it was a truth she didn’t want to hear.
“Well then,” she said, walking to her bed and perching on its edge, “perhaps there’s something I can do to change your mind.”
The two of them watched one another, the silence stretching awkwardly between them. Really, for an evil entity, the Dark One made for a handsome bird. His feathers weren’t the matte black she expected of a swan, but rather glossy and iridescent, like a raven’s. With his amber eyes and gold beak and feet, he cut a striking figure.
And then there was the collar still attached to his throat. It was silver, with a scalloped edge and black markings on it that might be writing.
Those strange eyes watched her just as closely, and Belle knew in her heart that the Dark One was measuring her inside and out. As the sun set and the shadows in her bedroom grew longer, so too did her unease grow.
When the last rays of the sun fell past the horizon, the swan was suddenly engulfed in a pillar of glittering, royal blue smoke. Belle yelped, scooting back on her bed. She fumbled blindly and reached for the first weapon she could find: the golden, three-pronged candelabrum she used to light her late-night reading.
Soon, the smoke cleared, revealing… a man. Or what might be a man. He was man-shaped, certainly, with a slight build only a few inches taller than her own. His hair was a riot of medium-brown, shoulder-length curls with graying at the temples. He was dressed from neck to toes in black: black silk shirt, black leather trousers and waistcoat, and a dramatic black cape made of the same iridescent feathers of the swan that had stood in his place only seconds ago.
If there was any doubt that this was the very same being, one look in his face dispelled it. His sharp, lined features were the very same shade of mottled gold as the swan’s beak and feet, and those large amber eyes looked at her with an identical, measuring look.
“Well, I’ll give the blue gnat credit: she knows I like to make an entrance,” the man quipped with an unnerving giggle.
Rising unsteadily to her feet, which sank into her feather mattress, Belle held the candelabrum like a talisman between her and the being before her. “You’re…” She swallowed hard. “You’re the Dark One.”
He sketched a bow, hands spread on either side of him. His sharp black claws stood out in sharp relief against his golden skin. “Rumpelstiltskin, at your service.”
“Are you?” Belle asked, not lowering her makeshift weapon. “You just said you plan to hurt me and my family. So how are you at my service, exactly?”
He waved a hand irritably, as if shooing a pesky insect. “Oh, that. Yes, yes, you and your loved ones will be harmed, but I never said I’d be the one doing the harming.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Forgive me if the distinction doesn’t instill a great deal of confidence.”
Rumpelstiltskin’s nose scrunched in irritation. “Oh… never mind that! I’m here to make a deal.”
Belle sniffed. “I’m not in the habit of making deals with people who threaten the people I love.”
He eyed her consideringly. “What if I gave you my word that no harm will befall you and yours in this world? All you have to do is one simple thing.”
Belle chewed her lower lip in thought. Really, she shouldn’t trust him. He was the Dark One, after all, with all the wicked trickery that entailed. How many stories had she heard as a girl of people who had been tricked into deals they didn’t understand? Women forced to give up their firstborn, children tricked into turning their own parents into lifeless marionettes.
But he’d been honest with her before, when he had no reason to be. That had to count for something. Didn’t it?
Thinking back to the stories she’d been told as a child, they all had a common theme. The Dark One always told the truth. But that truth wasn’t always what the hero of the story thought they heard.
If she was going to navigate a deal with the Dark One, she needed to scrutinize his every word.
“What about other worlds?” she asked slowly.
The grin on his face disappeared like a burst soap bubble. “Beg your pardon?”
“What about other worlds?” she repeated. “You said we wouldn’t be harmed in this world. There’s no reason to say that unless other worlds somehow factor into this.”
Rumplestiltskin raised a finger and opened his mouth as if to protest. After a moment, he tilted his head, seeming to reconsider. “Hmph. You’re much more clever than the people I usually deal with. Very well,” he conceded. “If you help me, no harm will come to you and yours in this world, and you’ll be under my protection, such as it is, in others - for as long as I know my own name. Are we agreed?”
It wasn’t perfect, Belle knew, but it was probably the best deal she could expect to make with one such as him.
Besides - she’d said just that day that kindness was never misplaced. She had to believe that was true. Even for the Dark One himself.
“Yes,” she said. “What do you need me to do?”
He gave an unnerving titter, and when he grinned, it revealed a row of crooked, blackened teeth. “Nothing you’ll object to, I’m sure. All I need you to do… is kiss your intended.”
Belle gaped at the Dark One. Finally, after all this time, the hand holding the candelabrum lowered. “My… intended?” she repeated.
Rumpelstiltskin waved a hand impatiently. “Yes, your intended. You know - tall, black-haired, hulking oaf without two bits of brain to rub together? Can’t string two sentences together unless they’re about himself or the beasts he hunts?”
She let out a most unladylike snort. “Gaston is not my intended. Nor will he ever be, no matter how he might wish it.”
Rumpelstiltskin seemed taken aback by that. “So… he’s not your True Love. Interesting. Though I’m sure I saw…”
Whatever he saw remained a mystery. Rumpelstiltskin trailed off and seemed to retreat within himself; his wide amber eyes took on a distant quality, and he began to pace the room restlessly, his thumb rubbing against the side of his index finger.
Belle regarded Rumpelstiltskin suspiciously. The Dark One, from what she knew from the limited knowledge available in her library, was incredibly powerful. He could cast any manner of spell on her to force her to do what he wanted. So why make deals instead?
And why a kiss? Rumpelstiltskin thought that Gaston was her True Love. And there was only one practical use for True Love’s Kiss.
“Am I cursed?” she asked.
The Dark One’s steps faltered. “I beg your pardon?”
“You want me to kiss my True Love. True Love’s Kiss can break any curse. So I assume I must be cursed,” she explained.
He waved her words away like a pesky fly. “Of course not, no. As you said, True Love’s Kiss can break any curse. Even one on someone else.”
“Then whose curse do you want me to break? And what sort of curse is it?”
He wagged a chiding finger at her with a titter. “That would be telling, dearie.”
“Tell me,” she insisted.
She was going to say more - to tell him that if he didn’t tell her whose curse she was to lift, she wouldn’t help him. But before she could say another word, he offered the information freely.
“My own,” he said, before pressing his lips together as though he hadn’t meant to speak. With a resigned sigh, he continued. “That glittering gnat placed a curse upon me. By day, I take the form of a swan. Only by night can I take my true form. You freed me from her tower, but the curse remains unbroken.”
Belle’s brows raised in understanding. “Well, if it makes you feel any better, True Love’s Kiss wouldn’t help you,” she offered. “You’re not cursed, you’re blessed. The Blue Fairy told me herself.”
“That rather complicates things,” he muttered to himself. Turning his strange, unnerving eyes upon her once more, he added, “I don’t suppose you’re a practitioner of dark magic.”
“Not at all,” she replied. She frowned. “But why would you need me? You’re the Dark One. Surely if you need dark magic, you can just…” She waved a hand vaguely.
“Obviously, if that were an option, I wouldn’t be here,” Rumplestiltskin snapped. He fingered the silver collar still wrapped around his throat. “The Blue Fairy managed to get her sticky little fingers on my - “ He cut himself off, eyeing Belle warily. Clearing his throat, he started over. “She bound my magic to the collar. Until the blessing is broken, I’m virtually powerless.”
“Another magic-user, then,” Belle suggested. “A genie, perhaps?”
“I never trust magic offered free of cost. The price is always more than you’re willing to pay.”
With a sinking feeling, Belle suggested the only other mage of any power she knew of. “They say the ruler of the next kingdom over is incredibly powerful. Some call her the Evil Queen.”
The Dark One wrinkled his nose, baring his stained, crooked teeth in distaste. “I’d cut out my own tongue before I went to Regina for help,” he retorted. “Besides, I sense powerful blood magic mixed with the fairy’s magic. The only one who can break Rheul Gorm’s blessing… is you.”
Belle nodded. The Blue Fairy had told her as much already. Still, she’d hoped the Dark One would have answers of his own. Not that she wanted him to break his curse… or rather, his blessing. Not if it meant harm coming to her family and friends.
But ignoring a suffering creature, even a so-called evil one, went against her very nature. It was why she’d once defended a young ogre against Gaston’s cruelty, and it was why she wouldn’t turn her back on Rumpelstiltskin now.
Placing the candelabrum back on her bedside table, she rose slowly to her feet. “Before I agree to help you,” she said, “answer one question: if the blessing stays unbroken, will harm still come to the people I love?”
Rumpelstiltskin’s lips thinned, and his strange amber eyes went shuttered and remote. Belle was sure he was going to refuse to answer.
But to her surprise, he spoke, every word seeming to be wrenched from his mouth against his will. “No,” he said through gritted teeth. “If I remain like this… your family will be unharmed.”
“So whatever the danger is, even if you’re not the one doing it, it involves you in some way,” Belle deduced. Reluctantly, Rumpelstiltskin nodded. Belle drew herself up to her full, not so considerable height. “Very well. Rumpelstiltskin, I propose a deal. I will do everything in my power to break the Blue Fairy’s hold on you. In exchange, every day from now until the spell is broken, you have to answer all of my questions, and you have to let me try to convince you to stop… whatever it is you’re doing at least once a day.”
It was a generous offer, Belle thought: securing her own doom and getting little to nothing in return. But true to the stories she’d heard, the Dark One was a deal maker, and every deal maker knew how to haggle.
“I’ll answer three questions a day, and you may try to convince me only once per day. Only for five minutes,” he added quickly before Belle could agree. “I won’t have you haranguing me for twelve hours straight and call it a single attempt.”
“I’ll agree to your terms, if you agree not to leave the castle grounds except in case of an emergency,” Belle compromised. “I need to know that you’re not hurting any innocent people.”
“Very well,” he agreed with a grim nod. “For as long as I’m under this spell, I’ll stay close and I won’t harm any innocent people. Deal?” he asked, extending one long-fingered, clawed hand.
Belle looked nervously at the proffered hand. The Dark One’s skin was a mottled green-gold, and scaled. She wondered how it would feel against hers. Would he be slimy, she wondered? Or rough, like the lizards in the forest outside the castle?
It didn’t matter, she told herself. No matter how beastly his exterior, he’d been surprisingly honest with her, and he made a deal with her readily. Grasping his hand in her own, she was surprised to find his touch warm and soft, his scales smooth under her fingers, not unlike a serpent.
“Deal,” she said, soft blue eyes meeting half-mad amber.