Disclaimer: All the characters in this FanFiction belong to Marvel and are used without their permission and not to make me a profit. This piece of writing is my original work and in the case of it being archived, I would appreciate if it would not be changed or maimed. I would also like to be credited. This story has a rating of U and is generally syrupy and sweet. It is also a fairytale set in another reality. As you may know by now, I am incapable of writing hard-core, serious' works. I make no apologies for it. It's just the way I am. Enjoy and send your comments to moi at [email protected]!

RogueStar

"Daughter?" A middle-aged man stepped into the small house, "Daughter? A parcel has arrived for you. I believe it is your wedding dress."
"Go away." She looked up from her book, "Ah ain't goin' through with it."
"How can you be so selfish?" He pulled the book away from her roughly, flinging it onto the floor, "The safety of the whole village depends on you, yet you put your happiness above everything else."
"Daddy . . . you don't understand. Ah can't."
"Why?" He asked, "You are a single woman of marrigeable age - there are no legal barriers to your betrothal."
"Ah ain't single."
"Stop pinning your hopes on that . . . that . . . ." He flung up his hands in
exasperation, "rogue highwayman. Probably been killed by one of the good Mage's guards by now."
She smiled thinly, "Th' Mage is th' only one who is going ta end up dead."
"Hush, child. It's treason to speak like that."
"So what?! Ah'd rather be dead than live as his wife."
"Come. See your wedding dress. Nancy tells me that it is fit for a princess."
"Okay." She stood, "But it feels more like Ah'm going ta be wearin' it ta my funeral."
"Better that than the funeral of the entire village."
"Yeah. Much better." She sighed, "Much better . . . . Lawd, Remy, Ah hope you come through foh me . . . ."

~

"Dis be no good." The highwayman swung himself off the horse, "We've passed dis tree six times already. I t'ought ya said ya knew de way."
"I also recall saying that the journey would not be easy."
"Oui." Remy crossed his arms, leaning against the offending foliage, "So? Are we lost?"
"No." She bent over some broken twigs, "I believe we are trapped."
"Trapped, chere?" He raised an eyebrow, "Don' see no bars."
"Trapped in time."
"Quoi? Dat's impossible."
[What?]
"Not if we are where I suspect we are."
"Which is?"
"The forest of the Lady Belladonna."
"Sounds like a plant." He snorted.
"Not quite." The sorceress straightened, "She is both exceptionally beautiful and exceptionally cruel. Fond of playing games with the lives of mortals to alleviate her own immortal boredom."
"Now, my dear Ororo, is dat any fair introduction?"
Her voice was as sweet and as cloying as the scent of roses which accompanied her. A scent somehow suggestive of rot, as if the flowers were slowly decaying.
"Belladonna."
The woman was suddenly there, smiling humorlessly. She was even more beautiful than Ororo had said. Her long golden hair cascaded down to a slender waist and her violet eyes shone with malice and love.
"And I see ya are not alone?"
As she stepped closer to Remy, the roses became suffocating.
"Leave us, Belladonna. He will be yours in neither body nor soul."
She ignored the remark.
"Can ya not speak f'r yaself?"
" Course I c'n - I usually jus' don' talk t'snakes."
She laughed - a sound similar to a harp being played by a beginner. Beautiful and grating all at once.
"I see she has already poisoned ya mind against me." Her smile grew more brilliant, "I am not half de t'ings dat she would want ya t'believe."
"Don' see why Ororo would lie t'me?"
"She is jealous. She always has been jealous." Belladonna purred, "Caught up in her musty books and dusty magic in her ramshackle house, never living life except by proxy; while I *am* life. I embody de spirit of de earth."
"Do not listen to her!" Ororo cautioned, "She may be life, but she is also
death."
The woman frowned, "But, no, I sense dat it is not de words o' Ororo ya be listenin' t' - but de words o' ya own heart. Perhaps if I take a form more pleasin' t'ya."
The air shimmered around her, the scent of roses flared into a coruscating blaze of perfume, the sky turned dark.
"Now is our chance . . . ." The sorceress tugged at his arm, "While she is distracted . . . ."
"Wait." Remy said.
"You do not understand what a danger she poses." She pleaded.
"Tough luck, Ororo. It looks like y'all has lost."
Belladonna had disappeared to be replaced by a slender woman who was both beautiful and familiar. Silk had changed to homespun. Blue eyes were green but no less malevolent. Golden hair was brown with a single streak of white.
"Sabrina." He whispered.
"I can promise you that that is not the woman you love." Ororo said,
"Merely another of Belladonna's tricks."
"Don't listen ta her, lovah." The doppelganger begged, "It is me. Y'all knows that it is."
"Ororo - dis is jus' crazy enough t'be true." He turned to the sorceress, "It could be her. It could."
"Which is precisely what she wants you to think. This is not your fiancee."
Tears fell down the other woman's face, "Ah've come so far an' you don't believe me. How can Ah make you believe that it is me, not *her*?"
"Shhh, cherie." He put his arms around her, "I believe dat it's ya, if it helps."
"I had hoped it would not come to this . . . ." Ororo sighed, gathering her power. She released it in a white hot sphere of energy which cleared the air of its sickly fragrance as it arched through the air like a comet.

The scent of rotting flesh, of funeral pyres, of death. The wails of the dead. Death-pale figures. Kings. Princes. Warriors. Peasants.
"No." The woman cried, "Not them."
Hands grasping, snatching, tearing, Eyes wild with hate and fear. Feet marching inexorably towards her. A single chant, repeated over and over again, through starved lips.
"La Belle Dame sans merci, thee hath in thrall. La Belle Dame sans merci, thee hath in thrall."
"Non." She screamed, illusion shedding itself like a snakeskin.
"Witch." Remy's eyes were cold as he looked at her, "Would run ya through m'self, if I didn' t'ink dat dese people deserved deir revenge more'n I did."
"Please . . . do not leave me to dem. Dey'll kill me." Belladonna pleaded, terrified.
The highwayman folded his arms across his chest.
"An' why d'ya t'ink dat ya deserve t'live?"
"I c'n help ya." She said, suddenly crafty. "I know more magic dan dat charlatan ever be able t'learn. Besides which ya never will escape unless I wan' ya to - dis is my forest, rappellez?"
"She has a point, Remy." Ororo sounded tired, "Very well, Bella. I however do not see why you need us if you are as powerful as you claim."
"Dese people were my victims - dey are beyond my powers now." She sighed, "Revenge has a strange magic o' its own. Protects ya from de one ya would kill."
"How are we to vanquish these spectres?" Ororo asked.
"Simple." A smile, glimmer-quick and fox-sly, crept across her face. "What's de one t'ing dat death fears?"
"Life?" The sorceress guessed.
"Non." Her violet eyes were impatient, "Death solves de riddle of life - it don' fear somet'ing it can understand."
"Love." Remy said, quietly, " Cause it lives beyond the grave."
"Exactly."
"I understand." He stepped forward, closer to the witch. "Do it."
She smiled, "Are ya sure ya trust me?"
"Don' have much choice?"
"Hurt him and I shall . . . ." Ororo threatened.
"I shan't." Belladonna placed a cold hand on his chest over his heart.
Remy gasped as he felt the tendrils of her power entwine themselves in his psyche like a gigantic parasite, bleeding him dry infinitely slowly. Her voice when she began to chant was slow and rhythmic:
"Life fleeting ends its dance. And I take that away. Night breaking ends the light. And I take that day. Months falling cold into winter. And I take that May. Love living beyond dusty urn. And I take that away. Esrep sids senk radfos ecrof! Tidnam moci evo lyb!"
The air shone with sudden brilliance, increasing in intensity until it seemed as if it could become no brighter. The sweet smell of death vanished, replaced by one of ozone. When Ororo finally looked up, the glade was deserted, save for some bleached bones lying on the green grass.
"Remy?!" She asked, looking around for the young man. "Remy?! Where are you!?"
"He is no longer among us." Belladonna's face was serene.
"What do you mean, witch?"
"I mean dat de incantation required one life for a life, one death for a death."
"He did not know that. That is unfair."
"Oh, relax." The woman stretched, "At least, *my* problems have been sorted out."
"No, they have not." Ororo was furious, "There must be a way to get him back!"
"Dere is one." Belladonna said, "An ol' prophecy dat speaks o' a way t'save de soul o' one who has died."
"How does it go?" She asked urgently.
Belle's brow furrowed in concentration, "Man may go beneath . . . de . . ground t'meet his master, Death. . . . Man . . . may go where . . . Death has trod . . . t'challenge as . . . Scherezade, he who reigns beneath de . . . sod . . . t'spare a mortal's breath." She smiled, "Dere!"
"Well and good, but how do we go beneath the ground'?"
"Dat, my dear Ororo, is easier dan it sounds." Belladonna paused, realising something, "'We'?Ya t'ink I'm comin' wit' ya?"
"You got him into this current predicament, you will extricate him from it."
"Fine." She shrugged, "I'm bored anyway - dis might provide some excitement."
"So? How do we go beneath the ground'?"
Belladonna raised a slender eyebrow, "Ya sure ain't very good at de whole omniscient t'ing, are ya?"
"Save the taunts for later. There is too much at stake for our own personal enmity to hamper us."
"De Well o' Souls. It be a few leagues from here but we c'n be dere by nightfall."
"Very well. Let us go." The sorceress began walking, then stopped, turning to look at the witch, "We need to work together for this mission to succeed. Truce?"
"Truce!" Belladonna smiled, hand behind her back. "Let's go- we got a long way t'go and not much time t'go dere."
And their footsteps through the forest were very quiet as they walked away, almost as if both of them wished to surprise the other . . . .

~

"Stupid Gramayre." Jubilation turned over another thick, yellow page, "Stay and study your Gramayre while I have all the fun, Jubilation'. Be a good apprentice, Jubilation.' Yeah, right!"
She sighed, reading the runes out loud to herself, "Evil, evol, eval. . . . but I am sure that Ororo wouldn't object toooooo much if I came along. In fact, she'd probably welcome the company. Besides which, it's probably my duty as an apprentice to be alongside her."
She closed the thick, leather book, suddenly decisive. "Watch out, Magnus, Jubilation Lee is on her way!"

~

To be continued . . . .
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1. La Belle Dame sans merci comes from a Keats ballad as do the death-pale figures. The name means the beautiful woman without mercy\thanks (He doesn't put an article in the line - la merci is mercy, merci is thanks.). Fanfic and english poetry? Yes!
2. Rappellez? - You remember?
3. The prophecy is from King's Quest VI - a brilliant game indeed!
4. If anyone is interested in reading the full Keats ballad I am happy to type it out and e-mail it for them!

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