✅️His Golden Princess

What to Fight for

Rumple's POV

Stumbling against a tree in the woods I hated not having magic to help me walk. I had gotten quite used to having it back in my life. But it hurts more to know that it has consumed the love of my life instead. She doesn't deserve to let it drag her down. "Merida: Don't think about running. With that limp, you wouldn't make it 10 feet. Pick up the bloody sword and let's make a hero of you."

I stutter to the curly red headed girl. "But I-I can barely stand, much less fight someone."

She drops her sword looking around until she found a tree limb she cut making me a walking stick. "Now you can stand. All a man needs is a sword and one good hand. You've got both, so pick it up."

"Look, t-this is useless. If she wants me to pull Excalibur, then... then let me try. When I fail, she can move on." I scoff when she knocks the sword from my other hand.

Merida rolls her eyes at me. "When you fail, there's no moving on. You turn to dust."

Shaking my head I didn't understand why my wife was so concerned with pulling a sword from a rock. "What do you care what happens to me?"

"I don't! I care what happens to me! And my brothers and my kingdom... none of which I can help while this goes on. So whether you like it or not, you're going to get me home." She declares with a fiery tone.

Gripping the wooden stick in my hands if she wanted my help she would have a better chance at using Emma. "I can never be brave."

She muttered under her breath she pointed her sword tip in my direction. "Me whole fate rests in a coward's hands. It's really come to this? Yes, you will be. You have to."

"You have the wrong man." Dropping my gaze down to the dirt at my feet.

Merida stomps up forward drawing her sword around my head until I grunted getting knocked out by her hit dropping to the dust. "Well, if words won't drive you, we'll have to figure another way, now, won't we? There has to be something. And I'm gonna find it."

Astrid's POV

Sitting down my grilled cheese I watched the curly red head stomp into my house. Pushing my chair away from the kitchen table I raised a brow at her not seeing my husband wasn't with her. "Where is my husband. I told you to make him a hero not abandon him in the middle of the woods!"

"Don't get you kilt in a twist, dark princess. He won't fight with words. So I need your help in giving him something to fight for. What does he care about besides you?" She whipped her head around grumbling at me.

Tapping my fingers on the table there was very little Rumple cared about besides me. I couldn't see our baby as leverage since it wouldn't be born for a few months. "Well at first it was just his son Bealfire and his shawl but he's dead. Now there's me and our babe. That won't work...yet there is one other person who got close to his heart under weird circumstances."

"Does he have another weakness or not?" She stomped her boot on the wooden floor getting frustrated.

Raising my hand I froze her in her place with my magic where she grunted watching me rise to my feet. Holding my hand so she couldn't move I waved my other hand revealing my dagger necklace that hangs from my fingers. "There is one girl whose name is Belle, but we will need her for something else. As for right now..." Reaching inside my chest I sat the necklace down on the table drawing out my half of heart.

"How can you survive with only half a heart?" The Scottish girl asked me.

Placing my heart in her hands once I unfreeze her body I slipped the necklace around her neck too. "It's a long story that isn't important right now. When you see him show him the necklace first and if that doesn't work show him the heart." Waving my hand I transported her back to my husband knowing that one of those objects would trigger him.

Rumple's POV

Blinking my eyes open once more I saw that it was nightfall right before a sword was pointed into my throat making me gasp at the red head being back in front of me. "Well. Glad to see the bears didn't get ya."

"Please. Please. I-I... I can't fight." I gulped when she cut the ropes on my wrists tossing me a sword once more.

Merida shouts at me swinging her sword in her hands. "No. You won't fight. Big difference. You know, my father used to say, "if you want a lad to fight, give him something to fight for."

"W-what are you doing?" Pressing my back against the tree trunk she pressed the blade tip to my throat making me nervous of what she was about to do next.

Merida reached into her dress showing me a necklace that I recognized clearly. "Oh. Reminding you what you have to fight for." The tiny necklace was a little rusted but the shape of the dagger was still clear as day.

"Where did you get that?" I asked her leaning forward trying to grab it but she rose to her feet quickly.

She held it on the tip of her finger taunting me. "Oh, means something to you, doesn't it? Oh! If you want it, you're gonna have to fight me for it."

Attempting to get to my feet I grabbed the sword throwing the necklace almost into my reach. But she swung her sword knocking mine from my hands when I went to grab the jewelry. "Urgh...No, please. Please don't. Don't. Ohh!"

Merida teased me by hanging the necklace on a high tree branch. "So, what happened? Did your golden princess see the yellow-bellied man you really are? I bet you she did, didn't she. Ohh! That had to sting!" She takes a swing at me while I stumble back to the red trying to grab it until she calls out to me again. "I didn't believe that piece of jewelry would do you any daft good. I suppose that is why she gave me this."

Whipping my head around I shuttered seeing a beating red heart in her freehand. I stumbled forward collapsing onto the dirt, eyeing her beating heart. "How dare you take that. She wouldn't have given it to you!"

"Actually she did. She said that these two things would get you to become a hero. Now I think I understand why the heart is valuable since she has my own hostage and won't let me live of my own free will. Now if you don't want me to hurt her I suggest you start acting like a hero." She spat swinging her sword when I reached for mine on the ground blocking her hit for the first time. "Oh! Did you feel that?""

"Feel what?" I questioned her shifting my gaze quickly onto her heart seeing that there was a flickering of black in the center that was new to me. It must have been from when she first decided to use dark magic.

Merida pushed me back lowering her weapon seeing the heart disappear in a puff of red smoke. She plucked the necklace, tossing the fragile jewelry into my chest. "That swing right there! You weren't thinking of yourself or the limp. You were thinking of her. That was an act of true bravery. Ready to try again? Eh? Eh?""

"I won't face my wife...I won't hurt...I can't hurt..." I sniffled through tears clutching the necklace in my fingers. The sword lay at my feet where I looked up at her. "I can't protect my wife from what the darkness wants. I will always be a coward even if I love her with everything else that I am."

Merida bent down on a knee raising my chin with the tip of her blade. "That wee lass is pregnant with your child. My father would say to always fight for your family. If not for your wife then do it for the baby." She yanked me to my feet leaving me out of a small campsite where I just slept with the necklace pressed against my chest.

Comments really appreciated ❤️ sorry not much of Astrid or Astrid and Rumple together in this chapter