A Tale That Never Was [Book 1 of Selvina's Tale series]

Chapter 14: The Beauty...

"Selvina, what are you talking about?" Red asked, spreading her arms wide in bewilderment. "We have to stay here until Jolly Roger is repaired. We can't just go off and get ourselves in danger."

"We're not!" Selvina replied animatedly. Ever since returning to the inn, and after sleeping for only a few short hours, she couldn't stop thinking about what she had heard Frollo say about the bounty hunter and Belle. She had always loved the story of the beauty and the beast and she didn't want to sit around while it was going to be ruined by a bounty hunter. She knew it wasn't her business but she didn't want to sit around while it happened. She sat now at a table in her room with her friends discussing the possibility of doing something about it.

"How do you expect to act?" Jack asked. He had come to visit them all early in the morning and had walked into the discussion. Selvina was slightly upset with him as he hadn't told her what he had said he would tell her the night before. She had forgotten to ask him when they had walked back to the inn, her mind too busy dealing with the fact that a real version of beauty and the beast was happening around her. "What do you expect to accomplish, Selvy?"

"Don't call me that anymore," she said with a frown. "I don't know what I can do but I can at least warn both Belle and the beast that Artemian is coming for them. Belle will probably be in the most danger."

"Why do you say that?" Red asked.

"She comes to town sometimes, according to what I heard last night. Frollo was going to tell Artemian to use her as bait to get the beast to come out and fall into a trap."

"There are city guards we can warn, you know. We don't have to do this ourselves."

"It's Frollo! They won't do anything against him!"

"How do you know for certain? The Frollo from your world might have more power than this one."

"He said he had matters of the court to deal with, Red. He's most likely a judge here too, like he was in the stories of my world."

"I still think we should try to leave this to people equipped to deal with beasts and bounty hunters," Jack said with a shrug. "Cap wouldn't like it if I wandered out of the city to some abandoned castle. I can't go too far from the ship."

Selvina's nails scratched grooves into the surface of the table she sat at as she grew increasingly annoyed and disappointed in her friends. She glanced at Red, and then Jack, and settled her eyes on Cindy, who had sat wordlessly throughout the ordeal. "We saved Cindy, didn't we? She was malnourished and probably going to die of starvation but we took her in and now she's doing much better. How would you have all felt if we had just left her there to die in the streets? We had a chance to help and acted upon it. Cindy could have robbed us or cut our throats while we slept but she didn't. She could have been carrying a disease that would have killed everyone on the ship but that never happened. We took a risk but it was a necessary one." Selvina stood up suddenly, throwing her chair back. "You can all stay here and do whatever you want but I'm going to that castle and warning Belle and the beast of what's coming to them."

"By yourself?" Jack asked with a mocking chuckle. "You don't even know the way. You don't have a horse and you're travelling in a dress. If the beast doesn't kill you some brigand or highwayman will."

"I'll go with her," Cindy said shyly. Red and Jack eyed her with surprise. She appeared to shrink under their gaze but she managed to add, "After travelling with Red yesterday I discovered how much I love to explore. I would love to see a real castle; I've never seen one before. Besides, we're just warning people and Bigbad would be with us. We should be ok."