Chapter Text
Robert "Hob" Gadling fancied himself a more than capable storyteller. He'd had plenty of practice, after all, on account of having lived a long and extraordinary life far beyond most people's wildest dreams.
For reasons which still weren't entirely clear to Hob, and might never be, he was immortal. Had been for five hundred years, now. And the only price he paid for that great gift was a story. The story of his life, shared with his apparently supernatural benefactor — his handsome, enigmatic Stranger — once every hundred years, at the pub where they'd met.
It was a bloody brilliant arrangement and, quite frankly, the highlight of Hob's very long life.
He lived every day of it to the fullest — as was his way — and eagerly collected tale after tale to share with his Stranger. And he was not, generally speaking, the type to begin any one of those tales with something as trite as that old classic: once upon a time...
However, he had to admit, there could be no better beginning for this particular story.
So.
Yeah.
Let's begin, then, shall we?
***
Once upon a time, in the kingdom of Corona, an imperfect man pledged his immortal life to the protection of a golden-haired princess.
And, one fateful night... he failed her.
***
The nightmare always played out the same way.
Little Rapunzel slept peacefully in her bassinet, within arm's reach of her parents, while Hob — Sir Gadling, at the time, though that felt long ago now — stood watch from his post on the balcony.
After all, you never could be too careful after the birth of a new heir. She might be just a little girl, really, but the world was cruel and even the kindest rulers still had enemies. In fact, they tended to have more than their fair share. That was just the way of things, you know? Always had been. Kindness begat kindness and there were always those who'd sooner put a stop to that than join in.
You know the type. Everyone does. Greedy, vile villains. Those with power and influence, especially. The sort who might have a baby kidnapped — or even assassinated — and not lose so much as a wink of sleep over it.
Hob, on the other hand, slept little these days. And when he did, well...
It looked like this.
A quiet, dreamy midsummer night. Even looking back on it, during his waking hours, Hob never could deny its beauty. His memory had preserved it with perfect, painful clarity.
Sir Gadling allowed himself a soft, contented sigh as he looked out over the sprawling city below. The warm, flickering lights of lanterns and torches and candles played across the urban expanse in a golden reflection of the stars above. It was... absolutely breathtaking. The kind of beauty that pricked at the eyes, drawing joyful tears unbidden.
Five hundred years of life couldn't diminish that. Hell, five thousand years couldn't. Not with that gentle ocean breeze carrying the floral perfume of summer jasmine and the sounds of distant laughter in the streets.
Palace life afforded creature comforts, too, and — more than that — there was the community of it. The knowledge that, for once, Hob was doing real, proper good. He was part of something bigger than himself. Not out of greed or ambition or even curiosity but just because... it felt right.
It was a good life. The best so far.
Hob could hardly wait to tell his Stranger all about it. And, in eighteen years' time, he would. Of that, he was certain.
A shift in the wind pulled a dark cloud across the moon, throwing the balcony into sudden shadow. And, at that exact moment, disaster struck.
It shouldn't have been possible. A frail old woman couldn't have scaled the castle walls, nor the balcony itself. Hob couldn't have missed that happening, either. And yet, she did, and he did. She heaved her frail body up and over the railing with an eerie soundlessness humans weren't meant to be capable of.
Later, Hob would wonder if she was a witch.
But, before then, well...
He would fall.
The woman appeared from out of nowhere as a skeletal shadow and, before Hob could draw his sword or even cry out in alarm, she blew a strangely glowing green powder into his face.
Poison, he realized quickly, though not quickly enough. Acrid and bitter, it filled his mouth and nostrils and lungs, setting his body ablaze with pain beyond his ability to describe. Not to mention his ability to scream, which fully left him in his agony. But Hob could handle pain. He'd lived through starvation and freezing temperatures and more plagues and wars than anyone in now-peaceful Corona could even imagine. Nothing like that could stop him.
The problem was the sudden vertigo which spun his head, disorienting him so thoroughly that he couldn't tell the sky above from the balcony under his boots. But he could feel the guardrail press into his lower back as the woman shoved him against it with surprising strength.
Or maybe...
Maybe it wasn't that surprising.
Maybe she wasn't strong, at all.
Maybe Hob was just weak.
That thought tumbled after him as he tipped backwards over the railing and fell down, down, down...
Rushing air roared in his ears before time seemed to slow, granting Hob a brief moment's respite to take in the moon as it reappeared to bathe him in gentle, unearthly light. It held him suspended in midair as though he were a humble feather, while the stone balcony above him glowed pearly white like an exposed ribcage or a jaw bone.
Hob couldn't help but think of his handsome Stranger as the sight grew smaller and smaller in his vision...
Until the ground suddenly rose to meet him in a horrible, bone-shattering, brain-splattering crunch.
***
Hob awoke with a gasp, the sound desperate and tortured and all too familiar in the otherwise quiet night.
Quiet, yes, but not silent. The warm evening air was peppered with the gentle hush of crickets and the occasional hoot of an owl, perched in the overhead branches which blanketed the bandit camp in darkness.
"Fucking hell," Hob swore under his breath. "Is one night's rest really too much to ask?"
It probably was. After all, he didn't deserve it. But deserving had never really factored into his life, had it? It all came down to luck, really. Good and bad and fucking phenomenal. The luck to have been mouthing off about death — or, more accurately, refusing to die — just as his Stranger walked into the tavern.
Into his life.
And granted Hob's dearest wish. Somehow.
Hob would never ask his Stranger for anything more than that. Well, except for his name, perhaps. And, you know, some answers would be nice, too. Friendship, officially. Maybe... his hand in marriage? Or permission to court him, at least.
It was Hob's fondest daydream, when he allowed himself that sort of thing; and, well... he was known to indulge in life's pleasures to excess. Restraint wasn't his strong suit. He fell hard and fast and completely in love and, so far, that had resulted in three fairly spontaneous marriages.
Only one of them had been to a black widow bride. The whole immortality thing had come as a bit of a nasty shock, for her, as you might imagine. Almost as nasty as the knife she'd buried in Hob's chest.
The poets had it right, apparently. Heartbreak and betrayal really did feel like that. Like being stabbed.
Or maybe it only seemed that way on account of the actual stabbing? It was difficult to parse. To separate one pain from the other, amidst all the blood and screaming.
Anyway.
It'd be different with his Stranger. Hob was sure of that.
Not that it mattered.
Who- or whatever his Stranger was, he couldn't possibly accept Hob now. He was a failure. A knight who had both figuratively and quite literally fallen.
"Shut the hell up, Eugene," the nearest bandit grumbled, half asleep and drooling where he lay haphazardly across his dirty bed roll.
Eugene.
Hob still wasn't used to people calling him that. But he'd needed a new identity, as he often did, and Eugene Fitzherbert sounded as pathetic and useless as Hob felt. And if there was one thing he did not do, it was anything by halves, and that very much included wallowing. So. Eugene it was.
Usually, Hob's immortality was the driving force behind his change of identity, but not this time. No, this time, Hob was undercover. Pounding the pavement as Sir Gadling — after they'd finished scraping him off of said pavement — had gotten him nowhere, at all. There was no trace of the old woman who'd taken Rapunzel. No correspondence from her, either. No threats. Not even a list of demands or conditions upon which the girl might be returned safely. Just... nothing.
Not even the bloody spymaster could turn anything up.
Which meant that the kidnapping couldn't have been politically driven, Hob thought. Rapunzel wasn't a bargaining chip. She wasn't a message. No, she was... something else. Hob didn't know what, exactly, but he did have his suspicions about the old woman. Either she was a witch or she'd had outside help. Likely both.
Hob didn't know the first thing about magic, but he did know the sort of amoral idiots who might be willing to consort with witches. Or hunt them. The Stabbington brothers, for example. And yes, that was their actual surname, if you can believe it. Printed on their wanted posters and everything.
They called themselves Patchy and Sideburns, for exactly the reasons you'd expect, and they belonged to a sort of... Well, you might charitably call it a thieves' guild. Bit of a fancier term than they deserved, but the semantics didn't matter. The connections did. The resources, too, and that included information. All of which had to be earned.
Which was how Hob found himself blurring the lines between "undercover" and "bloody criminal" until they all but vanished.
***
Needless to say, that, ah...
It didn't go well.
At first, it did. Stealing the crown had been easy. Hob knew the castle's security inside and out, after all. He had only to rappel down from the ceiling, in broad daylight when no one would be expecting it, and snatch the shiny thing behind everyone's backs he was stabbing. Simple.
The getaway had been clean, too. Just in and out without making a sound. Nobody had even seen Hob. Seen any of them.
At least, Hob thought so, until that damn palace horse caught wind of them. Like a bloodhound, he was. And once he caught their scent, well, then they were in a fair bit of trouble. The guards followed the damned horse's lead like it was one of them, somehow. Bloody unreal.
The game was on, by that point, and it was not one Hob could afford to lose.
He raced alongside the Stabbingtons across rooftops and through narrow alleyways, pushing through heavy, still-wet laundry hung on lines to dry and hopping over crates and barrels, taking advantage of the terrain wherever possible. And when that wasn't enough, the three of them even split up as necessary to lose their pursuers.
It worked well, for a time. They reconvened on the bridge which led out of the city and then sprinted towards the treeline beyond.
There, Hob skidded to a halt at the sight of a wanted poster with his face on it, pinned to the trunk of an old oak growing alongside the dirt path. He snatched the parchment — freshly printed, he could tell — and swore under his breath.
"What's the problem?" Sideburns snapped impatiently, his face red — with exertion and irritation in equal measure — to match his ginger namesake.
On the topic of names, well, that was the problem. The wanted poster in Hob's hands didn't say "Wanted, Dead or Alive: Eugene Fitzherbert, thief" as previous iterations had. Rather, it said, "Wanted, Dead or Alive: Hob Gadling, traitor" which was... an unfortunate complication.
The Crown should have been grateful that Hob was willing to go so far to find their long-lost princess, but, well... obviously, they weren't.
Best not to let the Stabbingtons find out about that, just yet.
Hob made a conscious effort to relax his posture into something lazy and overconfident. "They just can't get my nose right," he chuckled in answer with an easy, playful smile.
Patchy blinked his remaining eye. "Who cares?" he hissed. "We don't have time for this. Keep moving."
Hob didn't argue. Just stuffed the poster into his satchel alongside the stolen crown. And kept running.
The forest floor was a rush of sun-dappled shades of green beneath his boots. Twigs and fallen branches and sundried leaf litter crunched and snapped as Hob and his two partners in crime forcefully crashed through the underbrush, far beyond the beaten path.
Every time Hob thought that maybe, just maybe, they'd lost their pursuers for good, a horse's whinny informed him otherwise. It sounded smug, somehow. Like the stubborn beast was taunting him personally. Laughing at him, even.
Things went from bad to worse when, suddenly, the way forward disappeared, ending in a high, natural wall of stone.
"We can make it," Hob insisted with a backwards look at his companions. "Give me a boost and I'll pull you up."
It wouldn't be easy. The Stabbington brothers were broad-shouldered walls of muscle, packaged in oiled leathers and even oilier ginger hair, not to mention body odor enough to knock out an army. But none of that mattered. They had to get out of this and, if Hob's plan was going to work, they had to do it together.
But Patchy and Sideburns had other plans, apparently.
"I don't think so," Sideburns said, and lunged forward to snatch Hob's satchel.
Hob was faster, though. Smarter, too, not that the two brothers were much competition in that regard. He danced out of Sideburns' reach and bodily shoved Patchy into the wall. The man grunted in surprise, but that was a bit premature. After all, the real surprise came a moment later, when Hob quite literally climbed the brute like a tree, pushing off of his shoulder with one foot and his head with the other, launching himself to the top of the wall. He scrambled over the edge with a mad, gleeful laugh.
Only to be met with the sounds of hoofbeats. Closing fast. And that awful, demented whinny.
That goddamn horse!
Why did it seem so fucking familiar? And pissed beyond belief, like no animal Hob had ever seen. It was more than just alarming. It was bloody eerie.
Not that there was any time to dwell on it. Arrows whizzed through the air and thunked into the nearest trees.
Too close.
Hob rushed for cover and kept running at a breakneck pace, weaving between the trees and leaping over logs and boulders and debris. He managed to lose four of his mounted pursuers, and unseat the fifth horse's rider, but the horse itself continued, relentless.
"Shit, shit, shit!" Hob swore as the ground ran out ahead of him, revealing a cliff's edge. He spun around, then, to face his equine tormentor. The animal glowed a bright, blinding white in the morning sunshine and Corona's golden, blazing Sun Crest gleamed proudly upon its leather breastplate.
There was something else, too, just below the crest.
A bit of writing. Just a single word.
Hob squinted at the golden letters until he could just barely make out a name.
One he recognized.
"Maximus?" Hob blinked in disbelief. "Fuck me. Is that... really you?"
The horse's eyes narrowed. Hardened.
It was a sight Hob had seen countless times. Glaring across the training yard. Staring down the new recruits.
Hob knew, then, that the impossible must be true: those strangely intelligent, familiar eyes belonged to Sir Maximus.
Captain of the guard.
"Bloody hell," Hob swore. "It is you. You're a bleeding horse. And I'm... Well. Never mind that. A lot has happened — to both of us, obviously — but it's me, Max. It's Hob. I know how this looks. It's bad. But I swear, it's all been for a good reason. You have to trust me. Please."
Maximus huffed. Tossed his tightly braided mane, shaking his head in a firm no.
"Fair enough, I suppose," Hob muttered. "Look, I... I know I've done wrong. Slipped back into old patterns, maybe. But I swear, Max, I'm trying to do right."
Hob held his ground and unslung the satchel from his shoulder. Held it out towards the horse.
"You can take this," he said. "If you just... let me go. Let me go and I'll find her. I'll find the princess."
Maximus appeared unmoved. He continued to advance on Hob. Headbutted the satchel aside and snapped at the man's clothing with his teeth.
The message was pretty clear: You're coming with me.
Unfortunately, that just wouldn't do.
Hob backpedaled carefully, stepping out onto the thin trunk of a tree growing horizontally out of the cliffside. The wood creaked and shifted uneasily beneath Hob's boots. It couldn't possibly bear a horse's weight, in addition to Hob's own.
And yet... Maximus followed after him, nonetheless.
The tree trunk gave way beneath them both and, once again, Hob found himself falling, falling, falling...
His last thought before he hit the ground — extremely inelegantly — was that, at the rate he was going, he was going to miss his centennial date tomorrow.