Summary: What really happened to Ribaldi? It’s dark at the beginning.
A/N: I meant to put this on Fanfiction.net, but I didn't know how to create the category.

Ribaldi’s twisted leg shot through with more pain since—his mind bore too much agony to remember. Not only his leg felt this wretched, for the beating jarred his whole body.
Contrary to his appearance, Ribaldi was perfectly conscious the moment he lost control of his limbs. He could no longer fight back even wearily, even if he had wished to. He lingered that way for a long time. Not until dawn did Ribaldi’s temples stop pounding, his heart stop pulsing, and air pass through his mouth for the last time.
In the same instant, he felt himself changing. The newness seemed to form inside him, starting with his dead heart. O help, his heart had burst into flame! And his lungs! His chest would explode; he—
could draw in breath… and let it out.
Relief. And he was breathing once more, but he was no longer Ribaldi.
He felt lighter than the sky, and knew he had shed centuries of darkness and singing songs only of bitterness, cruelty, hatred, seclusion, heartbreak, and pain. A new song wound around his mind, begging him to compose of hope, joy, peace, curses broken, and redeeming love.
The first song, he thought. The first new song in ages.
Breezes danced on his right cheek which had been callused against the sensation for so long. He opened his eyes and absorbed the light in less than a moment. Could the sun really have become brighter—warmer—softer in one night?
Had it only been a night? The transformation had seemed to take mere moments, but if he had passed one night, he could have passed hundreds.
He had just sat up and registered he was at the house in Castegate (Appropriate, he thought, since this is where I became truly new), when Hans sprang to his side.
“Master!” he sounded too overjoyed to be uncertain, and his face beamed. “Shall I get your mirror? You must see your face!”
“I do not need the mirror, Hans,” the master laughed. “It is good to see you!” He leapt to his feet, clasping Hans’s arms. Oh, he had forgotten how it felt to move so freely and effortlessly!
Hans’s brow creased in puzzlement.
“My most faithful servant,” the master continued gently. “You alone stayed with me, no matter my cruelty.”
Hans swallowed slowly. “Your Excellency, I… was not with you… when—last night.”
“That doesn’t matter,” the master said, squeezing Hans’s arms. “I understand now that I had to die before remaking.” He paused. “Why are you staring at me like that?”
“You’re smiling, sir,” said Hans.
“And I cannot stop,” his master agreed.
“You look exactly as you did before the war.”
The master closed his eyes. Those had been golden days, but not as beautiful as the days starting now.
A jolt ran up his spine, not an unpleasant one. Gabriella! How had he forgotten his beloved after she had suffered so long to keep hope for him?
He shouted her name, then cupped his hands around his mouth and called again. “Gabriella!”
He could almost sense her, worlds away, lifting her lovely head in confusion; leaping to her feet; running toward him over hidden bridges and in secret passages they had delved together. She would follow his voice until she found him, and…
…she came around the bend and stilled, more frozen than an icicle statue. Her yellow dress fluttered around her long legs, and she stared. Just stared at him. Not until he saw her did he realize how truly long those years had been. His heart throbbed with aching love.
The whisper of her voice reached him. “Arry? Ri…”
Goletto. Say it.
“It’s you. It’s really you.” She stepped closer but did not touch him, hope tugging at her mouth.
The master couldn’t tear his eyes off her. “Hans, will you get a carriage—car, I mean—at once?”
“Certainly, Your Excellency! Certainly! It would be an honor!”
The master began to walk to the house. Gabriella followed, but he turned to her and quietly said, “Gabriella, go with him. Please.”
Her eyes darkened. “I never want to leave you again.”
He smiled. “I’ll only be a moment, and then you’ll never have to. But this I must do alone. Could I send you away out of bitterness now?”
She clapped her hands over her mouth as if to stop herself from choking on joy. “I told you I’d always come back. And I love you,” she cried, turned, and ran after Hans. Like a girl again. She had been a beautiful girl, he remembered, and she too had endured remaking, into a full and tested womanhood.
“I you!” he shouted after her.
Her beloved entered his old house, the house of another lifetime, and searched for the piano. When he found it, his mirror lay clean and sparkling on the top. He didn’t even bother to look; he didn’t need it anymore. He just say down and began to play an ancient song.
Bonnie rushed in soon after, with Porter and Georgie and her mother. She touched his cheek as if she remembered—but then she acted as if she couldn’t accept it. In his mind, they had a lovely conversation anyway, no matter how bittersweet he found the confusion in their souls.
A car honked. He stood. “Excuse me, I have people waiting for me.” And they have waited too long already, which is my own fault.
Suddenly he turned back, picking up the mirror. He handed it to Porter. “I believe this is yours.”
“But—”
Once-Ribaldi gave him a stern look, pointing at him not to protest. “Porter.” And he walked out.
They followed close behind, faster than he had expected. He barely had time to embrace his betrothed for the first time in centuries (she was warm and smelled like the flowers of the old country) before they rushed out after him. He managed to steal a kiss too before one of the kids asked from the doorstep, “Wait! What’s your name?”
He and Gabriella turned, smiling gently. “Some people call me Rigoletto,” he answered. “But you probably don’t believe that, do you?”
He and Gabriella got in the car and began to drive away.
“Now, Glorfindel, now we can go home,” he whispered.
She was crying. Well, that was all right, because so was he. They were also laughing.
“Rigoletto,” she cried, taking his face in both hands, kissing both sides through their tears. “Ri-go-let-to. You’re beautiful again.” She slid her hand downward, over his chest. “Here.”
Their lips met in the middle, and more than once. Rigoletto was remade, and he could finally go home. Hans sobbed at their wedding, where he and Glorfindel sang away the last scars from the war, her voice sweet and enduring like the unbroken river and his strong and bold like the healed lion. For the first time, a new song of a human maiden would be sung in the land.
But not for the last.