He had loved the old country. Dreadful weather, which he liked, grey and morose more often than not, raining on a good day and pouring on a bad one, and in winter the cold winds were merciless. He had liked breathing in the cold air, feeling his chest hurt from it, his keen sense of smell able to discern the faint traces of sea water from the far-away coast. Near his well, the place he'd made his own, he could see, in the distance, a road, and sometimes people would cross it, quickening their steps when they raised their heads to peer at the copse of trees that was his home. He'd take pride in that, in the fear that would flicker through their eyes, in the shortening of their breath and the slight trembling of their frame.
Every once in a while, if someone was desperate enough to run the risk, they'd drop a coin down his well. Copper most of the time, common and coarse and bad-tasting, but it got his attention. Beside the well they would leave their real offering, sometimes livestock, sometimes a part of the crop, sometimes a bottle of whiskey or whatever else the poor soul could get their hands on. Sometimes a hide or a fur, or even wooden carvings or homespun ornaments, whatever thought could catch his fancy. And if it did, if it proved to be interesting enough or tempting enough, if it looked like he had been gifted the best of the new lambs or the tastiest of the cheeses, and if he was in a giving mood, he would grant their request. The magic he wielded was modest enough, like all imps, but his cunning made the most of it. All it took was a well-placed nudge with his magic for entire kingdoms to topple, for lives to be ruined or saved. Though sometimes he acquiesced to help the innocent souls it was those who sought revenge the ones whose prayers down the well were answered the most. He'd loved wrecking a bit of havoc, sometimes even turning harmless little requests into pain and heartache for everyone involved.
He had also loved when war came upon the land and the field near his well would be covered in blood. He'd visit the battlefield at night, picking up interesting mementos and dipping his fingers into pools of blood to draw nonsensical patterns into trees and rocks. Sometimes, if he was hungry enough, he'd drink it, though he personally found lamb's blood to be much more tasty, not to mention that human flesh was so gamy he never partook of it. People around those parts knew not to approach a bloodied battlefield while the mist still rolled over it, lest they displease him by interrupting his fun.
He had lost count of how many years he had lived thus. It all blurred together in his head, bloody and free and glorious. But at some point things had changed, so gradually he hadn't noticed it at first. If he began noticing less offerings he dismissed the notion, or if he saw people walking closer to his cop of trees he thought it a rare event, some foreigner who was not made aware of the evil lurking in the woods. But soon he grew hungry enough to hunt for necessity rather than sport and even so he grew weaker each day, his magic diminishing without the offerings and sacrifices left for him. Though humans had tried over the centuries to eradicate him with fire, iron, salt and prayers he'd laughed at their attempts and fed on their violence and the stench of fear about them. He had thought nothing could ever get the best of him.
But one day he was confronted with the notion he wasn't feared anymore. Or even believed in. Parents didn't sit their young down to seriously lecture them on the dangers of the forest anymore, nor did they seek him out when they were brought low and desperate and no earthly power could help them. The village itself became underpopulated as more and more people from the younger generations went away in search of employment or adventure in some of the larger human settlements he'd steered clear of for centuries.
Even the air changed. It became heavier, unclean, poisonous to his lungs, itchy on his skin. Though around his dominion there were no animals- his mere presence scared them away still- plants had always grown aplenty, most of them twisted vines and thorny shrubs from which many venoms could be made. But as the air grew denser, thick with smoke that reeked of sickness and decay, the soil grew barren and he found himself exposed amidst dead trees and dried-up bushes.
All he had left was his well, beautifully-carved with his own claws, with pretty promises of blood and gore to whoever dared disturbed it written in a language humans did not speak anymore and memories of better times gone by. As his strength diminished he took to curling up inside his well for months at a time, small and frail and forgotten, dreaming of what he'd do to humanity of it deigned to remember him once more, the terrible fear he'd put into their hearts if he could wield even a third of the strength he'd once possessed.
He knew there would come a time when he'd have to make a choice, either to join his brethren and pass on to whatever place their kind went when they lost their place in the world, or to cling to the soil beneath his feet and watch himself slowly disappear until nothing was left. He chose to stay, of course, too stubborn and afraid of change to do anything else, too proud to admit defeat and his hatred, raw and festering and true, kept him together.
When it became clear he was starting to fade, pallor stealing over his green-gold scales and colour leaching from his blackened claws, he climbed atop the tallest tree on the tallest mountain he could find and cautiously sniffed the air, looking for a trace of magic, somewhere where he could survive. After much searching and with desperation clawing at his throat he found a spark, old and fresh at once, ripe for the taking, across the vast ocean he'd glimpsed only once or twice in his long life. With much reluctance the imp found himself stowing into a ship late one night, a heaving mammoth of twisted, cold metal, and many times throughout the journey he thought himself gone, finally wiped out of existence. But it was not to be, out of sheer stubbornness if not anything else, and so he crawled across the new land, nose trained on the promise of a place that smelled like home.
He found it, at last, when he was at the end of his strength. It was a cold place, like back in the old land, they skies often grey and the winters long. The woods were tall and menacing and the people of the nearby town were terrified of them, driven so by old legends of strange happening when the fog rolled thick into the local harbour, people going into the woods never to be seen again, the sound of howling in a place that had no wolves. And in those old legends, in those more mundane fears, without shape or form, merely trappings of human minds, the imp found new nourishment. He found himself a new well, old and abandoned and appropriately covered in vines and dust, and carefully carved runes and warnings on its sides, and though there was no pretending the new world was anything like the old one, it was home.
There were plenty of children on the nearby town, and their puritan heritage made them ripe for scaring. To them he was an apparition on the edge of the woods, a rustle in the dark, a touch of claws on the back of their necks when they ventured into the woods. In their haste to escape him they often dropped something, some trinket or favourite toy or otherwise prized possession. He took them as new offerings and collected them inside a hollowed-out trunk. Some were shiny baubles, pretty when they caught the light just right. Other were wooden carvings or sleek, colourful little trinkets, made from a material that felt foreign to his touch.
He took a different approach with the adults. For them he conjured up images of wolves, the feeling of eyes on them, of uneasiness creeping up their spine like spiders, of anxiety, heavy as it settled across their chest. Some of them still ventured inside for romantic trysts in an abandoned cabin near his well and sometimes simply to run or just walk around. He always made sure to trip them, make the branches of the trees reach out to snag their coats or scratch their skin and shadows flicker in and out of their peripheral vision. Soon his reputation grew and though it wasn't like before, wasn't genuine belief, people began to talk about the Dark One, an entity that children likened to the Boogeyman and adults to modern-day serial killers who might lurk in the woods in search of unsuspecting prey. An adult had once theorized he could be "the Unabomber", whatever that was.
But no matter what parlour tricks he used he remained invisible. Humans looked right through him like he wasn't there, they couldn't hear his mutterings or the grotesque faces he made as they passed him by. Sometimes some child would be able to spot him for a second or two, young humans still holding a strong affinity for make-believe, usually when they were more suggestible. He'd found that on a special day in mid-autumn it was easiest to make himself visible so he gleefully planned all manner of pranks and scares for such a day, telling himself that it was enough. Humans were a nuisance anyhow and so it was good that they couldn't spot him, good that they didn't come to him anymore with their petty, mortal problems and ailments and ready to pay him a pittance in kind.
He liked talking to himself anyhow. It was the only intelligent conversation to be had in any case. And he'd have been quite content to remain thus if some strange creature hadn't fallen asleep in the middle of his favourite clearing. It was a sort of embarrassing secret of his, since the place was bathed in sunshine and the lush, green grass was dotted with wild flowers. Certainly not a place a respectable imp would be caught dead in. But as much as he was supposed to delight in darkness he found it most relaxing to soak up the sun so he'd made himself a little nest in the middle of the clearing out of soft moss where he could stretch out or curl up, depending on his mood, and let his skin bask in the rays of the sun.
He was all set to indulge in his shameful little habit when he found the space occupied by a tiny human. It was sitting smack in the middle of his spot, a large book in its grubby little hands that was surely too advance for its puny little brain. He nudged the thing with his foot, not remembering the last time he'd been so close to a human, but the thing seemed so focused on its book that it didn't feel his phantom touch. It was a new, depressing low in his long life.
Angered more by his helplessness than by anything else he swatted the book out of the wee thing's hands, his claws catching on the binding and tearing it. He expected the little creature to scream and scramble off, maybe leaving the book behind to add to his collection, but all it did was stare at the damn thing lying in the moss and grass, apparently stunned speechless. He hissed, displeased at his utter failure to scare one tiny human from his territory, and turned around, determined to go lick his wounds elsewhere. Maybe even get drunk on the sap of that old, gnarly tree near the south-east border-
"Why did you do that?!"
The thing's voice was shrill, in a knife-to-the-head sort of way, and very strangely-accented from what he'd heard other humans speak in the new world. When he turned to it he saw its eyes were fixed on him, her apparent righteous fury making her cheeks shine a bright red. It would've been funny if he wasn't too stunned by the notion that the human could see him.
See him.
He froze up, unsure what to do or say, or even how to feel about it. The tiny human's eyes were leaking, though the rest of it still conveyed immense fury. He tried picturing himself through its eyes, scale and green-gold, covered in leather pants and a roughly-sewn vest, leather cords dangling from his neck, holding talismans and old bones and things he couldn't quite remember anymore, and barefoot. He hoped his hair looked wild and untamed enough to make him look menacing, because he was sure his "gaping fish" expression wasn't cutting it.
"That's my mom's book! It's special!"
He glanced at it, noticing the faded binding and the half-erased letters of the title. It didn't look particularly special to him. But the human picked it up carefully, using a piece of its clothing to wipe the tome clean of moss and dirt. Standing up the thing was still tiny, with a blue dress and a headband in its hair. A female human, if he was not mistaken.
"I ate the last human that spoke to me like that. Slightly roasted. It was delicious."
The imp took the opportunity to show his stained, sharp teeth as he licked his lips, hoping for even a glimmer of fear from the wee girl. Though she did took a step back, book clutched to her chest, she didn't seem to be of a mind to run away like she ought to. No instinct of self-preservation, it seemed.
"You're not very nice."
Her tone was faintly chiding and the look on her face made it seem like she was expecting an apology, which seemed all sorts of ridiculous.
"I can replace the binding, if it'll help. I have pelts left over from children I've skinned."
This did make the little girl flinch and he saw her body ready to bolt, muscles tensing up in preparation for a run. And suddenly, as much as he'd loathed coming across someone in his private oasis, as much as he'd considered it an affront, this wee thing right there was the first person to see him in decades, if not more, and he didn't want to see her go.
"It's a quip." He giggled, as if he was amused by her fear. "Not serious."
He saw her relax ever-so-slightly, her eyes losing some of the wariness as she looked at him intently.
"Who are you?"
In the past whenever a lone, lost human had come across him they'd labelled him a "what", not a "who". Though the former was, he supposed, more accurate, the later felt nicer. And so he felt compelled to do what he'd never before done.
Share his name with a mortal.
"I'm called Rumplestiltskin."
He waved his hands about in a grandiose gesture and threw in a bow for good measure. This seemed to impress the wee girl, who tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and smiled tentatively. She wasn't as ugly when she smiled, even if she was missing a tooth.
"I'm Belle."
The sound of a clock striking the hour in the distance drew her attention and her brow furrowed, as if worried.
"I have to go, my dad's gonna be home soon and I have to be there."
She looked almost apologetic, like she'd sensed his loneliness, his pathetic and crippling need for companionship, and was loath to deny him. He stiffened, drawing himself to his full height. While not impressive it was certainly enough to look imposing in front of a child. Said child, however, didn't look like she was buying it. After looking at him critically and nodding to herself she shoved the book she'd been clasping tight between her hands onto his.
"You look after it. Dad doesn't like it when he sees me with it. I'll be back for it tomorrow."
She was gone before he could reply, fast despite her short little legs. On reflex he clutched the book, and though it was as old and as broken as the last time he'd studied it he thought it seemed more valuable somehow.
He'd keep it close, so nothing happened to it when Belle came to take it back tomorrow.
Though she had promised, and the book seemed to hold deep sentimental value to her, he hadn't really expected her to be back at all. But she was, and though he thought at first she'd simply take her precious little book and leave- he thought briefly about placing it atop a really high tree and have her climb after it but what if she fell and got hurt and never returned again?- she instead sat down- on his spot, yet again- and took out what turned out to be a long, long list of questions. About him.
The little poppet was a curious kitten.
Had this situation even remotely presented itself centuries ago he'd have traumatized the child beyond repair- though the lass seemed to be strong of will and hard to shake- but as things were he couldn't quite bring himself to chase away the one person who actually saw him. He played coy with the child then, answering her questions with cryptic little phrases and tasteless quips that, much to his surprise, elicited laughs out of her. He was rusty in the art of conversation but deal-making was in his blood, and words were his trade, so he used them to subtly pull the focus of attention from himself back to her. It became a tug-o-war of sorts, after a while, to see who could get more information from the other.
He learned quite quickly, mostly because he'd deduced it from their last encounter, that she was an only child and her mother had passed away. She in turn learned quickly that imps were born out of thin air, from battlefields or mass graves or places of deep anger and sorrow. They disclosed their own birth places after much haggling- he struggled to pronounce Australia, since her accent thickened so much when she said it- and time flew by. When she said goodbye without taking her book with her he thought at first it had been a mistake on her part.
It quickly became obvious that, as desperate as he secretly was for the tiny human's company to ease his wretched loneliness, so was she. She didn't quite say it, but he knew the look in her eyes, saw it whenever he caught a glimpse of himself on a body of water. She talked about her interests, mostly reading, and asked him question about the old country and magic and all the things he'd seen over the years, but she never really talked about herself. Not a word about her father, who was seemingly unconcerned about were his wee bairn spent most of her afternoons, sometimes coming back home muddied.
She did talk about other kids or about brothers or sisters. She talked about books a lot, and often brought one to show him something in it, not at all afraid of letting his black claws touch the frail paper. In all his years he'd never bothered to learn any human language or alphabet but he liked looking at the squiggles as Belle pointed them out while reading whatever struck her fancy. Most of her mother's books seemed to be on folklore and legends and reading those made it clear that humans had it all wrong. Completely wrong. He found it almost a personal affront and Belle was only too happy to needle him into correcting popular misconceptions.
With time, as Belle grew, Rumplestiltskin came to the altogether unpleasant and deeply unwelcome revelation that he… cared about the child. In a stand-offish, acquaintance-like way, of course, but it was as unacceptable as it was unshakeable. He'd tried, a few times, to burrow deep inside his well and slumber for a few months, or even years, but sleep wouldn't find him and soon he'd itch to go to the clearing and talk to the girl.
What he couldn't deal with, like always, he shoved aside and ignored. Instead of lingering on unpleasant thoughts Rumplestiltskin occupied himself teaching wee Belle runes, telling her about how he'd been born out of a veritable slaughter when, long ago, invading forces had clashed with a much smaller army of local men. Two great kings led those armies into battle and the death count rose to thousands, most of the casualties coming from the invaders. It lasted two days, a rare feat in that time, and by the time it was over the nearby stream ran red with blood and as the would-be conquerors prayed for mercy he'd drawn his first breath. Belle liked that story so much he told it often, and delighted in her wide, open eyes when he described the battle and the way she'd laugh at his crass quips and dark humour.
In his mind humans were still the enemy. They were still ignorant creatures that did not deserve the place they had in the world. But Belle was different. Special. And in his mind that made it okay that he felt the need to care for her. It made it alright to scour the forest for berries and fruits to give her when she visited, to pat her back when she looked sad and forlorn and to share trinkets of his collections with her. She had precious little in the way of material things, mostly old books and clothing that remained the same even as she grew taller- though not much. When she turned twelve and her father gifted her with a set of pyjamas and a backpack to replace the old one she used for school he pretended, bravely, that he didn't think her father was a lousy waste of space who could barely function, much less care for a small child. Belle took care of herself, cooked her own meals, walked herself to school and back and tried in general to be as well-behaved as possible. She felt sorry for her dad, so lost after her mother died, so pathetic and sad and hopeless.
Rumplestiltskin thought the man a spineless maggot not worth stepping on. But rather than let his mouth run off and upset the birthday girl he ducked towards the hiding place where he kept his collection of trinkets, deep inside his well, and retrieved the shiniest bauble he could find, the one made from real gold and a small but very real diamond. When he gave it to her, gruffly and without looking at her in the eye, he was taken aback when she launched herself forward and wrapped her arms around his skinny, bony frame. Up close she smelt like vanilla and she was warm, very warm.
It was hard to let go.
Belle spent so many of her afternoons with than when she didn't come two days in a row he grew worried. He thought of trying to sneak into town to look for her, but it was hard for him to breathe inside the human space, his skin itched and his lungs burned. So he paced instead, and worried, and thought up a thousand scenarios that might explain why she wasn't coming. The most likely explanation, the one that terrified him and angered him and made his feel like he wanted to disappear, was that Belle had grown up enough to forget him. He'd always known it would happen, that someday Belle would loose the special quality that allowed her to see him, that small flicker of light that he glimpsed sometimes, when the light hit her eyes just right.
It took until the seasons changed to gather the courage to go look for her. He unearthed from deep inside his belonging an old pair of hide boots, tall and made of supple leather, a fine offering in times gone by, and laced them up, however unwillingly, and when it was dark he left the woods. He reached out with his senses to catch a trace of Belle, probably slumbering somewhere out there but his nose couldn't find her scent anywhere and his magic could not detect her, even though he knew her name.
She wasn't there anymore.
She was gone.