The Archivist
Disclaimer(s): All respective Disney/Once Upon A Time characters belong to Disney/ABC/Kitsis/Horowitz; all other disclaimers at the bottom to avoid fanfic spoilers. There are no fan-made Original Characters featured in this fan fiction.
Chapter One: Open the Doors, Turn the Page
…
"Catching you playing with my things and not working is one thing, dearie, but catching you doing nothing and nothing is another!" The Dark One shrilled behind Belle, making her jump from her recline on the settee. She quickly recovered and resettled with her book in hand.
"I'm not doing nothing, I am reading. And I already did my morning chores." She retorted, chaffed at the idea that her reading would be considered as doing nothing.
Did the silly girl know no fear of her master? "There's that mouth again," Rumpelstiltskin grumbled. "Not that I mind you reading, but why so much?" He began to prowl in front of the settee but nothing would unnerve his little maid.
"Because I do, I think it is all very exciting. The adventures, the romance, the mystery… like the trips you take for your deals." That you don't take me on…
"Ha, there is no romance on my outings you silly thing." He scoffed as he plopped himself on the other end of the settee.
She shook her head with a smile, "Nonetheless, did you not expect me to enjoy the library you gave me?"
"I expected you to clean it." Rumpelstiltskin replied curtly. She just gave him a brilliant smile.
"Of course. One page at a time." Belle nodded before returning to her reading with a knowing smirk. He studied her as she read, not making it subtle as he usually did whenever he watched her. Not that he'd ever admit to watching her glide across the room as she dusted, the skirts of her dress swinging delicately against her legs, the soft sound of…
"Is there anything else I can help with, Rumpelstiltskin?" Her lilting voice snapped him back into reality. He cocked his head to the side to mask his daze and grudgingly noted her smile meant she noticed anyway.
Well… "Actually, there is." He jumped up from his perch and strode from the hall, "Come now! Keep up dearie!"
Belle quickly marked her page and rushed after the imp. She soon found herself marching into his workshop behind him. She had only been allowed in here a few times, to deliver tea and supplies, and had then rushed out as soon as she had entered. Now she spun on her heel to get a good look at the place, her curiosity reaching critical levels.
"We're not here to gawk at the monster's wares, dearie. I have something specific in mind that might interest you." Rumpelstiltskin trilled. Belle turned to him and grinned, ignoring his 'monster' remark she hated so much.
"Have you ever heard of The Archives?" He continued, giving the title a wave of his hand and a tone of mystery.
She cocked her head to the side, "The what?"
The Dark One scoffed, "What? Someone so well-read as you has never heard of The Archives, hmm? And here I thought you could help me." He mocked. She scowled at him and folded her arms beneath her breasts, knowing he was piquing her curiosity and ire on purpose. He did his best to ignore the push her folded arms gave to her chest.
"I would know better, perhaps, if my master would be so kind as to tell me rather than insult me. After all, you were the one who wanted my help, as you say." Belle retorted despite her internal promise not to play his game.
He laughed, "Very well. Sit." He said, jabbing a finger at a stool beside his worktable. He turned to a dark bookshelf and pulled an old sooty tome from the bottom. He dropped the book on the table in front of her and chuckled when she sneezed and glared at him.
"Some say that books are portals to other worlds, that they take us to new places never seen nor imagined before," he began, standing behind her and flipping open the book's faded pages. Belle tried not to blush with her master's arms around her or his face looming so close to hers. "This much is true to the average reader and their own imaginations… however, that truth can be much more literal than that."
"What do you mean? This book is actually a portal?" Belle leaned forward earnestly, trying to read the jumbled ancient script scattered on the pages. In her excitement, it didn't occur to her that she could possibly fall through said portal.
"It was. Sadly, its power is gone now and is simply another book in the library. The only thing this book serve now for is this," he flipped another page to a cutout holding a crudely-shaped ancient brass skeleton key, emblazoned with a hourglass and a book. He allowed her to take the key from its hidey-hole and examine it.
"If there is a key, there must be something that it opens," Belle whispered, mostly to herself. Rumpelstiltskin watched her fingers wander across the key and suddenly realized his close proximity to his maid.
"Astute observation, dearie," he said as he recoiled from her. "This key is the only one of its kind, the only key that can unlock the doors of The Archives." He danced around her, gesturing to the grand purpose of the key. She looked at him curiously.
"You have yet to tell me what the Archives are."
He turned back to her and grinned wickedly, "Better to show you."
Rumpelstiltskin snapped his fingers and he and his maid disappeared from his work tower.
…
Belle squealed when she landed on uneven ground and lost her footing. The purple haze of Rumpelstiltskin's magic had barely faded when she felt his strong hands catch her from falling on her face. She looked up only to see a mocking grin spread across his features.
"A warning would have been nice," she grumbled as she pulled away and straightened her skirts.
Rumpelstiltskin chuckled, "The Dark One doesn't do nice, dearie."
"Where are we?" She asked, ignoring his comment and examining her surroundings. They were on the edge of a small ravine overlooking a clear downhill creak; looking out over the ridgeling was a massive expanse of dark dense forest, giving out to a spindly sound and the ocean that fed it. The coastline stretched from horizon to horizon, a thin white border between rolling blue and lush green as far as the eye can see.
"This place is gorgeous Rumpel!" She exclaimed, forgetting herself and shortening his name.
He appeared at her elbow and nudged her to turn, "Turn around." He whispered. He was happy to see her excitement, happy to see that brilliant smile on her face and the light in her eyes… stop it, you fool.
"Oh!" He heard her astonished claim. She stood open-mouthed staring up at the snow-capped flat-topped mountain that loomed over them, a sentinel of the forest untouched by man and teeming with magic. "Where are we?"
"We are in the Forgotten Wood, a place beyond memory and long avoided by any sentient mortal and immortal being in all the realms; only lesser life wander and settle here. This place holds many an unfortunate memory for the elder powers of this world." He replied, growing quieter as he spoke.
"Except for you?"
"Except for me," he confirmed with a smile over his shoulder. "I made a deal with the goddess Athena of the Grecian region to the east for that key," he continued and pointed to the key still clutched in Belle's hand. "She thought she was getting the better end of the deal, since that key is more or less useless to anyone who wields it, and had laughed at me."
He began to walk away towards an outcropping on the other side of the ridgeline. "Then why deal for it when it is useless to you?" Belle asked, quickly following her master. "And why did you bring us here? What does this key have to do with this forest? Why bring us to an old volca- oof!"
She slammed face first into her master's chest, not having noticed he had stopped and spun around to face her. He steadied her with his strong practiced hands and giggled.
"So many questions dearie!" The Dark One trilled and stepped lightly away from his maid once she was steady. "Look…" He gestured wide behind her, a pleased smile splitting his features. She spun again on her heel and nearly stopped breathing at the sight before her.
On the other side of the outcropping was an enormous set of white marble hewn doors fit into the mountainside; grey rusted iron fittings adorned the doors in swirling filigree centered on the small knockers and a keyhole near ground-level. Flanking the doors were two large worn marble statues that looked as if they had once been dragons set upon with the harshness of the elements. In the claws of the left dragon was a broken bronze contraption, strange symbols lined the top and bottom edges or were half buried in the glittering sand piled before it. The right dragon held a bronze effigy of a book and pen, the etched symbols long worn away and the pages tarnished or corroded; the head was gone as was its wings, the latter also being true of the statue's twin whose facial features and tail have long been lost.
Belle stepped cautiously across the overgrowth that broke the fine paved mural of marble beneath her feet, depicting what seemed to be an elaborate compass rose that curiously was not pointing north. Each point had a symbol and those that were still whole enough to make out were of no language she was familiar with.
"Welcome to the Archives." Rumpelstiltskin whispered close behind her. She jumped having not realized he had followed her wanderings across the yard.
"This…" she breathed in astonishment, "This is incredible!"
"Behind these doors lies the most massive amount of knowledge you will ever find across any known realm or world you will ever find yourself in. Here was where history, science, academia, culture, language, art, music, legend, and imagination was collected and studied. It was kept solely by the Archivist, a worldly scholar who once held open the doors to the world and anyone seeking higher learning and diversity." Rumpelstiltskin told his maid in gusto, making her practically salivate for the treasures beyond as she finally placed her free hand against the white marble.
"Only I could never get inside."
Belle balked at his ending statement and looked at him incredulously, "Oh! Why the hell not?!" she swore at him, "You have the key! It obviously goes to this door, correct?"
Rumpelstiltskin giggled, "Indeed dearie. But I told you it was useless to any that hold it." He only partially felt bad for dangling a golden carrot before his maid as he turned away from her distress, much like many paths to portals turned out to be dangling carrots for him. "Only the Archivist can use the key, only the keeper of the knowledge beyond can open these doors. And there hasn't been an Archivist in thousands of years, not since the Cataclysm."
"Why is that then? It opened just fine for me." He went rigid at the unexpected echo Belle's unexpected reply had. As he had his back turned, he failed to notice that she had jammed the key into the door in her frustration and turned it. The door had opened on remarkably-silent hinges just enough for her to slip through and he had turned around in time enough to see her chestnut curls disappear behind the white behemoth doors.
"Belle!"
Rumpelstiltskin ran in after her, barely squeezing through the crack in the door and falling into a massive fire-lit foyer. Unlike outside, the cavernous foyer seemed untouched by time; three fires blazed majestically in massive stone braziers, each between large bronze statues. The first two statues directly in front of him were copies of what the two statues in the courtyard would have been: proud dragons holding the brazier between them and an open book and a clockwork hourglass separately aside. The pairs of statues to his right and left, similarly holding the braziers aloft between them, were grimalkin and wolves respectively – the grimalkin rested their free paws on large black and white orbs of marble and the wolves cradled silver swords. The two empty spaces between featured silk tapestries of a fox, rabbit, otter, and an eagle dancing with the elements of the seasons. The ceiling was painted with the celestial sky, each constellation subtly imposed with their representative stars; the mural on the floor reflected the local solar system.
"Belle?" he called again. His calls became deafening in the gleaming mountain hall and echoed through the stairwells that led out from between each of the statues. The stairwell that led from between the dragons led up toward the summit while the stairwells between the cats and wolves led into the heart of the volcano.
"Rumpelstiltskin! You have to come see this!" Belle's call came in reply. The only problem is that it seemed to be coming from everywhere. The Dark One growled and ran forth up the dragon stairs. He came out to an open balcony that overlooked the bowels of the library and nearly doubled over the stone railing at what he was seeing.
He had heard the Archives were a colossal collection of tomes and artifacts - he had heard they contained the recorded histories of many worlds - long lost magics, arts, and lore. But this? He caught his breath and looked over the labyrinthine book-laden halls above and below, softly lit by multi-hued torches and the smoldering heart of the volcano, twisting over each other and through nonsensical stairwells and arches in ways that would make Escher dizzy.
How the flying hell was he going to find his bookworm maid in this?
…
Belle was nearly blind with joy as she glided along the shelves, gently brushing her fingers across the timeless spines of the countless books before her. She grew up with her mother's large library, and then was given a larger library in the Dark Castle not too long ago. Now Rumpelstiltskin shows her the single largest collection of books the wide worlds has ever seen? Her heart and soul could nearly burst with happiness and…
She stopped herself. She wasn't afraid of him, of that she was certain. Oh he would startle her every so often, his favorite pastime with her in the castle now, but he never struck fear or hate in her heart like he did to the rest of the world. She wanted to know him better, of course – was a complete mystery, a puzzle she ached to solve, layers she wanted to peel back – and perhaps call him friend. She bit her lip and blushed as her heart pounded in protest with her reasoning but before she could start analyzing why she felt her blood start to rush at the thoughts of her master, a simple brown leather book with gold lettering caught her eye. It wasn't an author she had ever heard of before and it felt strange on her tongue.
"Shakespeare?"
She sat down cross-legged in the middle of the hall with the book and flipped it open. As she began to read, she felt her stomach drop, but was far too engrossed with the prose to pay it any mind. The words were beautiful and she could almost smell the forest and hear the birds and music described within the pages.
She blinked and realized that was exactly what she could smell and hear. Not to mention her skirts were now damp from sitting in soft dewy grass that definitely was not there a few seconds ago.
"Well it is about bloomin' time!"
This story will be updated on Mondays, vacations and school permitting.
The next chapter gets in some background information and headcanon mythology for the story setup. It will be a bit long winded, my apologies. Until next Monday! Read & Review!