Content Notices: minor violence, mentions of blood
Written for WizzyGold on tumblr. Prompt: harmless wolf cuddle curse
A/N: I went wild with the world-building. Any connection to the show canon is loose and twisted for the story purpose. AU almost all the way.
I. The Woman of Courage
The tale was sad but it had been Belle's favourite bedtime story.
"A long time ago, before the Realms broke apart, when humans were only starting to discover magic and other races were abundant, there lived a tribe of special people.
They were guardians, protectors, chosen ones, moon children. They had many names but only one duty. To watch and guide the humans. The fragile ones, the weak ones, the helpless ones. They were to lend strength to those without. But they were supposed to stand in the shadows, to observe from the outside and interfere only when needed. They were not allowed to mingle, to interact with their charges. So when they broke that rule, it was the beginning of their tragedy.
You see, Belle, these people, dlaks in their language, they had powerful magic, one that allowed them to change shapes. They could appear as large wolves or bears or even lions or they could assume the shape of a human. And the shape they took influenced them.
Humans are a peculiar race. They are capable of such extremes in their emotions. They can hate desperately and they can love deeply. They can shake with fury or stay as tranquil as a surface of a lake. They are capable of immense courage but also of the worst cowardice. This duality of extremes is both their strength and their weakness.
When dlaks started assuming human shapes, they took on their emotions as well. They came to know the highs and lows of the human condition and it changed them.
It might be that the gods didn't like the mingling of the two races beyond what had been meant. It might be their own magic rebelled against them but whatever the reason, a sickness fell upon the tribe.
They called it Darkening. Those who took a human shape often caught it first. It made them more angry, more feral, more dangerous. Gone was the nobility of their original forms. More and more of them started feeling resentment for having to watch over someone weaker than them. Ironically, it was because they took on the characteristics of those they resented.
But although so many of them lost their hearts to the anger and darkness, there were some who didn't. They were those whose hearts remained devoted to their duty and it was this devotion that allowed them to remain as they were.
Alas, it wasn't enough. For now they had not only to protect their charges from the usual dangers but also from their Dark brethren. The numbers of dlaks started dwindling, many of them dying because of conflicts within the tribe. After some years, they started to take spouses from among humans, in an effort to stave off their extinction. The children born of these unions kept the shapeshifting magic of their dlak ancestors but they were even more susceptible to Darkening because of their human side.
The final blow came when the Realms broke apart. The wild magic released at the time touched everyone and everything magical. The older generation of dlaks got stuck in their animal shapes while the younger ones, the ones with human blood could only change into animals when the moon was the brightest."
"It's the werewolves, right?" Belle asked excitedly. "They are the dlaks with human blood."
Her mother nodded.
"Yes, they are."
"Are they all bad now? Darkened?"
"No, Belle. What you are born as doesn't make you bad. It's the actions you take that decide what kind of person you are. Some werewolves are cruel and evil but so are some humans. There are still dlaks who remember the past and what they were supposed to do and they keep doing that. Secretly, of course, because few humans are inclined to listen to what they deem to be beasts. But you must remember, it's the heart of the person that is important."
It's the heart of the person that is important.
Belle repeated her mother's words every time the moon grew full and bright and they left the castle together, shedding their human shapes and running across Marshlands, keeping watch over the land under their protection.
She understood why the story of her ancestors had kept her so riveted as a child, before she grew into her heritage. It was the truth in that story that had called to her, the truth about herself. And she was determined to heed the warning in that story as well, to guard her heart against the sickness of Darkening. She was born to protect those weaker than her, not to oppress them and she would do so until her dying breath.
"There was another attack last night. A small hamlet on the western border."
Belle pressed herself against the wall next to her father's office. She had been looking for her mother, there was a group of traveling merchants in the town and they had wanted to look at their wares.
"Are they certain it wasn't an animal of some kind?"
"The survivors all spoke of a black wolf larger than any they had seen before."
"Belle and I have brown furs."
"I know. But it's clear it's one of your kind."
Belle winced at the bitterness in her father's tone. She had been feeling for a while that her father was unhappy about his wife's and daughter's true identities. She knew her parents had married with full knowledge of who they were but the years since then had changed her father's acceptance.
"I'll take care of it, then," her mother said and walked out, passing by Belle's hiding place without a glance in her direction. Belle clutched the pendant that helped her control herself and hid her true form from magicians closer to her heart and watched her mother leave. She didn't know it would be the last time she saw her mother alive.
Belle stood by her father in her mourning dress, her eyes dry although there was a tell-tale redness and swelling around them. She was more than a grieving daughter here. She was also the daughter of the lord and as such had an image to portray.
Death happened, even violent death. Lady Collette had gone out to see about helping a hamlet and had been attacked by some animal which had killed her. That was the story told, that was the story that would be believed.
Belle took a deep breath to commit her mother's scent to memory one last time. And with that scent she took in another one, the one belonging to her mother's killer. One of their kind, if only by a technicality of common ancestry.
She would carry that scent with her for the rest of her days and if given the chance, she would carry out the justice for her mother. In the meantime, she was now the sole protector of Marshlands. Maybe she was too young but her mother taught her well and she would carry out that duty in a way that would make her mother proud.
The pendant seemed to burn where it touched her skin.
The ogre's skin was very tough. Belle raked her claws across its leg but they barely left any scratches. She jumped back, snarling and pacing around her enemy. She would have preferred to use her teeth, her jaws were strong enough to bite through an aged oak but the ogre was clutching a large club and if she stayed in one place too long, it would be able to hit her.
She had been so foolish, thinking that she would be able to pit her extraordinary strength against the ogres and win. She would fell this one eventually, all she had to do was wait for a moment of distraction and she would be able to bring it down but that tactic was time consuming.
The ogres were too numerous to defeat like this. Belle admitted that failure to herself even as she leapt, taking advantage of a far-off sound that got the ogre's attention. She buried her teeth into its neck, tearing through the tough hide easily enough. The smell of the ogre's blood was unpleasant, one she came to associate with a magical influence on the being.
She decided not to lick herself clean but started running towards a nearby river instead. She would clean herself, sneak back into the castle and hope that someone else could come up with a plan. Her power alone wouldn't be enough.
II. The Man of Determination
Rumplestiltskin didn't know what to make of his new maid. She was clever, quick in both mind and body. She picked up the basic house-keeping tasks well enough, even if her meat was usually undercooked. She scoured the entirety of the castle within the first week and then settled in like she had always belonged there.
The most puzzling thing about her was the feel of magic that followed her like a cloud. He was able to track its source to a pendant she wore around her neck and he was impressed with how old and powerful the enchantment was.
He asked her about it once but all she said was it had been a gift from her mother. He would catch her looking at it at times, her face frozen in a peculiar mask of grief and regret before she would shake herself off and go about her tasks as if nothing had happened.
He didn't know why the sight of her looking like that made him uncomfortable. She was a hired help, capable but ultimately replaceable. He shouldn't let her troubles bother him. He shouldn't.
And yet he did.
The winter was letting its grasp on the mountains go very slowly. While Rumplestiltskin could have easily magicked away the snow and turn the castle and its grounds into a permanent garden, he preferred the picture of inhospitability the harsh weather provided.
Only the most desperate and determined found their way to him in the depth of winter, braving the elements to seek his help. Rumplestiltskin liked dealing with those people. They tended to keep the bargains they made, too desperate for his deliverance to try and cheat him.
Belle usually made herself scarce during those times. She loved the library he had given her - although he had played it off as nothing unusual - and she spent a lot of time in there, perusing the books. She would only emerge to prepare the meals and as his dealings rarely ran that long, she almost never came into contact with other people.
One of the requests he heard concerned a large black wolf that was terrorizing villages on the borders of King George's and Queen Regina's lands. It wasn't the first time he had heard of it. The beast was savage, killing for fun instead of need.
It was most likely a solitary werewolf and Rumplestiltskin expected it to run afoul one of the other packs eventually. The werewolves preferred to deal with such matters on their own and they wouldn't appreciate his involvement.
But one of the villages had offered an old sword as a part of the reward. Durandal wasn't exactly Excalibur but it also wasn't a sword to be sneered at. It was a good bargain and Rumplestiltskin liked those the best.
The moonlit forest was quiet around him. Too quiet.
Rumplestiltskin sighed.
"Come out, come out, dearie. This is not a game of hide and seek."
The crunching of twigs under heavy paws was deliberately loud. A large black wolf stalked out of its hiding place with a confidence that would look strange on an animal. But there was intelligence in the wolf's glowing eyes and Rumplestiltskin knew his guess was correct.
A werewolf. The beast stopped a few metres away from him and then sat down on its haunches. It looked him over cautiously, its nostrils flaring as it took in his scent. He could see its quickly hidden flinch.
"You don't like the scent of magic, do you?"
A low growl came from within the beast's throat and its body coiled like a spring. Rumplestiltskin was fascinated. The werewolf knew him to be dangerous. It disliked the smell of him and yet it was getting ready to attack. Admirable, really.
The werewolf jumped, clearing the distance between them easily. Rumplestiltskin stepped aside quickly, the snap of the wolf's jaws echoing in his ears. An ordinary human would have been done for.
"Come now, dearie, don't make this more difficult than it has to be. If I don't kill you, one of the packs will. You're close to Anita's territory and she's really protective of it."
The werewolf snarled at him and lunged again. Rumplestiltskin sighed and prepared to cast a quick spell, one that would cleave the beast in two. Quick, although not very clean. He realized too late that the first wolf was only a distraction.
The jaws that latched onto his right shoulder missed his throat only by chance. The weight of the other beast, helped by the momentum of its jump, drove him to the ground. Rumplestiltskin said a word that he would never utter in Belle's company and transported himself away on instinct.
Two. There were two of those damn beasts.
He hated it when he was wrong.
Rumplestiltskin briefly wondered what was the first thing to pass through Belle's mind when he appeared in the castle's foyer, his cape, shirt and vest torn and blood welling from the wound in his shoulder.
He saw her drop the broom. He saw her wide eyes looking him over. He saw her lift her skirts and run across the marble floor to get to him. He saw her mouth open to ask a question but as she took a breath to do so, she paused.
She stared at him and then she took another breath, more deliberate one and then her eyes hardened.
"Who did this?" she asked, her voice more akin to a growl than speech.
"What's wrong?"
"Who did this to you? Where are they?" Belle asked again and looked around as if expecting his assailant to be in the castle with them.
"Really, dearie, there's no need to get so worked up. It's just a scratch."
"You could have died, Rumple!" she shouted and he jumped in surprise. "You were attacked by a dlak, weren't you? I recognize the scent, I could never forget it."
"You… recognize the scent?" he asked and she slapped a hand across her mouth, as if to push the words back. "How exactly do you recognize the scent of a werewolf?"
She stared at him for a long moment before she lowered her hand.
"Let me treat your wound and I'll tell you."
"My mother comes from a long line of werewolves. Or dlaks, as we prefer to be called."
Belle's hands were steady as they cleaned the wound and dressed it. Rumplestiltskin could have easily healed it with a wave of his hand but why waste the magic when Belle obviously knew what to do. Not to mention how pleasant her careful and gentle touches felt.
"There are two types of the dlaks. Those who suffer from Darkening and those who don't. Darkening is a sickness of the heart. It turns a dlak into a savage beast that enjoys killing. The dlaks like my mother, like me, we are supposed to protect everyone from them. The dlak that attacked you, I recognized its scent because I smelt it all over my mother's corpse."
Rumplestiltskin didn't say anything. Belle, too, kept quiet as she deftly wrapped the bandages around his shoulder. She tied the ends and smoothed them out and still kept quiet. Until she let out the tiniest sob and leaned her head against his freshly bandaged shoulder. Rumplestiltskin did his best not to flinch away. She couldn't be seeking comfort from him, could she?
"Did you kill it?" she asked, her voice muffled.
"Them," he corrected her. "There were two of them and no, they took me by surprise and I instinctively-" he almost said 'ran away' before changing it to, "retreated."
"Good. I'm glad you got away."
"I'm not so easily killed, dearie," he reminded her. "And I'll be going back to finish them off. A deal is a deal."
He missed her warmth as soon as she lifted her head from his shoulder.
"Fine, but I'm coming with you."
III. The Two of Justice
Three hundred years of living and Rumplestiltskin was still learning new things. The latest thing he learned was that when Belle made up her mind to do something, there was no power in the land to change her mind.
"Those beasts killed my mother. I am going."
When he tried to argue about her safety, she simply took off her pendant and walked over to the window. The change was immediate. The werewolf had the same intelligence in her eyes as the other two but her manner was less threatening. She padded over to him and nudged at his hand and he sighed and transported them back to the forest.
Belle ran around the place a few times, sniffing at the ground. She looked back at him and nodded her head in the direction of the river. Rumplestiltskin followed her, trusting that her senses wouldn't lead them astray.
So that was the purpose of the pendant. He should be happy about solving the mystery but he was more concerned about Belle's reaction. She could be stubborn and resolute but this drive she was displaying, it was worrying.
He knew what it was to long for revenge, to return ten-fold the suffering others heaped upon a person. He knew how it could twist and turn a heart. Belle shouldn't be feeling that burning, she shouldn't crave the empty satisfaction of vengeance.
She stopped suddenly and her entire body tensed. He came to a stop next to her, his eyes falling on two shapes several metres away.
The beasts were nearly identical. Black and large, their eyes glowing in the moonlight, they were a fearsome sight. Belle crouched down a bit, her fur standing up along her spine and a steady low growl coming from her throat. She wasn't nearly as big as the two wolves in front of them but she was ready to fight.
One of the wolves took a step forward and Belle moved in front of Rumplestiltskin, the growling getting more intense. She was protecting him! He could do away with the beasts with a snap of his fingers and yet she was putting herself in the harm's way, for him.
"Don't worry, my dear," he spoke to her in a low voice, the endearment slipping out naturally. "They can't hurt me."
She glanced at him and let out a snuffing noise before focusing her attention back to the two werewolves. He reached down to pat her back and she tensed even more.
"Peace. Do you know which one killed your mother?"
She nodded and let out a whine, glaring at the beast on the right.
"You take him then and I'll take care of the other."
She let out a soft bark and then she jumped, bowling the wolf on the right straight over. Its partner turned to help but Rumplestiltskin gestured with his hand and the wolf found itself across the clearing at his feet.
"Let them solve their issues."
The wolf howled and lunged at him and this time Rumplestiltskin didn't play around. He stepped aside from the attack and snapped his fingers. The beast landed heavily on the ground and didn't move again. Rumplestiltskin turned his attention to the more savage fight going on behind him.
Belle was at a disadvantage in size but she made up for that with her ferocity. She and the other wolf circled each other, lunging and snapping in turns. Both of them were bleeding from small wounds, although Belle's were more visible because of her brown fur. The wolf had several strings of drool hanging from its mouth, its eyes wide and feverish.
Belle appeared calm by comparison. Her eyes were focused and she let out a whine now and then, which was answered by the wolf. She was trying to talk to the other wolf but it was ignoring her. She let out a last whine, sounding almost pitiful and then she pressed herself down, looking beaten.
Rumplestiltskin was about to interfere because it looked like Belle was giving up but then he paused. While Belle's entire body was giving off submission vibes, her eyes were just as steely and determined as before. The werewolf didn't realize that, though, and relaxed, secure in its victory. And it was in that moment of inattention that Belle moved.
She sprang forward, her jaw locking onto the wolf's throat and she tossed her head to the side, tearing out skin and veins. The wolf shuddered and collapsed on its side, small tremors passing through its body as its blood flowed freely out.
Belle opened her maw and spat out the blood in a very human-like motion. She looked down at the dying wolf and sniffed it once before turning her head up and letting out a howl that echoed through the forest.
When the echoes ran out, she looked down and then turned away, padding over to Rumplestiltskin, her ears drooping down. She nudged at his hand, asking him to comfort her again and he did, patting her head.
"The revenge's not as sweet as they say, is it, dearie?"
She shook her head and he crouched down so they were eye-to-eye.
"Let's go home."
They ended up in his trophy room, sitting on the rug in front of the fire. Belle, still in her wolf form, had her head and front paws spread across his legs. They sat quietly until the sun rose and Belle changed back. A young woman laying sprawled across his lap was less innocent than a werewolf doing it but Rumplestiltskin suppressed his instinct to get away from such an intimate situation.
"I tried to talk him down. I tried to tell him he should give himself up to authorities but he was too far gone. All he could talk about was how sweet it was to kill things. That's what he called his victims - things."
"You have done the best you could, my dear," Rumplestiltskin told her and she nodded.
"I know. It's like my mother always said. It's the heart of the person that is important and there wasn't enough heart left in him to save him."
"Your mother was a wise woman."
"Yes, she was."
"She would be proud of you."
Belle was quiet for a while, her face turned away from him.
"Thank you, for saying that," she said at last. He nodded, even though she couldn't see him.
"Why don't you get some sleep, dearie?" he suggested. "It has been a long night."
She straightened up and turned around, balancing herself on his thighs and her face was suddenly very close to his. She looked into his eyes for what seemed an eternity and then she smiled, a soft, gentle thing that lit up her entire face. She leaned forward, her lips fluttering against his cheek for the shortest of moments before they were gone.
"Your heart is good, Rumplestiltskin. I'm glad to be here with you."
She was long gone by the time he found the words to say.
"I'm glad you are here, too."