I do not own Once Upon a Time. I'm just playing with the character :)

Belle was pretty sure she didn't like fairies.

During her time at the Dark Castle Belle had an awful lot of thinking time on her hands, after all there wasn't all that much else to do when she was cleaning Rumplestiltskin's knick-knacks.

At the beginning all she could focus on was her master. Waiting for the moment he would turn into the beast that her father was certain he was. But with each passing day the tension had lessened until it was very nearly non-existent and she had felt comfortable to smile and laugh in his presence.

But then when she was no longer focusing entirely on the Dark One she had found her mind wondering to other things.

Sometimes she would think about her home, her friends, her father – funnily enough she never really thought of her fiancé – but then she would have to slam up a wall on those thoughts as all they did was make her melancholy.

So she started planning out her weeks. What room needed her attention next, what chores she needed to do daily and what tasks could be left alone for longer, but she quickly established a routine that required no thought and she was back at the beginning again.

And then, seeing Rumplestiltskin appear and disappear at will and sit at his spinning wheel spinning the straw into gold it had got her thinking about magic.

Belle had never focused too much on magic.

It existed in her world - that was an accepted fact. Even if you had never seen someone 'do magic' everyone knew it was a thing. But until the Ogre Wars had grown so much that the battle was at her door step she had never needed to think about it.

She had scoured her father's library, desperate for a way to end the war and stop the bloodshed. And with each tome she devoured she came up blank. She found some useful ways to preserve what little food had been harvested but nothing else.

So she had turned to the tales her nurse had told her as a child.

She wished. She wished so hard. Every night she wished upon the star that blazed the brightest, praying for the Blue Fairy to answer her pleading. And nothing happened.

So she wished upon every tear, every fallen eyes-lash and every shooting star.

For nearly a year she begged and pleaded for the benevolent wish granters of her world to answer her.

And nothing.

Maybe her wish was too selfish, she had reasoned with herself. Was it selfish to want the war to end, or to be given some skill to help it end?

When the 'good' of her world had refused to answer she had turned to the bogie-man - willing to sell her soul if need be. She had gone behind her father's back and had not told him until it was too late to do anything but wait. To wait for death or salvation.

And salvation had arrived just in time in the shape of the Dark One, sitting in her father's chair with a wicked grin splitting his face, his strange green skin almost glittering in the light.

She missed his skin. He looked so…un-impish now. And she missed his eyes. His wide, huge, almost coal black eyes. He could look so much like a kicked puppy sometimes…

He was so different now. He looked so…well…human and yet he was treated like a leaper – not that her true love cared or did anything to remedy the animosity shown towards him. He exalted in it and made sure that so one forgot just who he was despite his looks.

Belle had seen a fairy only once before the curse had been cast.

And she had decided in that one moment that she did not trust them.

Oh they were beautiful creatures, with magic dusting there wings like glitter. But there was something too nice about them. They were too happy, too helpful. Belle did not trust people who only allowed you to see one side of them, especially if that one side of them was too virtuous.

And during her time in Storybrooke her opinion of them had not grown.

One of them – of course it had to be the Blue Fairy – had been the first to approach her when she was walking to the pawn shop to surprise Rum. He was not happy with her walking about the town by herself – too many old scores had yet to be settled against him – but she had shrugged him off. She had been stuck in a prison long enough she did not want to be cooped up indoors any longer.

The Mother Superior had approached her, all smiles and helpful advice.

"I have not seen you around the town dear," she had pried for information and Belle hadn't wanted to be rude and brush her off – despite everything.

Belle had kept walking – all be it a bit slower than she had wanted to – as she told the woman where she had been for the past twenty-eight years and just why she hadn't been seen around the town.

She had been so close to the shop.

"I am sorry M'lady-"just how did one address a fairy? "-but I am expected,"

"Indeed,"

And it was then that Belle realised that she was no quite as unknown to the Blue Fairy as the woman had made out.

The store was in sight when she had been grabbed by the arm and stopped.

"A word to the wise my dear," the woman had smiled, "The Dark One is not capable of love," Belle's stomach had plummeted for a second but then she recovered. No! Rum was more than capable of loving someone! He loved her. She had seen it in his eyes and in the way he did little things for her.

"There is no goodness in him,"

The fairy had smiled at her and the grip on Belle's arm had slackened until she was being patted instead.

Belle had jerked her arm roughly away from the woman.

"You are wrong. Good day," she snapped and strode away, fighting with herself not to burst into a sprint.

She had seen the glint in the woman's eyes. She had set out to hurt her, to plant some doubt. And Belle would not allow anything that anyone said to poison her against Rum. She would judge for herself. Just as she had always done.

Fairies were as blemished as the rest of them – they just hid it better under there fawning and smiling.

No, Belle was glad her wishing had been fruitless, she would have hated to feel indebted to the Blue Fairy. And even though it would seem like they did it for the sake of being 'good' she could no longer believe that. Rum had told her often enough that all magic had a price and she could not help but wonder what plan the fairies were working too to make the price worth paying.

She would chose a green skinned, wicked tongued imp over a fluttering bewinged godmother any day of the week, no matter the world.

This is a one-shot that has been living on my tumblr for a little while. Slowly but surely things are migrating over :)