I do not own Once Upon a Time, alas.
Note: This Rhosyn's take on the dreams where she met Rumplestiltskin from my story Londyn Bridge. In this AU, Rhosyn (her name is Welsh for rose) is Belle's counterpart (there's an important reason she isn't known as Belle). Rumplestiltskin went with Baelfire through the portal, winding up in an alternate world that is not quite our own in the city of Londyn. Rhosyn, like Storybrooke's Belle, has lost her memory and is imprisoned in a mental asylum. Unfortunately, she'd there because her keepers have a use for her.
X
Stop it, stop it, stop it!
The words were choked off by the tube they'd forced down her throat as they pumped the poison into her.
It's blood. It's nightmares—no, not nightmares, it's real. Don't let it near me, don't put it inside me. Don't-!
The blood they had given her before was foul and rotting, choked with pain and death. But, it had curled up inside of her. It was cold and loathsome, but it wanted nothing more than to press against her warmth. The nightmares it gave her, the visions of slow murders carried out in the shadows, were human and comprehensible. The feelings that had echoed in her mind were human and comprehensible. These weren't.
The blood emptied into her stomach and blossomed inside her. It was fire burning into every nerve in her body like buried flames consuming the roots of trees. It was ice that that made her scream in agony as it sliced through her. It was a shadow, forcing its way into her, filling her, exploring all the hidden places of her body and mind.
She saw things. She saw a frightened man, his large body collapsing in on itself. Warmth bled out of flesh, leaving it cold yet alive. Smooth skin changed, oozing a thick dampness. Bones dissolved into something soft and moist, like a dripping sponge. The world changed. Vision narrowed, becoming only light and dark. The mind crushed inward, memory vanishing (her name, her name was gone). She was aware of the smell of damp earth, far away, and the need to seek it out, like a ghost seeking its grave at dawn.
The fragments of her mind knew only hunger, a fear of light and touch, and a longing for darkness—but the not the darkness that stood by her, not the darkness who's laughter she could feel even as it settled her against the earth and laughed before crushing her—
And an even greater darkness standing beside, watching, laughing at her, at the simplicity of her fears.
Just wait, it whispered (whispered without mouth or lips or words, but she felt the too close warmth of its breath lick against her). Murder's better, love, so much better than killing a snail. Don't pretend you don't like it,it said, shadow fingers playing across her as she screamed. You can't get enough of it, can you? The taste of blood.
Then, the questions began, as they always did. The darkness, like a beast scenting prey, lifted its head at them and laughed again. It poured itself into her, tearing her mind apart with the answers she saw-
"Go," a voice commanded.
"Go."
And it was gone.
She thought she might be sobbing. Or raving. Or too weak to do anything. Arms closed around her, as if she were a child (images, memories, a man holding a little boy with a mop of dark curls who sobbed for his mother). A rough, gentle voice sang an odd song. The words seemed to come from the world of visions and blood, but they were spun into something new and comforting.
"Howling ghosts – they reappear
"In mountains that are stacked with fear
"But I'm a king and you're a lionheart.
"A lionheart".
She looked at him, knowing that what she was in the world of her dreams, the world where the poison sent her. But, there was warmth and light, and there was a man holding her who she had never seen in her cell or the small world of the corridors beyond it.
He had a thin face, lined with grief and kindness. His hair was tied in a long queue that had slipped over his shoulder as he rocked her in his arms. None of the men who dragged her away to be fed or washed or who sat taking notes as she begged them to stop the visions had hair like that. Women, of course, had hair that was even longer, but it was always kept braided or tied up, even hers in its matted tangles. His coat was a color she couldn't remember seeing, a dark, reddish color.
Not like earth, she thought. And not like blood, finding comfort in that.
Could he be real? She wondered, looking at his kind, sad face. Could anything that sent the darkness away instead of forcing it into her be real?
"Who are you?" she whispered.
"Rumplestiltskin," he said. "Who are you?"
She frowned, trying to make sense of his words. She was no one and nothing. She was like the bowls brought to her cell, unimportant except for the things they put inside her, to be taken away and locked up again when she had served her purpose.
Who are you?
Like the wordless, voiceless sound of the darkness, she could feel his question brushing against her. But, where the darkness cut like a knife, his voice soothed, taking the sting out of wounds.
Yet, his words traveled through her, the way the darkness had, flowing through the same paths. It touched something buried deep. Like a frightened mouse, it coaxed it gently into the light.
Who are you?
"Rhosyn?" she said, uncertain till she tasted the word—the name—in her mouth, the flavor of it tingled, familiar, against her tongue. "Rhosyn," she repeated.
"That . . . thing," Rumplestiltskin said. "Do you know what it was?"
He'd seen it. Of course, he had. She'd heard him order it away. But, the people who fed her and caged her always acted as if the darkness didn't exist, as if she were the only one who ever saw it.
Madness, she heard them whisper.
But, this was a man in her visions, in a world where there were colors she'd never imagined and people who tried to make the darkness go away instead of summoning it, who sang her lullabies as though she were a child.
And she was a child, a child who stood helplessly while the darkness did whatever it wanted with her. . . .
"I tried," she told him. "I tried to fight it. Do the brave thing and bravery will follow . . . ." Who had told her that? A face swam before her eyes, a woman with pale skin and hair the color of warm earth. She tried to explain. "When I look at it, I see. They give me blood to drink to make me see. ..."
She tried to shake off the memories. There was no pain, no darkness, not now. Real or dreaming, this moment was safe. She—Rhosyn—was certain of it. Nothing could harm her. Not so long as this moment lasted.
Exhaustion began to overtake her. She leaned closer against the man. "Rumplestiltskin," she said. She liked the taste of his name as well, she decided, even though she didn't understand all the things she could sense hiding inside it. But, something in it pressed against her, something she needed to tell him. "They think they've seen you," she said. "But, they haven't." She yawned. There was something else at the corner of her mind. What was it? Oh, yes: a warning. "Don't let them. Not till it's too late. . . ."