Title: To fight the darkness within…
Summary: The one who created the Dark Curse is the only one who can break it, and the only one who knows that is the imp Rumpelstilskin, and he isn't telling…not after he's waited all these years for her to come back. Now he has other plans in mind for what is to come and he's all too happy playing dumb and watching the proud folk of this world running around in desperation.
Author's Note: First a short disclaimer, I own nothing. Next, I just want to say that this story kept bugging me until I could stand it no more and finally had to write it down so I hope it brings enjoyment and that you all bear with me as I rassle with the characters. They are very loud and very annoying.
"So here you are again, behind bars and powerless to boot." Rumpelstilskin scowled at the blonde woman standing just outside his prison. She looked just as she always did, brilliant blonde hair cascaded down her back in golden waves and the firelight caught her wide blue eyes and turned them into burning pools of sapphire. Her leggings and coat were made of the finest material and matched his own ensemble, just as she had always liked to do when she was alive. "What do you want?" He said in no mood for the usual torture that always accompanied her 'visits'.
She smiled and ran her hands up and down the bars. "Don't be like that Rumple, is that anyway to treat your wife?" She asked cheekily.
He flinched at her words and lunged up from sitting on the cold stone cutout. "You're not my wife anymore," he narrowed his eyes in anger and approached the bars, all the while she watched with open affection in her eyes. "Till death do us part, remember?" He asked harshly.
She frowned and he cursed the guilt that ran through him as pain flashed through her eyes. "If I recall properly, I believe what I said was forever and always, not even death can keep us apart forever." She said softly.
He growled and lunged for her through the bars, but as usual his hands met air, seconds later he smelled her scent-vanilla and cinnamon- before her strong, gentle hands reached around him from behind and enveloped him. He closed his eyes against the flood of emotion that hit him like a battering ram. White hot agony lanced through him and he felt the gaping hole that her death had created widen a little more, he took a ragged breath and leaned his head against the very real bars of his prison. "Why are you here?"
He could feel her lay her head against his back and cursed the false comfort that he took in that act. "I'm here for you of course." She said simply as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "I thought you might like to know that the time I promised you is coming. You might want to prepare yourself."
His eyes popped open and he tensed. "That's impossible. The Queen gave the curse away." And it had taken every ounce of his control not to go and rip her head from her shoulders for that, he had searched for centuries for the right kind of person to invoke the Darkness only to have her trade it for a sleeping curse, as if that puny little parlor trick could have stopped True Love.
He felt her chuckle roll through him and she squeezed, "Yes, but she'll get it back. You choose wisely when you gave her the curse, she will invoke it and then all this will be a distant memory." The weight on his back vanished and he looked up to see her standing once more outside the bars. He felt power prickle along his skin and shivered, prophecy was coming and even his prison could not prevent the power from washing over and through him. Dimly he heard her speak over the rushing in his ears and with her words images flashed in his mind. A small town in a far off land, a clock that didn't tell time, he saw the influential people in the kingdoms stripped of their power, standing, and happiness as Regina ruled from a vast mansion. "The Darkness is coming; it will envelope anything and everyone within our land, all the happily ever after's will be forgotten and the Queen shall rule over all: victorious. Everyone will be trapped frozen in time forever."
He sucked in a breath as the visions cleared from his sight and he could see her once again. She stood lined with a bright white light and little flecks of snow fell softly around her. "I'm coming back my love, and when I do I'll need your help. Tell my new parents what they'll need to know to prepare, before this is done you will need their help…all their help." She smiled and turned into the light, giving him one last longing glance she stepped into the light and disappeared. "I'll see you soon and remember…I love you forever and always." Her voice echoed after she had gone and it was only the lingering smell of vanilla and cinnamon and the melting flecks of snow that told him that she hadn't been just a figment of his mind, and for the first time in centuries Rumpelstilskin felt hope fill him. With a satisfied grin he settled once more in the shadows of his cell, now that prophecy had been spoken and witnessed it was only a matter of time before the players started moving into position, and this time he wasn't going to let anything get between him and his happily ever after again.
The time for his nightmare to end was coming, and he reveled in the thought that all those 'good' people, all those 'bad' people would be brought to their knees as they were introduced to the true meaning of Darkness. The guards stationed outside his prison shivered as his howling laughter floated to them, and suffered as it continued through the night. They didn't want to know what could make a monster like that laugh, and waited eagerly for the dawn to come and for them to take to their beds.