A/N: This is just a little something that's been on my mind for a while. Enjoy!
~8~8~
"Confound that girl!" Rumpelstiltskin murmured heatedly under his befouled breath as he paced his apothecary.
The hollow echo of his stomping resounded insipidly in his dank stone liar which none were allowed to enter. Vials and glass bottles, glittering in a menagerie of exotic hues, tinkled warily from their wooden perches and stone shelves with each thunderous step as though quaking in fear of the masters wrath.
He ran his sharp talons as best he could through the straggly, matted tangle of his hair. A curse dourly spat past his thin lips.
Four hours ago he'd sent the chit to town for a few needed supplies. The people of the backwards village feared him far too much to take his entreaty's in person where his gray-gold skin glittered like the coins he conjured into their dirty, quaking palms.
He could nary even stroll through the bucolic, hovel littered town without people shrieking and snatching up their children as eagles did prey like they did when night fell upon wolf's time. Every shop clapped closed their doors and shutters, denying him entry and attempting with all their will to seem unable to open. In mere moments the dusty, poor market square would be a deserted wasteland with overturned carts and shop signs creaking irksomely upon their rusted hinges.
Normally, he allotted Belle the task under strict mandates on when to return. He would hand her the silver coins and order her to repeat his lists of needs. But on the day of all days, he let his warnings fall to the way side. His foolish heart dared to think, nay believe her a trustworthy slave.
Hah!
A malicious sneer wrench pats his thin mouth as he uttered a dark profanity. His scaled hand shot out dashing a stoppered vial bubbling with some vicious, azure liquid from its stand. Syrupy liquid and shattered glass oozed down the wall like indigo tears as his mind wandered in thought.
Serfs and slaves did not become loyal through kindness! Only with heavy hands of their masters were slaves trustworthy not to betray or face dire consequences. He had never raised a hand to his Belle, and loathed even the consideration, and yet in return for his clemency, she rewarded him with betrayal!
On top of it all, he had casually mentioned whatever was left of the silver coins she could keep for herself. The coins wouldn't add up to much, but odd little feelings of generosity at times to Rumpelstiltskin thrall especially to his servant. She never asked for much, nor even revealed a want though her former station as princess must have begged her to inquire for things.
And now she was fifteen minutes late! The Dark One gnashed his jagged yellowed teeth angrily at the thought and his wiry talons curled into tight fists. His pacing increased to a tempo that thudded about his apothecary in a lurid clangor. He punched his fists into his free hand angrily.
Surely she couldn't have attempted to run on such a pauper's pittance of funds. He gave her an exact amount to not cause suspicion with the villages, or for her to think she could honestly set out for freedom and flee his ownership.
Of course, with the little leftover money, he expected his slave girl to no doubt send some scribes messenger to her father to come harry aid and rescue her, or to her brutish betrothed to steal away at once to the Dark Castle and attempt to free her from the clutches of the Dark One.
Their toils and trouble would be for naught of course; for once the Dark One claimed something as his property only another deal could make him relinquish his greedy hold.
Perhaps they did have something more interesting that his Belle. His wiry talons stroked his beardless chin as he vaguely pondered the thought. News upon the wind and the caw of carrion fowl told they had come across an ogre hoard filled with exotic baubles and trinkets. Surely one of such fine gifts was valuable enough to barter for their beloved princess and free her from thralldom at the claws of a monster.
Already she had spent more time in his presence and the drafty apertures of the Dark Castle than all his other servants combined. Normally, his newly acquired slaves decided to try their hand and flee rather than stay with a master who clothed and fed them better than their previous lives dictated.
As punishment, once they had been caught, and wept at his feet piteously, begging for their miserable lives, he normally ensorcelled them into bugs or animals and gave no more thought to their plight. Other instances families would come across something that piqued his interest and bartered for their indentured loved one who gratefully ran as far from his ominous citadel as humanly possible. The most desperate however, his thin gray lips curled in distaste at the thought of the last woman who'd ended her captivity as nothing more than a splat upon the grounds. Yes, others found their own ways out of his vile hands.
A curse stole past his mouth as his mind wandered back to his Belle. What if she had run? What would he do then? He inwardly reeled at the thought of conjuring her into some hapless critter. Despite her…Belleness… she was a good, hardy worker who never uttered a word of complaint or slacked in chores. She asked for nothing and seemed contented with what scant few things he granted her.
With a soft sigh, the fiend pressed his back against the slimy gray stone. His crossed his slender arms and looked ahead with a lost glint in his sable depths as his mind wallowed and drowned with thoughts of his Belle. She was kind, and bright, with a ready smile at his less morbid quips. How he joyed in the songs that gently trilled from her bright pink lips and wafted in heavenly melody through the dank corridors of his citadel like the sounds of spring in the ice of winter. She was a rare beauty, she was a tender heart in a prison bound in cold stone, she was….she was…
"Rumpelstiltskin?" The captive beauty's voice drifted lightly upon the air like a wandering specters lonely wail through the haunts of the Dark Castle.
Late. The word rang in his mind, blurring all else in his thoughts. A tight grimace formed upon his lips. She was late.
Flourishing his wiry, scaled claws through the chill atmosphere, a roiling cloud of dark amethyst engulfed the fiend to ferry him down to the main hall. The last part of him to disappear was his voided ebony eyes which flashed like smooth, glassy stones in their sockets. She would pay, for loitering about.
"You're late!" The Dark One snarled as he burst into the main hall in all his sinister glory. Torch flames bickered and guttered crazily as his dark powers crackled ominously through the room causing the creeping shadows to dance wildly at the winds behest. Lavish, intricate tapestries swished and rustled as though a fierce gale blew through the gray walled confines of his mausoleum.
Vapors of his lavender hued magic wisped from off his gray-gold skin as he thundered into the room he usually inhabited when he was absent from his apothecary. The sickly sweet scent of his magic lingered longer than the purple mist, but leeched away with the howling drafted hissing through his citadel.
His eyes were icy chips of obsidian midnight as he stared viciously at his slave. He worked his jaw angrily as he loomed over her slender frame in his displeased air. With his wrath at an inferno, he nary gave noticed to the dribbles of rain that plopped upon the floor under her feet.
The beauty calmly laid her straw basket burden upon the large wooden table. A black piece of linen lay tucked over the bulging contents, effectively hiding and protecting whatever things he deemed important enough to buy from simpleminded villagers. In her other arm she deposited a medium sized, wet box upon the table next to her masters items.
A sigh wearily fell from Belle's lips as she slipped the overlarge hood from her head. Tendrils of chestnut ringlets matted and clung insipidly to her face Water trailed from the ends of her russet tresses upon her ragged golden ball gown and the exquisite carpet.
"You're late." He snarled through gritted again, his tone low and dangerous demanding explanation.
How his fathomless eyes blazed with monstrous fury! Most would have fallen to their knees in stark terror, but not his Belle, never his brave dove.
She took a deep breath, unfazed by his snapping wroth. Her clever fingers, stiff with cold and rain undid the cords of her sopping cloak. "By the time I bought everything I needed it was raining. I was going to forge my way through the rain, but I thought to wait a spell to see if it stopped. When it didn't I had to trudge through the mud. The going was slow, and I apologize for my tardiness."
He snorted angrily and spat furiously. "Excuses, nothing more."
"I can't stop the rain, Rumpelstiltskin!" Belle snapped in distempered tones. The cloak snapped wetly with the wet as she draped the heavy, soaked item about her arm. Rain leeched into her skin, making her porcelain flesh clammy and cool to the touch from the merciless downpour and chilled to the very bone. Her muscles were stiff and sore from the extra effort of trudging through the muck and her dress felt heavier gummed with road mud that weighed her down like liquid chains that crusted about her ankles.
His somber ebony orbs shifted to the now pulpy, gray oblong box pooling water upon the table. He unfurled his curled hand and pointed a single talon to the container. "And what, pray tell is that?" Demanded the fiend.
"You said I could have the rest of the coins after I finished bargaining for your supplies." The beauty reminded him resolutely, her tone clipped.
His smoldering depths jerked back to her viciously. "I know what I said!" He snapped tritely as though scolding a petulant child. "I want to know what it is."
"Then look." She suggested in furious retort and wiped rain water from her face. Her tired soul flared with the warmth of rage that oozed through her chilled veins like fire. The heat of anger seemed a grand welcome to the cold reception he glowered upon her.
His claws dug cruelly into the melting paper like a lumpy pile of battered flesh. Carelessly ripping off the once solid top, his eyes narrowed at an ugly, gray woolen dress.
The dress looked made from the scraps of wool from the ends of old spools. His scaled skin itched mercilessly as he ran his fingertips upon the coarse material stitched stiffly and simple in the drabbest way imaginable. Darkish gray, akin to filthy snow, stained its color in an all-out foul hue.
A scowl of disgust and sad remembrance crawled upon his hideous face. Once upon a time he had worn clothes such as these. Before his flamboyant attire of mottled leather and dragon hide, he'd clothed himself in ugly homespun not fit for beggars as well.
Resting upon the ugly raiment's laid a small strip of light blue cloth. The azure tint had lost its color as though it'd been left out in the sun to fade until it was a sickly cyanotic blue.
"I needed a dress." Belle explained icily, her tone colder than her shivering body. She wrapped her slender arms around her damp body to retain what little heat remained in her form, wanting nothing more than to sit close to the blazing hearth. "This one is near unusable now."
Indeed her golden ball gown she had once looked so noble and lovely was a mere rag. The frills had been lost and torn out for convenience sake or work perils. Rips and tear festooned the golden garb that had abandoned all its beauty and courtly glimmer of what seemed ages ago in a different life and world.
Rumpelstiltskin's jagged line of black, rounded teeth flashed nastily in the fire light as his thin lips pried back in a baleful sneer. His talons plucked impishly at the ugly dress. "So you fritter away time on picking out some dress and a strip of ribbon." He hefted the faded blue section of linen that served as a hair bind surreptitiously before casually tossing it back as he would garbage.
"I did not cast away my time!" Belle shouted furiously to her master, unable to contain her overflowing frustrating. Bone weary and spirit laden with heaviness she let her wrath flare as the flames in the heart and clash unrepentantly with his surly nature. Her hand curled into fists as she glared murder upon him. "I told you, the rain inhibited me! If you weren't so absorbed being hunched over your witches cauldron fiddling with roots, brewing berries, rehearsing incantations, or sulking in mind engulfing contemplation you'd have probably at least noticed the deluge and the thunder instead of blaming me for loitering and indolence!"
He pointed a black, sharped nail at her face, his voice a growling sneer which flagrantly announced peril. "You tread dangerous ground speaking to your master in such a way! No matter what occurred, you were late, and I should punish you accordingly!"
"Of course you will!" She threw her hands up uncaringly. "I knew that when I stared out in the rain! You'd never understand! Rumpelstiltskin, sometimes you're as ignorant as a dense peasant!" She roared, unknowing what terrible threshold she had crossed.
Rage, hot a feral danced wickedly in the Dark One's onyx orbs. In a fit of rage, he callously tossed the wet pulpy box, dress and all into the hearth blaze. Wet collided with the licking flames in a fierce clash. Oily billows of smoke and steam churned rapidly from the sputtering inferno as though vomiting up the dress. The hissing of water rang like a den of angry vipers as the flames greedily lapped up the woolen chemise and ribbon like a starving man would a haunch of meat.
A chocked cry nearly sailed from Belle's lips before she clamped her mouth shut with a fierce will. Weary as she was, she forced the hot press of tears not to spring form her cerulean depths. Her eyes twinkled in the bickering firelight as she watched the dress she'd bargained with what little she had be devoured by the gluttonous fire.
Each fiber turned sooty black before crumbling away as did her hope for a fitting dress not punctured with holes and rips.
Before the fiend could order her to her cell, the beauty flashed him a saddened, sharp look like an arrow that buried itself in his chest. Her shoulders slumped dejectedly as she started to her dungeon without a word. Anger and sorrow danced upon her skin as she slowly tread her way to her bale of straw.
Sorry nearly, very nearly, sprang from his lips as she walked past. The look of utter melancholy seared his soul like a brand pressed deep into his black heart. For a moment he nearly lifted his hand to summon up the dark arts to recall the dress from the maw of the flames, but pride hampered his wish to banish the wet that welled in her eyes.
Without looking in her direction he listened to her footsteps as they dully marched down the stony stairs. His heart squeezed agonizingly with boney claws of guilt that ripped and slashed as his dragon like hearing picked up the faint sound of tears splashing against the cold granite steps, and the chatter of her teeth as she shivered from the cold and wet.
He should have let her dry off, he noted, but shook the thought away, determined to stew in his anger. She deserved no kindness, she was a slave and prisoner who not only was she late, but sought to argue as well.
Crossing his leather clad arms; the fiend stared ponderously into the bickering flames that receded with its hunger sated. His fathomless black eyes glimmered like stars rested in their sable depths as the last of the fabric crinkled into black char. The black smoke curled in through the room was nary a distraction as his black soul twisted from what he had done.
~8~8~
"Blast her." The Dark One snarled beneath his breath. His sharp, black talons smoothed across soft, cotton as he laid a dress down upon his apothecary table. Potions and elixirs on different hues lay forgotten upon the floor and rattled about freely in tightly sealed jars as he expended his time upon different toils.
The garb was a simple, yet lovely peasant's dress, far, far better than the pauper's gown she purchased. The chemise was a rich, soft dark blue and simple and pliable for comfort. The skirt stopped at ankle length, but without any frills or hoops to hamper her movements. Simple and beautiful defined her personality as well as her clothing.
There was nothing special about the dress save the Dark One himself had sewn the gown. Years as a simple spinner came hastily back to his sharp claws whilst he worked the soft fabric and thread.
Making clothes from the sheep's wool was another job he was once proficient at since his leg left him to do 'woman's work' instead of out in battle slaying the savage ogres or inhabiting the harvest fields with men in the autumn.
His eyes critically scanned the attire dyed in her favorite color for any stich out of place. Though he may have been the Dark One, he still prided himself upon his spinner's craft; his only skill without the aid of magic.
Nodding with a sagacious satisfaction, the fiend dug into his vest pocket revealing the last apology in things that he could not speak with his mouth. A silk ribbon of bright, sapphire blue rested in his claws.
Though a ribbon wasn't much, the small token seemed a grand trinket to the beauty. A strip of cloth, was a small, little luxury most, even surfs could afford, and yet like the dress it differed fantastically from the ordinary.
A line of gold thread sat stitched in an intricate pattern through the center of the blue silk, giving it a touch of flare. When the sun light or fire light hit the band of gold, the thread would glimmer like sun upon the frosted earth.
A small smile ghosted upon his lips as he stared down upon the item. His thumbs traced the pattern he'd worked feverishly to craft. Though there had not been a need for such an extravagance, the fiend found himself wanting to give her, just a small everyday reminder to whom his Belle belonged. In a way, the gold marked her as his, showing just a flash of his power and fortune with a line of inlayed gold.
Snapping his wiry talons, a smile twitched upon his thin lips. Lilac magic spurted from his fingertips and about that cloth and ribbon with a royal wave of his hand.
Immediately the cloth lay packaged in a neat box. A pink bow tied the package up neatly, giving it the appearance of a thoughtful gift and not simply something to say he was sorry.
The fiend scooped the package in his hands and began to head down the spiral stone stair well that lead to the castle proper. Taking one confident step out of his festering apothecary, Rumpelstiltskin paused as though struck like an immobilization spell.
His talons clicked nervously against the nondescript conjured box like he had been caught thieving. Trouble clouded his scaled face. How was he to exactly give her the gift to make up for what she had lost? Cursing his simple mind, the Dark One turned about in one smooth motion.
With a vicious kick at the thick stone door to vent his frustration the fiend plowed through his apothecary once more. A curse passed the barrio of his lips as she dumped the box upon the table once more and set up pacing to ponder his precarious situation.
~8~8~
"Belle." The Dark One spoke her name tentatively as he entered the main hall. Part of him snarled at himself in anger as she slipped inside the treasure strewn hall. Why did he act as though she were some regal mistress and he a sneaking slave?
Clearing his throat nervously he marched with false confidence until he stood near the large oaken table.
Her back was turned from him as she busied herself dusting his collection of trinkets. "I'm not talking with you." She stated primly as she did when she was angry with him. The simple five words were all he would receive, master or no, before he could see what he'd done wrong.
"Don't be childish." He scolded darkly, feeling the embers of his rage flare back to life. His hand drummed against the box in an agitating manner. Here he thought to make amends and she acted as though she had no fault!
For the first time, the beauty who normally kept silent snapped. After all he had done, his antics, his tempers; to have the gall to call her childish seemed laughable if she had even been remotely in the mood to laugh.
She slapped her duster down causing a plume of ashen gray motes to wind through the air. "Childish. You have the nerve to brand me childish! The man who throws fits over the slightest happenstance!"
"I do not!" He protested bitterly, his sharp mind not blind to the irony of such a simple rebuttal. His talons curled into fists. "You have the nerve to be offended when you are punished for your wrongs! Childishness if I ever saw it in another creature!" He viscously slammed his fist down upon the table.
A vase filled with fresh daffodils rattled but remained aright in his wrath.
"My wrong was being late!" She exclaimed and turned about on her heel to face him. Her cobalt eyes blinked in surprise as she they fell to the neatly wrapped package. The white box even had a pink bow tied to keep in closed.
Refusing to relent her anger, though she felt the cool waters of surprise begin to sluice over her burning rage, she glowered hatefully at the Dark One. "What is it?"
"Look." He mocked sullenly in his impish timbre, loosely repeating her words a day before. His wiry claws gestured towards the box.
Hitching what was left of her ragged golden gown in fistfuls the beauty regally strode toward the box. Her head was held high and a cold gleam of an austere noble in her eyes that she only possessed when she was angered with her master.
Ripping the package open, the coldness melted from her eyes in shock. A dress, a lovely, beautiful dress lay folded before her. The arms were folded and tied with a lovely ribbon to replace the one devoured by the ravenous flames.
His heart back flipped crazily in his sunken chest as he stared dodging at the beauty. His dark eyes tried with all their cunning to see into her, to know her heart. After a moment of fruitless scanning, a dark frown pulled past his lips as his defenses rose once more.
"Since you had to have a new dress, I suppose I had to do something for you." He snarled sullenly and rolled his eyes as though she were an inconvenience.
Gratefulness flashed in her indigo orbs, but she pitifully veiled her happiness with the heat of rage. "It's lovely." She shouted back as though he'd insulted her.
"You like it?"
"Yes!"
"Good!"
"Good!"
"Thank you!" She yelled, as though she were angry, her mind not quite certain why she still sounded so upset. His gift, and the anger that clung darkly to her heart all seemed to mingle indiscriminately.
He marched grumpily to the corridor leading to his apothecary thought his heart soared upon the wings of dragons. "You're welcome!" He snapped and stomped grouchy up the stairs.
Silence reigned once more as his footsteps became duller and duller. Once she was certain he had departed the beauty eagerly lifted the gown from the box. She admired it at arm's length, daring not to place it against her filthy dress in fear of smearing it with ilk and dirt so soon.
Her eyes flickered to the darkened corridor where her surly master had departed. Perhaps, just perhaps there was a good heart behind the evil and darkness that owned his soul.
"Thank you, Rumpelstiltskin." She murmured gratefully in his direction. Her heart sailed just a bit more to her curious master as she stuffed the dress back into the box and hurried to change.