So Much More
By Lina Muro
Summary: AU, Dark One!Belle, Rumbelle. "The curse of the Dark One is a strange one. It doesn't change you. Not as much as you'd want to believe. It takes your strongest traits, your desires, and warps them...draws them to the surface and forces back the rest of the things that made you human. It's nice to be brave. But when you stop feeling fear…after a while you don't feel anything else either."
Disclaimer: I don't own Once. If I did, Rumbelle wouldn't have to deal with so much stupid shit.
Prologue
' Don't stop running,' his mind told him. He could hear the cries and horror behind him. He could hear the bellows of the sightless beasts, the terrified whinny of the horses, and the screams of dying men. Smoke was thick in the air, and what didn't reek of ogre, blood, and death, smelled of burning flesh. It was enough to make one sick. His terror was the only thing that kept him from pausing to vomit at the stench. All he could picture in his mind was his wife, Milah, and the rumor he had heard the day before.
The man, thin with wispy brown hair, paused for breath behind a tall tree, his hand clutching at the small leather pouch he had received the night before to carry onto the battlefield he currently fled from. It contained nothing more than a lock of curling brown hair. His Milah's hair
He could still hear the words of the tiny messenger girl, a stranger with bright blue eyes, ringing in his ears from the night before as she delivered the pouch. "Fight bravely, Rumplestiltskin. There is rumor your wife is with child! Be brave for your son." She patted his arm before disappearing among the soldiers, presumably to give more news to the men in the camp.
"My son," he muttered, breaking into a run again. It suddenly didn't matter that he wanted to change his family's reputation, or prove himself. The only thing that mattered was that a tiny baby in a muddy shack was out in the world without his father. And if anyone knew what that was like, it was Rumplestiltskin.
It was with desperation and his heart pounding loudly in his ears that disaster struck. As he rounded the edge of the field, preparing to dart into the treeline, something he had mistaken for a boulder roared to life before him.
Shock struck him before flight could prompt him on, and Rumple found himself lifted into the air. The ogre was blind, bald, and dumb as rocks, but a keen sense of hearing and smell combined with its large body and crushing strength certainly made up for it. He screamed when the ugly beast snarled, crushing his right shin bone. He heard it crack as it shattered, the sound not unlike a cannon blast.
If he had ever known pain before, it was swept from his memory. He realized he had never known anything but the protest of his bones grinding together, his muscles and tendons crying out at the deformation. The smell of the ogre invaded his senses along with the blinding pain. He saw himself in the beast's eyes, just as they had told him he would when he was about to die.
But as suddenly as it had begun, it also ended. The hideous creature bellowed in pain as an arrow flew into one of its vulnerable blind eyes.
Rumplestiltskin fell to the ground as the ogre reeled backwards and collapsed with a heavy thud. He lay there in pain, the world shifting in and out of darkness, unable to understand what had just happened.
A shape appeared to his right, and he struggled to turn his head. A woman in a blood-red cloak stood over him, her face shadowed by a large hood.
"That was foolish of you, Rumplestiltskin."
If the female voice hadn't been laced with contempt, he might have found it pretty. The delicate soprano gave a tinkling, condescending giggle then as he attempted to blink away his shock.
"I….I'm alive?" he stuttered.
The figure leaned down toward him, and he felt a sharp jolt of pain shoot through his right leg as a glittering hand came to rest on it. He let out a gasp.
"If pain doesn't let you know you're alive," she replied dryly, "Then I can't imagine what will."
The hand that had been resting on his shattered leg began to move up his body. Rumple didn't understand what was happening as she hovered over him, ghosting her palm across his chest and belly.
"You'll live," she said at length. Her tone was the same bored expression as before, a slight accent twisting its sound. "Your leg will never fully heal, but that's the extent of the damage."
"Thank the gods," Rumple whispered.
The woman stood up, and as he felt her move away, panic stirred in his breast.
"Wait! You aren't just going to leave me here!" he cried out, grabbing her cloak. "I have to get back to my son!"
She jerked to a stop, her body tensing and looked coldly at him over her shoulder. It was only then that he saw her eyes, pale, shimmering, ocher with reptilian pupils. They narrowed in anger, and he recoiled, terror sweeping through him.
"That's exactly what I intend to do," she answered. If she noticed his fear, it didn't faze her. "Someone will find you soon enough. If you're smart, you'll tell them you followed an ogre broken from the fray and slew it. If you aren't," she sneered. "Tell them you fled from battle, like a coward to return to your child."
Rumplestiltskin released her cloak as if she had burned him. "I'm not a coward," he mumbled. He heard her scoff in her delicate little voice as she walked away from him.
His head was reeling as the darkness began to overpower him. "There's so much more to me," he said, and before he succumbed completely, he saw the woman pause long enough to consider him, shake her head, and vanish in a puff of purple smoke.
-TBC-
I'm going to try updating this once a week. Most likely Fridays. Any Feedback is appreciated!
