The Arrow Saga: The Tale of the Farm Girl
Disclaimer: I don't own Once Upon a Time.
Messages
Bae tore Robin Hood's quiver apart as best he could, and he threw the remains into the stream. The extra arrows were used to hide the knife he'd found when he returned to the roadside, the knife which was now the source of a serious quandary he had. Why on earth would Rumpelstiltskin discard the knife that was the source of his power? Sure, it seemed like he was trying to change, but that still didn't warrant such an action. As long as Rumpelstiltskin was the Dark One, which was essentially as long as he was alive, the knife had power over him and was the only threat to his person in existence.
As long as the knife was intact, there still was a Dark One, and Rumpelstiltskin had a deep attachment to his power, so it seemed foolish to leave the one object that was his security lying around where anyone could pick it up, if that wasn't what he did already. A complete stranger had, after all, found it and used it to make an attempt on Bae's life.
Rumpelstiltskin had said that part of his curse was to know everything, so it wasn't beyond reason to figure that he'd known Bae would be the one to retrieve the knife, and Bae knew well that he was the only one his father trusted with the knife's secrets. That was enough to compel him to keep this find a secret, as well. If Rumpelstiltskin left the knife for him to find, that meant he trusted him and was ready to transfer control.
Bae slipped the knife back into its hiding place.
OUAT
Dorothy staggered down the Wizard's hallway to his chamber with his massive green floating head, and he threw the broomstick at the base of the platform over which the Wizard's head floated. "There," she said. "I did what you asked. They helped me. Now you have to keep to your end of the deal."
"Which was what, exactly?" the Wizard asked.
"You give the Scarecrow a brain, the Cowardly Lion some courage, and the Tin Man a heart. And you take me home to Kansas."
"Silence!"
"No, you shut up," Dorothy shot back. She was through being a kindly person even to her enemies. She was through accommodating people who stepped all over her. She was going to make someone listen to her if it was the last thing she ever did. "You do what you promised us you'd do or I'll call for Toto."
"His name's not Toto."
"Yes it is. You just don't care enough to listen to him. That's why you keep him locked up and starving all day. You just don't care."
"If I keep him locked up and starving all day, then where is he now?"
D called over her shoulder, "Toto," and out of a vortex that formed in thin air bounded a giant, haggard dog with patchy fur, foaming at the mouth and snarling at nearly everything he saw. "Get him, boy." Toto leaped not for the Wizard's floating head, but for a ring-style curtain in a dimly lit corner. D turned away from the carnage but listened with a smile on her face. She resolved that she wouldn't be stepped on ever again, and she'd fight everyone who fought her just as fiercely. She had a hellhound's undivided loyalty, she had a team at her back, and she had a quest: she was getting out of Oz, and along the way, she was liberating it from its rulers.
Toto finished, and D checked 'Wizard' off her list. He padded up to her side, and she scratched his ears. "Good boy," she said. She led him out to the hall where the Scarecrow, Lion, and Tin Man waited.
"N-n-n-now what?" the Lion asked.
"Now we go north," D said. "We have someone to find, and we're going to send her a very powerful message."
