The White Rabbit
The Queen of Hearts, Cora, The Miller's Daughter. The Dark One's greatest ally once and his greatest enemy now. What would you sacrifice to save your life? True love, a child, a whole world? What does it matter now? After all how can you lose what you never really had? Does anything ever really belong to you? Other than the darkness? Character study-is evil is made and never born?
Written in anticipation for Cora's backstory which is coming this season...And apparently Snow White's mother's backstory is supposedly coming too...and of course as my other stories have all predicted...I really do think that they are connected.
This will be in several parts. Enjoy. Feedback always welcome.
Cora was tired. With a baby needing fed every 4 hours, a household to run and a husband to please, there was never any time for rest. At least that was the excuse she gave Henry. While all of these things were true, most of her unrest was self-imposed. At night, she would take her gloves off and look at the mark on her hand. That which tied her to Rumpelstiltskin's magic. When the wound wasn't hurting physically from disuse of magic, it was driving her mad looking at it.
She had made a deal, one she had not understood the consequences too. And then when she tried to back out of the deal, the Dark One had the gall to ask for her daughter. If she wasn't going to keep her end of the deal to help him with this curse, then Regina was. Cora often couldn't decide which was worse, like right now, at night, in the dark.
Cora made sure Henry was asleep, and Regina was fed before she snuck out into her hidden chambers under the stairs. She had designed the area for her secret activities. Henry knew about her deal, but if he knew just how much time she was spending on, working towards it, he would be more than concerned. She lit a few lamps and began reading through the huge collection of the previous Dark One's books on magic and its nature. Cora wrapped her shawl around her tighter. She was always cold anymore, even Henry's warmth at night in bed beside her was becoming faded.
She tried not to reflect on this. This, was one of the many things that was slowly eating at her. Cora shook her head. She was going to finished what she promised and she was going to be free.
The details of the wording of the curse were in order, except every power source she tried had failed. Cora poured over every source of magical power that she could find in the books, but everyone of them she had obtained had failed to make more than a poof of smoke. She tossed in the latest attempt. A phoenix feather.
Red smoke poured out as the feather burned, but nothing happened. "White Rabbits, White Rabbits..." Cora muttered brushing away the smoke with her hand.
It worked. Somehow. The stupid thing that her only friend Margaret had taught her when they were children. She smiled briefly in her cold and her frustration. Sometimes no magic at all was needed to succeed, Margaret would say. Sometimes just belief could get you through. In something as stupid as white rabbits.
That had worked so well for Margaret at least. King Leopold had fallen in love with the beautiful and kind baker's daughter. She had ended up a Queen, loved and adored. Cora had ended up nothing. Everything she had gained was through sweat and tears and magical deals that were keeping her up at night. Except Henry. Henry had saved her on his own. Bartered with King George for her, when he sought to destroy the woman who lied about spinning straw into gold, and who could bear him no children because of a horrible curse. A potion that Cora smiled and reflected was one of her better ideas.
Of course Henry, had to go and ruin everything with his devotion to her. She just wanted her life and a safe warm place to call home, not love. Love had ruined her mother, stuck in marriage to a man who pined for another, until she could bear it no more and had ended her suffering. Death was a coward's way out and she was not going to do this to Regina.
Love had now screwed her over too. It had broken her potion's effects, she now had a baby girl, a daughter who was beautiful and amazing in every way, whom she cried over, just out of sheer joy. But Cora knew one day, Rumpelstiltskin would finally get what she had managed to trick him out of. He was not a man who liked to lose. And with her daughter's departure, her heart would feel as if it left with her. And then she would die. And she was not going to be her mother.
***
"Mommy, look, Daddy gave me a rabbit for my birthday."
Cora looked up from her notes about blood sacrifice as a power source to see her daughter holding a very large white rabbit. Well, large for a 5 year old to be holding properly. Or was she 6? Cora sighed and shook her head. Why could she not remember this?
She focused on the rabbit. The bunny looked ready to escape at the slightest sign of weakness in her grasp. Cora forced a weary smile. "Oh, and are you going to take care of it and feed it like a good mother?" Cora inquired raising an eyebrow. "Because mommy doesn't need anymore work right now, especially not a rabbit."
Her daughter's eyes brightened. "Of course. You won't have to do a thing. I will love it, and pet it. I will brush it and feed it and make sure it gets exercise."
Cora gave a sigh. "Great, it will be hopping around everywhere." She muttered.
Regina frowned. "Why are you not happy about this? I promise I will be a good mother to the rabbit."
Cora smiled. "I'm sure you will."
She glared at Henry and went back to her reading. Henry placed a hand on her shoulder. "Please, Cora, put this away. Today is Regina's birthday, play with her. The Dark One can wait until tomorrow."
Cora sighed. "You are right, let me put these things away."
When she placed her books away, she came back up.
"It got away." Regina cried at seeing her mother come up from the fireplace. "I put him down to get the brush and he hopped off."
Cora grumbled. She was going to spend the rest of the day, looking for a stupid rabbit in a hole, she just knew it.
Cora was exhausted when she went back down into the study that night. The rabbit had yet to be located and her daughter had cried herself to sleep looking for it.
Cora however, still couldn't sleep. She had fought with Henry over the stupid rabbit, and now she had a headache. The only thing that got rid of that, these days was magic. She began to create a potion for her headache. She started a fire in the kettle and began to assemble the ingredients. A piece of her own hair that she kept on hand, from a moment when she was not having a headache. A few drops of blood from Regina, who seemed to have boundless energy, which she was going to need right now and a bit of unicorn horn ground up.
The smoke that erupted was definitely not the usual blueish grey color, but a dramatic white. "White rabbits, white rabbits."
The smoke continued.
Cora swore. What had gone wrong? She had made this countless times. When the smoke finally cleared, a small girl stood from the pot. Her hair was peppered, white and brown, her skin was pale and unnatural and her eyes, looked like Regina's eyes, dark deep brown.
Cora's eyes widened. She threw off her shawl and wrapped it around the girl's naked figure. The girl looked at her with wide eyes. "Are you my mother?" She twitched her nose like a rabbit would and met her with beady eyes.
Cora helped her out of the pot. As she did, she noticed something. Inside the bottom of the pot was a now very dead white rabbit. Cora swore.
She needed to think and the little girl began again. "Are you my..." Cora quickly dusted the girl with poppy dust, causing her to fall asleep. She placed her gently down on the floor, arm under her head. She looked back into the pot and fished out the dead rabbit.
How had it gotten in there?
She pushed aside that thought as a bigger one set in. What was she going to do with a little rabbit girl? She pushed aside the idea of, surprise, you have a sister instead of a rabbit. Regina would be thrilled, but the Dark One ...could keep her...yes.
Perhaps he would take this creature instead of Regina. Perhaps that would end his quest to take her daughter. This was a child, arbeit an unusual one, but still a child. That was all he wanted, right? Cora's child. This was Cora's in some small way.
Cora took a deep breath and summoned the Dark One. In a poof of dark smoke he arrived with a flourish. "A bit late for a chat, don't you think?" He chuckled. "This better be good."
Cora gestured to the girl. "You wanted a child belonging to me, here, take this one."
Rumpelstiltskin raised an eyebrow. He gazed over the girl, the pot, the dead rabbit and Cora's sleepless eyes. He twittered. "A magical accident, from too little sleep perhaps?"
"Stupid rabbit jumped into the pot." Cora growled. "Will this work? She is a girl and she shares my hair and Regina's if that helps." Her tired eyes were hopeful. "Shall I be free of my side of the deal?" She was really, really, hoping to leave this forsaken part of her past behind and be free of this curse making.
Rumpelstiltskin gazed over her notes on the curse. He smiled creepily. "It is ready." He looked like a child, prancing about in place.
Cora frowned. "I have yet to find a power source that is strong enough to carry it though."
The Dark One stopped. He awoke the girl. "Let me teach you something, Cora." He smiled at the girl. "What is your name, little one?"
The girl shrugged, and then trembled at his touch. "Are you my father?" She asked fearfully.
"Nay, child. You have no father. It for the best, I assure you." The Dark One smiled. And then he ripped her heart from her chest.
Cora screamed and covered her mouth. She floated between blind panic, and curiosity. She never in any moment had been so afraid of the Dark One. It seemed so effortless for him, to take something's heart. What else could he do? She looked down at the girl. Her eyes were still open and she was alive and whimpering.
Rumpelstiltskin took the paper with the spell. He quickly found the things Cora had listed and threw them into the pot. Speaking the words, he threw in the heart. A huge cloud of smoke formed, bigger than anything Cora had tried previously, but it too dissipated.
"Hmm, not strong enough. I had supposed that being a live creature, even if it was a white rabbit, there was...this was Regina's pet was it not?"
Cora was surprised she found her voice. "Just...just received it today."
The Dark One frowned. "Then it did not love her yet, most likely. It must be a heart full of love. Love is the most powerful magic of all. People will sacrifice anything to keep it, even whole worlds if given the opportunity.' He sighed and then turned with intense and frightening eyes. "I will have my curse. Try again, Cora. If you can not find a castor that will put the heart of the thing they love the most into this spell, then I will."
He clapped his hands. A man in a hat, and his small son in a nightgown appeared. "Daddy, why are we here?" The man shushed his son. "Quiet, Jefferson."
"You called Dark One?" He held a pocket watch in his hand, looking at the early hour with a frown.
"Take this creature, she is of no use to me without a heart. I'm sure you can find a place to leave her, where you desire to take something in return." He smiled darkly. "You are so good at leaving things behind."
The man in the hat gestured to Cora, who was now weeping. "Her?"
Rumpelstiltskin tittered. "Nay, she is still of use to me. The little white rabbit at my feet."
The man nodded and he lifted the small girl up into his arms. She reached into his pocket and grabbed his watch holding it against her chest.
"Come Jefferson, the hour is much too late."
The boy nodded and grabbed his father's hand. The white rabbit whimpered. "Late...too late." Rumpelstiltskin waved his hand and they disappeared.
Cora was left alone with a dead tiny rabbit and a huge headache...and perhaps a heartache too.
The next morning they buried the rabbit. How young was her daughter to know and feel the sting of death, even for a pet? Once Regina had felt its cold body and saw its lifeless eyes, she was not to be consoled. She wept, even as Henry had talked of the rabbit's soul running free in other realms that could not be seen or reached except in death.
Nonsense, Cora stewed. "Dead is dead. People don't live on some other realm of peace and joy. Mothers leave you and they never return. They aren't happy in some other realm, without you." Cora immediately wanted to take back her bitter and wounded words when Regina's sobs were renewed fresh. "You are going to die?"
Cora swallowed and grabbed her daughter's chin and met her eyes. "Not today, and not ever, if I can help it. You will always have me. I will never leave you."
Regina grabbed her into a hug. Cora was not a hug person, but she held her tightly as though this would save them both.
But she wasn't thinking of Regina, even as she held her in her arms. The scar on her hand burned with a fierce fresh attack. It sought to destroy, to burn, to create. The thing she had sought to improve her life so many years ago was now dangerous and threatening to drown her. And perhaps Regina would fall with her.
She hated magic.