Chapter 1: Wherein Belle Calls for Help

A/N. The title is derived from the title of a Tori Amos album, Tales of a Librarian.


It was fairly common knowledge that the Dark Castle boasted the largest and oldest library in all of the Enchanted Land, a library that the residents of Alexandria would envy (and, to be honest, would recognize in some part, Dark Ones over the ages having appropriated, in various ways, a hearty percentage of the Dark Library from Alexandria). Every Dark One, from Barthemass the Beheader to the present-day Rumplestiltskin, has seen the value of preserving and building the Dark Library, although some, less literate or less intellectually inclined, had added less than others; Valdof the Vain (the shortest-lived of all the Dark Ones: he just couldn't stay away from mirrors and a clever witch imprisoned him in one), for instance, had added only forty-one books to the collection—all of them containing stories about, well, Valdof the Vain. Horace the Muscle Bound had purchased (he wasn't much for trade or barter) only books about body building. But the current occupant of the Dark Castle, Rumplestiltskin, had, over his long reign, surpassed them all: his collection spanned the breadth of human knowledge, which, even for those days, was going some.

This is just one of the thousands of stories extant about Rumplestiltskin the Dealer, but it is perhaps the most important one, and quite likely it is the only one which focuses not on the imp's feats of magic or his strange deals or his highly complex grand scheme, but rather, on the role his library played in making him the wisest Dark One of all time—and the last Dark One of all time. This is also a tale, though just one of millions, of the power of love.

It's also a tale told by someone who saw some of it happen, and heard the rest from one of the main characters. Take that as you like. I will be the first to admit I have something at stake here: the continued affection of the Lady Belle, my friend of thirty years; and the continued good opinion of my employer, Rumplestiltskin. So it's with carefully chosen words that I tell the tale—but that's as writers often do; one of the most beloved word-spinners of your world said as much when she wrote, "Tell the truth but tell it slant."

Yes, perhaps it's a slanted truth I offer here, but truth nonetheless, for the parts of the story that were related to me by Lady Belle, I have no doubt whatsoever can be trusted, because Lady Belle does not lie. Now, as to whether you will trust me, allow me to offer this sole fact in my support: I am a librarian. More specifically, I am the Dark Castle's librarian. As with my peers in your world, truth is our stock-in-trade and integrity, our calling card. What follows is the truth—as Charming would say, "the truth of the heart"—as I know it from my own witness of it and from Belle's reports. What you do with this tale, I care not. My task as a librarian is to collect and preserve and make the truth accessible to you; the rest, my dears, is entirely up to you.

Unlike some of his predecessors, Rumplestiltskin wasn't much of a talker. Neither boastful like Horace nor narcissistic like Valdof nor prone to pillow talk like Lovar the Lucky (self-named, a play on words of course; "Lovar"'s actual name was Clyde), Rumplestiltskin kept his secrets to himself from the very beginning. Perhaps it had to do with the human that he was before he became a Dark One. All Dark Ones are human in the beginning, and Rumplestiltskin was certainly not the first to be tricked into taking on the Dark Curse, but he was the oldest, already into his forties (though not even he knew his exact age; peasants' births were seldom recorded in those days). And having been, as a human, the town coward all his life, he had kept his own company, sharing his confidences with only his wife Milah, until, it's said, that beauty ran out on him, and his son, Baelfire, who, it's said, also ran out on him. Too shy to speak to strangers, the child Rumplestiltskin grew up friendless, bullied by even his own brothers and sisters, until he had been sold to a weaver who was seeking an apprentice. When he married, it came as quite a surprise that he had managed to speak to a woman long enough to propose; that he had married such a beauty had causes ripples of shocked laughter throughout the land, until Milah's father exposed the truth: one of nine equally beautiful daughters in a pitifully impoverished family, Milah had married for money.

By that time—Rumplestiltskin was thought to be in his thirties then—the town coward had raised his economic status quite above his humble station, for Rumplestiltskin had two great talents: spinning very fine thread, so fine as to be unseen by the naked eye, and selling that thread. Though still painfully shy, and humble, he nevertheless took great pride in his work, the product of which he saw as something somehow apart from himself, something he couldn't and wouldn't take credit for; and since it wasn't his to begin with, he managed to find the nerve to value the thread at its true worth. And so, Milah's family found Rumple to be. . . a catch, if not a fine one. Why Rumple the shy would want to marry—to allow another into his home and his life—no one ever knew. The women in the village tended to believe he must have been lonely, while the men saw baser motives, but Rumple the shy never shared his reasons for anything he did, and Milah the mouthy never bothered to ask him.

She simply didn't care. Her interest in him waxed full only in that hour after his return from the market, when his pouch would contain coins and delicacies to eat and little gifts for her. It was probably after one especially lucrative Market Day that Baelfire was conceived, and one may speculate that other Market Days weren't as profitable, since Bae was an only child.

Sometime after Bae's conception—at least, everyone assumed it was after Bae's conception—Rumple was conscripted into the Duke of the Flatland's less-than-mighty army, to fight in the First Ogre War. Of course, in those days, no one called it "the first"; they assumed it would be the only. So Rumple, despite his lameness and his fearfulness, marched off to war, and his total battle experience amounted to about an hour of hacking uselessly at an ogre's leg, until the ogre kicked Rumple fifty lengths down the field. He landed near a heavy wood, and thinking that a gift from the gods, took it gladly. When he returned, lamer and more fearful than ever, his commanders never bothered to come after him. Oh, but his neighbors did: lashing out him with tongue and fist whenever the mood to bully someone struck. He dragged himself back to his wife; he seemed to take some courage from learning that he now had a son. Why he remained in his village, where he must have known he would be victimized for the rest of his days, no one knows.

Rumors about Milah were tossed about from the very start and persisted right up until she blatantly made them fact: she was seen openly cavorting in a seaside tavern with a handsome pirate, and when the ship set sail so did she. Rumors flew then, from dock to tavern to village, that Rumple, assuming—so sadly naïve!—that she had been taken, confronted the pirate, only to learn that yes, Milah had been taken, but not in the sense Rumple believed. Bae mourned his mother—the villagers, taking pity on the child, conspired, without actually saying as much, with Rumple in perpetuating the lie that Milah had died. And so the boy and his father mourned, but not deeply and not long, for their lives were more serene without her.

But the Ogre War persisted another decade, and the Duke, having run out of men, even lame ones, to conscript, went after women, and finally, children. And then they came for Bae, and that's when, it's said, Rumplestiltskin found his courage. He killed the Dark One, Theodosius the Manipulator, and acquired the powers, the reputation—which he immediately began building upon—and the Dark Castle.

Some time therein, he lost his son. There were various rumors: some said he killed his son in a fit of rage when the brave lad defied him; some said he killed the boy by accident, in a spell that went awry; but others said that the boy ran away, and that Rumplestiltskin, overwhelmed with grief and anguish, vowed he would move heaven and earth and everything in between to find Bae again.

For once, a rumor is true.

Soon after moving into the Dark Castle, Rumplestiltskin began to study the books in his library. He began, of course, with the books of magic, but quickly realizing how limiting this practice was, he expanded his reading. It's said that he even bought, or more often, bargained for, books about love. Something that neither a Dark One nor a town coward would know much about.

After centuries of studying it in the abstract, love took form and walked into his life.

Perhaps because of the act he put on when he dealt with clients—the surprise appearance, the silly prance, the actor's stance, the madcap giggle—people assume Rumplestiltskin acted on instinct, made choices by whim, and indeed, that would seem a logical assumption in describing Belle's first encounter with him, for all those elements were present when he responded to her father's summons. She learned soon after, however, that almost everything Rumplestiltskin did was calculated, planned to tiniest detail, and as much as can be when dealing with humans, controlled. As she came to understand the nature of his work and the hidden character of the man-imp, she understood why. First and foremost, Rumplestiltskin labored under the pressure of time; he had a most urgent goal, and thus all his choices must support that goal. Secondly—and unknown to the public—, Rumplestiltskin in his human days had been much abused, from birth to adulthood, and so, despite the acquisition of powers beyond all imagining, Rumplestiltskin the imp remained a damaged child inside. Those who think superficially would call him a coward, but Belle, as she came to understand him, would more correctly term him untrusting. With plenty of reason.

So when he appeared in her father's shattered castle and threw down the gauntlet of his offer—the highest of his prices, a daughter's life in return for peace—it was after days of observation and thought; he didn't simply waltz in, look around, find no objects of interest and on whim, point to Belle. When he transported himself into that castle, he had assessed Maurice's holdings down to the last penny—not because he was seeking valuable objects he could trade for; he knew from the beginning his price would be Belle—no, he needed to know just how desperate Maurice was.

Rumplestiltskin had known for weeks he would take Belle. It just took him a while to admit it to himself. And then he had to admit what he wanted her for. Not to trade, as he claimed to himself; not to clean, as he claimed to Maurice; not to assist with his research, as Belle later hoped. He wanted Belle to help him remember how to feel. For he'd lived alone, with only brief moments of human contact, and all of those, business transactions, for two centuries; for two centuries he had lived as a non-human; and he had forgotten how to care. He would keep her just long enough to remember, for Bae's sake, then set her free. Her family would be forever grateful and in debt to him; the woman herself would add to the legend of the fearsome, unpredictable Dark One, who could be kind one moment, then spin on his heel and destroy an entire village simply because the mood had struck him.

Yes, a few weeks with a lady whose strength would hold her up under the experience. No danger that a real friendship or anything deeper would evolve between them; he was a Dark One inside and out; she would fear him, and if her fear lessened, she would still dread him.

The fact that Belle was able to tell me all this only serves to indicate the irony of the situation, for, of course, for him to have confessed this to her, he had to have come to trust her—and he could not have let down his guard sufficiently to trust her if he had not come to love her.

So the imp traded for the duchess, one life for many; he ended the Second Ogres War with no more effort that it took for him to giggle and pronounce it done; and with his magic, to impress and disorient her, he transported her to his castle, locked her into a dungeon, and waited for her to cry and plead, or tremble and whimper. Had she done either, he would have sent her home again immediately, determining her to be unsuitable for his purpose. But, duchess that she was, she answered him with indignation, and brave soul that she was, she demanded her release. She was tough enough for his experiment; he would keep her.

In the first weeks of her. . . employment, as she termed it when speaking to me, or imprisonment, as he called it to her face. . .in the Dark Castle, she learned her duties, though not her real purpose. He provoked her, he thought, just enough to keep her confused, sometimes showing patience and courtesy, sometimes coldness and reserve, and sometimes uncalled-for rage. It was all an act; he intended that when he sent her home, she would report that the Dark One was a creature beyond all reckoning. For all his forethought, however, the imp did not consider what an independent-thinking Belle might do.

To his amazement, she tried to understand him. The more he waved his hands in the air and huffed at her, the more she smiled at him. The more he wagged his finger in her face and warned her off, the closer she slid to him from her perch upon his dining table.

To his even greater amazement, he found he wanted to be understood. By her, at least. And eventually, when she pursued him around the dining table, he stopped running and let himself be caught. It seems he had already started to feel without being aware of it. It was only when she fell into his arms that he discovered he desired her.

And it was only many years later that he admitted he needed her.

A word, a phrase at a time, she began to uncover him. She pried—gently, yes, but persistently pried information, forcing him to acknowledge that he had been human once, though he refused to tell her how his transformation had come about. With every small question he half-answered, and with every question he left hanging in the shrinking distance between them, her feeling for him grew. So open and honest, so trusting, she shared her tales with him; he realized she wanted to share his life.

Oh, he needed that. A little sympathy, a little caring, a little. . . humanity. He couldn't help himself. He let her ask, and he asked, too. He let her touch, and he touched too, and their skin tingled where it made contact, and their breaths came a little shorter, their hearts beat a little faster. At night, in their narrow beds in opposite ends of the massive castle, they lay awake and wondered about each other, and later, they imagined what could be. They asked themselves if they were doing the right thing. They both knew they weren't doing the smart thing.

And then with a single question she knocked a chink in his armor: she asked about his son.

Well, he had brought her here to help him remember how to feel; she was fulfilling her purpose. In spades. He hid behind his hair and stared at the floor to keep from trembling as she got him to admit Bae's existence. When she began talking about love and mystery, he realized it was time for her to leave. He granted her her freedom and she took it, and they both thought that would be the end of their relationship: each would walk away, never to forget the other, but never to understand.

She left, perplexed and torn. But she met a woman on the road who changed the path Belle was on, and that made all the difference. Belle came running back, certain down to the marrow that she had the cure for his curse, and that once it was effected, once he had reverted to his natural state, which she believed to be gentle and kind, they could be together. Had she only known, had he only told her, that when he used the word lost to describe his son, he meant it literally—had she known Bae still lived but in another world, inaccessible to his father, everything would have been different. But it all came down to his untrusting nature. He hadn't shared his secret, for fear that when he released her, she would share it with others, and his enemies would now know how to thwart him, or worse, bring him to his knees. So assuming lost meant dead, she assumed he would welcome the end of his curse, and she took That Woman's advice. She ran back to the castle and kissed the Dark One.

In a rage he tossed her back into the dungeon. In a rage he broke all that could be broken in the Great Hall upstairs: in the emptiness of the castle, she could hear the glass and china shatter. She listened in shock, confusion, and when the shattering ended and the heavy doors slammed, she cried in bitter disappointment that their future together was lost, and then she cried in shame that her naiveté had caused this. She came to understand then why he distrusted.

Night fell and the dungeon darkened. She had no food, no water, no warmth and no answers, and finally, no tears left. But she still had faith in what she felt for him, and what she was certain he felt for her, and despite everything, she still had trust, just a little more caution about where to place it.

And so in the darkness she reached out, and in her faith and her trust, changed the path they were on once again.

She rose, brushed the straw from her skirts, grasped the bars on the little windows and glared at the moon. She was a duchess, and more importantly, a woman in love, and that gave her the right to fight back. She lifted her chin and shouted at the moon: "Reul Ghorm! Reul Ghorm!"