Author's Note: I don't believe in fate. Everything that happens happens because we choose it. You might say that the only thing fated to happen is our choice...someone can tell what we will choose, perhaps, but no one can force us to make that choice. Also, the notion that previous Dark Ones will be explored in OUAT leads me to believe that something darker and deeper is behind Rumplestiltskin's curse...a new enemy, perhaps. I went with Rhuel Gorn because I was always disappointed when the Blue Fairy appeared instead.
Also, no child is born with their face sliced through and filled with tar. From these thoughts, this story was born. Please enjoy! :)
*Aisling is Celtic for 'vision' or 'dream'.
Open My Eyes
Aisling crouched down in the leafy carpet, her rough, homespun dress dragging over twigs and dead leaves as she rocked back and forth, singing softly to herself as she moved pebbles along the ground and had them speak to each other.
They did not always say their words in the right order, but they couldn't help it. When Aisling played with herself, which she often did, things rarely happened just as she saw them. It was because of her favorite game…guessing. She liked to guess where a leaf would fall, how many notes a bird would sing, how many clouds would touch the top of a tree before the sky turned burnt orange and the sun set.
She liked to guess what someone would say if someone told them something else, and sometimes she got so excited that, just as in her games, she skipped the boring parts and spoke ahead of time before going back, so she wouldn't forget it. That was why she played by herself so often…the other children were terrible at guessing, and they didn't like talking with her, didn't understand how to remember things before you were supposed to say them.
At least the pebbles didn't run away when they saw her coming.
She lifted her head up suddenly, her curly red hair bouncing away from her elfin face and bright blue eyes. Her mother was going to call her. She got up quickly and began running towards the house; Mother didn't call often, and Aisling relished the few opportunities she had to interact with her lovely, simple mother, who was so easy to guess about.
"Aisling!"
Her mother was standing by the cottage, nervously wringing a dishcloth in her hands. Aisling skidded to a halt before her less than a second later, slapping her hands and dusting off the last remnants of dirt and leafy crumbles. "Who is that woman, what does she want? She's very pretty. Yes, mother?"
For answer, Mother just held her hands up and turned towards the cottage. "You see?" she called to someone inside, "it's all a jumble! She's already six, and she still can't talk like normal people!"
A black leather boot lined with chocolate suede stepped out of the dark cabin doorway and onto the dirt path that led to the cottage. It was a woman with a long, thick cloak on, using a hood to hide her face. Aisling guessed her hair was red, just like her own. The woman smiled, Aisling supposed…anyway, her voice was sweet and warm, "yes, I see. It's beautiful. It's just what we expected."
"Can you fix it?" Mother asked, putting a loving hand on her daughter's shoulder. Aisling glanced between the two…for some reason, the woman in black was very, very hard to guess about. And, funnily enough, the harder she tried, the easier it was to guess Mother and the clouds' movement and the very rustling of the leaves in the trees over their heads…but the stranger only got harder. Aisling frowned. She didn't like it at all.
She stepped closer to her mother, grabbing her skirt. Mother would die to protect her, even if Aisling embarrassed her in front of the villagers. Daddy didn't care…he'd already been in the stocks twice for punching people who spoke mean words about Aisling. He didn't seem to understand that Aisling didn't mind…very much…since she'd already guessed they would say them.
She guessed Daddy would be back home in an hour or so…then she'd be twice as safe. But the woman wouldn't be staying that long…and, she suddenly realized, neither would she.
Startled, she drew back from her mother suddenly, panic flashing in her blue eyes as she pointed at the woman, looking at her mother pleadingly, urgently, "I'm not going with her! She's lying!"
Mother just turned to the woman, trying to hide the pain in her face. "You can cure her?"
The woman nodded, even as her dark eyes sparked greedily with every word Aisling said. "As I and my people have done for years. She will be a different girl."
"No! Daddy, tell them I don't have to!" She started running down the path, towards that part of the forest her father always emerged from after his day of cutting wood. He wasn't there yet…but he would be. And for once, Aisling wished it was a now instead of a future guess…she wanted her father to protect her. Her guessing game seemed so unimportant at that moment.
"Aisling…he's not there," the woman said gently.
"Daddy! Mother, he will be…he says no! He would say no…" Aisling trailed off, suddenly getting awfully confused, her anxious child's mind bucking and thrashing, causing her perception of the world to ripple like a disturbed pond. She hid her face in her rough, woolen apron.
The woman shrugged, turning to Mother who was staring at Aisling, her eyes wide and wet as if she was ready to burst into tears. "She will only get worse," she warned.
Mother swallowed, tearing her sight away from Aisling, who was still hiding her face in her apron, trying to clear her inner eye so she could balance between living and guessing again. She was sitting down but rapidly changing positions like a frantic instinct, dragging her bum across the ground, her little feet brushing furrows in the leaves with a loud crunching sound. She will pick me up if I sit here…she will pull me up if I sit here…no safe place…no safe place…
Mother looked sadly at the woman, "you will bring her back? We are poor folk…"
"No payment required," the woman smiled, pulling her hood back slightly so Mother could see her white teeth and her slanted, green eyes. "She will be well cared for…maybe after the holidays, we will send her back to you."
"My husband loves her deeply, blindly," Aisling whispered into the material, her eyes tightly shut in the dark.
The woman glanced at her.
"My husband loves her deeply, blindly," Mother said; she hadn't heard the pitiful, muttered words.
"He would never send her away…no matter how short a time."
Mother glanced warily towards the path into the forest where, somewhere, Aisling's father was felling down great trees. The little girl now wished she'd gone with him…she'd guessed she should, but playing alone in the woods had been so much more tempting. "He would never send her away…no matter how short a time."
"Which is more important to you? Your daughter's health, her chance for a normal life…or your husband's ire?"
Those were the rights words, Aisling knew. Mother loved Aisling more than anything. Aisling loved Mother…but she was so scared and tried to move again, tried to find a safe place. If she ran, they would simply catch her. She just knew it would happen.
"Take her," Mama said suddenly. Aisling held her breath. "Keep my baby safe."
"Oh, I will," the woman smiled, turning to look down at the girl.
Muffled by her apron, Aisling screamed for her father and thought he came out of the forest.
But he didn't. That was another guess.
And now she was all out of guesses.
The woman swooped Aisling up, ignoring her as the child exploded into a frenzy of screams, kicking and clawing, blinded by the apron, struggling in the darkness as her tiny child's arms were wrapped firmly under the woman's iron grip.
"Mama!" Aisling's tongue slipped back into baby days, when she guessed exactly what silly thing to do to make her mother smile. "Mama, please, no!"
"Aisling," her mother gently pulled the apron off. Aisling found herself securely fastened between the bow of a saddle and the woman's stomach. "It's for the best, darling. You'll be back."
"No I won't…" sobbed the little girl.
For the first time, the woman pulled her hood back. Her hair was long, bright, and red as she smiled down at Mother. "No, she won't."
Mother's eyes widened. Her fist tightened on the material.
The woman raised her whip on high and slashed it across Mother's face. Aisling screamed as Mother nearly fell back with the force, blood spraying from her nostrils and the slit in her cheekbone.
The woman dug her heels fiercely into the horse, leaning on Aisling protectively, crushing the breath out of the child as the horse lunged forward with a high whinny. Aisling gasped as the apron strings caught tight around her waist…then ripped off, leaving a stinging circle on her small belly.
Mother was left stumbling after them, the apron clenched in her fist, half blinded by her own blood as she screamed after the swiftly disappearing pair.
Aisling smelled flickering torches. She saw them go out, one by one. Only they were still there, glowing. She was guessing again. It had been hard not to guess; for weeks now, she had been kept blindfolded, hustled from place to place, questioned, spoken to…but they never took her blindfold off. She might as well have been blind.
But now, now she could smell acrid, suffocating smoke, the warm, stale air of a dozen people holding their breath, the piercing, fresh scent of herbs and the sickly sweet smell of…magic, she guessed. What was magic?
Magic was Daddy letting her guess which hand held the sweet roll for her Sunday treat. Magic was Aisling guessing the wrong hand so Daddy could feel like he'd actually outsmarted her for once. Magic was Mother, Mother hugging her as she scolded her and Mother fighting to keep her safe.
Magic didn't smell sickly sweet, like it could trickle down your nose and mouth and dye every part of you, like boiling ink, could write you over and change who you were.
"Aisling," that voice she knew. The woman who'd taken her away. She cried out, "Why won't you take me home?! What do you mean, a 'seer'? I don't care…no…nooo!" she trailed off into a terrified scream, her little hands grabbing at the blindfold. Larger hands stopped her.
"Let her see," the woman commanded grimly.
Aisling tore off the black cloth and stared, her eyes wide.
The woman's hair was pulled back in a black net, her clothing rich yet unadorned, all of it the same color…always pitch black where it was not thick, dusky blue. She stood by a strange stone pillar, carved to look like human faces stacked upon each other until the very top disappeared into the night sky.
The lowest face was at the eye level of a grown man and, in between its eyes, a knife was embedded.
"Rhuel Gorn has spoken. The Eternal Sight is to be passed down. A Seer is found. It is agreed."
The little group of witches…for Aisling guessed exactly what they were, and felt herself recoil from them like she would from poisonous snakes…nodded and murmured approvingly, casting appraising glances in her direction.
Despite her terror, Aisling wanted to ask what a seer was but she already had. Instead, she repeated stubbornly, "I don't care."
The woman's head tipped slightly. The two men holding Aisling bundled her forward, almost gently. She was just a child and, perhaps somewhere in their dark souls, they realized this. "Aisling," the woman said carefully, thoughtfully as she reached forward and dragged her finger through the red locks, so like her own, "You are a Seer, a powerful one. You see, you see so well…but your eyes are not open. We must open them."
She turned and suddenly wrapped her white, strong fingers around the hilt. "The Sixty-Sixth Seer is found at the end of six long ages…the Sixty-Sixth Dark One is not far behind."
A ripple of excitement raced through the crowd.
"The one we will never know, the one Dark One powerful enough to take the Sight…and yet fail to realize his potential. The one who can take our power and his, and do what it is he must."
"What must he do?" Aisling asked, unable to help herself. She could never guess that far…her eyes widened as she stared up at the woman, almost hypnotized.
The woman leaned towards her, a fond, cold smile on her face as she gently cupped Aisling's chin in her hands. "You will see, Aisling."
The fingers tightened.
"Look forward, child, never look back…"
She swung the knife up, and there was a hungry roar from the witches and warlocks.
"And you shall see."
And then there was pain and screams and then Aisling burned.
And then she saw.
The Seer saw much that would be, pieces and shards of the future floating before her eyes. She had at least six years to watch the Dark One, and she used it well.
The Dark One was not a could be, or a will be…she understood that, far better than any of the covenant could have expected. He was a must be, he must be because it was what the covenant wished and, in time, it became what the Seer wished. She could see no other way. Funny how clear everything became when your eyes were ripped from your face and sealed into the palms of your hands.
It had to be and she had to make it happen and it was her choice, just as the Dark One would choose. He would be tricked, as she had, broken, as she had, and then he would burn…
And then he would see.
As she watches the future spin before her, she sees the weaver, the spinster, Rumplestiltskin, before he becomes the Dark One. He clutches a dagger in his hands and shakes all over, but his face is strong. Because he can protect his boy. He tells his son, Baelfire, that everything will be all right and it's for the best and he'll be back…
No he won't, she whispers to nothing and no one, holding her hands towards the sky,
Someone else will.
And the night after she tricks him and plants the seed in his heart, the seed of must be and will be, she crawls out of her cage, guessing exactly where she can loosen the joints of the flimsy door. No one notices the blind little shadow as she moves by the wagon and pauses outside the blacksmith's tent.
No one sees her. None of them can see. They're all blind.
But she can see. She burns, but she can see.
And on a stump by her prison wagon, she leaves the mallet waiting for him. Because broken comes before burning.
FINIS