Disclaimer: I don't own Once Upon a Time (b/c if I did, 1.13 would have had Mr. Gold in it)
Summary: Rumpelstiltskin and Belle share a bottle of wine and speak of fools and tragedies.
Belle had been there a few weeks (she counted up the days in her head and came up with more than a fortnight. She has been there over a month. Really? How can it have been that long already?) and had finally fallen into something of a routine. She no longer slept in the dungeon. She has seen many rooms, though still has many more to see, but she does not get lost every other day, like she had at first. She has even begun making plans—she's thinking of taking down the curtains, but still has not gathered the nerve to ask to use the ladder. What's more, the monster seems much more the man to her now. Though his magic permeated the house—correction: estate, because truly it is an estate—his tantrums and laughter permeated deeper still.
And of course, because this is life and no matter where she finds herself she's still just herself, Belle is clumsy as ever. Today, she broke two vials while dusting his cabinet of potions and ingredients. She'd thought nothing of the cupboard, for it looked the same as any she'd have found in the castle's kitchens, but when she had dropped the second, it had shattered, giving off a pungent, green smoke. She had coughed uncontrollably, the smoke filling her lungs, and when she had looked up, there he was standing over the mess, his expression telling her he was more than mildly perturbed. Her employer waved away the lingering smoke, "Must be more careful." He gingerly picked up the vial next over, with a wicked smile, "this one would have been lethal, and that's no quip, dearie."
Her eyes went wide. The thorny bastard. "You could have mentioned that before I started in on the cabinet in the first place."
He raised an excessively long finger, and said, "I could have, dearie, could." With that he left, leaving Belle to wonder if she'd been punished enough, or, more likely, if he had something else up his sleeve. It would be nothing short of pelt collecting, to be sure.
So when there are two wine glasses sitting at the dinner table that evening, she wondered for what purpose.
"Care for a cup?" His grin was sharp and sickeningly sweet. She had not heard him enter the dining room, but there he was, an arm draped against the fireplace mantle.
Neither was the cup, the only new addition to the table, she noted. There's a second chair to the right of Rumpelstiltskin's own at the head of the table. She knew not from where it had come, for it did not match his own and she had never seen it before, but she was sure he had pulled it from thin air, like he procured all things, as he had had her peasant frock ("That gown won't much do for cleaning, dearie," he'd said), even as he had procured her—or at least that's how it felt most days, as if she'd been dropped there by a snap of his fingers. "I see you require my presence at the table." At first she'd taken her dinner alone, in the kitchen, before serving him his own, but as time had passed, he'd called on her so much, requiring this and that or complaining that some dish was clearly not cooked thoroughly enough, that she had taken to eating on the rug before the fire.
The magician (what else did one call someone who summoned magic with a wave of the hand?) walked to the table. "I'll not have you eating on my clean floors—"
"Which I clean myself."
"Don't interrupt." He raised a finger to her face, "I'll not have you eating on my floors like some vagabond."
She sidestepped him and his outstretched finger, instead walking to the table. "Strange, you're so charitable, I'd have thought you would do well with vagabonds and wayfarers." Belle then ran a finger along the table, where a barely perceptible sheen of gray dust came away. She sighed, knowing she would have to dust the thing again tomorrow. Sometimes, she thinks—everyday she thinks, and day-by-day she's becoming less sure of every single one of them—he must charm the table to attract the dust simply to taunt her.
With magic, he summoned a wine bottle. He uncorked it with a flick of his wrist, and Belle heard as the flying cork landed on the ground and, she was sure, rolled away leaving a sticky, red trail in its wake. "You never answered me."
She tried to remain unaffected by his stare, instead leaning against the table, arms crossed over her chest, attempting to appear the princess she was by blood-rights (though in recent years she has had little time for playing princess. Rather she's been filling the role of lady-of-the-house and majordomo, advisor to the war council, her father's personal secretary, and self-proclaimed champion on social issues in their city-state kingdom. Nor did she look the part: her only rich adornment for so long has been her mother's simple gold chain). She assumed her most royal voice and said, "I've had wine at my father's court, you know."
With the theatricality she has come to expect from him, he poured the wine into the two glasses, after which he set the bottle down and took up one of the goblets. Swirling the thick liquid. The way he eyed her said he didn't much fall for her stance, "Not like this you haven't."
"This isn't by chance what I almost spilled today, is it?"
"'Course not, dearie," he said and with a mischievous smile, he extended the cup to Belle (their fingers did not touch).
She smelled the heady aroma: it was like harvest night but only if you've stood too close to the bonfire and singed your petticoat—she should know, after all. But she also found it to be dark and thick as melted chocolate. "I'll take a glass," she said and in reply he made that laugh—giggle—that was all too suspect.
Belle's cheeks were rosy and all too warm. She put a hand to her face to take away the heat. It had been a month without a glass and now she was halfway through another upon her usual two. Even so, she could tell that this was a brew of a different sort. "What have you given me, Rumpelstiltskin?"
"Don't trust my gifts, dearie?"
She thinks she heard jest in his voice, but then she can't quite trust what she thinks she's heard beyond the warm ringing in both ears. "It's…" she stopped and examined the glass as she searched for the right word. She wanted to use mythical or fae, but instead, she simply settled for something much more insufficient, "different."
"Whatever gave you that idea? In any case, I'm not trying to poison you, at least not until after you've cleaned up this mess." He gestured to their finished dinner plates. Belle gave him a look and began to stand to clear the table, but he waved her off. "Never you mind, I'll take care of it, just this once," he warned, snapping his fingers. The table's mess disappeared, leaving only the candles and their two glasses. He cocked an eyebrow, which she assumed said: look how easy that was, and yet, I make you do it by hand.
"Thank you," she said, surprised.
"Don't thank me just yet. They'll be waiting for you in the kitchen."
"I should have known," she said, shaking her head. She slipped off her heels and pulled up her knees against the table, her dress tucked modestly beneath the table. After getting settled, she took another sip from her glass. "So you're not going to tell me what this is, I take it."
He was frowning at her new posture, nevertheless still answered her, "No but perhaps, just maybe, I'll show you at midwinter solstice."
She squinted at him and laughed at the oddity of his reply—the sound falling on the table like bells and the snow outside. The fire popped and hissed in the background, and even he suddenly wondered at his warmth. Must be the wine, that's it of course, the wine.
He drained the bottle into his goblet and threw it behind his shoulder. Belle cringed waiting for the crash, but none ever came. "Tut, tut. I'd have thought you'd know me better by now, my dear."
"I do, and that's why I cringed." At her words, he mimicked the movement, recoiling silently. He turned to his glass and emptied it in two gulps, as Belle sat, regretting the statement. It had been the wine, otherwise, she would have guarded her tongue against hurting one surprisingly sensitive. She wished to take back what she'd said, but sadly, she had no magic at her disposal.
But then she had an idea. "I'd like to make a deal."
His eyes went sharp and as sober as she'd ever seen them. "Oh really?"
She nodded, trying to hold in her smile. "I demand a story."
"Ah," he said, nodding, as if he saw right through her and her little plan. "I see that you are a demanding drunkard."
Belle smiled and with mock incredulity replied, "I am not drunk."
He eyed her, "No, perhaps, not." He toyed with the rim of his cup, sending little, hardly-audible notes around the room. "And what, prey tell, will you give me in exchange for this tale?"
She had been practicing this for days (in the bathroom mirror) after having run across the piece while mopping beneath the harpsichord. She hasn't done this in years—nor has her father's court played host to a fool in years, but the wine has made her bold, so she feels it is time to play the fool for her master. If only she can be quick enough and he doesn't shy away from her, then just perhaps it'll work, and she'll be able to take him by surprise. She took note that he was still watching her, much too closely.
Belle gestured with her empty right hand in mock contemplation. They must see the empty hand, little princess, for this to work, the fool had told her lifetimes ago. "Well, as you know I've nothing but this golden necklace—wait." She leaned forward and scrunched up her brow in mock consternation. "What's—what's that in your hair?" she sat forward and reached behind his metallic ear. It's the color of the gold he spins and before he can flinch away from the touch, she pulled a coin from behind his "ear."
She gasped, holding the bit of silver up triumphantly, and examining it, said, "Now, how did that get there? Perhaps this will do, in exchange for a story. You don't spin silver, I know."
He narrowed his eyes, and Belle could feel his tension from the proximity. A hand jutted toward her wrist, and it was all the wine-washed girl could do not to jump. Though her wrist flared in goose pimples, in spite of its stillness. He grabbed the half-full wine glass an inch from her hand instead. "That was very tricky. Wherever did you learn a thing like that, I wonder?"
She gave a broken chuckle, the apprehension in her shoulders loosening. She asked again, "Come, come now. I can pay. Why won't you make a deal with me?"
The word deal once again peaked his interest. "Ah, but dearie, I must warn you that all my stories end in tragedy."
"I don't mind sad endings."
"Fortuitous, that," he said, finishing her glass.
She leaned forward again, extending the coin before him as an offering. He plucked the coin from her hand, and without looking at the silver piece, for he was staring her dead in the eye, turned his wrist once, and the coin disappeared, going where all the things go that he had banishes with magic and his other wiles. "It is not for your silver bright, but for your winsome lady…"
She waved him off, no longer impressed easily by his slight of hand, for she'd seen it before. "I know that poem already—ah!" Belle shrieked, as she felt the cold metal of the silver coin in her bodice, falling between her breasts.
Rumpelstiltskin cackled, continuing to recite the poem, "by this the storm grew loud apace, the water-wraith was shrieking?" He laughed at his own joke, as she knew him oft to do, but she can't help but chuckle along a bit. It had been funny, after all.
She turned her back to him and fished the coin from her dress, before it could slip any lower. "That was tricky." Turning back, she set the coin upon the table, "but I know that one. Daughter and lover drown and the father is left alone to mourn."
He scoffed, "I doubt his wailing lasted overlong." He eyed her for longer.
I know what you're doing, Belle thought to herself. You're testing me and trying to undermine my father. Won't work. She can't seem to bring herself to say those words. Instead she settled for something more benign, "Stop it."
He chuckled again. "Which tragedy shall I tell you if not the Drowning of Ullin's Daughter? Bluebeard perhaps?"
"Bluebeard doesn't end sadly," she said confused.
"It does if you're his previous wives."
At that, she couldn't hold in the laughter, "I'm serious; tell me a story."
He glared at her. "Fine," he sat back and thought for a moment, finger to his lips. "Ah, I know the one: Once there was a water spirit by the name of Undine," he paused, waiting for her to claim that she knew the tale already, but when she simply sat forward resting her chin in her hands, he continued, "but as all men and gods know, water spirits have no souls—"
"No soul? But everyone has a soul."
"Nay, not everyone, dearie."
She looked him hard in the eye, "You're wrong."
He ground his teeth, growling back, "Hush. Do you want the damn story or not?"
"I want the story."
He sighed and continued, "As most know, water spirits have no soul, but just as they are born without, they can gain one by marriage to a mortal man and by the by bearing his son, for sons are the only ones worth anything and thus the only way in which these soulless sirens can gain what they lack." (He's added the last because he knows she won't like it, but he need not mention that bit).
"Well one day a mariner, who had naught but a hovel and a skiff no bigger than a coffin, goes out with his nets to catch the springtime salmon going upstream to mate and lay their eggs in the river shallows a half a day's journey from his hovel, when he stumbles upon Undine, sunning herself naked upon the river rocks like a serpent." Rumpelstiltskin allowed his tongue to slide over the word with sensual resonance, and couldn't help but take note of the blush on her cheeks, continuing, "She was clothed in the only trimmings that water spirits in that part of the country wear: a crown of nettles and dock-leaf woven in her hair. The bottom of her braid was tied with seaweed strips. The length was the color of sea-foam and her skin was like the underbelly of minnows when the sun shines upon them."
"His eyes transfixed, the mariner, seeing her, sprawled on the rocks fast asleep, became possessed as only a man can be. He laid beside her in the sun and ravished her, and as she awoke, she fought him only for a time. When he had finished the oldest of acts, the mariner kissed away her salty tears and said, 'beautiful lass, I have taken your maidenhead not out of hate, but out of love for you. I know not from where you've come, but let me take you to my home, for I will make you a bride and thereby restore your virtue. Though, I've little to offer, someday, I will be a rich man, with many boats and will have need of sons to captain them, and if you go with me, I promise to be faithful to you with my every waking breath, for you are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.
"And so Undine agreed to go with the mariner, for she knew she had to marry and often sunned herself in the hopes of meeting a sailor or merchant-man to give her a son to bear and soul to wear into the afterlife.
"They were married that week in the man's village and she was with child before the height of spring. Now, the spirit had no intention of living in a poor man's hovel, so she used her powers to fill her husband's nets and ensure his skiff's safety, and soon, he had enough money to buy a larger boat and a small farm, where they could boast a house with a wooden floor instead of dirt and a barn of two stories.
"However, as the child grew within Undine, the distance from the rivers began to drain away her magic. She lost the sheen to her scaly body and her hair grew dry and dull as the straw in their two-storied barn.
"But as she lost her looks, the water spirit learned the ways of country women went about the job of keeping house for her hus. She no longer wore a crown of green. Instead, she used her nettles to mend the holes in their nets and her dock-leaf to wrap up the butter she had churned with her own hands.
"It was nigh on harvest time, and she was growing larger by the day. She awoke from an afternoon nap, and went to take water to her beloved in their fields, which he had been plowing that morn, but he was naught to be found.
"Undine went to search for him in their barn of two stories, and there in the hay, her husband lied in the arms of another woman, fast asleep. She screamed, and the couple awoke. The woman ran away from the furious water spirit, but the mariner could not move. With the last of her watery magic, Undine cursed him, saying, 'as you swore to be faithful to me with your every waking breath, so it shall be. As long as you are awake you shall be as you are, but if ever you shall fall asleep, you will have breathed your last.
"True to her words, the mariner did not sleep for two days, but on the third, he fell asleep, and slipped from where he stood on his boat. His body dashed upon the sharp rocks below."
Belle asked in no more than a whisper, "And Undine?"
He looked up to see her eyes, stormy, to put a word to it. "She died in childbirth, giving birth to a son, and as the blood ran from her dying body, an already damned soul fell upon her pale body. She whispered one word, naming the child Selkirk, but alas the child, like his mother needed water and as his father's mother, an ancient woman filled with illness on death's door, cut the boy's hair on the babe's first birthday, as was the custom in that part of the world, he immediately fell down dead."
"What of the woman?"
Rumpelstiltskin toyed with his empty glass. "'Tis not said, but who, do you think, would associate with the likes of she after her connection with so much death and the curse of a vengeful water spirit?"
She sighed and leaned back in her chair. "That was a… strange tale."
"Would you rather have had a different tale? Perhaps Penta of the Chopped-off Hands?"
"I know that one too, and no, I would not prefer a story about handless princess, thank you very much." She looked at him. "I did not say that I did not like your tale. What I mean to say is that you were right. It was tragic."
"Aye, and of their own doing. He never should have promised a thing he could not do, fidelity for all one's life?—that was the mistake.
She scoffed, "Fairy stories are not made of one mistake but many, like life."
He chuckled. "Life like a story? I think not, dearie."
"True, life is stranger." Belle stood up and yawned, stretching. As she did so, Rumpelstiltskin could not help but admire the lay of her body beneath the linen and cotton she wore. "I'm tired. Will you stay up?"
"I shall." He waved his hand at her to go on.
At that, she blew out the candles, the only light left being the fireplace. As she passed, she touched his shoulder, the wine allowing her to forget the formality of their relations. "Thank you for my story and the wine," she said, leaving him alone to his thoughts.
Some notes: Undine is a German folktale. I took liberties. Wiki the real deal.
Lord Ullin's Daughter is a poem by Thomas Campbell.
Penta of the Chopped-off Hands is an Italian fairy tale.
Leaf symbolism: Nettles for death and dock-leaf for "tenacity and perseverance."
The tradition of cutting a child's hair on their first birthday is a Ukrainian tradition.